DORA WILCOX.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17407, 21 May 1928, Page 5

DORA WILCOX.

N.Z. POETESS. i A petite, white-haired, dark-eyed lady, afire with sympathy, artistic feeling, poetry, beauty—such is Dora Wilcox, poetess. Her name in real life is Mrs William Moore. She hails from Christchurch, New Zealand, and belongs to a New Zealand pioneer family. But the greater part of her life since girlhood has been in Europe, for she married en premieres noces Dr. Hamelius, Professor of English literature at Liege University, Belgium, losing thereby her Australasian nationality, but not her ardent love for the land of her birth.

Dora Wilcox has always loved New Zealand, loved its wonderful people the Maoris, their legends, ancient customs. She has sung of these, pubbshed as "Maoriland and Other .Verses." Only the other day she returned to Sydney from visiting her old home, every moment a delight. She saw again scenes of her childhood, old friends. Her one regret was to And that foreign tourists are adopting an attitude towards the Maoris not always in accordance with New Zealand feeling. During the years of her married life in Belgium, Madame Hamelius led a fascinating existence among men of learning, some of the finest minds in Europe. She remembers as perhaps the most brilliant function, unique in its large number of intellectual geniuses assembled together, the visit to St. Andrew's Scottish University made with her husband. It was the celebration of the University's fivehunaredth anniversary. The festivities were splendid, and it was probably the most brilliant gathering any University has seen, even in those brilliant pre-war days. Sir J. M. Barrio made the occasion famous to posterity by his magnificent address, printed in its thousands, disseminated all the world over, on "Courage." Another celebrity also present was the German, Professor Lamprecht, one of the most learned of Teutonic savants, but an extreme Anglophobe, responsible for much of the "Hymn of Hate" feeling in Germany. Had men but known it, war's shadow already hovered above Europe's horizon. None but a handful of intuitive people realised the menace. When the Agadir incident occurred, Dr. and Madame Hamelius were at home in Belgium. One day they saw soldiers guarding the bridge across the Mouse, near their house. War was imminent, said they, and the bridge would be dynamited at the first tiding of declaration of war. But the hand of the War Lord was stayed another few years.

When the war cloud actually burst, Dora Wilcox was in England. A dispensation of Providence, some would think, but it, is to her a matter of lasting regret, that she was absent, from Belgium in the supreme crisis of its history. Nearly all her women friends were imprisoned for doing just what Nurse Cavell did, helping Bel-

gian boys to escape from their invaded country to Holland and England, so as to rejoin their own King and army. People arc mistaken in asserting that Nurse Cavell was accused of espionage. She (lid nothing more than help Belgians to join I heir own army, an offence punishable by irhprisonment, not by death. The law was changed by the Germans after her death to justify their atrocious act. AH through the war Madame Hamelius nursed in England at King George's big military hospital. Her position was curious. She was a British born subject, married to a Belgian ally, therefore she was included as part of the British army, hut was subject to police surveillance. However, she met with great consideration from the authorities, being exempted from some of the most harassing provisions of the Aliens Act. She also worked as an officer under the St. John Ambulance Brigade, carrying away a sincere admiration for it and for the women connected with its work, Lady Maud Wilbraham, Lady Perrott, and Lady Oliver, born in Sydney. After the war she still continued under the auspices of Hie Brigade, working in East End. dispensaries, school clinics. The East End people are the wittiest, kindliest, most interesting folk, says Dora Wilcox. She got to know them from every angle, as fathers, soldiers, mothers, wives, and children. In 1023 Dora Wilcox married Mr William Moore, dramatist, art critic, and author, and now lives in Sydney. She has published a third book of verse since her arrival in Australia, and added lo her poetical achievements by winning the first prize for her Canberra Commemorative Ode, "Austral'* in Luce." at Die opening of (he Federal Parliament last year.