The Buckley School's founder believed all public speakers should hone their presentation skills by reading poetry out loud. We keep that worthwhile practice alive by including a poem in our magazine each month for you to read aloud. Above, a photograph of publisher and poet Louisa Lawson.
"To be fair, Louisa Lawson’s poetry can be sentimental. But they were indelibly informed by her first-hand experience and – this was unusual for the period – they are almost always written from the feminine point of view."
– Author Michele Scott Tucker
Australian writer, publisher, and suffragist Louisa Albury Lawson was born in 1848, left school at age 13, married a Norwegian sailor, and raised four children virtually on her own.
She moved her family to Sydney in 1882, where she managed boarding houses and used money she saved to buy shares in a newspaper. Along with her son Henry, she edited The Republican. A few years later, she published The Dawn, the first journal in Australia produced only by women.
In The Dawn, Lawson addressed a woman's right to vote and domestic violence. She also founded The Dawn Club to spearhead the suffrage movement in Sydney. When women finally won the right to vote in 1902, Lawson was dubbed "The Mother of Suffrage in New South Wales."
Lawson continued to write until her death in 1920, at the age of 72. Her son Henry Lawson, who had contributed to her publications, earned his own place in Australian history, regarded by many as Australia's greatest writer of short stories. Both mother and son have been featured on postage stamps in Australia.
Below, a poem from Louisa Lawson for you to read out loud.
The Hour is Come
By LOUISA LAWSON
How did she fight? She fought well.
How did she light? Ah, she fell.
Why did she fall? God, who knows all,
Only can tell.
Those she was fighting for — they
Surely would go to her? Nay!
What of her pain! Theirs is the gain.
Ever the way.
Will they not help her to rise
If there is death in her eyes?
Can you not see? She made them free.
What if she dies ?
Can we not help her? Oh, no!
In her good fight it is so
That all who work never must shirk
Suff'ring and woe.
But she'll not ever lie down –
On her head, in the dust, is a crown
Jewelled and bright, under whose light
She'll rise alone.
