Australian poets and Their Work.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 December 1900, Page 227

Australian poets and Their Work.

By Edith (1. Wooi.cott

PAHT I

" Here is a land whose large, imperial grace Must tempt thee, Goddess, in thine holy place ! Here are the dells of peace and plenilune, The hills of morning an/1 the slopes of no n ; Here are the waters dear to days of blue, And dark -green hollows of the noontide dew ; Here lies the harp, by fragrant wood-winds fanned, That waits the coming of thy quickening hand ! And shall Australia, framed and set in sen August with glory, wait in vain for thee F Shall more than Tempe's beauty be unsung Because its shine is strange — its colours young ? ' This beauteous appeal of "a singer of the dawn " fitly introduces the whole subject of Australian verse. Moreover, the lines contain a far-off hint of reproach which can hardly fail to touch our own conscience. What have we of to-day done to hasten the coming of that " quickening hand," which this " sweet dead singer, buried by the sea," predicted must awaken the wondrous music slumbering in Australia's many - inooded clime ? We have not yet realised our responsibilities as colonial readers of colonial literature. Many of us know a line here and a line there from the writings of some of these poets, but, even where the necessary leisure for study has been ours, of what value has been the support we have accorded to the chanters of this new land? Because the "shine is strange, the colours young," it does not necessarily follow that the colouring is all crude, or the shine dull. We are ready to show a reverence for Longfellow, to bow before the genius of Tennyson, to concede the talent of Browning, for years of acquaintance and usage have convinced us of the worth of these writers. But our attitude of indifference towards the Australian poets arises from the fact

that, hitherto, wo have taken little trouble) to discover the surprising beauties, l.ho loveliness of thought expressed in much of their verse. Have we appreciated, even ever so faintly, the yearning which made Kendall cry for " One hour Of life, pre-eminent with perfect power," that he might — " leave a song whoso lonely rays May shine hereafter from the.->e songless days " P Nor have we essayed to aym pathetically understand his — " Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion Lyrics with beats like the heartbeats of passion-— Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters." Have we discovered whether Victor Daley lias fulfilled his own expressed desire to write — " Love-lyrics delicato as lilac scent, Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, und stream " P Then, must Will Ogilvie's graud song of " The Men who Blazed the Track " remain an unknown p&>an to us V " Here's a toast for you, comrades o' mine : To the fighting b ,nd that won tho land From the bitterest wastes out back ! From hut and hall to the kings of all— ' The Men who Blazed the Track !' " They rode away into the forest In mornings gold-studded with stars, And the song of the leaders was chorused To the clinking of vowel and bars ; They fought for the fame of the Islands, And struck for the width of the world ; They fashioned new roads in the Bilence, And nags in the fastness unfurled,

" Their tents in the evening would whiton The scrub, and the flash of their fires Leap over the shadows to brighten The way of Ambition's desires ; By the axe-marks we followed their courses, For scarcely the ashes remain, And the tracks of the men and the horses Are hidden by dust storm and rain. " The seasons from June to December Are buried and born as of old, But the people have ceased to remember Who won them the laurels they hold ; Yet sometimes the North wind comes bringing Those keener of hearing and sight The music of lost axes ringing, The beat of lost hoofs in the night." By its hopeful spirit, its courage, and its daring, does not this song amply reward us for our reading, and only as we x'ead on, do we begin to realize what we have hitherto missed in the work of these poets. Even with regard to recitations, how often do we hear the poems of any of these colonial writers, Gordon's " Sick Stock Rider," Kendall's heart-stirring poem on the wreck of the Tararua, or Farrell's " How He Died ?" Have we from our public platforms been made familiar with Brunton Stephen's subtle humour, his wonderful power of expression as forcibly employed in his comic verses as in his more serious efforts? Oarmichael's " Tomboy Madge " with its deep wail of pain — its vivid picturing of colonial child-life is an unknown letter to many of us. " Oh ! for a swim thro' the reedy river, And one long pull with the boys at dawn ! Only a ride on the high-backed Rover, And one tennis-round on the grassy lawn ! Once more to see the sun on the wide waves, And feel once more the foam at my feet ; Give me again the wind in the sea-caves Rooking the weeds on the 'Tomboy's seat." " But now I must lie here far from the cool wave, Far from the sounds and the scenes I love, With nothing before but pain— and a green grave, And nothing to seek but the hope from above. No grand long walks thro' the dusk at evening, Or long-drawn swims in the wind-tossed wave ; No light to seek but the one that's waving Down the dim path to the Tomboy's grave,"

But New Zealanders are not alone in their scanty knowledge of these poets ; the same ignorance regarding them appears to exist amongst the majority of Australians.

