egends as there
were, he left to other pens.

In all of his best poems, there is some central human interest,
something that tells for courage, honour, manly resignation. When a
story does not come readily to his hand in the new world, he seeks one
in the old. He fondly turns to the spacious days of the old knighthood,
when men drank and loved deeply, when they were ready to put happiness
or life itself upon a single hazard. The subjects that Gordon best liked
were short dramatic romances, which he found it easier to evolve from
literature than from the life and history of his adopted country. Beyond
the compositions upon the national sport of horse-racing, the only
noteworthy Australian subjects in his three slender volumes are 'The
Sick Stockrider's Review of the Excitements and Pleasures of a Careless
Bush Life, and his Pathetic Self-satisfaction'; 'The Story of a
Shipwreck'; 'Wolf and Hound,' which describes a duel between the
hunted-down bushranger and a trooper; and some verses on the death of
the explorer Burke. 'Ashtaroth,' an elaborate attempt at a sustained
dramatic lyric in the manner of Goethe's 'Faust' and 'Manfred,' fills
one of the three volumes, and among shorter pieces in the other two are
more than a dozen suggested by the poet's reading, by his recollections
of English life, and, in a notable instance, by one of the most
memorable of modern European wars.

In a dedication prefixed to the _Bush Ballads_, Gordon suggests some of
the local sources of his inspiration. He obviously overstates his
obligations to the country. Some of the best of the poems in this, the
most characteristic collection of his work, have no association with it
whatever. 'The Sick Stockrider,' 'From the Wreck,' and 'Wolf and Hound'
are colonial experiences, finely described. But most of the remaining
poems, while they owe something to Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne,
are not in any sense Australian.

'In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
'Twixt shadow and shine,
When each dew-laden air resembles
A long draught of wine,
When the skyline's blue burnished resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some songs in all hearts have existence:
Such songs have been mine.'

But where, save in the retrospect of 'The Sick Stockrider' and a verse
or two of 'From the Wreck,' shall we find any of the air of the lovely,
transient Australian spring? It is rather absurd to place with _Bush
Ballads_ the 'R