HENRY KENDALL.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1187, 28 October 1882, Page 8 (Supplement)

HENRY KENDALL.

When Shelley, in that superlative rhapsody of words—“ Alastor”—pictured the penalties of the poetic gift, he used the inspired language of the poet, to utter the wisdom of the philosopher. Alastor, the reader will remqpaber, is a dreamer and singer, who, having almost exhausted the fountains of beauty, is still insatiate. He recognises a vastness and love in his nature, which lack their satisfying counterpart in the world ; and, to find whether that counterpart exists, is the object of his poetic aim. He seeks in vain, utterly in vain; and, baffled and blasted by keen disappointment, finds an early grave. If it were ever the lot of the poet to test this sort of theory, the nineteenth century certanly offers an excellent field. In this age, the singer, except in isolated cases, personally proves the truth of Hamlet’s aphorism, that “ the world is out of jointnor has he the good luck, to be able to say with the Danish prince, that he “ was bom to set it right.” Society, in point of fact, seems to have been “ bom” to set the bard right—or wrong, which amounts to the same thing. For it cannot be denied, in spite of illustrious examples to the contrary, that the gift of song is often as fatal r the possessor’s peace, as the Grecian horse **as to the doomed Trojans. Whether the fault be on the side of the singer, or the world, I am not called upon to determine. I simply affirm, that, amid the hoarse roar of this utilitarian age, the poet is heard merely by sufferance : and sorrow, in some shape or other, seems to be his portion. He pipes to a generation that will not dance, or, if it dance, waits till he is dead. Upon the career of Henry Kendall the stamp of sorrow has been set. With a noblehearted wife and beautiful children, he pos-

sessed at least one of the main elements of social happiness. But an overwhelming gloom dominated him perpetually. His songs are steeped in an element of the sorrowful. Had he preceded, in place of following, Edgar Poe, one would have seen in him the embodiment of that “unhappy master” of whom this first of American geniuses writes so mournfully and so melodiously : — “ Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore; Till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden bore Of never—nevermore.” Nor was that gloom produced, in the main, by the failing which a portion of the press has so unnecessarily accentuated. Those who knew the inner life of Henry Kendall as well as the present writer did, can certify that family troubles formed a reason sufficiently valid to account for most of his sorrow. In his domestic relations, he had every blessing that a devoted wife and children can give. But, outside that—and the veil need be lifted no further—he incurred perplexities which weighed heavily upon his soul. The simple features in connection with the poet’s life have been often mentioned, and may be briefly summarised. Born in the Ulladalla district, in 1842, his earliest recollections were saturated with the beauty of one of the most favored spots in the colony. Passing over minor matters related to his youth, undoubtedly the first fact of importance connected with his mental developement, is that of being associated with the author of “ John Cumberland”—James Lionel Michael—a name almost, forgotten by the present generation of readers. Michael was a solicitor by professon, but cherished an affection for the Muses, which those ladies did not altogether reciprocate. He was also attached to literature generally. Important indeed, was Michael’s influence over the rising poet, who had, even then, begun to “sip Castalian dews.” And until Michael’s lamented and mysterious death, the warmest feeling subsisted between them. Among Australian authors, however, Harpur was Kendall’s earliest favorite. To the last, he retained the highest admiration for Harpur—although, of course, less for what Harpur did than for what he might and could have done. For Charles Harpur had many of the potentialities of greatness; but his was “ unfulfilled renown.”

