那是九月的某个时候，太阳快要下山了。我为了寻找“副本”，来到了达令河上的一个小镇。我们管它叫“来喝一杯”吧——我想，这名字倒挺合适的——而“来喝一杯”那边，奇怪的是，正下着雨。“我在酒店走廊下面的一张铺位上休息，这时一个陌生人站起来，说他喝醉了。他为自己的发言道歉;他发誓说，这并没有冒犯他。但不知怎的，他似乎觉得他以前见过我的脸。“没有辩护，”他说。我告诉他不必提，因为我可能在什么地方见过他;我周游了一些地方，在丛林里和大街上认识了很多人——但是一个人不可能记住他遇到的所有人。他穿的衣服又旧又薄又脏，只有一件衬衫、一条裤子和一只靴子，别的什么也没有。 He was wringing-wet, and really in a sad and sinful plight, And his hat was in his left hand, and a bottle in his right. His brow was broad and roomy, but its lines were somewhat harsh, And a sensual mouth was hidden by a drooping, fair moustache; (His hairy chest was open to what poets call the `wined', And I would have bet a thousand that his pants were gone behind). He agreed: `Yer can't remember all the chaps yer chance to meet,' And he said his name was Sweeney -- people lived in Sussex-street. He was campin' in a stable, but he swore that he was right, `Only for the blanky horses walkin' over him all night.' He'd apparently been fighting, for his face was black-and-blue, And he looked as though the horses had been treading on him, too; But an honest, genial twinkle in the eye that wasn't hurt Seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt. It appeared that he mistook me for a long-lost mate of his -- One of whom I was the image, both in figure and in phiz -- (He'd have had a letter from him if the chap were living still, For they'd carried swags together from the Gulf to Broken Hill.) Sweeney yarned awhile and hinted that his folks were doing well, And he told me that his father kept the Southern Cross Hotel; And I wondered if his absence was regarded as a loss When he left the elder Sweeney -- landlord of the Southern Cross. He was born in Parramatta, and he said, with humour grim, That he'd like to see the city ere the liquor finished him, But he couldn't raise the money. He was damned if he could think What the Government was doing. Here he offered me a drink. I declined -- 'TWAS self-denial -- and I lectured him on booze, Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use; Things I'd heard in temperance lectures (I was young and rather green), And I ended by referring to the man he might have been. Then a wise expression struggled with the bruises on his face, Though his argument had scarcely any bearing on the case: `What's the good o' keepin' sober? Fellers rise and fellers fall; What I might have been and wasn't doesn't trouble me at all.' But he couldn't stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone. He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on; He guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again, And he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and the rain. . . . . . And of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the land, Visions come to me of Sweeney with his bottle in his hand, With the stormy night behind him, and the pub verandah-post -- And I wonder why he haunts me more than any other ghost. Still I see the shearers drinking at the township in the scrub, And the army praying nightly at the door of every pub, And the girls who flirt and giggle with the bushmen from the west -- But the memory of Sweeney overshadows all the rest. Well, perhaps, it isn't funny; there were links between us two -- He had memories of cities, he had been a jackeroo; And, perhaps, his face forewarned me of a face that I might see From a bitter cup reflected in the wretched days to be. . . . . . I suppose he's tramping somewhere where the bushmen carry swags, Cadging round the wretched stations with his empty tucker-bags; And I fancy that of evenings, when the track is growing dim, What he `might have been and wasn't' comes along and troubles him.