Adam Lindsay Gordon

Adam Lindsay Gordon was an Australian poet, jockey, and politician. Born in the Azores to Scottish parents, he moved to Australia in 1853. Known for his bush ballads and lyrical poetry, Gordon's works often reflect his passions for horse racing and the Australian landscape. His notable works include "The Sick Stockrider" and "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes." Unfortunately, he struggled with depression and financial troubles, leading to his untimely death at the age of 36.

October 19, 1833

June 24, 1870

English

Adam Lindsay Gordon

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A Basket Of Flowers - From Dawn To Dusk

Dawn

On skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.

-    -    -    -    -

Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
While leaves not a few fall,
Let rose leaves for you fall,
Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall,
And gold shot with dawn.

Does the grass-plot remember
The fall of your feet
In autumns red ember,
When drought leagues with heat,
When the last of the roses
Despairingly closes
In the lull that reposes
Ere storm winds wax fleet?

Loves melodies languish
...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

A Dedication To The Author Of Holmby House

They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.

Where in dreariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winters large flood-gates are loosend,
And floods, freed by storm,
From broken up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion,
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion,
Song shaped without form.

Whence gatherd?, The locusts glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring of a rowel and stirrup,
The wash of a wave.
The chaunt of the marsh frog in rushes,<...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

A Fragment

They say that poison-sprinkled flowers
Are sweeter in perfume
Than when, untouched by deadly dew,
They glowed in early bloom.

They say that men condemned to die
Have quaffed the sweetened wine
With higher relish than the juice
Of the untampered vine.

They say that in the witchs song,
Though rude and harsh it be,
There blends a wild, mysterious strain
Of weirdest melody.

And I believe the devils voice
Sinks deeper in our ear
Than any whisper sent from Heaven,
However sweet and clear.

Adam Lindsay Gordon

A Hunting Song

Heres a health to every sportsman, be he stableman or lord,
If his heart be true, I care not what his pocket may afford;
And may he ever pleasantly each gallant sport pursue,
If he takes his liquor fairly, and his fences fairly, too.

He cares not for the bubbles of Fortunes fickle tide,
Who like Bendigo can battle, and like Olliver can ride.
He laughs at those who caution, at those who chide hell frown,
As he clears a five-foot paling, or he knocks a peeler down.

The dull, cold world may blame us, boys! but what care we the while,
If coral lips will cheer us, and bright eyes on us smile?
For beautys fond caresses can most tenderly repay
The weariness and trouble of many an anxious day.

Then fill your glass, and drain it, too, with all your heart and soul,

Adam Lindsay Gordon

A Legend Of Madrid

Translated from the Spanish


Francesca.

Crushd and throngd are all the places
In our amphitheatre,
Midst a sea of swarming faces
I can yet distinguish her;
Dost thou triumph, dark-browd Nina?
Is my secret known to thee?
On the sands of yon arena
I shall yet my vengeance see.
Now through portals fast careering
Picadors are disappearing;
Now the barriers nimbly clearing
Has the hindmost chulo flown.
Clots of dusky crimson streaking,
Brindled flanks and haunches reeking,
Wheels the wild bull, vengeance seeking,
On the matador alone.
Features by sombrero shaded,
Pale and passionless and cold;
Doublet richly laced and braided,
Trunks of velvet slashd with gold,
Blood-red scarf, and bare Toledo,
...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

A Song Of Autumn

Where shall we go for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year,
When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad,
When the boughs are yellow and sere?
Where are the old ones that once we had,
And when are the new ones near?
What shall we do for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year?

Child! can I tell where the garlands go?
Can I say where the lost leaves veer
On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow,
When they drift through the dead-wood drear?
Girl! when the garlands of next year glow,
You may gather again, my dear,
But I go where the last years lost leaves go
At the falling of the year.

Adam Lindsay Gordon

After The Quarrel

Laurence Rabys Chamber. LAURENCE enters, a little the worse for liquor.

Laurence:
He never gave me a chance to speak,
And he calld her, worse than a dog,
The girl stood up with a crimson cheek,
And I felld him there like a log.

