Golden wedding

Mulgan, Alan, Dent, London, 1932

This eBook is a reproduction produced by the National Library of New Zealand from source material that we believe has no known copyright. Additional physical and digital editions are available from the National Library of New Zealand.

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-93-2

PDF ISBN: 978-0-908331-89-5

The original publication details are as follows:

Title: Golden wedding

Author: Mulgan, Alan

Published: Dent, London, 1932

is. 6d.

net

Many readers both in England and New Zealand are familiar with the name of Mr. Alan Mulgan. His book Home: A Colonial’s Adventure } published by Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., and described by Mr. J. C. Squire as “a moving and beautiful piece of prose,” has attained a considerable reputation. His new work is a narrative poem describing the golden wedding festivities of an old pioneer and his wife at a typical country farm-house in New Zealand; their departure for England, and their return. The activities of the farm; the family, the parson, the Member for the district; and many other people and characteristics of the scene are described with a precision, a humour, and a sympathy that recall the best qualities of Crabbe. But although the poem is cast in a delightful eighteenthcentury form (and incidentally reveals a keen historical sense which is often lacking in the poets of the younger dominions), the mind which it reveals is keenly awake to modern thought and feeling.

NOTE.—Two of Mr. Mulgan’s poems are included in Kowhai Gold , the anthology of contemporary New Zealand verse, of which details will be found on the other flap of this wrapper.

GOLDEN WEDDING

GOLDEN WEDDING

By ALAN MULGAN

"Of count, what you miss in a country lih this, is history." — Any tourist.

LONDON & TORONTO

J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.

All rights reserved

Printed in Creat Britain at

The Temple Press, Letchworth, Herts

First Published in 193Z

TO

ALL AT "ELLAMORE"

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Tie Landscape

GOLDEN WEDDING

TP from the tidal flats, now blue, now dun,

Gently, to join the hills, the brown spurs run,

Till fern and tea-tree drabness shoulders high

The long blue range against the speckless sky.

Forest and rock, the steel-cut ranges stand,

Shading a strip of billowing sea-fringed land.

So quiet the long warm island-barried bay,

It scarcely frets the shore, but whispering their way,

By winding paths, the well-loved waters creep

By dipping cliff-hung tree whose blossoms keep

Christmas in brief but fiery festival—

O'er oozy flats where weary trickles fall

From little lost bush creeks—or up the broad

Of low-banked rivers till the brawling ford

Mirrors the sky and peace is gently thrust

Into the hollows of the hills. The toi-toi dust

Floats where it falls; the shimmering water stone

Grows dark; from willow, alien, alone,

An English feather joins the lordlier hue

Of winterless puriri, and the two

After brief bosoming by ferny edge

Float down past English grass and native sedge,

14

Tutu and tea-tree, flax and towering pine,

And briar rose carried for a Homeland sign.

Over the stream at bend of sunny reach

There hangs a mossy chance-borne straggling peach,

And sits a kingfisher beside its fruit,

Who flashing, makes the river's colour mute ;

So on they pass, native and migrant tree,

And merge into the universal sea.

Take on this summer noon the ribbon way,

White with spread shells or drab with clay;

Over a tea-tree ridge it curves, and down

Dips to a narrow swamp with rushes brown.

The steep hard-rutted cuttings, yellow banked,

Beat with imprisoned noon, and closely ranked

(It seems) with low monotony of song

Unseen cicadas drone the hours along.

So on, past paddocks trim and ferny rise;

Here where success its bright green banner flies;

There where the ever watchful scrub has crept

To win back land while tired sentries slept ;

Past stout straight fence or tangled trailing wires;

Poplars that stand against the blue like spires;

Squares of dark pines about a hillside home,

Set for the time the wild nor'-easters come.

A pleasant road, with many a wide-ranged sight

8

The House

Of mountains' purple empire, and the bright

Tranquillity below; a new world touched with old,

Brave with the making, beautiful and bold.

Breaking a line of pines, a wide white gate

Closes an avenue, long and cool and straight.

More pines—dark roses of the pioneer,

Planted for use, but now in beauty dear—

Are ranked along the dim quiet-footed path

Twixt clean brown fields of harvest's aftermath.