Not being enamoured of a profession which, as Junius says, “ lives by the indiscriminate defence of right and wrong,” Kendall jilted the law, and not long after entered the Survey Office, and subsequently the Colonial Secretary’s Department. Becoming dissatisfied—not an uncommon experience for intellect cooped up in the Government service—he went to Melbourne, thus resigning official life. He was led to visit the southern colony owing to the fact of having won a poetical prize offered by a Victorian journal; and he fondly imagined that there was an opening for him as a literary man there. Here he stayed for a time, experiencing vicissitudes known only to himself and those who were his friends indeed. Eventually, in this darker period of his life, he visited Sydney again ; and subsequently went to Gosford, where Charles Fagan, J.P., housed and befriended him with a warmth which Kendall never forgot. After a variety of experiences, he visited Camden Haven as clerk to the Messrs. Fagan, who have an extensive business in that lovely, but wild, locality. Here he stayed until he received the position, tendered by a genius-rewarding Government, of Inspector of Forest Reserves. In this position he had to encounter many physical hardships for which he was ill-fitted, and, a little over two months and a half ago, he returned to Sydney, utterly debilitated. From that time he sank, and, in the house of the Messrs. Fagan Bros., Sydney, he died on the Ist August. These noble-hearted men, whose names deserve to be remembered while Kendall remains a poetic power in the land, ministered to his dying wants, and his devoted wife incessantly watched beside him.

He was buried by a handful of mourners at the Waverley Cemetery, near the sea; and not far from the resting-place of Samuel Bennett, who was long attached to him. In a brief sketch, where the limitations of space are inexorable, a finished appraisement of Kendall’s poetry is hardly to be expected. Nevertheless, a few remarks are necessary. The first volume published by the poet contained much that was immature, and little that he wished remembered. But his own judgment of it was far too harsh. It contained songs which possessed the true ring and swing and vigor of a genuine Australian lyric. In such songs the power—which is, after all, the. mint-mark of genius—was unmistakeable. . The melody, too, was most undeniable; and, in a tardy way, the local press, which sees “no good in Nazareth,” acknowledged him. This was about 1862. Seven years after was issued the volume “Leaves From Australian Forests,” which, among some “ stray echoes from the the elder sons of song” (as the poet modestly puts it) contains some splendid poetic triumphs, which the “ world will not willingly let die.” What, as a masterly piece of vivid wordpainting, could be finer than “ The Hut by the Black Swamp ?” Pictured by the genius of the chronicler, it stands out in unsurpassed realism. Within the circuit of those gloomy slabs, Murder has- held saturnalia, and the place is thrice accursed by the terrible ban of blood. There is not a weak stanza in the poem—crisp, sharp, and passionately incisive, the poet can write nil ultra across his work. Here are three stanzas, and those unquoted are no better and no worse :— Across this hut the nettle runs, And livid adders make their lair In comers dank from lack of suns; And out of fetid furrows stare The growths that scare. Here Summer’s grasp of fire is laid On bark and slabs, that rot and breed Squat ugly things of deadly shade— The scorpion and the spiteful seed Of centipede. Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry, And flaming noontides mute witli heat Beneath the breathless brazen sky Upon these lifted rafters beat With torrid feet.

Entirely in another style is “ September in Australia,” which is a veritable poem of greeting to the season when— Grey Winter hath gone like a wearisome guest, And, behold, for repayment September comes in with the wind of the west, And the Spring in her raiment. Most of those who peruse this will remember “ Ghost Glen,” a poem of weird and eerie energy. It is in this volume. Here, too, are to be found some of those poems of his which are pure songs. “ The Warrigal,” “ On a Cattle Track,” “ The Cattle Hunters,” and others, are exquisite for affluence of color and delicacy of touch. They have the breezy melody and rushing sweep of the true ringing lyric, and are closely related to that beautiful poem in the first volume, commencing : “ From the hills of the Narran, white-dotted with sheep.” “ Euroclydon ” is as erratic in treatment as it is in metre. Take this verse for example : . “ And the wilted thyme And the patches past Of the nettles cast In the drift of the rift, and the broken vine, Are tumbled and blown To every zone With the famished glede and the plovers . thinned By this fourfold wind, This wind sublime.” What could be more singular or successful in its way than the hymn to this “Fourfold wind, This wind sublime ?” In this volume, too, are those sweet bits of Keatsian word-painting, “ Araluen,” “ Illa Creek,” “ Moss on a Wall,” “ In the Valley,” “Mountain Moss,” and. that most musical study, commencing: “ By channels of coolness.the echoes are calling.” Nor must I omit to mention at least three other poems. “The Voyage of Telegonus,” and “ Ogyges ” are splendid rehabilitations of beautiful Greek myths. The style is lofty and classic, the diction wonderfully sustained. Kendall’s intellect, although he knew nothing of Greek as a language, was singulary Hel-

lenic in tone and tendency. And these poems are filled and vital with the majestic solemnity of the subjects. Each is. the sublime monody of a human fate or woe; Destiny hangs over each like a funeral’ pall, and sorrow and hopelessness are the burdens of the songs.

