Untitled

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 48, 24 February 1917, Page 16

.^European poetry lost a powerful and individual figure in Emile Verhaoren. to whom the tragic fate of Mb country, Belgium, had brought a celebrity in AngloSaxon nations that he might not otherwise have attained. Though a Fleming he was not a nationalist in a narrow sense. His writing passed through various periods, not all wholesome, which showed various French influences, hut hia most characteristic work, written in very fr<?B verse, was an indictment of the limitations of modern life as a poet of passionate and revolutionary mind saw them. The translations published during the past two years have not acquainted the public with the..depth and. force of Verhaeren's work. In fact,- critics regard his work as practically untranslatable. This is one reason why the world heard so little of him before the war in comparison with. Maeterlinck, whose French was, easy to read and io translate. Even in war time the loyal Dickeneian does riot forget his master and to write about'him. Mr. Walter Crotch is publishing "The Soul of Dickens." Mr Crotch's point, of "view is that Dickens was quiritessentially an .Englishman, that in short, JiiV'so'ul" is the "soul" of England. . This, ■as will be seen, gives the book a national touch.

; London has but few memorials of William Blake, yet his house in Herculesroad; North Lambeth,' is in danger' of demolition Blake went to Lambeth. in 1793, and in it did the "Job" and "Ezekiel" prints, more than 500 coloured drawing^for Young's 1 "Night Thoughts," and certain-of the "Prophetic Books." In the garden of this house the "Adam and' Eve" "incident occurred. In the Album presented to tb,e Kitchener Memorial Fund by Mrs. Lan Malcolm, the quotation contributed by Sir David Beatty is— • " ■■.■-■ "Grant that with zeal and skill this day ,i. do, ... / , What me to do behoves, what Thou ■■■' commandest me to-do. Grant,that I do it sharp, at point of .. moment fit, . And when I do it, grant me good suc'cess'in it."- <••' : , „ . •' ' The lines . are a translation of part of a hymn written by a German—Johann Heermahn.' ■ ■ ' ' ' Sir Douglas Haig's. quotation is Longfellow's— ....'■ . : "To those at home! . Go forth to'meet the.shadowy future ■ Without fear and with a manly heart." A writer in the Chronicle remarks of the latter that Chaucer expressed the same sentiment, as Longfellow, and in much stronger words. In one of his last ballads Chaucer wrote his epitaph— "Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beeste, ■ ■ out of thy stall! Know thy countree; : look up, thank Go<J of: all; . .Hold the hyo way, and. lat thy gost thee lede •■•..' And.. trouth shal delivre, hit is.no drede." , . , . The humourists that the great war is throwing iip in print seem to be largely Scots. Perhaps this is on the principle that if it needs a surgical operation to get -a joke into a Scotsman's head it needs a European.way to get it out. The author of "Private Spud Tamson" has a new volume, called "The Mixed .Division," nearly ready He is "Captain R. W Campbell, who when he was 13 began to bang the cymbals with the Glasgow, Highlanders, and lias kept his military end up ever since. He was on the staff of the Auckland Herald for some time.