Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

[section]

Lovers of simple and graceful verse will welcome a new volume by Miss Jessie Mackay, « The Sitter on the Rail, and other Poems » (Christchurch, Simpson and Williams) which has just appeared. The title-piece is not by any means the best thing in the collection—a satirical essay occupying several pages must be pretty forcible for the interest to be sustained. The phrase is used in a somewhat unfamiliar sense, the character delineated being that of a critic of the nil admirari stamp, who deems no cause worth upholding, and who can find no merit in the work of living men:

When the trembling Arts and Sciences are weighted in the scale,
Oh a Daniel come to judgment is the Sitter on the Rail!
Long's marble steps are stearine; and Leighton he eschews;
And Birket Foster's meadow-greens have given him the blues.

It is in ballad-work—a class of writing in which greater poets have failed—that Miss Mackay is at her best. Of this the fine poem « Skylla » in her first volume is a good example; and there are admirable specimens in the little book before us. « The Wraith of Egfrith Ranaldsen » reads like a translation from an old Norse saga, it is so perfect in form, and so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the old northern literature. The two native subjects, « Rangi and Papa, » and « The Prophecy of Airini » are also excellent. « The Miracle of Binnorie » is a quaint Scottish ballad. In accenting the proper name on the second syllable, the author is, we suppose, correct, though, to an English reader, it sounds unfamiliar. Shakspeare mis-accented « Dunsinane, » and Wordsworth may have made a similar error. « Maisrie » is another Scottish ballad, plaintive and pathetic. « Little Sister » is a gem—one of the most perfectly-finished pieces that the author has given us. Miss Mackay writes as one who regards poetry not as a recreation but as a calling, and once and again she speaks as one who has a message to deliver. We have no intention of criticising her philosophy, but may remark that she seems fond of placing in strong contrast the high ideals and bright hopes of youth and the disillusionments and disappointments of age. Without speaking from any patriarchial experience, we think that much might be said on the other side. Youth is not always inspired by lofty hopes and aspirations; and age is not necessarily melancholy. We have already noted the author's command of varied measures, and her excellent judgment in their use. Two of the pieces in the present collection, « Goes the world cheerily, » and « The Baptism of Pire, » are in about as difficult metre as English verse can be written; and an occasional defective line is the result. One little piece, « The Sowing of the Wind, » we quote in full, as an illustration both of Miss Mackay's ballad-style, and of the serious purpose that underlies her work: