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THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

* HALF-HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (WBCULLT WMTTM »OB "THB JKtSS. "> By A. H. Gbini.i>'&. CX.—ON ANZAC AND AFTER, In the sceond volume of "The Story of Anzac," Mr C. E. W. Bean ends by saying: "Anzac nojv belonged to the past, and during the war all energy was concentrated on the future; but the influence of the Gallipoli compaign upon the national life of Australia and New Zealand had been far too deep to fade. Though tho Expeditionary Forces of the two Dominions were only in their infancy, and. afterwards fought, wdth success in greater and more costly hattles, no campaign was so identified with them as this. In no unreal sense it was on April 25th, 1915, that the consciousness of Australian nationhood was born. Anzac Day—a national celebration held on the anniversary of the Landing—is devoted to the memory of those who fell in the war." And Mr Malcolm Ross writes:—

Great things the New Zealanders" accomplished later in tho war. Great achievements may await them in the future. But their exploits at Gallipoli will to all time have a special significance for New Zealand and for the whole British Empire. The difficulties which they were called upon to face, the hardships which they endured, might well have tried veteran soldiers inured to war. To have come through the ordeal as a first experience of war with such distinction and credit as they gained from all with whom they served, proved them to have been men of unusual calibre, who assimilated with singular rapidity the best traditions and the highest standards of the British Army. If General Birdwood could claim for the New Zealand Division that "no finer or better organised division served in France," it was at Gallipoli that the Now Zealanders served their apprenticeship, learnt their lessons, and made the name which they so nobly upheld in the later years of the war.

If, with the tossing of the years, Anzac Day is not to lose something of its special significance, it should not be simply celebrated by the mere mouthing of patriotic platitudes; it symbolises more than the heroism and dauntless courage displayed at the Landing; more»even than the memory —sacred though that ho—of the bravo who fell in the fight. Adeqti&tely understood it is a blood-stained link in a chain which not only binds together Australia and New Zealand, but which embraces the entire British Empire and even includes America in its enfoldment. The intangible sentiment which Anzac Dfty.calls forth may be illustrated from the pages of a little nrorume entitled "From Overseas," an anthology, to quote from the compiler's preface "containing examples of the poetry which is being written in all parts of the Empire, outside Great Britain." A first imperaif.ve duty is to pay proper tribute to the men otf Anzao:

"Men of the stridken field Who Trill fight and l live Or fall and die

But have never learnt to vieW." And what finer or more appropriate tribute can be found than in the closing staneas penned by Mr Alan E. Mulgan in memory of the South, Pole explorers who perished in winch go to establish, the dose kinship of the human race:— Let no farewells be said. To-morrow brings again . The near horizon and the level day, The high.flame sinks, <mi enemies return. But in the «hm"> of life new shields are hung, New lamps are lit, new spirits canonised. We shall remember often and rejoice. A wand'ring cloud, some evening light, A drooping flag, a winter fire, And all the'story, will march by again In high procession, making mute once more The dnaty clamour of the world.

And at the last, be with us then. O deathless dead! Wherever comes the test, Should Death, assassin-like, creep up the

stair, Or in the sight of Cesar.. hot hands couch Last desperate spears—attune our hearts To not unworthy echoes of your end.

If men can say ■: That in our passing hence no snaaow leu To grieve your stainless immortality; Thjfi be the epitaph we choose.

It is not enough to pay tribute to the Glorious Dead en masse; there is need for the sounding of the individual note. This is most delicately done by Miss Dora Wilcox in, these lines of rare pathos, called "Private Smith, N.Z.E.F.," and which, in view of the occasion, I take the liberty of quoting in full: —

Born of a sturdy rcoe and keen of face There he is lying. First in the fun and chaff— You ought to hear him laugh! "'E's not a lad—not 'alf!" Who talks of dying?

But when night shadows fall Over the hospital, And wards are quiet; Before his sleepjess eyea One after one arise Visions and memories, And dreams run not

He sees the riverbed Down South where he was bred

In far Waitangi, The 1 barren hills, the glow On distant fields of enow Where mountain lilies bloom, Beneath Aorangi.

He sees the homestead plain, The garden once again— The clear creek gleaming, And for a little space He. sees the mater's face Ire the familiar place, And falls a-dreaming.

The cool verandah's shade, The stockyard fence he made, His heart remembers; Ho hears the sheepdogs, too, Bark, as the flocks race through- 4 Drafted, beneath the blue Of hot Decembers.

