nellibell49
G B BARTON ON HENRY KENDALL
Posted by nellibell49 on July 23, 2008
EXTRACTS FROM G B BARTONS LITERATURE IN NSW
1862. — POEMS AND SONGS. By Henry Kendall. Sydney, 8vo.,
144 pages.
This volume represents the highest point to which the poetic
genius of our country has yet attained. It consists almost
entirely of descriptive poems, or of poems in which the sentiment
is subordinate to the description. The author paints the scenery
of his native land with the hand of a master. He is superior to
Mr. Harpur in this style of poetry, both in the colouring of his
landscape, and in the melody of his verse. In the whole range
of English descriptive poetry, there is no writer to whom Mr.
Kendall can be said to bear the slightest resemblance. He is
essentially original in this respect. The music to which he has set
his impressions of Nature is invariably of a gloomy and despondent
tone. One would think he had been ” lost in the bush ” at an
early period of his life, and thus had learned to associate thoughts
of horror with the fairest scenes. No poet in the language, from
Chaucer to Tennyson, draws such dismal meanings from the
external world.
Mr. Kendall’s poems, however, are the production of true
genius. They have not yet met with the popularity they deserve —
perhaps they never will be “popular” — but there is ground to
believe that the author will, in time to come, take rank among the
poets of the age. It remains to be seen whether he is capable of writing in a more varied strain than he has hitherto done. Nearly
all his poems are of the same character ; nearly all are cast in
the same mould ; and this sameness, which extends to diction and
metre as well as to thought and feeling, is one of the gravest
objections that can be urged against them. Their author, however,
is young ; and greater experience, combined with a wider
culture, will no doubt extend his dominion over the minds of his
fellow men. The charge of obscurity is frequently urged against
his compositions, and, to some extent, with justice. He, like
Mr. Harpur, requires a cultivated class of readers.
The London Athenaeum has expressed a highly favourable
opinion of Mr. Kendall. After some prefatory remarks, it said : — ‘
Mr. Kendall has much to learn ; but he has received from nature much
of that strong poetic faculty and power which no amount of learning can
bestow. The spirit of nearly all the writings under our hand is dark and
sorrowful, but of their energy and vigour there can be little doubt. [Two of
Mr. Kendall's poems arc here extracted — "The River and the Hill" and "
Kiama."] The peculiar mark of Kendall’s genius — a wild, dark, Muller-like
power of landscape-painting — is less visible in these pieces than in the following
one [The poem " Fainting by the Way" is extracted.] Most readers who
examine the structure of these compositions will agree with us that a man
who can execute such work at the age of twenty, may hope, in his riper years
and experience, to be heard of again in the world of letters.”
The same journal, in its issue of the 17th February, 1866,
contained the following article on Mr. Kendall : — ”
Mr. Kendall, who has before sent us poems from which we have given
extracts in our columns, and who now sends us a bulky MS., accompanied by »
very sensible letter, has really legitimate claims to attention. ‘ In my spare
hours,’ he says, ‘ and whenever health and the choking troubles of a really
hard life have suffered me, I have written and written on ; and the accompanying
verses, alive, as they must be, with a certain intensity of feeling, and
naturally shadowed with a remarkable gloom, are at least the genuine results,
or some of them.’ He adds, that he is very anxious for the existence and recognition of an indigenous native Literature, and suggests that we
106
recognition of an indigenous native Literature, and suggests that we should
devote an article to the subject. This we should be prepared to do, were the
materials at our command sufficient for the purpose ; but with only Mr.
Moore’s volume, Mr. Kendall’s manuscript, and a few poor extracts from the
poems of Mr. Charles Harpur, we can form no clear idea of what Australian
poetry is, or is likely to become. Concerning Mr. Kendall’s personal work,
however, we can speak hopefully. The manuscript he has sent us contains,
among much that is poor and imitative, a certain portion that is very good
indeed — so good, that we believe a careful study of indigenous subjects may
lift th* writer to a very high place among colonial poets. ‘ Elijah’ and ‘
Rizpah’ — two allegorical poems about America — are such as anybody might
have written, and as few people would find it worth their trouble to write ;
possessing only one noticeable feature — the carefully chosen use of scriptural
phrases. None of the meditative pieces rise above common-place ; but the
two poems on indigenous subjects are full of strength and vigour. Nothing,
indeed, could be better than this song. [The " Song of the Cattle Hunters"
is here quoted.] ”
Excellent in another way is ‘ Ghost Glen,’ a poem which, once read,
must linger on the memory in its weird horror. [The poem is here quoted,
and the article concludes with the following :] ”
If Mr. Kendall continues to exert his faculty as successfully as he has
done in these two pieces, England as well as Australia will gladly recognise his
place as a singer. He has both disadvantages and advantages in his distant
sphere, but the latter preponderate. He occupies virgin soil — stands in the
midst of a society whose characteristics have never yet been mirrored in song ;
while English writers are throwing up their pens yearly, because they can
assimilate nothing new. Let him seek in the great life around him those
human forms of humour, pathos, and beauty, which, touched by the gifted
hand, cannot fail to win the hearts of the public ; and let him use his local
colouring — a precious treasure — to illustrate truths which are universal. It is
impossible, of course, to say how he would succeed in the profounder labour of
dramatic insight — such faculty as he shews in the poems before us being
distinctively a lyrical faculty ; but that he has gifts there can be no question ;
and his communication to us is so modest and sensible, that we are assured
he will put these gifts to the best use, ^ave his imitative efforts behind, and
strike out in the path which he is most suited to explore.”
Mr. Kendall was born in 1842, and is a native of the Colony. 1864. — SPBING-LIFE LYRICS. By J. S. Moore. Sydney. 8vo.,
107
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