Another gate and then a sweep of shell,

White as the lilies of a wedding bell,

Curves to the wide veranda of the home,

Curtained with climbing green, besprent with foam

Of dolycos and jasmine. Low and old,

This house is apple-mellow; manifold

Its memories, though history is short,

For in this quickening land oldness is wrought

By tens and not by hundreds of the years

That in the land of long confined arrears

Touch the warm brick of England into bloom

And darken beauty in an ancient room.

This house of wood, its service wellnigh done,

Sits like a quiet old woman in the sun,

White capped and aproned, folded hands, and eyes

Holy with self-forgotten charities.

B

9

THE OLD HOMESTEAD

\A~Y mother dwelt on yonder hill,

Where sheep crop lazily,

And noons with sun and larksongs fill

And lordly hawks drift by.

'Mid alien scents I sit and dream;

When checks the warm sea-laden air

On English trees Us gentle stream,

It stirs strange leaves that touch my silvered hair.

Long reigned she there 'mid vast dark flowers,

Tall priestesses of night;

Her head was free to sun and showers

To love of wind and light;

But deep in afternoon below,

(Down, down through quiet's imprisoned flood,

Dawn dusk, and noon an afterglow^)

The Titan beauty of her body stood.

The new need charged: the bright axe rang ;

A thousand years lay dead;

From sweating saw-pit new life sprang,

Naked, 'mid beauty shed.

17

They set me on a tea-tree crest,

Unsheltered, stark, a hearth begun,

Where swooped the wild winds from the west,

Or burned all dtiy the passion of the sun.

Across the threshold of my husk,

Love lifted life, his bride;

Her eyes lit hope within the dusk,

And courage went beside.

Without, the hillside’s stricken bloom,

Lay in the close brown ranks of death,

But in the raw and staring room

There glowed a rose in young adventure's breath.

The hill fires ran in grey and gleam;

The fences dipped and climbed;

The brown earth heaved behind the team;

The roaming cow-bells chimed;

Out from my warm heart flowed the tide —

The close-cropped grass, the rippling wheat;

It lipped the half-dry waterside,

Its light foam flecked the distant forest’s feet.

Around me time a mantle wove —

Poplar and changeless pine;

The friendly gloom, the mellowing grove,

Made mass and even line;

18

And in the warm enclosure's hush,

The apple bore its drowsy snow;

On hawthorn bent an English thrush

Sang to the jasmine's scent, the rose's glow.

Laughter and love and sweet content,

Toil and deep draughts of rest;

Joy with its riches never spent;

And grief, the unbidden guest;

Young fire that fought old wisdom's calm,

Strove and gave way, the better part;

Dawn with its hope, night with its balm,

All these I held beside my nourishing heart.

In long deep nights when life is still,

My old wood lives again;

The warm sap stirs, the branches fill

With wind and rustling rain.

Slow fall the notes through the heavy deep

When the tui chimes on my swaying tower;

As echoes fade from sound to sleep,

The riro grieves for beauty's passing hour.

Now dies the tree to make a home;

My room with ghosts are grey;

Old dreams and loves are free to roam,

And little laughs of play.

19

The jest that met the bitter need,

The will that yoked my stubborn lands,

Children ofjlesh and thought and deed —

They crowd, and whispering, press my withered hands.

Without, the night is hung with time,

White flag and sable sail;

The jasmine flower is English rhyme,

The rose an English tale

But censeredfrom the open hills

The native tang comes drifting in,

Prayer of two worlds my garden fills;

Born of two worlds I watch a third begin.

20

Interior

HILLSIDE” is thronged with friends this summer day;

They come with fifty years of debt to pay.

They crowd the square French-windowed sitting room.

Plush chairs, wax fruit amid fresh roses' bloom.

The Great Queen reigns there on the fireplace wall;

Gordon at bay; a wool-worked waterfall;

Bubbles, and Autumn Leaves, and Squire of Dames ;

Stiff family groups in heavy pine-cone frames;

The Colonists' Guide, Sunday at Home, The Quiver,

Queechy, The Wide, Wide World, Ned on the River.

Musty and dingy, tired as 'twere with striving,

A room that yet is rich with simple living.

In it the neighbours crowd and talk, and swarm

Into the kitchen odorous and warm.

