A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10085, 26 September 1918, Page 8

A LITERARY CORNER

at.A.L.) "BACKBLOCK BALLADS." AND LATER VERSES-. C. J. Dennis. (Per S. and W. Mac kay, Wellington. (Angus and Robertson, Sydney.) If he does not alwavs take us by storm with "Ginger Micks" and "Sen. timental Blokes." Mr Dennis never fails to charm and edge us on to noble ideals, often in homely language, in which the rough veruaoular is never without music. He paves us character in great types fresh from the backblock depths, humour as keen as original, conceits quaint with smiling provocation, sudden flashes of golden patriotism, charming pictures of life in the grey bush. Take, fop example, from "The Old Master," a story of a pair of mates who were in difficulties with their bullock dray:— Now, beside our scene of trouble stood a little one-roomed humpy, Home <<f an enfeebled party' by the rmme of Dad Mc3ee. Daddy was, I pause to mention, livin* on an old-age pension Since he gave up bullock-punchin' at ihe ase of eighty-three Startled by our exclamation, Daddj hobbled fmni tho shanty, Grazin' where the stranded waggon looked like some half-foundoreti eibip. When the 6tate o' things he spotted. "Looks," he says, "like you was ■ potted." And he toddles up to Mitchall. "Here." says he, "gimme that whip." Well! I've heard of transformations; hoard of fellers sort of changin' In the face of sudden danger or eoffif trreat emergency; tfeard the like in song and story and in bush traditions hoary, But I noarly dropped me bundle as I looked at Dad iMcGee.

While we gazed he seemed to toughen; as his fingers gripped the handle His old form grew straight and supple, and a light leapt in his eye; A.nd he stepped around the waggon, not with footsteps weak and laggin', But with firm, determined bearin*, as ho Suns the whip on high. Now he swung tho leaders over, while the whip-lash gnarled and volleyed; And they answered- like one bullock, strainin' to each crack and clout; But ho kept his cursin' under till old Brindlo made a blunder; Then X thought all Hell had hit me. and the master opened out.

Then smile as tou read "The Chase of the Aaes," a humorous flout at evolutionary soience something in the strain of Butler, who gave us engines at work in Erewhon. with little, engines at play in the neighbouring paddocks :

Light of my lives 1 Is the time not yet? Lo, I've brcoded on a star Through many a year, with tho hope

held dear That, in some future far.

I would know the joy of a love returned. Are my lives lived vainly, all. Since that cosmic morn when life, newborn, Krst moved..on this mundane ball?

Tea, I mind it yet, when first we met On a testiary rook. How the graceful charm of your rudiments Imparted love'e first shook. But I was a mere organic cell Tn that early Eocene, While you were a prim, primordial germ, And the mother of protegene This begins the courtship of the countless ages, in due course: So I loved and died, and the ages sped Till the time of my*second birth; When I took my place in the cosmio race, And again came down to earthi Once more we met Ah, Love, not yetl You were far above my state! ■ For how could I raiso ray mollusc gaze To a virtuous vertebrate. And yet again, in an age or so. We met, and I mind th<» Pofo I sobbed when I found that I was—what? And you were a thingumbob. You had sold your tail for a kind of soul. You had grown two thumbs beside; And I knew again that my love wan vain, So I went to the woods and died. Till wo reach the end with:— Lo, Time speeds on, the suns grow cold, And the earth iniirm and hoar, And, ages past, we are here at last— Ay, both on the earth once more. But, alas, Dear Heart, as far apart As e'er in thie cosmio whirl; For I'm but a lowly writer-man And you aro a tea-room girl. So the Dennis muse eoes on shooting arrows at this and that, at politicians, preachors, farmers, until the end comes in a burst of patriotism, of which the name "Australaise." resembles the title of the great French war song, and the matter, which resembles nothing under the ljj;erary heaven, is a model of short, abrupt, severe phrases, jabbing the call