A LYRIC SINGER OF THE WEST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11282, 9 January 1915, Page 3

A LYRIC SINGER OF THE WEST.

In an article on overseas poetry. Mrs .Archibald Colquhoiui ret era. thus to Isabella Valiancy Crawford, one of the most charming of Canadian singers:— There is probably no more pathetic story in the long tale of poets' sufferings than that of this young singer, made-for happiness and love, but condemned to poverty, hardship and a.n early dentil; She is eminently a clu'ld of the iVmv World in her brilliant optimism, her rich fancy, her vivid sense of colour, her almost pagan philosophy. Above all, she is the born singer. The songs are as free from strain or effort as if they came from a wild bird, and she sent them out as carelessly. After her death they had to be recovered with difficulty from various local, and sometimes obscure, papers whore they were buried. As a lyricist she stands, to the mind of the writer, ahead of any other overseas poet-—almost, if not quite, among the immortals. Nature is not to her a mature- to be drawn from the outside a catalogue of shapes, sounds, and colours—ft is the air she breathes, and she breathes into the so-called inanimate world the soul of life. All Nature is alive. The night is a Dark Stag, chased by the Hunter. Dawn, whose moccasins are red with blood, and who sends shaft after shaft of light quivering after his quarry. The felled trees have ghosts, the vc-'-y earth is trembling with sensation ,

When, yellow-locked and crystal-eyed, I dreamed preen wcoda among. Where tall trees waved fro?n side to fid* And in their preen breast,?, deep and wide, I saw the building" blue jay hide—--0 then the earth was young! Here is a " Baby's Dream " —a gossamer thing : I saw a fairy twine Of star-white jessamine A dainty seat, shaped like an airy swing, With ;two round yellow stars. Against the misty barf Of night: site nailed it high In the pa-nsv purple sky With four taps of her little rainbow wing:. To and fro That swing" I'll blow. Tho baby moon in the amethyst sky, Will laugh at us as v.-e float 'and fly, . And stretch her silver arms, and try To catch the earth ba'r.p ewinginjr br.