NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 14 November 1918, Page 26

NOTES

" Rhymes with Reasons " Rhymes with Reasons (Bums and Oates, Ltd., 1/net), is a little book of verses by the author of that pathetic and lovable little piece of prose, Aunt Sarah and the War. This, and the fact that it is published by the famous Catholic firm whose publications are the delight of book-lovers who love to see a good book in artistic format, is already a useful introduction to the public. One can only risk giving one's own impressions, which depend on that inconstant element, individual taste, when judging a new volume of poems, and one must be prepared for differences of opinion. However, we think few will question that Rhymes with Reasons deserves a good word. It has the good qualities and the perfections of the prose of the author. It has the same sympathy and tenderness, the same charm and delicacy of touch. If poetry that we like is the poetry we ought to read— it is certainly the poetry that Ave do read, —this little book ought to find many readers. Concessions is a fine little poem; To a British General Denied His Needed Supports' is a noble apology which has its very special appeal to those who are kith and kin with the men who shared in that General's failure. We quote a few short selections as a sample' of the poetry of the book ;

Jerusalem. Mothers of /tons who fell that day J see you foremost in the fray. Men- took the citadel, the mine, the martBat you took Calvary — to your heart. The Bearers of Lost Sons. Arms and the Man:—be arms his care. By arms be men beguiled] It counts but little what men bear, So women bear the child. Mothers, who suffered Love's sharp joy — By Christ, Who bore one Cross, Twice blest be you, who bore the boy, And now who bear the loss. Of England: Her New Army. There's something mellower than the. moon Shines through the apple-trees, Flickers in village and in town, Is ambient on the ivory Down, More buoyant than the breeze. A hundred thousand English Ghosts,The Dead who died in fight, Promoted now to Michael's hosts, Stand sentry over English coasts, Walk English lanes to-night. They breast the immemorial hills; They hear the whinnying mare. "0, who goes there, for well or ill?" They answer, "Friends fighting still Tour battle otherwhere."

A New Zealand Poet ~ Hon Hoi Theoi philoud neos'athanetai. French without accents is bad enough, but Greek in Roman characters is worse. "Whom the gods love dies young" seems . particularly true of the poets. One recjalls Byron, Shelley, Keats, Leopardi, Heine— gathered in their prime. Their lot was also that of the youngest and haply the most promising of our own singers of the Long White Cloud, Con O'Regan, whose span of years barely bridged his boyhood. Some years ago we •were much struck by some selections from the verses of this young poet, and it was with very real delight we received this week from his brother a copy of "Poems, by C. J. Regan," now unfortunately impossible to buy. Con O'Regan published during his lifetime a little volume of verses called Voices of ~l\ r ave and Tree, introduced by the short preface, "The earliest of the following poems, New Zealand, was written in my seventeenth year; the latest, Life's Vigil, in my twentieth. These facts may not suffice to excuse their shortcomings, but I trust they will at least serveto mitigate the severity of censure.—C. J. O'Regan." And although the little volume was hardly recognised there were keen watchers who saw in it a germ of large promise for a future which alas ! never came. Con O'Regan died the following year (1895) in his twentyfirst year. Tho Grey mouth Evening Star was not far wrong when it said in the obituary notice of the young poet: "the finer literature of the country has lost by the- death of the youthful port, as a purer or more intellectual mind than his was not to be found among those who hailed New Zealand as the land of their birth." A West Coast Legend We have quoted in previous issues some of Con O'Regan's more serious verses. Here is a rollicking thing in lighter vein which will recall old down-gone days again to many an old digger: The system of fossicker Michael O'Flynn Got veil/ much out of repair; Tie went off his tucker and grew very thin, And was sore from his hee<\s to his hair. So he left his back-gully secluded and still, And made for the turbulent town, All the shanties eschewed (a (treat effort of will), And consulted the famed Doctor Brown. Who ordered the patient to poke out his tongue, Which he scanned with a serious face. Then, fingered his pulse and sounded each lung, And pronounced Mick a very bad case. He warned him, unless on the home of Old Nick Prematurely he wished to intrude, To be careful in matters of diet — to stick To nothing but animal food. "I mightn't be able," says Mick, "but I'll try;" So he settled the medico's score, Then passed all the shanties reluctantly by And made for the gullies once more. Three weeks had passed by when at Phsic'em's door Again knocked our friend Mick O'Flynn; He had left his retreat in the gullies once more, There was little else left but his skin. "Good Lord!" cried the doctor, "O'Flynn, is it you, So wasted and wan that I see?" "Doctor, dear," answered Mick, "your conjecture is true, I've ray son to think that it's me. "And it's me that is sick of your animal food, Which of late I've consumed to excess, For the bastes of the. field it's undoubtedly good, But for Christians it's not a success/

“The -pollard and bran weren’t bad, it is true; 1 could make shift with them, hut, alas! The chaff, doctor dear, was the devil to chew. And I had to give in at the grass.”