Victor James Daley

Victor James Daley, born on 5 September 1858, was an Australian poet noted for his lyrical works. Daley’s publications, including his collection of poems

September 5, 1858

December 29, 1905

English

Victor James Daley

Page 1 of 6

A Christmas Eve

Good fellows are laughing and drinking
(To-night no heart should grieve),
But I am of old days thinking,
Alone, on Christmas Eve.
Old memories fast are springing
To life again; old rhymes
Once more in my brain are ringing,
Ah, God be with old times!

There never was man so lonely
But ghosts walked him beside,
For Death our spirits can only
By veils of sense divide.
Numberless as the blades of
Grass in the fields that grow,
Around us hover the shades of
The dead of long ago.

Friends living a word estranges;
We smile, and we say Adieu!
But, whatsoever else changes,
Dead friends are faithful and true.
An old-time tune, or a flower,
The simplest thing held dear
In bygone days has the power
Once more to bring them nea...

Victor James Daley

A Ghost

Ghosts walk the Earth, that rise not from the grave.
The Dead Past hath its living dead. We see
All suddenly, at times, and shudder then,
Their faces pale, and sad accusing eyes.

Last night, within the crowded street, I saw
A Phantom from the Past, with pallid face
And hollow eyes, and pale, cold lips, and hair
Faded from that imperial hue of gold
Which was my pride in days that are no more.

That pallid face I knew in its young bloom,
A radiant lily with a rose-flushed heart,
Most beautiful, a vision of delight;
And seeing it again, so changed, so changed,
I felt as if the icy hand of Death
Had touched my forehead and his voice said Come!

Ah, pale, cold lips that once were rosy-red!
Lips I have kissed on golden afternoons,
Past, past, ...

Victor James Daley

A King in Exile

O the Queen may keep her golden
Crown and sceptre of command!
I would give them both twice over
To be King of Babyland.

Sure, it is a wondrous country
Where the beanstalks grow apace,
And so very near the moon is
You could almost stroke her face.

And the dwellers in that country
Hold in such esteem their King,
They believe that if he chooses
He can dojust anything!

And, although his regal stature
May be only four-feet-ten,
Think him tallest, strongest, bravest,
Noblest, wisest, best of men.

Ah, how fondly I remember
The good time serene and fair,
In the bygone years when I, too,
Was a reigning monarch there!

But my subjects they discrowned me
When theyd older, colder, grown;
And they took away my sc...

Victor James Daley

A Picture

The sun burns fiercely down the skies;
The sea is full of flashing eyes;
The waves glide shoreward serpentwise

And fawn with foamy tongues on stark
Gray rocks, each sharp-toothed as a shark,
And hiss in clefts and channels dark.

Blood-purple soon the waters grow,
As though drowned sea-kings fought below
Forgotten fights of long ago.

The gray owl Dusk its wings has spread;
The sun sinks in a blossom-bed
Of poppy-clouds; the day is dead.

Victor James Daley

A Sunset Fantasy

Spellbound by a sweet fantasy
At evenglow I stand
Beside an opaline strange sea
That rings a sunset land.

The rich lights fade out one by one,
And, like a peony
Drowning in wine, the crimson sun
Sinks down in that strange sea.

His wake across the ocean-floor
In a long glory lies,
Like a gold wave-way to the shore
Of some sea paradise.

My dream flies after him, and I
Am in another land;
The sun sets in another sky,
And we sit hand in hand.

Gray eyes look into mine; such eyes
I think the angels are,
Soft as the soft light in the skies
When shines the morning star,

And tremulous as morn, when thin
Gold lights begin to glow,
Revealing the bright soul within
As dawn the sun below.

So, hand...

Victor James Daley

A Vision Splendid

Half waking and half dreaming,
While starry lamps hung low
I saw a vision splendid
Upon the darkness glow.

The Capital Australian,
With waving banners plumed
A shining flower of marble
Magnificently bloomed.

Beside a snow-fed river
'Twas built in fashion rare
Upon a lofty mountain,
All in a valley fair.

The stately ships were sailing,
Like brides with flowing trains,
To seek its secret harbor
Amidst Australian plains.

And all around it flourished
Luxuriantly free,
The giant gum and mangrove,
The crimson desert-pea.

And I beheld a building
That made a stately show
The National Australian
Head Poetry Bureau.

I gazed upon that Building
With trembling joy aghast;
The long-felt wa...

Victor James Daley

A Vision of Youth

A horseman on a hilltop green
Drew rein, and wound his horn;
So bright he looked he might have been
The Herald of the Morn.

His steed was of the sovran strain
In Fancys meadows bred,
And pride was in his tossing mane,
And triumph in his tread.

The riders eyes like jewels glowed,
The World was in his hand,
As down the woodland way he rode
When Spring was in the land.

From golden hour to golden hour
For him the woodland sang.
And from the heart of every flower
A singing fairy sprang.

He rode along with rein so free,
And, as he rode, the Blue
Mysterious Bird of Fantasy
Ever before him flew.

He rode by cot and castle dim
Through all the greenland gay;
Bright eyes through casements glanced at him:
H...

Victor James Daley

A-Roving

When the sap runs up the tree.
And the vine runs oer the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-tongued and murmuring
Like the river in the range,
Tis the joyous voice of Spring!

On the boles of grey, old trees,
See the flying sunbeams play
Mystic, soundless melodies,
A fantastic march and gay;
But the young leaves hear them, hark
How they rustle, every one!
And the sap beneath the bark
Hearing, leaps to meet the sun.

Oh, the world is wondrous fair
When the tide of lifes at flood!
There is magic in the air,
There is music in the blood;
And a glamour draws us on
To the distance, rainbow-spanned,
And the road we tread upon
Is the road to F...

