FROM A SUBURBAN BALCONY

Evening Star, Issue 19388, 23 October 1926, Page 2

FROM A SUBURBAN BALCONY

HEW ZEALAND POETRY I have been spending a few pleasant hours with ‘A Treasury of Now Zealand Verse.’ Many folks would say that I have been wasting xny time, for poetry to the average man and woman is something frivolous, and has no marketable value. Audrey says to Touchstone : “ I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?” And the majority of people would answer Audrey’s questions in the negative. Some time ago Mr Alfred Noyes suggested to the English “Poetry Society” that it should ask the Government for a grant for Poetry on the ground that “Poetry should-be recognised, as Science is, as an object for Governmental support.” And not only should it ask a grant, but it should also ask for quarters such as were allowed to the Royal Society. The newspapers called this an “ astonishing suggestion.” But why should it bo astonishing? Rather is it astonishing that it should be regarded as such. Governments recognise the need of liberal grants for science and scientist. But the poet is of no account. His work is not considered practical. Land, gold, horses, hogs, dogs, and sheep, and the like—these are practical. Agreed. But what if you have not health to use these? Yet a celebrated physician, Dr Woods Hutchinson, was telling us not long ago that the best specific for good health was to read plenty of good poetry. Health depends on unison and co-operation of the cells that constitute the body. Disease is the result of a cell, or cells, setting up business on their own account in the same way as selfishness disorders the moral world. Now, music and poetry (which is the highest form of music in words) exercise a calming, a soothing, an elevating effect, quieting bodily unrest, and cleansing and purifying the mind and soul. Poetry may thus 'claim to bo as practical as the things that usually go by that name. But it can make a still surer claim to this title. We get at it this way: Ideas are greater than things. All the “practical” things that wo see—houses, clothes, motors, boots, etc. —are but ideas clothed in material forms. Ideas without labor may not come to much, but labor without ideas to guide and control it is lunacy. “ Industry without art is barbarism. Great national activities without poetry are stupefying and wasteful of human energy.” The poet has enriched humanity with many of its most operative ulens. But his specific function is to give ideas wings, to set them to music, and make them the dynamic of life. Ho packs them up in the most portable form. He clothes them- in words the most winsome, the most rememberable, the most musical, the most inspiring. As one of the craft puts it; No warrior he, no judge, no king, But he gives a voice to everything; He makes the flutter of a bird Immortal in a spoken word, And .sets the murmur of the shore To human woe for ever more, And tells the bosom’s inmost feeling In crimson words like blood drops stealing. * * * *

One must therefore welcome the poet as one of the most “practical” of products, and the love of poetry as a sure sign of tbs culture and intelligence of a people.. Hence Lord Bryce’s first question to an interviewer, when he went as British Ambassador to America, was: “ Who are your poets?” If a visitor should put that query to us of this dominion, what should we reply? Our briefest and best reply would be tq hand him ‘ A Treasury of New Zealand Verso.’ Hero ho would find samples of our poetry. If he were an instructed inquirer bo would not expect to discover great “ builders of the lofty rhyme.” He would be aware that we are a young people, whose first duty is to find bread and butter and make a borne for ourselves and our children. Poetry, being the crown of life, is the last to come. The higher the faculty the slower its growth. You may raise a mushroom in a night; an oak takes centuries. But how much more the worth of an oak than a mushroom! Tons of iron and coal, firkins of the best butter, and shiploads of wool and frozen meat —all good. “ But,” as Walt 'Whitman says, “ after these, and after the chemist, the geologist, the ethnologist, shall come the poet worthy that name; the true Son of God shall come singing His songs.” Has ho arrived? Read this little book of verso, and you will certainly agree with the modest estimate of the editors in their Introduction to the earlier edition of the book; “These are first ripe fruits already, and if the sheaf wo have bound is a very little one it surely holds ears with no poor promise of good grain to come.”

It is probably due to tbe exigencies of space, but I tbink it is a pity this Introduction was not inserted in tlio present edition. Within its compass it is an admirable bit of work, both in thought and expression. And it would have been very helpful to an intelligent reading of the poems. But one can’t have everything, and the editors are very busy men. We must be thankful for what they have given us. A considerable number of new poems appear in this volume. But the older writers still retain their pride of place. None of the newer ones have pushed Domett or Adams or Pember Reeves or Jessie Mackay from their stools. We miss in them such authentic words and phrases as “loping leagues of sea ”; or, under the hot Australian sun

