A DUMB GIRL'S SINGING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1045, 7 February 1911, Page 9

A DUMB GIRL'S SINGING.

Thoro is no moro remarkablo personality of tho present day than Helen Keller, the woman who, born deaf, dumb, and blind, has still attained an education of tho highest degree, and has told tho story of her life in a book that holds its own as a literary production, quito apart from tho extraordinary interest of her history, saj's a writer in ah Australian paper. But ev?n more extraordinary than her story and her littlo book on ontimism, is her latest production, a book of poems, "Tho Chant of the Stone Walt" is-tho title, and tho lines aro worthy of a writer with all his faculties. It is only 6uch lines as— ■> With searching fe<t I walk besido tho wall; I plunge, and stumble over the fallen - stones, that givo us a hint that tho writer has gained her knowledge by other • methods than ours. "I come and listen," 6ho writos, and.thc reader wonders; but the next lino tells how her "listening" is dono by touch, not Bound. My hand is upon the stones, and tho tale I fain would hear, Is of the men who built the walls,, And of the God who made tho stones and the workers. To her the walls stand as "symbols of a granito race, the measure aud translation of olden times," and tho mcssago. which they bring to her, sho writes down in flowing lines, which show tho influence of Walt Whitmai in stylo as well as feeling. Tho history of her country is graven for her on the ftones of tho wall, and sho reads it from "the stern men who built-tho wall in early olden days," to the days whe.i, after the civil war, ■ ' Cleansed by tribulation and atonement, ■The broken nation rose from her knees. And with hope rebbrn in lier - : heart set forth again Upon the ojen road to ideal democracy. , The highest ideal of her country is voiced in these lines: Sing, walls, in lightning words, that shall ■' causc the world to vibrate, Of the democracy to come, Of tho swift, teeming, confident thing! We aro part of it—the wonder and the terror and the glory I Fearless wb rush forward to meet tho years. Tho years that come flying towards us, _ "TVith wings outspread aalcam on the horizon of time. But the,rarest and most striking quality of her verso is found in those lines which speak of nature; and it is hard indeed to "believe that a woman not in possession of her hearing and sight could have written such words as these: I am kneeling on the odorous earth;' Tho swfct, shy feet of Spring conic tripping o'er the land; Winter is fled to tho hills, leaving snowy wreaths On applo tree, meadow, and marsh. The walls are astir; littlo waves of blue Run through my fingers, murmuring, "We follow the winds and the sno\v!" Their heart is a cup of gold. Soft whispers of showers and flowers Are mingled in the spring 60ug of the walls. Hark to tho songs that go singing liko > the wind, Through the chinks of tho walls, and thrill tho heart. And quicken it with passionate response! The walls sing the song of wild bird, tho hoof beat of deer, • The murmur of pino and cedar, the ripplo of manv streams. Crows aro calling from the Druidical wood; The morning mist still haunts tho mea-' dows . ■ Liko tho ghosts of the .wall builders.