Of “ King Saul at Gilboa,” I shall simply say that it is one of the most perfect Scriptural paraphrases in the language, and brief and rapid as the study is, I do not hesitate to express this as my deliberate judgment. I have little time now, to refer to the third volume; but it may be briefly handled. It is remarkable then, mainly for a new departure in subject. In “Black Lizzie,” and “Black Kate,” and especially in such skits, as “ Bill the Bullock-driver,” and “ Jem the Splitter,” Kendall has taken a wider flight, and has alighted in a larger field than formerly. He assumes here the r6le of an Australian Bret Harte—and though he has not the humour of Bret, he has a far finer command of all the armoury of poetry. “ Bill the Bullockdriver,” for example, is conceived in a spirit of singular power. It is an absolute study of a phase of Australian forest life. It is a virtual word-photograph, drawn by a genuine son of Apollo. It is characterised by both genius and truth, and had not Kendall died shortly after he discovered his adaptability for this style of composition, we should doubtless have had some superlative studies of a pecu liarly ‘Australian type. As it is, we must recognise, without stint, the authentic mission of this poet to pourtray phenomenal phases of bush life. The rest is our loss.

But certain of the serious productions in this volume are singularly powerful. They are among Kendall’s very best. It is the fashion among some critics to affect to believe that Kendall’s earlier were his best poems. The idea is absurd. Kendall showed, in rhetorical structure and woof, a distinctive advance to the very end. What can be more beautiful in its way than the Melbourne Exhibition Cantata ? Fluent, and of astonishing beauty metrically, it is a lyrical gem. Listen to the ring of this— Dressed is the beautiful City—the spires of it Burn, in the firmament, stately and still; Forest has vanished—the wood and the lyres of it,

