THE BOOKFELLOW.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 102, 1 May 1909, Page 9

THE BOOKFELLOW.

Written for the Post by A. G. Stephens. Copyright. All Rights Deserved. MY HEART. That summer luncheon I can ne'er forget — The cool, smooth fragrance of the r wine ; The odour of the hanging mignonette, The hidden oboes, that divine, Sweet melodies pursued. The lilycups of glass, their dainty stems Scarce footed in the damask snow ; The silver-twisted ornaments, like gems, The woman voices, chaste and low ; The friendly solitude. The laughing host, his bright, big, boyish _ eyes Alight with innoconce and love; My sister's face, toward his turned lis-tening-wise ; A dark, impulsive Southern dove, Hot from the forest sun. But yet the splendid pleasure of that day, For me, was saddened by the thought That Sho was absent in somo far-away — The girl my heart would fain have brought . . . 0 star ! 0 perfect one ! —Hugh M'Crao. THE LOVER SINGS. It is not dark, it is not day; The earth lies quirering. to the dewi Shall we not love her? All men may. Lo, here a lover passes too. Down a green shadowy path he goes, And in his hand he bears a rose. Still singing that his heart is true. Creeps the low darkness where the eve Groweth more gloomy, and anon The lover sings. And doth he grieve For red-lip kisses three days gone? Hark how he sings ! high heavenly clear, Chief messenger of light to cheer The brown earth and that bides thereon. Listen, and we shall leave the earth, Brooding no jnore o'er baser things. His lily love hath rosy worth; Like to a happy flower she clings. Glcries have come up in her eyes — Wrapt in a fire he leaps, he flies, Not for himself the lover sings. I.i every loveless lane or' way Hearts have been heavy, prison-cold. For all who only moan and pray Still doth he sing — he sang of old. Joy-bearer, bard of better things, Not for himself tli9 lover sings, Singer of Summer uncontrolled. Mourners move inward from the gloom; Not for himself the lover sings; Give us, they cry, the buds, the bloom, All Paradise, and many Springs. Star follows star in the dull grey, Deep is the daTk, it drinks the day: For ver> love of God he sings. ' — Shaw Neilson. SWINBUBN'E. Six fat volumes, of verse ; five of drama; of criticism say six more, lees corpulent. Who in Australasia can, say 'he has read them all? 1 verily believe 'more people have read the "Faerie 'Queene." I know one man who has 'read the "Faerie Queene" ; not one who has read all Swinburne. The body of English poetry which every lover of letters should have assimilated, grows always larger ; if it is not absorbed in youth, then to most of us the opportunity of absorption never comes. Youth is the time in which to lay a mental foundation of the classics and romantics; there is never 'enough time to read what you wish, to tread later on. Yet, fov the current term in Canterbury College, students of English literature are asked to read two books only. Two! instead of twenty, forty. "It is feared that, if degrees are made too difficult, that will frighten- away the students. The average student does not tome to study : ha comes to get a degree at the least possible cost of study." This is am astonishing f«a>tupe of a- college of the (New Zealand University. How far 'does it represent university teaching in the other colleges? In, Australia? Let me awow that, despite a studious youth, I have not road Swinburne all. That is indeed a scholar's grateful task ; but there is too much Swinburne, even in a schoJai-'s view. Unless with a. special object, I would not recommend anyone to read 1 more than' the two sfries of "Poems and Ballads," "Atulanta," the "Songs before Sunrise," the earlier dramas, and as much of tns prose as possible — certainly ! "Blake." That, and a little more, is> what I have read. The rest I have skimmed or scanned. Nor do I think my judgment holds on that account mo-re than a possible 5 per cent, of error; though it is the admitted! duty of a critic of literature to know his author as well as he knows himself, and to ponder every line hie author has penned. This is a counsel of perfection. Alas ! As with most imaginative writers, Swinburne's, early work is his best work. "Atala-nta" was published in 1865 ; and the first series of "Poems and Ballads" a year later. Ecstasies and delirium ! Such a splendid debauch, of alliterative verbiage. "Coin© with bows bent, and with emptying of quivera. Maiden most perfect, lady of Hght. . ." How can a young man refuse to be drunken on. that wine of words? Swinburne is a young mania poet, the darting of rebeßious youth,. But no discreet age is proof against the intoxication, of hie measures; they appeal artfully to the primitive rhymer in us aU. "Let us give up, go down; she will not care, I Though all the stars made gold of all the air, And the sea, moving, saw before it move One moon-flower making all the foamflowers fair, Though all the waves went over us, and drove Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair. She would not care." Yet a little so luscious goes a long way ; it is like toffee: too much is cloying. But how many poets can make such verbal' pictures? "The slow, delicious, bright soft blood. . ." And besides the rhectorical mastery, there is occasional majesty: — "The alow delicious bright soft blood. ." 