Читать книгу Poetical Works of Henry Lawson - Henry Lawson - Страница 3
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Preface
The death of Henry Lawson marked the close of the period in Australian literature which began with Henry Kendall. While living, Lawson had many imitators, but no peers; with his death we turned a page to which there can be no additions. He belonged to a past of struggle, pain, and triumph, when the country was in the making. Others will use those days to give their work background of colour and romance; but there can be none to walk where he walked, none to see with his eyes.
To say that Henry Lawson has now become a classic is to miss the real meaning of the man. The true student can never ignore his work, but his appeal is infinitely wider. With every decade that appeal must increase; for, reading Lawson, our children’s children will hear the living voice of those who laid the foundations of all they prize and love.
About Henry Lawson the man, as distinct from the poet, a tradition will grow up which may leave the future wondering. All that is bizarre and grotesque, culled from the half-memories of those who knew him least, will make an embroidery of literary gossip which may envelop him in a mystery as interesting as it is unreal. Little things will be dragged from their hiding, big things warped from their setting, and made to subserve the meaner issues of some controversy about his doings and his ways. To this the memory of all great men is subject; too often the prophet’s ragged robe is more interesting to slight minds than the message he spoke. But Lawson will outlive it all. When the last word of praise or dispraise is spoken, men will turn to his work and find the real man there, the brother-soul with the vision, the brother-heart with the passion of goodwill for his kind.
This edition of his poems brings them within easy reach of every Australian reader; and I think the man who has gone from us could seek no fairer memorial in the hearts of his people than the knowledge that his words are being read and re-read by those who with every reading love him more.
David McKee Wright
March 1925
