Desire
Soul of the leaping flame;
Heart of the scarlet fire,
Spirit that hath for name
Only the name - Desire!
Subtle art thou and strong;
Glowing in sunlit skies;
Sparkling in wine and song;
Shining in women's eyes;
Gleaming on shores of Sleep -
Moon of the wild dream-clan -
Burning within the deep
Passionate heart of Man.
Spirit we can but name,
Essence of Forms that seem,
Odour of violet flame,
Weaver of Thought and Dream.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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The Old Wife and the New
He sat beneath the curling vines
That round the gay verandah twined,
His forehead seamed with sorrow’s lines,
An old man with a weary mind.
His young wife, with a rosy face
And brown arms ambered by the sun,
Went flitting all about the place—
Master and mistress both in one.
What caused that old man’s look of care?
Was she not blithe and fair to see?
What blacker than her raven hair,
What darker than her eyes might be?
The old man bent his weary head;
The sunlight on his gray hair shone;
His thoughts were with a woman dead
And buried, years and years agone:
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poem by Victor James Daley
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In a Wine Cellar
SEE how it flashes,
This grape-blood fine!—
Our beards it splashes,
O comrade mine!—
Life dust and ashes
Were, wanting wine.
Amontillado
Fires heart and eyes;
Champagne the shadow
Of care defies;
An El Dorado
In Rhine-wine lies;
Port has the mintage
Of generous deeds;
Tokay scorns stintage
And richly bleeds;
But this great vintage
The Wine-March leads.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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The Martyr
Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world’s sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.
A woman lay in a hovel,
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;
One friend alone was beside her—
The name of him was—Death.
For the sake of her orphan children,
For money to buy them food,
She had slaved in the dismal hovel
And wasted her womanhood.
Winter and Spring and Summer
Came each with a load of cares;
And Autumn to her brought only
A harvest of gray hairs.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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Wrecked Illusions
Dedicated to Louis Becke
You are now in London town,
Louis Becke,
Keeping up your old renown,
Writing yarns of women brown,
Getting yellow money down,
Or a cheque.
That is right enough, maybe -
You are wise;
But your Isles of the South Sea,
Where the life is bold and free,
You may have them all for me -
Dash your eyes!
I armful of you, I am,
To the neck;
And I cannot think with a calm
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poem by Victor James Daley
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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.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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The Rajah’s Sapphires
IN my garden, O Beloved!
Many pleasant trees are growing,
Peach, and apricot, and apple,
Myrtle, lilac, and laburnum.
Fair are they, but midst them lonely,
Like an exiled Eastern Princess
In a strange land far from kindred,
Stands a lonely fair Pomegranate.
Dreaming of its native Orient
Always is the fair Pomegranate,
And beneath it I lie dreaming
Of thine eyes and thee, Beloved!
Overhead its red globes, gleaming
Like red moons, old tales recall of
Eastern moons and songs of Hafiz—
Nightingales, and wine, and roses.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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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.
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poem by Victor James Daley
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Lethe
Through the noiseless doors of Death
Three passed out, as with one breath.
Two had faces stern as Fate,
Stamped with unrelenting hate.
One upon her lips of guile
Wore a cold, mysterious smile.
Each of each unseen, the pale
Shades went down the hollow vale
Till they came unto the deep
River of Eternal Sleep.
Breath of wind, or wing of bird,
Never that dark stream hath stirred;
Still it seems as is the shore,
But it flows for evermore
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poem by Victor James Daley
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His Mate
IT MAY have been a fragment of that higher
Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher—
But thus the story goes:
A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken
With barrenness and thirst,
Where Nature’s pulse with joy of Spring would quicken
No more; a land accurst.
Gray salt-bush grimmer made the desolation—
Like mocking immortelles
Strewn on the graveyard of a perished nation
Whose name no record tells.
No faintest sign of distant water glimmered
The aching eye to bless;
The far horizon like a sword’s edge shimmered,
Keen, gleaming, pitiless.
And all the long day through the hot air quivered
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poem by Victor James Daley
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