An Anthology of Australian Verse | Page 6

newspaper had been in existence since 1846, and other periodicals sprang up in Melbourne which gave further scope to letters. `The Australasian' was established in 1854, and soon became the most important literary journal in Australia. Adam Lindsay Gordon, who had landed in Adelaide in the same year as Henry Kingsley -- 1853 -- published a little book of verse in 1864 at Mt. Gambier, S.A., and began to contribute verses to a Melbourne sporting paper in 1866. These were printed anonymously, and attracted some attention; but a collection of his ballads -- "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" -- brought very little praise and no profit. Marcus Clarke came to Melbourne in 1864, and soon afterwards began to write for `The Argus' and other papers. About the same time the presence of R. H. Horne, the distinguished author of "Orion", in Melbourne lent a lustre to that city,?which was for the time the literary centre of Australia.?Horne corresponded with Kendall, and contributed to a paper edited by Deniehy in Sydney -- `The Southern Cross' (1859-60). He was the presiding genius of the literary gatherings?at Dwight's book-shop in Melbourne, and no doubt exercised?a beneficial influence upon the writers around him.
In 1870, after a series of crushing disappointments, Gordon committed suicide. His dramatic end awakened sympathy and gave an additional interest to his writings. It was soon found that in the city and the bush many of his spirited racing ballads were well known. The virile, athletic tone of his verse, which taught
"How a man should uphold the sports of his land?And strike his best with a strong right hand
And take his strokes in return" --
and the practical philosophy, summed up in the well-known quatrain --
"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone;?Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own" --
appeal strongly to Australians. Gordon's work cannot be considered as peculiarly Australian in character; but much of it is concerned with the horse, and all of it is a-throb with the manly, reckless personality of the writer. Horses and horse-racing are especially interesting to Australians, the Swinburnian rush of Gordon's ballads charms their ear, and in many respects he embodies their ideal of a man.?There are few Australians who do not know some of his poems, even if they know no others, and his influence upon subsequent writers has been very great.
Brunton Stephens, who came to Queensland in 1866, wrote there a long poem called "Convict Once" which, when published in London in 1871, gained high praise from competent critics, and gave the author an academic reputation. A little book of humorous verses?issued in Melbourne in 1873 almost immediately became popular, and a later volume of "Miscellaneous Poems" (1880), containing some fine patriotic utterances as well as many in lighter vein,?established him as one of our chief singers.
The first important poem from New Zealand -- Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" -- was published in London in 1872. Domett spent thirty years in New Zealand. He wrote a good deal of verse before leaving England and after his return, but "Ranolf and Amohia" is the only poem showing traces?of Australian influence. It is a miscellany in verse rather than an epic, and contains some fine descriptions of New Zealand scenery.
The death of Kendall in Sydney in 1882 closed what may be regarded as the second literary period. He had published his finest work in "Songs from the Mountains" (1880), and had the satisfaction of knowing that it was a success, financially and otherwise. Kendall's audience is not so large as Gordon's, but it is a steadily growing one; and many readers who have been affected by his musical verse hold the ill-fated singer in more tender regard than any other. He lived at a time when Australians had not learned to think it possible that any good thing in art could come out of Australia,?and were too fully occupied with things of the market-place to concern themselves much about literature.
Several attempts have been made to maintain magazines and reviews in Sydney and Melbourne, but none of them could compete successfully with the imported English periodicals. `The Colonial Monthly', `The Melbourne Review', `The Sydney Quarterly', and `The Centennial Magazine' were the most important of these. They cost more to produce than their English models, and the fact that their contents were Australian was not sufficient in itself to obtain for them adequate support. Newspapers have played a far more important part in our literary world. `The Australasian', `Sydney Mail' and `Queenslander' have done a good deal to encourage local writers, but the most powerful influence has been that of `The Bulletin', started in Sydney in 1880. Its racy, irreverent tone and its humour are characteristically Australian, and through its columns the first realistic Australian verse of any importance -- the writings of Henry Lawson