THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18485, 12 September 1925, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF-HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (srrciii.LT wetttxs yes "thk mess.") By A. H. Gbdojng. CXXX-OX DAFFODILS (2). More than twenty years ago, Mr A. Wilson published a pamphlet entitled "The Narcissus at the Antipodes" in which he points out that in the place of March-April in the Homeland, the first daffodils make their appearance in the Dominion towards the end or Au<mst or the first week in September, "uTst when the crocuses are declining somewhat." "For a week or two he writes, "vou may have been watchin- their ieaves-if leaves you can call what is more like grass-pushing their way through the sol.d earth and sometimes raising upon their tips an astonishing weight of soil considering the seeming feebleness of the support. . It may be taken as generally true that the earliest narcissi of spring are the varieties of the trumpet dal-fodil-the -Narcissus— pseudo *"**■ sus. Why that flower should be called the 'false' narcissus, which, if we follow Ovid's description, is the very flower into which the pitiful gods changed the Greek youth, is not amongthe practical points I propose to diswhich is ambiguously used, sometimes to denote the whole group of largecrowned daffodils, sometimes to denote one variety of the group, viz., the English/Lent Lily, I snail use the simpler and more usual name of 'Trumpet Daffodils.' "

Mr Wilson savs that the English Lent Lily is not an attractive. -flower as daffodils go, and is somewhat difficult to grow in New Zealand but, he adds, "many will be drawn to it by their memory of English meadows. The fact has to be born in mind tnat the English poets have been inspired by the English variety of the flower, What an opportunity for some JSew Zealand poe"t to arise and make himself or herself famous with an ode to the Trumpet Daffodil. Austm Doteon addresses a rondeau "To Daffodils which is apropos :

C yellow flowers that Herrick sung, O yellow flowers that danced and swung In Wordsworth's verse, and now tome, Unworthy, from this "pleasant lea\, Laugh hack, unchanged and ever young; Ah, what a text to us o'erstrung, O'erwTought, o'er-reaching, hoarse of lung, You teach by that immortal glee, O yellow flowers. "VVe, by thn Age's oestrus stung, Still hunt the New with eager tongue, Vexed ever with thc Old, but ye, What ye have been ye- still shall be. When, we are dust, the duet among, O yellow flowers.

It is instructive to note the various moods and tenses which the daffodil is called upon to illustrate. Arthur Machen is in some ways a contradictory writer but I like him best when in reminiscent, not to say mystical, mood. I possess a little book printed in' a limited edition only two years ago, and which contains two ot Machen's stories, "Strange Roads, and "With the Gods in Spring. ' it is the latter story which will make mv point "We shall go on seeking it,'" says Mr Machen, "to the end, so long as there are men on the earth. We shall seek it in all manner of ways, strange ways, some of them wise, and some of them unutterably foolish. But the search will never end. . . . jlt is the secret of things; the real truth that is everywhere' hidden under outward appearances; the end of the story, as it were; the few final words that make every doubtful page m the long book plain, that clear up all bewilderments and all perplexities, and show how there was profound meaning and purpose in passages apparently obscure and purposeless." Mr Machen «roes on to say that there are many ways of the great quest of the secret; he then proceeds to narrate, how forty years ago he and two friends BiU and Jack, set out for a walk early-.on an afternoon in March. They were all in a mood of adventure bent on going to Usk—''a little town in oiir country far in the west"—and on going to it by a new w.av. Thev knew that all roads led to TJsk; the end of that walk is delightfully described:—

' It was a great day in March. The wind shrilled and rustled and shivered andehook all the dead woods. Though it was so keen and cold, it came, if I remember well, over the wall of the threat and high mountain of the west, and drove the white and grey rolling clouds before it to eastward over the biUows of the land, over those hidden valleys where the little brooks rush clear and swift under the alders; over the hills where the pine trees stand, over the solemn hanging woods that were still and sombre in their winter wear. . . We were skirting a wild little hill. It was a placo of rough grass, winter withered; of bracken clumps turned brown; of brambles that had forgotten autumn berries, black and rich; or the twisted ancient thorn tree, dark and dreaming of fairyland. And as we 'passed on our way, while the keen wind shook the bare brown houghs as it went roaring down the valley to the brook, while the huge clouds roiled on to tie sea; there I eaw on the hillside, under a low black thorn bush rising from withered! bracken, the green leaves and pale yellow blossoms of n daffodil, shaking in that high cold wind. VEKE DEUS. It was forgotten as Bill and Jack and I came infallibly by our impossible way over the briage into the street of TJsk, and to the Three Salmons, that inn of old and happy memory. Forgotten then, but remembered always, the shining apparition of the god.

John Drinkwater among the poete of to-day makes frequent mention of the daffodils. He sees symbok in the beautiful spring flower, as for instance:

I saw history in a poet's song, In a river reach and a gallow's hill; In a bridal bed, and* a secret wrong, In a crown of thorns; in a daffodil,

I imagined measureless time in a day. And starry space in e. waggon road; And the treasure of all good harvests lay In tho single seed that the sower sowed',

My garden wind had driven and havened again All ships that tsret had gone to sea, And I saw the glory of «U dead men In the shadow that went by the side of me.

In "The Traveller" Mr Drinkwater uses the daffodil to illustrate quite another point of view: —

When March was master of furrow and fold, And the skies kept cloudy festival. And the daffodil podß were tipped with gold. And a passion was in the 'plover's call, A. spare old man went hobbling by, With a broken pipe and a tapping stick, And he mumbled: "Blossom before I die, Bo qnick, vou litUe brown buds, be quick.

Tve weathered the world for a count of Good old yeara of shining fireArid death and the devil bring no fears, And I've fed the flame of my last desire; I'm ready to go, but I'd pass the gate On the edge of the world with an old heart sick If I missed tho blossoms, I may not wait— The gate is open—be quick, be quick."

In respect of daffodils, however, Mr Drinkwater is at his best in what is recognised as one of his finest poems, "la La4y tStreetj" person-

allr I much prefer "Juno Dance." £nich is not nearly so well Known. The contrast between tie dingy and desolate rows or shops in Lady street, and tho Gloucester lanes is wonderfully drawn, as is also the fact that "One grey man" has managed to preserve the sweetness of Gloucester Unes, even amid tl>e dinginess and desolation of Lady street:

Aye, Gloucester lance. For down below Iho cobwebbed room this grey man plica A trade, a. coloured trade. A show Of many coloured merchandise Is in his shop. Brown filberts there, And apples red with Gloucester air, Ar.d cauliflowers he keeps, and round Smooth marrows grown on Gloucester ground. Fat cabbages and yellow plums, And gaudy brave chrysanthemums. And times a glossy pheasant lies Among his store, not Tyrian dyes More rich than are the neck-feathers; And times a. x>rizo of -violets, Or dewy mushrooms satin skinned And times an unfamiliar wind Robbed of its woodland flavour stirs. Gay daffodils this grey man sets Among his treasure. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson—Wibson, as Rupert Brooke delighted to call him—is a poet who somehow has never had the popularity ho deserves. He hails from Northumbria, and was born at Hexham in 1878. Ho commenjod writing more than twenty years ago, his first efforts in verse being conventional t ulz? 106 * comm onplaoe. but in 1910 he brdke new ground with his "Daily r6ad j dialogues. Delicate health presented him going to the front in 1914. but the iron of the war entered into his soul, and of this his poems written aunng the war time bear eloquent wit?o?|- , ThlS is , the mood inVhich in lJlb_.be penned "Daffodils." The beginning and end of the poem will give an idea of its motive and meaning

He liked the daffodils. He liked to 8«e Ii in thc hedgerow* cheerily Along the dusty lanes as he went bylvodd.ng and laughing to a fellow. Ay, Nodding and lathing tUI you'd almost think iney 100 enjoyed, the jest.

mu . , , , Without a wink lhat solemn butler said it, calm and ernns Deep-yoiced «s though he talked into a jugY Mis lordship saye, he won't require no more Crocks nvetted or mended till the war la over.

■pl i» ■,-, And norw at ever y -*m ina daffodils are laughing quietly Nodding and laughing to themselves, aa he Chuckled: Now thero'3 a patriot, real truet!ue. It seemed tho daffodils enjoyed it too Tho fun of it. He wished that he could seaOld solemn—mug— them laughing quietly At him. But then, he'd never have a. dim Idea they laughed and least of all at him. He'd never dream they could be laughing at A butler. . . .

'Twould be good to see the fat Old peach-cheek in his' eolemn black and stirch Parading in his pompous parlour march Across that field of laughing daffodils.

'Twouldi be a sight to make you skip up • hills, Ay, crutch and all, and never feel your pack, To see a. butler in his starch and black Among the daffodils, ridiculous *

As that old bubbly jock with strut and fuss— Though that was rather rough Troon the bird For all his pride he didn't look absurd Among the flowers.

Jack would see the funAy, Jack would ree the joke, Jack was his

son— The youngest of the lot. . . His thoughts dropped back Through eighteen years: and he again saw

Jack At the old horn* beneath the Malvern Hills, A little fellow plucking daffodils,

A little fellow who could scarcely walk Yet chuckling as he snapped each juicy stalk And held up every yellow-bloom to smell Poking his tiny nose into the bell And snuffing the fresh scent, and chuckling

still As though he'd secrets with each daffodil: Ay, he could see again the little fellow In his blue frock among- the . laughing yellow. . • • He still could see Shutting his eyes, as plain as plain could be Drift upon drift, those long dead daffodils Against the far green of those Malvern Hills, Nodding and laughing round his little lad, As if to see him hap.py made them glad—.Nodding and laughing. . . . ..They were nodding now The daffodils, and laughing—yet somehow Thev didn't seem so merry now. . ... * . And he Was. fighting in a bloody trench maybe For very" life . this. minute. .■ . • Casting around for a fitting finale, I happened on a recent number of ''X3-J£.'s Weeklv," and my eye caught the word "Daffodils," and underneath the heading were tfoe following dainty lines, signed ' 'Fanny. Johnson'': Faintly silently speak Beloved cf poets, you Daffodils, and I seek To hear the phrases true. Somewhere a Great Delight Shaped your comely heads. Scattered your comfort bright In secret woods and meads. Somehow a. cunning Hand Drew your tender lines, downed you, made you stand Here in these still confines. Somewhere, a Thought profound Plumbed my deepest eoul Breathed through your trumpets a sound Of notes that console.