Gone
by Adam Lindsay Gordon
IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall,
A statue tall, on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story, to great and small,
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone;
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man;
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go.
There are perils by land, and perils by water,
Short, I ween, are the obsequies
Of the landsman lost, but they may be shorter
With the mariner lost in the trackless seas;
And well for him, when the timbers start,
And the stout ship reels and settles below,
Who goes to his doom with as bold a heart,
As that dead man gone where we all must go.
Man is stubborn his rights to yield,
And redder than dews at eventide
Are the dews of battle, shed on the field,
By a nation’s wrath or a despot’s pride;
But few who have heard their death-knell roll,
From the cannon’s lips where they faced the foe,
Have fallen as stout and steady of soul,
As that dead man gone where we all must go.
Traverse yon spacious burial ground,
Many are sleeping soundly there,
Who pass’d with mourners standing around,
Kindred, and friends, and children fair;
Did he envy such ending? ’twere hard to say;
Had he cause to envy such ending? no;
Can the spirit feel for the senseless clay,
When it once has gone where we all must go?
What matters the sand or the whitening chalk,
The blighted herbage, the black’ning log,
The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk,
Or the hot red tongue of the native dog?
That couch was rugged, those sextons rude,
Yet, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know
That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms’ food,
When once they’ve gone where we all must go.
With the pistol clenched in his failing hand,
With the death mist spread o’er his fading eyes,
He saw the sun go down on the sand,
And he slept, and never saw it rise;
’Twas well; he toil’d till his task was done,
Constant and calm in his latest throe,
The storm was weathered, the battle was won,
When he went, my friends, where we all must go.
God grant that whenever, soon or late,
Our course is run and our goal is reach’d,
We may meet our fate as steady and straight
As he whose bones in yon desert bleach’d;
No tears are needed—our cheeks are dry,
We have none to waste upon living woe;
Shall we sigh for one who has ceased to sigh,
Having gone, my friends, where we all must go?
We tarry yet, we are toiling still,
He is gone and he fares the best,
He fought against odds, he struggled up hill,
He has fairly earned his season of rest;
No tears are needed—fill our the wine,
Let the goblets clash, and the grape juice flow,
Ho! pledge me a death-drink, comrade mine,
To a brave man gone where we all must go.
A few random poems:
- Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come by William Shakespeare
- The Effect by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ode for General Washington’s Birthday by Robert Burns
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше иностранцы шли в Россию как разбойники и воры… (Роста №105)
- Владимир Высоцкий – В Средней Азии безобразие
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мы вращаем Землю
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Happy Teacher’s Day by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- The Lily And The Rose by William Cowper
- Poetry And Politics
- Алексей Жемчужников – Отголосок девятой симфонии Бетховена
- Sitting Beside The Very Street by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Zunsheen In The Winter by William Barnes
- Francis II, King of Naples poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Apollo And The Graces poem – John Keats poems
- Answer To A Sonnet By J.H.Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- An Extempore poem – John Keats poems
- Acrostic : Georgiana Augusta Keats poem – John Keats poems
- A Song About Myself poem – John Keats poems
- A Prophecy: To George Keats In America poem – John Keats poems
- A Party Of Lovers poem – John Keats poems
- A Galloway Song poem – John Keats poems
- A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paolo And Francesca poem – John Keats poems
- A Draught Of Sunshine poem – John Keats poems
- Written On The Day That Mr Leigh Hunt Left Prison poem – John Keats poems
- Written On A Summer Evening poem – John Keats poems
- Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer’s Tale Of The Flowre And The Lefe poem – John Keats poems
- Written Before Re-Reading King Lear poem – John Keats poems
- Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell poem – John Keats poems
- Where’s the Poet? poem – John Keats poems
- Where Be Ye Going, You Devon Maid? poem – John Keats poems
- When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be poem – John Keats poems
- To The Nile poem – John Keats poems
- To Solitude poem – John Keats poems
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 – 1870) was an Australian or British-Australian poet, horseman, police officer and politician. He is considered to be one of the first national Australian poets.