Harry Stephens, shearer, discovered lying on a sheet of barkby the Camboon-road, with his bluey wrapped around him, dead.Identified by a union "Loyalty ticket".
So the world of odds and evensceased to trouble Harry Stephens,and the niggard road no longer echoesto his lonely tread.For another bushman found himwith his 'bluey' wrapped around him,sleeping like a bushman,only sleeping with the mighty dead.And the shadows were upon him,and they found a ticket on him--just a relic of a battlethat was lately lost and won.And it told the stray Camboonianhe'd been loyal to his union(right or wrong)--he had been loyalto the strike of '91'.
Sources, publication & text notesReference details
Canonical recordPOEM-000321
Copy-textCollected Poems of Henry Lawson (Project Gutenberg Australia, 2022), selected copy text; independently checked against the Ironbark Resources witness (first published in Boomerang, 1891)
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