A long stove burning fragrant tea-tree wood;

Moist richness in the mingled smells of food;

Homely untidiness on shelf and floor ;

A rusty bridle dropped behind the door;

Fish-hooks beside the baking powder tin;

A plug of Derby by the rolling pin;

Dark hanging hams and onions’ threaded gold;

A breath of home-made bread, a whiff of mould;

A thrill of spice and new boiled damsons’ savour;

Cleanness of soap, and new-cut firewood's flavour;

Damp cloths; the imperial scent of tea;

21

The General

And agitato of the kettle’s minstrelsy.

Through the worn channel of the kind old rooms

Warm greetings flow and check; meetings are looms

That weave again the comradeship of years,

Back-breaking furrow toil, laughter and tears.

Groups by the sagging kitchen steps debate

The generations; 'gainst a long barred gate

That shuts away the buggy-crowded yard,

Four neighbours lean, slow limbed and frontier scarred.

Beyond them dusty horses droop, and lift,

Right, left, a weary leg, vainly to shift

The waiting burden. Traces hang on ground.

Here is a string strap; there a shaft wire bound.

Behind the thick soft cool veranda screen,

On the wide steps and in the garden's green,

By twos and threes others discuss the day,

Varied by weather prospects —oats and hay.

The bent old Mutiny general, trim in dress,

Limps up and down in quavering kindliness.

His big bare paint-peeled homestead stands

Lone on a height of fern-invaded lands.

He and his faded daughter, quiet always,

Drift through the dim grey cloisters of the days

Like wrinkled faintly perfumed autumn leaves.

She gleans her loving duties into tiny sheaves

22

While o ’er the English mail he nods, and wakes

To watch the farewell sunlight as it makes

Fire on his swords above the mantelpiece.

Or see, as in a dream, his youth's short lease

Run out in Indian strife of play and fight ;

Or on the blotching wall, catching the failing light,

The oval of his young wife’s loveliness,

Hang like a flower 'mid yellowing groups of mess ;

And team and column, friends of death and fun;

And portrait of his long dead wastrel son.

One day, not distant, they will bear him down

Over the rough road, through the little town,

Now gathering its love and reverence,

Drably and dustily to pass him hence.

Over his grave no farewell flag will burn;

No volley fright the ground larks in the fern ;

No piercing bugle summon up the past;

But in the hearts of all his virtues cast

Like holy spell, will sweeter music make

Than high salute for proud tradition's sake.

Down the deep valleys of the years will float

His pure example, note on golden note,

Neighbour to neighbour, father to his son ;

"The General said," "the General would have done."

Until oblivion thundering in full cry,

Silence the whisper of his chivalry.

23

The Church

In rusty black the ageing vicar smiles,

Priest of a flock that straggles thirty miles.

Riding at call to funeral or feast

Judge of disputes involving man or beast.

Stifling regret, outfacing household fear,

Six mouths, two hundred doubtful pounds a year.

Long since the Church said: "There's a call to bless

For youth and strength out in the wilderness."

And then forgot him; city churches need

Men of bright learning, dropping polished seed

From rich safe store, draped with a famous hood.

Rough road apprenticeship of course is good,

But can be waived for grace and eloquence.

And so the shepherd mends his long weak fence,

Riding on dusty duty year by year;

Preaches a simple gospel, hope not fear ;

Runs a few cows; takes prizes for his beans;

Conserves the school committee's scanty means;

Arranges concerts in the little hall,

Goodbye, The Holy City, On the Ball.

Glad now and then to rub his rusty learning

And help some young and raw ambition burning

To leave the muddy routine, early, late,

And wear the white clean livery of the State.

And if he wishes Colin could be sent

To school in town, or hard conditions bent

To bring to budding Nancy, chilled by duty,

c

17

The Mimier

A petal from the great world's rose of beauty;

Or sighs to see his youth-deserted wife

Mother and servant, curate too for life,

Screw up her strength to meet the sharper thrust

Of circumstance—brighter in roadside dust

May blossom his reward than the fine flower

That scents the cushioned rooms of place and power.

The member for the district, eyes for all,

Moves in the crowd, at duty's pleasant call;

A sturdy brown-faced man, with kindly hand,

And head well stored with facts of men and land.

