Where the seasons are divided and the bush begins to change, <br />and the links are rather broken in the Great Dividing Range; <br />where the atmosphere is hazy underneath the summer sky, <br />lies the little town of Eton, rather westward of Mackay. <br />Near the township, in the graveyard, where the dead of Eton go, <br />lies the body of a sinner known as “Johnson alias Crow”. <br />He was sixty-four was Johnson, and in other days, lang syne, <br />was apprenticed to a ship-wright in the land across the Rhine; <br />but, whatever were his prospects in the days of long ago, <br />things went very bad with Johnson—Heinrich Johnson (alias Crow). <br />He, at Eton—where he drifted in his age, a stranded wreck— <br />got three pounds by false pretences, in connection with a cheque. <br />But he didn’t long enjoy it, the police soon got to know; <br />and the lockup closed on Johnson, lonely Johnson alias Crow. <br />Friday night, and Crow retired, feeling, as he said, unwell; <br />and the warder heard the falling of a body in the cell. <br />Going in, the warder saw him bent with pain and crouching low— <br />Death had laid his hand on Johnson, Heinrich Johnson, alias Crow. <br />Then the constable bent o’er him—asked him where he felt the pain. Johnson only said, “I’m dying”—and he never spoke again. <br />They had waited for a witness, and the local people say <br />Johnson’s trial would have ended on that very Saturday; <br />but he took his case for judgment where our cases all must go, <br />and the higher court is trying Heinrich Johnson (alias Crow).<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/johnson-alias-crow/
