future, unsolved by Egyptian
Or Theban, unspoken by Sphynx?
The riddle remains yet, unravell'd
By students consuming night oil.
O earth! we have toil'd, we have travailed:
How long shall we travail and toil?

By the classics Gordon was always very much fascinated. He loved what he
calls 'the scroll that is godlike and Greek,' though he is rather
uncertain about his quantities, rhyming 'Polyxena' to 'Athena' and
'Aphrodite' to 'light,' and occasionally makes very rash statements, as
when he represents Leonidas exclaiming to the three hundred at
Thermopylae:

'Ho! comrades let us gaily dine--
This night with Plato we shall sup,'

if this be not, as we hope it is, a printer's error. What the
Australians liked best were his spirited, if somewhat rough, horse-racing
and hunting poems. Indeed, it was not till he found that How We Beat the
Favourite was on everybody's lips that he consented to forego his
anonymity and appear in the unsuspected character of a verse-writer,
having up to that time produced his poems shyly, scribbled them on scraps
of paper, and sent them unsigned to the local magazines. The fact is
that the social atmosphere of Melbourne was not favourable to poets, and
the worthy colonials seem to have shared Audrey's doubts as to whether
poetry was a true and honest thing. It was not till Gordon won the Cup
Steeplechase for Major Baker in 1868 that he became really popular, and
probably there were many who felt that to steer Babbler to the winning-
post was a finer achievement than 'to babble o'er green fields.'

On the whole, it is impossible not to regret that Gordon ever emigrated.
His literary power cannot be denied, but it was stunted in uncongenial
surroundings and marred by the rude life he was forced to lead. Australia
has converted many of our failures into prosperous and admirable
mediocrities, but she certainly spoiled one of our poets for us. Ovid at
Tomi is not more tragic than Gordon driving cattle or farming an
unprofitable sheep-ranch.

That Australia, however, will some day make amends by producing a poet of
her own we cannot doubt, and for him there will be new notes to sound and
new wonders to tell of. The description, given by Mr. Marcus Clarke in
the preface to this volume, of the aspect and spirit of Nature in
Australia is most curious and suggestive. The Australian forests, he
tells us, are funereal and stern, and 'seem to stifle, in their