A New Zealand Poet

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 198, 9 April 1943, Page 9

A New Zealand Poet

WO New Zealand poets were quoted at the unveiling of the Savage Memorial-Eileen Duggan and Robert Solway. Everybody knows who Eileen Duggan is, but not so many have heard of Robert Selway. Well, here is his photograph, The badge on his coat shows that he has been serving recently in the Merchant Marine, which he joined when he was discharged from the Army. At presentuntil he gets another ship-he is a Public Servant. The passages quoted in Auckland wore from "A Memory of the late Prime Minister," a poem of about 120 lines, issued recently in Wellington by Stewart, Lawrence and Co. Ltd. To enable our readers to judge its quality in print, we give the opening lines: WE father here to-day in silence And remembrance for him who is Dead. He left us, three years ago, And passed into his last, long sleep. H® was big-hearted and his love For his fellowmen went beyond The guards of the human heart. His Love for children and the old and Weak have won him a place in The Hall of Fame as one of humanity’s Benefactors . .. .

Now. that he sleeps, his work is Still lighting up the paths of men. . + While over his grave-a hallowed spotLonely seabirds fly crying out again That a giant spirit lives. bs be bow your heads not in sorrow But rather in joy, for his life was Spent in the service of his fellowmen. And what greater memorial could there Be than written on his tomb these few Humble. words, "He loved his fellowmen." —