COLONIAL SKETCHES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2111, 9 August 1894, Page 50

COLONIAL SKETCHES.

By Ediiii Searle Grossman.

_L NEW ZEALAND «OET.

" The Fairest of<he Angels, and Other Verse " By Mabt Colboiine VEEii. Horace Cox, London. This little volume of poems deserves a high rank* in colonial literature ; its faults arc all on the negative side ; its merits are centime and unmistakable. The author has for years contributed not only to the Ohri3tchurch Press, but also to Beveral EDgiish periodicals. Two of the poems in the present oollpction lately appeared in the "Hobby Horse." " Saturday Night " will be familiar to readers of S adens •' Australian Poe's." Last year Miss Veel was elided a member of the British Society of Authors founded by Besant. Considering the scanty encouragement which is the fate 'of moßt. colonial writers, Miss Veel mu3t be rf gaided as one of the most succespf ul of our poets. Itr is ■ probably a mistake in the arrangement of this volume to place first a number of lines on Scriptural episodes and legends. However good they may be in themselves, they can scarcely fail to lack interest to the average colonial reader already familiar with similar subjects in Lowell and elsewhere. Passing over these verses, we come upon others marked by thoughtfulness, a dainty suggestiveness, aud rccasional touches of quiet humour. Their chief merit is the union of sincerity with correct and delicate

taste. There is not a jarring not 9in the whole. It is refreshing to find a complete absence of the- tnr bid bombast, the in fitted

pseud opropteoy, which spoils the work of Borne of our most ambitious and even most gifted poets. This book shows the modesty of a genniae lover of literature, claiming no throne beßirie Shakespeare or Tennyson or Browning, but measuring her.-elf justly, and taking an unchallenged place among the minor poets of the day. In the mirror of a clear simplicity, we sea the surroundings of tbe author faithfully portrayed, without parade, without distortion — the quiet, studious life of the lover of . books, the observer of Nature. It is not mere echoes of Lowell, Tennyson, or Buchanan that wegetheie — notm^rede^crintions of scenerj*. Thoughts and scenes alike are touched unconsciously by tbe light of a woman's memories -and gentle emotions — a touch toT delicate to amount to self-betrayal, yet sufficient to give living interest. The finest example of this impersonal sentiment is in •• An Ending Day," a poem perfect in its manner of expressing exactly what is meant, and adding not one word more. The reader's imagination dwells upon it for i*s suggestion of a feeling that is not exposed to the surface : . x V AH cheerless fell the ending of the day On plain and hi'l, At last so heavily the twilight lay, So sad and chill. Yet day had no such brightness, to regret That eve should fall, Lingering with woe on hours so fair to set Their funeral pall. Only as'dark above, the cloudy screen Grew darker yet ; Telling the sun through wintry hours unseen, Unseen had het. Itseemed no thought might pictui c more forlorn The sad earth's plight, The crown of twilight's piteousness to mourn Day had not been more bright. This picture brings before us at o'ice Ohiistchurch on a winter afternoon. Canterbury exiles in England on reading this will feel themselves back again in their melancholy town. So with the best of the verges, tbere is no dwelj'ng on details of scenery. The author knows them so intimately the ecircely thinks of describing. One gets not the cutlines, but the "tone." the mood of the surroundings. It is always Christchurch that we see — Ohriatcharch, the least characteristically colonial of all our towns. Most of its features are given vs — the subdued brightness of an autumn morning among tbe oak groves, where an acorn's fall is heard in tbe etillDess ; the " green gorse-scented lanes" in spring sunlight; the meadows; where green willows mark the windiDg river ; the pure snow peaks half seen through cloads by one wearied of trampled mnddy streets, the darkening sands by the sluggish sea. Miss Veel's poetry might easily be accepted as a phase of Knglish rural life. Of colonial enterprise and romance, ambition-, and vivacity there is no hint. "The Colonial Poet's LimeDt " •<_!• fines the author's position accurately. The poet bewails tbe prosaic life anfl savage' unhistoric scenery of the colonies ; the auth; r's reply is that here, too, are tbo deop passions of humanity, life, love, and death, the themes of all singers. Without quarrelling with this answer I cannot but suy that New Zsaland scenery beyond the immediate vicinity of the towns offers a pphere of poetry more fresh and inspiring 'ban any before a modern Englishman;" that life in the "savage" and magnificent wilds of Nature teems with romance ; that, to speak boldly, some phases of life here have much nf the open air fragrance, the primitive strength and antique simplicity, the varied ii cidents and savage traditions of Homeric Greece, in place of the well-worn, often-repeated histories or the luxurious drawing room and garden conventionalities of modern English poetry. No r>"et has yet arisen to describe the raal -romance of New Zealand, to give to all ages the wild imagination and traditions of its

savage tribes, to paint the deadly struggle of its Native race with conquerors who came from unknown lands Perhaps before one great enough has arisen the heroic age of our primitive life— already fast expiring— will have passed away unrecoided.