SOME NEW ZEALAND.VERSES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1360, 10 February 1912, Page 9

SOME NEW ZEALAND.VERSES.

fA Century of New Zealand's Praise." By Arnold Wall. Christehurch. Simpson and Williams. Is. lid. 'Toems of Jessie Mackay." Melbourne: Thomas C. Lolhitin. f'Hearts of tho Pure." By D. M. Ross. London.: The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Melbourne: T. C. Lothiau.

Poetry does not thrive in New Zealand as it might. The books of verse come out, to be sure, in a stream that is steady it' thin, and those of us who are waiting and watching for tho dawn are still sitting in the darkness. There are streaks in the East, of course, the splendid streaks that still foretell a, day, streaks of a thrilling and promiscful rose. We have hail, and still remember hopefully, tho earlier work of Arthur Adams, Arnold Wall, Miss Baughan, Miss Mackay; but they write littlo now; and we listen in vain for any other voice with the magic and music of authentic song. In the three new volumes now beforo us are the names of two of the four New Zealanders whom wo have mentioned, and who are highest amongst Australasian writers of verte in point of achievement; and one may rejoice that they are all still capable of lino ■work. Nothing could differ more completely from his "Blank Verso Lyrics" than Professor Wall's "Century of New Zealand's Praise." Only a brave and sincere worker would have conceived tho scheme of :a hundred sonnets upon New Zealand, and then carried it out. There is hardly one of the sonnets which, taken at random and considered by itself, will not show itself visibly imperfect; but in the mass they produce a total effect as of a large niece of sculpture. The weaknesses, the eccentric pieces of Hat prose, the angles left jagged by the tired hand— they retire out of sight in tho mass of the oompleto structure; and at tho end of the little book you are left with a more complete intimacy with the soul and the body of our country than can be got from any sort of working in prose. You have eeen and grasped tho emergence of Zealand from the mists, its slow and romantic accumulation of experience, and you are loft with that high sense of desolation and contentment combined which it is easy to fancy may fill Mount Cook as it dreams of all the changes it has seen Bince the canoes came from Hnwaiki. It is- unnecessary to say that Professor Wall cannot have dreamed of achieving this large and impressive effect; it is in a sort by accident that his senuenco of sonnets achieved it for him. His scheme was quite Arbitrary:—3l sonnets to "History," 27 to "The Country," 14 to "Nature, and Sport," 10 to "Industries." 9 to "Worthies," and G to "Ourselves." Anyone might draft such a progr.'imme. but it required, we think, Professor Wall to carry it out. Nothing is more difficult, obviously, than to show by quotation " ow successful our poet has been. Vv'e ».vc said that the only thing about this fcjitnry of Praise" is the whole thing S'jp> long to nuoto (ten or twelve columns jr'our space)". It is of little avail to quote this brick and that Virick, >>nt turn nnd there in the ma-s there is a beautiful detail that permits itself to b<j isolated. The opening sonnet, for example: Upon Ihc giddy edge of tho world we Beyond"'!!.?, Io! the grislv Isles, the Pole. We interrupt the lorn; Antarctic roll.. . Against our eir.'.-l the noisy breakers 11 in" Their brute bulk, niiikiiiic thunder and o. rin? j Of snowy foam that marks the treacherous = ho;il; They l>ll like furies on the deep-laid mole, 'And many a noble ship to wreck they Iji-iiijl. The liij;. coltl mountains, toweling grim mid liini-, Sigh prie-ts of silence, Moled in dnzzl- ,\ ' ini white, ''Enid all the middle of the tlnirown Ami i-eamen iniil-.in<; Icmlfall first do sight cro.it or Taranaki's cono Lifting his ghostly snows into the night. Full of weaknesses, anyone can soe: "And many a noble ship to wreck they bring," "making landfall . first do sight"—very bad. Vet who can-mi-s the passion, the energy, tho deep movement? II is o'nlv hare and there tliat our poet's hard-

