NEW ZEALAND VERSE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 21

NEW ZEALAND VERSE

NATIVE IDEALS IN EXOTIC FORMS.

"A Treasury of New Zealand Verse," compiled by AY. F. Alexander and A. E. Currie. New Zealand: Whitcombc and Tombs, Ltd.

The average quality of this verso— roprintod, with forty-three additions, after twenty ycara—is not high,' measured, by poetic standards. Judged as verse, it. is fair; but judged as New Zealand verse, it, .of course, appeals. If the idea of the compilers had been to. publish only high standard verse, the volume would have been thinner; but if their idea is to reproduce verses that-have been associated with some particular event in New Zealand's history, with some locality, or with some period of the country's development, then the volume serves its purpose. It is quaint to look into some of these old verses of Victorian times, and note how much water—colonially speaking—has since.passed under the bridge. "Not Understood" stands for any period— Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian; but there are not many "Not TJnderst'oods." Many of these voices out of the past belong to the past. BUSH WORSHIP. In a book of New Zealand verse one jjnight hope to see more of the New Zealand hallmark than there is in this volume. The poet is supposed to bo a very keen observer of nature, but few of the verses will bring the reader very close to the flora and fauna of his country. The bush is worshipped in the abstract, rather than intimately. Of course, many of the nature-songs in the book have a frankly exotic setting, as *:bird on tho leafless bough," etc.; but' oven those versifiers who worship our evergreens seem to do so in an exotic way. Tho bush is pictured neither closely nor always accurately, or the poet sees Greek temples in the -gorges,- or regrets that the Greek temples are not there. For instance, Alan E. Mulgan has caught the mystical music in tho lilt of the riroriro— So much of beauty all around, But naught more dear That-this small hidden bird's sweet sound, Following the changing pageant of the year With daily note, : half joy, and half regret. •■•''■■■■■•■''. But Mr. Mulgan goes on to picturesquely—and futilel}'-I—regret1—regret that riroriro does not live, in some Old' World land by immemorial seas, -where every headland is a city's grave, and where, hosts of imaginative artists would weave legend round the warbler fs- wistful song. The thought is quite legitimate, but it at onco morges the New Zealand picture in the conventions of Europe. (Needless to add, Mr. Mulgan's verse is much above the average level of the compilation under review;) WITCHERY OF A EAUPO SWAMP. That poetry ,of a simple but sincere quality can be found in the heritage of ■Nature and. the Maori is sufficiently illustrated'by 'Miss M. 'A. Sinclair's verses on "To Raupo." • Down in a valley, ' : Hemmed in by mountains^ -• Eipples a river' : Vivid and verdant. Foot may^notfordit, . Craft may not stem it; . Which way the wind blows, So.sets the current. ■ Home of the old witch, Fain, would she lure thce. , Down to destruction, • '.' Whispering softly: "Come tread my raupo, Safe it will bear thee O'er the morass." Deaf to her charming, - Deaf to her wooing, -. ■■• "Pauses the wise man.; 'Ay, though each, raupo Bends in- obeisance, Whispering, ■'' Try us." Down in the valley, v Hemmed in by mountains; ■■• Vivid and verdant, : O'er the morass. Bends to the East wind, Bows to the West wind, .'•^, . Wooing }he stranger To hia undoing Baupo kakino. -„.■' '"Kakino" means treacherouß. The author has vividly portrayed the "col- - cur" of a raupo swamp besides giving It imaginative adornment. ■ -;. -t THE MAKOMAKO. '■ The common tendency to lament the death of the indigenous forest and birds is human, and serves a useful purpose ,by acting in some degree as a deterrent to despoilers; but it sometimes gets away from facts and from logic. Thns, of the bellbird (makomako): .Thy .doom is fixed by Nature's, l&wj .Why, none can tell. . - Therefore farewell; We'll miss thy voice from leafy shaw, Living silver bell. Poetically, the doom of the makomako may be fixed, but actually the bird is now..seen in this district in increasing .numbers. Moreover, if—in spite of the growing public opinion in support of protecting the native fauna and flora— the makomako does in the end go the way .of the huia, the doom will be not by Nature's law but by man's law. So this ■ first verse confuses the issue, and then proceeds to completely change the venue, because "leafy shaw" carries obackito Burns and Scotland, who are both.estimable enough but somewhat • irrelevant. -' Mr; Johannes C. Andersen has done a lot musically and metrically to help "our- bird-lore. Here is the concluding ,'.verse of his "Twilight and the Makomako'": I>*ll birds; softer than bells, "'. Bell bird, ever in tune, ' What'goj in your bosom dwells?— What passion your bosom swells As. you chime to the climbing-moon? Contrast with this Mr. Arthur H. Adams in. "Tho Dwellings of Our Dead": For .some the quiet bush, shade-strewn ' . ; and saddened, Whereo'er the herald tui, morning- ' ■ •:-' gladdened,. ■ -Lone in his chosen tree With- his new rapture maddened Shouts incoherently. Nowj was that tui really incoherent, or has he been slandered in order to pro- , vido'the fifth line to a jingle? } FROM EXILE. .-, ■ Mr. Adams is one' of the Now Zealand singers who sent back thoughts ■ from exile. Was it in Sydney that ho .-penned the following The old grey city is dumb with heat; No breeze comes leaping, naked, xude, Adown the narrow, high-walled (street; Upon the night thick perfumes brood: ■The evening oozes lassitude. But.o'er the edges of my town, „ Swept, in a tide that ne'er abatos, Tha riotous breezes tumble down; My heart looks home, looks home, '." . , „. where waits .. . The Windy City of tire Straits.

