Belgravia by Night

'Move on!'

'THE foxes have holes,
And the birds of the air have nests,
But where shall the heads of the sons of men
Be laid, be laid?'

'Where the cold corpse rests,
Where the sightless moles
Burrow and yet cannot make it afraid,
Rout but cannot wake it again,
There shall the heads of the sons of men
Be laid, be laid!'

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Defeat?

WHO is it speaks of defeat? —
I tell you a Cause like ours
Is greater than defeat can know;
It is the power of powers!
As surely as the earth rolls round,
As surely as the glorious sun
Follows the great world moon-wave,
Must our Cause be won!
What is defeat to us? —
Learn what a skirmish tells,
While the great Army marches on
To storm earth's Hells!

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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To Sydney Jephcott

(The friend my verse won for me)

With a Copy of My 'Poetical Works'
'TAKE with all my heart, friend, this,
The labour of my past,
Though the heart here hidden is
And the soul's eternities
Hold the present fast.
'Take it, still, with soul and heart,
Pledge of that dear day
When the shadows stir and start,
By the bright Sun burst apart —
Young Australia!'

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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The Fisherman

(Mindanao, Philippines)

IN the dark waveless sea,
Deep blue under deep blue,
The fisher drifts by on the tide
In his small pole-balanced canoe.
Above him the cloud-capped hills
Crown the dense jungly sweeps;
The cocoa-nut groves hedge round
The hut where the beach-wave sleeps.
Is it not better so
To be as this Savage is,
Than to live the Wage-slave's life
Of hopeless agonies?

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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To A. L. Gordon

In night-long days, in aeons
   where all Time's nights are one;
where life and death sing paeans
as of Greeks and Galileans,
   never begun or done;

where fate, the slow swooping condor,
   comes glooming all the sky --
as you have pondered I ponder,
as you have wandered I wander,
   as you have died, shall I die?

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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The Australian Flag

PURE blue Flag of heaven
With your silver stars,
Not beside those Crosses'
Blood-stained torture-bars:
Not beside the token
The foul sea-harlot gave,
Pure blue Flag of heaven,
Must you ever wave!
No, but young exultant,
Free from care and crime,
The soulless selfish England
Of this later time:
No, but, faithful, noble
Rising from her grave,
Flag of light and liberty,
For ever must you wave!

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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A South-Sea Islander

ALOLL in the warm clear water,
On her back with languorous limbs,
She lies. The baby upon her breasts
Paddles and falls and swims.
With half-closed eyes she smiles,
Guarding it with her hands;
And the sob swells up in my heart —
In my heart that understands.
Dear, in the English country,
The hatefullest land on earth,
The mothers are starved and the children die,
And death is better than birth!

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Jesus

WHERE is poor Jesus gone?
He sits with Dives now,
And his dogs flesh their teeth
On Lazarus below.
Where is poor Jesus gone?
He is with Magdalen.
He doles her piece by piece,
Her pittance of shame!
Where is poor Jesus gone?
The good Samaritan,
What does he there alone?
He stabs the wounded man!
Where is poor Jesus gone,
The lamb they sacrificed? —
They've made God of his carrion
And labelled it 'Christ!'

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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A Street Fight

SIR, we approve your curling lip and nose
At this vile sight.
These men, these women are 'brute beasts'? — Who knows,
Sir, but that you are right?
Panders and harlots, rogues and thieves and worse,
We are a crew
Whose pitiful plunder's honoured in the purse
Of gentlemen (like you),
Whom holy Competition's taught (like us)
'What's thine is mine!' —
How we must love you who have made us thus,
You may perhaps divine!

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Toil

I TOIL, I toil, as toils a jaded horse
Around the ever-changing changeless track
From sunrise on to sunset, till the mill,
That grinds in flour my heart and soul, is still,
And the ropes are loosed, and I may leave my course
And silent, alone with the night, go back
To misery and the cruel sleep whose breasts,
Bitter to suck, give poisoned milk. And this
Is my life! And everything attests
Hell's fleshless hand that holds me pitiless!

poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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