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The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864-1933) (about)
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Cite: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3491048
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AUSTRALIAN POETS.
(Daily News.)
Australia is said to possess no native song birds, but she has as many poets as Pem- broke College in the days of Dr. Johnson. " We were a nest of singing birds, sir," said the doctor, and Mr. Douglas Sladen, who has just published a portly volume of "Australian Poets," might say as much for the colony (Griffih and Farran). We are apt to think of Australia os a severely practioal continent, full of sheep shearn s, gold-miners, mechanics, fumas, and ?shepherd swains veiy unlike him who " watched the visionary Hucks, " that old world morn in Stciij,' to combiue the information of Mrs Browning and of Mr Matthew Arnold But Mr bidden has discovered a century of poets,-a cool h nu di ed of them,-in Australia, or m some Way connected with Australia Yet the colonists are practical people. An Austra lian reviewei once introduced a Buttah bard to the notice of the antipodes with the remark that a kmsmau of the sing r Was associated with the "celebrated Lani Merinos ' ¡Sheep hrst, song afterwards, is, on the whole, the motto, something like the saying attributed to luchiid ill when he stabbed Henrj VI befoie smotheiing the babes m the tower Is Au&trali.i likely to become the home of the English muse, who, m Eugland, has long been remarkable rather for the quantity than the quality of her effusions Ï Whenever a country has a gieat puetiy, critics easily prove that it must be so on ac- count of the climate, the soil, and the character of the scenery But it is less easy to prophesy beforehand Australia, ac cording to Mr. »laden, has " one of those delightful Climates conducive to rest in the open air" Ibis has a hopeful sound Ihe Bhepherds of Iheocntus usually do their minstrelsy while resting m the open au, beneath the pine tiee, beside the iountain or the .Nymphs Un the other hand, long- land has hau plenty of poets, and nobody can call the Jiuglish climate delightful in Australia " the atmosphere is elly cham pague ' If atmospheric champagne produces miuiatrelsy, this colony should rival " all the angels singing out of heaven ' But the British climate is less like dry champ igne than like the beverage known to some in oui lana as " heavy wet ' lu fact, Australian and english conditions of climate ate the reveise ot e ich othei In both countries, however, the Hard is thought of as "a pool poet of a fellow," to use the Irish expiession, as " a soft headed one, ' to steal a phrase
from the Zulus
Mr Henry Kendall is regarded as quite the greatest Australitn poet, especially it we do not reckon Adam Lindsay Gordon, who was of English (oi ¡scotch) buth We aie informed, however, that ' Remy Keudall, apart Irom his gemus foi wutiug Jyiicol verse, was what the Scotch call a ' ícckless' person " Poets oí ten are. Mi Kendall was accustomed to weep like anything when he read his own verses aloud If conscious of this weak- ness (which he used to exhibit m the ofhce of the Sydney Punch), Mr Kendall would have done wisely in abstaining from elocution His extraction <*ave promise ot extreme sensibility He VMS a twin, and his mother was "a lady of lush extraction named Melinda M' \ Uty," who married Keudall pète on one day's acquaintance Mr Henry Kendall began his cateer, like Sir Walter Scott, in a lawyer s olhce But Sir Walters chief was not a poet, and Mr Kendall s Wds. A lawyer and a lawyei s clerk, both of them poets, could haidly be prosperous or the cause of prosperity m othei s His life was, not unnaturally, one of struggle and sotrov/, for he was a most sensitive and unpractical man, with no gift but that of minstrelsy Bis poems, it seems, aie now household words m the land of his birth It is not easy for a distant critic to estimate their value For example, take this one brick from the building
Softer than seasons of sleep ;
Dearer than life at its best Give ber a ballad to keep,
Wove of the passionate West. Give it and say of the hours
" Haunted and hallowed of theo, Flowor-liko woman of flowers,
What shall the ond of them be?"
What, indeed 1 But surely wo may say that, whatever the poet's meaning, his manner is a mauner learned from Mr. Swinburne. Indeed, Mr. Swinburne has been the bane of antipodean poets. Their lines are often the very false gallop of verse, for who can keep pace and stride with the Swinburnian anapiests? Even Gordon, who was a poet in his way, and, as it were a Border ballad minstrel born out of due time-even Adam Gordon was lost "in a false following" of Mr. Swinburne. Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning the Australians imitate but rarely, if at all. Mr. Bret Harte is a more frequent model. It would be very unfair to let it be thought that Mr. Kendall was always only a mocking-bird. When he wrote of Australian scenes and manners he wrote very well. His poem on the Australian months, those converse seasons, is charming, full of pictures, and music. Here again is a telling description of an Australian drought
Where tho Barwau cuts a rotten land Or lies unshaken liko a great blind creek,
Between hot mouldering banks, it came to this, All in a time of hot and thirsty sighs,
That thirty rainless months had left the pools And grass as dry as ashes.
It is natural to regret Mr. Kendall, and the difficulties which beset a weak nature, a delicate talent like his, a nature and a talent unsupported by complete education and un fostered by sympathy. The Australian ;ritic says that " no English poet has ap- peared since 1860 who is Kendall's superior, Rossetti and Swinburne, and Arnold and Morris are indulgently treated if, in defe renee to the enthusiasm of their admirers, w« allow them an equal measure of poetic feeling with Henry Kendall."
This is the way in which countrymen of a new country are apt to write. Nobody can tell how much poetic feeling any one has, but it is easy to tell whether he exprei-ses it more or less perfectly. To compare the per- formances of Mr. Kendall with those of Mr. Matthew Arnold is futile. The two poets are not comparable. Doubtless a danger for Australian poetry lies in this direction. The Australians must beware of patriotic over- estimates. They must beware of toogreatand too empty fluency. No human minti can Eoresee the future of the great island, whether she is to be an historic home of United Empire or a federation of friendly States, or whether she will break into as many nations as Greece had city republics. The future of her political life must more or less control the future of her poetry. With the examples of American literature before us we can hardly venture to predict for Australia a sudden apparition of great poets. The colonies of Greece, for some reason not easy to explain, were never fruitful in Bingera of the highest rank, despite all their advantages of scenery, climate, prosperity, and freedom. Is what occurred on that tiny scale, in a corner of Europe, to happen on the large scale of the round world ? Are the ancient lands to be the chief lands of song 1 These are all quite unanswerable questions. In the meantime it is enough that the love of poetry, that patriotic spirit, that energy, ardour, and sentiment abound in Australian Dterature. Any day the colony may give us
a successor to Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning. We can live in hope.