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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408635" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>He Mourned His Master</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">INTRODUCTION<br>The theme is ancient as the hills,<br>With all their prehistoric glory;<br>But yet of Corney and his friend,<br>We’ve often longed to tell the story;<br>And should we jar the reader’s ear,<br>Or fail to please his eye observant,<br>We only trust that he’ll forgive<br>The bush muse and—your humble servant.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE STORY</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Old Corney built in Deadman’s Gap<br>A hut, where mountain shades grow denser,<br>And there he lived for many years,<br>A timber-getter and a fencer.<br>And no one knew if he’d a soul<br>Above long sprees, or split-rail fences,<br>Unless, indeed, it was his friend,<br>Who always kept his confidences.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was a saw-pit in the range;<br>’Twas owned by three, and they were brothers,<br>And visitors to Corney’s hut—<br>’Twas seldom visited by others.<br>They came because, as they averred,<br>“Old Corney licked—a gent infernal.”<br>“His yarns,” if I might trust their word,<br>“Would made the fortune of a journal.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In short, the splitter was a “cure”,<br>Who brightened up their lives’ dull courses;<br>And so on Sunday afternoons,<br>At Corney’s hut they’d hang their horses.<br>They’d have a game of cards and smoke,<br>And sometimes sing, which was a rum thing—<br>Unless, in spite of legal folk,<br>The splitter kept a “drop of something”.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If, as ’twas said, he was “a swell”<br>Before he sought these sombre ranges,<br>’Twixt mother’s arms and coffin gear<br>He must have seen a world of changes.<br>But from his lips would never fall<br>A hint of home, or friends, or brothers;<br>And if he told his tale at all,<br>He must have told it as another’s.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though he was good at telling yarns,<br>At listening he excelled not less so,<br>And greatly helped the bushman’s tales<br>With “yes”, “exactly so”, or “jes’ so”.<br>In short, the hut became a club<br>Like our Assembly Legislative,<br>Combining smokeroom, hall, and “pub”,<br>Political and recreative.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Old Corney lived and Corney died,<br>As we will, too, on some to-morrow,<br>But not as Corney died, we hope,<br>Of heart disease, and rum, and sorrow.<br>(We hope to lead a married life,<br>At times the cup of comfort quaffing;<br>And when we leave this world of strife<br>We trust that we may die of laughing.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One New Year’s Eve they found him dead—<br>For rum had made his life unstable—<br>They found him stretched upon his bed,<br>And also found, upon the table,<br>The coloured portrait of a girl—<br>Blue eyes of course. The hair was golden,<br>A faded letter and a curl,<br>And—well, we said the theme was olden.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The splitter had for days been dead<br>And cold before the sawyers found him,<br>And none had witnessed how he died<br>Except the friend who whimpered round him;<br>A noble friend, and of a kind<br>Who stay when other friends forsake us;<br>And he at last was left behind<br>To greet the rough bush undertakers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This was a season when the bush<br>Was somewhat ruled by time and distance,<br>And bushmen came and tried the world,<br>And “gave it best” without assistance.<br>Then one might die of heart disease,<br>And still be spared the inquest horrors.<br>And when the splitter lay at ease,<br>So, also, did his sins and sorrows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Ole Corey’s dead,” the bushmen said;<br>“He’s gone at last, an’ ne’er a blunder.”<br>And so they brought a horse and dray,<br>And tools to “tuck the old cove under.”<br>The funeral wended through the range,<br>And slowly round its rugged corners;<br>The reader will not think it strange<br>That Corney’s friend was chief of mourners.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He must have thought the bushmen hard,<br>And of his misery unheeding,<br>Because they shunned his anxious eyes,<br>That seemed for explanation pleading.<br>At intervals his tongue would wipe<br>The jaws that seemed with anguish quaking;<br>As some strong hand impatiently<br>Might chide the tears for prison breaking.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They reached by rugged ways at last,<br>A desolate bush cemetery,<br>Where now (our tale is of the past),<br>A thriving town its dead doth bury.<br>And where the bones of pioneers<br>Are found and thrown aside unheeded—<br>For later sleepers, blessed with tears<br>Of many friends, the graves are needed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The funeral reached the bushmen’s graves,<br>Where these old pioneers were sleeping,<br>And now while down the granite ridge<br>The shadow of the peak was creeping,<br>They dug a grave beneath a gum<br>And lowered the dead as gently may be<br>As Corney’s mother long before<br>Had laid him down to “hush-a-baby”.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A bushman read the words to which<br>The others reverently listened,<br>Some bearded lips were seen to twitch,<br>Some shaded eyes with moisture glistened.<br>Perhaps this weakness was because<br>Their work reminded them in sorrow<br>Of other burials long ago,<br>When friends “turned in to wait the morrow.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The boys had brought the splitter’s tools,<br>And now they split and put together<br>Four panels such as Corney made,<br>To stand the stress of western weather.<br>Perhaps this second weakness rose,<br>From some good reason undetected;<br>They may have thought of other graves<br>Of dearer friends they left neglected.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Old Corney’s dead, he paid his bills”<br>(These words upon the tree were graven)<br>“And oft a swagman down in luck,<br>At Corey’s mansion found a haven.”<br>If this an explanation needs,<br>We greatly fear we can’t afford it;<br>Unless they thought of other dead,<br>Whose virtues they had not recorded.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The day had crossed the homeward track,<br>And as the bushmen turned to tread it,<br>They thought and spoke of many things,<br>Remembered now to Corney’s credit;<br>And strange to say, above their heads<br>The kookaburra burst with laughter.<br>(Perhaps he thought of other friends<br>Whose virtues they remembered—after.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now the bushmen hurried on<br>Lest darkness in the range should find them;<br>And strange to say they never saw<br>That Corney’s friend had stayed behind them.<br>If one had thrown a backward glance<br>Along the rugged path they wended,<br>He might have seen a darker form<br>Upon the damp cold mound extended.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But soon their forms had vanished all,<br>And night came down the ranges faster,<br>And no one saw the shadows fall<br>Upon the dog that mourned his master.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</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=408635" data-title="He Mourned His Master de Henry Lawson" data-description="INTRODUCTION
The theme is ancient as the hills,
With all their prehistoric glory;
But yet of Corney and his friend,
We’ve often longed to tell the story;
And should we jar the reader’s ear,
Or fail to please his eye observant,
We only trust th..."></div>
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