LOCALITY-IN VERSE.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6878, 10 October 1887, Page 6

LOCALITY-IN VERSE.

: —**- By Caiu.

A forthcoming volume- of tho "Canterbury Poet-" scrie. I hear Ls to constat of extracts from Australlau poets, Sew Zealanders being also h«*ld adinisslable bt those commissioned with the duty ©f selection, the enly limitation befog that the poems must bo upon Australian subjects ; a series of modulations more or less musically delivered, upon themes purely colouiaU The representative volumo thus obtaiued will no doubt be of much Interest, and find a lurgo circulation both in the colonies and at Home. The Limitation to •Australian subjects \vill secure to iti at least a distinct character and unity of design,' and as a poeUt* re* presentation of the colonies the, volum» promises a eoinple to success. Yet on on. point) there is some doubt raised in my mind—will the voluuio.Jio quite fairly representative of the poets 3

Poetic genius in a new land must' ef 1 course bo held most nationally character-*.. bio when exercising itself upon theme* peculiar to the soil. Tho new gre___ worked upon, in itself, secures a certain force and individuality in tho result, Th» local colouring, while greatly acceptable t» those who hail It as a reminder of scenes [familiar, may even bo welcomed for its ! very novelty by those to whom it conies with a certain foroignness, even grotesqueI ness of unfamiliar detail. Yet after an, tht | higher elements of poetry are surely tho*. which lie above tho range of such arbitrary limitations. Whether professedly npoi colonial subjects or not, there is.likely te ibe a distinctive character enough about ' colonial workmanship, while the iiucon--Bcious influences of time, and place, and up-bringing, combine to work their effect ' both upon motive aud style. The stamp of tho new thought, tho now civilisation, will show itself, less in premeditatedcfl.l. than in the prevailing spirit of the whole. The less need, therefore, that this same [ narrowing influence of local colouring ' should be too greatly insisted upon; and I consider it entirely possible that poems which show colonial workmanship at Its best and highest may be left unnoticed la this representative voltirii'e, from thei^unfortunate neglect of their authors" t« season their rhymes with tho desired local flavour, and that work infinitely less ■worthy of admission as representing th. colonial standard of art, may attain to fehat dignity on the strength ofa casual menjio* of the wattle or the gum tree, an allusl.j. -to'the weka or the mpr-pork.

tt* ' Tho judicious infusion of the local stftiii if t*. into'works of Imagination must always f§ d present an especial difficulty. In America, ft I the analogous forerunner of the newer B — Australian civilisation, lam Inclined te f§ it think it is only comparatively of late thai W. 10 they have attained to aa artistic use of M sr local material. The carlyefforts exhibit a B _- continual strain of thought betweeu (J**** -»I te attraction and repulsion exerted by lo("3_ij_fj"4 a influences. Even Hawthorne, a genius..'*". X c true American type, recognised, am! ex* fjj presses In the preface to his novel ct U a " Transformation," the prevailing sense of „ |*{ c mmaturity, which, as Mr Henry Jam.* || 9 observes, must have lingered in the minds g o of many Americans who have tried te || d write novels and to lay the scene of them M c n the western world—"No author, with- m r out a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of H y writing a romance about a country where B _ there is no shadow, no antiquity, no nivs* B t tery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, M 0 nor anything but a commouplace proH- , fi ,t. perity, in broad and simple daylight, an Is M c happily the case with my dear native m >1 land." And of American poets, those whe I y earliest becamo acknowledged by th. | i- world aro those who furthest escaped 1 .fc the thraldom of circumstance. In the 1 II of Edgar Allan Poe you will 1 c scarcely find a trace of distinctive 1 1 national spirit. He treats of passion and | p imagination only as they might hare in- fi r spired tho singer in any time or country, M 9 Imagine "Annabel Lee," improved by.a. £| f touch of localism, or excluded from notu. m t among the poems of tho time for the want M ot ' that necessary touch. Longfellow If - has been blamed as a poet whose work M I shows but little the influence of race —whe jl i left his country uncxpounded, and sang as i a cosmopolite rather than nn upholder of i local industry. It was something, afc least, ' [ if by lack of apparent patriotism lie established tho fact that his country could i produce a world-wide popular, poet—a it- [ suit, perhaps, less likely to have been at- * tamed had he limited his muse to the oxL pression of purely local thought. Wh.m r ho did look for local colour, by the way, hs • obtained it most decidedly, by going back 1 ; to the original owners of the soil, and sing* | i ing of the noble savage, Hiawntlm. And* I . New Zealand poet has already followed I i this example, passing over the debateuM- I : ground of semi-settled colonization, to sing I i the loves of '' Rauolf and Amobia "in their | i Maori Arcady. § iOf course tlie writer has a special prij- E vinco in tho production of landscape I poetry. Here indeed we shall want our local bard. When the plains, and tht » bush-land, and the great mountains and wide spaces of our earth are borne in upoa the poet's soul and find themselves, u» everyfair or terrible aspect, reflected in ■ * his verse, then, without doubt, the local element will be no bar to its world-wide acceptation. .But in another division of the poet's work there can be no limitation* fixed of place or people. When it Is the drama of this or that soul that is sung, you might take any number of represent--tive poems from the great writers and find nothing that breathes of locality. There fa no reason at all why, had tho inspiration come to some dweller at this side of th« world, such poems might not have been produced exactly as they .stand. The poet of man appeals to man not from * the incidental unlikenesses, but from the, ( minor identity of mind experience. If he *- gains love and reverence, chiefly as his § t work can show the "common universal,: human and heroic characteristic*,," tbcour~ ward differences of life must be slightly, regarded beside the expression of that iiH dwelling identity. lit must be, I heartily believe, a great thing that those who lirst take up the cause of Setters in a new land should do so as the avowed interpreters of that land—yet, is not patriotism in itself but a limitation of tho broader human.. ■ brotherhood? The interpreter of his country may find a higher task as the Interpreter of bis fellow-man. So it will < ? not be strange if the heaven-boni poet, when he arises amongst us in New Zea- f_ * land, throws away the trammels of eh'- ' cumstances, and launches out into im- J-\ patient excursions after depths an&V heights, as far removed from daily com- , monpb-ccs as Hawthorne's first weird tales* • from the meagre narrowness of - early Salem. Genius at least ia neith«*rv -'* dependent upon, nor to bo ruled by, th. v.** mere accident of outward sotting: and th. '•>'"> future may show that our coming poet* \ the nearer theyapproximate to the genius, p the more depart from the spirit of locality, -■: and reach forward to that of universality. )a ■ ( >i -, *»-•-"'