"FLOWERS OF THE FREELANDS."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 202, 16 February 1877, Page 5

" FLO WERS OF THE FREELANDS."

BY THOHAS BRACKEN.

Of the many productions that yearly appear under the name of poetry, there are but few deserving of the title. There is nothine more common than for people to imagine that they are masters of the poetic art, and nothing more rare than for such an imagination to be justified by fact. False and absurd images, mawkish sentiments, and selfish affections when written in lines that scan or rhyme are in numberless instances believed by those who are untortunate enough to originate them to be that which, of all thin-s, must true to nature/and wholly destitute of self ; for it has been well said that the poet is one who sees deeply into the inmost bein* ?f™ H? g ii ?^. diacema the harmony that lies at the foundation of all that has been created, so that his very thoughts, catching the infection, become musical, and of necessity are poured out in ?i^ Vi? f f. am ' only when P ur S e< * of seHshness that the intellect becomes fitted for receiving the inspiration of genius." Poeta nascitur, non fit; the adage is old and trite, but all utterances that are plainly true must in the course of time become hackneyed, which however makes them none the less useful, but rather testifies to their value, and the universality of their accept fiHkf'n T .Jf ?» e^t h ? n 'fr°}y«> called, sings by nature; art cannot fit him with his strains. Culture may improve those talents that have been born with a man, and education may expand his mind, add vigor to his thoughts, and force and elegance to his expression but there is a limit beyond which these things cannot pass, and they are impotent to open the eyes that from their birth have been closed, or to attune the voice to notes descriptive of that which the . sense ot vision has never taken cognizance of. " * have V° m ' ea - out mv freshest emotions in song, because I tound it the most congenial way of expressing what I felt." So writes in his preface the author of the work of which we now propose to treat and in the volume which he has produced we find the most ample testimony to the truth of his assertion, It is very evident that these poems are the genuine "wood-notes" of nature, unmarred by an artifical thought, and free from all affectation of expression. They bear the impress of simplicity in its best sensr, and bespeak a genius as truly to the manner born as that which f! ia nf^f i 1° U t ?, solace himself fe y song in the murky dungeons of the Chatelet, or Beranger to behold in the "Fire of the Prisoner" a thousand bright and beauteous images. „m, But let "» a ° ain , hear our author speaking of his verses. They are not says he " exotics upon the cultivation of which a large amount of care has been expended, but simple wild bush blossoms that have received but slight attention in their growth." 1 his also is I just, and herein lies a principal charm of these" compositions, akin to that— although at a distance, for it would be flattery to say otherwise— which distinguishes the soncs"of a world renowned poet to whom we have already referred, and whose strains though delicate and refined as the rarest exotic, are still so redolent of the soil whereon they were breathed forth, that they have frequently reminded us of those indigenous plants that gain an additional beauty by blooming here and there in early sprin* sooner than their fellows, and which thus become more delightful than the most precious nurseling of a hot-house. But thSugh these Flowers of the Freelands" claim to be no more than "wild bush blossoms, they frequently bring before us much that would adorn a flora putting forward greater pretensions, and that closely borders upon the sublime. Take for example a passage that occurs in Orakau ; a poem which may be described as a compressed epic, and winch is of remarkable vigor and beauty all through — " Again the fiery-throated cannon roared aloud for bFood, Again the hungry eagle swooped and shrieked for human food: Again wild spirits soaring, saw their shattered corses lie In pools of gore, and still was heard the fierce, defiant cry, 'Ka Whawhai tonu ! Ake ! Ake ! Ake !' " The third line in particular is especially 'striking, suggesting to us as it does an echo of the Divine Comedy, an echo faint indeed, but which nevertheless could have had no existence, were it not that it had been awakened by one worthy of the royal name of p >efc. It is not, however, only when writing on themes of unusual magnitude, such as that of war which ha! inspired so many great singers, that Mr. Bracken shows the true poetic faculty of seeindeeper into things than that which lies upon their outside. The simplest offspring ; of nature as well has for him a meaning, whose truth it is impossible for us not to recognise, and which is explained ma manner full of grace. What can be more familiar to us than the orchard, wrfh its homely fruit trees, now blushing with the bloom of spring, and now bending beneath their buidea of the autumn but except m winter when everything is forlorn, always beautiful. Ihis early caught the fancy of the poet, and we find in the Provencal minstrelsy of the middle ages at least one aubade in which the scene of the voluptuous creations of the Troubadour is laid beneath the flowering apple branches. Swinburne also, in our own time, has chosen like surroundings wherewith to illustrate a lyric which ho has written on the plan of the impure literature of the langue d ocj and more happy than he is many times in hishi«*h sounding emptiness or his foul strains of the sewer or the hospital, he has in a few words brought before our eyes a charming picture— Clear apple-leaves are soft upon that moon Seen side-long like a blossom in the tree." But, though they may be less sonorous, much more beautiful, and infinitely more pregnant and suggestive of high thoughts, are those lines which, amongst others hardly .inferior, we find traced by the pen ot our author — • * " Rills and brooks and birds are sin»in«* Nature's psalms and hymns and glees ° And the morning breeze is swinging Censers on the orcJiard trees" What is it in the poet's art that avails so vividly to bring before us whatever it be that its magic undertakes to call up ?

" Au detour dune eau gui chemine A flots pure, sous de frais Was, Vous avez vu notre chauruine."| Such are the words that Beranger places in the mouth of his captive soldier, and at once cottage, wavelets, and flowering bushes are plain to the eyes of the hearer. Let us see if our author is deficient in the indefinable power alluded to, and take in illustration the following passage which exhales the very breath of the spring, and brings us into direct contact as it were with all that is described —

" The primroses were opening up Their petals on the meads, And offering to the sun's first ray Their dewy crystal beads ; And where the perfumed lilac swung, The thrush sang clear and sweet, And in the world there seemed no room For sorrow or deceit. The moss-rose nestling on the sill, Peeped at me through the pane ; I fancied that the linnet's trill Was "Welcome home again !" With this extiact we must close our brief review ; although we would gladly linger over the task, for it does not fall to our lot every day to welcome to the ranks of literature a volume that may be truly stamped with the crest of poetry, and whose author is destined to immortal fame as a pioneer bard, who hae sounded the new-strung lyre of the southern hemisphere in chords that are beautiful in their simplicity and their fidelity to nature.