One gentleman, who prides himself upon being a " thorough Cornstalk," and who was well read in current literature, asked me who Kendall was ! And few people seemed to know that A. B. Paterson, the war correspondent, is their own "Banjo," of Snowy River fame.

If one questions the average Australian concerning his poets, he hesitates a moment, then "Oh! there is Gordon, you know!" he exclaims, delightedly.

There is Gordon, and by the Australians he is held up to reverence, not alas ! so much by reason of their profound knowledge of his writings, as because he is the only poet of whom they happen to know anything much at all.

One incident I almost fear to relate lest, haply, it mar for you the exquisite beauty of Kendall's poem " Mooni." Talking with one Australian lady, " Where," said Ito her,

"is Mooni?"

"Mooni! Mooni!" she repeated, glancing over at the book in my hand. "Oh ! that isn't the name of a place ! It means the poet was ' moony,' out of his mind, you know. See, it says the poem was written in the shadow of 72."

At that moment Kendall must have turned in his quiet grave away out in the Waverley Cemetery !

Yet, to a large extent, the general public .are not to blame for this condition of ignorance. The Australian bards' works are expensive to purchase, and many who would wish to buy are deterred by the prohibitive price of even a moderately sized volume. There are those who will always purchase irrespective of price, but the majority are unable to do this. As we seb cheaper editions being brought forward — this has already been done with Gordon's poems — sales will probably be more frequent, and a colonial's knowledge of his country's poets advantageously increased.

Bat, we often bear the assertion that there

is no Australian poetry, at least none worth calling such. Even one of our own AgentsGeneral has stung us to the quick — we are betrayed in the camp of our friends — for hr. makes the statement that there is no colonial literature at all ! This declaration affects us> as New Zealanders, as much as it does the colonists of the other side.

Oar own patriotic feelings are stirred, for have we not our Domett, Bracken, Mary Col bourn- Veal, our own silver- tongued Roslyn, and a dozen more ? However, we at present seek to deal with the poets of the island continent only, not with the Australasian poets as a whole. To dismiss in a few terse sentences such a man as Domett and his grand " Ranolf and Amohia," would be little short of an insult. This is the greatest Antipodean poem, the highly-cultured " Convict Once " of J. Brunton Stephens being the only Australian poem to in any way compare in importance with it.

The object of this paper being rather to incite a keener interest in the poets and poetry of Australia than to weary by a lengthy dissertation upon these writers and their works, the difficulty has been to make a just and suitable selection from among a host of claimants worthy of mention.

The oft-repeated remark, " Australia has no poetry of her own," is as foolish as it is ignorautly untrue. There have arisen no great epic or dramatic poets, simply because the land is as yet too young to produce them, nor, perhaps, has it yet felc the great need of them It takes generations of culture to bring forth a Milton, centurios to bear a Shakespeare. For a land which is slowly building up its own history, is also evolving its own writers, and the poetry of Australia is still in its evolutionary stages, its peculiar national character not yet being a settled quantity. But there is evinced considerable latent dramatic force, power of graphic description, subtlety of expression, and peculiarly characteristic work in the writings of these colonial poets. The mere scribblers, of whom, even now, the name threatens to be legion, will find their own oblivion — the

real worth and talent alono enduring, for it is Experience, be it sweet or bo it bitter, which is the solemn Teacher of the human soul. The poet Paterson must rotnrn from Africa a greater man — a larger-minded man than he ever was before — groator, not by reason of perhaps enlarged fame, but grown in his knowledge of human life — its passions, its loves, its magnificent solf-saoritiees, and its contrasting selfishnesses. Australia has no Past as the term is generally understood ; for many a day to come her writers must find their best material in the prosent-growing life of her towns and bush settlements. The Old World poet, in a land teeming with recollections of bygone ages, finds ample space for thought, but the horizon of the Australian rhymer is more limited. His songs are naturally of pioneer lifo ; of scenes on the gold fields ; the squatter's successes and failure; the delight and hardships of the droving days, and Alfred Paterson very aptly descibes the situation when he sings : " I have gathered those storios afar, In the wind and tho rain, In the land whore tho cattle camps are, On the edge of tho plain. On the overland routes of tho west, When the watches were long, I have fashioned in earnest and jest These fragments of song." The poetry of a now land is not easy to write. " Here rhyme was first framed without fashion, Songs Bhaped without form," sings Grordon. How often it is that distance lends its enchantment to the mystic past, and robbing history of many of its crudities, its prosaic elements, makes it an attractive subject upon which to dream. But it needs a largo and loving heart, endowed with keen poetic instinct, to sing the songs of everyday Hfe, to understand " The pathos worn by wayside things, The passion found in simple faces,"