The Burke of precedence he slightly knows,

But not the Burke of England's throes.

From year to year he never reads a book.

At State reports he gives a casual look.

But nothing in the "game" escapes his eye;

The turns and twists, what 's fit to sell or buy;

A weakness here that can be deftly touched;

Advantage there that can be quickly clutched

Himself his true magnetic north, his star

His mounting vote in each triennial war;

But next what he can lever for his clan,

Who like and trust him as the farmer's man.

First principles are air, but money grants

Are solid food for hungry voters’ wants.

25

He knows the turns of every off-shoot road;

What every holding bears in mortgage load ;

The names of man and boy, who married whom;

Kinship of portraits in the still front room;

The favourite cow, the housewife's champion cake

(Many a one his gossip 's helped to make.)

The district’s dotted with his victories,

Fruit of his tireless importunities :

Bridges and schools and metal strewn on mud,

A groyne to stop the ravening of a flood;

Buildings and wharves and comfortable jobs—

Billets for Jane and Harry, where the only mobs

Are men, not cattle, and the servant hours

Exact no tax beyond their written powers.

"A roads and bridges member," so some sneer,

He takes it as a flower of pride to wear,

And tells from memory tragically stored,

How Bell was taken at the now bridged ford,

Riding to get a doctor, and the wife

Dead when he came; how Johnson lived a life

Waiting a day long by his stricken son.

How six men bore the broken Dumbleton

A moaning wreck twelve miles upon a gate.

To check death's caprice with the gold of State,

Is this unworthy of the chosen few?

Let theorists wrangle, here is work to do.

26

The Family

Meanwhile the bride and bridegroom of the day

Move in affection's soft-toned interplay.

Under the flower-bell of the silver years

Their age is sunny in a mist of tears.

Children of eighty, they are born again,

Only their faces show the dint of pain.

Like children at a birthday festival

They take with crystal joy the gifts of all;

Gifts of good wishes, gratitude and love

Cast on the healing waters as they move.

The family is here: George of the farm;

Mary whose sweet sense keeps the home fires warm;

Harry and Jim from far beyond the range,

Where every twelve months work a visible change—

Death from the axe and then the blossoming burn.

Strong in the lift but slow upon the turn,

These spare brown men lean ever to the plough;

Hands heavy, plodding feet, talk of the cow—

Prices and profit, fertilisers, breeds,

Grumble of freightage and the cost of seeds;

Good men and true —simple, direct, and kind,

Atlantean shoulders under still slow mind.

Their comely wives, age-touched within their prime—

For bearing, cooking, milking, hurry time—

Gossip with Meg and Kate from distant fields,

Sisters made fortunate by sheep run yields.

Meg never squelches through a dreary dawn.

27

Kate has a "general" and a tennis lawn.

Sauve and commanding, Hugh, the second son,

Brings from the town the air his gown has won,

A high-fee'd counsel, Hugh serenely mounts.

He sees the Bench ahead; a title counts

As certain in the end; it will be sweet

To climb to deference's padded seat

From the hard candle box where he was raised,

And found a family. Warm and smoothly phrased

Are all his greetings; quick is he to seize

The shy gnarled hands that roughly grasp his ease,

As district pride is slightly tinged with awe,

And land's unplumbed suspicion of the law.

Polished and poised, he stands like some sleek horse,

Burnished with full attention for a course

Amid a mob of dusty station hacks,

With shaggy sides, tired heads, and sweaty backs.

Deftly he makes excuses for his wife.

Alicia must be careful; city life

Tries hard her spare reserve of slender strength.

Really Alicia runs to fullest length

Of social steeplechasing—loves the heat,

And feeds on Dead Sea apples as a sweet,

Flatly she would not come, for farm life bores.

Its vulgar routine and its smelly "chores"

Disgust; cream is a proper thing to see

In shell-like china at a perfumed tea,

28

Praise

But slopped about in buckets an offence

To rarefied refinement's delicate sense.

Her dream of Paradise will not allow

To Hugh the faintest damning smell of cow.

But while she stays (to mother's secret joy)

There comes with Hugh his tall and high-nosed bov,

Spotless and trim, badged by a famous school,

Where squatter's scions set the social rule,

And learning picks up crumbs. He too is bored.

