The Outcasts. (Melbourne.)

    Here to the parks they come,
    The scourings of the town,
Like weary wounded animals
    Seeking where to lie them down.

    Brothers, let us take together
    An easeful period.
There is worse than to be as we are -
    Cast out, not of men but of God!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams (27 September 1862 – 4 September 1893) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and social reformer. His literary work often reflected his radical socialist views. Adams lived a life marred by poverty and struggles with his health, eventually committing suicide at the age of 30. Despite his brief life, his contributions to literature and social thought remain significant.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Proem. "Outside London."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

A Mahommadan Ship Fireman.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

Ireland.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

Holy Russia.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Outcasts

Three women stood by the river's flood
In the gas-lamp's murky light,
A devil watched them on the left,
And an angel on the right.

The clouds of lead flowed overhead;
The leaden stream below;
They marvelled much, that outcast three,
Why Fate should use them so.

Said one: "I have a mother dear,
Who lieth ill abed,
And by my sin the wage I win
From which she hath her bread."

Said one: "I am an outcast's child,
And such I came on earth.
If me ye blame, for this my shame,
Whom blame ye for my birth?"

The third she sank a sin-blotched face,
And prayed that she might rest,
In the weary flow of the stream below,
As on her mother's breast.

Now past there came a godly man,
Of goodly stock and blood,
And as he ...

Arthur Conan Doyle

From A Verandah. (Sydney.) "Armageddon."

O city lapped in sun and Sabbath rest,
With happy face of plenteous ease possessed,
    Have you no doubts that whisper, dreams that moan
Disquietude, to stir your slumbering breast?

    Think you the sins of other climes are gone?
    The harlot's curse rings in your streets - the groan
Of out-worn men, the stabbed and plundered slaves
    Of ever-growing Greed, these are your own!

O'er you shall sweep the fiery hell that craves
For quenchment the bright blood of human waves:
    For you, if you repent not, shall atone
For Greed's dark death-holes with War's swarming graves!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Mount Rennie." {95}

(The Australian Press speaks).


"Kill them! Yes, hang them all!
    They are fiends, just that!
And we're all agreed fiends should be sent
    To a place that's hot.

"They were fiends, too, of themselves;
    They delighted in it!
It's all their fault, their own fault!
    Don't listen a minute!

"Don't let anyone talk
    About 'fatality,' 'lot,'
That sort of talk (excuse us!)
    Is just damned rot.

"You and I, p'raps, are what we're made.
    If I'm dying of phthisis,
It's because my father passed on
    To me what the price is

"Of his excesses, and I,
    Overworked, come off worse.
Just so; but, with these young fiends,
    It's quite the reverse.

"Their homes were happy and bright,

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

In An East End Hovel. To A Workman, A Would-Be Suicide.

Man of despair and death,
Bought and slaved in the gangs,
Starved and stripped and left
To the pitiful pitiless night,
Away with your selfish thoughts!
Touch not your ignorant life!
Are there no masters of slaves,
Jeering, cynical, strong -
Are there no brigands (say),
With the words of Christ on their lips
And the daggers under their cloaks -
Is there not one of these
That you can steal on and kill?
O as the Swiss mountaineer
Dogged on the perilous heights
His disciplined conqueror foes: {39a}
Caught up one in his arms
And, laughing exultantly,
Plunged with him to the abyss:
So let it be with you!
An eye for an eye, and a tooth
For a tooth, and a life for a life!
Tell it, this hateful strong
Contemptuous hypocrite world,

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Victoria To James Moorhouse, {76}

Bishop of Melbourne, who left Melbourne for the Bishopric of Manchester, 10th March 1886.

He came, a stranger, and we gave him welcome
    More as loved friend than rumour's honoured guest.
He spoke! Were we, then, all so slack to listen?
    To hail him as our wisest, noblest, best?
            Why did he leave us?

He toiled! And we, we under such a leader,
    Forgot all other creeds, but that he taught,
And proud of our clear answer to his summons,
    Forgot all other fights but that he fought!
            Why did he leave us?

He wearied! 'Twas too great, he said, the burden.
    We saw it and we cried with anxious love;
"What does he (Let him back!) down in the battle?
    Is not the general's place at rest above...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

The Scamps

Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft,
We are children of fortune and luck:
They deny theres a shred of our characters left,
But they cannot deny us the pluck!
We are vagabond scamps, we are kings over all,
There is little on earth we desire,
We are devils who stand with our backs to the wall,
And who call on the cowards to fire!

There are some of us here who were noble and good,
And who learnt in ingratitudes schools,
They were born of the selfish and misunderstood,
They were soft, they were smoodgers or fools.
With their hands in their pockets to help every friend
In a fix, and they never asked how:
Beware of them you who have money to lend,
For its little youd get from them now.

There are some of us here who were lovers of old,

Henry Lawson