Poems by Adam Lindsay Gordon

Whose science claims some little share Of truth, what better things lay there? Aye! thought and mind were there,--some kind Of faculty that men mistake For talent when their wits are blind,-- An aptitude to mar and break What others diligently make. This was the worst and best of him-- Wise with the cunning of the snake, Brave with the she wolf's courage grim, Dying hard and dumb, torn limb from limb. And you, Brown, you're a doctor; cure You can't, but you can kill, and he-- "WITNESS HIS MARK"--he signed last year, And now he signs John Smith, J.P. We'll hold our inquest NOW, we three; I'll be your coroner for once; I think old Oswald ought to be Our foreman--Jones is such a dunce,-- There's more brain in the bloodhound's sconce. No man may shirk the allotted work, The deed to do, the death to die; At least I think so,--neither Turk, Nor Jew, nor infidel am I,-- And yet I wonder when I try To solve one question, may or must, And shall I solve it by-and-by, Beyond the dark, beneath the dust? I trust so, and I only trust. Aye, what they will, such trifles kill. Comrade, for one good deed of yours, Your history shall not help to fill The mouths of many brainless boors. It may be death absolves or cures The sin of life. 'Twere hazardous To assert so. If the sin endures, Say only, "God, who has judged him thus, Be merciful to him and us." How we Beat the Favourite A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup "Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens; The race is all over, bar shouting, they say; The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is sweeter Than ever--he swears he can win all the way. "A gentleman rider--well, I'm an outsider, But if he's a gent who the mischief's a jock? You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the plunder, He rides, too, like thunder--he sits like a rock. "He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely Been stripp'd for a trot within sight of the hounds, A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and Yorick, And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds. "They say we have no test to warrant a protest; Dick rides for a lord and stands in with a steward; The light of their faces they show him--his case is Prejudged and his verdict already secured. "But none can outlast her, and few travel faster, She strides in her work clean away from The Drag; You hold her and sit her, she couldn't be fitter, Whenever you hit her she'll spring like a stag. "And p'rhaps the green jacket, at odds though they back it, May fall, or there's no knowing what may turn up; The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady, Keep cool; and I think you may just win the Cup." Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for the tussle, Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb, A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry, A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb. Some parting injunction, bestowed with great unction, I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce, When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White Surrey, Came down in a hurry to start us at once. "Keep back in the yellow! Come up on Othello! Hold hard on the chestnut! Turn round on The Drag! Keep back there on Spartan! Back you, sir, in tartan! So, steady there, easy!" and down went the flag. We started, and Kerr made strong running on Mermaid, Through furrows that led to the first stake-and-bound, The crack, half extended, look'd bloodlike and splendid, Held wide on the right where the headland was sound. I pulled hard to baffle her rush with the snaffle, Before her two-thirds of the field got away, All through the wet pasture where floods of the last year Still loitered, they clotted my crimson with clay. The fourth fence, a wattle, floor'd Monk and Bluebottle; The Drag came to grief at the blackthorn and ditch, The rails toppled over Redoubt and Red Rover, The lane stopped Lycurgus and Leicestershire Witch. She passed like an arrow Kildare and Cock Sparrow, And Mantrap and Mermaid refused the stone wall; And Giles on The Greyling came down at the paling, And I was left sailing in front of them all. I took them a burster, nor eased her nor nursed her Until the Black Bullfinch led into the plough, And through the strong bramble we bored with a scramble-- My cap was knock'd off by the hazel-tree bough. Where furrows looked lighter I drew the rein tighter-- Her dark chest all dappled with flakes of white foam, Her flanks mud-bespattered, a weak rail she shattered-- We landed on turf with our heads turn'd for home. Then crash'd a low binder, and then close behind her The sward to the strokes of the favourite shook; His rush roused her mettle, yet ever so little She shortened her stride as we raced at the brook. She rose when I hit her. I saw the stream glitter, A wide scarlet nostril flashed close to my knee, Between sky and water The Clown came and caught her, The space that he cleared was a caution to see. And forcing the running, discarding all cunning, A length to the front went the rider in green; A long strip of stubble, and then the big double, Two stiff flights of rails with a quickset between. She raced at the rasper, I felt my knees grasp her, I found my hands give to her strain on the bit; She rose when The Clown did--our silks