Bring back Romance of The Swag

In salute to the Overflow,  as a toast to endearing Clancy,  how I would love to write this tribute with tar~nailed thumb. Review it in a dingy little office, the sound of light rail trolling by, the incessant trampling of feet, dreaming of Reddog and an overflowing Millstream in the Pilbara, with a billy on the boil and clouds on the horizon, of course not a chance that it will rain.  I would smile, give a little laugh, and say thank you Henry Lawson, for showing me ways in which to ponder life in a fashion of  your own. 

For Henry Lawson          {many thanks}

 Whilst waiting 'till my billy boils, I'll read another anecdote
And look out o'er the river 
where the gentle breezes blow 
Hear it's gentle murmur mingling 
with the spring lambs' gentle bleating 
And I dream of Clancy droving 
  Clancy of the  ..Oh...the billy's boiled

Appendage
Clancy of the Overflow
written by 
A.B. Banjo Patterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, 'Clancy, of The Overflow'.

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving 'down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of 'The Overflow'