Selected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon 1912

Dustjacket synopsis:
"First published in 1912, Selected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon contains the first stirrings of a national school of Australian poetry. Gordon's poems are predominantly poems of action and human passion; his sometimes naive, sometimes ironic comments on life may be largely the result of early experience - a moody sensitiveness that developed into melancholia, and finally caused him to end his life.

"Gordon was the first Australian poet to be read by the ordinary man. His riding rhymes were an important factor in the creation of the Australian ballad by Paterson and others. Perhaps H.M. Green speaks for the reader when he writes, '... we read Gordon "not for the fine phrases, but for the directness of some cry, and above all for the breadth and effectiveness of any utterance ... taken as a whole". And we read him because even if we ourselves are not hunters, sportsmen, soldiers, adventurers, he uncovers some underlying stratum of such men in us, opening up to us the road of adventure and blowing over it the wind of romance.'

"By adhering closely to the original 1912 format, the edition preserves the sensitive and dramatic arrangement of its selections and allows us to explore every facet of Gordon's work in its natural beauty."

Contents

SEA SPRAY AND SMOKE DRIFT

Podas Okus
Gone
Unshriven
YE WEARIE WAYFAITER, Hys BALLAD.-IN EIGHT FYTTES:
  Fytte    I. By Wood and Wold (A Preamble)
             II. By Flood and Field (A Legend of the Cotswold)
            III. Zu der edlen Yagd (A treatise on Trees)
            IV. In Utrumque Paratus (A Logical Discussion)
             V. Ux Talionis (A Moral Discourse)
            VI. Potters' Clay (An Allegorical Interlude)
           VII. Cito Pede Prete 'rit Etu (A Philosophical Dissertation)
          VIII. Finis Exoptatus (A Metaphysical Song)
Borrow'd Plumes. (A Preface and a Piracy
Pastor Cum. (Translation from Horace)
A Legend of Madrid. (Translated from the Spanish)
Fauconshawe. (A Ballad)
Rippling Water
Cui Bono
Bellona
The Song of the Surf
Whisperings in Wattle-Boughs
Confiteor
Sunlight on the Sea. (The Philosophy of a Feast)
Delilab. (From a Picture)
From Lightning and Tempest
Wormwood and Nightshade
Ars Longa, (A Song of Pilgrimage)
The Last Leap
Quare Fatigasti
HIPPODROMANIA; OR, WHIFFS FROM THE PIPE.-IN FIVE PARTS:
  Part  I. Visions in the Smoke
         II. The Fields of Coleraine
        III. Credat Judmus Apella
        IV. Banker's Dream
         V. Ex Fumo Dare Lueem. ('Twixt the Cup and the Lip)
The Roll of the Kettledrum; or, the Lay of the Last Charger

BUSH BALLADS AND GALLOPING RHYMES

A Dedication
The Sick Stockrider
The Swimmer
From the Wreck
No Name
Wolf and Hound
De Te
How We Beat the Favourite (A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup)
FRAGMENTARY SCENES FROM 'THE ROAD To AVERNUS':
  Scene  I. 'Discontent'
          VII. 'Two Exhortations'
           IX. 'In the Garden'
            X. 'After the Quarrel'
           XI. 'Ten Paces Off'
  Last Scene. 'Exeunt'
Doubtful Dreams
The Rhyme of Joyous Garde
Thora's Song. ('Ashtaroth')
The Three Friends. (From the French
A Song of Autumn
The Romance of Britomarte
Laudamus
A Basket of Flowers
A Fragment

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

To My Sister
'The Old Leaven.' (A Dialogue)
An Exile's Farewell
'Early Adieux'
A Hunting Song
To a Proud Beauty
Thick-headed Thoughts
ASHTAROTH

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX I. Stray Poems of Gordon:
'I am weary, let me go'
Vac Victis
Exodus Parthenidae
The Old Station
Argemone
Verses inspired by 'My Old Black Pipe'
The Feud

APPENDIX II. In Memoriam A. L. Gordon. A Poem by Henry Kendall

From the Angus and Robertson hardback edition, 1986.

This page and its contents are copyright © 2001-07 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: December 11, 2007.