VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 21605, 18 January 1932, Page 4

VAGRANT VERSE

THE ORETI ANTHOLOGY.

(Written for the Southland Times.)

427.- —Visitor (continued). My tastes would be much simpler, I would

go And see the latest Epstein sculpture

show, For one among barbarians all his life Believes that beauty is in all things rife; That beauty, so called, may be false as

sin And ugliness may welcome beauty in. I’d be quite definite, I’d want to know Why such a group appealed unto me so, And if a tliilig seemed paltry or poor art, Untrue, unreal, without a counterpart, I would say so. But Epstein stands atone For living portraits—carved in living stone. Next I would pay a visit to the Press, Printing House Square, an outside look, no less. I'd buy a copy hot out of the hands Of newsboy calling. What are his demands ? "Threepence a copy, thirty thousand sold!” Upon each page old London can’t grow old, The newest salt of England! Hero in mass I sec the greatest wonder come to pass: “Times Literary Supplement! It stands A voice of England; greatness beyend lands And cities; a strong fort; an army where Though soldiers charge the army’s always there. English, unposturing, outspoken, free, Standard of our cultured liberty. Shaw, I’d see next because I like his plays, Still more because of his defiant ways. His “man and superman” has strong appeal, And then there is “Saint Joan.” But the strange zeal Of his long prefaces in which you spy The genuine George go posing gaily by. Next I would seek out one grown wise and old In letters —one whose tales are never told It seems; because like a tall tree ho grows With branch and foliage against all foes, And each year lifts his stature nearer , sky, It is George Moore himself, the new land cry. Aubusson* carpets need not deck a room Where this man sits. I’d ask bare boards and gloom So that the Moorish light may higher leap, Within the tall tower of his castle-keep. Because my tastes arc simple but unmarred, Lastly I’ll make a visit to a bard Whose verses I don’t always understand, Whose Irish has been grown in that green land; But who in spite of all with pipe of oat, He sings his honest self, no rule nor rote. Welcome, now, William Yeats with all your song, Your fearless comment, and your hate of w'rong, With your lake islands, and your Celtic mist, . Withal a modern folklore alchemist. —Southerner. Invercargill, January 18, 1932. *The cabinets against the walls, and ths tables and chairs spaced over the pale roses and florid architecture of Aubusson. And chairs we must have, I said, though they interrupt the enjoyment of an Aubusson carpet.”—George Moore.