REVIEW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1613, 28 January 1903, Page 28

REVIEW.

“HEATHER AND FERN.” (Contributed.) “Heather and Eern: Songs of Scotland and Maoriland.” By John Liddell Kelly, Wellington, N.Z. Printed for the author by the “N.Z. Times” Co./ 1902. In a uithy yet pregnant preface the author of “Heather and Fern” reminds the reader, and possible critic, that the verses comprising the collection above entitled “have been written in the brief intervals of a busy journalistic life, partly as recreation, but chiefly because he was persuaded he had a message to deliver anti desired to express himself in a form at once forcible and attractive.” It is a proper and most laudable aspiration, this delivering of a message, and truth to tell, after a careful perusal of the majority of Mr Kelly’s pieces, he would be a captious anti churlish critic indeed "who did not frankly acknowledge the many evidences enshrined in the 280 and odd pages of the volume before us, of the author’s virility of thought and stalwart strenuouslie ss of purpose. With hut two exceptions, in which there is, to the mind of the present writer, a tendency to that morbidity of sentiment and narrowness of view which is the ugly hallmark of so much verso that first sees the light in the Sydney “Bulletin,” Mr Kelly’s poetical outpourings are cheerful and wholesome, his social philosophy sane and hopeful, whilst even where a reader may, like myself, object to the pervading tone, the facility of phrase makes admirable apology, and almost an ample recompense. The author’s early life was passed in his native Scotland, and the influence of the “inspired ploughman of Ayr” must have been a strong factor in the versifying of Mr Kelly’s younger days. Affection for the “old land” is as potent to-day .as it was when the poet dwelt in his beloved Caledonia. As he says in ‘his prefatory verses, “Heather and Fern”— Though dear to my heart is Zealandia, For the home of my boyhood I yearn; J dream, amid sunshine and grandeur, Of a land that is misty and stern; ''errom the Land of the Moa and Maori

My thoughts to old Scotia will turn— Thus the Heather is blent with the Kauri, And the Thistle entwined with the Fern.

A pretty conceit, expressed in a very pleasing strain. Covering as it does some thirty years, Mr Kelly’s poetic production is naturally varied as to subject, and there can be no complaint of any monotony of style. Happiest in his lyrics, he attempts more ambitious flights, hut even in his longer arid more formal efforts he often changes the metre, his lapses into the lyric pure and simple affording a pleasant relief. Of his odes we prefer the graceful, and in certain lines, nobly eloquent tribute to Burns, a tribute written on the occasion of the centenary of the poet’s death. One verse at least we cannot refrain from quoting :•—*

What Burns has done for Scotland "What Scot can e’er forget? The whole world owes to Scotland

And Burns a heavy debt. The Scottish lyre in dust and darkness hung, Unknown the power of Scotia’s rugged tongue Till Brurns, with master’s hand and "brain,, Made from these weapons twain

A trump to startle Tyranny, A charter for the brave and free, A whip to scourge Hypocrisy; A flaming torch To let the blinded nations see; A fire to scorch False creeds, mean deeds, and all things base, A glow to light true Manhood’s face, A standard showing Rank its place, And Worth its sway; 'A sword, wherewith the human race

Might carve its way Through Error’s ranks to goals of highest p'ooei. Peace, Freedom, Justice, Love and Brotherhood.

The above and other lines in the same poem might well be compared—and that they do not suffer in the comparison is high praise for Mr Kelly—with Austin Dobson’s superb, but, we fear, not over well known tribute to the genius of an English prose writer, to wit, Henry Feilding, with whom Burns, though preferring the poetic to the prose form of expression, had much in common. In another long poem,

“Gleams of the After-State” (written in 1892) Mr Kelly evokes memories of Wordsworth* The influence of the Lake Poet undoubtedly is here. Solemn thoughts are clothed in stately language, and there is a nobility and dignity alike of thought and expression. Taking as his text the lines, “We shall he gods, or we shall be naught, In the endless years that are yet to be,” the poet grapples with the awe-inspir-ing mysteries of Death and After Death. One verse must suffice to display alone the poet’s confidence in a future state, his horror of the atheist’s "'pitiless yet pitiful creed” that “Death ends all”—-

