A MODEST BOOK OF VERSE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1922, Page 17

A MODEST BOOK OF VERSE

-•Gathered Leaves" (verse). By Marjory Nicholls. Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, j

Miss Nicholls's verse recalls the words of Keats : "Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and troubles is toschool an intelligence and make it a soul?"/ In a little book of verse, published a few years ago, and favourably reviewed in this column, she was revealed as One who was quick to see the joy of life; But in this second book it is evident that she has seen be"heath the surface of things. There is no difference, oi very little, in Miss Nicholls's felicity of expression, her facility in arranging her thoughts, or the fluency of lines; but she now writes with maturity. She has developed a soul. For example, there is a little poem, the first in the book, written in 1912, and entitled "Rain in The Night." It is such as a clever girl might write, with the rainbow hu-ed and golden tinted years before her; but there is a long distance between these lines and the following—a treading of thorny and stony ways..

There's so much sorrow now on earth It conies, as waves surge up from the sea, Breaks as a wave o'er the heart of me, And' drags deep down, my pleasure and mirth. An ebb as well as a flow must be; When the waters fall, I shall walk the sand, Gathering close with a careful hand Any bright thing that belonged to me. Smiles come slow to a sorrow-set mouth; Fears creep close in the haunted night, One scarce believes in the welcome sight Of rain-clouds thick at break of a drouth. Ease after pain hath its blessed sway— •■ But the pain of the world is hard to end, And rarely can vse call life friend Yet Hope still lives thro' each sad day. Although suffering gives a background to many of Miss Nichalls's later verses, there is discernible a ray of hope, a warm, encouraging ray, not of an arc light, but that of a friendly, companionable table lamp, with the curtains drawn, and cheerful flames dancing in the grate. Under the heading, "Silver, Birches" Miss Kicholls describes jn a few delicate touches—as M'Whirter would have treated the birches in paint—the trees, tneir gracefulness, and the women who eat beneath them sewing and talking. Then, in the fashioning of a soul from an intelligence, she reflects . beneath the little stirred branches of the trees. Silver and'green, their loveliness — •' And as I gazed, I. lost the thought That all 'the things of everyday Were bringing loveliness to nought." The little things of everyday— So quietly innocent they seem, Yet all the time with furtive hands *' They try to strip all -life of dream. And bind us to the commonplace,

And steal' the wonder from our eyes, And hush the laughter in our hearts

And seek to make us worldly-wise—

Yet God with large, calm hands shall come And brush the furtive things aside, And break the chains of commonplace; And we shall walk with His free stride Turning our glad eyes to His face...

Miss Nicholls has a keen eye for colous in the things in Nature that are not seen or heeded by every sighted person^ She has beeD allured by the colour of the East, but its vividness and warmth have not dulled her vision for the subtle pints, and their nuances of her beloved Homeland—and New Zeajand, with Wellington in particular, is vibrant with colour, like the pawa shell. Her work is a modest but sincere and poseless contribution to the poetry of New Zealand.