Sometimes from flax and tut<u) He hears the mopokes hoot And wekas calling: Prom gullies scarped and steep Floats up the cry of sheep, When the nor"-westers eleep And night is falling.

O God! once more to nde Up the long mountain-side Ix»so in the saddle! To hear hoofs clattering, Doga bark and stockwhips nag, When the boys galloping Round up the cattle.

Born of a sturdy race, Blue-eyed and keen of face, There he is lying. Slow pass the days aid slow The long night-watches go; Only the nurses know Private Smith's dyiig.

After death, the grave, and the celebration of Anzac Day brin£3 a picture of the graves of Gailipoh, in Franof. in Palestine vividly before the eye. The picture, from an English point of view, is indelibly engraved in that wellknown sonnet of Rupert Brookes:—

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That ia for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a ncher dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam. ~ , A body of England's, breathing Enghsb. ma, Washed by The rivers, blest by suns of ** home.

Another side of the picture is to be found in some lines by Margery

Ruth Betts, which, while written to depict four Australian graves in the corner of a graveyard in Kunt, can be construed to applv to the many New Zealand graves scattered all over England. The middle stanza of this poem reads:—

Now English wind, eing lovingly and lowSome drowsy song to hold them fast in sleep, For far away by seas acd roads they know The binte they know their springtime vigil leep. So croon for them a sleepy lullaby. Lest the poor dust that was their hearts be stirred To longing for the bell-bird's shrill clear cry,

By some low music of an English bird

A variation in the same solemn i theme is furnished bv another Austral lian poet—E. M. Fry—in some lines headed "Wild Flowers in, France." It is notable that when dwelling on such subjects as Death and the Grave and Immortality, the medium of prose mvariably proves insufficient for the requisite emotional expression; inevitably refuge is found in verse. The wild flowers here mentioned are the poppies, < the cornflowers, and the marguerites, unheeded and unwanted in a time_ of peace, but acquiring a new meaning when war broke over the land: —

Now you have spread a carpet e'er our

dca*. s On quiet ruins unmolested bloom, Modest and merciful. On quiet graves your garland offerings Lay gently without pomp or prayers or tears. Poppies of passion,' fading in a day! Brighter than your scarlet their young desires glowed. Briefer fhsn yours their little glimpse ol life. 'Rodder the passionate flame of hate that burnt and slew. Scatter your petals now, Where pride of youth lies low! Blue flowers of hope, lay softly your silken pall, Over trie nameless grave of «oro« lost son! The healing message sent o'er land and sea To childish mother left Weeping in home bereft "Undecked by cross or tomo, his .grave is flowered!". White flowers of chastity,, as pure as thsy, Who fell, too young to know the shame of ein! . Gleam as their Msmeless Uvea, beacons of tho*world! • Shine as their courage shone, And consecrate as did their tears, the bou Where British, Preach, *nd Germans lie in peace. In this little book of song from the Dominions and Colonies averseas, note sounded by the poets of Jamaica is singularly arresting. In particular may be mentioned "The Cross of Sacrifice" by J. E. Glare MoFarlane, based on the words spoken by the King on » memorable occasion "Standing beneath this Cross of Sacrifice, for many the great Stone of Bemembrance, and compassed by these sternly simple headstones, we remember and we charge our children to remember, that as our dead were equal in sacrifice so are they equal in honour; for tho greatest and the least of them have proved that sacrifice and honour are no vain things, but truths by which the world lives." The lines .which follow are an enlargement of the King's eloquent words and should be studied as a whole. Space will only allow the reproduction of thefirst and the final three stanzas; the latter forming an apostrophe' addressed to "Lave of. God" *—■•..

Peace unto these! Sternal peace! Nor song of bird, nor-bleat'of cheep Shall stir them from their dreamleeß deep, 'Midst shifting shadows numberless:

A■■ common purpose ; drove them on; Africa's hope and pride And Asia's joy lay side by side— A common eufTring made them. one.

Beneath this cross of Sacrifice They for the nations' guilt atone With their last anguish; for their own Let -then this deed of love suffice.

For them; andjor t» who still flout Thy 'long forbearance and misuse The Power and Place Thou gavest us— Prom Thy xemembraaoe blot it out.

The sentiments expressed by th'> Canadian poets represented in this collection are sound and sinking. A poem by B. R, Oliver, of Ontario, called "Tinny,?' embodies a 'thought certain to be uppermost m many minds on the Ansae Anniversary. It finishes as follows, and oh I what a world of anguish in the concluding !ine: —

Timy! Timy!. * How far away seems Timy— The krae planked trail—La ' Folia fmna— And Fartras wood a-torn; Timyl Timy! I'd like to eeo old Tuny, For my heart is there at Timy on this anniversary morn.

