Voices From Summerland
An Anthology Of Jamaican Poetry
Editor believed to be J. E. Clare McFarlane.
(N.B. He ran the Jamaican branch of the Empire Poetry League into the 1950's
Published by: Fowler Wright Ltd., London
MDCCCCXXI
- "But thou, O Beauty, art a pledg
That there is purpose in thy mould;
That yet beyond th' horizon's edg
A Summerland that grows not old
Nor yields to Winter's dread embrac
It's heritage of green and gold
And thou shalt grow from grace to grace
Immortal in thy native place.
EDITOR'S NOTE
THIS Anthology, representative of Jamaica's best thought for a generation and more, is the fruit of the aspiration of many years. That it has been realised is largely due to the enthusiastic co-operation of the authors themselves and to the generous support of the few among us who recognise the spiritual value of a venture of this kind. To these we desire to express our deep gratitude.
Whatever may be the ultimate value that Time places upon the creations here enshrined, this will remain a proud moment in the lives of those of us who have essayed to lead the way, however haltingly, toward that consciousness of ideal beauty which we pray our country may one day achieve.
The biographical notes which appear at the end of the volume, have been confined, for obvious reasons, to deceased writers and to such as have been absent from the Island for a number of years.
INTRODUCTION
OUR early literature is purely Teutonic; so, no doubt, were our early ancestors, Saxons and Angles. They must at first have felt that they were cut off from their native land with its culture, literary, musical and artistic, and often turned longing eyes towards the south-east. This longing would express itself, as does the exile's ever, in a profound cherishing of the tradition of all their pristine arts, and of these, literature not least. Indeed, we have ample evidence to prove that it was so. Is not Beowulf one of the oldest as well as one of the finest of old Teutonic epics, comparable at times in its rude grandeur to Homer and possessing at others an eerie melancholy power, surging like a sea in our ears, which is unknown to Iliad or Odyssey?
What has this to do with southern 'Summerland'? Just this: history has repeated itself. Once more our restless sea-borne race has explored the wine-dark ocean and founded new homes for its children over not one but many seas. And of its ever loyal cherishing of our English poetic traditions this volume is the proof.
She is old, Mother England, and at times forgetful. She remembers her dominions as they were in earlier days, crude but lusty, fighting at first for existence and then for growth, and forgets that they are now grown-up. There is a period in the history of a land as of an individual, when the struggle for sheer growth and internal harmony is too severe to permit of attention being spared for activities less essential to existence. It was so once with all of England's now strong and independent dominions; it was so once with Jamaica. But that critical period is now safely past. Although she does not realise it, Mother England's child is now grown-up. In common with human mothers, her children are to her always children, until they, by some notable achievement, force her to realise that they are such no longer. When that occurs to a human mother, she has for consolation pride in her offspring's achievement. It is time that we in England took a more serious interest in the poetry of our own tongue that is being written beyond our island bounds. And so we, too, shall have cause for pride.
DAVID M. MITCHELL
CONTENTS
H. C. BENNET
THE SOJOURNER
OF LOVE
MUTHOS
H. S. BUNBURY
JAMAICA
EARTH'S SOUL RELEASE
THE LARK
THE VOICE OF THE LAR
SENTINELS OF EMPIRE
BETWEEN TWO SILENCES
THE SPELL OF THE TROPIC
IRREVOCABLE
THE WEST INDIES
THE STAR OF FAITH
A BREATH
ASTLEY CLERK
SOMEDAY
THE LADY OF THE BIRD
THE QUEEN MOTHER
RAIN SEED
INSPIRATION
ISLETS MID SILVER SEA
H. GILLIES CLERK
IF I HAD YOU
ODE TO THE JAMAICA MOCKING BIRD
A SUMMER IDYLL
CONSTANCE HOLLAR
VOS SALUTO
THE CAGED MONGOOSE
SONGS
THE TREE OF SILENCE
PURPLE GRAPES
WIDE SPACES
FLAMING JUNE
THE CUP OF LIFE
ALBINIA CATHERINE HUTTON
THE WIND-STEEDS
DUSK DREAMS
THE EMPIRE'S FLAG
THE MONK'S SONG
POET SONG
UP AMONG THE MOUNTAIN PASSES
SIR GALAHAD AND SIR PERCIVALE'S SISTER
M. HOPE-KELLY
'R. I. P'
SWEPT AND GARNISHED
THE TYRANT
THE DIVINE PURPOSE
THE FACE IN THE MOON
DEDICATION
LENA KENT
HYMN TO NIGHT
THE HILLS OF ST ANDREW
BY AND BY
SONG
TRYST
VIOLETS
AT THE GATE ALONE
CYRIL N. KING
IN MY GARDEN
J. E. CLARE McFARLANE
DAWN
MY COUNTRY
THE FLEET OF THE EMPIRE
PORT ROYAL
THE WORLD IS IN ITS MAY
HEART AND SOUL
TO-DAY IS BUT AS YESTERDAY
BEAUTY
CLAUDE McKAY
ON BROADWAY
FLAME-HEART
AMERICA
THROUGH AGONY
ROMANCE
BAPTISM
I SHALL RETURN
THE SPANISH NEEDLE
WILLIAM MORRISON
ODE FOR ST ANDREW'S DAY
THE LAST GOOD-BYE
ARABEL MOULTON-BARRETT
THE GIFT
THE LOST MATE
IN THE SILENCE
HERE'S TIME O' DAY
DECEMBER DAYS
KINGSTON BUTTERCUPS
C. MCKENZIE MUIR
THE TRUE HOME
PHYLLIS MAY MYERS
SPEAK, BELOVED
FOR AYE
TRYST
BECAUSE I LOVE
A MEMORY
ARTHUR E. NICHOLAS
ARCADIA
MY LUTE
SEPTEMBER
THE GIFT
ODE ON THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP NUTTALL
THE JAMAICA CONTINGENT
EVA NICHOLAS
THE GHOST
A COUNTRY IDYL
HERALDS OF THE MORNING
NELLIE OLSON
CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN
JUST FOR PURE LOVE OF IT
LIKE JOHN TO-WHIT
THE BANJO-MAN
M. M. ORMSBY
PRUE
THE DAY'S SECRET
WHAT IS LOVE ?