Whipped by his glances truculent, The earth lies quivering and cowed; or the “ blood-red rata, strangling trees forlorn,” or the spangles and splendid jewellery, flashing amid the too diffuse verse of Domett. Then wo have, not far below these chief singers, such old favorites as M‘Keo Wright, Dora Wilcox, Hubert Church, D. M. Ross, Miss Baughan, Ross mixes brains and passiop with his singing. Miss Baughan is virile, but is too reminiscent. of Browning in style. Her ear lacks musical sensitiveness, or she is careless of form. But she lias the root of the matter m her; it is a pity, therefore, that she does not give more heed to her revisals. It is a little surprising that in twenty years so few new names appear in the list of singers, none of them makes any outstanding contributions to the Treasury. » * » * There are a good many new poems by .old writers. Some of these are of outstanding eminence. Alan Mnlgnn has already an assured place on Parnassus, but if he had not the ‘ Riro-riro ’ would entitle him to it. It is a rarely beautiful tribute to that sweetest of New Zea-

land singing birds, the grey warbler. It has those inevitable words and images that betray the true poetic vision, such as “The bush’s rottensweet fertility,” “Sad as autumn rose baring its fullness to the contemptuous rain,” It abounds in lines that creep and cling about the memory; Beauty that is alive with joy, but knows The searching sadness of'mortality! And the bird’s repetition of its song, “In rich, uncounted plenitude of ease”; and Ah, that refrain! Had dt been heard by immemorial seas, Where winds that lightly kiss the storied wave ■ Are odorous with petals of Mown time. Is “ wifts ” a misprint lor -wisps on p. 144? Another of our older singers is represented by a new poem, ‘ The Elfin Dell.’ It is an exquisite little bit of work, one of the finest of its kind in the book. It has the very lightness of touch of the “ ting, ting, ting ’’ on the anvils of which it sings, and the haunting mystic melody of the fairyland that inspires it. One of the surprising things is the fewness of poems dealing with the Great War. There are poems on the Crimean and the South African ones, but I do not recall any that have to do with the more recent and more terrible one. It seems that this should have inspired our singers, or perhaps its very greatness was overwhelming. In this connection mention may be made of Edward Tregear’s fine little lyric ‘ In Days of Peace ’ and his other vigorous and impassioned poem, ‘ The White Peril.’ « « * • The subjects dealt with in this new edition of the ‘ Treasury ’ are in the main those that formed the themes of the earlier. The three great subjects that constitute the raw material of thought and art are God, man, and Nature, and their inter-relation. The last of these—Nature —is the favorite theme of the greater number of the singers. And it is, for the most part, Nature as she appears to the outward eye. Wo have no end of such descriptions—good, bad, and indifferent, and not a few of them excellent. It is a happy device of the editors to have grouped together poems dealing with the same or similar subjects. In this way the reader is enabled to compare the work of the different writers. Thus, for instance, a group of four or five poems deal with certain aspects of the bush. So of other subjects—the sea, fairyland, etc. Quite a number of poems are descriptive of the towns of the dominion, and the dominion itself inspires a good many. One or two sing the praises of cricket, but football apparently awaits its poet. A new writer, C. Quentin Pope, has bit on a happy and unhackneyed subject in ‘ The Song of Speed.’ Evidently it was written before the days of the aeroplane, as no mention is made of it. But he has caught something of the crazy passion for sjiecd everywhere and the recklessness of many of its devotees in taking risks. And death is near, but who would care, For this is the death to die. » « * * As I have said, Nature in her varying aspects has the large share of attention. Most of the Nature poetry is purely descriptive. A few of the singers try to express the emotions which Nature suggests to the mind. But man himself, his hopes, fears, whence and whither, and sll the deeper instincts and passions of ins being—these for the most part have not been sounded, or only slightly attempted. As to the other factor, which makes up the raw material of art—“ the Nameless with a hundred names” and his relation to Nature and man—this is rarely touched upon. It is hardly to be expected that it should, for wo are only in the morning tide of history, and have not had time to drop our plummets into the profounder deep of mind and life. That, no doubt, will come in duo course. Meanwhile, we are grateful for what has been achieved. The editors deserve warm praise for the collating and sifting of these poetic efforts. Their work will be better appreciated a century lienee. That makes it all the more needful that generous recognition should be n ado now by lovrrs of poetry for the care and lime they have given to their somewhat these re task. The publishers, too, have done their part of the business well. But I wish it had been possible to have issued the hook at a cheaper price. The average man thinks twice before ho expends Gs on a hook of poems, especially New Zealand poems. And it is the average man we want to he educated, so as to be able to say with Wordsworth: Blessings bo with them and eternal praise Wm. give ns nobler lives and nobler cares— The poets, who on earth have made ns heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! „ Ron.