Found Dead – a verse

The suns fierce beams are striking
From out the cloudless sky,
And a weary man is toiling
On the sand plain drear and dry.
His tongue is swollen and blackening
And his eyes are dimmed and blurred
How he longs for the sight of timber;
Fringing some streamlet clear!
He shades his throbbing eyeballs
With his brown, toil hardened hand.
But nought can see around him
But sky and land.

But, surely, those are tree tops,
That dark line to the west,
And he staggers feebly onward,
With dazed brain and heaving breast.
“My God, of help! Have mercy!”
Hear his anguished cry;
“Oh, for but a drop of water,
To ease me before I die.”
But his senses now are reeling,
And he sinks upon the ground,
Dreaming loving forms, far distant,
Are thronging around.

He dreams of the trickling streamlet
By which he often played
In his far off happy childhood,
Of the meadows where he strayed,
When a loved one was beside him,
And he sees the features fair,
The blue eyes and snowy temples,
And the wealth of golden hair;
While he seems to hear so plainly
Those last fond words she said
When he left (and hope shined brightly)
To be found dead.

“And mother, darling mother
I knew not that you were nigh;
Your cool hands cool my temples,
Now kiss me before I die.
Death is not so bitter
Since all I love is here
So in your arms now hold me,
For the darkness draweth near.
So saying, though no loved one
Pillowed that dying head,
He laid him gently backward
To be found dead.

And the fiery sun is beating
on that bare uncovered head,
On the man and wasted features,
But it strikes upon the dead
No more shall he, poor fellow!
Feel aught the toil and pain;
No more shall feebly wander
Over the burning plain;
But an inquest will be holden
Ere the last few rights be said,
And the verdict given slowly,
“He was found dead.”

Ah! It is well to say my masters,
This is the land of gold;
“There is work for those who seek it,”
Is the story often told.
That theres good wages for labor
Only “loafers” will deny,
Though many an honest worker
Has wandered forth to die;
Who has traveled with heavy burden,
Wearied with want and pain,
And whose bones are lying bleaching
Upon some desert plain;
None to tell his waiting loved ones
How the weary spirit fled,
And that, by pitying stranger,
He was found dead.

By F J, Coolgardie Miner 5th May 1894

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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