If we may not he angels or men, • What then ? If naught from nothing came. Nothing shall come to naught; But still the dreadful thought Burns like a fiery flame—- “ Omnipotence, who by a word. Made all things that have been or yet shall he, If but His wrath be stirred, May everything created uncreate, " And reign once more in grand and solitary state.” Nay, God is a God of life. Creating and preserving are his joy. His foes are Death, Destruction, Sin and Strife, And these He will destroy, With all that causes sorrow and annoy; But Man, who has a spark of God-head caught. Can never come to naught. We do not care so. much for “Freedom : A Hill-top Hymn of the New Gospel.” Such lines as “Awake then, thou that sleepest! Great Demos, wake and see Fraternity, Equality, are thine, wert thou hut free,” have an over-familiar ring. Since Shelley, poets innumerable have been apostrophising “Great Demos,” and one gets rather tired of these appeals to what too many of us, in these' days of “triumphant Democracy” (vide Carnegie’s book) deem to be a false god rather than a spirit of reason, benevolence, charity and love. There are some fine lines in the poet’s '‘Coronation Ode,” without which no recent collection of verse can be considered complete, but we prefer poems of imagination to those which are palpably the of what might be termed a public demand. Turn we preferably, for instance, to Mr Kelly’s pleasant lilting in his “Nirgendswo,” or “Nowhere.” with its gay little turns of a humour whose charm is all the greater for its slyness. We quote the first and third verses :—' Where lies the land beloved by all, In youth or age, or prime— The land where pleasures never pall, A rare and radiant clime ? ’Mid golden gleams, Arcadia’s streams With a magic music flow; The spot of earth that gave us birth Shines with a gracious glow; But a lovelier land, more fair and grand. Is the land, of Nirgendswo, O, a rare land and a dear land is the land we love and know; No fairy shore could charm us more than the Land of Nirgendswo. The third verse is in a genial, facetious spirit: . . Young men and maids, in later life, Still to that land repair, And live apart, from worldly strife, In bliss beyond compare. “Where wert thou, daughter?” “Whither, son, Wouldst bend thy steps to-night?” A graver look the young folks don, Their eyes become less bright. And “Nowhere in particular” Decides the matter quite. No glory-land of story-land can half the gladness show, ' That youths and maids find in the glades of mystic Nirgendswo. Amongst the longer poems is an ambitious, and as a whole, very successful effort, “Tarawera, or the Curse of Tuhotu,” in which the writer makes happy use of quaint old Maori legends, and weaves a graceful poetic garland around the grim old steeps of deathdealing Tarawera. In “Tahiti,” the poet, evidently taking his local colour at first hand, paints sensuously glowing pictures of those “Summer Isles of Eden,” where Nature has been s» bountiful, and where an even not yet wholly civilisation-spoilt rg.ce charms the traveller by its grace of form and sunnily mirthful temperament. Mr Kelly draws an enticing picture of the picturesque scenic beauties of this “Land of* Love and Beauty,” and we can understand that he penned his exquisite little “Farewell to Tahiti” with sincerest regret. His excursions into that difficult field of verse, the sonnet, are very interesting, and he courageously attempts, often with marked success, imitations of various exotic forms of verse, many of his translations and adaptations of French and German poems being decidedly tuneful and replete with grace of phrasing. Of his versatility he gives an almost embarrassing wealth of proof. His “Barney F v ynn at the Burns Club” and his essay in “braid Scots,” “Cairnhill,” strike us as being excellent in their way as dialect poems. There is

