MISS JESSIE MACKAY'S POETRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 90

MISS JESSIE MACKAY'S POETRY.

Mass Mackay's poetry contains* few, if any, of the elements that enter into a. facile popular appeal to the public. But in the way of genius—which like the wind cometh when it will and bloweth as it lisfceth —it gives expression (in a manner that must appeal to all feeling hearts) to things that have appealed to all feeling hearts since the time when the morning stars sang together and the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. And, notwithstanding all that may seem to. testify to the contrary, such hearts are still beating in the world; but to touch them, or to secure their attention, they have to be sung to. Merely saying fine things will not do it; the only -J.hing that arrests and holds is the essentially arresting thing, that is somehow expressed in song, or from a lyric impulse or with a lyric fluency, though, it may be, not in a lyrical measure. And there is no mystery in this; it is in the very nature of things : From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From ba.rmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notea it ran, The. diapason, closing full in Man. The whole universe welled up and" out from a Consciousness eternally rhythmic; there was—and there is—the music of the spheres; cities rose from the sea to the magic of Aaron's lyre; amd flowers sprang from the earth and wild beasts gathered round to listen to Orpheus—that eternal type of the singing heart of Nature—who had 'power to subdue, too, that other eternal type of her hardness—JCluto. And did not David, the sweet singer of Israel, melodise Saul into sanity ? Surely the lyric gift is the paramount gift of Nature; and Horace, who said so much and sang so little, was at least, for one happy moment, seer, sage, and singer when he exclaimed : " Call me a lyric poet, and I shall strike the stars with my sublime head." Even in the most practical affairs there is no getting away from this radical fact in Nature : the lyric mood and the lyric method are universal; they are, at least, for ever actually or contingently present in conjunction, with whatever is happiest, most effective, or most memorable in thought or feeling, effort or achievement. This has been recognised in all places by all manner of persons; even Mohammedanism has its lyric angel : " the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." Then Shakespeare, who is, pyschologically, Nature's alter ego, teems with testimonies to what may be termed the lyric law of Nature. Listcthis discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle rendered you in music, says the Archbishop of Canterbury of young King Harry V; and the xjrelate, himself for the moment in a lyric vein, represents the King in a high choric mood, though dealing with one of the hardest and most practical things in the world—war. Another witness to the dominance of this lyric law is Hotspur, who is made to testify unconsciously to himself. He who in talk with Owen Glendower can say with mingled impatience and scorn— I had rather be a kitten and cry Mew Than one of these same metre balladmongers— is yet also made t-o} chant, under other conditions : 0 gentlemen, the time of life is 1 short I » » • • s ■Sound all the lofty instruments of war, And by that musie let us all embrace; For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall A second! time do such a courtesy. Then Lorenzo's speech to Jessica in the moonlight _ at Belmont (" Merchant of Venice") is at once a summary of the, whole Platonic argument for tha lyric principle in Nature and an exquisite specimen of lyrical blank; verse; which has, besides, generally, its. special lesson for those who cannot think of lyric poetry apart from sing-isong or rhyming forms. Shakespeare, indeed, supplies hundreds of illuminating instances in this connection: find so does Milton, as thru, m only one citation s He ;sp.ake: and- to confirm his words. outSovr Mi!'!k.r>9 o£ flaming swords', .Lawn from' the phi>2s'.« Of might?- c&c-.ubira; the sudden blazo Fas- roiHici iilvi .': r c" 'id!, v: ; .m- 'h-.- .-r,.,,;

Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms Cl&sh'd on their sounding ahieldla the din oj war, Hurling defiance toward the vault of heaven. Of course the singing form is as precious as the singing essence, especially when the singing essence is within it,; but, always, the lyric law or gift will be found a dominating factor in the most stirring or practical affairs. Chatfcerton's chant has a psychologic suggesiiveness in. this respect : When Freedom drest in blood-stained vest To every knight her war song sang. There is none of your butterny-born-in-a-bower business here, but the lyric law of Nature is here, as valiantly and vividly as the blood in the veins of Freedom's own bearded-lipped and eagleeyed champions. And so everywhere—eveai in politics, if they are above the level of village ditch-water. The Chevalier Bunsen wrote of William Ewart Gladstone while they were botli young men : " He h*s heard higher notes than any other nan in England " ; and when the statesman was over 80 his venerable wife was womb to say : "Yes; he still sings in kis bath every morning." Doubtless the singing, a.s singing, was poor enough; but se a testimony to the lingering effects of the lyric law on the political idealist's temperament, it had its significance. But, of course, theee are parables—more or less figurative suggestions of the existence of a prevailing law, of which, in the human medium, the cositive proof is pure lyric poetry itself. Of this Miss Maekay gives us some singularly fine specimens. Sometimes she does this in what might be called only a bit of a ballad; sometimes in a croon or lilt, or in an irresponsible romantic chant, yet lyrical tc the core, like " The Valley of Rona" : O my heart, we're a-cold, Though the moon's boating gold Cm the rippling bays "With a- hammer of rays. And the North folk say it is eumrniear. Take a boa* and put forth Prom, the quays of tho North, Where the rime gathers grey In the smoke, of the fray: We'll seek for the Valley of Bona. • a • • e Cast loose, heart cf mine; J Tis a moon-sea- of wine : No harm a.s we sink Ox to dive or to drink. As we .sink in the Valley of Hems. We shall pass like a shads Where the great ones z<re laid, For Daly 13 there, And Atlantis the fair, And the proud towered city of Ireland. Tower, temple-, sad grot, Nor crumble nor rot; But- the pearl of ths sea. To you and to me Is the moon-littcn Valley of Rona. We well know the way, Bast the rock and" the spray, By the willow and pin© And the InOGK.-rHirrp.Tß fine That lie on the meadows of Bona.. Not an inch oould we miss, For by this and by this Hangs a tale or a ch-era-m That was bright as a- bearm When Bona lay high in the sunlight. Thick as web 3 on the thorn In the*, mist of the mora, ■Sweet, as mead to the mouth Are tho tales of the South When 'We played at our godship in Roma. Not a. daisy oan pass; Not a blade of the grass; Not «. bird ever dies Nor outwaid it flies From Bona the charmed and the olden. • ». . And dimly and deep Comes the bleat of the sheep From the soft yellow hills, With their dark mossy rills, And ferns lying wet in the shadow. « * r m- > ■And the. Naiad a-dream In her pool of the stream) Sings clear as of old Of .a love never cold'. Then flits like the mist of the njorurtain. Rich glooms of the air Where the velvet and vair Of the bush on the height Veil the rocks with delight— Love-glooms that are sweeter than analight— They fold us again In _ the sweet heaven's rain—* Like a, bird to the nest, Like a babe to the breast, In the rich royal darkness of Boas. * . * s » Say it sank, O my heart, To the one better part; For the world rules the da? Where they chaffer and slay, .but night hath the ocean and Bona;., This is singing if y<ni like: the spontaneous lyrical expression of .whatever in the way of feeling,, fantasy, or fancy rises up within or gleams across thia poet's consciousness while it is in a romantic mood and a-thrill with the 'memories o£ a lovely tradition. No young minnesinger, troubadour, skald. or CV:t ; c bard could have done the thing more happily; in his happiest moments of Insniratioini.' It is a lyrical cascade of glancing. '-asihckm fancies—a felicitous instance "of g«niui beating gold ■ With a ba.nunwr of rays Cm the rippling bay?' of imagination. But there are other notes anr! oißef veins in Miss Mackay'.* rearse, Hera i| a wed c n all time for every man who has lojst his heart-mate: She Loved a* well, and sha is act dead?,, he-sa>r.- vn- ••ert; she oamnoS teltj" Yy woc-id is fill a wi'.jßuti«s shell That sivg-: of iief, ~u ca?y. An<i tli.) exils from whatever fatherland <vbr- hs? not lost his son] -n trctes* to ■vritf the : 0 d \n v, st-i'p:.; v country vnl* finiil