Victor James Daley

Amaranth

Once a poet, long ago,
Wrote a song as void of art
As the songs that children know,
And as pure as a childs heart.

With a sigh he threw it down,
Saying, This will never shed
Any glory or renown
On my name when I am dead.

I will sing a lordly song
Men shall hear, when I am gone,
Through the years sound clear and strong
As a golden clarion.

So this lordly song he sang
That would gain him deathless fame,
When the death-knell oer him rang
No man even knew its name.

Ay, and when his way he found
To the place of singing souls,
And beheld their bright heads crowned
With song-woven aureoles,

He stood shame-faced in the throng,
For his brow of wreath was bare,
And, alas! his lordly song
Sere had grow...

Victor James Daley

Anacreon

We bought a volume of Anacreon,
Defaced, mishandled, little to admire,
And yet its rusty clasps kept guard upon
The sweetest songs, the songs of young desire
Like that great song once sung by Solomon.

My sweetheart's cheeks were peonies on fire:
We saw by the bright message of his eyes
That Eros served us in bookseller's guise.
I keep the volume still, but She has gone . . .
Ah, for the poetry in Paradise!

There's Honey still and Roses on the earth,
And lips to kiss, and jugs to drain with mirth;
And lovers walk in pairs: but She has gone . . .
Anacreon! Anacreon!

Victor James Daley

Anna

The pale discrowned stacks of maize,
Like spectres in the sun,
Stand shivering nigh Avonaise,
Where all is dead and gone.

The sere leaves make a music vain,
With melancholy chords;
Like cries from some old battle-plain,
Like clash of phantom swords.

But when the maize was lush and green
With musical green waves,
She went, its plumed ranks between,
Unto the hill of graves.

There you may see sweet flowers set
Oer damsels and oer dames,
Rose, Ellen, Mary, Margaret,
The sweet old quiet names.

The gravestones show in long array,
Though white or green with moss,
How linked in Life and Death are they,
The Shamrock and the Cross.

The gravestones face the Golden East,
And in the morn they take
The blessing o...

Victor James Daley

Aphrodite

On a golden dawn in the dawn sublime
Of years ere the stars had ceased to sing,
Beautiful out of the sea-deeps cold
Aphrodite arose, the Flower of Time,
That, dear till the day of her blossoming,
The old, old Sea had borne in his heart.
Around her worshipping waves did part
Tremulous, glowing in rose and gold.

And the birds broke forth into singing sweet,
And flowers born scentless breathed perfume:
Softly she smiled upon Man forlorn,
And the music of love in his wild heart beat,
And down to the pit went his gods of gloom,
And earth grew bright and fair as a bride,
And folk in star-worlds wondering cried,
Lo in the skies a new star is born!

O Beloved, thus on my small world you
Rose, flushing it all with rosy flame!
Changing sad thought...

Victor James Daley

At the Opera

The curtain rose, the play began,
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.

Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush,
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.

The curtain fell, the music died,
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.

Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:

Victor James Daley

Bacchanalian

I pity him who has not swung
The Thyrsus in the air,
And followed Bacchus, blithe and young,
"With vine-leaves in his hair;
And heard the Maenads sing,
And the mad cymbals ring.

I pity those who have to walk
In sober ways and sad,
And keep a guard upon their talk
Lest men should think them mad.
Or careless speech should show
The felon thought below.

When in my goblet, blithe and gay,
The beaded bubbles wink,
For all poor souls like this I pray
That they may learn to drink,
And, like a rose in rain,
Open shut heart and brain.

Who does not drink he does not know,
And he will never find,
What merry fellows live below
The surface of his mind:
These other men to me
Are right good company.

If beings of ...

Victor James Daley

Bouquet and Bracelet

Bouquet said: My floral ring
The homage of a heart encloses,
Whose thoughts to you go worshipping
In perfume from my blushing roses.

Bracelet said: My rubies red,
Though hard the gleam that each exposes,
Will last when flowers of Spring are fled
And dead are all the Summer roses.

Beauty mused awhile, and said,
Heres poesy! and sighed, Here prose is
Bouquet! I choose the rubies red!
In Winter they will buy me roses.

Victor James Daley

Brunette

When trees in Spring
Are blossoming
My lady wakes
From dreams whose light
Made dark days bright,
For their sweet sakes.

Yet in her eyes
A shadow lies
Of bygone mirth;
And still she seems
To walk in dreams,
And not on earth.

Some men may hold
That hair of gold
Is lovelier
Than darker sheen:
They have not seen
My ladys hair.

Her eyes are bright,
Her bosom white
As the sea foam
On sharp rocks sprayed;
Her mouth is made
Of honeycomb.

And whoso seeks
In her dusk cheeks
May see Loves sign,
A blush that glows
Like a red rose
Beneath brown wine.

Victor James Daley

Camilla

Camilla calls me heartless: hence you see
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Camilla has my heart?

Victor James Daley

Cares

Having certain cares to drown,
To the sea I took them down:

And I threw them in the wave,
That engulfed them like a grave.

Swiftly then I plied the oar
With a light heart to the shore.

But behind me came my foes:
Like a nine-days corpse each rose,

And (a ghastly sight to see!)
Clutched the boat and grined at me!

With a heavy heart, alack,
To the land I bore them back.

Not in Water or in Wine
Can I drown these cares of mine.

But some day, for good and sure,
I shall bury them secure,

Where the soil is rich and brown,
With a stone to keep them down,

And to let their end be known,
Have my name carved on the stone;

So that passers-by may say,
Here lie cares that had their day,

Victor James Daley

Page 1 of 6