to see — " A beauty like the light of song," where other eyes fail to see it, to find in hard stem labour a dignified worth, hitherto undiscovered by its wearied votaries. Australia is a land apart — its conditions of existence so widely distinct as to be almost beyond the pale of the average Englishman's comprehension, certainly very often beyond his sympathy. Who but a colonial, be he " Cornstalk," or be he " Fernroot," can thoroughly appreciate, or even accept as a matter of course, the openhanded trustful generosity of the owner of " Kiley's Run," from where — " The swagman never turned away With empty hand at close of day." or as Douglas Sladen paints the typical picture : " Just riding tip to the homestead weary on weary horse, Asking for food and a lodging, given as matter of course, A shaking of hands and then supper, a smoke, and a yarn and bed, Then saddle, and ere the sun's up, the stranger has gone, ' God-sped.' " To the ordinary conservative Englishman, this hap-hazard warm-hearted proceeding may be incomprehensible. There is a subtle influence at work in the sunnier air of the new land, which affects the heart of its people and stirs a wide humanity, a good fellowship well reflected in the writings of its poets. For a true poet should to a large extent shadow forth the feelings and impulses of the nation, and in this capacity the Australian poet amply fulfils his r6le. The writer who can take hold of the people's hearts, whose poems are repeated round the camp fireside and the homestead hearth, snatches of whose songs are trilled by the lonely rider over arid, sun-steeped plains; he who can thrill his readers by stirring ballads of adventure and devil-may-care bravery ; who can sadden by tales of depression, bad times, and ruinous droughts; and avon raise the spirits by

songs of cheerfulness and mirtb, surely such an one has some slight claim to recognition ? And the writings of most of these Antipodean poets are eminently " typical of the soil ;" they breathe Australia and Australian idiosyncrasies. This is as it should be — those of the poets who speak from the fulness of their own knowledge are the real message bearers to the hearts of the people, the national poets of the race. Though, for style and culture of phrasing, the study of the world's great writers is beneficial ; still, form of expression, choice of metre, etc., are largely questions of individual taste. If a man's thought be worthy the telling he will tell it well ; it is immaterial whether he shape his verse upon Tennysonian, Browning, or Swinbui'nian models, or endeavour to strike out some new metrical expression in his song. But a true poet is a creator — not a pallid reflection of a greater than himself, and therefore he fears not to " draw the thing as he sees it." The song of " a Homer, singing his Iliad on a blade of grass," or the simplest imagery concerning the life and habits of an Australian wild animal, as witness Kendall's " Warrigal," is a greater masterpiece by reason of its very simplicity than is any mere fanciful second-hand description of Spanish Cathedral or sky towering dome of the Old World. He who has understood the — • " Cunning harmony Of words and music caught from glen and height," who has created so that others may also understand — " The perfect verses to the tune Of woodland music set," has already placed his foot firmly upon the first rung of the high ladder of success. Though we are at present dealing with the Australian writers in their capacity as poets, it must be recollected that the faculty of poetic expression is not necessarily reproduced in rhyme or even in metre. " Prose that's craggy us a mountain, May Apollo's sun-robe don."

Boake's clear-cut description of day-dawn on a cattle camp is poetry in its essence.

Blank verse, largely a result of a classical education, has, so far, not greatly appealed to the Australian bard ; evidently he fears with Charles Harpur that —

" Blank verse oft is mere proso, mostly striving to be poetry."

A number of these colonial poets are also prose writers. This may be supposed to give them a little more mental balance than "mere poets" are usually credited with possessing. The irresponsibility of a poet is a popular fallacy even of to-day.

