and a head full of Browning and Shelley, plunged into the varied life
which gold-mining, "overlanding", and cattle-driving affords.
From this experience he emerged to light in Melbourne as the best
amateur steeplechase rider in the colonies. The victory he won
for Major Baker in 1868, when he rode Babbler for the Cup Steeplechase,
made him popular, and the almost simultaneous publication
of his last volume of poems gave him welcome entrance to the houses
of all who had pretensions to literary taste. The reputation of the book
spread to England, and Major Whyte Melville did not disdain
to place the lines of the dashing Australian author at the head
of his own dashing descriptions of sporting scenery. Unhappily,
the melancholy which Gordon's friends had with pain observed
increased daily, and in the full flood of his success, with congratulations
pouring upon him from every side, he was found dead in the heather
near his home with a bullet from his own rifle in his brain.

I do not propose to criticise the volumes which these few lines of preface
introduce to the reader. The influence of Browning and of Swinburne
upon the writer's taste is plain. There is plainly visible also, however,
a keen sense for natural beauty and a manly admiration for healthy living.
If in "Ashtaroth" and "Bellona" we recognise the swing of a familiar metre,
in such poems as "The Sick Stockrider" we perceive the genuine
poetic instinct united to a very clear perception of the loveliness of duty
and of labour.

"'Twas merry in the glowing morn, among the gleaming grass,
To wander as we've wandered many a mile,
And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass,
Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while;
'Twas merry 'mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs,