Adam Lindsay Gordon.



A Dedication


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 wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.

Where in dreariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large flood-gates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed from storm,
From broken-up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion --
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion --
Song shaped without form.

Whence gather'd? -- The locust's glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring of a rowel and stirrup,