SHEER POETRY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 223, 13 June 1908, Page 12

SHEER POETRY.

"Elzevir," who writes occasionally in the Melbourne ''Argusj"* is Australia's foremost literary critic. . Generally bis sound and discriminating tasto expresses itself in caustic rebukes to.-hi?,;suDjects.- : Praise 'from! him is rare, and is. accordingly the better worth having, • In*'the "Argu?" of May' 30 he discusses Miss Baughan s recent vol-' time of poetry, " Shingle-Short, and other -Verses." The;'terms' and the degree;?, .of • ' Elzevir's" praise are_ nearly idontical With moot own - reviewer's ll in a' recent .issue of Xiib Dominion. ~ The • two notices fare in many respects 'parallel. As Miss Baughan's splendid ■ achievement cannot be., too much; commended ■ to. lo ( vers of fine poetry, weprint the Melbourne critic's estimate .•! % i - always a. pleasure _ (he , writes) to praise a good, poet—and) if one is- not wholly without ■ patriotism, it is a treble pleasure to praise a_ good Australian poet. And this pleasuro is, perhaps, intensified by the rarity of . its occurrence. One gets rather tired of the Australian bardffiheis \ rather tired .of the Australian "bard; be ;is : as a rule so distressingly minor, and,4here are so many of him. ■■ I?tit a new book has come to hand—book, not of Australian, but at least of Australasian ;poetvy— which has upset the reviewer's: most cherished convictions. Have you ever pulled out 4 drawer which you believed to bo full of old papers, bits of string, and other ruhbfeh, and found it full of glittering, jingling, golden sovorejgni? If you have you will be able to form' a dim conception of; the weary reviewer's' feelings v>h.en: he listlessly opens a new voluriib of NewZealand verse, and finds — sheer poetry. "Shingle-Short, and- Other Verses" (Wellington'; Whitcombe and Tombs; Limited)'.ls" the name of the' volume.. The name on the title-page is B. E. Baughaii;'as I am quite certain tjiat the chief poem in the book could not havo been written by a man, I: shall take.the liberty of speaking of the-author as Miss Baughan. ' And Miss. Baughan is a truo poet, and her book is much the best that .has come out of New' Zealand since the'"Maoriland" of Mr: Arthur Adams, "a poet .with whom she has little or nothing in common.. . It is the title-poem, "Shihgle-Short,". which gives distinction to the book." This is the soliloquy," thirty pages long, of a half-witted being - in whom Wordsworth, would have delighted. He makes a ,boat,, floats it in a tank, is in tho sevonth heaven, of delight about 'it, suddenly sees' tho fu-' tility of it and - of himself, wanders off into an indictment of the universe, evolves, a kind:of crazy theology, and stops—that is all. But what a wealth of tenderness, of sympathy; of humour, of understanding I And how masterly tho'treatment—not a' word, we feel, misplaced).. .The . absolute, lightness of tho whole thing stamps _it as a little masterpiece." -In manner "if'ie-' .minds the reader ' very ! greatly of T. 1 " E. Brown and his "Fo'c'sle Yarns." From him Miss Baughan-lias learnt much in thrf way of. managing her loose octosyllables. Brown,' too, dedicated a poem to an 'idiot —the reader will not have forgotten "Poor. Chaise." But so far as tho subject-matter is concerned, one thinks rather of Wordsworth and his "Ididt'lJoy," and one thinks of Wordsworth's strange and wise remark, in a letter to Christopher North:—"l have often applied to idiots, in my own mind, that sublime expression of Scripture that .their life is hidden with God.'" Miss Baughan might have put those < words as the motto of hor poem; and the poem would not have been unworthy of the motto. It' -is, I repeat, a masterpiece of pity,' aiid of the understanding born of pity. I havo looked up and down the poem to find somothing suitable.for quotation;'but I havo found ijotlung which would not be .spoiled by being torn from its context; arid this' also should be oourited 'to Miss Baughan for artistic:righteousness, j There aro many other poems in the book, •but nothing "else of the, same genre,' and nothing else, to my mind, approaching the • first poem in excellence. And yet ''Maui's ; Fish (a Maori legend) is ■ full •of , vigour,. and is'.a serious artistio effort., in ,a: new form; and there is some other excellent • work. B,ut "Shingle-Short" standi alone,' unapproached of its kind in tho poetry of , Australasia; and those who have read. it, ■ though they will look to Miss Baughan-for •■great things in the future, will hardly ex-' her to better this, achievement. •