The Poems of Henry Kendall | Page 6

was published towards the end of 1869. But though the volume showed a great advance in quality upon its predecessor,?it was a commercial failure, and the publisher lost ninety pounds over it.
In Melbourne, Kendall wrote prose, as well as satirical and serious verse, for most of the papers. The payment was small; in fact,?only a few newspapers then paid anything for verse. He made a little money by writing the words for a cantata, "Euterpe", sung at the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall in 1870. At the office of `The Colonial Monthly', edited by Marcus Clarke, he met the best of the Melbourne literati, and, though his reserved manner did not encourage intimacy, one of them -- George Gordon McCrae -- became a close and true friend. Lindsay Gordon, too, admired Kendall's poems, and learned to respect a man whose disposition was in some ways like his own.?`Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes' appeared in June, 1870, and Kendall received an advance copy and wrote a laudatory review for `The Australasian'. He and Gordon spent some hours?on the day of publication, discussing the book and poetry in general. Both were depressed by the apparent futility of literary effort in Australia, where nearly everyone was making haste to be rich. Next morning Gordon shot himself -- tired of life at thirty-seven! Kendall knew how Harpur's last long illness had been saddened by the knowledge that the public was utterly indifferent to his poems; he had seen the wreck of the once brilliant Deniehy;?and now the noble-hearted Gordon had given up the struggle.
To these depressing influences, and the hardships occasioned by a meagre and uncertain income, was added a new grief -- the loss of his first-born, Araluen, whose memory he enshrined years afterwards in a poem of pathetic tenderness. He returned to Sydney early in 1871, broken in health and spirit. The next two years were a time of tribulation, during which, as he said later on, he passed into the shadow, and emerged only through the devotion of his wife and the help of the brothers Fagan, timber merchants, of Brisbane Water. Kendall was the Fagans' guest at Narrara Creek, near Gosford, and afterwards filled a clerical position in the business?which one of the brothers established at Camden Haven.?There he spent seven tranquil years with his wife and family, and wrote the best of his poems. In some of these he said?all that need be said against himself, for he was always frankly critical of his conduct and work.
In his later years Kendall tasted some of the sweets of success. He wrote the words of the opening Cantata sung at?the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879, and won a prize of one hundred pounds offered by `The Sydney Morning Herald' for a poem on the Exhibition. His third collection -- `Songs from the Mountains' -- was published at Sydney in 1880, and realized a substantial profit. In 1881 Sir Henry Parkes made a position for him, an Inspectorship of State Forests at five hundred pounds a year. Kendall's experience in the timber business well fitted him for this, though his health was not equal to the exposure attendant on the work. He moved to Cundletown, on the Manning River, before receiving the appointment, and from that centre rode out on long tours of inspection.?During one of these he caught a chill; his lungs were affected, and rapid consumption followed. He went to Sydney for treatment and was joined by his wife at Mr. Fagan's house in Redfern, where he died in her arms on the 1st August, 1882.?He was buried at Waverley, overlooking the sea.
Kendall, it should be remembered, did not prepare a collected edition of his poems, and it will be noticed that in the present volume some lines and passages appear more than once. The student and lover of Kendall will be interested to see how these lines and passages were taken from his own previous work and turned to better account in later poems, and to note the gradual improvement of his style. In his last book, `Songs from the Mountains', there are fewer echoes; the touch is surer, and the imaginative level at his highest. The shining wonder is that, under the conditions of Australian life between 1860 and 1880, he should have written so much that is so good.
As our first sweet singer of "native woodnotes wild",?Kendall has an enduring place in the regard of all Australians; and his best work is known and admired wherever English poetry is read.
Bertram Stevens
{This is the transcription of the letter previously mentioned.}