Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams Poems

1.

'YES, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve —
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth!'
...

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!
...

Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
Burst these fetters round you bound.
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
Lift your faces from the ground!
...

DO you want to hear a story,
With a nobler praise than 'glory,'
...

Death? is it death you give? So be it! O Death,
   thou hast been long my friend, and now thy pale
cool cheek shall have my kiss, while the faint breath
expires on thy still lips, O lovely Death!
...

SIR, we approve your curling lip and nose
At this vile sight.
These men, these women are 'brute beasts'? — Who knows,
...

I
DEAD in the sheep-pen he lies,
Wrapped in an old brown sail.
The smiling blue sea and the skies
...

MADAM, you have done well! Let others with praise unholy,
Speech addressed to a woman who never breathed upon eart ...
...

'TIS not when I am here,
In these homeless homes,
Where sin and shame and disease
And foul death comes;
...

SWEETEST, in desperate hours
Of clouds and lightning and rain,
You came like a vision of flowers
And summer and song once again:
...

11.

CRUEL City, London, London,
Where, duped slaves of devils' creeds,
Men and women desperate, undone,
Dream such dreams, and do such deeds:
...

12.

LET him who toils, enjoy
Fruit of his toiling.
Let him whom sweats annoy,
No more be spoiling.
...

13.

WHEN day's hard task's done,
Eve's scant meal partaken,
Out we steal each one,
...

YOU ask me why I love her,
As I love nought on earth?
Why I'll put none above her
For sorrow or for mirth?
...

THIS is Scotch William Wallace. It was He
Who in dark hours first raised his face to see:
...

I SEE a Land of desperate droughts and floods:
I see a land where Need keeps spreading round,
And all but giants perish in the stress:
...

I STOOD in Père-la-Chaise. The putrid City,
Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay,
The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity,
...

I
AT anchor in that harbour of the island,
The Chinese Gate,
We lay where, terraced under green-clad highland,
...

UP from the oven pit,
The hell where poor men toil,
At the sunset hour he comes
Clean-clothed, washed from soil.
...

20.

'A little Soldier of the Army of the Night'
BURY him without a word!
No appeal to death;
...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams Biography

Francis William Lauderdale Adams was an essayist, poet, dramatist, novelist and journalist who produced a large volume of work in his short life. Early life Adams was born in Malta the son of Andrew Leith Adams F.R.S., F.G.S., an army surgeon, who became afterwards well known as a scientist, a fellow of the Royal Society, and an author of natural history books set in different parts of the British empire. Francis' mother, Bertha Jane Grundy, became a well-known novelist. Francis was educated at Shrewsbury School and from 1879 as an attache in Paris. He took up a teaching position as an assistant master at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, for two years. He joined the Social Democratic Federation in London in 1883. In 1884 he married Helen Uttley and migrated to Australia where he started work as a tutor on a station in Jerilderie N.S.W., but soon moved on to Sydney and then Queensland, and dedicated himself to writing. Australia In 1884 Adams published a volume of poems, Henry and Other Poems (London), his autobiographical novel, Leicester, an Autobiography' (1884). In 1886 a collection of Australian Essays on topics such as Melbourne, Sydney and the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon was published in Melbourne and London. During the time in Australia he contributed to several periodicals, including The Bulletin. Adams then went to Brisbane and published 'Poetical Works' (1886, Brisbane) which is a quarto volume of over 150 pages printed in double columns. His wife died giving birth to a baby boy, Leith, who also died. Adams remained in Brisbane until the early part of 1887, and published a novel, Madeline Brown's Murderer, (1887, Sydney). After a short stay in Sydney Adams married again, returned to Brisbane, and remained there until about the end of 1889 writing leaders for the Brisbane Courier. At the end of 1887 Adams published his best known collection of verseSongs of the Army of the Night, which created a sensation in Sydney and,later, went through three editions in London. He returned to England in early 1890 and published two novels, John Webb's End, a Story of Bush Life (1891, London), and The Melbournians (1892). A volume of short stories, Australian Life, came out in 1892. Adams' health was failing rapidly from an incurable lung-disease and he spent the winter of December 1892-February 1893 in Alexandria to finish his book attacking the British occupation of Egypt. The result, 'The New Egypt' was released after his death in 1893. Other posthumous publications were 'Tiberius'—a striking drama, with an Introduction by William Michael Rossetti, which presents a new view of the Emperor's character—and his first novel was revised and republished as 'A Child of the Age' in 1894. The last of his posthumous publications was 'Essays in Modernity' in 1899. Suicide During a massive and (probably fatal) haemorrhage caused by tuberculosis, Adams shot himself at a boarding house in Margate. He had long carried a pistol for this purpose. He was survived by his second wife, Edith (née Goldstone), who assisted his suicide but was not convicted of any crime. A self-professed 'Child of his Age', Adams combined in his life and work many distinctive features of both fin de siècle British culture and the Australian radical nationalism of the 1890s, including a strong sympathy with socialist and feminist movements. Summary Adams' energy and drive can be seen through his large output of written work in his short lifetime. He often wrote quickly and did little revision, living as he did on the proceeds of his own work rather than with the support of a family or sinecure. Songs of the Army of the Night has been reprinted in many editions, but the reputation of these poems ascends from their engagement with social issues, rather than their value as pure poetry for Adams was deeply sympathetic towards downtrodden races and men. At a time when London Dock labourers worked for four-pence an hour he could not help but raise his voice, and the rhetoric of his At the West India Docks echoed throughout the world of labour. Some of his verses provoked resentment in Conservative circles; but Adams perceived, as few did in those times, the depth of poverty and misery of a large part of the British nation, in an age before the introduction of unemployment insurance and old-age pensions. He is also important as a writer of novels who was in touch with contemporary social issues and genres. His work, though sometimes hasty and unneven, is always interesting for its treatment of themes, such as the portrayal of women in Australia, or of nationalism (eg. The Melbournians, a society romance which features an Australian heroine and a democratic young Australian journalist). Although he never intended to be a journalist, once in Australia Adams took to the work quickly and was very highly regarded by colleagues in Sydney and Brisbane for his work, particularly on the Brisbane Courier (where he wrote editorial leaders) and the Sydney Bulletin (to which he contributed mostly verse and paragraphs). He was an astute and intelligent (if sometimes impetuous) critic both of literature and of the social and political milieux he worked in.)

The Best Poem Of Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Art

'YES, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve —
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth!'
Yes, let Art go, till once again
Through fearless heads and hands
The toil of millions and the pain
Be passed from out the lands:
Till from the few their plunder falls
To those who've toiled and earned
But misery's hopeless intervals
From those who've robbed and spurned.
Yes, let Art go, without a fear,
Like Autumn flowers we burn,
For, with her reawakening year,
Be sure she will return! —
Return, but greater, nobler yet
Because her laurel crown
With dew and not with blood is wet,
And as our Queen sit down!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams Comments

why though 23 May 2018

why are you trying to scam people on a poem site?

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