I can feel the blow on my knuckles yet,
He feels it more on his brow.
In a thousand years we shall all forget
The things that trouble us now.

Adam Lindsay Gordon

An Exiles Farewell

The ocean heaves around us still
With long and measured swell,
The autumn gales our canvas fill,
Our ship rides smooth and well.
The broad Atlantics bed of foam
Still breaks against our prow;
I shed no tears at quitting home,
Nor will I shed them now!

Against the bulwarks on the poop
I lean, and watch the sun
Behind the red horizon stoop,
His race is nearly run.
Those waves will never quench his light,
Oer which they seem to close,
To-morrow he will rise as bright
As he this morning rose.

How brightly gleams the orb of day
Across the trackless sea!
How lightly dance the waves that play
Like dolphins in our lee!
The restless waters seem to say,
In smothered tones to me,
How many thousand miles away
My native land...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Ars Longa - A Song Of Pilgrimage

Our hopes are wild imaginings,
Our schemes are airy castles,
Yet these, on earth, are lords and kings,
And we their slaves and vassals;
Your dream, forsooth, of buoyant youth,
Most ready to deceive is;
But age will own the bitter truth,
Ars longa, vita brevis.

The hill of life with eager feet
We climbed in merry morning,
But on the downward track we meet
The shades of twilight warning;
The shadows gaunt they fall aslant,
And those who scaled Ben Nevis,
Against the mole-hills toil and pant,
Ars longa, vita brevis.

The obstacles that barrd our path
We seldom quaild to dash on
In youth, for youth one motto hath,
The will, the way must fashion.
Those words, I wot, blood thick and hot,
Too ready to believe is,
But t...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Bellona

Thou art moulded in marble impassive,
False goddess, fair statue of strife,
Yet standest on pedestal massive,
A symbol and token of life.
Thou art still, not with stillness of languor,
And calm, not with calm boding rest;
For thine is all wrath and all anger
That throbs far and near in the breast
Of man, by thy presence possessd.

With the brow of a fallen archangel,
The lips of a beautiful fiend,
And locks that are snake-like to strangle,
And eyes from whose depths may be gleand
The presence of passions, that tremble
Unbidden, yet shine as they may
Through features too proud to dissemble,
Too cold and too calm to betray
Their secrets to creatures of clay.

Thy breath stirreth faction and party,
Men rise, and no voice can avail
...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Borrowd Plumes

A Preface and a Piracy


Prologue

Of borrowd plumes I take the sin,
My extracts will apply
To some few silly songs which in
These pages scatterd lie.

The words are Edgar Allan Poes,
As any man may see,
But what a Poet wrote in prose,
Shall make blank verse for me.



These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view
to their redemption from the many improvements to which
they have been subjected while going at random the rounds of the Press.
I am naturally anxious that what I have written should circulate
as I wrote it, if it circulate at all. * * * * * * In defence
of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think
nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

By Flood And Field - A Legend Of The Cottiswold

They have saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
They have bridled a hundred black. Old Ballad.
He turned in his saddle, now follow who dare.
I ride for my country, quoth * *.
- Lawrence.


I remember the lowering wintry morn,
And the mist on the Cotswold hills,
Where I once heard the blast of the huntsmans horn,
Not far from the seven rills.
Jack Esdale was there, and Hugh St. Clair,
Bob Chapman and Andrew Kerr,
And big George Griffiths on Devil-May-Care,
And, black Tom Oliver.
And one who rode on a dark-brown steed,
Clean jointed, sinewy, spare,
With the lean game head of the Blacklock breed,
And the resolute eye that loves the lead,
And the quarters massive and square,
A tower of strength, with a promise of speed
(There wa...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

By Wood And Wold - A Preamble

Beneath the greenwood bough.
- W. Scott.

Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,
Though laden with faint perfume,
Tis the fragrance rare that the bushman knows,
The scent of the wattle bloom.
Two-thirds of our journey at least are done,
Old horse! let us take a spell
In the shade from the glare of the noonday sun,
Thus far we have travelld well;
Your bridle Ill slip, your saddle ungirth,
And lay them beside this log,
For youll roll in that track of reddish earth,
And shake like a water-dog.

