今天是澳大利亚『最伟大的』诗人、作家Henry Lawson146周年诞辰纪念日。评论说他的诗句短小精悍，语言如海明威及卡佛般直接有力。像很多诗人一样，他一生大部分时间都是郁郁寡欢，贫困潦倒，终日酗酒。所幸的是，他最终遇到位赏识他才华、而且同样是诗人的红颜知己。

以下是他一篇著名的短篇On The Edge Of A Plain（发表于1893年5月6日）。

"I'd been away from home for eight years," said Mitchell to his mate, as they dropped their swags in the mulga shade and sat down. "I hadn't written a letter--kept putting it off, and a blundering fool of a fellow that got down the day before me told the old folks that he'd heard I was dead."

Here he took a pull at his water-bag.

"When I got home they were all in mourning for me. It was night, and the girl that opened the door screamed and fainted away like a shot."

He lit his pipe.

"Mother was upstairs howling and moaning in a chair, with all the girls boo-hoo-ing round her for company. The old man was sitting in the back kitchen crying to himself."

He put his hat down on the ground, dinted in the crown, and poured some water into the hollow for his cattle-pup.

"The girls came rushing down. Mother was so pumped out that she couldn't get up. They thought at first I was a ghost, and then they all tried to get holt of me at once--nearly smothered me. Look at that pup! You want to carry a tank of water on a dry stretch when you've got a pup that drinks as much as two men."

He poured a drop more water into the top of his hat.

"Well, mother screamed and nearly fainted when she saw me. Such a picnic you never saw. They kept it up all night. I thought the old cove was gone off his chump. The old woman wouldn't let go my hand for three mortal hours. Have you got the knife?"

He cut up some more tobacco.

"All next day the house was full of neighbours, and the first to come was an old sweetheart of mine; I never thought she cared for me till then. Mother and the girls made me swear never to go away any more; and they kept watching me, and hardly let me go outside for fear I'd--"

"Get drunk?"

"No--you're smart--for fear I'd clear. At last I swore on the Bible that I'd never leave home while the old folks were alive; and then mother seemed easier in her mind."

He rolled the pup over and examined his feet. "I expect I'll have to carry him a bit--his feet are sore. Well, he's done pretty well this morning, and anyway he won't drink so much when he's carried."

"You broke your promise about leaving home," said his mate.

Mitchell stood up, stretched himself, and looked dolefully from his heavy swag to the wide, hot, shadeless cotton-bush plain ahead.

"Oh, yes," he yawned, "I stopped at home for a week, and then they began to growl because I couldn't get any work to do."

The mate guffawed and Mitchell grinned. They shouldered the swags, with the pup on top of Mitchell's, took up their billies and water-bags, turned their unshaven faces to the wide, hazy distance, and left the timber behind them.

[THE END]