Sheep on a hundred hills make one a lord,

But small mixed farming is a common size.

And so his gaze is upward, he will rise,

And after him his sons, until the wheel of fate,

Casts back the climbers to the primal state.

Under the sun-drenched trees the feast is laid,

Plain bounty sweetened by the odorous shade.

Father and Mother sit and smile and say

Quiet single words amid the noisy play

Of happy talk and clatter ; gratitude

Nods now and then in misty interlude.

At last the member silence brings—with speech.

Plainly but proudly eulogises each.

Reads out the Premier's message (not for him

To say who prompted it; a man must skim

Cream where he sees it). "Worthy pioneers,"

22

Journeying

Back

"The country's backbone," " Harvest of the years" ;

So runs the great man's greeting, and the murmur flows—

" How thoughtful of him; all of us he knows."

Now in his stride the member walks the past,

Treading the dinted footsteps first to last,

And after him the vicar, tremulous and pale,

Wanders with God along that blossoming vale.

To Him the glory and to Him the praise,

For golden harvest and for length of days.

Simply he sees, with faith's unquestioning eyes,

The pathway lengthening to the eternal skies.

So moves the tall rich ship of afternoon,

Full-breasted, to the music of this rune.

Contentment rises in a thin blue smoke;

Wives smile and doze; convention’s yoke

Presses the young to restless whispering,

The long-drawn oratory questioning.

But underneath the vast arched summer sail

These two hear little of the twice-told tale.

Hand placed in hand, they wander back alone;

Back to the little Cotswold house of stone;

Beauty and peace ringed with the steel of caste ;

The close horizon and the life held fast;

Then the great call, the up-rooting of the tree,

23

Emigrant

Ship

The launch upon adventure's unknown sea.

Again they stand upon the littered ship,

By dank dockside, under a dreary drip

Of Thames-side rain; the cramped and gear-strewn waist

Is touched with chaos in departure's haste—

Bundles and baggage, livestock ill at ease;

Bonnets and shawls and heavy rain-soaked frieze ;

Orders and partings, wonder, tears and hope;

The mate low cursing a disordered rope;

Time like an open wound, outflowing fast;

Unsentimental sailors shouldering past;

Youth kissing age, but dreaming far ahead;

Wide-eyed bewilderment and white-faced dread.

While from the throne-like poop, detached, serene,

The captain and the gentry watch the scene.

Then the first stagger to the leaping deck,

To see a frantic world dissolved in wreck.

The smooth-shired Midlander's first sight of sea

Vexed by no rival land, exulting, free.

Up-reared upon the monstrous carnival

The green walls tower, and hang and fall

Hooded with hate—and down the valley’s length,

Stretched out, as ’twere, to limit of her strength,

Half-winged and desperate, the ship escapes.

Pale and wide-eyed the clinging landsman gapes;

31

Sees the dim masthead swing in monstrous sweep

Over the clutching fingers of the deep.

Death seems to riot all around. Lives hope?

He turns and sees upon the poop's wet slope

The captain on wide planted feet, erect,

A ship's strong fitting, coat spray-flecked,

Hands pocketed, cigar in mouth; serene

Of eye, he scans the wilderness of green,

And cons his half-stripped instruments above,

And murmurs in his beard—" A rare old shove."!

Southward for weeks, through deepening gulfs of blue,

With white-winged daysprings dropping kindlier dew,

Their lonely world achieves some happiness,

Companionship well forged in common stress.

Southward through heat and sulky crawling seas,

The crowded 'tween decks stricken with disease,

Each week the creeping fevers take their toll;

Into the vastness of the long slow roll

Death drops his weighted harvest, child or wife.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life"

Becomes familiar as the hour's clear bell

The ship throws off the tropic's evil spell,

And down toward the eastward turning leaps

Triumphant. Round the unseen cape she sweeps

And charges into greater vastness yet.

Week follows week, in gales' cold fury set,

Like dreams inexorable without end,

D

*5

Pioneers

Seas ravenous and winds that rack and rend. ;

Out of a mist tall blue-faced spectres loom,

And vanish with their fingers pointing doom.

The ship 's awash, the days are dumb with cold;

The tainted food is short and water doled.

Four months from port, and then the anger goes.

