MEMORIAL IN ABBEY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 151, 28 June 1934, Page 3

MEMORIAL IN ABBEY

ADAM LINDSAY GORDON AUSTRALIA’S POET. On October 19, 1883, was bom at Faya], in the Azores, Adam Lindsay Gordon, the national poet of Australia, to whom a memorial has been unveiled in Westminster Abbey, says a writer in in Alanchestcr Guardian, lie was the son of a retired Scottish captain, and descended on both sides from the Fails of Aberdeen. His father in his later life taught Hindustani at Cheltenham College, and here Adam first went t» school. He passed from Cheltenham to Woolwich, where he was the contemporary and friend of his namesake. Genial Gordon. His tastes were not, primarily academic, though it is said that in Australia his inseparable companions were the “Odes” and the “Ars. Poetica” of Horace. He had a passion for horsemanship and field sports, which led him into various irregularities and shortly caused him to emigrate. Landing at Adelaide he served as a police trooper for two years, and had an adventurous career in the South Australian bush. Inheriting a sum of £7OOO from his mother, he sat for two years (1865-66) in the South Australian Parliament. This legacy was, however, soon dissipated, and he opened a livery stable at Ballarat, in Victoria. Here he married a domestic servant, and, being (it is said) of a sensitive, proud, and melancholic temperament, he was induced to believe that he had iost cast. This impression was quite, ill-founded, for he retained to the last the respect and affection of his friends. Lindsay Gordon was the best amateur steeplechase lider of his time; a man also who avoided the worse excesses of the bush, chivalrous to women, and with no sordid interests in the turf. He was bitterly disappointed in his endeavour to make good his claim to the succession of an estate, in Aberdeenshire. It has been thought that his financial.J troubles, together with a morbid and unfounded belief that his poems were a failure, unhinged his mind. He went out and shot himself on the beach of Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, on June 24, 1870. His Poems. Gordon’s poems include “Sea-spray and Smoke-drift” (1867), “Ashtaroth” (1867), and “Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes” (1870). He had also a predilection for dramatic romances based on medieval traditions, in which class the “Rhyme of Joyous I Garde” may be mentioned. “Ash’.taroth” has been said to show the influence of “Faust” and “Alanfred. ” I His technical masters were Byron and I Browning. (Swinburne and Tennyson. I Yet, though the influence of these poets is metrically predominant, it remains true that in Lindsay Gordon’s work | there is a personality which pervades, land finally triumphs over, the mere 1 metrical form. Like Byron himself [Gordon’s spirit is too powerful to be ! ever completely held in or shackled by I the more material fetters of forms and words. I It has been contended, and most I critics indeed are inclined to admit, I that Gordon is not tvpically Australian either in his outlook, the imagery of | his poems, or their atmospheie. “From j the Wreck,” indeed, and “Wolf and i Hound’ arc found on colonial experi- : once. But, unlike Kendall, Gordon, it lis said, never takes the Australian I scene for his sole subject. He remains, I in fact, though he may have changed his sky, the same in mind—a typical | Briton. Even his famous description of

the steeplechase, “How We Beat the Favourite,” was inspired not by tho bush but by the memory of his early races at Cheltenham. A Changed Man. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that big attitude towards men and Nature was modified and coloured by his sojourn under the (Southern Cross. Nut only is there regret for England and home longing, but his verses seem to be tinged by a peculiar melancholy. His poem “The Sick Stockrider” draws on scenes and incidents with which he must have been familiar during his years with the Mounted Police. It ends: — The deep blue skies wax dusky, and the tall green trees grow dim, The sward beneath me seems V> ,1 heave and fall; And sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim, And on the very sun’s face weave their pail. Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave, With never stone or rail to fence my bed; Should the sturdy children pull the lush flowers on my grave, 1 may chance to hear them romping overhead. There is, of course, no pretence of the “grand style” about poetry of this nature. The words come straight down, almost out of daily speech. And certain lines, taken by themselves, might well find a place in a collection of bathos. But the voice and the character eairy the poem through; and Lindsay Gordon was the author of some verses which greater poets might have been proud to write. If Gordon borrowed from Tennyson or Swinburne in our own day Mr. Kipling and Sir Henry Newbolt must at least be assumed to be acquainted with the Australian ’s poems. Gordon’s poem “How We Beat the Favourite” is said to be the best ballad of the turf in the English language. As Mr. W. 11. Ogilvie wrote in his memorial verses in the Field for October 21, 1933: With blossoms of lyrics and idylls The paths of the world as strown, But Gordon, aloof and alone, Has fastened a rose on our bridles— A sweet wild rose of his own.