THE MINOR POET INTERVIEWED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8842, 2 April 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MINOR POET INTERVIEWED.

]BY A NEW JOURNALIST, IN THE GLOBE.] "Go and interview the Minor Poet," said He-who-must-be-obeycd ; and, albeit I wondered what I had done to incur such a fate, I meekly said, " Certainly, sir, but which ?" Now, the elect are' sixty-six in number, counting the Laureate, as everybody knows, so I was surprised when my editor mentioned the name of— No; I will speak of him as Number Sixty-seven.

" But," I said, " you have added another to the list, and is a mere verse-maker."

" Well, go and tell him so," said tho editor with a grin. Now, the ways of a poet are dark and hidden, and 1 was full of curiosity, not unmixed with a sense of shame, when I was ushered into Sixty-seven's study. What right had I, a mere scribbler of common prose, to pry into tho inner workings of a noble mind that clothed its lofty thoughts in blank verse, and, in unusually ecstatic moments, in beautiful rhyme? For I hold even a mere verse-maker to be above a mere prose-maker; so I awaited the advent of my quarry with a growing sense of awe and respect. At last; lie came, clad in all his intellectual beauty and a red dressinggown. "I trust I di not disturb you in the composition of some soulful poem?" 1 said, apprehensively. He replied that I did not, and indeed seemed pleased to see me, and sat down opposite to me. For a while I sat and gazed at him, mentally calculating his weight, height, and other particulars of public interest: then, seeing he expected me to begin, I said timidly : " Why do you write poetry?" It was a stupid question, and I felt infinitesimally small as soon as I had asked t. Of course I ought to have known. " Because I cannot help it," he said, with an amused smile. " I have that within which impels me to pour out my thoughts for a thankless public." "It doesn't pay very well, does it?" I said innocently. Perhaps my query showed bluntness and want of tact.

"There are some things," he answered loftily, "which have no money equivalent." "So I have heard,"! replied blandly, eager to conciliate him ; for I saw I had pained him by the mere mention of lucre. " Eh ?" ho said sharply, " you are pleased to be sarcastic. Let me tell you that I was speaking to a publisher the other day, and he quite agreed with me." He looked at me suspiciously henceforth. 1 cannot think what I had said to hurt his feelings. Was it that the inflection of my voice conveyed a meaning I did not intend ? " You probably came here thinking that a poet was something made to be kicked downstairs by an editor," he said bitingly. I replied that a long course of reading in the comic journals had led me to believe that such was the use to which poets were usually put, but as I grew older I grew wiser, and abandoned old, worm-eaten beliefs.

"The whole world is in league against us poets," he said angrily, his noble eyes flashing fire. "The Hydra-headed heeds us not, and the critic slights us. Would you believe it ?—one of them had the face the other day to draw up a list of living poets, and lie omitted my name !" " Ah ! well, critics are so ignorant," I said smoothingly. Again lie regarded me suspiciously for a moment, and then continued, "I wrote and told him it was simple madness 011 his part to leave me out. It would brand him throughout the length and breadth of the land as an utter ignoramus. 1 ' "And what did he do I asked.

" He didn't answer." We both eat in silence for a few minutes, appalled at this instance of perfidy. "Of course I don't care, except for his sake," wont on Number Sixty-seven, " because I have sent copies of my works to most of the leading men of the day, and nearly all of them have written back to say that I evidently have great facility of style. It often amuses me to think," he went on, musingly, " how the men I pass in the street would stare if they were told that the name of the man whom they brush rudely past will one day be written in ineffaceable letters on the sands of time. I think it would surprise them." " I should think it would," I assented. He eyed me narrowly again and changed the subject. " Which of my poems do you like best ?" he asked.

Never before had I felt with such becoming humility my vile ignorance as I reflected that his works were entirely unknown to me. " Nay," I said, " that was what I wanted to ask you. A poet's opinion of his own poems is always so amusing—l mean interesting." 1 felt I had turned the question very neatly; and, moreover, the column I had to fill loomed before me in all its emptiness, and I had not put half the leading questions I had intended. However, he was not sparing of information. " Well, for lyrical strength, I think, perhaps, I prefer ' A Welcome to Spring'—it occurs in my volume, 'Groundsol and Ohickweed,' you will remember. But possibly I put more of myself into 'The Boat Whose Boilers Burst,' poem for recitation, you know. Then next in order I should place —-,"and he rattled off into a string of about fifty names, but unfortunately the point of my pencil broke at this juncture, so posterity must go in ignorance of the order of merit of the poet's works, as drawn up by himself. " I have a new volume in the press," he concluded. " Large, hand-made paper, signed by author. Perhaps," he said, with a sudden shyness to which noble natures, so I have been told, are sometimes liable — " perhaps you would like to subscribe for a few copies—twenty-four or so." I replied that I must really go; my editor was waiting for copy. " And how many columns did you say you would devote to this interview?" he said, with some show of eagerness as I rose. It was polite of him to pretend to be interested in my humble accounb of his greatness. " One column," I said, "unless anything particularly spicy occurs before we go to press ; in which case it may be cut down to less."

"But you devoted two columns to your interview with that fellow who walks the tight-rope on his head," he said, somewhat nettled.

"In this age of education and refinement," I replied sadly, "a thousand people will gape at the spectacle of a man swallowing khives, where only one will yawnl mean pore over the works of a poet; and it is my sad lot to have to gratify the taste of the public, and to be a slave to the commercial spirit of my chief. Good-bye." "Stay," he cried, "do you print poetry in your journal ? I have a few little things here you might look through and choose from ; or would your editor like me to send some to him ?" I said that he was always glad to receive manuscripts when stamps were enclosed ; and then 1 tore myself from tho abode of genius, and went back to the prison-house.