While The Billy BoilsSearchWhere the trailing boughs of the tea-trees droop,Where the vines hang festooned in curve and loop,Where lilies float, and the tall reeds stoop 'Neath the tread of the lonely crane,There's a human form on the bare, hot sand,That the sun in its fury has scorched and tanned,That a pitying zephyr at times has fanned— It feels neither pleasure nor pain.
Poor, lost, and forgotten! No mourner's wailWas heard when you parted, no face grew paleWith weeping and watching. To tell the tale But a festering body lies there.Those rotting lips—did they ever pressA mother's lip? Did a kind caressFrom a woman's hand ever smooth a tress Of that bleached and tangled hair?
To flee from Death had he vainly tried,Across the broad plains, ever side by side,They had walked together, and stride for stride Death kept up with him still.He drank of the water he so had craved.He dipped his hands in the stream and lavedHis heated face; and he shouted, “Saved!” Death sate there waiting to kill.
Down on the sand in a careless heap,He cast himself for a welcome sleep,Not thinking the unseen presence did keep Its watch beside him there.Strange tender dreams of his boyhood's daysShone brightly and clearly thro' Memory's haze—His face—as he slumbered beneath Death's gaze— It grew almost young and fair.
Then Death had great pity. Thought he, “It were sweet,If, instead of awaking, once more to meetFresh toil to-morrow, on aching feet, He should slumber all care away!”He arose—and his face was an angel's face;He bent his head—in an instant's spaceThe soul of that sleeper had passed to grace; Death kissed him there where he lay.