LAND & WATER 
Life and Letters 
By J. C. Squire 
LAST week Mr. K. B. Osbom observeU iliat the^var- 
poetiy produced by civilians at home is most 'of it 
not worth reading. The criticism was just : but 
tliere are exceptionsHo tlie rule, and Jliey are mostly 
to be found on the outskirts of literature. 
• «•'•-;' ^' • * • 
I would direct liis attention, Tor in.stance, to a volume 
published at Cardiff and entitled, with almost startling apt- 
ness,' Bosch. ■ The' author, in his preface, states that : 
the prevailing anti-Him feeling hit me so hard, that I simply 
had to do something. — or burst ! I did something. This is it. 
— which is, at any rate, modester than the announcement of 
the New Zealand bard who said that he had published his 
poems in order " to confer i\\e greatest happiness upon the 
greatest number." It may ^^e'that some of the (ientltMuan's 
readers will think that he ha'd done better to take the alter- 
native course, and burst. But the done cannot; be undone. 
and at least one person is glad of it. Tlje poems in Boscli live 
up to the preface: the author's finest- feat perhaps is his 
rhyming of " sossidge " and Vossische.. Then,. again, there 
is Tlw Chronicles of Man, by Mr. C. FiUingham Coxwell 
(Watts and Co., 6s. net), an epic of seven, hundred pages, 
which begins with "Man's- origin' I ,sing," and ends 
with the bombardment of tlie l")ardanelles. All human 
histor\' is summarised by this remarkable man : and 
the treatment of the battles in the present ' war suggests 
that he had 'a hie of L.\ni) & \V.\tkr before him as he 
wrote. The lordly progress of his narrative may be illustrated 
by a passage from the desciipti(m of the struggle in Poland : 
'"' " ■ ■ " ' , Hvil overtakes 
Once more the hardy. Rtfssanigh Maznria's lakes ; 
Still, lightlv falls the los.s on one who can retreat 
To nigli a wildernes.s. more easily there meet 
And conquer enemies. ... 
So gay lives Warsaw, proud, nor falls a prey, to, fear 
If foes to cross the Rawka, /Bzura, hurrj- near,*'^ , 
\\'hilc Vistula well wots, at }taad an army lies 
Of brave' Siberians, Cossacks, guards of giant size : 
Even Przemysl is woven into his couplets : though, for 
once, he lets his discretion get the better of his valour and 
spells it " Pennysl." And yet another work that posterity 
sliould not willingly let die is Rationalistic and Other Poenvi 
by Peshoton Sorabji-Goolbai-fhrbash, D.Sc, F.S.P., Phil. B., 
l-.R.S.A.. M.N'.lC:C.r., r.B:i:'S-.-, I'.P.C. (Lond'.), etc. -It is 
pubhshed, at 3s. n?t,4)y the British Bardic Brotherhood, of 
1)9, Upper Bedford Place, W.C. I do not know what the 
Bardic Brotherhood is; but I should very much like to see 
it, in the flesh. 
* « ♦ ■ » * 
Mr. Dubash, on whose degrees and diplomas tlic.sun never 
;ets, is an Indian. Most Indian authors in these days write 
rather better English th;ui,MHe{jte. : Sir Kabindranath Tagore's 
prose is immaculate, almost too immaculate ; and Mrs. 
Naidu's verse might be written by a lady who jiad never 
spoken a word of anything but. English in her life.' The 
collector of eccentric, verse should not miss Cowasjee's flowery 
?pic on the Prince Consort, or that other panegyric on the 
British Raj which begins : 
In ancient days ere Britons ruled our Ind 
Ko man but mocked at fai4:h, at honour grinned : 
But no%\» benignant Briti.sh banners have swiftly brought 
Security of life and pelf and freedom of tho\ight. 
