SONGS TO AN IRISH HARP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3488, 18 January 1921, Page 51

SONGS TO AN IRISH HARP.

Norma.

By

A quick -wild thrill runs from brain to finger when the seasoned seeker holds the fragment of ore that means the opening of a new goldfield. Such a thrill is translated into a subtler joy when the seeker of the perfect thing sees the new-found gold of eong, and knows that another poet has been given to the world. The first book of a young Now Zealand girl lies before me, a slight, attractive thing in palest green art paper covers, and every one of its 22 pages bears the impress of a song-gift, delicate, magnetic, vibrant. It is “Poems,” by Eileen Duggan, from the New Zealand Tablet Publishing Company, Dunedin, and the foreword speaks - of the first verses of this young Wellington student of Victoria College appearing only four years ago, and the strong desire of many Tablet readers that these songs should be collected in a book. This has been done, and the result will be acclaimed by all who know the ring of true poetry set to high and earnest measures. Particularly dear it will be to all who keep green the rainbow traditions of that land which Eileen Duggan has never seen, and yet holds supremely beloved. The sorrow of Ireland is all to this young, ardent, exile heart that the need of the “Grey Mother” of the Gael proved to Scotland’s far-wandered children in the burning slogan of Lachlan Maclean Watt. It is the sorrow of Ireland that runs like a thread of mourning purple throughout the little book. This singer is a part of the Celtic fringe, shining brokenly in the newer lands, and true to its ancient woof of green and gold and brave sea-blue. Yet there is full freedom of form and mood, no moulding upon Yeats, or Fiona Macleod, or any of the lesser lights; the writer is able from the outset to stand upon her own lines with the beautiful dignity of childhood, and thus, amid the many passionate pleas of a stormy to-day and" a despairing yesterday, this, too, challenges attention by its burning simplicity and singleness of appeal. On that high dlay, when God above all pleas Shall call the trembling nations to His knees, And bid them lay in wide feudalty, Between His hands their share of sky and sea, What wilt thou say when from thy bitter side Shall slip with vassal foot, a child, greateyed, With cloudy head and little lips of woe That tell their tale to God with sobbing glow ? “Dear Godl, dear God, this one, this giant one, Put forth his shadow ’twixt mo and the sun, Till all the land, and I with it, grew cold, And in the field the wheat-ears lost their gold, Fear caught the throat of every singing lark, How could they sing their songs towards the dark ? And m the land men moaned! or made mad , mirth. My twilight gave wild jesters to the earth. At last, in doubt and dying, many a one Crept broken from my side to find the sun, And those who did not go cried out for aid, But I, a chile'll, how could I fight the shade?” The voice of New Ireland, again, is resonant with pride, repelling the gibe of a worn and fruitless quest:— These broke their lives as priests break holy bread, LSke lamps upon the altar of my foes, They set their wicks against the wind that blows, And died in their own flame, but not before Their dear successors shone above my door. Each had a saint's clear eyes, a king’s wide hands, Their dust blown free across my lands Shall lay round lily root and! hazel tree, The sweets of saintdom and of sovereignty— And I, with flowers to bloom and birds to sing, Shall greet across their bones the blowing spring. Here is a command of words that constrains the commonest to fit into a sustained picture that with few strokes em bodies one engrossing thought. The same simplicity shows in the terse, taut lines of “Indictment” : Although you epeak wide words, I will not hark again, Your words like flutes have called me from my moor, From road and blcs’my lane. And yet for all your words I weary in the rain. ’Tis not enough to speak, to speak, and nothing more, When hands are broken on your stubborn door, For all your flowing words my hood is drenched with rain. A lambent- spirituality gleams through these verses —the other-world calm of the God-encompassed Celt who asks nothing of reassurance from books or philosophers :—• I want the faith of some old Breton crone, Who mumbling sits in coif and snowy bands And lets the beasts slip through her calloused hands, Knowing God’s fingers catch them as they fall,' Or Irish dame who hears by boreen wall Sweet stumbling footsteps on the night wind lone, Small tender gropings at her door’s latch cold, And runs to greet her new-born, wandering Lord. Here there is a touch of Francis Thompson in his dreams of the “Nurseries of Heaven” : . . . . The Word unspoken He ever might have trod The garden of the blue, Have had fer toy in mirth The Windfall of this earth, And prisoner without bars, Confiding by have torn A branch of small wild stars To fling in filial token The blos’my cluster broken Across the knees of God. But there is both vigour and electic freedom of search and touch in such cameos as “On a Sinner Dead” : , Ta-kc back your pale pure flowers 1 Love laid sin to her hours, Did she live white that on the stones Above her splendid burnt-out boneß You lay their fearless purity ?

Her life was like a tapestry Wherein were woven recklessly All things of earth that scarlet be— The roman, reddest berry born; The poppy’s wide wet mouth of scorn, That weed —God knows she loved it well— The little scarlet pimpernel, Wild suns, wild dawns, and wild, wild stars. Drama unfolds in the fragment “Yvonne.” The little chatelaine sees cruel foes enenare the fugitive hero she cannot save, and throws back the taunt of the exulting captain; God gave this Gascon hawk a soul more free Than eagles have above thy craven head. Then he they led brake gladly into her, And crushed her childish fingers ’gainst his mail, Soorning the bitter buffets of Berol. In his great palm he cupped her flower-like chin And drank her vivid eyes and dusky hair For memory in the night to which, he went, And once he stooped and whispered shuuaeringly, “I lev© thee —ah, I love thee, fleur-de-lys.” “Dear God cl pity I” said Yvonne the Proud, And kissed his bleeding month. The most finished of poets would be glad to own these two exquisite verses from “St. Francis of Assissi” :—- Did’st walk, my saint, from the stony city, Seeking to cleans© its stain, Thy kin, the muttering winds of pity, Thy brother, God’s fine rain ? These were thy peace—a yellow tree, And a wild clean air, A dreamy bird, a small gold bee, Climbing the lily’s stair. Vision, valour, strength, restraint, grace, pathos, and the very magnetism of sympathy are all evident hare. These are the constituent parts that are fused into the magic of poetry. New Zealand will yet, I think, be very proud of this young daughter, whose singing voice is already so pure and fine.