Gone
by Adam Lindsay Gordon
IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall,
A statue tall, on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story, to great and small,
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone;
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man;
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go.
There are perils by land, and perils by water,
Short, I ween, are the obsequies
Of the landsman lost, but they may be shorter
With the mariner lost in the trackless seas;
And well for him, when the timbers start,
And the stout ship reels and settles below,
Who goes to his doom with as bold a heart,
As that dead man gone where we all must go.
Man is stubborn his rights to yield,
And redder than dews at eventide
Are the dews of battle, shed on the field,
By a nation’s wrath or a despot’s pride;
But few who have heard their death-knell roll,
From the cannon’s lips where they faced the foe,
Have fallen as stout and steady of soul,
As that dead man gone where we all must go.
Traverse yon spacious burial ground,
Many are sleeping soundly there,
Who pass’d with mourners standing around,
Kindred, and friends, and children fair;
Did he envy such ending? ’twere hard to say;
Had he cause to envy such ending? no;
Can the spirit feel for the senseless clay,
When it once has gone where we all must go?
What matters the sand or the whitening chalk,
The blighted herbage, the black’ning log,
The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk,
Or the hot red tongue of the native dog?
That couch was rugged, those sextons rude,
Yet, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know
That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms’ food,
When once they’ve gone where we all must go.
With the pistol clenched in his failing hand,
With the death mist spread o’er his fading eyes,
He saw the sun go down on the sand,
And he slept, and never saw it rise;
’Twas well; he toil’d till his task was done,
Constant and calm in his latest throe,
The storm was weathered, the battle was won,
When he went, my friends, where we all must go.
God grant that whenever, soon or late,
Our course is run and our goal is reach’d,
We may meet our fate as steady and straight
As he whose bones in yon desert bleach’d;
No tears are needed—our cheeks are dry,
We have none to waste upon living woe;
Shall we sigh for one who has ceased to sigh,
Having gone, my friends, where we all must go?
We tarry yet, we are toiling still,
He is gone and he fares the best,
He fought against odds, he struggled up hill,
He has fairly earned his season of rest;
No tears are needed—fill our the wine,
Let the goblets clash, and the grape juice flow,
Ho! pledge me a death-drink, comrade mine,
To a brave man gone where we all must go.
A few random poems:
- Василий Жуковский – Был у меня товарищ
- Say, What Is Honour?–‘Tis The Finest Sense by William Wordsworth
- Thick-Sprinkled Bunting. by Walt Whitman
- The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay
- John Barleycorn by Robert Burns
- Владимир Луговской – Севастополь
- Robert Burns: A Man’s A Man For A’ That:
- Иван Дмитриев – Слепец, Собака его и Школьник
- Pathetic Way Of Getting Over Me by Shel Silverstein
- Far Within Us #2 by Vasko Popa
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нет рядом никого, как ни дыши
- How to Choose a Federal Resume Writing Service
- Muttering by Satish Verma
- An Experiment In Translation poem – Alfred Austin
- Little Fugue by Sylvia Plath
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Old Ladies’ Home by Sylvia Plath
- Ode For Ted by Sylvia Plath
- Notes To A Neophyte by Sylvia Plath
- Nick And The Candlestick by Sylvia Plath
- New Year On Dartmoor by Sylvia Plath
- Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss by Sylvia Plath
- Mussel Hunter At Rock Harbor by Sylvia Plath
- Morning In The Hospital Solarium by Sylvia Plath
- Moonsong At Morning by Sylvia Plath
- Monologue At 3 AM by Sylvia Plath
- Miss Drake Proceeds To Supper by Sylvia Plath
- Metamorphoses Of The Moon by Sylvia Plath
- Memoirs Of A Spinach-Picker by Sylvia Plath
- Mary’s Song by Sylvia Plath
- Man In Black by Sylvia Plath
- Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath
- Love Is A Parallax by Sylvia Plath
- Letter To A Purist by Sylvia Plath
- Letter In November by Sylvia Plath
- A Lesson In Vengeance by Sylvia Plath
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 – 1870) was an Australian or British-Australian poet, horseman, police officer and politician. He is considered to be one of the first national Australian poets.