But these arc things of tl^ie past, and it is now unusual to 
strike an. Indian fellow-subject who has sudi revolutionary 
ideas about our prosody and syntax as Mr. 1 Dubash. He is a 
scientific man : his ideals are lofty : liis poUtical and educational 
notions very sensible ; and his sentiments towards us and all 
mankind most generous. His form, however, is not as 
orthodox as Ins matter. Here, for example, is the end of an 
extremely loyal Ballade : . 
Wide India's sons impetuous 
To give their wealth*with dignity. 
And shed tlieir blood so precious 
Now prove all British unity. 
At home men pour in dutifully 
From Colonies and India vast, 
And so with rightful hberty 
With British rule eternal last. 
• Envoi. 
. King Emperor, behold tlicir blood 
Of your true Itast, O. mu.se, avast ! 
Be sure with rightful liberty 
Shall British rule eternal last. 
But it would be giving a false imprt-ssRui il one left it to b 
understood that .Mr. Dubash is mainly preoccupied with the 
war; and a few quotations' from his other poems will'illus' 
tratc this. ' < ' , .,^ 
» • « ♦ , i'' 
■* - ' " ^ ■ ' ^' 
Hera is the first verse of a soi\g, Whiok expresses at wice 
the itoiviersality and the intensity of th*' maternal instinct. 
Onendiom in it reminds one of the distressed peasant whose 
letter is given in Mr. Lucas's The Gentlest Art, and who said 
he had a. "'large family, consisting of liye female women 
and three mascuhne, the last of whictoare still taking milk 
from mother's chest, .and are' damn?ft)le n6isefi\l throng 
pulmonary' catastrophe in their interior abdomen": 
Of friends, relation.s'.allf ^ 
A mother loves > the 'best. 
At cWld-birth's painful call 
It's life is in herlbrea.st. 
At baby's rhymole.ss squall . 
She takes it to">h'er^chest '-- 
, Of "friends, relations all. 
A mother loves theb('>i 
In a sonnet, alliterative * to . 'a; degree,, that puts Swinburne 
in the shade, he expounds the power of Mfisic : 
Just gently joyous and so softly swoot, 
Magnetic music makes men's mental meals 
The heart hurt highly hcalthilv it heals. 
To troublous times a tender timely treat. 
Its operations, howevcj, are not all so lii^nelicent : 
.^hough harmless yet not innocent art Thou. 
; ^^TTh'ou goadest gourmands greedily "to glut, ' 
The lolling lazy loungingly to live. . . . 
Ehewiierc he probes somewhat deeper into music, modilnlinr; 
f)n tliC'wondeiB of the human senses ;"*'• 
All different dings' discordant dins that drum 
'In ears, or measured music's healing hum. 
Although they all vibrate in -selfsame ear, 
It can discern at moment's notice cld^rr" 
'Agreeable smell or some repulsive stink. 
How does the nose di.scern, we cannot think. 
And this philosophic tendency is stitt more marked fn a 
poeni which traces thcu^ourse of^Evolution: from the be- 
ginning. The first stages are described {xs follows : 
O, 
In 
Naught 
Hccn 
Aught. 
From aught 
So small 
Came mucli 
And all. 
But at this 
The slow growth 
Did not cease. 
But brought forth -,..,. 
Of this some more 
And more of that 
With growth encore, • 
Nor here stopped flat 
But still more create 
And without a stop. 
Hence the' world so great 
JJid thus develop. 
It seems likely thatin the first stanzas the poet rs'attcmptinS 
a realistic treatment of Primeval Chaos. .^t any rate, it 
must, have been something like that, and when an artist 
succeeds, one' ought not. to inquire too- closely into his 
intentions. T'ftbservc that I have got away from the war. 
But that, occasionally, is a good thing to do. As 
Mr, Dubash himself says, in his poem on " Good Humour^' : 
'I'lie quality, 
Possess wc sliould 
Is jolity .J 
Or hiimour good. 
Without this gift 
' This life is .sad. 
For it can lift 
Some burden bad 
"Since it is'a journalistic crime to end an article' .witli a 
•ijlij&tation in small type I add this sentence. 
