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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=533743" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>His Mate</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IT MAY have been a fragment of that higher<br> Truth dreams, at times, disclose;<br>It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher—<br> But thus the story goes: <br>A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken<br> With barrenness and thirst,<br>Where Nature’s pulse with joy of Spring would quicken<br> No more; a land accurst. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gray salt-bush grimmer made the desolation—<br> Like mocking immortelles<br>Strewn on the graveyard of a perished nation<br> Whose name no record tells. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No faintest sign of distant water glimmered<br> The aching eye to bless;<br>The far horizon like a sword’s edge shimmered,<br> Keen, gleaming, pitiless. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all the long day through the hot air quivered<br> Beneath a burning sky,<br>In dazzling dance of heat that flashed and shivered:<br> It seemed as if hard by </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The borders of this region, evil-favoured,<br> Life ended, Death began:<br>But no; upon the plain a shadow wavered—<br> The shadow of a man. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">What man was this by Fate or Folly driven<br> To cross the dreadful plain?<br>A pilgrim poor? or Ishmael unforgiven?<br> The man was Andy Blane, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A stark old sinner, and a stout, as ever<br> Blue swag has carried through<br>That grim, wild land men name the Never-Never,<br> Beyond the far Barcoo. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His strength was failing now, but his unfailing<br> Strong spirit still upbore<br>And drove him on with courage yet unquailing,<br> In spite of weakness sore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When, lo! beside a clump of salt-bush lying,<br> All suddenly he found<br>A stranger, who before his eyes seemed dying<br> Of thirst, without a sound. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Straightway beside that stranger on the sandy<br> Salt plain—a death-bed sad—<br>Down kneeling, “Drink this water, mate!” said Andy—<br> It was the last he had. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold a miracle! for when that Other<br> Had drunk, he rose and cried,<br>“Let us pass on!” As brother might with brother<br> So went they, side by side; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Until the fierce sun, like an eyeball bloody<br> Eclipsed in death, was seen<br>No more, and in the spacious West, still ruddy,<br> A star shone out serene. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As one, then, whom some memory beguiling<br> May gladden, yea, and grieve,<br>The stranger, pointing up, said, sadly smiling,<br> “The Star of Christmas Eve!” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Andy replied not. Unto him the sky was<br> All reeling stars; his breath<br>Came thick and fast; and life an empty lie was;<br> True one thing only—Death. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">. . . . .<br>Beneath the moonlight, with the weird, wan glitter<br> Of salt-bush all around,<br>He lay; but by his side in that dark, bitter,<br> Last hour, a friend he found. <br>“Thank God!” he said. “He’s acted more than square, mate,<br> By me in this—and I’m<br>A Rip.. . . . He must have known I was—well, there, mate—<br> A White Man all the time. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“To-morrow’s Christmas day: God knows where I’ll be<br> By then—I don’t; but you<br>Away from this Death’s hole should many a mile be,<br> At Blake’s, on the Barcoo. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“You take this cheque there—they will cash it, sonny. . . .<br> It meant my Christmas spree. . . .<br>And do just what you like best with the money,<br> In memory of me.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The stranger, smiling, with a little leaven<br> Of irony, said, “Yea,<br>But there it shall not be. With me in Heaven<br> You’ll spend your Christmas Day.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then that gray heathen, that old back-block stager,<br> Half-jestingly replied,<br>And laughed—and laughed again—“Mate, it’s a wager!”<br> And, grimly laughing, died. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">. . . . .<br>St. Peter stood at the Celestial Portal,<br> Gazing down gulfs of air,<br>When Andy Blane, no longer now a mortal,<br> Appeared before him there. <br>“What seek’st thou here?” the saint in tone ironic<br> Said. “Surely the wrong gate<br>This is for thee.” Andy replied, laconic,<br> “I want to find my mate.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The gates flew wide. The glory unbeholden<br> Of mortal eyes was there.<br>He gazed—this trembling sinner—at the golden<br> Thrones, terrible and fair, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And shuddered. Then down through the living splendour<br> Came One unto the gate<br>Who said, with outspread hands, in accents tender:<br> “Andy! I am your mate!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Victor+James+Daley">Victor James Daley</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=533743" data-title="His Mate de Victor James Daley" data-description="IT MAY have been a fragment of that higher
 Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher—
 But thus the story goes: 
A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken
 With barrenness and thirst,
Where Nature’s puls..."></div>
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