THE FORGOTTEN POETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15563, 21 March 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE FORGOTTEN POETS.

BY FRANK MORTON Poets, very human as a rule, must submit to humanity's common lot. They live and sing thejr little day and then they are forgotten. It is true that some of them outlive their bodily lives, and that a very few live down the ages ', but lam talking now of average poets. Even the delicious minor lyrists of the Elizabethan age we-e forgotten till oar bookmen commenced to recall thstn a few years ago, and even now Thomas Campion—the [ g«sve3t, greatest, sweetest of them all— I a stranger to the average reader. But one need not go so far afield for instances of what I mean. Last night at a friend's house I was given a book, entitled "Carmina Varia," written by a certain Justin Aubrey, and published in Dunedin I don't know when—for the volume is undated. It is better printed than most other New Zealand books, so that it plainly saw the light in days before the linotype. And it is far wittier and brighter than most. The poet has a preface—pages of printed in prose style, but rhymed. It starts like this: —

Not wishing a time-honoured custom to efface, I prefix my book with - a bit of a PREFACE." That I've written a book is not very surprising, seeing half of the world's, nowadays, authorising; and much Of the other half probably would also :ush into print with all speed if they could; for thanks to scribendi cttcoetnes serials, and newspapers, too, find no lack of materials; though much that is written (I don't wish to mask »t) gets only consigned to the waste-paper basket. • But, not to commit any further transgression* on the reader's kind patience by lengthened disgresaion, in thus introducing my book, I'll begin it by telling you, briefly as may be, what in it. And so on, some of the worst first. Mr. Aubrey had a deft trick of rhyming, and an admirable spice of occasionally very pretty wit. He gives several pages to the hymning of his dogs, and you will find ■that there is always stuff in the chap who does that. There is a fine touch of tenderness in him He only fails because, with all his agility, he is pedestrian: heiabours ( while he leaps. None the less, he writes far better than soma living people who irake a louder noise than ever he did. Even in Australia scores of poeta have lived and been forgotten. There was "Steele Grey" (I forget his proper name), a lyrist, with a fine touch of irony and a sweetness of music in all he wrote; but who ever hears of him now? There was my friend Airey, ho wrote as "P. Luftig" before the pall of politics fell over him and smothered his note. So short, a time ago it was, so keen and clear and genial a lay; and already P. Luftig is as thoroughly forgotten as the meanest handmaid of Rhodopis. I knew scores of good chaps writing good and* goodish verse twenty years ago, and to-day I cannot myself tell you whether they are alive or dead: all I know is that nobody hears of them any more. A few men still live in the public eye, and a constant friendly whipping of dead horses constrains the public to admit the existence of a few more; but the life of song is brief, and the public is fickle as a (.horns-girl with ambititns.

• Nor is is merely the small people that are forgotten. In one of these articles a year or, tyro ago. |. mentioned the--names, of a f*w good l&enlsttbat hav| h<seri standi ing on my book-shelves since ever L loved a book. I wanted to know who knew them, and rural correspondents retorted sourly that nobody had ever heard of ihem, and nobody could reasonably be supposed to have heard of them. If you doubt this, make a list of a few of th« bestknown Restoration lyrists, and catechise some smart youth from the nearest high school. I.tell you it is positively amazing how short a life the poets have. lasEedone bright student of literature awhile, ago if she knew much about Chaucer, and she said all she knew was that he was a confounded old nuisance, who wrote in a rotten jargon. Her case was not exceptional, however surprising her candour.

The fact of the matter is, if you will permit me without further parley to come to its essence, "hat our children and young people are no longer- taught to love poetry. Or shall I say that they are no longer taught wisely? When my own children repeat versa a.s they are teught to repeat it at school I always have a horrid feeling of chill in the spine. Children cannot possibly love a thing they are taught to murder so unscrupulously. And if you attend these frequent " literary and musical" competitions you will find that there the position of things.is every whit as bad. The reciters do not speak verse as verse must be spoken if its beauty and charm are to be preserved. They bawl and strut and whine and throw their arms about: they show little regard for metre and less regard for sense : of rhymn they have no inkling. Now, without regard for rhythm in verse, and for rhyme and rhythm in rhymed verse, any man were better employed leading a leading article from a raily newspaper.

It is a matter in regard to which cultivated people might surely make some protest with effect. If it is. impossible to get school-teachers to help children to a saving and informing sense of the beauty of poetry, let people with special qualifications be appointed to go round among the schools. We all know that the present syllabus is a wild absurdity, and that teachers cannot porsibly teach all the subjects they are expected to teach'; but everything that has to do with the heauty of English speech should certainly be taught. I was talking yesterday to a bright boy who has passed hie sixth standard in one o'. our big city schools. He had never heard of Euclid or Algebra, and had not the slightest idea of the broad muning of mathematics. He knew nothing about botany or those fancy subjects that are stuck all over the syllabus. He mispronounced many words current in daily English speech. His geography scarcely pjesed the rudiments. His grammar was without form and void. He wrote a shockingly bad hand. His arithmetic tottered at a touch, ©f English literature—as I understand the termhe was positively ignorant. You may say that he was a careless boy or a stupid boy. In point of fact, he wasn't. Even if he were, how are you going to account for the fact that he had passed the sixth standard under a systeTi with that syllabus?

What wrong? Everything's wrong. Our educational system is aD frilling and outside show. We make a brave display of fifty subjects on paper, and in reality we make a poor attempt to teach the elemental five. We lack imagination, maybe. I don't know; I only know that we lack something important. More and more every day the people who read good books and enjoy ''.hem are a class apart, and the people who read poetry with enjoyment are a diminishing class within a class. These facts are deplorable. And they are entirely due to defects in the popular edit-' cation system. Love of literature must :be instilled in the young by wise it-isa't hereditary, Ms© jred hair, ' i