Satire and Song

The Wayzgoose. By Roy Campbell. (Cape. 5s.) Lost Address. By Chard Powers Smith. (Senn. 60.)

Under the Tree. By Elizabeth Madox Roberts. (Cape. 3s. 6d.) Seven Baskets of Prose Poems. By Puma Singh. Foreword

by Gwendoline Goodwin. - (Kegan Paul. 5s.)

POETRY at the present day tends to express only the amiable emotions and to avoid the temper, the quick and nervous steel of wit. Discontent with contemporary life is to be found in chapter rather than in couplet. The angry reformer writes a social novel, the scornful critic polishes a biographical essay. One welcomes The Wayrgoose as a stimulating surprise, for this South African verse satire is written in a really robustious 'arid royal rage. Mr. Roy Campbell's first book, The Flaming Terrapin, showed a rich, lucky, and tumultuous imagination that led one to expect more tropical work ; but expectation, for the time being, has turned turtle. The " Wayzgoose," as we learn, is an annual gathering of South African journalists, authors and artists, quite harmless, sociable, and combining the functions of a bun-fight, an Eisteddfod and an Olympic contest." Mr. Campbell works poetic havoc among the sand- wiches and picnic delights of his gregarious fellow-countrymen. Ile shows a merry mock-heroic spirit in his allegoric onslaught upon the humble and unsuspecting delegates of Dulness. Ile writes in Augustan couplets, for none has stayed to find a later weapon of poetic satire, but his best management of the Classic line is rather diluvian :-

"What's that within your hands that the Pen, Once sharp and once the implement of Men- • Was this, ye gods, the dainty Whistler's foil • When he from Ruskin let a tun of oil

And like a swordfish found a whale astreak- - Deep through the yielding blubber shot his beak Was this the huge harpoen that Marvell bore To fish the corpse of Holland to the shore 1" Throughout the poem, despite its vehemence and vigour, one cannot help noticing how often Mr. Campbell takes a

slang phrase or mere journalese as the rough material of his epigrams. The fact is Plain that his own imagination is too large in the wing to rise easily from the flat earth. Wit springs from a lesser fancy. One admires, however, the gasconade, the boyish and enthusiastic vindication of the poet :—

" Along the sounding thoroughfares of time He swaggers in the clashing spurs of rhyme."

Plomer, shares with Mr. Campbell the same young spleen against South African complacencies. His satires are less

ample but more pointed, for he has a quick, modern fancy.

But hire Mr. Campbell he is ingenuous enough to mistake a pun for an epigram. After such public and poetic differences, one likes again the pleasant privacy of English song. In his new poems, Mr. Richard Church co-ordinates finely the mental and spiritual

phases of emotional experience. He can express a migrant peace in a lovely image :— "We've outlived passion-and calm thoughts pursue Still softer, sweeter moods, as swallows haunt Their own reflections when the day grows gaunt And hollow over water," but the last casuistr7 of thought lures him. "The Rebellion" deals with a woman's struggle between conscience and pas- sionate escape. In " Salt " the primaeval instincts below the mind are probed in strange images. "The Search" is a remarkable poem: here is storm, tragic passage of heart and lyrical words that move as with several voices. Mr. Cecil Day Lewis, on the other hand, expresses the disillusion of first and frustrate love, the painful disruption of romantic vision by reality. His lines catch sadly at times the lilt of remem- bered happiness that was illusive :— " My love is a fine house

Wherein are flowers and kettles, Buccaneers holding carouse Cradles, and persons of quality Dancing a minuet sedately : I will so ring her round With coloured love, singing love, She will not notice even the sound Death makes upon the casement."

As yet he is unequal and the green fuel of his imagination yields as much smoke as flame. Contented with evening and a bird note or two, Mr. Frank Davey completes the little round of his brief and pleasant lyrics. Miss Jean Smith works in mom original material. She has a curious awareness of early English mysticism, and her poems have an unusual spondaic move-

ment :—

"now the wan-skied, The broad slow river through his grey- reeds pressing Eddies not, whispers not, the reeds bow stilly, The hollow ruses where they bowed all night,

This way-and that, down dips the stream-dragged lily—

Her long, her serpent roots the wan light fingers,

The quiet morning through green water slipping,

Clear light the world enfolds, nor hastes, nor lingers."

"Paschal New Moon in March" is a strange poem ; but, indeed, the whole book deserves attention. There is an incomplete and exotic strain in Lord Lymington's poems, but the long " Anaclysm " has lyrical speecl and shows an interesting mythopoeic quality. Only the turn of an odd word betrays the fact that both Mr. Chard Powers Smith and Miss Madox Roberts are American poets. Mr. Smith is unusually versatile, but his rough-and-ready ballads are better than his lyrics. He can write :— " And the sun comes up like a sizzling fact."

That is unfortunate, for memory is wilful and a bad line sticks in mind when many a fair phrase has gone. Miss Roberts's poems of childhood are a delight. Many writers are merely foolish when they lisp in numbers, but a wonderful instinct has guided Miss Roberts.

Eastern mysticism evades the unprepared Western mind. Puma Singh is the poet of the Punjab, and in reading his poems one moves and seems to share in the brightness of an