OF N.Z. POETS

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

OF N.Z. POETS

SOME NOTES AND COMMENTS NO. 2 MISS EILEEN DUGGAN “How well the work of Eileen Duggan is known in her native New Zealand I do not know; but I hope she is given her deserts there,” wrote Theodore Maynard, an American poet and critic in the “Commonweal,” a New Yprk periodical. Miss Duggan is without doubt the finest poet New Zealand has yet produced, but Mr. Maynard’s hope is not fulfilled. To a few, her work is known and admired; but to the bulk of the people she is not even a name. Part of this fault rests with Miss Duggan herself, who is far too deeply immersed in her art to care anything for public applause. Shunning all forms of publicity, she goes quietly on her way. Students at Victoria College, Wellington, may know a little of her, for she lectures there, but that is her only commerce with the throng. Of Irish parentage, she has a touch of the beautiful reflective melancholy that distinguishes the Celt, and there Is a savour of this in all her work. Yet she has brought about a remarkable union between two sources of inspiration: Ireland and New Zealand. On neither is she exclusively dependent; but out of the union of the two comes her most beautiful singing. An outstanding quality is the absolute integrity of her art. She writes nothing that does not well from her heart, and it is this glorious sincerity that makes her great. Greatness is not an extravagant word for her, and if independent support of the statement is necessary let us refer to the famous Irishman, Mr. George Russell (“A.E.”). A copy of her only published pamphlet was sent to him without her knowledge, and this is what he wrote in a review: “She has delicacy and subtlety which one expects rather in civilisations that are old, where emotions have become refined through long generations of culture than in a small country lying on the rim of the world.” He went on to say he was pleased that New Zealand had bred a poet “whom we would be glad to acknowledge over here.” A poem religious in sentiment, yet charged with original beauty that makes universal appeal, is “A New Zealand Christmas,” in which she imagines the nativity of Christ in a New Zealand setting. It is published in “The Book of Modern Catholic Verse,” edited by Theodore Maynard. Oh, my heart goes crying through the days of summer, Through the sleepy summer, slow with streams and bees, Jlad my land been old then , here You might have lighted, Here have seen Your first moon through the ngaio trees. Oh, my heart goes crying through the days of waiting While our lilies open and our tuis si)ig, jlad my Lord been born here angels might have ringed us, Standing round our island tcing wide to | tcing. Jlad my Lind been born here in the time j of rata. Three dark-eyed chieftains would have ! knelt to hint, With greenstone and mats and the proud , huia feather, -4 nd the eyes of Mary seeing would grow : dim. Oh, my heart goes sighing through these days of waiting, Tl’e too have oxen and our straw is sweet. We have shepherds too now and stables and a manger. Oh, for one clear footprint of Your little feet! There is a similar reverential beauty in "Saint Peter,” which is also printed in the anthology: 1 kneel to those old dogged feet That padded on from shore to city, J cry for that old troubled heart That tried to tempt God out of pity. And what of that old broken soul That crept out sobbing from the light, t losing its ears against the bird And beating blindly through the night t Writing of these exquisite religious k poems Maynard said there was nothing' H in them of the pious phraseology which, because of constant and pei - funetory use, had become a material 1 11111 almost wholly untractable by the poet. 1