MUSIC IN THE POETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 22

MUSIC IN THE POETS.

To compile an authority of "Music in the Poets" is a difficult task, for the order of reference is very wide. All poets are not musically musical. Swinburne, for example, though he wrote ravishing verse, had no ear for music. Yet every poet must mention music at some time or other. In "Anactoria," for example, one of the most passionate and haunting of the notorious "Poems and Ballads" of Swinburne, music is mentioned many times. A poet cannot get away from music. The compiler of "Music in tie Poets" (Duckworth), the late Mr. E«me J. Howard, son of the British ambassador at Washington, includes all sorts of references to music. He begins with Chaucer, and comes down the centuries to Swinburne and Tennyson. Living poets are not drawn upon, which means that the Poet Laureate, Dr. Bridges, who has not only written musical verse, but gives one the impression of being a musician, is not represented. Dr. Bridges is like Browning, who in a special sense is the poet of musicians. He not only loved music, but understood its technicalities. But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: *tl« we musicians know. Milton also we feel understood music. He is the Bach of poets. There is humour as well as sublimity in this connection between poetry and music. The dance music in "Maud" was supplied by "the flute, violin, bassoon," which must have produced a curious effect. It was the basoon, too, that made the WeddingGuest beat his breast. In both cases rhyme was the dictator. In this collection, quotations will be found to suit, all tastes—from the lovely opening to "Twelfth Night"—"lf music be the food of 10-ve, play on," to Tennyson's exquisite.

"There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass." and the vigour of Browning's David playing before Saul. This volume, which is appropriately printed and bound, may well go on the shelf beside favourite anthologies. M. Paderewski writes a preface in which he says that "it may please both gods and men to see the doors of a temple opened by a pure young hand."