Sunrise unfolds a sky of frosty rose

On clear horizon. Watches curve and run

In easy flight under a waxing sun;

The full-flowered masts are towers of loveliness.

The wind is merciful, the waters bless;

Till one calm eve, blue-robed and sunset-browed,

A white cloud hangs too white and clear for cloud,

God's friendly half-forgotten hills still stand,

And the long loneliness is over—land!

Let us remember these, the Pioneers

Yes, yes, . . . Through mazes of the littered years

Old memory runs blindly; stops with sight

By monuments and trifles; leaps in flight

Through time once forthright pulsed. They smell again

The first strange fires, the fern scent after rain.

They turn by habit for some odd or end,

Lying about to serve a sudden mend,

And then remember their marooned estate,

How few the goods, how governing the freight.

33

Tent life, the slab-side shack; camp-oven bread;

Tea-tree for firewood, shelter, even bed.

Easy to clear away, and how it burned!

And how it came up when your back was turned!

Spoiling your paddock with a host of spears,

Cursed for a pest in those lean struggling years,

It grew, this homely root in alien soil,

Close to their hearts, this shrub of sun and toil,

This warm, wind-incensed pasture of the hills,

White with pure starring. Save the strange heart fills

With love of this, it will not love the land.

Old age, remembering strength of arm and prime,

Remembers too the vague unwritten rhyme

Sown deep within it by this sight and scent,

Tall timber, wind-bowed shrub, and snowy bent.

34

MANUKA

TJERE in an open windswept cup of earth,

A tiny plant, no higher than the sod,

Bears bravely its small flower in lowly birth,

One of the innumerable eyes of God.

There as he roams for cattle on a hill,

The starred shrub brushes hard the rider's knee.

And on the air of morning, warm and still,

Scatters a scent like faint sweet minstrelsy.

Down in the gully by the quick stream's side,

Half darkness veils the strong trunks closely dressed.

And clematis, the manuka's white bride,

Sleeps in the sun upon her lover's breast.

In the great hearth dry tea-tree heads are roaring,

Logs become towns of blading spire and dome;

Into the black star-pointed night out-pouring,

The smoke bears far the thrilling news of home.

35

Home

They link our land with Home. Yes, England's call

Rang in their ears through toil and festival.

Happy in moulding life from this new earth,

They looked back wistful to their place of birth,

Until near middle age the dream came true,

And well-remembered hill-breasts ranged in view ;

Enfolded village, clouded woods; again

The smooth pure meadow and the wild-flowered lane ;

The near soft distance with its peace of doves,

Mist of old wars and immemorial loves.

Were thirty years a day? No change was there;

No touch of newness in the sweet still air.

The smithy’s tinkle and the church bell’s chime

Whispered to evening in their old clear rhyme.

The same old tasks, the same old ordered round,

The same rights fast in sanctity of ground.

The village set in dutiful content,

The Manor House untouched by argument.

A little world, quiet as a sunken bell

Deep in the sea; far, far above, the swell

Took the sun’s frolic and the sun’s fierce pride,

And ranged in free imperious ride

From land to land. The ageing squire was kind.

Welcomed them home again; how did they find

Old village friends? That colony out there—

New Zealand was it not? How did they fare

Among the cannibals? He had a friend

36

Return

In Sydney—had they met him at world's end?

Twelve hundred miles away? Indeed, so far?

So rambled ignorant kindness, but the bar

Of caste seemed higher, wider than before

To clear-eyed travellers from adventure's shore.

And so they loved again, and sighed, and turned

Back to the rough-hewn freedom they had earned.

Knew it at last for home, for all-in-all,

Longed for the wide hill's tang, the tui's call.

Thought of their children, not as exiles' sons

But native as the creek that softly runs

From bush's gloom and carries to the sea

Its own low undertone of mystery.

Again they looped the world, and o’er familiar foam

Raised the sharp edges of the hills of home.

Dropped to a fussy coaster, short and bluff,

All gear and smells and deck-piled household stuff.

She danced a drunken path along the coast

(Greyly the long surf glimmered like a ghost)

Climbed o'er the bar and opened out the bay,

And nosed into the winding tidal way.

The smooth wash sighed into a field; a tree

Brushed the rapt face of hushed expectancy

And brought the smell of home. The bridge at last;

The wharf, the old tin shed; all safe and fast!

