IRISH POET KILLED.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 6524, 26 December 1917, Page 4

IRISH POET KILLED.

PROMISING CAKEEK ENDED. Lance-Corporal Francis Lodwidgo, who was killed in action on duly 3.1, says the New Castle Weekly Chronicle, was the peasant poot of Mouth. The' poet of the blackbirds" he was caled by Lord Dunsany, who, with -Mr Herbert Jenkins, the publisher, introduced him to the reading world. In him Lord Dunsnny bad hoped tofiinl a poet whose "blackbird songs would have surpassed even Burns's."

I.cdwiilge's short career—he was only 20—was as romantic as any poet could 'fancy. The .-ocoiid youngest of Ihe nine children of an Irish labourer, he experieced utter poverty at the age of two. A year later lie went to school, at live he was writing verses, and at It ihe left school to ee.ru money for I lie family purse. He started in a grocer's shop at Dublin. Later he earned a shilling < d;iy at thinning turnips. Then, back to Dublin, he was in a shop again. But his heart was at home. He was only sixteen, and at the end of a day's work he wrote "Behind the Ouscd Kyc." two stanzas of which read : And wondrous, impudently sweet : Half i.f him passion, half conceit ; The blackbird calls adown the street Like ihe I'iper of llomelin. 1 hear him and .1 feel the lure. IJrawing me back lo the homely moor ; I'll gii and close the mountain's door On the city's strife and din. And iwo hours later he was on his Miiv home. There he found work as a

learned shorthand and wrote verses afler ihe day's work. Afterwards lie f.ilsmiled on him and he became an overseer of roads, with a fad for hypnotism. Then came ihe war. and after he had joined the army he wrote. •' 1 ha\e taken up arms for the liekls along the

Boyne, for the birds in the blue sky over them. I love the King and would light fur him willingly, but ihuusands are already doing that, and nobody has joined i lie army to champion I hose little fields."