Preface.



The poems of Gordon have an interest beyond the mere personal one
which his friends attach to his name. Written, as they were,
at odd times and leisure moments of a stirring and adventurous life,
it is not to be wondered at if they are unequal or unfinished.
The astonishment of those who knew the man, and can gauge the capacity
of this city to foster poetic instinct, is that such work was ever
produced here at all. Intensely nervous, and feeling much of that shame
at the exercise of the higher intelligence which besets those who are known
to be renowned in field sports, Gordon produced his poems shyly,
scribbled them on scraps of paper, and sent them anonymously to magazines.
It was not until he discovered one morning that everybody knew
a couplet or two of "How we Beat the Favourite" that he consented to forego
his anonymity and appear in the unsuspected character of a versemaker.
The success of his republished "collected" poems gave him courage,
and the unreserved praise which greeted "Bush Ballads" should have
urged him to forget or to conquer those evil promptings which, unhappily,
brought about his untimely death.

Adam Lindsay Gordon was the son of an officer in the English army,
and was educated at Woolwich, in order that he might follow the profession
of his family. At the time when he was a cadet there was no sign
of either of the two great wars which were about to call forth the strength
of English arms, and, like many other men of his day, he quitted
his prospects of service and emigrated. He went to South Australia
and started as a sheep farmer. His efforts were attended with failure.
He lost his capital, and, owning nothing but a love for horsemanship