THE PATH OF GLORY
N. EILEEN ORMSBY
THE HILLS AT SUNRISE
UNREST
UPLIFT
STEPHANIE ORMSBY
THE CARIBBEAN
KINGSTON BUTTERCUPS
DESIRE
LOVE ASLEEP
THE POEM
THE POET
JOHN RADCLIFFE
INQUIRENDUM
TOM REDCAM
MY BEAUTIFUL HOME
SAN GLORIA
THOU HAST DONE WELL
'NOW THE LIGNUM VITAE BLOWS'
A LEGIONARY OF LIFE
ORANGE VALLEY, ST ANN
'O, LITTLE GREEN ISLAND FAR OVER THE SEA'
IN LOVE WITH LIFE
WALTER ADOLPH ROBERTS
ISLAND OF DREAMS
FOR POETS SLAIN IN WAR
VILLANELLE OF THE LIVING PA
THE CAT
PEACOCKS
'TROPICA'
BUSHA'S SONG
TWILIGHT ON LIGUANEA PLAIN
THE SCARLET HIBISCUS
THE HOMES OF JAMAICA
TO THE JAMAICA ROBIN
THE GREEN, BLUE AND GOLD
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HENRY SHIRLEY BUNBURY (1843-1920). Born at Waterford, Ireland, 24th April, 1843, son of James Hamilton Bunbury, a landowner, and Anna, daughter of Lt. General Kettlewell; educated at Magdalen College School and King's College, London University. Entered the English Civil Service in which he held various appointments, finally retiring in 1903 as Assessor and Surveyor of Taxes in Stirling, Scotland
Mr. Bunbury after his retirement bought lands in the Canadian Colony at Bartle in the province of Oriente, Cuba, and lived there for some time. His literary gifts brought him under the notice of the Palma administration with the result that he was appointed to the post of Supervisor of English teaching in the Government Schools. The revolution of 1906 and the resignation of President Palma brought this appointment to an end
In 1911, on account of increasing ill health and the in adequacy of his pension to the demands of living in Cuba, he decided to settle in Jamaica. Here he immediately entered into the intellectual life of the Island and through the columns of the Gleaner and Jamaica Times published a large number of articles and poems and took a leading part in many controversies waged around local and international questions. Towards the close of 1917 his eyesight failed him, but his spirit remained undaunted, and from his home in Mandeville he dictated and published in the local press many stirring poems which drew their inspiration from the Great War then in progress
"At a home called "Brightwood", among the green Mandeville hills that reminded him of England, on April 24th, 1920, Mr. Bunbury passed from a life of darkness, but bright with the sound and touch of those he loved, the ever steady flame of those ideals he championed and strove for and the pure white faith of a thousand years, into the deeper shadows of eternal sleep.
