Borrow’D Plumes Adam Lindsay Gordon [A Preface and a Piracy] PROLOGUE OF borrowd plumes I take the sin, My extracts will apply To some few silly songs which in These pages scatterd lie. The words are Edgar Allan Poes, As any man may see, But...
Bellona Adam Lindsay Gordon 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...
Ars Longa Adam Lindsay Gordon [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,...
Argemone Adam Lindsay Gordon The terrible night-watch is over, I turn where I lie, To eastward my dim eyes discover Faint streaks in the sky ; Faint streaks on a faint light that dapples And dawns like the ripening of apples, Closes with darkness and...
An Exile’s Farewell Adam Lindsay Gordon The ocean heaves around us still With long and measured swell, The autumn gales our canvas fill, Our ship rides smooth and well. The broad Atlantic’s bed of foam Still breaks against our prow; I shed no tears at...
A Song of Autumn Adam Lindsay Gordon WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had,...
A Legend of Madrid Adam Lindsay Gordon Francesca Crush’d and throng’d are all the places In our amphitheatre, ‘Midst a sea of swarming faces I can yet distinguish her ; Dost thou triumph, dark-brow’d Nina ? Is my secret known to thee ? On the...
A Hunting Song Adam Lindsay Gordon Here’s a health to every sportsman, be he stableman or lord, If his heart be true, I care not what his pocket may afford; And may he ever pleasantly each gallant sport pursue, If he takes his liquor fairly,...
A Fragment Adam Lindsay Gordon They say that poison-sprinkled flowers Are sweeter in perfume Than when, untouched by deadly dew, They glowed in early bloom. They say that men condemned to die Have quaffed the sweetened wine With higher relish than the juice Of the...
A Dedication Adam Lindsay Gordon They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less Of sound than of words, In lands where bright blossoms are scentless, And songless bright birds; Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses, Insatiable Summer oppresses Sere woodlands and sad...