Lutes of the sea-wind, and harps of the hill. This is the region—and here is the bay by it — Collins, the deathless, beheld in a dream, Flinders and Fawkner, our forefathers gray by it Paused in the hush of a season supreme. Here, on the waters of majesty near to us, Lingered the leaders by towers of flame— Elders who turn from the lordly old years to us, Crowned with the light of ineffable fame. Two other poems, most remarkable for beauty, are “Narrara Creek” and “Beyond Kerguelen.” I do not hesitate to say that, for melody and chime, some verses of the former and the whole of the latter are not excelled in the wide range of English poetry. Listen to the opening notes of “ Narrara Creek ” — From the rainy hill-heads where, in starts and in spasms, Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms; From the home of bold echoes, whose voices of wonder Fly out of blind caverns struqjc black by high thunder; Through gorges august, in whose nether recesses Is heard the far psalm of unseen wildernesses — Like a dominant spirit—a strong-handed sharer Of spoil with the tempest—comes down the Narrara. Yea, where the great sword of the hurricane cleaveth The forested fells that the dark never leaveth; By fierce-featured crags, in whose evil abysses The clammy snake coils, and the flat adder hisses; Past lordly rock temples, where silence is riven By the anthems supreme of the four winds of heaven: It speeds with the cry of the streams of the fountains— It chained to its side,’and dragged down from the mountains. For descriptive majesty these verses can hardly be excelled; and for complete mastery over a measure that taxes rhythmic capabilities, take one stanza of “ Beyond Kerguelen.” The rest are equally powerful. Storm from the Pole is the singer that sings to it— Hymns of the land at the planet’s grey verge— Thunder discloses dark wonderful things to it, Thunder and rain and the dolorous surge. Hills with no hope of a wing ora leaf on them, Scarred with the chronicles written by flame, Stare through the gloom of inscrutable grief on them, Down on the horns of the gulf without name. Cliffs with the record of fierce flying fires on them Loom over perilous pits of eclipse ; Alps, with anathemas stamped in the spires on them; Out by the wave, with a curse on its lips ! Modelled in precisely the same measure, and possessed of the same powerful characteristics, is “ The Curse of Mother Flood.” In these phases of poetic delineation, the graphic power of Kendall is unrivalled. His remarkable command of metre and the resources of poetry—the singular mastery of words which enables him to emphasise his meaning by an aggregation of epithet, are marked distinctly in these and many others of his poems. I think I need say no more to vindicate the extraordinary merit of many poems in this third volume. And, besides those mentioned are many of no less merit. There is a touching pathos in such poems as “ Araluen,” and “ Mary Riversa fine descriptiveness in “Pytheas;” a tender softness in “Hy-Brosil.” Whoso runs may read all this. It was, I think, “ Orion ” Horne who, in describing Deniehy’s sensuous appreciation of musical diction, affirmed that his “ mouth watered at words,” just as a gourmand’s at a pulpy peach. Far more than to Deniehy, this remark applies to Kendall. There is little in our poet’s verse of the grand Wordsworthian meditative faculty — there is little of that “ sugar-coated pill ” philosophy in metre. Kendall was essentially a descriptive poet—an interpreter of Nature’s myriad phases. He cared little for the pourtrayal of human passions; but no contemporaneous poet ever wrought more successfully, to evoke the strong melody that lies in honey-syllabled combinations of words, than Henry Kendall. He speaks, in one of his “ sugared sonnets” (as Meres would have called them) of the “ sumptuous comfort left in drowsy eyes,” by the “ haunting songs” of Alfred Tennyson. And this with all naturalness; for, of all English poets, living or dead, Tennyson is simply the most impeccable as an artist. He is the most consummate artificer in dexterous poetic workmanship that England has ever seen; and by the sheer force of natural sympathy and intellectual tendency Kendall has, without imitating, learnt mud} of the elder bard’s full-bodied style. That his opinion and admiration of Tennyson were strong to a most remarkable degree, I know; for, many a time, in conversation with me, Kendall would put Tennyson at the head of all English poetry, past or present—Shakspere and the Elizabethans, as he w’ould emphatically say, included. In close accord with the most successful modern poetry, then, Kendall’s verse is essentially rhetorical in structure and woof—as much so as Tennysofi’s or Swinburne’s. For, although these living leaders of the poetic world have little in common, they are alike in the marvellously facile play of their rhetoric. Their styles are, of course, antipodal, For, while Swinburne, with a lyric impetuosity and wealth of words absolutely Pindaric, hymns his “ Songs ” to revolutionists and “ advanced thinkers”—Tennyson, with sublime artistic tranquility, pens Aesthetic products, fit at times for his own dreamy passionless lotoseaters.

Besides descriptive power, Kendall had a tender vein of pathos and melancholy ; a kind of placid sadness, half a sentiment—half an emotion. And, had he lived to cultivate the comic and satiric faculties he developed, we should have soon possessed spirited sketches of forest eccentricities, compared with which “ Wollombi Jim,” and “ Bill the Bullock-dri-ver,” are but “pallid adumbrations.” Enough has I think been said for the present. The poet is dead; but his works, vitalized by genius, are undying. He reposes at Waverley Cemetery, within sound and sight of the illimitable sea, lulled—if lulling be needed after a life’s unrest—by the voice of the manysounding surge. “ Give me a drink from the sea,” he said, in one of those half-delirious moments that preceded death. And, pursuant

to his last request, he sleeps by the sea. Not far removed from him, is the grave of Samuel Bennett, who was ever a veritable friend to the vanished singer. For the rest what shall I say ? “ After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.” And with the Roman’s “ Ave atque vale” on my lips, I stretch my hands out into the dark, and murmur the poet’s own lines on Lionel Michael: “ Be his rest the rest he sought, Calm and - deep, Let no bitter speech or thought Vex his sleep.” P. J. Holdsworth.