an entrain in his reminiscences of early days in the latter poem which is speo ially captivating, and he that will not laugh over “Barney Flynn” is to he pitied. The humorous vein is generously exploited, and as in so much .of the fugitive verse which finds publication in American and Australian journals, there is a homely philosophy, and some hard knocks are dealt at national pride and social snobbery. A verse or two from “In China,” which is quite in a Gilbertian strain, will show Mr Kelly at his best as a satirist: We send parsons and opium and cotton and guns To the poor darkened heathen of China j We force our religion and Sunday school buns On the perishing millions of China. But supposing they sent us some preachers across To make us wear pigtails and worship a Joss, Should we blandly look on while they tore down the Cross? No; I guess we’d malt© ructions m China. The way they treat women ’s a perfect disgrace To the had. brutal people of China; They cramp the poor feet and they paint the doll’s face Of each dear little girlie in China. Our women may paint, and it can’t be denied That their waists may he pinched, and their hair may he dyed, And their busts may he padded—and lots more beside— But, bless you, they don’t live in China. We pay our physicians for potions and pills, They pay them for health, there, in China; While the patient is well he gets regular bills* When ill, he stops paying, in China. Our doctor draws fees, if he cures, if he kills, He gets paid while we’re sick, he gets named in our wills. How blest are we British, escaping the ills Of unhappy, illogical China. In “The Saga of Sir John” we get a distinctly clever and amusing skit on the once famous but now half forgotten “Parihaka Raid,” and even the Rev. F. Isitt or that redoubtable prohibitionist, Mr “Tommy” Taylor himself, would, we feel sure, enjoy a hearty laugh over Mr Kelly’s clever skit, “Water, or the Teetotaller at Sea.” Tom Hood himself might have signed “What’s in a Name” and not lost in reputation thereby ; and there is some excellent fooling, at which even the members of the Psychical Research Society might well laugh, in “A Spiritualistic Seance.” The scenic beauties and weird wonders of the “Land of the Fern,” the poet’s adopted country, provide subjects for sympathetic treatment. The.extracts from “Zealandia’s Jubilee” can be compared with interest with the patriotic verse of the late Tom Bracken. From the concluding section, “Looking Forward,” we take a couple of verses as exemplifying the simple dignity and harmonious form of the whole poem : Guard her stainless, encircling ocean, Nourish her kindly, sun and dew. Woods and waters, in cadenced motion, Sing her songs of the brave and true! Cheer her, nerve her for strong endeavour, Spirits of Good, from realms above, Till Wrong be conquered and crushed for ever, And Right and Liberty reign in love. Grant- her, Heaven, a high ambition, Upright rulers and servants pure, Grace and power for her noble mission— Founding an Empire, firm and sure. Zealandia, then, from her central station. Clasping a thousand leagues of sea, Shall spread her sway o’er an Island Nation, And usher a grander Jubilee. The pathetio note—the note rings firm and true, without trace of effort or forcing—is sounded in “The Unwritten 3?oem,” which contains many tender and charming lines. Mr Kelly is never in happier vein than when ha writes of childhood’s days and children s hopes and fears, and small sorrows and joys. In several of his poems also he nroves himself an ardent lover of Nature. His “Blackbirds at Caldervale” was evidently written in respons© to the dictates of a pleasant memory, and the result is some verses which show true poetic feeling and great delicacy of treatment. A “nature poem,” which strikes us as specially simple in form and yet full of quiet charm, is “Autumn at Cairnhill.” The background is taken from the Old Land, and the very atmosphere of “wan autumn” is with us as it is in certain pictures by Millet and Corot. A quotation here cannot be denied:— Now misty morns and frosty eves, And bright though shortening sunshine hours Have burned the grass and nipped the flowers. And bleached and dyed the forest leaves. » * a * * The sombre elm more sombre grows,

But now with fading tints is mixed, The beech’s red here burns, and nextJ The lime tree’s sickly yellow grows. • » Below, the hawthorn’s berries red Shine ’gainst the elm tree’s gloomy wall; Above, the poplar, straight and tall, Lifts over all its naked head. The sycamore’s broad leaves are fringed Or stained with wan and withering hue; And up the winding avenue Dark tints of brown the trees have tinged. A fine tribute to Sir George Grey is contained in the ode. “Who is the Greatest?” which was inspired by the great Pro-Consul’s princely gift of his valuable library to the citizens of Auckland. - We shoruid like to quote from this and other of the longer poems, notably “To the Unknown God” and “The Triumph of Faith.” and to have referred to some short pieces, especially the modest but clever little quatrains which display a happy turn for versified ejrigram. But this cannot be; the inexorable limits of space forbid further quotation. Mr Kelly’s verse is as a rule cheery and charitable, wholesome, hopeful and helpful in spirit, and he proves by this volume of his that he possesses poetic gifts of a very Inch order. His versatility is indeed most remarkable, and considering the great hulk of his production, he never sinks to mediocrity, but maintains an unusually high average of both thought and style. His many friends in journalistic circles and amongst the public should he grateful for the opportunity now afforded of possessing in collected form verses which, with the two exceptions above noted, do credit to, the author’s heart and mind, and must, now that they become better known, place him in the front rank of Antipodean poets. I have only to add that the typography of the volume does credit to the printers, and that in its sober but tasteful binding “Heather and Fern” is a book which should, and I trust will, find a place and be treasured as a valued possession in many a New Zealand home.