WITH OUR OWN POETS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

WITH OUR OWN POETS

VIII. Hubert Church

Specially Written *For 'Enzed Junior* by EILEEN DUGGAN r- -*

THIS quiet poem has been chosen v by critics as one of Church's best. 1 it describes the coming of spring to New Zealand, but it Is evident that g Church «iu influenced bv poems on ! spring as it wain on other lands. 1 t Must of our native trees are ever- | greens, so that spring is not the . miracle that it is in countries where \ all the trees are bare until its com- j ing. One of the best descriptions of spring is Swinburne's "And in green underwood and cover blossom bv blossom the spring begin*.'' Even in the old lands there are always a few scattered flowers that act as scouts I before spring's advancing army. Alice Meynell has described the descent of spring on the vineyards of France:— , I saw this year the winter Tines of France. Dwarfed, twisted goblins 1b the frost* drouth— Gnarled, crippled, blackened little •terns askance | On long bills to the sooth. Great, green and golden hands af leaves ere long Shall prulTer clusters la that vineyard o wide ... Spring is. in countries such as France, a rather sadden resurrection of green and it adds to the joy of Easter in the old lands that it comes with spring and that earth seems to rise again from winter when its Lord rose from the dead. Spring does not come to all New Zealand at once. It begins in Auckland and advances fairly slowly down the coast. Snowdrops bloom later in Dunedin than in Wellington,

which may he called the midland province. Christchurch, which contains so many tine English trees, has more chance of realising what overseas springs are like; but it" we miss something of the glory that spring and autumn bring to "these lands it tutwt be .remembered that our ever- , green foliage save* our landscapes I from such dreariness as theirs show I in winter. •

The Poem Itself. Hubert Church is a poet's poet. He has something in him, a calm restraint, that reminds one of the Englishman Robert Bridges. He was a quiet but a true poet, especially in his shorter poems. "Like a gull between the waves'* is a good line, for a gull comes in between waves with a swift flash of white win»s. "Through the white shroud on the graves" gives a hint of snow, but snow is les* frequent than frost in this country. He stresses the contrast in the second stanza between the cold uf the sub-antarctic belt in

which New Zealand lies and the warm softness of spring. Our land, however, is not so close to the southern Pole as the stanza would seem to surest, 'lowering icebergs do not jo-tle one another off our coast*, though the line of the northern limit of drift ice passes the Antipodes tii the south of lis; though we lie wit hiti the northern limit of snowfall our mountains experience many more snowstorms than our plains. A very graceful idea is contained in the third and fourth lines of the last stanza. .Spring is pictured as entering New Zealand under an arch ■ in the sky. An artist might paint her entry under the rainhow. Botticelli lias given the l>e<t pictured conception of the airy, flowery coining of spring in his famous picture "Prima vera." Hubert Church. Those who were privileged to know Hubert Church admired him greatly. His later years were marred by an increasing deafness. He was born, I think, in Tasmania, but there is less

oJ Australia than of New Zealand in his poetry. His earlier poems are English rather than colonial in manner anil in theme, but it must be remembered that it is many years since his lirst b»>k was published and in those years we have made strides in nationality. Names like "croft." ''holm" and "meadow" are now listed as uncommon words, words not in everyday use in New Zealand. Even "held" is less used [than "paddock." Even so, [>oet3 of the last century are not to be despised for using them, nor are poems containing them to be rejected. Church wrote poems of some length. Victoria College can be proud of this scholarly poet, who, if he lacked fire, wrote nothing commonplace. His book "The West Wind" waa published in Sydney in 1902. "Poems" was published in Wellington in 1904. Church worked for years in the Treasury Department, Wellington. Although no longer young, he did war work in London, returning after the peace to Mel- ' bourne, where he died in 1932.