POETRY TO ORDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 90, 17 April 1934, Page 6

POETRY TO ORDER.

A MELBOURNE COMEDY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 13. This week (Mr. Marcus Wettenhall, MJL.A., a member of the Centenary Council, has come up from Melbourne to Sydney to consult with the citizens of the Sydney Organising Committee, which is making its arrangements for a great civic celebration toward the close of the year, partly as a welcome to Prince George. This visit, says Mr. Wettenhall, is intended as "a gesture of good will" and a sign of Melbourne's appreciation of the readiness displayed by the people of Sydney to' assist Melbourne in its centenary celebrations and to promote'their success.

However, something went wrong with the preparations for the Centenary that, I am afraid, gave a great many people an excuse for laughter. The Centenary Council had opened a competition offering five, prizes of ten guineas each ftor the best poems dealing in an appropriate manner with this great anniversary. In all, 279 poems were sent in; and the literary sub-committee, after examining them carefully, came to the conclusion that not one of them was worth setting to music. Indeed, in reply to the amazed comments of the general public and the protests of some of the competitors, the judges went so far as to admit that in their opinion "only ridicule could result from the use of any of them on such a dignified occasion."

80 Melbourne ihae been left for the time being without any Centennial Ode and the Centenary Council lias been placed in a rather ludricrous position. For in the first place, it has to return the 2/0 entrance fee to the 279 competitors, and, in the second place, it has to decide what is to be done with the £50 prize offered 'by Mr. IS. Myer for the best musical setting of an ode which has not yet materialised. Some of the Sydney papers could not miss the chance of triumphing over Melbourne. When it was announced that the Poet (Laureate had accepted the invitation of the Centenary Council to allow himself to be included among the "twelve world celebrities" invited to be present at the Centenary function, the "Telegraph" went out of its way to wonder if Mr. Masefield, being induced to write a* belated Centennial Ode, would start with "I must go down to the Yarra again." But an even more determined effort to exploit Melbourne's misfortune was made by the "Sun," which offered a poem supplementary to the 279 rejected lyrics, entitled "Help Melbourne to Sing"—Op. 2SO, to the tune "Advance, Australia Fair":

Ere gallant Grimes the Yanra found One hundred years* *a.go, When gallant Bateman dug this ground And cabbages did sow, Which gallant Fawkner's rabbits ate And lawsuits did ensue — Who guessed that we would celebrate ? O Melbourne, we love you ! Though Yarra's grimier erimior, yet, We've grown up side by side, Emerging from our bassinet, "Age"-old and "Argus"-eyed, A banter burg than Sydney far — Come, drape the festive chintz— Queen City of the South ! Hurrah, For Melbourne and the Prince! I have quoted this not because it is particularly humorous, nor is it—with the exception of the line about the "Arjiis" and "the "Age"—particularly clever, but because it illustrates quite well the determination of the average Sydney ite to be funny—as funny as he can whenever the occasion arices—at Melbourneexpense.