The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY LEVIN. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7. WESTLAND'S JUBILEE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 7 January 1914, Page 2

The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY LEVIN. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7. WESTLAND'S JUBILEE.

I Levin, in Jack Vincent, possesses a clever versifier, who touches poetry on occasions. Many oi his lucubrations have lent light and joy to our columns; easy efforts hanging "from grave to" gay, from lively to severe." In a recent Chronicle Levin's bard was in his sardonically humorous vein, telling the story of the. .irresponsible human whose old age pension was witheld ""'for reasons given.'' In these and like verses Vincent has a sufficient distinctiveness; regarded rhetorically they are incisively gifted, if sometimes based upon unreasonableness. But there are many other paths which our poet treads lightly and daintily. To-day he sings liltingly to his "Wild Australian Rose," and to morrows passes introspectively to Old Bendigo and its roaring days. It is in such yein as this that Vincent sings his best, and in the word picture he paints one hears clearly the clash of the stampers m the quartz mill, sees the thousand, twinkling eamplires of a Gulgong rush, or listens to the rousing chorus oi the diggers forgathereu on some i holiday eve. For Vincent is a digger beyond all other callings, though lie has beeii. "called" successively by the shovel, the cook's ladles, the crosscut saw, the axe, and other more or less musical instalments, and has wielded them i successively and all wilh facility, i Chief amongst his digging essays i was his rush to the "wet west ; coast" in the early sixties; the I days wherein. Martin Kestevens i and Patrick Cascys and Bill Dicks and Jack Vincents and ten thousand others rushed hot-foot along the "razor-back ridge to reach the El Dorado. To-day the glory of the West* Coast is no longer golden. The golden c-alf of the dairy is grazing peacefully to-day where the red-sashed diggers whilom rushed, and beyond the golden grains won by the river dredges the alluvial gold winnings are "nothing great.'" But the hearts of the pioneers are warm as of old, and their sons ! and daughters delight to honour the old traditions. Now is come the Jubilee of the West Coast, and the event is being honoured throughout Westland. And what could be more fitting to celebrate the occasion than a rime of true poetry from a pioneer's pen? Vincent has heard the call, and in response he has touched a chord that reverberates with true poetry. "The Spirit of The West" is the title of his verses, which here follow.