The Stranger's Friend by Henry Lawson — Read

The strangest things, and the maddest things, that a man can do or say, / To the chaps and fellers and coves Out Back are matters of every day; / Maybe on account of the lives they lead, or the life that their hearts / discard -- / But never a fool can be too mad or a ‘hard case' be too hard.

I met him in Bourke in the Union days -- with which we have nought to do / (Their creed was narrow, their methods crude, but they stuck to ‘the cause' / like glue). / He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half-yearly ‘bend,' / And because of a curious hobby he had, he was known as ‘The Stranger's / Friend.'