OF N.Z. POETS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 548, 28 December 1928, Page 12

OF N.Z. POETS

SOME NOTES AND COMMENTS NO. 4 MISS MARNA SERVICE [ The Irish novelist, George Moore, ! once defined pure poetry as verse unI burdened by ideas. He considered that philosophy and didacticism were enemies to true poetry which, according to his notion, should rely lor its j effect solely upon music and atmosphere. The Witches’ song from “Macbeth” is an example of the poetry that squares with his theory. Of course, if the poet is to become a leader, an “unacknowledged legislator of the world,” he must put forward some steadfast philosophy, but it is only the greatest of the singers who have the power to do that. Miss Marna Service, a young Dunedin girl, is a writer whose work would be approved by George Moore, if he has not forgotten about his theory by this time. Miss Service confesses that her imagination has always run away with her; but she has a sensitive and resourceful mind, and her travels into the faery world always seem to be fruitful. Witches and magic are her friends, and the things done through them are chronicled with charming verity. New Zealand, as a country, means nothing to her poetry. She%is not influenced by the things she sees about her, and she does not appear either to have been influenced by anything she has ever read. She has given expression to the fancies of youth, and done it so effectively that she can be understood and appreciated in any English country; for the songs she sings have a touch of the universal in them. There are times when she sings a little too thinly, but there is always a subtly-created atmosphere in her songs, and the frailest of them has a power that is not often present in the more pretentious singing of many other poets. Miss Service is quite artless and unsophisticated in her work, but she is always felicitous in her expressions, and there is power in her imagery. In “Blue Magic,*/ a poem which she wrote while still a school girl, it is possible to get a general idea of her power. It was this poem that won for her a prize in one of The Sun's Christmas competitions: Temple of Twilight on a lonely hilltop t Towers of pale opal leaning on the sky . . . Take my soul, lying in the blue-black grasses. Burn it with blue flame , for to-day I die. Here in the deepening dvift of many petals, Here where the shadows pass with noiseless treads Blue phantoms stealing down the silent pine-ways, Tenderly lay me when my life is fled. Let only young priests bear my withered body — Eyes filled with wonder *neath their azure hoods — Let only maidens, dancing in their frailChant the blue magic of the sacred woods. Pass by and leave me to the peace of silence. Here in the forest, and the night’s dun blue . . . Soon will the flame of ihe up-burning incense Throw its last flicker on the ghostly dew. Only the darkness and the burnt-out torches — Only the blue pall of the lonely sky — Only the sighing round the shrouded figure — Only the wraiths of starlight drifting by. Death, and a sleeping in the long blue grasses . . . Into the 'Twilight Temple—hush I he parses. There is a poem of flawless craftsmanship. The atmosphere is exquifitely sustained, and the inspiration never flags. Fancy plays freely in “The Fairy Horse”; O Manikin l Let me away, away 2 Take off my bridle of magic thread Made from the hair of a witch’s heads Take off my saddlt of acorn leaves, For the moon has come up and I cannot stay. O the moon has come up o’er the stable door, And keen as the golden whip when you ride. She lashes her moonbeams upon my side. Pokes in the bundles of thistle hay , Silvers the cobbles upon the floor And my shoes ware made from the moon’s gold rind Forgecl in a restless fairy fire, And they burn on my feet —O my elfin I must break at the fetters that keep me back, J must fly with the red, red mane behind. Till / drop exhausted at break of day In some garden of flowers, on the foam of some wave, On the top of' some hill, at the mouth of some cave ... How the crescent-shaped shoes dance on my feet l O Manikin, let me away, away. There is the same unfailing freshness, and the same delightful constancy to an airy theme. In “Song” there is the gentle, simple lilting that YV. H. Davies loves so much: 7 have kissed the moonlight — No kiss of mortal flame Gould touch my lips so softly, And make them burn the same. The moon is on the white tree, The white tree’s by tile wall. And I leaned and kissed a blossom , . So lightly did it fall. So softly and with fluttering Like a petal butterfly With ghostly wings a-trcmble , That I, mortal like did cry. And press my two hands swiftly To cover up my kiss— How can 1 sleep , O moonlight, With a wakefulness like thisf In a poem to Imagination she writes, “I bowed seven times unto the moon.” The moon must be much more real to her than the earth, for the air that passes through her poems is thinner and fresher than mortal breath. She has ventured down the faery ways, and come back richly burdened with delicate pillage. Marna Service is one of the few people who have been able to sing successfully in her chosen style, and to-day, although a solitary labourer, she has brought grace and imagination into New Zealand verse. May she always keep faith with the fairies, witches and magic of her imagination. lAN DONNELLY’. BIBLIOGRAPHY “Blue Magic,” YVhiteombe and Tombs. She is a frequent contributor to The Sun.