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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

Poetry in New Zealand

Poetry in New Zealand

Sir: As I was meditating today upon your correspondence columns, the following verses fell into shape in my mind. They may be of interest to your readers:

I remember, I remember,
In my unregenerate teens
I wrote of mountain scenery,
Of buried kings and queens:
The verses on the whole were flat,
On crutches they did sprawl,
For woman, lovely woman,
Had no part in them at all.

But when I came to college
And a share of man’s estate
To a bonny black-eyed beauty
My soul did gravitate.
The rhymes came running heel-and-toe
As to the dinner-gong,
For woman, lovely woman,
Was the subject of my song.

A man may be a fool, I grant,
To dangle in despair
From a lady’s golden bangle
By a thread of silken hair;
But let him leave the jades, he’ll find
His dictionary no use,
For woman, lovely woman,
Is the mother of the Muse.

page 144

A few among the blessed Saints,
A very, very few,
Wrote real verse: they generally
Had better things to do.
But pious poets by the score
Clutter our local scene;
For woman, lovely woman,
They do not care a bean.

The lasses, I have heard it said,
Are serpents in disguise,
Yet they soothe our fractious intellects
With dreams of Paradise.
Though for our improprieties
In Purgatory we smart,
Yet woman, lovely woman,
Is the paragon of Art.

My blessing on you, G.H.D.,
And Mr Reid likewise,
Who look upon our errant youth
With trouble in your eyes:
I would not contradict you
From contrariness or spite,
But woman, lovely woman,
Is the reason why I write.

1954 (86)