亨利·劳森

在这里你会发现长诗本达根诗人亨利·劳森

本达根

圣诞夜开始时,杰克·丹佛死在了泰布拉加,到处都是悲伤,因为丹芙是个男人;杰克·丹芙的妻子低下了头——她的女儿悲痛欲绝,大本·达根站在床边,像个孩子一样抽泣着。但是大本·达根上马,疾驰而去,举行了塔拉加有史以来最长的葬礼。在车站和剪羊毛的棚子旁,本·达根喊道:“杰克·丹芙死了!到塔尔布拉加来!”他到处借马,整个平安夜都在骑马,几乎一刻也没有停下来,把这悲伤的消息传出去;他骑马经过孤零零的小屋和农场,当一天结束时,他调转他那匹气喘吁吁的马的头,骑马去罗斯的跑步场。自从约翰逊把医生带到他在塔拉加的妻子那里以来,没有一个布什曼人在一天之内骑过这么远的路程。本·达根飞快地经过挖掘者的营地——每到一个营地,他都喊道:“杰克·丹芙死了!到塔尔布拉加来!” That night he passed the humpies of the splitters on the ridge, And roused the bullock-drivers camped at Belinfante's Bridge; And as he climbed the ridge again the moon shone on the rise; The soft white moonbeams glistened in the tears that filled his eyes; He dashed the rebel drops away -- for blinding things they are -- But 'twas his best and truest friend who died on Talbragar. At Blackman's Run Before the dawn, Ben Duggan cried, `Poor Denver's gone! Roll up at Talbragar!' At all the shanties round the place they'd heard his horse's tramp, He took the track to Wilson's Luck, and told the diggers' camp; But in the gorge by Deadman's Gap the mountain shades were black, And there a newly-fallen tree was lying on the track -- He saw too late, and then he heard the swift hoof's sudden jar, And big Ben Duggan ne'er again rode home to Talbragar. `The wretch is drunk, And Denver's dead -- A burning shame!' the people said Next day at Talbragar. For thirty miles round Talbragar the boys rolled up in strength, And Denver had a funeral a good long mile in length; Round Denver's grave that Christmas day rough bushmen's eyes were dim -- The western bushmen knew the way to bury dead like him; But some returning homeward found, by light of moon and star, Ben Duggan dying in the rocks, five miles from Talbragar. They knelt around, He raised his head And faintly gasped, `Jack Denver's dead, Roll up at Talbragar!' But one short hour before he died he woke to understand, They told him, when he asked them, that the funeral was `grand'; And then there came into his eyes a strange victorious light, He smiled on them in triumph, and his great soul took its flight. And still the careless bushmen tell by tent and shanty bar How Duggan raised a funeral years back on Talbragar. And far and wide When Duggan died, The bushmen of the western side Rode in to Talbragar.