'From too much love of living, ' From hope and fear set free, We thank witfo brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; Thai dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea." And after that? "Much, of Mr. Swinburne's -\erse haa -been performance rather than creation. Xo one else could write ib : it is> sincere ; but it perishes, like the samd or the cloudwreath, in the act of formation." Swinburne as poet, in fact, ac like an tithlete in a circus. He has. a wonderful and sometimes exhilarating gymnastic : the eye is fascinated by his feat*; but the mind? In all that mass of work how much stimulation', how much charm-; yet how little intellectual originality, how little emotional force! Swinburne's verse is literally the poetry of motion. Its; root is red-headed energy.; its flower a series of titillations of the nerves. In manner, as in matter, he is excessive, Prophet one would call him, prophet and orator, made for the forum, and more than half -spoilt in the study. Another Ruekin, in fact, in the opposite camp of ethics ; a rebel, not a martyr. An Australasian cousin remembers him as a boy, "a regular little demon," vim, astonishing pr.Qdigy^ .appear in &hf»

family of a good old Biitish sea-dog. Invited somewhere, "he threw himself down and screamed, 'I won't go! I won't go!' And he never did go; all his life he threw him&«lf down and screamed. He did it beautifully, of course.; the rest is admitted ; yet the boy was father of the boy. For Swinburne, till threescore and twelve, moved in a cycle of boyhood ; he grew along!, but he never "grew up." After his early verse, it is well worth •while to read his early prose, then hislater prose. For dramas .take the first* and last ; those between are — well, not ' indispensable. Swinburne, as oritic, is a suggestive advocate and a bad judge; yet there is much to say for his creed of seeking beauty, overpassing all else. A great -snergy ; a good artist ; a small poet. He has left us a little worth remembering, and a portentous lot to forget. SOUTHERLY BUSTERS. Of Capt. Edwin, New Zealand's valiant weather prophet (whose retirement under the service aga regulation has been notified, after a long and honourable career) Hamlet would have said : "This fellow hath some feeling for his business." Edwin had that cardinal qualification of a prophet — an assured faith in the fulfilment of his own prophecies; and possibly his acquired meteorological skill did not altogether banish the old nautical notion that a wind comes when it is whistled for. Anyway, this story is told to his credit. — Some years ago sky signs pointed to a tremendous hurricane in Cook Strait — something quite abnormal in the way of devastating gales ; and ships that valued their mortal skins were solemnly adjured to lie in harbour till the furious tempest had patsed. So they did, with the exception of a vessel commanded by a real Viking— who looked at the clouds, looked at the barometer, looked into his own soul, and snapped gnarled fingers at the impending crisis. Over to Picton he sailed courageously — cheerfully he sailed back — and there wasn't a sign of a storm. Something had gone irretrievably wrong with the meteorological works. And on Wellington wharf, as the Viking moored his little craft, stood the sombre Capt. Edwin— fair game. The mariner hailed him. "Cap'n Edvin! Cap'n Edvin! Vot aboudt dot sdorai, hey? Vot aboudt dot hurricane? It nefer cooru !> It nef er coom !" Edwin glared at him with the basilisk eye that curdles the blood. "No," he said. ".No. It didn't come. But" — and he shook his great fist at the mocker— "You scoundrel, I'll have you yet! I'll have you yet!" Another admirable nautical veteran, Capt. Manning, contributed recently to the Press some readable reminiscences of Captain Fairchild, a veteran who has found rest Where no storms come. Where the green swell is in the havoii dumb, And out of the swing of the sea. Fairchild had for 20 years New Zeaj land notoriety. With character, wit, American accent, a fcpice of gnomic, malice, and command of the Government picnic steamer, he made for himself a reputation that is still relished. Some examples unrecorded by Capt. Manning:— One night Faircluld's steward came aboard the worse for liquor. The old man said nothing, and helped the criminal to his bunk. Next moming, when the steward came in with the tea— ' x "St<eward, you were' d-muk last night." "Drunk, sir? Me, sir? Oh, no, sir. I may have had a glass-or two, sir — but not drunk, sir, I assure you, sir." "Well, steward, if you were not drunk, I was ; and next time I'm drunk,you're fired!" Neat, too, was