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

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Life

What know we of the dead, who say these things,
Or of the life in death below the mould,
What of the mystic laws that rule the old
Gray realms beyond our poor imaginings
Where death is life? The bird with spray-wet wings
Knows more of what the deeps beneath him hold.
Let be: warm hearts shall never wax a-cold,
But burn in roses through eternal springs:
For all the vanished fruit and flower of Time
Are flower and fruit in worlds we cannot see,
And all we see is as a shadow-mime
Of things unseen, and Time that comes to flee
Is but the broken echo of a rhyme
In Gods great epic of Eternity.

Victor James Daley

Love

Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tressèd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.

And all her ways seem sweeter ways
Than those of other women in that light:
She has no portion with the pallid night,
But is a part of all fair days.

Joy goes where she goes, and good dreams,
Her smile is tender as an old romance
Of Love that dies not, and her soft eyes glance
Like sunshine set to music seems.

Queen of our fate is she, but crowned
With purple hearts-ease for her womanhood.
There is no place so poor where she has stood
But evermore is holy ground.

An angel from the heaven above
Would not be fair to us as she is fair:
She holds us in a mesh of silken hair,
This one swee...

Victor James Daley

Love-Laurel

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earths breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.

For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for songs sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledg...

Victor James Daley

Mother Doorstep

'Wanted Kind Person to take charge of baby Boy (or Girl),' etc. - Any newspaper, any day.
'Early this morning the body of an infant was found on a doorstep in -- Street,' etc. - Any newspaper, every other day.


Unto the Person kind there came
A young girl bearing her fruit of shame:
She fell and it had to pay the price
Innocent Lamb of Sacrifice!

Lovingly then the Person smiled,
Gazing upon the face of the child;
Smiled like an ogress - 'Don't despond!
I am of children all too fond.'

Then said the mother, speaking low,
Kissing the babe she had born in woe:
'Treat him tenderly-nurse him well.'
Hotly the tears on the baby fell.

Taking the mother's coin with a leer
Ogress remarked: 'Don't cry, my dear,
Motherly persons to me ar...

Victor James Daley

Muses

The Muse who comes each morning
In rozy gauze is clad;
Her head is crowned with flowers,
Her eyes are clear and glad.

Upon her virgin bosom
Bloom lilies of white fire,
Her tender heart a rose is
Of delicate desire.

She is the gentle Goddess
Who rules the dreams of youth;
Her wonderful sweet stories
Are truer than the truth.

The Muse that comes at midnight,
When lamps of revel shine,
Her robe is laburnum,
All splashed with crimson wine.

Upon her head defiant,
She wears a vine-leaf crown,
And on her naked shoulders,
Her hair is hanging down.

And she at times is paler,
And paler than the dead
But O her lips are burning,
And O her lips are red.

She lifts a brimming goblet,
She spills ...

Victor James Daley

Neæras Wreath

Neæra crowns me with a purple wreath
That she with her own dainty hands did twine;
Gold-hearted blossoms and blue buds in sheath,
Mingled with veined green leaves of the wild vine.

Then, bending down her bright head, ah, too nigh!
She asks me for a song: the daylight dies:
The song is still unwritten: still I lie
Watching the purple twilight of her eyes.

I am her laureate; therefore heart of grace
I take to kiss her. Where was song like this?
Love is best sung of in a loveless place,
For who would care to sing where he might kiss?

Victor James Daley

Night

The night is young yet; an enchanted night
In early summer: calm and darkly bright.

I love the Night, and every little breeze
She brings, to soothe the sleep of dreaming trees.

Hearst thou the Voices? Sough! Susurrus! Hark!
Tis Mother Nature whispering in the dark!

Burden of cities, mad turmoil of men,
That vex the daylight, she forgets them then.

Her breasts are bare; Grief gains from them surcease:
She gives her restless sons the milk of Peace.

To sleep she lulls them, drawn from thoughts of pelf
By telling sweet old stories of herself.

.    .    .    .    .

All secrets deep, yea, all I hear and see
Of things mysterious, Night reveals to me.

I know what every flower, with drowsy head
Down-drooping, dreams of, ...

Victor James Daley

Omarism

With pen in hand and pipe in mouth,
And claret iced to quench my drouth,
I sit upon my balcony
That overlooks the sparkling sea,
Serenly gay, and cool, and bland
With pipe in mouth and pen in hand.

This life I think is beautiful,
When at the jug I take a pull.
The harbor shines like azure silk;
The claret tastes like mother's milk;
Then to the pipe I turn again
And then I trifle with the pen.

The red-faced neighbors townward go;
The air is in a furnace glow.
I watch them scorching as they pass,
Like flies beneath a burning glass
Each clutching at the red-hot hour
For coin; their folly turns me sour.

The Business Man may fret and sweat
In his black coat, for etiquette,
And grow in shop and office old,
And gather wrinkl...

Victor James Daley

Our Mæcenas

What! Don't you our Mæcenas know
The man who started, years ago,
Our Wild Australian Author show?

You don't? Your ignorance sublime
Exceeds - to use a Boston rhyme
The taciturnity of time.

Well, there he is, across the way
Tall, thin, and growing somwhat grey
He has good reason, you will say.

He's entering a bookshop. Fine!
He buys a book. Don't make a sign!
Don't speak! Don't breathe! It may be mine!

Alas! The cover isn't blue;
It's green - it's Quinn's - I always knew
His taste was never sound and true!

