THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19138, 22 October 1927, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (srECULLT WHiITtN FOR TOT PBZBS.) By A. H. Grin-lino. CCXL—ON SOME RECENT POETRY

"I sing tho cycle of my country's year." In this simple strain Miss Sackville-West begins«' The Land,'' destined to be preserved and studied as one of the great poems in the English language. "I sing once more," she continues, "the mild continuous epic of the soil." As to the impulse which has led the poet thus to sing, she leaves the reader in no manner of doubt. Of late years it has been the fashion in fiction to depict the hunger which many men and women feel for the soil, which they havo learned to till and love. The poeni3 set to the same tune are more rare; at tho moment I only call to mind Maurice Hewlett's "Bong of the Plow," published over ten years ago. Miss Sackville West's present impulse is movingly pictured: — The country habit has me by the heart, ifor he's bewitched forever who haa seec, Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with As each man knows the life that fits hiin best, The shape it makes in his Boul, the tune, the tone, And after ranging on a tentative flight Stoops like the iherlia to the constant hire. The country habit has me by the heart, I never hear thb sheep-bells ill the fold, Nor Bee the ungainly heron riße and flap Over the marsh, nor hear the asprous coin Clash as the reapers Bet the sheaves in shocks (That like a tented army dream away The night beneath the mcton jU silvered fields), Ncr watch the stubborn team of horse and man Graven upon the sky-line, nor regain The signposts on the road towards my home Jeafing familiar tiamea— without a strong Leaping bf recognition; only here / Life' peace after uheasy truancy Here meet aild marry many harmonies, —A! I harmonies being ultimately one—{Jaial! mirroring majestic) for as. earth Bolls on her journey, eo her little fields Jfcipen oi sleep, and the necessities • Of soaioHs match the planetary laws. So truly stride between tho earth and heaven Sowers of grain; so truly in the spring Earth's orbit swings both blood and sap to rhythm And infinite and. humble are at one; So the brown hectger, through tho evening lanes, Homeward returning, sees above the fickSj Siokle in hand, tho sickle in the sky.

■ The pOct is concerned with the thought that men live to labour "only knowing Hfe's little lantern, between dark and dawn. I '. He "sees no beauty in his horny life.'' tike hint, the poet sees "only the battle between man and earth." She sees "earth, the tyrant, > slave and tyrant, inutindus, turning upon her tyrant and her slave, yielding reluctantly her fruits to none, but most i peremptory WooefSi" The poet muses j upon these strange lovers, man and earth, ''their loVe and hate, braided in j lritttual needs, and of their strife, a tired dOritentineiit born." She imagines the cWflian) back in the ruddy kitchen hatching by the fire, and while waiting for his" fdod bursting into song. It is winter and his Song erids oil a Winter note:— Winter and toil reward Him still ■While Ho his course shall go, According Id hiS proven worth, Until has faith shall know Tho ultimate justice, and the elo\v Compassion 6i the earth. "What Thomas Hardy has dpnd 'f6r WeSSex, Hilaire Belloc for Sussex, aiid Eden Philpotts for Dartmoor, Miss Sackville-West aims to do for Itent; She" goes back to theOlden, time when font Was a forest arid known as AridredsWeald and she traces its grddiial transformation into the Weald Of Kent, with its "Meadbw arid , orchard, garden of fruit and hops, a green wet country on a bed df clay." -

This was the Weald, but as man conquers slow Each province of his fief—poor, simple land Or ravelled knowledge, so the tardy herd, Waking to action, by impatience stirred Bethought him h* rrtlght throw Trees round his hovel, clearings made by hand, t And in the sunlight let his Children' go.

So grew the dene. Next came the wooden plough. Turning the furrows of th 6 first bold field, A patch of light, a square of paler green, Cupped in the darkness of the Weald Hedges fenced off the boar, the bundling

'Followed by squealing litter, hedges tiiade By lopjJihgs of the bough, With teinage rudely thtust between.

Thus the foundations bf the farm Were laid,

Borne day there will arise a'poet in our midst who will sing thfl story of how tho first New Zealand farriis were made, wrested from the tangle Of the forest by sheer strength of will. Sttoh a poet in search of the niatefial for his song may well take pattern from Mies Sackville-Weßt. She gives a fine description of the Kentish Weald in Winter; "raw boned winter." Presently the weald is peopled first by the vagrant, then by the shepherd and next by the yeoman. The vagrant s pathetic end is wonderfully depicted : When comes hef what have been His annals t what but annals of long roads, All roads alike, made sharp by hostile Nishtly he yields it in his resignation — Whence has he shambled, into snow-bound Kcht» . , Out of What night of lassitude and .despair Into this night of beauty and cold death? What sire begot, what mother cradled hito? He drowses oh his bole, while snoWflakes gather, «..,".«. While snowflakes drift and gather, Touching his darkness with their white, He grbw's to ah idol in the wood forgotten, Imago of what men were, to silence frozen, Image of contemplation and enigma, So stiffens in his death. His old coat covers His heart's vairi heiroglypb. But still the Play hopscotch with the shadows, having Of than of life's quick In a world' where men are truant, night to Suspended hours, when life's pdor common business ... ~ . Lies dormant in a world to silence given Given to silence and the slanting moon.

