A WANDERING MINSTREL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 19 February 1920, Page 2

A WANDERING MINSTREL

For soma time past -Mr E. L. Eyre, who hag contributed! a number of verses t’o miv columns, lias been in this district pursuing his vocation of wadering rninst.it'!, says the Hawke’s Bay Herald. He does not it is true travel with a harp and 1 sing his lays in the halls of the mighty. He travels with his .little hooks <>i verso end he manages to sell enough of these to make a living. He has produced in all some nine little volumes find lias sold oven- nine Thousand’ copies in the last three years. .Bern in Dunedin, hut for long a. 'resident of duck'cDd/. he haw beefn- bviritinlg for a. number of years, and has probably oht-aiuedi a. wider audio noe for In’s verse than many poets of more widely established shinny And /his Verse is of quite a. meritorious quality. It is obviously natural to Mr Eyro to write in, verse. to think in ,divine. He treats of many subjects, the life of the hush, the an and the mad, the wnyw of men' in the cities and. the ■ hack blocks', taudi the war has provided liim with quite a number of .subjects, all of which are put into rwadhble verse with arv nhtnhtakeahlo rhythm . and sincerity' of feeling. “Tu the Bush” and ‘‘Cutfin’ Flax” are mostly of local reference lr.it ‘Our Navy.” The British Dunnet 1 ,” “The Scarborough Baby' killerßi” explui’n t-hempelveH by their titles. Wo give some lines from idle ‘‘Swam Trail” in the collection entitled “Jxii the Bush.”

They c .me from the west in the dawning’,s blur. From the lonely roach of the rnnpo bed, With their long neck's craned and their wings a-whirr/ And d watch them passing me overhead. The morning mists on the reeds hang low, Tho clouds sweep far, and with scarce a break— Only the wimfe of the south lands know The long, 'long trail that the wild swans take Much of Mir Eyre's verse is of a patriotic turn. Tu “At the Gates of the West,” he uttered his warning agairijst Japan’s >and in many others he sings .of the deeds of our men by land an c j sea. “The Watchers” in “Our Navy” goes with the right swing. We have gazed .lorcc-s the ocean, we have gazed across the land, We have watch edi the German ports both day and night; We have seen the golden sunsets dying out along the .'-■ and. Arid l the dawn horizon Haring into light. Through the months of weary waiting for a. foe that never cnme.s We have cleaned' the guns, and faced the bitter cold; We have drllDni on deck each morning to the sound of rolling drums, And, our sufferings no poet ever told 1 . But no doubt for most people Mr Eyre’s dc-c riptkmsi of the country he ■loves, the pernp-'e he kv* met on the road and 1 in the cities, will have the greatest 'attraction. And it is a remarkable achievement to have introduced; t-bsr-e as ho lias done into hundreds of homes tbe length ar.id breadth of the Dominion.