37

Breaking

Point

Rest

The dusty wagon by the drooping store

(Dear ugliness beloved evermore!)

Bore them the last slow stage of happiness,

The farm enfolded them with deep caress.

Further the plough's quest, fresh fields breaking;

New life, new hope, new nation m the making.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Yes, yes. On Him alone all praise bestow.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot? Too kind!

Now let them go. Our eyes with joy are blind.

Our memories are dumb; the rest is peace —

Alone we two, quiet in our heart's release.

Lurches on sluggish dust the last slow wheel.

Over the golden bowl the shadows steal,

Eve's acolytes. Within the pine-walled space

Emptied of clamour, sounds resume their place;

Shutting of doors, lowing of waiting cows,

Tinkle of milk cans—calls that seem to drowse

On evening's bosom. Silent, pure, and strong,

The tide of twilight wells above the throng

Of grass and blossom, fence and house and tree,

Till the tall pines are dim with mystery;

38

Waters of peace and sleep, in whose repose

The day's full music moves to soundless close.

Down in its depths, still in their long, long dream,

All peril past, all striving with the stream,

Waiting the ultimate mercy from above,

These two sit hand in hand with life and love.

KOWHAI GOLD

An Anthology of Contemporary New Zealand Verse

Edited by Quentin Pope

The interest in the literature which has sprung up in New Zealand in the past few years is not confined to readers in the younges,t dominion. It can attract the attention of Great Britain, and indeed of the English - speaking world. The two hundred poems, by some sixty different writers, gathered together in this book, are representative of the poetic achievement of New Zealanders since the War. Most of the poets' names will be immediately familiar to New Zealand poetry lovers, although perhaps only one, Katherine Mansfield, is widely know elsewhere; but the editor of this anthology has not exaggerated when he says that there are some poems in it which no future anthologist of modern English verse can afford to ignore.

Crown Bvo. 6s. net

J. M. DENT AND SONS LTD.,

the publishers of Kowhai Gold, also publish New Zealand Short Stories, an anthology edited by O. N. Gillespie,

7s. 6d. net.

SOME RECENT POETRY

PUBLISHED BY J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.

THE GLANCE BACKWARD

Richard Church

This is a book of individual beauty. Mr. Church's is a quiet voice, but it is often the quiet voice that is heard the longest."—L. A. G. Strong in the Spectator. Limited edition of 750 copies, decorated by Robert Austin. 85. 6d. net.

OUT OF THE COAL-FIELDS

F. C Boden

" Here is the true lyrical gift . . . devastating in its sincerity, its passion of pity, and its clarity of vision."— Time and Tide. 3*. net. By the same Author: Pit-Head Poems. Js. net.

POEMS AND STORIES

Orgill MacKengte

“She is original, with an adventurous imagination, a spirit for satire, and a heart for tragedy. Her poetic quality takes on the fullness of elegiac song.”— Manchester Guardian, ~js. 6 d. net.

FIRST POEMS

Philip Henderson

"He evokes the scene before us; he compels us to share his feeling."—Sylvia Lynd in the Daily News. 2nd Impr. y. 6d. net.

RHYMES OF DARBY TO JOAN

H. W. Fowler

"We become so absorbed in this domestic idyll that the end is almost unbearable."— New Statesman. \s. 6d. net.

THE FORESTER’S WIFE

M. R. Adamson

"A story living in and through its poetry . . . the refining fire of tragic art."— Manchester Guardian. 6s. net.

ESCAPE

Ruth and Celia Duffin

"These poems by two sisters have not only great charm but power."— Everyman. " Remarkably fine."—St. John Ervine in Time and Tide. 4s. 6d. net.

LOVE’S UNIVERSE

George Cocherill

“His romantic sonnet sequence achieves passages of real beauty.”— Daily Telegraph. s s. net.

THE GOLDEN BOOK OF MODERN ENGLISH POETRY

A new edition, revised and brought right up to date, containing over 290 poems by 135 authors. With an Introduction by Lord Dunsany. In blue leather, boxed, ~Js. 6 d. net.

Printed in Great Britain at the Temple Press, IMchworth (Fj 304)

Edited by Thomas Caldwell