ly
reputation was made. '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
verse-maker.' Even in this picture of the excitements of the turf, there
is nothing that would not be as true of Epsom or Ascot as of Randwick or
Flemington. Yet, it _is_ Australian in the sense that it expresses the
one taste which, of all those inherited by the people from their British
ancestors, seems never likely to be lost (as it was by the American
colonists)--which, on the contrary, has gained in ardour in the new
land. Gordon was a pronounced believer in the efficacy of field sports
as a means of maintaining the nerve and hardihood of the race. In one of
his minor pieces he vigorously affirms that

'If once we efface the joys of the chase
From the land, and out-root the Stud,
Good-bye to the Anglo-Saxon Race,
Farewell to the Norman Blood.'

With him the fearless huntsman makes the fearless soldier. Both are to
be cultivated and admired, and when the latter dies needlessly, as at
Balaclava, we are to be none the less proud of him,

'As a type of our chivalry.'

Of the longer poems, the two best in artistic quality are 'The Rhyme of
Joyous Garde' and 'The Sick Stockrider.' They afford a complete contrast
in subject, tone and treatment. The old Arthurian story is the finer and
more finished. There is a nobility in its expression not elsewhere
equalled by the author. But the other poem is more direct and simple in
its pathos, more easily understood. It tells something of familiar
experience in language irresistibly touching and musical. It would be
interesting and a favourite if only through the obvious fact that it
describes in part some of Gordon's own early life.

''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 backwoods, when we spied the station roofs,
To wheel the wild-scrub cattle at the yard,
With a runni