as we bounded Brush'd lightly, our stirrups clash'd loud as we lit. A rise steeply sloping, a fence with stone coping-- The last--we diverged round the base of the hill; His path was the nearer, his leap was the clearer, I flogg'd up the straight, and he led sitting still. She came to his quarter, and on still I brought her, And up to his girth, to his breastplate she drew; A short prayer from Neville just reach'd me, "The devil!" He mutter'd--lock'd level the hurdles we flew. A hum of hoarse cheering, a dense crowd careering, All sights seen obscurely, all shouts vaguely heard; "The green wins!" "The crimson!" The multitude swims on, And figures are blended and features are blurr'd. "The horse is her master!" "The green forges past her!" "The Clown will outlast her!" "The Clown wins!" "The Clown!" The white railing races with all the white faces, The chestnut outpaces, outstretches the brown. On still past the gateway she strains in the straightway, Still struggles, "The Clown by a short neck at most," He swerves, the green scourges, the stand rocks and surges, And flashes, and verges, and flits the white post. Aye! so ends the tussle,--I knew the tan muzzle Was first, though the ring-men were yelling "Dead heat!" A nose I could swear by, but Clarke said, "The mare by A short head." And that's how the favourite was beat. Fragmentary Scenes from the Road to Avernus An Unpublished Dramatic Lyric Scene I "Discontent" LAURENCE RABY. Laurence: I said to young Allan M'Ilveray, Beside the swift swirls of the North, When, in lilac shot through with a silver ray, We haul'd the strong salmon fish forth-- Said only, "He gave us some trouble To land him, and what does he weigh? Our friend has caught one that weighs double, The game for the candle won't pay Us to-day, We may tie up our rods and away." I said to old Norman M'Gregor, Three leagues to the west of Glen Dhu-- I had drawn, with a touch of the trigger, The best BEAD that ever I drew-- Said merely, "For birds in the stubble I once had an eye--I could swear He's down--but he's not worth the trouble Of seeking. You once shot a bear In his lair-- 'Tis only a buck that lies there." I said to Lord Charles only last year, The time that we topp'd the oak rail Between Wharton's plough and Whynne's pasture, And clear'd the big brook in Blakesvale-- We only--at Warburton's double He fell, then I finish'd the run And kill'd clean--said, "So bursts a bubble That shone half an hour in the sun-- What is won? Your sire clear'd and captured a gun." I said to myself, in true sorrow, I said yestere'en, "A fair prize Is won, and it may be to-morrow 'Twill not seem so fair in thine eyes-- Real life is a race through sore trouble, That gains not an inch on the goal, And bliss an intangible bubble That cheats an unsatisfied soul, And the whole Of the rest an illegible scroll." Scene VII "Two Exhortations" A Shooting-box in the West of Ireland. A Bedchamber. LAURENCE RABY and MELCHIOR. Night. Melchior: Surely in the great beginning God made all things good, and still That soul-sickness men call sinning entered not without His will. Nay, our wisest have asserted that, as shade enhances light, Evil is but good perverted, wrong is but the foil of right. Banish sickness, then you banish joy for health to all that live; Slay all sin, all good must vanish, good being but comparative. Sophistry, you say--yet listen: look you skyward, there 'tis known Worlds on worlds in myriads glisten--larger, lovelier than our own-- This has been, and this still shall be, here as there, in sun or star; These things are to be and will be, those things were to be and are. Man in man's imperfect nature is by imperfection taught: Add one cubit to your stature if you can by taking thought. Laurence: Thus you would not teach that peasant, though he calls you "father". Melchior: True, I should magnify this present, mystify that future, too-- We adapt our conversation always to our hearer's light. Laurence: I am not of your persuasion. Melchior: Yet the difference is but slight. Laurence: I, EVEN I, say, "He who barters worldly weal for heavenly worth He does well"--your saints and martyrs were examples here on earth. Melchior: Aye, in earlier Christian ages, while the heathen empire stood, When the war 'twixt saints and sages cried aloud for saintly blood, Christ was then their model truly. Now, if all were meek and pure, Save the ungodly and the unruly, would the Christian Church endure? Shall the toiler or the fighter dream by day and watch by night, Turn the left cheek to the smiter, smitten rudely on the right? Strong men must encounter bad men--so-called saints of latter days Have been mostly pious madmen, lusting after righteous praise-- Or the thralls of superstition, doubtless worthy some reward, Since they came by their condition hardly of their free accord. 'Tis but madness, sad and solemn, that these fakir-Christians feel-- Saint Stylites on his column gratified a morbid zeal. Laurence: By your showing, good is really on a par (of worth) with ill. Melchior: Nay, I said not so; I merely tell you both some ends fulfil-- Priestly vows were my vocation, fast and vigil wait for me. You must work and face temptation. Never should the strong man flee, Though God wills the inclination with the soul at war to be. (Pauses.) In the strife 'twixt flesh and spirit, while you can the spirit aid.