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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408752" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Sweeney</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, <br>When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; <br>`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think -- <br>And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink. <br> <br>'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk <br>When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk; <br>He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore; <br>But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before. <br> <br>`No erfence,' he said. I told him that he needn't mention it, <br>For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit, <br>And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets -- <br>But a fellow can't remember all the fellows that he meets. <br> <br>Very old and thin and dirty were the garments that he wore, <br>Just a shirt and pair of trousers, and a boot, and nothing more; <br>He was wringing-wet, and really in a sad and sinful plight, <br>And his hat was in his left hand, and a bottle in his right. <br> <br>His brow was broad and roomy, but its lines were somewhat harsh, <br>And a sensual mouth was hidden by a drooping, fair moustache; <br>(His hairy chest was open to what poets call the `wined', <br>And I would have bet a thousand that his pants were gone behind). <br> <br>He agreed: `Yer can't remember all the chaps yer chance to meet,' <br>And he said his name was Sweeney -- people lived in Sussex-street. <br>He was campin' in a stable, but he swore that he was right, <br>`Only for the blanky horses walkin' over him all night.' <br> <br>He'd apparently been fighting, for his face was black-and-blue, <br>And he looked as though the horses had been treading on him, too; <br>But an honest, genial twinkle in the eye that wasn't hurt <br>Seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt. <br> <br>It appeared that he mistook me for a long-lost mate of his -- <br>One of whom I was the image, both in figure and in phiz -- <br>(He'd have had a letter from him if the chap were living still, <br>For they'd carried swags together from the Gulf to Broken Hill.) <br> <br>Sweeney yarned awhile and hinted that his folks were doing well, <br>And he told me that his father kept the Southern Cross Hotel; <br>And I wondered if his absence was regarded as a loss <br>When he left the elder Sweeney -- landlord of the Southern Cross. <br> <br>He was born in Parramatta, and he said, with humour grim, <br>That he'd like to see the city ere the liquor finished him, <br>But he couldn't raise the money. He was damned if he could think <br>What the Government was doing. Here he offered me a drink. <br> <br>I declined -- 'TWAS self-denial -- and I lectured him on booze, <br>Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use; <br>Things I'd heard in temperance lectures (I was young and rather green), <br>And I ended by referring to the man he might have been. <br> <br>Then a wise expression struggled with the bruises on his face, <br>Though his argument had scarcely any bearing on the case: <br>`What's the good o' keepin' sober? Fellers rise and fellers fall; <br>What I might have been and wasn't doesn't trouble me at all.' <br> <br>But he couldn't stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone. <br>He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on; <br>He guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again, <br>And he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and the rain. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>And of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the land, <br>Visions come to me of Sweeney with his bottle in his hand, <br>With the stormy night behind him, and the pub verandah-post -- <br>And I wonder why he haunts me more than any other ghost. <br> <br>Still I see the shearers drinking at the township in the scrub, <br>And the army praying nightly at the door of every pub, <br>And the girls who flirt and giggle with the bushmen from the west -- <br>But the memory of Sweeney overshadows all the rest. <br> <br>Well, perhaps, it isn't funny; there were links between us two -- <br>He had memories of cities, he had been a jackeroo; <br>And, perhaps, his face forewarned me of a face that I might see <br>From a bitter cup reflected in the wretched days to be. <br> <br> . . . . . <br> <br>I suppose he's tramping somewhere where the bushmen carry swags, <br>Cadging round the wretched stations with his empty tucker-bags; <br>And I fancy that of evenings, when the track is growing dim, <br>What he `might have been and wasn't' comes along and troubles him.</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=408752" data-title="Sweeney de Henry Lawson" data-description="It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, 
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; 
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think -- 
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-..."></div>
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