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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354878" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ned Connor</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">’TWAS night—and where a watery sound<br>Came moaning up the Flat,<br>Six rude and bearded stockmen round<br>Their blazing hut-fire sat,<br>And laughed as on some starting hound<br>The cracking fuel spat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And merrier still the log-fire cracks<br>As night the darker falls,<br>While not a noisy tongue there lacks<br>To tell of drunken brawls,<br>But most of battle with the Blacks<br>Some bloody tale appals.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Amongst them then Ned Connor spoke,<br>And up his form he drew:—<br>What is there in an open stroke<br>To boast of? You but slew<br>Those who’d have done, each hell-black one,<br>The same or worse to you.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But lost among the hills, one day,<br>Which then was well nigh shut,<br>I met a Black upon my way,<br>And thus the matter put<br>Unto him:—“See! this knife’s for thee,<br>Come, guide me to my hut.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His savage eyes grew huge with joy<br>As on the prize they bent,<br>And leading, even like a boy<br>He capered as he went:<br>But think you, men, to give the toy<br>Ned Connor ever meant?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An hour had brought us many a mile<br>And then, as closed the day,<br>The savage pointed with a smile,<br>To where my Station lay:<br>“There! give to me the knife,” said he,<br>“And let me go my way.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I never meant that he should touch<br>The thing, as I have said,<br>And when he stretched his hand to clutch,<br>A thought came in my head:<br>I raised my gun, as though in fun—<br>I fired —— and he was dead!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The ruffian laughed in his pitiless mood<br>When ended thus his tale,<br>But all the rest though men of blood,<br>With horror seemed to quail,<br>And saw though he stood boastfully<br>That Connor too was pale:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For through the moaning of the trees<br>He seemed to hear the sound<br>Of his own laughter in the breeze<br>Keep roaming out till drowned<br>In wild and bitter mockeries<br>Up-answering from the ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now what to hear had made them fear,<br>Had also made them dry:<br>But strange! the water-pail that late<br>Brimm’d in the corner nigh<br>Was empty! In amazement great<br>There’s not a drop, they cry!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their thirst grew bitter and they said<br>Come, this will never do!<br>It is your turn for water, Ned,<br>Then why not go? He drew<br>Full hard his breath and from his head<br>There dripped a sudden dew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But shaming to be taxed with fear,<br>He seized the pail and said<br>What care I? Though the night be drear,<br>Who ever saw the dead?<br>And if I fail to fill this pail,<br>The devil shall, instead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He sallied forth. A sudden blast<br>Went sobbing by the door,<br>Through which they heard his footsteps fast<br>Recede—and when no more<br>They heard them, round the fire aghast<br>They gathered as before.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“I would not go alone to-night<br>The way that he is gone,”<br>Said one, “for all the gold my sight<br>Hath ever fallen upon:<br>To slay that creature was not right,<br>I’d say’t were he my son!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now impatient all and wild<br>They wondered at his stay,<br>Till one outspake: “A weanling child<br>Could not make more delay:<br>If longer slack in coming back,<br>He’ll bring with him the day.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But while they thus were wondering—hark!<br>They hear a frantic shriek,<br>Then nearing footsteps through the dark,<br>Come waywardly and weak:<br>And as the dogs did howl and bark,<br>They stared but feared to speak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Against the door, that to had swung,<br>One rushed then and ’twas split;<br>’Twas Connor! who amid them sprung<br>And fell into a fit:<br>And long that night in ghastly plight,<br>He struggled there in it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when his sense returned—again<br>The sun was rising bright,<br>But shuddering as in mental pain<br>He turned him from the light,<br>And pointing, said—“To bed! to bed!<br>For Death is in my sight!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They bore him to his bed straightway,<br>Those horror-stricken men,<br>And questioned him as there he lay,<br>Of what had met his ken:<br>Within himself he seemed to pray,<br>And thus bespake them then:—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“I went (you heard), with impious boast<br>For water to the brook,<br>But when the threshold I had crost,<br>All strength my heart forsook;<br>Each forward step seemed fate—but most<br>I feared behind to look.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Long murky clouds were hurrying fast<br>Across the starless sky,<br>Strange sounds came drowning up the blast<br>That piped by fits so high:<br>A winding gleam, and lo! the stream<br>Went wildly moaning by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I knew not why, but it struck mine eye<br>With a dull damp sense of awe,<br>And bankward densely crawling by,<br>Crude Shapes methought I saw!<br>But I must not back, I said, alack!<br>But down at once and draw.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now standing at the water’s edge,<br>Mine eyes thereon I threw,<br>And, lo! distinctly through the sedge,<br>What is it there I view?—<br>Not mine own shadow from the ledge,<br>But him!—the Black I slew!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">’Twas no delusion! There he stood<br>Within the gleaming brook,<br>The same as when I shed his blood,<br>His stature and his look,<br>Even to the dread accusing shade<br>His dying aspect took!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With backward bound I started round<br>And up the bank did flee,<br>But, ah! as swiftly in my track<br>Bare footfalls seemed to be!<br>Step, step, for mine, close at my back<br>I heard, but nought could see!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was a horrible thing to hear<br>Behind me still the sound<br>I could not bear to have it there,<br>And desperate, faced me round,<br>When through the dark a sudden spark<br>Shot upward from the ground!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Staggered as with a stunning stroke<br>I could not turn again,<br>But saw whence came the spark, a smoke<br>Arise—I saw it plain,<br>And from it an earthy odour broke<br>That bit me to the brain!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At first I saw it bloating out<br>In size not o’er a span,<br>Then as it slowly wreathed about<br>To heighten it began,<br>Until it took in bulk and look<br>The stature of a man!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No stir was near—I might but hear<br>The beating of my blood<br>And there within my reach almost,<br>The horrid Phantom stood!<br>I stared till fear in fear was lost<br>So awful was my mood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I spoke—I know not what—and lo!<br>The diabolic birth<br>’Gan wildly writhing to and fro<br>As if in ghostly mirth<br>And then against me rushing so,<br>It dashed me to the earth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mine eyes flashed out with sputtering flame—<br>The ground kept swimming fast—<br>And roaming round about there came<br>Wild laughter in the blast!<br>A moment—and then all was tame,<br>Forgotten, painless, past.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length my brain began to swim<br>As consciousness regrew,<br>But when with eyeballs strained and dim,<br>I looked again—I knew<br>A form stood o’er me, it was him,—<br>The savage that I slew!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I shrieked, and bounding to my feet,<br>I fled, but as before,<br>Bare footsteps tracked me beat for beat<br>With mine, even to the door:<br>What then befel I cannot tell—<br>I know of nothing more!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He ceased and turning in his bed,<br>Aloud for mercy cried,<br>And for three days and nights, ’tis said,<br>He uttered nought beside;<br>When raving out with sudden dread,<br>The haunted Murderer died.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The fearful men around him then,<br>Each one of them did say,<br>It was a damn’ed wrong in Ned,<br>The savage so to slay,<br>And where he said he saw the dead,<br>They buried him next day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Charles+Harpur">Charles Harpur</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354878" data-title="Ned Connor de Charles Harpur" data-description="’TWAS night—and where a watery sound
Came moaning up the Flat,
Six rude and bearded stockmen round
Their blazing hut-fire sat,
And laughed as on some starting hound
The cracking fuel spat.

And merrier still the log-fire cracks
As night the da..."></div>
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