Wine and Roses (poetry collection)

Ishmael Dare, writing in The Bulletin warned any reader of this volume: "The lover of At Dawn and Dusk must be warned that Wine and Roses is no twin-sister. The splendor of the earlier verse was unique, and Daley could not recover it...Daley was tired–he could sing his splendid song no longer; he was disillusioned–and he could not live without illusions. He was disillusioned, that is, as to the present; and all the more earnestly he recalled, and sought to re-create, the illusions of the past."^[3]

In The Lone Hand a reviewer was rather more appreciative: 'Daley brought to Australia a dainty fancy, a high level of artistry, and a vision softened by Celtic mist. Over his verses hovers a strange iridescence–not typically Australian. And even when he echoes his predecessors he does it with a charm that silvers his probably unconscious theft, Wine and Roses–Australian Wine and Irish Roses–that perhaps defines Victor J. Daley."^[4]

In his volume A History of Australian Literature, H. M. Green called the commented about the book: "Daley's posthumous volume Wine and Roses contains a far greater number of trivial verses, though there are several revealing poems about the hold that drink was asserting over his life. There are also a couple of poems about his love for the city, an unfashionable preference for one who belonged to the Bulletin scene."^[5]

• 1911 in Australian literature