"LAYS OF THE LAND OF THE MAORI AND MOA," by Thomas Bracken.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 44, 5 April 1884, Page 4

"LAYS OF THE LAND OF THE MAORI AND MO A," by Thomas Bracken.

If the sublimities of Nature are the true source of poetic inspiration, New Zealand j is destined to become a land where minstrels grow. And every newspaper conductor . knows to his sorrow that a tolerably large per-centage of the population are seized with the conviction that the divine afflatus has moved their spirits. No one who has not had access to the secrets of the sanctum can form any full conception of the burden which is laid upon the suffering editor by this peculiarity ot our climate. The consequences are occasionally disastrous, for it perchance happens that the flame of genius in some colonial Milton is snuffed out by the ruthless hand of the holder of the key to immortality in a land where newspapers furnish the only literary pabulum. To the credit of the journalistic profession, however, be it set down that they early discerned the poetic talent of Thomas Bracken, and not only welcomed and gave his songs to the world, but drew him into their own ranks, and kept him there. His poems, humorous, pathetic, and descriptive, have found an appreciative audience, and the colonists are proud of the singer who has given us the " Lays of the Land of the Maori and Moa." It is, in truth, a land full of romance ; the Maori had a poetry of his own, abonnding in simple allegory, and unhackneyed apt similitude, drawn from the experience of a primitive and imaginative people. Men there are— like Sir George Grey — svho have taken pains to gather and record these earliest lays of the land ; and it is appropriate that this later singer, in his dedication to the recluse of the Kawau, should exclaim (comparing him to a grand old tree) : The wild birds brought to him their minstrelsy ; The singers knew that when the scene was rude He grew and gave a shelter to their race. By him the wandering melodists wore wooed To trill and warble in that lonely place. Mr Bracken is a true lover of nature ; its thousand voices which speak to the spiritual senses thrill him, and awaken exquisite responsive chords. Many of his pictures of New Zealand scenery ai*e exceedingly pretty. Listen to this, culled from " The March of Te Rauparaha : The dazzling points Of morning's lances pierced the bursting hearts Of all tho flow'rets on the fertile slopes, And waked the red Kowhai's drops from sleep, And shook the dew-beads from the Rata's lids Until its blossoms opened xip their breasts And srave their fragrance to the early breeze That played among the Kqromiko's loaves, And stole the rich Tawhiri's swoet perfume, And strung the ilax -leaves into merry tuno To woo tho Boll-bird from his nest, to ring The Tui up to sing his morning hymns. Tho scene avus made for man, not savage man, Tho cunningest of brutes, the crafty king Of beasts I but Man, the spiritualised, With all tho light ot love within his heart! Or again, " A Christmas Reverie ": O, noble hills ! 0, lovoly A'ales and swards ! Robed in the richest foliage, and dressed In all the pride of many-tinted green ; O, singing stroam ! O, flowers and blossoms rarel That breathe your lives away in odours sweet, And die in porf ume when the summer waneB ;— O, bright-winged and sweqt-throatcd choristers! Whose notes make all the leaflets in the woods Dance on each sportive breeze in pure delight ;—

O, beauties that I cannot name but feel ! Mr spirit at this moment fain -would lose Itself among you all, and be at one With Nature, and with that Mysterious Power Whos*presence is proclaimed with double force At such a time and such a scene as this ; Our Father, and our Mother, and our All. Alone with Nature "on the wooded hill That skirts the lovely valley of the Leith ; The voices of the brooklet and the rill, That purlandbabblethrough theglen beneath ; The feathered exiles warblingthrough the heath Their old-world melodies, the tui's trill, x&F 1 /!" 0 whisp'rings of the leaves thatshake With tremulous emotion to the breeze That fans them into music in the trees : The mournf ulmurmur of the waves which break In silver flakes along the distant strand, And all the harmonies of sea and land Blend in a glorious concert, and I stand Entranced with joy— asleep, and yet awake. It is a perfect picture, and we could sit and muse with such a companion until, lulled by his sweet music, daydreams should melt by soft gradation into the wayward imagery of somnolence. We know that our poet can write in merry vein, but he has chosen for this little voluma the loftier flights of his muse, and he has chosen well. We would fain dip more deeply in the stream, and only leave it with the nope that enough has been given to create a thirst for its refreshing waters. The little book comes in appropriate garb, and though we could have wished that in typography it had been born of the " Land of the Maori and the Moa," we none the less welcome it, and bear witness to the neatness of the form in which these lays have been framed by the great London publishing firm of Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and JRivington. The local publishers are Upton and Co., from whom the copy under notice is acknowledged. An excellent portrait of Mr Bracken faces the title page.