Lawson shows his genius when dealing with social issues such as poverty.
He knows what it means to be broke and hungry, something a relatively small percentage of Australians understand.
It is poems such as these that give us a sense of our history and how far we have progressed as a nation.
Maybe we have done too well and many do not worry about such things as work, after all, we have such a great safety net--why worry about working.
Poverty 1897
I hate this grinding poverty,
To toil, and pinch, and borrow,
And be for ever haunted by
The spectre of to-morrow.
It breaks the strong heart of a man,
It crushes out his spirit,
Do what he will, do what he can,
However high his merit!
I hate the praise that Want has got
From preacher and from poet,
The cant of those who know it not
To blind the men who know it.
The greatest curse since man had birth,
An everlasting terror:
The cause of half the crime on earth,
The cause of half the error.
