Poet Proclaimed

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 213, 6 September 1934, Page 3

Poet Proclaimed

CANADIAN CRITIC’S PRAISE “PULL OF MUSIC AND BEAUTY” FIRST VERSE WRITTEN AT SIN Tho Hon. Martin Burrell, once Minister of Argriculture for Canada and now librarian of the Canadian Parliament, is ono of tho Dominion’s foremost literary critics and writes regularly in the Ottawa Journal of books and authors. He devoted a Teccnt article to tho case of Audrey Alexandra Brown, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, a little-known poet whoso ono.published volume “will be,” Mr. Burrell things, “a permanent contribution to the literature of our day. ’ ’ Two years ago Miss Brown published a slim volume entitled “A Dryad in Nanaimo,” now out of print. Mr. Burrell reviewed it, found tho longest poem, “Laodamia,” to be “a noble theme, nobly treated. . , full, of music and beauty.” and ho declared that “this beautiful poem would havo not have beon unworthy of the author of tho '.Faerie Quecuc’ or of that ill-fated singer whoso genius gavo the world ‘Hyperion’ and tho ‘Ode to a Nightingalo. ’' Mr. Burrell became interested in the unknown poet, wrote her, learned her story, and now tells something of it. Miss Brown is of .English descent, daughter of n watchmaker, has lived almost all her thirty years in tho little ruining town of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. Rheumatism and arthritis have afflicted her for seven years—sho now is thirty—and it is five years since shej could stand. Miss Brown vroto her first poem when sho was six, and at 19 sold some verses to a church weekly for ten shillings. She lias had few intellectual contacts, has not had the advantages of travel, and theso things make more striking what Mr. Burrell calls Miss Brown’s extraordinary felicity of phrase. Nothing has been published by Miss Brown since her “Dryad,” but Air. Burrell quotes two stanzas of an unpublished poem. “The Wood of Circe,” in his .joy of discovery. They follow: Deep in .her midmost, of tho darkling wood Rises her palace, wrought of gleaming stone; The sun hath never looked upon her house, So close, so thick its roof is overgrown Willi tangied twigs of cedar, hemlock boughs, And sycamores in bud: Thither may no man venture; but, he sees A little plume of smoke, opal and grey. Climb from the brooding coppice night and day And poise, and spread, and melt, above tho trees. Here when the moon is full sho walks along By night to pluck the mottled addertongue, The nightshade, and the dark-belled briony— Moving tho solitary boughs among Liko April lost in Winter; eerily The nightingale makes moan, And strange enchantments wake the solitude — Sometimes the sound of bells far off—the thin Aching crescendo of a violin, Muted, and wailing laughter in the woods. With the encouragement given by Mr. Burrell and her growing circle of admirers it may be expected that another collection of Miss Brown’s poems presently will be given to the world. Tho simple story' of her life, her courage in years of illness, and above all the distinct promise of her early work, will, it is predicted by her friends, earn for her next book moro than usual consideration.