A Notable Literary Achievement.
A DU ■ EDIN YOUNG LADY’S DRAMATIC POEM. An ace- mit app r ared in the New Zealand Hern Id' lift week of a very remarkable poem just brought under the notice of the University Senate. The poem is the work of a Dunedin young lady, Miss Mary H. E. Gordon. • It treats of the meeting between the blind Galileo and the youthful and beautiful poet John Milton. Milton places his head in the hands of the'blind Galileo, in order that he may read something of his appearance. The exquisite and powerful description which our lady poet pqts into the lips of Galileo suits the lineaments of the Puritan youth porfectly. She seys:— "
“ The maiden’s fine outline of chastity ” “ Implacable is thine,”
Further, her delineation of : “ The thin film where the blood centres the cheek ”
Suits no less exquisitely the womanlike B personal beauty of Milton’s youth. The passage wherein the thought is directed to the. mystery of human affliction shows profound feeling and reflection. Galileo is made to Isay inreference to his blindness :
“Of all earth’s millions that have , heard God’s voice None eyer saw his face. He stands behind”
No wonder that Miss Gordon has been made the recipient of the MacmillanBrown memorial prize, and. no wonder that Professor Macmillan - Brown has himself spoken of passages of her remarkable poem in terms of high approval ; and that members of the Univer-ity Senate have also expressed the opinion that her work possesses very hign merit.
Miss Gordon’s selection of a theme has allowed full play to her manifest feeling for beauty, and her capacity for spiritual altitudes, and 'at the same time it has given play to her perception of what Wordsworth calls “ The still sad music of humanity.” We shall doubtless hear considerably more of. this gifted writer’s work in the future. /,
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Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4372, 11 February 1909, Page 3
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307A Notable Literary Achievement. Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4372, 11 February 1909, Page 3
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