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The Emigrant Ship, ' the principal poem in this volume, is written as a sequence in the manner of the Canterbury Tales, in six tales 'told' on an emigrant ship bound for Australia. The Introduction refers to a becalmed, peaceful ship, 'Yet exiles there with grief and sorrow, / Wept the past, or feared the morrow, / Thinking now of England's strand, / Now of Australia's sunny land.' And in 'The Peasant's Tale': 'On Yarra's banks a cot is seen, / Where flourish oak and cedar green, / And every flower rich and rare / Australia spreads, is clustered there. / Not wanting England's hardier plants, / Brought from the exile's native haunts'. In the Preface the author maintains these 'stories contain more of truth than fiction, and the scenes are drawn from real life.