CLAUDE McKAY: born in 1890 in a little district in the parish of Clarendon. He began life as a Policeman; but as he himself informs us in "Constab Ballads" his imagination often outran his discretion and it was his misfortune to have "a most improper sympathy with wrongdoers." With the assistance afforded him by a generous friend who recognised his abilities he left the Island in 1912 for the United States of America. There he studied scientific farming for two years; but the literary bias which was early manifest in the dialect poetry of "Songs of Jamaica" and "Constab Ballads", and had won for him the recognition of the Institute of Jamaica, now re-asserted itself and made an agricultural career impossible. The shocks and revealings of the great world, the hardships which are the lot of the sensitive negro who must make his way in the United States and the inspiration received through close association with the activities and aspirations of his race, served to ripen his genius. From America he has issued two volumes of verse: "Spring in New Hampshire" and "Harlem Shadows", and in February 1928 appeared his first novel "Home to Harlem" which ran through five editions in three months. To-day he is perhaps the most outstanding literary figure of his race
WILLIAM MORRISON, M.A. (Aberdeen) (1838-1902). Born in the parish of Grange, Banffshire, Scotland, September 10th, 1838. Educated at the Parish School and at King's College, Aberdeen. He was intended for the Church, but found the Calvinistic doctrines as they were then taught, repulsive to him; and so he adopted the profession of teaching. In 1862 he came to Jamaica at the invitation of the Rev. A. J. Milne, M.A., LL.D., to take up work in the Collegiate school founded some years earlier by the late Rev. John Radcliffe. Mr. Morrison never returned to Scotland, but with the genius of his race for colonisation, adopted Jamaica for his home, and both as Schoolmaster and as Journalist served her well and faithfully
He died in 1902; and in 1906 was published a collection of his poems. His work as a poet, says Robert C. Guy, indicates that "he was a cultured classical scholar imbued with the spirit of the Greek and Roman poets; that patriotism was with him a consuming passion - his devotion to the Empire being intensified rather than diminished by the whole-souled love he bore to his native land and the country of his adoption; that he regarded personal and political freedom as treasures beyond price and as the main-spring of all human progress . . . that he delighted in the manifestations of the spirit of love and self-sacrifice; that he was loyal and steadfast in his friendships; that running through his nature was a vein of religious emotion, none the less genuine because his creed happened to be a trifle unorthodox; and that his heart always responded to the cry of distress, the moan of suffering, and the tears of sorrow and affliction.
Rev. JOHN RADCLIFFF: Born at Slievniskie, Castlewellan, County Down, Ireland, September, 1815; died in Jamaica in 1892. Mr. Radcliffe served for 43 years in the ministry of the Scotch Church, and during his time played a leading part in the educational advancement of the Island, having been responsible for the founding of one of the first institutions devoted to higher education. During the greater part of his active life he contributed to local newspapers and magazines poems which were for the most part patriotic, or written to commemorate some public event; - such work, in fact, as usually comes within the duties of a Poet Laureate. In 1874 he published in London a volume entitled "The Last Days of Shiloh", chiefly devoted to old Hebraic history or legend
Perhaps the poem by which he will be longest remembered is "Moriendum" in which he seeks, by a mixture of philosophic thought and religious faith, to shed light on the mysteries of life and death
TOM REDCAM (Thomas Henry MacDermot) was born at an Anglican Rectory at Arthur's Seat, Clarendon in the year 1870; son of the late Rev. H. C. P. MacDermot whose Grandfather emigrated from Ireland in the 18th century. He was educated at the Falmouth Academy under the late William Clarke Murray, D.D., and later attended the Church of England Grammar School, Kingston, of which the late William Morrison, M.A., and the Rev. Walter Boyce, B.A., were co-principals
Mr. MacDermot started life as a Schoolmaster, and taught for some time in the little village of Bellevue, a few miles inland from Falmouth; later he removed over to Grand Cayman and laboured successfully there for five or six years. It was there that his literary and journalistic gifts reached their first flowering. Returning to Jamaica, he was for sometime attached to the staff of York Castle High School; but when that Institution was finally closed he decided on a journalistic career, serving on The Jamaica Post, the Daily Gleaner and finally on the Jamaica Times. Of the last named - a weekly paper - he occupied the Editorial chair for some twenty years with great distinction; and that journal's present stability is due in no small measure to his industry and self-denial. A man of lofty ideals and unbounded faith in the future of his country, he never spared himself in his labour for the uplift of the masses of the people. The result was that in 1922 his health gave way; and since then he has been compelled to live in the less exacting climate of England
The uncrowned Laureate of Jamaica he has been called; and well has he earned the title. His patriotic songs, which have been used on various important occasions, have passed into the fabric of our national life. He has done more than any other living man to render articulate the consciousness of the beauty with which this Island is blessed and of the romance that surrounds its history
WALTER ADOLPH ROBERTS: Born in Kingston, Jamaica, October 15th, 1886, the only son of Adolphus S. Roberts and Josephine Fanny (Napier) Roberts. Passed the earlier years of his life near Mandeville, Jamaica. At the age of sixteen he became a Reporter of the Daily Gleaner. A few months later he joined the short-lived weekly Newspaper The Leader, as Assistant Editor under W. P. Livingstone. He went to the United States in 1904. Worked on Newspapers in New York and San Francisco. In 1911, he became assistant editor of the National Sunday Magazine war correspondent in France for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1914 to 1916; Editor of Ainslee's Magazine, 1918 to 1921, Associate editor of Hearst's International Magazine, 1922 fiction editor of the Metropolitan Magazine 1923; editor of Movie Monthly, 1924; editor of the American Parade, 1925. The last named, a cloth-bound quarterly, was founded by Roberts. In 1919 he published a book of verse, "Pierott Wounded and other Poems ", and in 1926 a novel, "The Haunting Hand". His "Villanelle of the Living Pan," from "Pierott Wounded and Other Poems," is included in "The Le Gallienne Book of American Verse," edited by Richard Le Gallienn
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