Victor Daley

Other Bards I envy not —
Room there is for all, God wot —
All I ask is room for me
On the top branch of the tree.

Victor James William Patrick Daley (5 September 1858 – 29 December 1905) was an Australian poet. An example of the Celtic Twilight in Australian verse, he serves as a lyrical alternative to the contemporary bush balladists Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, and Will H. Ogilvie.

Quotes

• Ah apple caused man's fall, as some believe;
    But that old Snake, malevolently wise,
  A deadlier snare set when he left to Eve
    His tongue of honey and mesmeric eyes.
  • "The Serpent's Legacy", in At Dawn and Dusk (1898)

• The narrow, thorny path he trod.
    "Enter into My joy," said God.
  The sad ascetic shook his head;
    "I've lost all taste for joy," he said.
  • "The Ascetic", in At Dawn and Dusk (1898)

• Other Bards I envy not —
  Room there is for all, God wot —
  All I ask is room for me
  On the top branch of the tree.
  • My Fairy Godmother (1902)

• The Missionary labours
    With zeal, and pious art,
  And rice, and cabin biscuit,
    In hope to change his heart;
  And dear old British ladies
    The Lord would fain cajole,
  And humbly crave that He will save
    This poor old savage soul.
  • "The Last Heathen of Aneityum", in The Bulletin (14 April 1904)

• Six days he does no work, and
    The seventh takes for rest.
  • "The Last Heathen of Aneityum", in The Bulletin (14 April 1904)

• Must we all in grovel wallow
    Like to bisons in a bog —
  Must we call him an Apollo
    If he is not quite a hog?
  • In The Bulletin (28 July 1904)

• There's rest and peace in plenty here, and eggs and milk to spare;
  The scenery is calm and sane, and wholesome is the air;
  The folk are kind, the cows behave like cousins unto me ...
  But please the Lord, on Monday morn, I'm leaving Arcady.
  • "In Arcady", in The Bulletin (13 April 1905)

• I'd sooner talk to a man than a woman any day. Ten minutes exhausts them.
  • In The Bulletin (18 January 1906)

• If beings of Mythology
    Could live at my commands
  Briareus I'd choose to be,
    Who had a hundred hands:
  And every hand of mine
  Would hold a pint of wine.
  • "Bacchanalian", st. 5, in Wine and Roses (1911)

• Life is a web with many broken ends:
    Then why, O friend, be sad?
  Good is not near so good as it pretends;
    Bad is not half so bad.
  • "Philosophy", in Wine and Roses (1911)

•   When I hear a politician
    Speak of honours and position,
  And the time to come when he will sit on high,
    Then I feel a sovran pity
    For this species of banditti,
  Raising trouble while the golden time goes by.
  • "Over the Wine", st. 5, in Wine and Roses (1911)

•   Long ago I did discover
    It was fine to be a lover,
  But the heartache and the worry spoil the game:
    Now I think, like an old vandal,
    That the game's not worth the candle—
  And I know some other vandals think the same.
  • "Over the Wine", st. 6, in Wine and Roses (1911)

• I learnt the language of the birds,
    A new St. Francis I would be;
  But, when I understood their words —
    The birds were preaching unto me.
  • "St. Francis II", in Wine and Roses (1911)

• Here I can sit at ease on days of rain,
  And read my Rabelais and my Montaigne,
  Self-centred as a solitary star
  That has no satellites its peace to mar.
  Society salutes me with salaam,
  For I am single — thank the Lord I am!
  • "The Australian Bachelor's Soliloquy, by a Jealous Married Man", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• Could the Resurrection be
  I had wished it but for Thee
  For though all things rose changed and new
  Thou wouldst rise unchanged and true
  And cash at once my I.O.U.
  • "To J. D. Fitzgerald", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• I make or mar. My daring hand
  Explores the entrails of the land,
  And finds, beneath a greasy hat,
  An Austral Homer at Cow Flat.
  • "Narcissus and Some Tadpoles", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• O reader, deem me not a sham,
  For I in purple earnest am!
  • "Narcissus and Some Tadpoles", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• I do not crave the boon
    Of Immortality;
  I do not want the moon,
    Nor yet the rainbow's key.
  I do not yearn for wings,
    Or fins to swim the sea;
  I merely want the things
    That are not good for me.
  • "Moderation", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• I do not care for men
    To point with pride at me;
  A model citizen
    I do not wish to be.
  • "Moderation", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• The parson said: "Your sinful Past
    Will make for you a fiery rod."
  I smiled, and thought upon the vast
    Amused indifference of God.
  • "His Troubles", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)

• A Book of Sermons underneath the Bough,
  A Bag of Buns, some ginger-ale, and Thou
    Preaching beside me in the wilderness —
  The wilderness were Paradise enow!
  • Quoted by H. J. Oliver in the Introduction to Victory Daley (1963)
  • Parodying Edward FitzGerald's version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Quotes about

• When 'the little folk' meet by the red rowan tree
    The dance shall be stayed in the ring on the plot
  While they twine in his green Irish isle of the sea
    The wreath we forgot.
  • Will H. Ogilvie, verse printed as a Foreword to Victor Daley (Bulletin Newspaper Co., 1905), by A. G. Stephens. Reported in "The ink quest", The Clipper, vol. 12, no. 680 (5 May 1906), p. 8; "Kendall on the Hawkesbury", Freeman's Journal, vol. 71, no. 3702 (26 February 1920), p. 25