HOUSE AND LAND -- ALLEN CURNOW

 HOUSE AND LAND (1941)

(Poem)

Wasn’t this the site, asked the historian,

Of the original homestead?

Couldn’t tell you, said the cowman;

I just live here, he said,

Working for old Miss Wilson

Since the old man’s been dead. 

Moping under the blue gums

The dog trailed his chain

From the privy as far as the fowl house

And back to the privy again,

Feeling the stagnant afternoon 

Quicken with the smell of rain

There sat old Miss Wilson,

With her pictures on the wall,

The baronet uncle, mother’s side,

And one she called The Hall;

Taking tea from a silver pot

For fear the house might fall.

People in the colonies, she said, 

Can’t quite understand…

Why, from Waiau to the mountains

It was all father’s land.

She’s all of eighty said the cowman, 

Down at the milking-shed.

I’m leaving here next winter.

Too bloody quiet, he said.

The spirit of exile, wrote the historian,

Is strong in the people still. 

He reminds me rather, said Miss Wilson, 

Of Harriet’s youngest, Will. 

The cowman, home from the shed, went drinking

With the rabbiter home from the hill.

The sensitive nor’west afternoon 

Collapsed, and the rain came;

The dog crept into his barrel

Looking lost and lame. 

But you can’t attribute to either

Awareness of what great gloom

Stands in a land of settlers

With never a soul at home.

About the Poet:

ALLEN CURNOW (1911 – 2001)

Allen Curnow was born in Timaru, 1911. His father was a fourth generation New Zealander and his mother was English born. Besides, his father was an Anglican clergyman and he lived in a variety of Anglican rectories around the far south of the South Island. Curnow studied at both Canterbury and Auckland universities and worked for various newspapers during this period. In between he prepared for the Anglican ministry however, decided not to be ordained in the early 1930s. His religious upbringing and personal religious crisis were an important influence in his writing. Later, he returned to the South Island in 1934 and went back to working for newspapers. Meanwhile, he became good friends with Denis Glover. During the war years, his writing became influenced by history and the idea of national identity.

It can be seen that after the war he moved to more personal and universal themes. Finally, he died in 2001at the age of 90.