The Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon | Page 5

it drinks in their sentiment of defiant ferocity, and is steeped in bitterness.
Australia has rightly been named the Land of the Dawning. Wrapped in the midst of early morning, her history looms vague and gigantic. The lonely horseman riding between the moonlight and the day sees vast shadows creeping across the shelterless and silent plains, hears strange noises in the primeval forest, where flourishes a vegetation long dead in other lands, and feels, despite his fortune, that the trim utilitarian civilisation which bred him shrinks into insignificance beside the contemptuous grandeur of forest and ranges coeval with an age in which European scientists have cradled his own race.
There is a poem in every form of tree or flower, but the poetry which lives in the trees and flowers of Australia differs from those?of other countries. Europe is the home of knightly song, of bright deeds and clear morning thought. Asia sinks beneath the weighty recollections of her past magnificence, as the Suttee sinks, jewel burdened, upon the corpse of dread grandeur, destructive even in its death. America swiftly hurries on her way, rapid, glittering, insatiable even as one of her own giant waterfalls. From the jungles of Africa, and the creeper-tangled groves of the Islands of the South, arise, from the glowing hearts of a thousand flowers,?heavy and intoxicating odours -- the Upas-poison which dwells in barbaric sensuality. In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, the Weird, the strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write. Some see no beauty in our trees without shade, our flowers without perfume, our birds who cannot fly, and our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all fours. But the dweller in the wilderness acknowledges the subtle charm of this fantastic land of monstrosities.?He becomes familiar with the beauty of loneliness. Whispered to by the myriad tongues of the wilderness, he learns the language of the barren and the uncouth, and can read the hieroglyphics of haggard gum-trees, blown into odd shapes, distorted with fierce hot winds,?or cramped with cold nights, when the Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The phantasmagoria of that wild dreamland termed the Bush interprets itself, and the Poet of our desolation begins to comprehend why free Esau loved his heritage of desert sand better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt.
Marcus Clarke.
General Contents.
[The poems are listed by alphabetical order.]
In Memoriam. By Henry Kendall.?Preface. By Marcus Clarke.
A Basket of Flowers?A Dedication?A Fragment?"After the Quarrel"?A Hunting Song?A Legend of Madrid?An Exile's Farewell?Ars Longa?Ashtaroth: A Dramatic Lyric?A Song of Autumn?Banker's Dream?Bellona?Borrow'd Plumes?By Flood and Field?By Wood and Wold?Cito Pede Preterit Aetas?Confiteor?Credat Judaeus Apella?Cui Bono?Delilah?De Te?"Discontent"?Doubtful Dreams?"Early Adieux"?"Exeunt"?Ex Fumo Dare Lucem?Fauconshawe?Finis Exoptatus?Fragmentary Scenes from the Road to Avernus?From Lightning and Tempest?From the Wreck?Gone?Hippodromania; or, Whiffs from the Pipe?How we Beat the Favourite?"In the Garden"?In Utrumque Paratus?Laudamus?Lex Talionis?No Name?Pastor Cum?Podas Okus?Potters' Clay?Quare Fatigasti?Rippling Water?Sunlight on the Sea?"Ten Paces Off"?The Fields of Coleraine?The Last Leap?"The Old Leaven"?The Rhyme of Joyous Garde?The Roll of the Kettledrum; or, The Lay of the Last Charger The Romance of Britomarte?The Sick Stockrider?The Song of the Surf?The Swimmer?The Three Friends?Thick-headed Thoughts?Thora's Song?To a Proud Beauty?To My Sister?"Two Exhortations"?Unshriven?Visions in the Smoke?Whisperings in Wattle-Boughs?Wolf and Hound?Wormwood and Nightshade?Ye Wearie Wayfarer, hys Ballad?Zu der edlen Yagd
Sea Spray and Smoke Drift
Podas Okus
Am I waking? Was I sleeping??Dearest, are you watching yet??Traces on your cheeks of weeping?Glitter, 'tis in vain you fret;?Drifting ever! drifting onward!?In the glass the bright sand runs?Steadily and slowly downward;?Hushed are all the Myrmidons.
Has Automedon been banish'd?From his post beside my bed??Where has Agamemnon vanished??Where is warlike Diomed??Where is Nestor? where Ulysses??Menelaus, where is he??Call them not, more dear your kisses?Than their prosings are to me.
Daylight fades and night must follow,?Low, where sea and sky combine,?Droops the orb of great Apollo,?Hostile god to me and mine.?Through the tent's wide entrance streaming,?In a flood of glory rare,?Glides the golden sunset, gleaming?On your golden, gleaming hair.
Chide him not, the leech who tarries,?Surest aid were all too late;?Surer far the shaft of Paris,?Winged by Phoebus and by fate;?When he crouch'd behind the gable,?Had I once his features scann'd,?Phoebus' self had scarce been able?To have nerved his trembling hand.
Blue-eyed maiden! dear Athena!?Goddess chaste, and wise and brave,?From the snares of Polyxena?Thou would'st fain thy favourite save.?Tell me, is it not far better?That it should be as it is??Jove's behest we cannot fetter,?Fate's decrees are always his.
Many seek for peace and riches,?Length of days and life of ease;?I have sought for one thing, which is?Fairer unto me than these.?Often, too, I've heard the story,?In my boyhood, of the doom?Which the fates assigned me -- Glory,?Coupled with an early tomb.
Swift assault and sudden sally?Underneath the Trojan wall;?Charge, and countercharge, and rally,?War-cry loud, and trumpet call;?Doubtful strain of desp'rate battle,?Cut and thrust and grapple fierce,?Swords that ring on