With the best writers of his era Edward Harrington did rate
The farmer's son from Shepparton was a poetic great
He wrote the stirring ballads that poetry lovers love to recite
A poem of his recited at many a poetry night.
As a young man Edward Harrington went off to fight in war
And through the remainder of his life he carried the mental scar
Of his terrible experiences in Palestine far away
And the mental scar remained with him until his dying day.
His great ballads of the Australian bush rangers Dan Morgan and the Kelly gang are sung
By ballad singers who heard them when they themselves were young,
Australia's most notorious in verse he glorified
The men who hid from the law in the rugged country side.
He was one of Australia's last famous men of rhyme
The poems of Edward Harrington have withstood the test of time
And those who knew the great poet said he was sensitive and shy
And fame and adulation he did not seem to enjoy.
In 1965 in his seventieth year Edward Harrington passed away
But his poems are still recited and his songs are sung today
The farmer's son from Shepparton a prince of poetry
One of Australia's finest and few as great as he.
Francis Duggan
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/edward-harrington/