Following a picture of tho shepherd at the lambing time "watching all night, in loneliness " there are some fine atanfcas "on the Yeoman," which go to show th&t tho farmer's mind is much, the same in all olimes and in all ages. "He'd cheat a fool indeed, but do no worse; his heart is wider than his purse, take all in all; but narrower than each, the portals of his, speech. Few words must serve his turn." The contrast between town and country life as seen by the farmer, is cleverly drawn:—

He tills the toil to-day. Surly and wave, hia difficult wage to earn. Cities of discontent, the sickened neno, Ail still a fashion that he will not loam. His way is still the obstinate old *»SV Even though his horses stare above the hedge. And whinny, while the tractor dnves its

wedge Where thev were wont to serve, And iron "robs them of their privilege. Still is his heart not given To euch enwoaehments on a natural creed, Not wholly given, though he bowe to need By urgency and • competition driven, Ai.d vanity, to follow with the tide. Still with a ieoret triumph he will say, "Tractor for aand may K t«t horse for &td In'htt calling takaa a atuMwrn prida Thai UWttrt atffl d*K*ta

The frowsty science of the cloistered * men, Their theory, their Conceits; The faith within him still derides the pen, Experience Mb text book. What have they, The bookish townsmen in their dry retreats, Known of December dawns, before the sun ttedderiecl the east, arid fields were wet and

grßy? , .. When have they gone, another day begun, By tracks into a 4uagmire trodden, With ettcks about their shoulders and the

""damp . Soaking Until their very souls were sodden, To helfJ a flick beast, by a flickering lamp, With rough Words and kind hands? Or felt their boots so heavy and so swere With trudging oVer ciedgy lands, Meld fast by earth, being to earth bo neat?

Book-learning thoy have known. They meet together, talk, and grow most

wise, But they hate lost in losing solitude, Something— in inward gra.ce, thfe seeing eyes, The pa*er of being alone) The power of being alone with earth and

skies, Aware at once of earth's Burroundihg mood And of an insect crawling on a atone.

''There's no boginning to the farmor's year." This is the opening line of the Spring section of the poem. "Nevertheless," says the poet, "with spring cpme certain tasks." And she goes on to describe in turn and with much felicity of phrase tho Sowing and Rotation of crops giving special attention to Hops, the Orchards, the young stock and especially the Bees* not forgetting the Beemaster. This latter subject affords opportunity for a fine flight of song:—

I have known honey from the Syrian- hills Stored in cool jars; the wild accacia there On the rough terrace where the locust shrills, . . Tosses her spindrift to the ringing air: Karcissus bares his nectarous perianth In-white and golden tabard to the sun, \nfl while the workers rob the amaranth Or scarlet winddower low among the stone Intent upon their crops, The Syrian queens mate in the high not day. ftapt visionaries ot creative fray. Soaring from fecund ecstasy alone. While through the blazing ether, drops Like a small thunderbolt the vindicated drone. . . . . I have known bees within the ruinea arch Of Akbar's crimson city, hang their comb; Swarm ill forsaken courts in a sultry March, Where the mild ringdoves croon, and small apes play, . And the thin, mangy jackal makes his home; . And where the red walls kindling in the flares, Once the great Moghul lolling on his throne, Between his languid fingers crumbling spice. Ordered his women to the chequered squares, And moved them at the hazard of the dice.

But this is the bee-master's reckoning In England. "Walk among the hives and hear. And so on to tho gardener, the woodflowers, the wild flowers, Fritillaries, all leading up to a wonderful paean of praise to the Spring. With the advent of Summer comes shcepshcarlng, sheep washing, haysell and harvest. With autumn comes ploughing, hedging, and ditching, and woodcraft, ending with the- Vintage. The concluding lines' of the poem' are in keeping with the rest. Then all my deep acquaintance with that land, Crying for -word, welled up, as man who knows That Nature tender enemy, harsh friend. Takes from him toon the little that she gave, Yet for his span will labour to defend His courage, that his soul be not a Blave, Whether on waxen tablet or on loam. Whether with stylus or with share and heft The record 61 his passage he engrave, And still* in toil, takes heart to love the rose.