Thomas Bracken

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 17, 3 May 1923, Page 27

Thomas Bracken

Tom Bracken was our first traveller, as Mr. Loughnan relates in his historical jubilee sketch. Bracken is best 'known as the author of “Not Understood.” He Was no mean .poet, and the following appreciation, written by Dr. Waddell as an introduction to Bracken’s second volume of verse, in 1883, will be of interest to many leaders: “It may seem . strange,” . says Walt 1 Whitman, “but the topmost growth of- ; a nation is its own born poetry.” The strangeness vanishes, when we remember that the best thingsthe things which last longest— are the latest born. When Nature wishes to produce her highest “work she takes time; she will build up a mushroom in a nightperfect; but she must have years to build an apple or an oak: she sends out the bushy ephemera of a midsummer noon in a day, and they, are all gone by the evening; but she spends thousands upon thousands of years before she can get the earth ready for man but man is eternal. The individual man himself, indeed, is the most true image of her working plan.;: his least lasting and worthy qualities develop quickestthe body before the soul— animal before the mentalthe mental before the moralthe moral before the spiritual. The last to come are the permanent and abiding they are worth all the rest. They are the goal to which all the rest are but subsidiary, though necessary, stages. And so it is with the poets and poetry of a people ; they are the last products, because they are the best. They are created by, and make their : appeal to, the highest elements of our humanity. They are the abiding “topmost growth” of a nation, its flower and its ; fruit. This is history. Says Dr. Martineau : “Never do we more completely deceive ourselves, than when we imagine that the work of the understanding is durable, while that of our richer genius is evanescent; that the achievements of physical discovery are the fixed products of time, while the visions of poetry are but the adornments of a passing age. .Of no nation, of no civilisation, does i the most advanced science remain true for us, while of none has the genuine poetry perished. Thales and Archimedes have been obsolete for centuries, while old Homer is fresh as ever, and delights the modern schoolboy only less than he did the Greek hero.” One is not, therefore, surprised to find that the younger, nations—America and Australasiahave not as yet produced any poetry to which the title “own born” could bo unhesitatingly applied. The conditions are not present. Before there can be a national literature, there must be a national character; and a national character, like an individual, is of slow growth and late maturity. Some might be disposed to question this judgment in regard to American literature. Some might be inclined to affirm that already a national literature is born there. My own opinion is that, with the doubtful exception of Walt Whitman, it is still a thing of the future. In regard to Australasia, however, it is different. We will all agree, I think, in saying that a national literature has not yet been created here— indeed, far from it. Of the reasons of this, beyond those already indicated, I need not say more in this place. But if one does not find it yet, one must needs look for ithope for —work for it, if one can. No people can be great or good, can live or last, without its singers. Truly, if they are its final product, they are also its crown. Tons of iron and of copper, firkins of the best butter, and shiploads of frozen sheep: these are excellent. “But after these, after the chemist, the geologist, the ethnologist, shall come the poet worthy that name; the true son of God shall come singing his songs.” One, there, fore, who wishes well and wealth to his nation will gladly welcome the first stray notes faintly heralding this approaching dawn. Here and there among dwellers in these sunny lands solitary singer has been heard. Victoria has its Gordon, and New South Wales.its Kendal, and now New Zealand follows with Domett and Bracken. Mr. Bracken is not unknown to the public, but he deserves to be better and more widely known. Any one who is acquainted with the journalistic and other duties he has to perform, will readily understand that these are by no means congenial to the cultivation of the Muse. They have not killed his voice of songcould not, in truth, if he be a genuine poet. Nevertheless he is an illustration of Robert Browning’s words

Touch him ne’er., so lightly, into gong he broke ;- ~. Soil so quick receptive, not one feather seed, Not one flower durs’t fall, but straight its fall awoke Vitalizing virtue. - Song would, song succeed, Sudden as spontaneousprove a poet’s soul. Some years ago Mr. Bracken published a small volume of poems. It was cordially and kindly received. This was owing in great part, no doubt, to its inherent merits. But no one, I think, who compares the present with the preceding volume, can fail to notice a distinct advance on the part of the author. Dr. John Brown tells a story of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was taken one day by a friend to see a picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it over with a keen and careful but favorable eye. “Capital composition, correct drawing, the color and tone excellent; but —but — it wants, hang it! it — that!” snapping his fingers, and wanting that, though it had everything else, it was worth nothing. Now, lam far from saying that Mr. Bracken’s former volume wanted, “that,” but I am quite sure that this later one possesses it in a very high degree. There is about nearly every one of the poems in this volume that impalpable something, which we can neither define nor describe, but which, like all true poetry, takes captive the soul. This, I doubt not, the capable and candid reader will discover for himself. I need only for illustration , refer to such poems as “A Christmas Reverie,” to the very noble “Ode on the Opening of the Sydney Exhibition,” and to “Old Bendigo,” which reminds one of the best of Bret Harte. Mr. Bracken’s genius seems to me essentially lyrical. He is always best here, and especially when he sings of love, and loss, and death. Witness the -'poem in memory of “Mrs. Darrell”—one of the finest; in the volume —“ Leah,” and the sweetly pathetic “Pax Vobiscum.” A very few of these poems have perhaps more of local than general interest, but Mr. Bracken shows that he can touch some of the higher heights and the deeper depths of life as well. We have examples of this in “Annihilation,” “Not Understood,” and notably the profound sonnet, “The Bird and the Idol” —a sonnet which is not unworthy the master hand of Mrs. Browning or Rossetti. Lewis Morris has very truly said — Most precious all ; yet this is sure. The song that longest shall endure Is simple, sweet, and pure. And these songs of Mr. Bracken conform to this — are simple in the original sense of that word. Many of them are sweet ,and all are pure. They exhibit a high faith in God and Nature, and the “dear love of comradeship.” Of course,, one could easily pick out faults, but that may be left to those to whom hissing comes handier; and it may be good for these to remember that after all hissing is the only sound in Nature that produces no echo. 1 quite agree with Principal Shairp where he says ( Aspects of Poetry ) : “I am somewhat weary of criticism. We know the best of what she has to say, and would now beg of her to stand aside for a season, and give spontaneity its turn.” And so I stand aside from both critic and the reader, trusting that these “herald melodies of spring” from this sunny Southern Island may be to them, as in a very high degree they are to me, Not all ungrateful to the ear. Rutherford Waddell. St. Andrew’s Manse, Dunedin, May 9, 1883. An Unpublished Poem by Bracken To the Rev. Prioress, St. Dominic’s Priory, Dunedin, With the respect and esteem of the Author. Here ■where the Convent rests above The lake which mirrors human life In all its phases dark and bright Its sunshine, shadow, calm and strife, ' The soul finds peace, for all around The Majesty of God displays Itself. The tow’ring mountains lift -■ Their heads aloft, in silent praise ; Wise worshippers, ye ever fill Receptive souls with thoughts intense Mute monitors, ye ever teach Grand . lessons of OmnipotenceThomas Bracken.. . Queenstown, Dec. 31, 1884.