Have You Read This?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 537, 14 December 1928, Page 14

Have You Read This?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Selections From English Classics Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Professor of English LiU'iature, recently selected for “The Daily Mail" a series of short passages, tfi. “purple patches" of English prose.. . It is hoped that the series, reprinted here, will pleasan.ly refresh the memories of some and stir the fresh interest of others

' WITH A TALE HE COMETH , SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. From “An Apologi* for Poetrie.” Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) was one oj hf finest flowers of F.lizabethun culture. ' ft wTs a Galahad in the fleld of battle—when fatally wounded he nave his waterbottle to a dying soldier with the words r Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." He u>a, an ambassador at 23 and an AI.P. for Kent ul 27. He was Governor of Flushing at 31. And alt his life he was the perfect paragon of an English gentleman. Incidentally his "Apologic for Poetrie " i, the first important contribution to English literary criticism: and he wrote some beautiful sonnets which gave the sonnet sequence its first vogue in England NOW therein of all Sciences (1 speak still of humane, and according to the humane conceits) is our poet the Monarch. For he doth not onlv show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay. h e doth, as it your journey nhouid lie through a fair Vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of Grapes, i hat. full of that taste, you may long to passe further. He beginneth not with obscure defi-

nitions, which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the j memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchanting skill of Musick; and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you: with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner And, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste: which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of Aloes or Rhubarb they should receive, would sooner take their Physick at their ears than at their mouth. So is it in men (most of which are childish in the best things, till they be cradled in their graves); glad they will be to hear the tales of Hurculcs, Achilles. Cyrus, and Aeneas; and hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valour, and [justice: which, if they had been barely, that is to say, Philosophically set out, the/ would swear they be brought to school again. In a short poem named “Faith,” Miss Duggan writes: I prayed for the faith of a starling Under the tawny trees, A child or a holy woman — What could be greater than theseT I made surer by sorrow, Beg what seems more to me. The faith of a willow in winter. Or a blind hound nosing the knee. *For simple beauty and sincerity of feeling that is a poetic triumph. The only collection of Miss Duggan’s verse was published several years ago in Dunedin, but it is now difficult to obtain. She was a young girl then, and although the work is extraordinarily good she has developed since. She has simplified her methods, and now the songs come poignant and unornamented, from her heart, but years ago she was able to write this in “A Maori Lullaby”: Hush—oh hush l my little wild one, Hear the stirring in the hollow, With thy restless little crying Thou wilt wake the small sea-swallow. Dearer than the bread of raupo , Dearer than the sweet konini, Dearer than the dead to Tone, Yea, so dear art thou unto me. Sleep, my bud of koromiko, Sleep, my wild karaka berry, Sleep, my red-lipped rata-blossom, Ate! Ate! Ate! Ate! ■ Her power to describe natural beauty and at the same time incorporate a telling thought is shown in “SwampLand” : A vanquished flax drops pennon by the pool That shares the sorrow of a tattered tree And still is heard along the dreary cool An old tired bittern booming timorously. The marsh plant slowly drips its sombre seeds, The very blackbird is a bird of rue; A barren wind rustics the raupo reeds, Breaking the silver bucklers of the dew. God made this place for sallow twisted roots And winds that limp the high-ioads of the air. For songless birds and broken-hearted fruits And men who never learned a prayer. There are many poems that could be quoted, and each is a sweet defiant answer to the lack-faith critics who say that New Zealand has not yet produced a poet. Miss Duggan’s achievement is the answer: she is a poet who could take an honoured place in the society of any living English singers. She must not sing her last song for a long time yet but here is what she says of the unhappy day of silence: God has full many singing birds To mock on hill and plain The tabor of the wind, The viol of tfyc rain. God has so many troubadors With songs of March and May On pipe and flageolet To flute of flower and seed. God has so many troubadors To sing in court ifid train. He will not miss my bitter reed. I shall not sing again, —IAN DONNELLY. BIBLIOGRAPHY Poems. The “New Zealand Tablet” Company, Dunedin. Miss Duggan's poetry has been published in Australian, >JeAv Zealand and American periodicals. Much of her work lias appeared in The Sun.