Adam Lindsay Gordon Poems

Adam Lindsay Gordon
Adam Lindsay Gordon - Melbourne monumentAdam Lindsay Gordon (October 19, 1833 – 24 June 1870) was an Australian poet, jockey and politician. Gordon was born at Fayal in the Azores, son of Captain Adam Durnford Gordon, had married his first cousin, Harriet Gordon, and both were descended from Adam of Gordon of the ballad, and were connected with other distinguished men of the intervening 500 years. Captain Gordon was then staying at the Azores for the sake of his wife's health. They were back in England living at Cheltenham in 1840, and in 1841 . Gordon entered Cheltenham College in 1847, but the following year he was sent to a school kept by the Rev. Samuel Ollis Garrard in Gloucestershire. In 1848 he attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. There he appears to have been good at sports, but not studious and certainly undisciplined — and like Richard Henry Horne, he was asked to leave. He was again admitted a pupil at Cheltenham College. He was not there for long, he appears to have left in the middle of 1852, but the story that he was expelled from Cheltenham is without foundation. Then he was sent to the Royal Grammar School Worcester in 1852. He began to lead a wild and aimless life, contracted debts, and was a great anxiety to his father, who at last decided that his son should go to Australia and make a fresh start in 1853 to join the mounted Police with a letter of introduction to the Governor. Gordon had fallen in love with a girl of 17, Jane Bridges, who was able to tell the story 60 years afterwards to his biographers. He did not declare his love until he came to say good-bye to her before leaving for Australia on 7 August 1853. "With characteristic recklessness he offered to sacrifice the passage he had taken to Australia, and all his father's plans for giving him a fresh start in life, if she would tell him not to go, or promise to be his wife, or even give him some hope." This Miss Bridges could not do, though she liked the shy handsome boy and remembered him with affection to the end of a long life. It was the one romance of Gordon's life. That Gordon realized his conduct had fallen much below what it might have been can be seen in his poems ... "To my Sister", written three days before he left England, and "Early Adieux", evidently written about the same time.


Page 1 of 1    

Poems

Poems Collection - poems, 2021 edition