Past Carin'

Both devastating and beautiful, this Henry Lawson poem has featured in the Australian folk song tradition for many years. I admire the brutal honesty of it, and that it’s written from a woman’s perspective.

I have taken the liberty of rearranging a couple of the original verses, and adding a refrain from folklore—a superstitious counting rhyme associated with traditionally prophetic and sinister birds, like the crows in the first verse of the poem.