A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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Brady has left six volumes of collected verse, from The Ways of Many Waters,
published in 1899 to Wardens of the Seas, 1933. In addition there is a vast quantity of
other metrical writing – topical jingles, political doggerel, humorous and nonsense
verse as well as satirical and serious, including some which in intention and
achievement can rightly be regarded as serious poetry. Some of this verse has been
published in periodicals, especially The Bulletin, The Arrow, The Grip and The
Worker. While much exists only in one or other of the collections which are in
manuscript or typescript in the Brady papers in the various libraries, especially the
National Library. It is necessary to look at this body of verses as poetry, but in
addition it is germane to consider the light this material sheds on Brady’s interests and
concerns, his manner of thinking about important issues such as social, political and
philosophical questions. The greater part of this material was produced in the twenty
years from 1890, but there are examples extending through the 1940’s and even a few
into the early 1950’s. In this mass of material, there is considerable unevenness of
quality, as would no doubt be expected, for while some are the result of studied effort,
others were churned out in quantity with speed and obvious reckless abandon,
especially in The Arrow. They are never uninteresting however, for the show his
intellectual and sometimes practical involvement in so many vital issues of his day.
Given Brady’s idealism and his concern for his fellow-men, it is to be expected that
much verse would deal with man as a vital being, as a worker in city and country, as a
member of a society joined together in a communion of spirit through mateship and
social and political, as well as religious principles of similar and deeper nature. And
given the reasons for his entry into political concerns, it is not unexpected that society
should be viewed as class-stratified – an entity pluralistic rather than monolithic.
Particularly in the early verse therefore, there are many examples of militancy and
strong revolutionary spirit. The earliest poems in Truth and The Bulletin were of this
kind, a type so common as almost to suggest a genre. But even before this, he had
written militant verses for The Australian Workman proclaiming the inadequacy of
orthodox religion to bring justice to the worker, setting down the conditions of their
penury and hardship and urging them to consolidate as a means of gaining a better
life. There is a sense of quiescent but stirring power as improvement is foreshadowed
and the ruling elements warned:
In the byways foul and filthy – in the dark abodes of crime –
Revengeful Fate is counting out the gathered sands of time.
In the hovels of the helots – in the narrow dirty slums –
An army lay in waiting for the beating of the drums.
Sleeping still,
Feasting still,
Will ye never, never waken till the beating of the drums? 1
But in spite of their difficulties, the workers are given some hope of better things to
look forward to while the needed changes are brought about:
Courage! my comrades, their legions are shaken,
The daylight is coming, the eagles awaken,
Let us on in the tremulous breath of the dawn,
On thro’ the silence of highways forsaken,
We will march to the silvery gates of the morn. 2
1 “The Beating of the Drums”. The Australian Workman, 4.4.1891.
2 “The Birth of the Morn”, The Australian Workman, 7.3.1891.