Upon yonder rise theres a clump of trees,
Their shadows look cool and broad,
You can crop the grass as fast as you please,
While I stretch my limbs on the sward;
Tis pleasant, I ween, with a leafy screen
Oer the weary head, to...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Cito Pede Preterit Aetas - A Philosophical Dissertation

Gillians dead, God rest her bier,
How I loved her many years syne;
Marions married, but I sit here,
Alive and merry at three-score year,
Dipping my nose in Gascoigne wine.
- Wambas Song, Thackeray.


A mellower light doth Sol afford,
His meridian glare has passd,
And the trees on the broad and sloping sward
Their lengthning shadows cast.
Time flies. The current will be no joke,
If swollen by recent rain,
To cross in the dark, so Ill have a smoke,
And then Ill be off again.

Whats up, old horse? Your ears you prick,
And your eager eyeballs glisten;
Tis the wild dogs note in the tea-tree thick,
By the river, to which you listen.
With head erect and tail flung out,
For a gallop you seem to beg,
But I feel th...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Confiteor

The shore-boat lies in the morning light,
By the good ship ready for sailing;
The skies are clear, and the dawn is bright,
Tho the bar of the bay is fleckd with white,
And the wind is fitfully wailing;
Near the tiller stands the priest, and the knight
Leans over the quarter-railing.

There is time while the vessel tarries still,
There is time while her shrouds are slack,
There is time ere her sails to the west wind fill,
Ere her tall masts vanish from town and from hill,
Ere cleaves to her keel the track:
There is time for confession to those who will,
To those who may never come back.

Sir priest, you can shrive these men of mine,
And, I pray you, shrive them fast,
And shrive those hardy sons of the brine,
Captain and mates of the Eglantin...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Credat Judaeus Apella

Dear Bell, I enclose what you ask in a letter,
A short rhyme at random, no more and no less,
And you may insert it, for want of a better,
Or leave it, it doesnt much matter, I guess;
And as for a tip, why, there isnt much in it,
I may hit the right nail, but first, I declare,
I havent a notion whats going to win it
(The Champion, I mean), and whats more, I dont care.
Imprimis, theres Cowra, few nags can go quicker
Than she can, and Smith takes his oath she can fly;
While Brown, Jones, and Robinson swear shes a sticker,
But credat Judaeus Apella, say I.

Theres old Volunteer, Id be sorry to sneer
At his chance; hell be there, if he goes at the rate
He went at last year, when a customer queer,
Johnny Higgerson, fancied him lockd in the straight;

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Cui Bono

Oh! wind that whistles oer thorns and thistles,
Of this fruitful earth like a goblin elf;
Why should he labour to help his neighbour
Who feels too reckless to help himself?
The wail of the breeze in the bending trees
Is something between a laugh and a groan;
And the hollow roar of the surf on the shore
Is a dull, discordant monotone;
I wish I could guess what sense they express,
Theres a meaning, doubtless, in every sound,
Yet no one can tell, and it may be as well,
Whom would it profit? The world goes round!

On this earth so rough we know quite enough,
And, I sometimes fancy, a little too much;
The sage may be wiser than clown or than kaiser,
Is he more to be envied for being such?
Neither more nor less, in his idleness
The sage is doomd to vexa...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

De Te

A burning glass of burnished brass,
The calm sea caught the noontide rays,
And sunny slopes of golden grass
And wastes of weed-flower seem to blaze.
Beyond the shining silver-greys,
Beyond the shades of denser bloom,
The sky-line girt with glowing haze
The farthest, faintest forest gloom,
And the everlasting hills that loom.

We heard the hound beneath the mound,
We scared the swamp hawk hovering nigh,
We had not sought for that we found,
He lay as dead men only lie,
With wan cheek whitening in the sky,
Through the wild heath flowers, white and red,
The dumb brute that had seen him die,
Close crouching, howld beside the head,
Brute burial service oer the dead.

The brow was rife with seams of strife,
A lawless death made doubly plain...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

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