“Good-day! Good-day, my ancient friend!”
We threw our swags beside the track—
For twenty solid years on end,
Spent as Life’s spendthrifts only spend,
I’d not met Jack!
A battered wreck, and tempest tossed,
This friend and brother tramp of mine,
With tangled, matted beard of frost—
As rough as seas that he had crossed
Since Auld Lang Syne!
I watched him for an answering glance—
Some sprig of memory, fresh and green,
Of days when through our merry dance
We wove a rough and rare romance
At Ballandean!
“Old Jack!” I said; “Old Jack McQuade!”
And grasped his lean and palsied hand—
“However wide our lives have strayed,
You surely recognise the shade
Of Charlie Brand?”
But still he munched his blackened clay;
I felt no warmth within his palm;
He shook his matted head of grey,
And clutched his prisoned hand away
In half alarm.
“Ah, no!” he answered; “Stranger, no!
No other life than this I’ve known.
For forty years of sun and snow,
As seasons come, and seasons go,
I’ve been alone!”
“But hark you back, McQuade!” I said—
“The days, the happy days, old mate!
We plucked the gums for roseleaf beds,
And rung, we two, the Southern sheds
To Delegate!
“You never thought that hearts could break,
You never thought that love could mar,
When, Jack! a jolly roving rake,
You kissed Good-bye to Mary Blake
At Freney’s bar!
“Come, come, old boy! chase back the cold,
And warm your heart at Friendship’s fire—
Be still the self-same Jack of old—
As true as steel, as good as gold,
As tough as wire!”
A phantom smile a moment played
Around his visage, worn and wan—
“Ah, friend! you’ve dreamt a dream,” he said:
“I’ve had no mate! I’ve loved no maid!”
And wandered on.
“Oh, stay!” I cried; “a thousand themes
Come thronging back at Memory’s call—
The gum-fringed plains, the oak-girt streams—
A wondrous sunlight glows and gleams
Above them all!”
He faded through the twilight grey.
A chill shot through my very spine—
A deadly chill, that seemed to say,
“And even like to him, are they—
All dreams of thine!
“They flit above some fancied sphere,
Those eyes that smile, those lips that pray.
The silent winds that blew last year
Along the banks of Windermere
Are more than they.”
“Then why,” I shrieked, “do gods create?”
As nightfall near and nearer drew,
On either side, a closèd gate ...
I stood, an old man, desolate,
Between the two.