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Literature.

Our remark that New Zealand has not yet produced a poet, has been more questioned than anything else that has appeared in our pages; but we still hold that (if the ordinary usage of the word be accepted), it was perfectly correct. It is to a great extent a question of definition. We have seen a parallel discussion about the term « drunkard. » « Is a man who once gets drunk, a drunkard? » « Certainly not, » is the reply. « Then why have you to use the term habitual drunkard? A man who steals once is a thief—a man once drunk is a drunkard. » But we know very well that the term as commonly used, means much more than this; and few will acknowledge that the production of a few good verses, in a wilderness of prosy and imperfect rhymes, will constitute one a poet. Does the fact that a man has occasionally written rubbish in the form of poetry disqualify him? No—for nearly all great poets have done this in weak moments. It is by his general standard that a writer is popularly judged. If the greater part of his work is good, at times rising to high excellence, he is a poet, notwithstanding his faults; if, on the other sand, the larger proportion of his writings are poor and mediocre, an occasional gleam of genius will not redeem them. As yet only one real poem has found its inspiration in New Zealand life and surroundings, and the author belonged to the home country, where his days were ended. New Zealand has not yet produced—as New South Wales had done—a native poet.

That there are poetic aspirants enough, any weekly paper will prove, and for the Evening Post's prize for a jubilee poem, there were ninety competitors. There is always a want of spontaneity about verse so composed, and the present instance is no exception. The judge was Mr James Edward Fitzgerald, C.M.G., and his task of wading through some fifteen thousand lines of MS. verse—all on one subject—was not an enviable one. The Post publishes the three successful poems and some of the unsuccessful, and we certainly cannot understand on what principle the prize was awarded. By far the best is Mr Edward Tregear's, rated third. No. 2 is better than No. 1, which is an unrhymed rhapsody, in three different measures. This is a specimen of the alleged poetry:

And then the Great Scorner of Death, Defier of Tempest and Danger,
Son of Tangaroa himself, lo Cook comes from the Ocean!
Him must the Maori greet, and with food and friendship receive him;
For his is the loadstone of love, and his the dread death-dealing thunder.
Nor leaves he them unrecompensed—in the woods, lo, the root-grubbing porker,—
Goats on the steep-hanging cliffs, and the riwai in fruitful plantations.
Him shall the Raukawa know, and vast Aorangi, cloud dweller:
No more shall be heard their old names, but Cook's Strait and Mount Cook shall be told of.

Shade of Tupper! In the lowest depths of « Proverbial Philosophy » is there as low a deep as this?—This is the style of No. 2:

My own fair Isle!
Who on my birth didst sweetly smile;
Land of the mellow sky and wave-blown breeze
Of noble mountains, mirrored in soft seas,
And drest with loveliest verdure where the gush
Of sweet bird-music rings from bush to bush;
O brightest gem
Gracing Victoria's diadem
Thy sons, with sacred pride for thee,
Honor thy glorious Jubilee!
And every breast
Thrills with the thought of those who are at rest—
The noble Pioneers! Ay! shall it e'er be said
Your memory is revered, illustrious Dead—
Cook, Marsden, Wakefield!—you of deathless name,
To whose great deeds Zealandia owes her fame!

—These lines are by Mr Charles Umbers, Dunedin, a native of the colony, apparently. The concluding sentence is a little weak as regards construction; but Mr Umbers can certainly write verse of which he need not feel ashamed. But more regular in form, and far more poetic in its imagery than either of these, is Mr Tregear's production. We have only room for the second stanza:

What fairy wand, what magic spell shall waken
This Virgin slumbering in the southern foam?
Lo, from her eyes the veil of sleep is shaken:
Breaking the near horizon, hither roam
The ships which bear the Victors of the Sea.
Swift comes the foremost bark on western gales,
The bark, Dawn-named, in happy augury,
The daybreak of a nation in her sails!

We have seen nothing better in verse by any New Zealand writer than this poem of Mr Tregear's.—Our typographical friend, Mr John Ludford, just escaped a prize, being rated fourth. He may, however, console himself with the reflection that his work is a good deal better than that of No. 1.

