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POEMS BY JENNINGS
CARMICHAEL.*
Of all who now in Australia are in the
habit of publishing verses, none is so generally
popular as Miss Jennings Carmichaei, whose
poems are here gathered in a pretty volume.
Nor is it hard to find the reason of this
general friendliness on the part of the Public,
for it is abundantly shown both in her gifts
and in her limitations. She never probes
deeply; her verses reveal no spirit wrestling
with inscrutable problems, those dark
mysteries of time and eternity that underlie
the passing of busy days and restful nights,,
Her work is sweet and true in its own round,
a narrow round no doubt, but in it lie
the subjects that the average reader!
of poetry finds most readily suggestive
of emotion. Minds of robust calibre, who joy
in Shelley and Browning, Wordsworth or
Burns, will find little to stir them in Miss
Carmichael's poetry. But those who love the
placid beauty of Mrs, Hemans or Adelaide
Proctor will meet with many a charm in this
volume. The former are few, the latter are
many; and the sweet, oft-times mildly
pathetic strains of simple affection, and of
the seasons' changes, with similar perennial
subjects, seem always to find a ready
audience.
But while it is true that Miss Carmichaei
is not too deep, nor too passionate, nor to
remote from human sympathies to be readily
and without an effort understood, she yet has
gifts of her own without which her popularity
would be impossible. These chiefly consist
in her power of dealing with two sets of
subjects, which are sufficiently fresh and original
to give the reader the impression of
a new sensation. These are subjects which
she has made peculiarly her own. The first
is charmingly poetical. It deals with the
Australian bush as seen in the tender light
of a loving memory that goes back to girlhood's
days, and amid the city's growl and
grime catches faint breaths of the gum forest
at evening, hears the magpies fluting their
tumultuous welcome to the dawn, or follows
in fancy every winding of the " old bush
road" as it passes round the clumps of
wattles, or over the creek where the bell-
birds haunt, or skirts the marsh where the
mosses grow in their redness, and the swan,
the bittern, and the curlew dwell. Out of
90 poems contained in this volume just one
third have this for either the theme or the
undercurrent of their thoughts, and on the
whole they are the most successful. In
stead of the vague woes and sentimental
yearnings of the conventional verse
maker, we have something taken from
life, which is worth reams ot fancy-spun
regrets. The early Gippsland home, its
circling forest and its living creatures, both
tame and shy, are seen through the mellowing
light of a wistful memory, and so the
hush is clothed with poetry.
The second class of subjects also owes its
charm to that vividness which accompanies
a study from the life. Miss Carmichaei has
had long experience in children's hospitals
and in sick nursing, and in seven of these
poems she gives pathetic utterance to the
thoughts suggested by sights of the little
folk in their sufferings. Many others dwell
upon child-life, though without reference to
sickness, and in these a quiet and
unambitious sort of success is attained. They are
verses such as are sure to touch the heart
of the average mother. They have little
strength in them -, they have no lines that
linger in the ear; no individuality which
causes them to stand boldly forth in our
recollection when we have finished the volume.
Nevertheless, in their sweetness, simplicity,
and manifest sincerity, they leave a pleasant
impression. Sometimes, as in the piece
called " Only Ted," even though the literary
execution is wanting in deftness and finish,
there is a snggestiveness which gives the
authoress no small claim to originality.
The remaining poems of the volume are
mainly melodious sighs and hopes, mystic
love experiences, and " great throbs of yearning
and farewell," in which the touch of a
lady's hand is most clearly visible. But
these, though they do not effectually enough
disentangle themselves from the conventional
have every sign of having actually
passed through a human heart and they are
generally expressed most musically
Wrapt in the influence that holds the earth,
I kneel in ecstasy too high for speech;
Infinite, vague, and yearning thoughts have birth,
Great longings for some good just out of reach."
Miss Carmichael's verses in their own
sphere are musical and true, healthful, and
of capacity to wake the finer emotions. No
other Australian has done what she has been
able to do in this volume, and in the fulness
of time she will no doubt have an honoured
position in our literature. Somewhat
unnecessarily—wholly so for Australian readers
—there is an " introduction " by Mr. J. F.'
Hogan, M.P. In these latitudes Mr. Hogan J
is not regarded as an authority on verse, not
withstanding his having been born in
Geelong and developed in Melbourne; but as the
poems were got up for issue in London it
was, no doubt, thought that a recommendation
from someone who has the House of
Commons as his standing address might not
he amiss on behalf of an Australian poetess,
as yet unknown to the English public, which
has had a good deal of Australian literature
(including some of Mr. Hogan's) brought
under its favourable notice during recent
years. Miss Carmichael's principal
admirers and largest body of constituents—we
are sure they are numerous—dwell where
the aroma of the eucalyptus is strong and
health-suggesting, and the bloom of the
wattle as bright as it is fragrant
* Poems by Jennings Carmichad (Mrs. Francis
Mullis). London :■ Longmans, Green, and Co.
Melbourne : Melville, Mullen, and Slade. 1895.
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