“THE SPOTLIGHT.”

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 13, 10 January 1924, Page 2

“THE SPOTLIGHT.”

AT THE TROTS. While in Auckland “ Spot ” went to th> trots. He really had no intention to start with of spending* the day in such a hectic place as Alexandra Park —he set out with the intention of going down the harbour to some sylvan spot far from the madding* crowd, but meeting a friend in town who took him by the buttonhole and whispered in liis ear that picking*\vinners at Epsom was as easy as picking peas and a considerable sight quicker, he allowed himself to be inveigled into going out. After a few abortive attempts, a tram car was eventually boarded and the journey to Epsom commenced. Most of the people on the car were deeply immersed in small pamphlets which “ Spot ” at fir. r sight took to be tracts, but afterwaids discovered to be books containing all the names of the winners. In order to rectify the information already given to him by his friend, he asked the man next to him, whose nose was deeply buried in his pamphlet, what was “ a good thing* for the trots,” and the reply gruntingly given was “ Cascara.” He borrowed a racecard from the man on the other side of him, but failed to find the name of the horse. He asked his friend about it after and he said the first man must have been thinking* of the “ gallops.” Life is an uncertain thing* and surely nowhere more uncertain than at the trots. One can’t even be certain of having* one’s car fare to go home with. If picking* peas is no easier than picking* winners, a man doesn’t want to be a market gardener. After the fourth race, “ Spot ” felt like picking* a nice quiet place and going* to sleep there till after the meeting*. He was looking for such a retreat when he overheard an interesting little conversation between an onlooker and a policeman. The formci eventually became annoyed and called the man in blue everything he could think of. including some severe reflections on the constable’s ancestry. The uniformed one took it all in good part until a certain remark was passed by the other with the result that the civilian was hurled forth into the street outside the course. The constable then rejoining his sergeant reported, in disgust, to him that the offending one liar! called him “ BrothIN THE 13R1NY. “ Spot ” has been enjoying to the full lately a pleasure rarely given to people in these parts. 1 refer to seabathing. Now a swim in the open is enjoyable at any time, whether it be in spring, stream or sheet of inland water, but surely for pure unadulterated exhilaration, nothing can beat the sea. A strange thing, moreover, about sea bathing is the fact that it not only physically exhilarates, but that it mentally, stimulates as well. Adam Lindsay Gordon, the great poet of the South, must have realised something* of this when he wrote those marvellous yet melancholy verses of his entitled “ The. Swimmer.” Gordon was a man strangely sensitive to physical stimuli, and these were reflected to a great part in his work. Take for instance his bush ballads and galloping rhymes. These are pregnant with the rattle of hooves and the crack of whips. And so with the lyric first referred to. The

“ short sharp violent lights made vivid” seem to permeate the poem—- “ the swirl of the surges livid, the seas that climb and the surfs that comb.” Gordon, a Scotchman by birth, was an Englishman by environment, and he thus represented that true British stock to which the sea makes such an incessant appeal. Only one born on an island and of a lineage also island-born could have written 1 The Swimmer.” It is full of the Viking spirit, that true Norse virility that also carries with it a northern melancholy. 1 would that with sleepy, soft embraces The sea would find me—would find me rest In luminous shades of her secret places, In depths where her marvels are manifest; So the earth •beneath her should not discover My hidden couch nor the heaven above her— A' a strong* love shielding a weary lover, I would have her shield me with shining* breast. It is hard to understand how the fresh, buoyant waves of ocean, with all the freshness and buoyancy of spirit usually engendered by these waves, should, even while he exults m their strength and splendour, tempt the poet to philosophise on life A little season of love and laughter, A light and life, and pleasure and pam, Anu a horror of outer darkness after, Anq dust i-eturneth to dust again. The » the lesser life shall he as the greater. And the lover of life shall join the hater, An:l the one tiling* cometh sooner or later,

And no one knoweth the loss or gain. But, as said before, Lindsay Gordon, in common with most other men of Highland stock, came of a Norse i ancestry and that melancholy nature which is so pronounced a trait even to this day in Scandanavians, Russians, Finns and other northern peoples is said to owe its origin to the fact that those climes, beyond the Arctic Circle there is almost continuous darkness for approximately half the year. This accounts for the dominant note in the literature of the north as evidenced by Strindberg, Tolstoi, Ibsen and a host of others. It possibly also accounts for that spirit of sadness which the ocean, even while it thrilled him, aroused in this Australian poet making him long* to ride— As never a man has ridden T n „ it V l i e / Py ’ su ‘Ws Mdden, ° *StaUts f«Wdd£° W * thl ' oUgh! Where no light wearies and no love wanes. s*