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

Authors and Books

page 139

Authors and Books.

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:

The Sowing of the Wind.

« ؟Who'll come a sowing, a sowing, a sowing?
؟Who'll come a sowing the merry west wind?
The snow-drift's going; the spring-tide's flowing;
The summer's before, and the winter behind. »
« Oh we'll go a sowing, a sowing, a sowing;
Care is a graybeard that died in the snow.
The fair river's flowing, with oars for the rowing;
Down stream's easy—back we'll never go. »
« ؟Who'll go a reaping, a reaping, a reaping?
The cyclone's whirling before and behind;
The sand-drifts are heaping, the fisher-folk weeping:
This is the crop of the merry west wind. »
« Our faces sadden; the sky is leaden;
The pulp was sweet, but bitter is the rind;
The earth is wooden; the lightnings redden;
Oh, we cannot face the harvest of the merry west wind! »

« A Vision, » though somewhat lacking in power, reminds us of Whittier's « Reformer. » It is the cry of one who feels the burden of human wrong. The « lion-hearted man » is represented as exhorting his fellows thus:

Your wisdom, turn it into good
For all men's sorrow, lest the vain
Self-centred phantom, Learning, should
Breed sickly worms within the brain.
Your treasure, see ye spare it not;
Undo the wrongs your fathers made;
Lest wealth be but the gangrene-spot
Of dying empire, dustward laid.

« Day Dreams » is a sweet and fanciful poem, perfect in its way. The following piece embodies a poetic thought, gracefully expressed, and is brief enough to quote in full:

Broken Branches.

As on the dark and northern pine
Down drop the feathery flakes of snow,
While the branches hold but feel them not,
Till the pile doth heavy and heavier grow;
And then—ah then, the branches break!—
So do the hours, the days, the years,
Fall with a soft and fairy touch
Till mourned with unavailing tears,
The fairest branches are swept away
From the tree of life —the desolate tree!
Never to spread and blossom again
Till a spring the world shall never see.

A little group of poems suggested by scenery in New South Wales — « Sydney, » « Leura Falls, » « Nellie's Glen, » and others, are all touched with the true poetic spirit. In the two little books which Miss Mackay has contributed to the literature of New Zealand there is much that is excellent, and of permanent value; and we think there is also the promise of better and maturer work in time to come.

In an American exchange of last March we read that the « Biblical Society » of London has in its possession a papyrus manuscript in the handwriting of the apostle Peter. Credat Judæus.

An American exchange reports that Mr Andrew Young, writer of the « Happy Land, » is now eighty years of age, and still mentally and physically vigorous. The item is out of date, as it is now nearly two years since the good old man was gathered to his fathers.

A letter of unusual interest in relation to the history of Thomas Chatterton came into the market lately. It opens up an altogether new circumstance in his career, and proves that he endeavored to impose « perhaps the oldest dramatic piece extant, wrote by one Rowley, a priest in Bristol, » upon Thomas Dodsley, the well-known bookseller and poetaster, before he ever addressed Walpole. This fact appears to be quite unknown to all his biographers. The letter is dated Bristol, Dec. 21, 1768, and is signed « D.B., » « to be left with Mr Thomas Chatterton. » In one of his letters already published he mentions that the reason he conceals his name is « lest my master should see my letters and think I neglected his business. »

Miss Rosa Mulholland, a popular Irish story-teller, and a contributor, long years ago, to the Cornhill and All the Year Round, was lately married to Mr Gilbert, the historian of Dublin.

Some years ago, two little sisters in the State of New York, Elaine and Dora Goodale, published a small volume of poems entitled « All Round the Year, » which attracted much notice on account of the excellence of the verse and maturity of thought displayed, the elder being only thirteen. They had begun verse-composition at five years of age. Their verses may still be seen in American magazines. The elder, Elaine, who is not long out of her teens, and holds the office of inspector of Indian schools in Dakota, was married on 18th June to Dr Charles Alexander Eastman, a full-blooded Sioux. The bridegroom, who graduated at Dartmouth, and took a course in medicine at Harvard, is described as a tall handsome man with a high intellectual forehead and smooth clear-cut bronzed features. He holds the position of government physician at Pine Ridge Agency.