We all have hobbies. Some endure,
Some pass. Australian Literature
Is his. He likes it straight and pure.

Those breezy gentlemen you see
Walk up the street so spaciously,
He started them; he started me.<...

Victor James Daley

Over The Wine

Very often, when I'm drinking,
Of the old days I am thinking,
Of the good old days when living was a Joy,
And each morning brought new Pleasure,
And each night brought Dreams of Treasure,
And I thank the Lord that I was once a Boy.

When I hear the old hands spinning
Yams of gold there was for winning
In the Roaring Days, that now so silent are,
And my brain is whirling, reeling
With their legends, comes the feeling
That the Rainbow Gold I knew was finer far;

For not all the trains in motion,
All the ships that sail the ocean,
With their cargoes; all the money in the mart,
Could purchase for an hour
Such a treasure as the Flower,
As the Flower of Hope that blossomed in my heart.

Now I sit, and smile, and listen
To my friends who...

Victor James Daley

Passion Flower

Choose who will the wiser part,
I have held her heart to heart;

And have felt her heart-strings stirred,
And her souls still singing heard

For one golden-haloed hour
Of Loves life the passion-flower.

So the world may roll or rest,
I have tasted of its best;

And shall laugh while I have breath
At thy dart and thee, O Death!

Victor James Daley

Players

And after all, and after all,
Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,
Is life a reckless carnival?
And are they lost, our golden years?

Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,
Ere time could sear, or care could fret,
There was a youth called Romeo,
There was a maid named Juliet.

The players of the past are gone;
The races rise; the races pass;
And softly over all is drawn
The quiet Curtain of the Grass.

But when the world went wild with Spring,
What days we had! Do you forget?
When I of all the world was King,
And you were my Queen Juliet?

The things that are; the things that seem,
Who shall distinguish shape from show?
The great processional, splendid dream
Of life is all I wish to know.

The gods their faces turn...

Victor James Daley

Poncé De Léon

By a black wharf I stood lately,
When the night was at its noon;
Keen, malicious stars were shining,
And a wicked, white-faced moon.

And I saw a stately vessel,
Built in fashion quaint and old;
From her masthead, in the moonlight,
Hung a flag of faded gold.

Black with age her masts and spars were,
Black with age her ropes and rails;
Like a ghost through cere-cloths gazing
Shone the white moon through her sails.

Not a movement stirred the stillness,
Not a sound the silence broke,
Save alone the livid water
Lapping round her sides of oak.

Then to her unseen commander
Spake I, as to one I knew,
Don Juan Poncé de Léon,
I have waited long for you.

Take me with you, I implore you!
Take me with you on your ques...

Victor James Daley

Poppies

These are the flowers of sleep
That nod in the heavy noon,
Ere the brown shades eastward creep
To a drowsy and dreamful tune,
These are the flowers of sleep.

Loves lilies are passion-pale,
But these on the sun-kissed flood
Of the corn, that rolls breast deep,
Burn redder than drops of blood
On a dead kings golden mail.

Hearts dearest, I would that we
These blooms of forgetfulness
Might bind on our brows, and steep
Our love in Lethe ere less
Grow its flame with thee or me.

When Time with his evil eye
The beautiful Love has slain,
There is nought to gain or keep
Thereafter, and all is vain.
Should we wait to see Love die?

Sweetheart, of the joys men reap
We have reaped; tis time to rest.
Why should we wak...

Victor James Daley

Questions

Soul, dost thou shudder at the narrow tomb?
Heart, dost thou dread to moulder in the dust,
To meet the fate that all things mortal must,
Strength in its pride, and beauty in its bloom?
What have ye done to merit nobler doom?
How used one life that ye for more should lust?
Time in his course doth all things downward thrust:
The unborn generations wait for room!
Blind we were born, blind die: yet we must still
Take God to task with Whither? Whence? and Why?
What if God, giving us our wish and will,
Said, Judge thyself to each! Who dares reply?
He knows the end who made the perfect plan,
Hell were too small if man were judged by man.

Victor James Daley

Romance

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;
Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,
But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.

Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,
Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.
Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and good
Unto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.

And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,
That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?
That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,
R...

Victor James Daley

Sea-Gifts

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said a red-lipped laughing girl
While the summer yet was young;

And the sea laughed back and flung
At her feet a priceless pearl.

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said the maiden once again
On a night of wind and rain.

Like a ghost the moon above her
Stared through winding-sheets of cloud.

On the sand in sea-weed shroud,
Lay the pale corpse of her lover.

Which is better, gain or loss?
Which is nobler, crown or cross?

We shall know these things, maybe,
When the dead rise from the sea.

Victor James Daley

Sixty to Sixteen

If I were young as you, Sixteen,
And you were old as I,
I would not be as I have been,
You would not be so shy,
We should not watch with careless mien
The golden days go by,
If I were young as you, Sixteen,
And you were old as I.

The years of youth are yours, Sixteen;
Such years of old had I,
But time has set his seal between
Dark eyebrow and dark eye.
Sere grow the leaves that once were green,
The song turns to a sigh:
Ah! very young are you, Sixteen,
And very old am I.

Red bloom-times come and go, Sixteen,
With snow-soft feet, but I
Shall be no more as I have been
In times of bloom gone by;
For dimmer grows the pleasant scene
Beneath the pleasant sky;
The world is growing old, Sixteen,
The weary world and I.

Victor James Daley

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