AN UNTITLED STORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN UNTITLED STORY

BT K. M. KNIGHT

BRIAN DONN-BYRNE i i j | j I

To attempt to write an article on the work of an artist one worships just this side of idolatry is very foolish. A bias creeps in, warping the judgment, twisting the truth. Yet I run this risk in attempting to write of Brian DonnByrne, whose death seven years ago this month was as great a loss to the literature of the world as this same world has ever suffered. He was born in New York in 1889. and when he was three months old journeyed to Ireland, which should have been his birthplace, for his father was an architect there. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and when his mind was not absorbing knowledge his muscles were acquiring agility and strength. He was an all-round athlete, holding, in his time, the light-weight boxing championships for Dublin University and for lister. He kncnv horses and racing, and could ride with the best. He knew the sea. and could sail a boat. When be was just twenty-two he married, after arriving almost penniless in New York. He died at thirty-eight, with books that were to take the next ten years of his life already mapped out in his mind. So much for the events of his life. Of his character, a biographer who writes a pitifully poor story of so rich a subject says that he greatly resembled many of his own characters. To the world in general he was antagonistic; but for little children, for horses and dogs, for old people and for those who were in any way hurt, he had a great courtesy. He was generous, wildly extravagant, hated publicity of any kind; was fearless and outspoken, and made many enemies. He was tall and handsome, with a winning and modest manner, and a charming Irish accent. A shy, lovable, erratic'genius, who only during the last seven years of his life, and then entirely as a result of his own hard work, ever had enough of this world's goods. This was Brian Donn-Byrne the man. not so very different from other men of his race and class. But Donn-Byrne the poet, the artist—he exists in his work, work so pure and fine that it is no exaggeration to call such illumination the white light of genius. His Work

Deep in the heart of life there is rhythm; there is harmony; there is law; there is unfathomable beauty; there is ecstasy, joy, peace, simplicity; a golden circle of infinity. All the old saints and sages knew this, and the artists of to-day have not forgotten it. In the twist of a phrase, the intonation of a syllable, in humility and simplicity the great artist expresses it, and portrays his happy or tortured puppets in truth. A great writer, in simple phrases that sing their own song, tells

the truth as he sees it. According to the clarity of his vision and the faithfulness of his recording, is it unto him.

That is art: to write, to sing, to paint, to act; to see things as they are in the heart of life, and not-to be side-tracked by appearances into believing less than the truth. That is genius, wherever and however it be manifest. The work of

Donn-Byrne it great because his eyes are clear as stars; because his cars fashion words after the rhythm of the seas and the winds and the trees; because he sees into the hearts of men and is sorry for their small follies, their petty fears, their small mean lives. He knows that life is not mean, that fear is a dark shadow that folly is a little blindness that will pass. He knows that littleness and hatred and death make no permanent mark upon eternity. He has some great thoughts of death, this man for whom life was so short.

" Death, for her, had no fears. It had the quietness of an enchanted summer night, with the lake water glimmering under the moon, and the red deer coming down to drink." And again, " My mind is something 1 use, as 1 use my body. My eyes are something 1 use, but they are not I. Somewhere, somewhere within me, is I." And a sense of wonder and exultation and dignity swept through him at the thought'; new-born he was, clean as a trout, naked as a knife, strong as the sea. Though lightning should strike him, he would not die, but put off his body like a rent garment. And there was no more wonder, or mystery, or fear; only beauty. Though death should smite his bodv, he would not die. "To the Gael," he says, " the next world is just over the hill; hence the utter contempt for death that makes great poets, great soldiers, great men." His Death

Brian Donn-Byrne met his death in a way that he would, perhaps, have chosen. He went forth from his beautiful castle that he bought with a night's winnings at Cannes, just for a short drive before dinner. The steering gear of the car was faulty, and it plunged over the road and into the sea—into the waters of Courtinacsherry Bay at high tide. It was a wild part of* the west coast, where many a good ship had been lost. There was no sea-wall, the fierce Atlantic gales and the fiercer sea having battered it down, j But he loved the sea, and some of his ; finest work is done with the rhythm of the tides swelling through it. " Over the great sea he would go, as though nothing had happened; down to the sea, where the crisp winds of dawn were, and the playful, stupid, shortsighted porpoises; the treacherous, sliding icebergs and the gulls that cried with the sea's immense melancholy; and the great plum-coloured whales." His grave is marked with a Celticcross, and bears the inscription: "I'm in my sleeping, and don't waken me." A rowan tree is planted by it, so that the shadow of a tree he had loved might someday fall across the cold, dead stone that he would have hated. From the top of the hill where the grave is one can see the peaceful Irish country-side, and beyond Courtmacsherry Bay the open sea. The Blind Piper

It is foolish to write of such a one. I Somehow the beauty that he knew so well cannot be measured and analysed and set in cold type. One may have hoped to tell of the magic of his words; of his humour; of his insight into life; of his capacity for telling a good story; of the cleanliness of the man. and his great, warm heart. But such things cannot be said. One feels like the "old blind piper Raftery and Hilaria met on the road to Greenan Neeya: " You have never seen Raftery?" " Sure, how could I, rn'lady, and do eyee at me? But I cun figure him in my mind—a powerful, kindly man with an eagle's face." " Blind man." said Hilaria softly, " this with me is the Raftery." " Oh. m'lady " —the piper's face Quivered!— " you would not be mocking a poor blind man? . . . But I would know him if he would let xne touch, his hand." Blind Rafttry clipped down from the saddle and put his arm round the old man's shoulder.

" Asthore Na Erin," the piper wept, " Ireland's darling, sure I thought that the day I met you my pipes would peal like an organ. But now they're like me, dark poet—aehamed and dtrm'- "