A pretty regular contributor to the poets' corner of the Auckland papers recently has been the Rev. E. H. Gulliver. He is a minister of the Church of England, who gives lectures very much of the « freethought » stamp—a great denouncer of orthodoxy and of social abuses, but whose abilities are not apparently of the constructive order. Between the mere denouncer and the reformer there is a wide gulf, and we are not quite sure that Mr Gulliver can be placed in the second category. His verses are uneven in quality, and are mostly invectives against real or imaginary wrong. The following, entitled « Via Crucis, Via Lucis, » is one of his best efforts:

Forth from Jerusalem in the fading gloom
Faintly suffused with glow that told of day,
A man condemned stepped onward to his doom
Up the steep, rugged way

That led to Calvary. But few were there,
As passed the grim processional of death,
Soldiers, friends, foes, some curious, some in fear
Asking what happeneth.

What need to linger o'er the scene of woe?
'Tis painted on the canvas of the world
In pigments that may never lose their glow
Till Time's scroll all be furled.

He died as all must die whose lives are given
To the stern quest for Truth—who, pure and high,
Seek on this earth to find sonic path to heaven
Such in the effort die.

Poets, prophets, painters, ye whose raptured soul
Absorbs the godlike till it seems your own,
Before whose gaze ethereal visions roll,
Discerned by you alone;

Who hear majestic symphonies within,
Sweet as the fabled music of the spheres,
Potent to quell the rude discordant din,
That smites our duller ears;

A Calvary is yours, the bleeding feet
Must tread undaunted on their upward way,
Till thro' the gloom of martyrdom ye greet
The light of dawning day.

The reader will note a certain want of insight in these lines. Their pessimism is entirely foreign to the Christian ideal, and the poet is quite content to rest in the external aspect of physical pain and apparent failure, ignoring the recompense which always attends sincere work. He does not always choose the shadows, however, as the following pretty lines to his little daughter will show:

Through the window on the floor
Crept a sunbeam to and fro;
Little Muriel, trotting o'er,
Marked the sunbeam's trembling glow—
Sought, with hands outstretched in glee,
To catch the tiny ray of light,
But the sunbeam merrily
Laughed, and vanished out of sight.

Little Muriel, in your eyes
You have caught the sunbeam's light;
There, as in deep haunts, it lies—
Dancing, laughing, clear and bright.
Never may that sunny ray
From those dear eyes pass away.

Mr W. Skey, best known in his official capacity as public analyst, has issued a little volume of poems.

Mr H. Brett, an Auckland publisher, has issued an illustrated « Jubilee and Exhibition Chronicle » of 64 pages large folio, at the price of one shilling. It is somewhat disappointing—the engravings are rough, and much of the space is devoted to puffs of business houses. Among the numerous « Jubilee » and « Exhibition » publications, we have not seen one worth preserving. « The trail of the [advertising] serpent is over them all. » We are great believers in advertisements—in their proper place. When masked as news—or worse still, as editorial criticisms—they are an abomination.

The « Jubilee » supplement of the Taranaki Herald—eight pages—is quite original in style. It contains five rough but effective engravings of Taranaki scenery, in two of which the white symmetrical cone of Egmont figures like « Fusi-yama » in a Japanese drawing. The retrospective articles are written by a journalist who has had many years' experience in the colony, and has kept copious and methodical notes. There are several pieces of poetry, and for musical readers, a song with piano accompaniment. Then there is an original story « Our Jubilee, » —an imaginary trip to the old country, into which is ingeniously introduced a score or more of the little sketches which have for a long time been a feature of the Herald's letter from home.

Mr Rider Haggard has been accused of plagiarising some of the sensational incidents in « She » from Moore's « Epicurean » but the charge was one of imitation, not of actual transcription. According to Mr James Runciman, in the Newcastle Leader, he has now been guilty of the latter offence. Mr Runciman says:— « Mr Lang thinks Mr Haggard has a right to steal other men's work, since he does so adorn the things he cribs, and I am content to let Mr Lang have his own way. But, alas! when contributions are levied on one's own work, how one's notions are modified! I read about a certain 'magnificent description' which Mr Haggard achieved in 'Mr Meeson's Will,' and this 'magnificent,' 'superb,' 'appalling,' 'thrilling' description was mentioned in so many different places that I was tempted to get the book. Then I found that I had written the 'magnificent' description myself in the Pall Mall, and our gay and festive novelist had carted it bodily into his book three years after this humble pen first set it down. The festive one probably received some £50 for the fragment which endowed me with 90s. A few of us got the old Pall Mall (and the more by token we had to pay stiffly for the copy); we surveyed the deliciously cool annexation; we studied the adjectives of the 'Mutuals;' and then I broke out into a yell of laughter. If any of your readers want to know how the trick is done let them look up the long article, 'How the Ocean Liner was lost,' in the Pall Mall for the early part of March, 1886. »