Fairchild's commentary at the time of the Russian war scare, when the Ne*/ Zealand Government had no thought of giving Dreadnoughts, but looked to local defence. Two old cannon were found in Wellington, and a sapient committee was sent to inspect the Hinemoa, and decide whereabouts on the vessel they could be mounted most effectively. The committee walked dubiously round the deck, and at last bethought itself lo tukt, the captain's opinion. "You mount those two guns pointing right over the starn, gentlemen. That's the only place they'll be of any use to me." NOTES. ' An African visitor says Olive Schreiner lives on her husband's farm, 500 miles from Capetown, rarely quitting it. "She has grown fat, wears thick boots, and tucks up her petticoats in wet weather." We hope this is no libel, for the commentator was a lady. "And she is so queer ; she sleeps at all hours, and gets up in the middle of the night and drinks coffee." The lady, it appears, was not acquainted with the thrills and throes of the literary life. "And she writes a great deal ; but it is only to be published after her death. ' Sad gossip, this. "And she had one child, and it died." All is said. A. S. Waiter tells Chambers'*; Journal that Ruskin threw "a large quart" at his head because he dared to, question the -proportion of Michael Angelo's "Moses." Then "How often have you | seen it?" he asked. "Half a dozen times." "Good heavens! No man should dare to give an opinion on a work of art unless he has seen it every j day for six months." There is something in that, beside extravagance. "Good"" or "bad" may fairly be attributed at sight; but "How good" takes time to measure. An excellent way of living with pictures is to keep one hanging at the bed-foot and look at it for five minutes in the morning. If you do not weary of it in a week it is worth having. There is plenty of meritorious work that will not endure three days' inspection. When all the charm is on the suiface, and there is no permanent power of suggestion, criticism is soon over. I have tested Australian black-and-white in that way, and — how well a Phil May original wears ! " Why ?" asked an English critic recently, reviewing the English opera season in the Saturday Review, " why is the steam always late at Co vent Garden ? Quite an effective use of steamcurtains can be made in Wagner's operas ; but a mere faint vapour suggestive of washing-day is worthless. What happens is that in the moment indicated in the score when steam and clouds should rise, the steam is no doubt turned on, but the pipes being of some length, and probably full of condensed steam and cold water, it is quite a minute before any steam appears. There is a dreadful parsimony about the provision of steam at the Royal Opera." This shows how hard it is to be truly irusical nowadays. It was much easier " when Music, heavenly maid, was young," and blew ecstacy out of a reed pipe, or merely thumped two bones for an enraptured audience. The allusion to the " dreadful parsimony " of the Co vent Garden management recalls a story told me by a Christchurch girl about her visit to Wellington. " I was all ready to go to a. dance at Oriental Bay, when the friend who was going to take me sent word that he was> nearly mad with toothache, and was off to a dentist, and couldn't come, and 1 didn't know what to do. " However, I decided to go alone, and chance coming home, and I went, and had a first-rate time, and it was over about one o'clock. So Mrs. said, she'd get a gentleman to take me-thome,. and she. brought him ug and introduced'

him. Oh, he did look sulky ! He drdn l * live my way at all. "He said, 'Are you ready*?' in such' a tone ! and I said ' Yes/ and we came along, and he didn't speak one word all the way. I was staying in Kefburne, and when we. got to the foot of the hill I said ' Thank you very much ; but I know my way now, and I needn't trouble you any farther. Good-night.' " So he said ' Good -night' in a regular growl, and marched off. But I hadn't gone very far when I heard him coming alter me. So I waited, and he came up, -.and what do you think he said? He » said, 'I s'pose I'd better go home with you, or I'll get into trouble with Mrs. " I told him I was very much obliged to him ; but there was really no necessity ; but -he was quite obstinate, so wa went along again, climbing up one of 1 those awful Wellington halls, and he didn't offer me his arm or anything, just marched ahead, poor me following, after veiy humbly. I tell you I thought a. lot ! " So we came right to the gate of the house where I was staying, and I thanked him again as nicely as 'I could, and said, 'Good-night, Mr. , I'm ever so much obliged to you,' and offered my hand. "And what do you think? He refused it! 'Oh, no,' he said 'I've said goodnight already.' And off he marched! So I called out after him, 'I think you're very sparing of your good-nights !' "No; all the Wellington boys ar* not like that, thank goodness !"