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Monuments, streets, views. Parts of Braydon's hometown that invigorate him and he would like to share with you.

Adam Lindsay Gordon Memorial

Gordon Reserve, Spring Street, Melbourne

In Gordon Reserve, on Spring Street, where the modern day underground Parliament train station delivers commuters into the hustle and bustle of Melbourne, there stands a statue of Australian poet and horseman, Adam Lindsay Gordon. Squashed between the edifying State Parliament and Treasury Buildings, the poet's monument sits facing the grand Windsor Hotel.

Adam Lindsay Gordon led a short but adventurous education. His most known collection of verse, Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes have kept Australian schoolchildren enthralled since its publication in 1870, and is now considered one of the most important pieces of Australian literature.

Gordon was as colourful as his poems. Born in Portugal in 1833 to British parents, after an English education Gordon was sent to South Australia by his ex-military father, such were the lad's wild ways.

Gordon immediately took to the unharnessed ways of the new world, becoming a horse breaker and then mounted policeman. He gained a reputation as a crack steeplechase rider. He began writing sporting verse for Victorian newspapers, where much of his quixotic yet gritty tales found an eager audience in both the new intellectualism of Marvellous Melbourne and also the great working class of this bourgeoning world city.

Throughout his short life, Adam Lindsay Gordon lived at different poles: he lived in South Australia, Western Australia, and then Ballarat, Victoria before settling in Melbourne. He was a publican, a policeman, an accomplished horseman, also a member of South Australia's House of Assembly.

Yet it is his poetry that Adam Lindsay Gordon is best known for. While two early volumes sunk quietly, the strong rhymes, interesting bush characters, and homespun philosophy of Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes resounded throughout the British Empire.

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another's troubles,

And Courage in one's own.

The successes of his life were mirrored by tragedy. After two serious riding injuries wherein he suffered a fractured skull and broken nose, jaw and ribs, the death of an infant daughter and subsequent departure of his wife, his personal luck deserted him further when the loss of a Scottish family estate happened as a result of a trifle matter of uncollected mail. Adam Lindsay Gordon suffered depression; a condition considered mysterious and untreatable in the 19^th Century.

Adam Lindsay Gordon moved to seaside Brighton in 1869, where his wife rejoined him. Yet the black dog hounded him. On the day after Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes was published, the poet shot himself on Brighton Beach.

Gordon was tall and handsome. But he stooped and held himself badly, partly on account of his short sight. He was shy, sensitive and, even before he was overwhelmed with troubles, inclined to be moody.

The statue commemorating him portrays an elegant man, a tall man who manages his great limbs gracefully. The sculptor Paul Montfort cast the poet in 1934 sitting back against a saddle, gazing mid-thought, a pen lightly held in his languidly hanging hand. The poet's sleeves are rolled, for labor of horse and pen. Chiseled into the plinth of this fine memorial are the poet's words quoted above.

The position of the poet's statue amongst the triumvirate of Victorian buildings with their grand architecture is a testament to the place the poet held in Victorian era Melbourne. In May 1934 his bust was placed in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, being the only Australian poet to have one.

Alighting at Parliament train station and emerging from the noisy subway to this picturesque park with its backdrop of majestic Melbourne is heartwarming and wonderful; enlightening to view, a reminder of a man of those times who documented so entertainingly the aspects of city and bush of this new, emerging state.

Question not, but live and labour

Till yon goal be won,

Helping every feeble neighbour

Seeking help from none;

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone:

KINDNESS in another's trouble.

COURAGE in your own.