THE THIRD FORM VERSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 April 1927, Page 10

THE THIRD FORM VERSE

(Written for THE SUN.) ' \ LITTLE magazine, “Te Puka Puka,” has reminded me that at least one secondary : chool English master has found a higher purpose than the annotation of Nesfield. In fact, he has succeeded in an amazing effort to conciliate a demand that h* shall crush seed-minds through a sieve called “matriculation,” with an urge of his own to help each to spring and bear some kind of literary fruit. Not that he believes every boy to be potentially a litterateur, but he retains the “Arnold Bennetish” belief about books and their ability to make the world a pleasanter place. To a crowd of new boys, each year, he shows the entrance to the storehouse of literature, helping those who help themselves; guiding the eager, and not prodding the sluggard overmuch; and sometimes he feels that he may single out some lad and declare awfully; If thou Indeed derive thy light from Heaven, Then to the measure of that Heavenborn light Shine, poet! ..... And, if the resultant effort at incandescence be uneven, an experienced hand is there to trim the wick, feed the fuel, and direct the ray. Well, “Te Puka Puka” is the work of the boys of Form IH.a at Wellington College, Maoriland; their own committee and their own editor produced the magazine. Their average age is under fourteen. “Due allowance must be made.” says the preface, “for any obvious immaturity of thought or boyish crudeness, or exuberance of expres sion. Very little censoring, and practically no alterations, have been made by the master, who preferred to leave such matters to the judgment of the boys.'* The first thing that impresses anyone as he turns over these typewritten sheets is that all these youngsters have been reading widely, and that, more important still, they have discovered enthusiasms for poetry at an age when “keenness” is usually reserved for games. The schoolboy, like most other creatures, shows his honest admiration by an attempt at imitation. Here, for instance, on the first page, is “Dirty Island Coaster”: There’s smoke upon her taffrall, there’s rust upon her side; Her set is broad and rakish, her beam is over-wide. Her brasswork’s all a-tarnished, her scuppers choked with coal; And every time she lurches, the rotten bulwarks roll. A fair enough picture, one is tempted to say, of an ocean-worn coaster. The boy who penned it had echoes of Masefield ringing and rumbling through his head, and yet he manages to avoid anything violently plagiaristic. Here Is more homage to Masefield from this devotee, and the obeisance seems to be an acceptable one: There’s a palm-green island, an island of the best— An island such as bards and poets see. The moon Is on the water, the wind Is in the west, The banjo’s ever singing o’er the tree. J’here’s a small white cottage behind the rustling palm. The wind is stirring gently through the tree; jThe sweet faint music like an ancient charm— The banjo ever twanging by the sea. It may be “adjectival” and crudish. hut there is more than a suggestion of originality in it. Fourteen-year-old has also been fascinated by the mystery and music of individual words: Liquid, lingering, musical, names come down the ages. Soft romance and poetry echo with their sound. and he has made the acquaintance of Hericlitus, dark Cassandra, stories of their own; s' Lochinvar and Aramis, chivalry and love: Love-lorn Hero, young Leander, age has long outgrown; Ivanhoe and Rosalind, softer than the dove. Their sense of humour has not suffered by their growing acquaintance with books and writers, and the brightness of the lighter verse is quite sufficient to cause most grown-ups to chuckle. This is a “Travelogue,”

slightly Kiplingesque, containing interrogation which has to be answeied by most of us with a sorrowful “nay”: ’Ave yer ever ’ad the fever in the swarmps of Africa? ’Ave yer ever crossed wild Thibet In an armoured motor-car? •Ave yer ever watched the monkeys climbin’ trees all day for fun? 'Ave yer dodged a roarin’ lion a-comin’ on the run? The point the writer wished to drive home was that he would rather encounter a “bear without its muzzle” than he would “do a crossword puzzle.” The parodist comes to light with a cricket version of Tennyson's “Break, Break, Break,” and it will bear inspection:—* Break! Break! Break! On the sun-baked pitch, o ball! And I would that thy course was more tricky, That the enemy wickets might fall. Then there is the tale of “Farmer Cole,” who. like a certain famous sovereign (it must run in the family) was a “cheerful soul,” and his sick mare. The veterinary calls, proffers a pill, and gives the instruction: Take a length of hose, and blow the dose Down her throat—it’s the easiest way. On his next visit The doctor found the mare quite sound, But the farmer ill in bed. “The pill got there, but it’s not In the mare. For she blew first—nuff said. This is clever nonsense for a lad to write. It is called “Tarzan,” and it explains why tigers “are so curiously

marked,” and a few other jungle riddles: He lived among the tree-tops, With neither coat nor pants; And thus he had no need to pack The trunks of elephants. Or, again, another versifier, also with a penchant for big game, finds some astonishing answers to queries of the “Can the leopard change his spots?” variety: How shall the camel rid himself Of his ungainly hump? —By dieting himself until He has absorbed the lump. How shall the gaudy peacock lose His overweening pride? —By swimming in a pool of ink Till he is darkly dyed. Several of the attempts at serious verso come nigh to poetry. For the last I have reserved a piping of Youth’s melancholy, age-old in theme and form, but with a certain freshness about it: Autumn’s End. Autumn leaves .are falling, falling, At each gentle breeze’s calling; Colours red, exotic, mellow, Green and brown and golden yellow; Dancing streams from Nature’s store Fluttering, flying, Sinking, dying; Life’s short age is soon passed o’er. Auckland. —IAN D. COSTER.