ABOUT ANTHOLOGIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10925, 14 November 1913, Page 2

ABOUT ANTHOLOGIES.

WITH A WORD ON F3ENCH LYRICS. (By Fkank Morton.) I havo just been glancing through a new anthology of the verso of Greater Britain. It is_ published by Messrs Dent and compiled by a Mr Helps, Komo time an inspector of his Majesty's schools. If ono may judge tho whole by tho part, it is not a very good anthology. The living Australians are not represented by their best work, and some of tho finest of our New Zealand singers are not represented at all. Tims Miss Jessie Mackav, whom I tako to be easily the best of our lyrists, has no place. It would be easy to give other examples of tho anthologist's indolenco or in felicity. This is tho ago of anthologies, but many of them are compiled too hurriedly, and so miss their proper effect. As yot wo havo no really good anthology of Australian _ verso, possibly because tho Australians are bad critics. There aro good anthologies of American verse; hut the field ia very great, and none of them is truly complete. Our only anthology of New Zealand verse is far from being representative. The making of anthologies bids fair to become one of the lost arts. The inspired anthologist must bo of ripe tasto, wide knowledge, and no prejudices—a rare, if not celestial, comohiation.

The best Australian verse might have been written anywhere; but tho best New Zealand verse has a curiously distinctive note. That (as concerns New Zealand) is as it should be. When I read French verso (na I do whenever I go to my devotions), it is the distinctive quality that most ap--peals to me. I havo been reading and re-reading a lot of French verse lately, and the more I read the more deeply am I impressed by the exquisite beauty and form of tho best French lyrics. This is the more surprising because tlipro is a sort of meek consensus of critical opinion that the French lyric is 'an inferior product. It is quite true that the noblest English lyrics have no counterpart in any other language; but it is equally true that, taken as a whole, tho lyrics of France need fear no comparison with any other lyrics the world has produced. This was most notably the case when Franco was young. It is at once so difficult and so delicious to bo young, and_ in New Zealand it will soon be a criminal offence. As with nations, so it is with men.

Jeutiesso but nioy a puissance, Mais Vieillosso fait son effort Do ■ m'avoir en sa gouvernance. It is truly wonderful how young the English lyrists have kept, when regard is had to the fact that we are most orthodox upholders of the tradition that the race commenced with a man born old in a garden made new for his delight. Adam was very respectable, and wandered round and round in. the same little circle all the day long. So Evo went out and had a chat with the devil, and I don't wonder at it. : I take it that Adam was ,no lyrist; hut we have wandered far since then, and nowadays the most prosaic of us has seen the stars of heaven dimmed by his lady's eyes, and dreamt of the joy of her lips as eternal, as Vauquelin de la Fresnaye did— J'admirais toutes ces beautez Eg-alles a mea loyautez, Quand l'esprit me dist en l'oreille: Fol, que fnis—tu? Le temps perdu Souvent est cherement vendu; \ S'on lo recouvre, e'est ruervcille. Alorß, jo m'abbaissai tout has, Sans bruit je marchais pas a pas, Et baisai ses levrc.3 pourprines: . ■■' ":■"'.' Savourant un tel bien, je- dis Que tel est dans le Paradis Le plaisir des ames divines.

I know how fashionable it is to adore Robert Herrick rather recklessly, but I confess that the unceasing sweetness of him sometimes threatens to bore me. There is always a touch of genial acid in the French songs, even though they be verbally as cloy-ing-sweet as anything that Herrick ever attempted. Laissons le lit et le Bommeil Cesto jouraee. Pour nous, l'A\m>re au front vermeil, Est desja nee; and then? Mark with what added subtlety Herrick's own warning is spoken before Herrick: Ce vielliard, contraire aux amaas, Des aisles porte, Et enfuyant, nos meilleurs ana Bien king emporte. Quiuid ridee un jour tu aeras, Melancholique, tu diras : J'estoy peu sage, Qui n'usoy point de la beaute Que si tost le temps a oste Do mon visage.

I think that the old French singers, who Knew woman every bit as well as any of our poets have' known her, knew women better:— Femme, plaisir ids demye heure, Et ennuy qui sans fins demeure. '

Sir John Suckling comes nearest to the typical French not© of joy that still has in it a something very nurnan and fallible and honest and wise and sad:— Out upon it! I have loved Three whole days together, And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather. Time shall moult away his wings Era ho shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover. Or, again, Lovelace:— "Why Ehonldst thou sweare I am forsworn, Since thine I vowed to be? Lady, it is already morn, And 'twas last night I swore to thee That fond impossibility. This wise sweet sadness of instinctive knowledge is a necessary part of the equipment of whatever true lover is a cane man and a poor liar. When Drayton cries, with a matchless quiver of heartstrings:— Since there's no help, come let us kiss and

part. we feel that he has always known that there's no help. Such knowledge is cultivated Nature's necessary salutary check to tho. high, strong pride of lovers, and Nature's sad last comfort. So Ronsard sang:— Quand vou9 oerez bien vicille, au soir, a la chandeile, Assise oiupres du feu, devisaoi et filant, Dire 3, ehantant mes vers, en vous, esmerveillant: " Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j'estois belle." A man sighs sincerely enough over the burning of his house, even though he has long been conscious of the risk of fire. In all modern French lyrics— Musset, Gautier, Verlaine and others—in all these, as in the older ones, you catch this note of presentiment. The music of Gerard de Nerval, as loyal and sad a lover as over beautified the world of song, is intensely imbued with it. That presentiment is essential in the highest lyrical beauty; and because that presentiment is generally absent from our Australasian lyrics, there is always a something lacking, a something necessary to tho perfect glow. Wo aro too robust, too confident, too healthy, perhaps; in our cordial glamours there is not enough of tender worship; wo seldom seem to guess that our ladies have souls and whimsies. We are too snre of ourselves. We assume that all this kingship and rapture and noontide glory is to last for ever, despite the fact that all human experience proves the contrary. _ Love too long contented grows plethoric and fat: when he would sing, ho wheezes. Tho French lyrists write like men of tho world, and that I take to be a right excellent thing in them.