Next I came to Lawson and Paterson. This is in interesting pairing. Lawson, inspired by radical labour politics is concerned to undermine the idealized view of the landscape promoted by the likes of Paterson. For Lawson, the Patersonian view of the bush is inaccurate because it distorts the real conditions of those who have to live in the bush to earn their living. These poets, taken together, give a fascinating insight into both the landscape and politics of the end of the 19th Century in Australia. Lawson's "Up the Country" is a blistering attack on those who falsify the image of the bush through their lack of real concern for the human issues facing Australia in the 1890s:
I am back from up the country, up the country where I went...
I have shattered many idols out along the dusty track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses- and I am glad that I am back.
I believe the Southern poet's dream will not be realized
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanized...
"Up the Country" page 309 in "Australian Verse"