The Song of the Surf
White steeds of ocean, that leap with a hollow and wearisome roar
On the bar of ironstone steep, not a fathom's length from the shore,
Is there never a seer nor sophist can interpret your wild refrain,
When speech the harshest and roughest is seldom studied in vain ?
My ears are constantly smitten by that dreary monotone,
In a hieroglyphic 'tis written—'tis spoken in a tongue unknown ;
Gathering, growing, and swelling, and surging, and shivering, say !
What is the tale you are telling ? what is the drift of your lay ?
You come, and your crests are hoary with the foam of your countless years ;
You break, with a rainbow of glory, through the spray of your glittering tears.
Is your song a song of gladness ? a paean of joyous might ?
Or a wail of discordant sadness for the wrongs you never can right ?
For the empty seat by the ingle ? for children reft of their sire ?
For the bride, sitting sad, and single, and pale, by the flickering fire ?
For your ravenous pools of suction ? for your shattering billow swell ?
For your ceaseless work of destruction ? for your hunger insatiable ?
Not far from this very place, on the sand and the shingle dry,
He lay, with his batter'd face upturned to the frowning sky.
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Cui Bono
Oh! wind that whistles o'er thorns and thistles,
Of this fruitful earth like a goblin elf;
Why should he labour to help his neighbour
Who feels too reckless to help himself?
The wail of the breeze in the bending trees
Is something between a laugh and a groan;
And the hollow roar of the surf on the shore
Is a dull, discordant monotone;
I wish I could guess what sense they express,
There's a meaning, doubtless, in every sound,
Yet no one can tell, and it may be as well —
Whom would it profit? — The world goes round!
On this earth so rough we know quite enough,
And, I sometimes fancy, a little too much;
The sage may be wiser than clown or than kaiser,
Is he more to be envied for being such?
Neither more nor less, in his idleness
The sage is doom'd to vexation sure;
The kaiser may rule, but the slippery stool,
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Quare Fatigasti
Two years ago I was thinking
On the changes that years bring forth ;
Now I stand where I then stood drinking
The gust and the salt sea froth ;
And the shuddering wave strikes, linking
With the waves subsiding and sinking,
And clots the coast herbage, shrinking,
With the hue of the white cere-cloth.
Is there aught worth losing or keeping ?
The bitters or sweets men quaff ?
The sowing or the doubtful reaping ?
The harvest of grain or chaff ?
Or squandering days or heaping,
Or waking seasons or sleeping,
The laughter that dries the weeping,
Or the weeping that drowns the laugh ?
For joys wax dim and woes deaden,
We forget the sorrowful biers,
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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No Name
“A stone upon her heart and head,
But no name written on that stone;
Sweet neighbours whisper low instead,
This sinner was a loving one.”
— Mrs. Browning.
'Tis a nameless stone that stands at your head —
The gusts in the gloomy gorges whirl
Brown leaves and red till they cover your bed —
Now I trust that your sleep is a sound one, girl!
I said in my wrath, when his shadow cross'd
From your garden gate to your cottage door,
“What does it matter for one soul lost?
Millions of souls have been lost before.”
Yet I warn'd you — ah! but my words came true —
“Perhaps some day you will find him out.”
He who was not worthy to loosen your shoe,
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Ars Longa
[A Song of Pilgrimage]
Our hopes are wild imaginings,
Our schemes are airy castles,
Yet these, on earth, are lords and kings,
And we their slaves and vassals ;
Yon dream, forsooth, of buoyant youth,
Most ready to deceive is,
But age will own the bitter truth,
'Ars longa, vita brevis.'
The hill of life with eager feet
We climbed in merry morning,
But on the downward track we meet
The shades of twilight warning ;
The shadows gaunt they fall aslant ;
And those who scaled Ben Nevis,
Against the mole-hills toil and pant,
'Ars longa, vita brevis.'
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Deliah
[From a Picture]
The sun has gone down, spreading wide on
The sky-line one ray of red fire ;
Prepare the soft cushions of Sidon,
Make ready the rich loom of Tyre.
The day, with its toil and its sorrow,
Its shade, and its sunshine, at length
Has ended ; dost fear for the morrow,
Strong man, in the pride of thy strength ?
Like fire-flies, heavenward clinging,
They multiply, star upon star ;
And the breeze a low murmur is bringing
From the tents of my people afar.
Nay, frown not, I am but a Pagan,
Yet little for these things I care ;
'Tis the hymn to our deity Dagon,
That comes with the pleasant night-air.
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Thick-headed Thoughts
No. I
I've something of the bull-dog in my breed,
The spaniel is developed somewhat less ;
While life is in me I can fight and bleed,
But never the chastising hand caress.
You say the stroke was well intended. 'True.'
You mention 'It was meant to do me good.'
'That may be.' 'You deserve it.' 'Granted, too.'
'Then take it kindly.' 'No-I never could.'
. . . . . . .
How many a resolution to amend
Is made and broken, as the years run round !
And how can others on your word depend,
When faithless to ourselves we're often found ?
I've often swore—'Henceforward I'll reform,
And bid my vices, follies, all take wing.'
To keep my promise, 'mid temptation's storm,
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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A Basket of Flowers
From Dawn to Dusk
DAWN
ON skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose, shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.
. . . . . . .
Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Bellona
Thou art moulded in marble impassive,
False goddess, fair statue of strife,
Yet standest on pedestal massive,
A symbol and token of life.
Thou art still, not with stillness of languor,
And calm, not with calm boding rest;
For thine is all wrath and all anger
That throbs far and near in the breast
Of man, by thy presence possess'd.
With the brow of a fallen archangel,
The lips of a beautiful fiend,
And locks that are snake-like to strangle,
And eyes from whose depths may be glean'd
The presence of passions, that tremble
Unbidden, yet shine as they may
Through features too proud to dissemble,
Too cold and too calm to betray
Their secrets to creatures of clay.
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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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 we all must go.
There are perils by land, and perils by water,
Short, I ween, are the obsequies
Of the landsman lost, but they may be shorter
With the mariner lost in the trackless seas;
And well for him, when the timbers start,
And the stout ship reels and settles below,
Who goes to his doom with as bold a heart,
As that dead man gone where we all must go.
Man is stubborn his rights to yield,
And redder than dews at eventide
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poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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