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Victor Daley Quotes

1858–1905 Australia

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.

Australia
Poets

Random Victor Daley quote

18 quotes

Six days he does no work, and
The seventh takes for rest.

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.

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)

I do not care for men
To point with pride at me;
A model citizen
I do not wish to be.

O reader, deem me not a sham,
For I in purple earnest am!

The parson said: "Your sinful Past
Will make for you a fiery rod."
I smiled, and thought upon the vast
Amused indifference of God.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

H. J. Oliver in the Introduction to Victory Daley (1963)

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.

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.

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!

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Victor Daley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.