Since Then
I met Jack Ellis in town to-day --
Jack Ellis -- my old mate, Jack --
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.
But times have altered since those old days,
And the times have changed the men.
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise --
Jack Ellis and I have tramped long ways
On different tracks since then.
His hat was battered, his coat was green,
The toes of his boots were through,
But the pride was his! It was I felt mean --
I wished that my collar was not so clean,
Nor the clothes I wore so new.
He saw me first, and he knew 'twas I --
The holiday swell he met.
Why have we no faith in each other? Ah, why? --
He made as though he would pass me by,
For he thought that I might forget.
He ought to have known me better than that,
By the tracks we tramped far out --
The sweltering scrub and the blazing flat,
When the heat came down through each old felt hat
In the hell-born western drought.
The cheques we made and the shanty sprees,
The camps in the great blind scrub,
The long wet tramps when the plains were seas,
And the oracles worked in days like these
For rum and tobacco and grub.
Could I forget how we struck `the same
Old tale' in the nearer West,
When the first great test of our friendship came --
But -- well, there's little to praise or blame
If our mateship stood the test.
`Heads!' he laughed (but his face was stern) --
`Tails!' and a friendly oath;
We loved her fair, we had much to learn --
And each was stabbed to the heart in turn
By the girl who -- loved us both.
Or the last day lost on the lignum plain,
When I staggered, half-blind, half-dead,
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Lawson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