straining hammer and chisel strike out a pure beauty oi' phrase. He writes of the musical "arch" in the sky with which thu "Nor'-wester" solaces Christchurch in hot summer evenings, and he ends with a magnificent figure, lit with romance:— In such a light, all shimmering green and gold, Methinks that hero of the ghostly rime, Childo lie-land, to the Dark Tower came of old In the gold-dusted morning-dusk of time. •Viitl here is the sn.-lot of tho sonnet on ''Sutherland FalK":— No steady voice, but pulses ebbing, flowing, With rustling overtones that swell and fade. Deep undertones, now coming and now Like echoes of a distant fusillade; And now the trumpets of uu army blowing With tramplings of soino ghostly cavalcade. There in, as we have hinted, a gulf of tho greatest dividing the workmanship of the "Century of Praise" from the workmanship of "Blank Verse Lyrics."' Of all finu poetry you can say, as Thorean said of the "Laws of Menu," that "it seems to have; bteu tittered from sonic eastern summit, wiMi a sober morning prescience in tho dawn of time," that "it has such it rhythm as the winds of the desert, such a tide as the Ganges." A little timidly, but with as much warrant us most critics of most poets, however old, however new, you can say that of ('hi' best of "Blank Verso Lyrics"; and if it cannot, bo said of this "Century of Praise," this at any rate cam be said: that despite the easily remediable defects of its parts, it possesses, in tho total, huge merits, wiiuc finer than can bo found in any large poetical performance under our southern stars. ■ Miss Mackay's new volumo contains twelve poems. It measures two inches by three—an irritating little vest-pocket thing in suede. However, Miss Mackay is Miss Mackay, suede or no supilp, good printing or bad printing, and this wee volume belongs nearly, if not quite, to the high mid "passionate level of her last line beak of poetry. The high and lceon emotion of Miss Mackay's poems is likely to make her admirers miss her marvellous technique, her perfect sense of time and tone and tune—the verbal tune of colour. How she grasps the laws and the lawlessness of the old ballad form !— 0 far, fnr's the stane o' death That heids the dowie glen; And far, far's the rest to seek 0' sinfu' haunted men. Immediately follows "Memory's Corner," in the metre I'raod made his own. For its smoothness and sweetness we quote (he last verse:— Ths- lark to heaven, the mole to earth; The faggot to the burning! And on a thing so void of worth You would not waste your mourning. Bui, BiTiida, in that corner dim, That daylight posses over, Hang up the memory of him, The petrel and the rover! And again: in all good ballads the climatic burst of emotion carves itself a channel of smooth and flawless music. So Miss Jfackay ends her ballad of "Lord Ninian":— 'Tor sun an' mune shall fall as fruit In the day o' do'jm an' flame, But man's high heart that cam' irae God Gangs back, unbroken, hame!" That "sun an' mune shall fall as fruit"! Who would havo dreamed of such a majestic imago at this weary time cf day? How does Miss Mackay do it? How does sho write the ballad of "Lord Ninian," and then "Little Boy Blue," end then sing a song "Prom an Egyptian Harp" ?— Hast thou scon the moon on Moeris, rising rich and mute and coolDrawing all Ihc love-lorn lilies swooning I in their silver pool? So, within the Hall of Pharaohs, she, a dream of sheen and myrrh, Drew the glamoured heart of Egypt out : in longing after her. It is good to know' that this finest of all tho poets of Australasia is still writing; and we ho[>3 that it will not be long before some wise man takes the best of her work it-. in' .yprlhy form to be added to tho libraries of the faithful. In spite of Madame Jlelba, to whom Mr. Ross dedicated his-new volume, and who contributes an introductory eulogy,' and, in the printer's advertising appendix, a wish that she could "talk to yon' about it," we cannot congratulate Mr. Koss ou "Tho Heart of the Pile." Throro aro traces in every one of the poems, vhich alternate with stiff psoudo-mystieal pseudo-fairy prose pieces, of tho lyrical fire that fused into high poetry in several of the pieces in "The Afterglow," but tho whole thing ,is artificial and -i pose. Madame Melba may like it. just as she may like the words of Tosti's "GoodBye." We do not, and we regret that Mr. Koss should have spoiled the memory of "The Afterglow," and "The Promise of (ho Star," by publishiug this thin and shallow work. There is here and there discoverable a good phrase, .v strong line, but the good phrases and strong lines are swamped by a mass of conventional images, forced epithets, and lazy ehevilles.