The writings of the Australian bards are marked by a stroug patriotic strain of feeling, a sentiment which is likely to be intensified by recent developments in connection with the British Empire and colonial Federation. Indeed, if we accept Lawson's statement there is a great deal too much of what he denounces as —

" A lot of patriotism that the land could do without, Sort of British workman nonsense, that shall perish in the scorn Of the drover, who is driven, and the shearer, who

is shorn."

Who does not read with grim delight Patchetfc Martin's humorous verses on " My Cousin from Pall Mall ?"

" There's nothing that exasperates a true Australian youth, Whatever be his rank in life, be he cultured or

uncouth,

As the manner of a London swell."

How cordially does every patriotic son of the soil resent the " superior " style of that unworthy Englishman who, visiting the colonies, depreciates everything he sees.

Another pleasing phase of this same characteristic is the feeling of "good fellowship " existing between the writers of the country, many examples of which might be given. Nor is this kindly regard shown only after the death of a rival poet.

When Garnet Walch, of Tasmania, was engaged by the Melbourne firm of George

Robertson and Company, to bring out an expensive book entitled " Victoria in 1880," he was tho first to ask tho rival poets to contribute items to tho volume, and t.o every contributor chosen, Walch gave tnoro prominence than to himself. Lindsoy Gordon was prnoticai ly first introduced to the English reading public by au article in Temple Bar (1884) entitled "An Australian Foot," and written by Arthur Patchott Martin, himself n poet of a high order. Victor Daley, that master mind amongst tho present-day poets, is warm in his praiso of Will Ogilvie, the author of " Fair Girls and Gray Horses." True, Lawson aud Patorson, two of tho later day bards, run a-tilt against ono another in their rhymes ; but Lawson evidently feels the wordy war beneath their dignity as true poets, for he exclaims : " The ring of bitter feeling, in tho jingling of our rhymes, Isn't suited to tho country, nor tho spirit of tho times." Nowadays in England, the best colonial verse is surely, if very slowly, linding a place as " recognized poetry." But even in Australia it was once, otherwise. Tho Colonial Monthly, a magazine started to encourage local talent, is guilty of this scathing remark in speaking of the work of the most prominent Australian poet : — " Altogether it is one of the oddest literary curiosities issued from the Colonial printing press, and deserves encouragemont at tho hands of those whose tastes inclino to 'horsey ' sport." Evidently the journalistic authorities of the day were fond of drastic criticism. " We have received a copy of a volume of poems by a Mr. Gordon, We can only say that it reflects great credit upon the printer, the binder and the paper-maker." Tho absolute cruelty, as well as tho crass ignorance of this remark, carries its own condemnation. The colonial critic at the present time rushes to the other extreme, and is apt to institute utterly wild compari-

sons between colonial poets and Britain's acknowledged masters of .songs —an exaggerated phase of thought and expression — hit off to a turn in Henry Lawson's wittyverses, "Australian Bards and Bush Reviewers: " " If you swear there's not a country like the land that gave you birth, And its sons nre just the noblest and most glorious chaps on earth ; If in every girl a Venus your poetic eye discerns, You are gracefully referred to as ' the young Australian Burns.' " Fulsome praise is as much to be deprecated as is reckless criticism, and is an even greater evil, for the man of genius must eventually rise superior to the most adverse criticism, when he may falter under the flattering burden of indiscriminate laudation. The character of Australian verse has been largely influenced by the individual tastes of the editors of the chief weekly papers. These papers, with the exception of a few literary clubs, at first afforded the one colonial medium for publicity — the magazines being of later growth.

When Henry Kendall found his efforts scorned by local critics, he sent a bundle of MS. to the Editor of the Afhemeum, by whom, to the writer's delight, three were singled out by special mention, after which episode Kendall fared differently at the hands of colonial writers. Again, when A. P. Martin had been dealt with severely by some local editor, the now world famous R L. Stevenson wrote to him, extolling the very work which had been condemned.

But these incidents are exceptions, and the golden days for the Australian bards are still to come. Moreover, their future success greatly lies in their own keeping. Even those really worthy the name of poet, too frequently " write down " to the level of what they consider public taste, wasting brain and energy ou that which is often little better than mere doggrel. It is this lamentable tendency towards jingle-making which has brought Australian verse into disrepute with the first-class English magazines and newspapers, and, as is so often the case, what is really worthy is overlooked by reason of the unworthy, the whole judged by the immaturity of the mass.