Mr. David M'Ke<} Wright gets away from convention In some of his Now Zoaland pictures, but his selected contributions are mostly about sheep-run life, rabbit-poismiing, dredging, etc. A

Where the broad flood eddies the dredge is moored to tho beach of shingle white, , ■ And the straining, cable whips the stream in a spray of silver light; The groaning buckets bear their load, and the engine throbs away, And the wash pours red on the turning screen that knows not night or day; For there's many an. ounce of gold to save, from the gorge to tho shining

sea — And there's many a league of the bare brown hills between my love and me.;

Since location is one of the chief recommendations of the verses under review, let it concludo with:

WELLINGTON. Eugged she stands, no garlands of bright ftow.ers- , Bind her swart brows, no pleasant forest shades Mantle with twining branches her high hills, No leaping brooics fall singing to her. sea. Hers are no meadows green, nor ordered parks; Not hers the gladness nor the light of song, Nor cares she for my singing. Rudely scarred Her guardian hills encircle her pent streets, Loud with the voices and the steps of trade; And in her bay ..the ships of east and west Meet and cast anchor. Hers the pride of place In shop and mart, no languid beauty she Spreadling her soft limbs among dreaming flowers, But rough and strenuous, red with rudest health, Tossing her blown hair from her eager eyes That look afar, filled with the gleam of power, She stands the strong queen city of- the . : south. , .'■' —David M'Keen Wright. VICTORIA COLLEGE. Thou shalt be greater than the city that lies Beneath tlice, though the wave curve tender foam Athwart her beach, thou hast a fairer . home.... ■ - , H Where " mountains watch thee with eternal eyes. Within thy sanctuary men shall prize The charm of Greece, the majesty of Rome, And Science through thy,starry-circled : doine '■■■ ! t ■ ■ . ..,' ' Shall' trail, her robe of unimagined dyes. , . As thou hast gathered round thoe all that brood Of sacrifice for knowledge, who foresee Begeneration, humbleness, and faith Won through the yoke of Pallas, thou shalt be Memory for those that build thy walls when death .;. • • . .. ■ Had given them else forgotten solitude. —Hubert Church.