And mists and things obscure the rhymer’s brain,
And dull his ears, and cloud his blinking eyes.
And so we write as Nature sets her gauge—
No worse than most, and better, p’raps, than some;
—But should a man remain for ever dumb
When only rhyming fills his aimless page?
J. P. BOURKE.
They say that, when Abraham Lincoln had seen Walt Whitman, he summed his impression in the emphatic “This is a man.” That is what one feels in reading the verses of Western Australian [18] ]writers—“This is a man.” The work of the tribe of pseudonymous writers in Western newspapers—especially Kalgoorlie Sun and Perth Sunday Times—the work of “Bluebush” and “Dryblower,” “Crosscut,” “Prospect Good,” and the rest—is the most virile and the most original poetry that has been made in Australia since the Commonwealth began. “Here’s manhood,” I say, and “Here’s Australian manhood.” For vigour and versatility the East at the moment has few writers to rival this little Western comradeship.
The East has more refined writers, more cultivated and more artistic writers; but not more manly writers.