Los Angeles herald., 1892-08-07
ABOUT SOME AUSTRALIAN POETS
The Literary Leaders Of the
South Continent.
An Unknown Minstrel Of the Sweet
est Song.
Adam Lindsay Gordon and His DreIan-
chOly End-Henry Lawson's Man
ly Verse = Louise Boyd's
Cradle Songs-Hakea.

"land of the dawn" had produced
real live poet. And yet if, in the mide
of the hurly-burly of gold digging excite
i ments, California could produce Ed
ward Pollock and Ina Coolbrith, surel
Australia had as good right to poe
as we. 1t was not till was sent owe
there in 1883 on a government errand
that / began to realize that the rud
3 -chivalry of pioneer days in the south con
tinent had evolved a separate school O
literature peculiar to that country
that more than one gifted Englisl
scholar had ended his days there il
blighted ambition and hopes never real
lied; and that the sad and funerea
type of Australian scenery had brought
( forth new school of poets, whose dom
inent keynote was the song of meIan-
choly. Edgar Allen Poe should have
been born there and not in America.
Unquestionably the foremost of Aus.
tralian writers was the late Marcus
Clarke. No matter who else was second
he will always be considered the first |;
and yet Marcus Clarke never wrote q
I stanza OF poetry in all his life. The
greatest work of his career is the convict
story of Rufus Dawes, which is called
For His Natural Life. It is beyond all
doubt the greatest novel written in the
English language in the past thirty
years. In bold, dramatic action it
stands beside the Monte Cristo of Du-
mas and the Miserables of Victor Hugo.
But it is OF poets, and not prose writers,
that had intended to speak.
Adam Lindsay Gordon takes the lead
OF all the Australian poets. He was
son of British army officer, and gradu-
ated seventh in class of eighty-two at
the Woolwich academy in 1852. The
Crimean war had not yet begun to
darken the horizon of Europe, and Cor
don's restless spirit chafed under the
dull routine of garrison life. He sold
bis commission that same year and en-
barked in sailing vessel for Adelaide,
where he arrived after voyage of six
months. He dug gold for several years,
and then became q cattle-drover, for
which his superb bhorsemanship eminent
1y fitted him. In 1850 he rode Major Rar-
ker's horse Babbler -fer~the Melbourne
Hunt clubs gold cup, and won it. Sew
eral months later, out came the Austria
lasian, one Saturday, with "How We
Beat the Favorite, Lay of the Loan
shire Hunts Club" and in ten days from
that time Gordon was famous man.
His old neighbors.at Mount Gambler,
near Adelaide, elected him to parlia-
.ment, in which he was a great disap-
tpointment, for his eloquence was con-
fined to his pen and did not extend to
his lips. He went to Melbourne and
there tell into company that was of no
great advantage to any man. In 1872
poor Gordon was Respondent and heav-
lily in debt; and one day the whole
community was shocked to hear that he
had shot himself through the heart on
the beach near Elsternwiek. Certainly
no other man ever described a horse as
Gordon did, and no man ever wrote a
race in poetry as he did, for his descrip-
tion Of, the Melbourne cup in Tim
Whiffless year is as inimitable as Mr..
Porter's description of the great duel
between Wagner and Gray Eagle at
Louisville. He pictures the field start
ing at the head OF the homestretch. and
running by the grand stand and around
the turn:
"The flag is lowered-they're Off They come!!
The squadron is sweeping on.
There's sway in the crowd and murmurlng
hum Nl5
They're here. they're past-they're gomez.
On the bar OF the storm -girt bay;
Like muffled drums on the echoing turf,
Their hoof-strokes are dying away"
In his beautiful little poem Of the
''Sick Stockrider" he pictures what has
so often happened in Austraiia-a brave
man dying from heat and thirst. His
final request is given in a very pathetic
touch: s ~
.Let me alumber in the hollow, where the wat
tie blossoms wave,
should the sturdy farmers children pluck the
wild fl0w'rs on my grave.
may chance to hear them romping over
head.
A marble statue, erected at cost of
$4,000 by Mrs. Macpherson, of Ballarat,
marks the intersection of two of the
largest streets in that beautiful little
CITY. One tenth of that sum, on that
dark and foggy July morning. twenty
wears ago, would have saved poor Cor
don,s life. His body slumbers in the
little cemetery that lies between Wind
sor and Balaklava, but his fame lives
bevond the grave. A colossal monu-
ment to Robert OHara Burke, stands
near the exhibition building in the
Carlton gardens, and the inscription is
the final verse Of Gordon's poem en-.
titled Dead in the Desert, referring te
the painful and agonizing end OF Burke
the explorer.
I'We tarry yet--we are toiliHg still:
He's gone, and think he fares the best.
He fought against odds and he struggled upnili
And he's fairly earned his season OF rest
Tears are but childfsh-brtng on the winel
Let the glasses clash and Jheirred juice HOW
Hol pledge me O death-drink, comrade mine
To brave man gone where we ali must go.
Some Of Gordon's more lengthy metri
! cal work, such as the Story OF Brito
marte and his Legend of Ashtaroth,
( regard as worthy of Tennyson, though
the style of the former seems to hav
patterned more closely after Brownin
than after the Laureate. I met /,
daughter of Gordon some time ago il
Melbourne, but she seemed to inheri
none of her fathers fire. Perhaps it i
just as well, for genius is curse t
some people.
J. Brunton Stephens was born 1886 a
Borrowstounness in Scotland, an
studied three years at Edinburgh un
versity, whence he departed as a ira,
cling tutor to one of the younger sons {
a duke. In 1866 he came to Queensland
and has since been identified with th
educational interests of that colony. /
1883 he was made confidential CORE
spondence clerk in the colonial secrt