what be feels set out in the pensive Celtic poem which is named FOE, LOVE OF APPIN. But it's —O for hame and Appin, The heather hills o' Appin— The thousand years o' Appin where the leal men lie 1 Then there is comfort for the truth-lover /hbse ideal has been superseded—a true :- /rvant of his kind, little heeded by them, to their shame—in the gnomic verses entitled TRUTH UNVEILING. And weepest thou, discrowned man, Who strove upon the an&onless way?— Whose torch, that led the ea.rly van, The Sun of Truth has quenched in day? Weep not. The.world's te-onian youth Owes yet to thee, who cleft the night. The loftier error is a truth To them that walk without the light. Miss Mackay has (it seems to the writer) composed at least three organically oerfect poems—poems which are, in their kind, perfect in their appeal to taste and 10 feeling—namely, "The Valley of Bona," "For Love of Appin," and the eerie verses named "A Folk Song'"—not, perhaps, very happily: surely the very simple and, in this connection, very poetical word, "Away," would have been \ better title. But let that pass. This lemorable little poem is, of all that Miss a.ckay has written, the piece which the .tics agree in praising most; and it is, irhaps, unique as a lyrical expression of itefttl yearning, felt, as it were, in some orange outland. country, where the very air is touched with a sense of mystery and freighted with the memory of other times. Yet if it were possible to praise it without writing or speaking, that surely would be best; as sympathetic silence would be the best response to the'wind sighing oir a winter night among the long :rass by a grave in the desert. To place she reader in a position to judge of this ;bv himself, here is the poem in its entirety : I c-cme to your town, my love, And you were away, away! I paid, "She is with the Queen's maidens: They tarry long at their play. '.:ey are stringing her words like pearls, "o throw to the dukes and earls." But O, the pity! I had but a morn of windy red To come to the town where you were bred, And you were away, away! I came to your town, my love, And vou were away, away! I said," "She is with the mountain elves, And misty and fair as they. They are spinning a diamond net To cover her curls of jet." But O, the pity! I had but a. noon of searing heat To come to your town, my love, my sweet, And you were away, away! I came to your town, my love, And you were away, away! I said, "She is with the pale white saints, And they tarry long to pray. They gave her 'a white lily-crown, And I fear she will never come down." But O, the pity! I 'had but an even grey and wan To come to your town and plead as man, And you were away, away! Very likely it might be said in connection with poetry so purely lyrical as this that if its sentiment or motif were expressed musically, not verbally—that is, by means of instrumental sound, not written language—people, if they knew when the composer was to play, would gather to listen from all parts of the country, while comparatively few may read the verse, and fewer still appraise it at the full value of its beauty. Perhaps this is because music appeals more immediately than poetry to the primitive sense of wonder; it requires less mental development, less intellectual culture to feel and appreciate it; but, then, the written word has the advantage in the variousne-ss and the endurance of its ap-■oea-1. So, though they may not arouse an -nmediately general popular interest, yet ' i many nooks and corners throughout : he -country, and for generations to come, ,? iss Mackay's verses will be read and . .'lerisbed and turned to high spiritual ■■ ccount by finely-touched natures. And is .bis not enough? "What." asks Ethel Goddard in her beautiful "Dreams for Ireland" —"what is real fame but this: that some hearts, though few, are touched, enkindled; that some souls feel that a oure word has been spoken? No fame half so true as this can come to us; it dwarfs the tribute of a chattering crowd, too quick-living to look for truth." Perhaps a politician might prefer the tribute to the fame; but what poet would? Surely not Miss Mackay. John Christie.