Two Poets

New Zealand Tablet, 20 August 1908, Page 9

Two Poets

•Lane,. in his Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, tells -glowing stories, of. the .love-; of poetry-' that filled the hearts of that Semite people in the spacious days of,Haroon erßasheed and his successdrs. A thousand, ten, thousand, twenty thousand, even

thirty thousand, pieces of gold were given by the Khali f eh for a few verses — nay, for a single . happy couplet. Two Catholic poets that recently passed through one of the thousand gates' of death would have, ended their days in luxury, instead of a .very modest competency,, had they lived in the days t>f the ' poetry T loving Khalifehs. One of these -was. our old and Valued Friend, Andrew Orr, who passed out recently at ,Ballarat (Victoria); the other was Theodore O'Hara, whose Vleath is announced in the United States. Both were, like -Grey of the famous Elegy, men of one poem. They wrote other verses, but their name and fame hangs, in each' case/ upon the splendid inspiration of one grand lyric. Andrew Orr's,. enduring poem appeared many years ago in the Dublin Nation.. It is a song of heimweh (as the Germans call it)— of the home-longing of the Irish exile in Australia. We quote its opening stanza :— ' The sunny South is glowing in the glow of southern glory, - An . d the Southern Cross is waving o'er the freest of the free • Yet in vain, in vain my weary heart would try to hide the story I hat evermore Us, wandering back, dear native land, to thee". I lie heathy hills of Malazan, the Barm's translucent waters, Glenlearys shades of hazel and Agivy's winding- streams ; And Kathleen of the raven locks, the- flower of Erin's daughters— Lost heaven of wildering beauty! Thou art mine at least-in-dreams! t O, the green land, the old land, ' l ' ' - Far dearer than ' the' gold land, - With all its landscape glory and- unchanging summer skies; Let others seek jtheir pleasures , . - . In the chase_ of golden .treasures. . - Be mine a dream- of Erin and the light of Kathleen's eyes.''' Theodore O'Hara- was a" soldier as well as' poet— he wielded the power of the sword as well as of the pen. ' He fought through the Mexican war and stood, on its greatest battlefield beside the open grave in which were, laid,- in" foreign soil (he remains of great numbers of his comrades ina rms. Later on - the bones of the officers Were disinterred arid buried With' military honors among their kith and kin on American 1 soil! 'Theodore O'Hara wrote for the occasion The Bivouac of the Dead and recited it by the open graves of his old companions in arms me iin>l stanza runneth thus : ' TJ?* muffle d drum's sad roll has beat Ine soldiers last tattoo; N ° mo f e oosn s Life 's parade shall meet Ine br.ave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping ground I heir silent tents are spread. And Glory guards, with solemn round, Ihe bivouac of the dead.' Peace eternal to the departed; spirit of the two dead poets!