For over the ridge near WjHerval'* site, The green earth glistens with dew, *-wet; The lark's song's sweet and ths world ..is bright, But a pal lies there and I can't forget.

The most surpising 1 poems in. this anthology are tlie work of Indian writers. The compiler, Mr S. lowler Wright, says in bis preface: "Among the selections made I think a very special interest attaches to the contributions of Indian writers. Less dis'tant from ourselves, both in race and language, than some of our nearest neighbours—the Erse, for example—but separated by millenniums of difference in climate and culture, their adoption of our language as a medium w poetic expression cannot fail to have important reactions - upon our Empire literature, of which the influence of Tagere will not be the last example." Such lines as those addressed "To the Dead Heroes," by Adi K. Sett, an Indian poet, tend to inspire hope regarding, the relation of England to India tn the near future.

O sleep, O sleep, ye glorious Englishmen, O sleep in peace, Beneath the beds of daisies^ Ye who have achieved the could sad can, O rest 0 rest in sanctity.

O sleep, O sleep, y« wondrous e»n» of

England, 0 sleep in peace, Beneath the beds of daisies, Ye who laid your heads in the gory land, At your country's call, And made the gore your funeral p»U. O rest, O rest in sanctity.

No man, no woman, no child, No time, no tide, no wave, Shall ever efface thy name, Which as green as the turf that covers thee, Shall be in the annals of history. Best, 0 rest ye glorious dead heroes, Best in sanctity.

There is a magnificent thought contained in "The Two Flags ," by Clarine Stephenson, of Jamaica, lines inspired hr the ibeatftifiil decoration of the4*ltar with the English and American flags in a Kingston Church; a couple of stanzas will convey the iaea of the. poem: —

One was the flag that for long centauries Hath waved wherever England's might was known; . The other raised beyond the parting sea*, No less tho world a younger worth hath shown, i

Neither beneath, and neither raised above In equal pride yotrr equal rights appear, Emblems of nnitv and trust and love, The cross of bfood, the etara of hope are here.

The citations given will have' served their purpose if they give to the Anzae Day celebrations a wider sweep and a broader vision, thus removing the danger, ever-present, of degenerating into a narrow and limited nationalism. I take leave of the subject with a couple of extracts from another anthology, probably the best and most complete teeord of tho war in verse-yet published—"Valour and Vision," collected

(Canttnufld at foot of sax* eolnam,)

and edited by Jacqueline Trotter. The first is from Miss C. Fox Smith's "Farewell to Anzac":—

Oh, hump your swag and leave, lads, the ships are ia the bay; We've got our marching order* now, it's; time to come away; And a long good-bye to Ansae beach, where blood has flowed in vain, For we're leaving it, leaving it—gam* to fight again.

But some there are..will never quit that bleak and bloody shore, And some that marched and fought with us will fight and march no more; Their blood has bought till judgment day the slopes they stormed eo well, And we're leaving them, leaving them, .sleeping where they fell! •

(Leaving them, leaving them, the bravest and the best; Leaving* tbem, leaving them, and may be glad to recti We'w dona our best with yesterday, tomorrow's all our own— But. we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping all alone.)

The jingle of Mine Fox Smith's lines grates harshly in my ear; it seems an example where style and subject conflict. Infinitely more in harmony are Geoffrey Deaimer's verses "From 'W Beach'* :

The I«le of IraEroa, set in turquoise bhw, Lies to the westward; on the eastern ode The purple hills of Asa fade from view, And rolling- battleships at anchor ride.

White flocks of cloud float by, the sunset glows, ( And dipping gulls fleck a slow-waking' sea, Where dim steel-shadowed forms with foaming bows i * Wind np the Narrows towards Gallipoli.

Ho colour breaks this tongue of barren land Save where »■ group of huddled tents gleam white;. Beforo me ugly shapes like spectres stand And wooden crosses cleave the waning light.

Now the sky gardeners speed the hurrjAkg day, And sow the plaint of night with silver grain; So shall this transient havoc fade awajr. ftnA the procd cape be beautiful again.

Laden with figs and olives or a freight Of purple grapes, tanned singing men shall row, Chanting wild songs of how Eternal Fate Withstood that,fierce invasion long.ago.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19250424.2.81

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18365, 24 April 1925, Page 17

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,594

THE WORLD OF BOOKS. Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18365, 24 April 1925, Page 17

THE WORLD OF BOOKS. Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18365, 24 April 1925, Page 17

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