Adam Lindsay Gordon Poems

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A Dedication

 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 drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...

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?’...Read more of this...

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 Atlantic's 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...Read more of this...

Gone

 THE last, late guest 
To the gate we followed; 
Goodbye -- and the rest 
The night-wind swallowed. 

House, garden, street, 
Lay tenfold gloomy, 
Where accents sweet 
Had made music to me. 

It was but a feast 
With the dark coming on; 
She was but a guest -- 
And now, she is gone....Read more of this...

Gone

 IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall, 
A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, 
Telling its story, to great and small, 
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone; 
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan, 
Feeble and faint, and languid and low, 
He lay on the desert a dying man; 
Who has gone, my friends, where...Read more of this...

The Last Leap

 ALL is over! fleet career, 
Dash of greyhound slipping thongs, 
Flight of falcon, bound of deer, 
Mad hoof-thunder in our rear, 
Cold air rushing up our lungs, 
Din of many tongues. 

Once again, one struggle good, 
One vain effort;—he must dwell 
Near the shifted post, that stood 
Where the splinters of the wood, 
Lying in the torn tracks, tell...Read more of this...

The Sick Stockrider

 Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade. 
Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide 
Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed, 
All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride. 
The dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense, 
The sun-rise was a...Read more of this...

The Swimmer

 With short, sharp violent lights made vivid,
To the southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb,
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim grey coast and a seaboard...Read more of this...

Thoras Song (Ashtaroth)

 We severed in Autumn early,
Ere the earth was torn by the plough;
The wheat and the oats and the barley
Are ripe for the harvest now.
We sunder'd one misty morning
Ere the hills were dimm'd by the rain;
Through the flowers those hills adorning --
Thou comest not back again.

My heart is heavy and weary
With the weight of a weary soul;
The mid-day glare grows...Read more of this...

Whispering in Wattle -Boughs

 OH, gaily sings the bird! and the wattle-boughs are stirred 
And rustled by the scented breath of Spring; 
Oh, the dreary wistful longing! Oh, the faces that are thronging! 
Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering! 

Oh, tell me, father mine, ere the good ship crossed the brine, 
On the gangway one mute handgrip we exchanged, 
Do you, past...Read more of this...