Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes

poetry by Gordon

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June 22, 2026

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Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes was a collection of poetry published in 1870 by Adam Lindsay Gordon. Gordon, an Australian poet, is known for writing in a distinctly Australian style. His work often featured strong rhythms and a homespun philosophy, making it memorable and eventually widely accepted. Some of his lines have even become part of the Australian vernacular. Gordon's life was marked by personal tragedy and financial difficulties, which influenced his writing and ultimately led to his suicide shortly after the publication of this collection.1

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Australian literature
The century after settlement
“The Sick Stockrider” from his Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870) was a general favourite, much admired and much recited. It conveyed a sense of comradeship, mapped a world by a bushman’s kind of detail, and exhibited a stoic sentimentalism that was exactly to colonial taste. Henry Kendall, a poet…
Read More
“The Sick Stockrider” from his Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870) was a general favourite, much admired and much recited. It conveyed a sense of comradeship, mapped a world by a bushman’s kind of detail, and exhibited a stoic sentimentalism that was exactly to colonial taste. Henry Kendall, a poet…
Read More