astronomer, and the son of the Rev. Arthur Benoni Evans, a linguist,
scholar, and author. He was not the only one of this parentage who came
to some distinction, for his brother, John Evans, F.R.S., became
President of the Society of Antiquaries, and his sister, Anne, had some
repute as a poetess and musician. Sebastian Evans won a fair measure of
fugitive fame by his _Brother Fabian’s Manuscript and Other Poems_
(Macmillan, 1865). In the early ’70’s Dr Evans published his second
volume, _In the Studio: a Decade of Poems_ (Macmillan). The true note of
his strangely subtle and illusive muse is not that of either irony or
audacity as commonly supposed, but rather a living belief in the passage
of the contemporary mind and aspiration from the sureties of the ancient
faith to the assurance of a still finer faith to come. Among his short
poems perhaps the most indicative is that entitled “The Banners”--
Lordly banners, waving to the stars,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew,
Trustful youth is wending to the wars,
Strong in ancient faith to battle with the new.
Lordly banners, trodden in the clay,
Lie upon the mountain dank with other dew,
Hapless Youth hath lost the bloody day,
Ancient faith is feeble, stronger is the new.
Lordly banners, other than of yore,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew:
Youth to battle girdeth him once more,
New and Old are feeble,--mighty is the True!
EBENEZER JONES. (1820-1860.) PAGE 293
Of Welsh parentage and descent, Ebenezer Jones was born in Islington,
London. Much has been written upon the famous Chartist poet, both in his
relation to the socialistic movements in which he participated, and in
literary criticism of his two at one time much discussed volumes,
_Studies of Sensation and Event_ (1843), and _Studies of Resemblance and
Consent_ (1849); but perhaps the best critical summary of his life-work
is that of Mr Wm. J. Linton in Miles’ _Poets and Poetry of the Century_,
Vol. V. The two poems by which Ebenezer Jones is represented here are
respectively from his second and first volumes.
EMILY DAVIS (MRS PFEIFFER). (1841-1890.) PAGE 296
Mrs Pfeiffer, many of whose poems achieved a wide popularity, was the
daughter of a Welsh gentleman settled in Oxfordshire, and an officer in
the army. She was born in Wales. Of her several volumes of verse, the
first was _Gerard’s Monument_, etc. (1873), and the best are _Sonnets
and Other Songs_, _Under the Aspens_ (1884), and _Sonnets_ (1887).
ERNEST RHYS. PAGE 297
“The House of Hendra” is not given here intact: for the whole poem, see
_A London Rose_, etc. (Elkin Mathews). Mr Rhys is the most noteworthy of
the younger generation of Welsh poets and romancists, and may well be
accepted as the leader of the Neo-Celtic movement in Wales. He has in a
more marked degree than almost any of his compatriots of his own period
the gift of style; and already his enthusiasm, knowledge, and fine and
notable work in prose and verse have brought him to the front as the
recognised representative of young Wales. Of Welsh parentage, Mr Rhys
was born in London in 1860, spent much of his boyhood in South Wales,
and his youth and early manhood in the north-country, where he intended
to follow the profession of a mining engineer. However, he came to
London in the early ’eighties and settled down to literary work. His
first publication in book form was _The Great Cockney Tragedy_ (1891).
His poems first became known to the outside reading world through his
contributions to _The Book of the Rhymers’ Club_ (1893). In the
following year he published his first and as yet sole volume of verse:
_A London Rose: and Other Rhymes_, whence comes the fine “House of
Hendra” by which he is represented here. Besides other writings, in
prose, Mr Ernest Rhys was editor of the “Camelot Series” of popular
reprints and translations in 65 volumes (1885-1890), and now is critical
editor of _The Lyric Poets_ (Dent), one of the most delightful
poets-series extant.
CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-CELTIC POETS (MANX)
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN. PAGE 307
Was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man, in 1830. After a career of
exceptional distinction at Oxford, he was appointed Vice-Principal of
King William’s College in the Isle of Man (1855). Since 1863 he has been
assistant-master of Clifton College. The book by which Mr Brown is best
known is his admirable _Fo’c’sle Yarns_ (Macmillan, 1881 and 1889),
though the first of his tales in verse included therein, “Betsy Lee,”
appeared in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ in 1873 where it at once attracted
wide attention. He has also published _The Doctor_ (1887) and _The Manx
Witch_ (1889). The author of _Fo’c’sle Yarns_ is by far the most
noteworthy poetic representative of the Isle of Man. In range, depth of
insight, dramatic vigour, keen sympathy, and narrative faculty, all
transformed by the alchemy of his poetic vision, he is not only the
foremost Manx poet, but one of the most notable of living writers in
verse. It is probably because most of his poems deal almost wholly with
Manx scenes and characters, and are for the most part written in the
Manx dialect, that he is so little talked of by literary critics and so
little known to the reading world at large. Than “Betsy Lee” (_Fo’c’sle
Yarns_) there is no more moving, human, and beautiful poem, of the
narrative kind, written in our time. The fragmentary lines by which the
author is represented here were selected from one of his most
characteristic Manx poems, and give a good idea of the common parlance
of the islanders of to-day. It is from _The Doctor: and Other Poems_
(Swan Sonnenschein, 1887).
HALL CAINE. PAGE 309
This fine Manx ballad of “Graih my Chree” appeared this year in the
first number of _London Home_, to the editor and proprietor of which, as
well as to Mr Hall Caine, I am indebted for the permission to include
“Love of my Heart” here. Mr Caine, so celebrated as a novelist, has
published no volume of poems; but at rare intervals something of his in
verse has appeared. I think that his earliest appearance as a poet was
in _Sonnets of this Century_ (1886, and later editions), where he is
represented by two fine sonnets, “Where Lies the Land to which my Soul
would go?” and “After Sunset.” Mr Caine’s own first acknowledged book
was an anthology of sonnets (_Sonnets of Three Centuries_, Stock, 1882),
published in the author’s twenty-seventh year. Of his many books, the
best known are his _Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti_; and his
romances, _The Shadow of a Crime_, _The Deemster_, _The Bondman_, _The
Scapegoat_, and _The Manxman_. Mr Hall Caine is himself a Manxman,
crossed with a strong strain of Cumberland blood. Both in his strength
and weakness he is eminently Celtic, after his own kind; for he could
belong to no other Celtic people than either the Manx or the Welsh. He
has, and not without good reason, been called the Walter Scott of Man.
Certainly, _The Deemster_ and _The Manxman_ alone have revealed Manxland
and Manx life and character to the great mass of English readers.
CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-CELTIC POETS (CORNISH)
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER COUCH. PAGE 317
So well known as “Q,” was born at Bodwin, in Cornwall, of an old Cornish
family, in 1863. He left Trinity College, Oxford, for London; but, after
a brief experience of literary life in the metropolis, returned to the
“Duchy,” and has since resided there, mainly at Fowey. He is not only
the most noteworthy living Cornishman of letters, and the romancer _par
excellence_ of contemporary Cornwall and Cornish life, but is
acknowledged as one of the best story-tellers of the day. His first book
was _The Splendid Spur_ (1889), a stirring romance, which was followed
by _The Delectable Duchy_, _Noughts and Crosses_, and _I Saw Three
Ships_. He has published little poetry; and even in his slender volume,
_Green Bays_ (1893), there are not more than one or two poems, the other
verses being for the most part what are called “occasional.” If,
however, he had written nothing in verse except the lyric called “The
Splendid Spur,” he would be accounted a poet for remembrance. “The
White Moth” is the most distinctively Celtic poem he has written. In the
main, he is more Cornish than Celtic--in this a contrast to Dr Riccardo
Stephens, who is far more distinctively Celtic than Cornish.
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER. (1804-1875.) PAGE 319
The celebrated vicar of Morwenstow (born at Plymouth) came of an old
Cornish family, and spent the greater part of his life in the Duchy. In
1834 he became Vicar of Morwenstow, a remote parish on the Cornish
sea-board. His best-known book is _Cornish Ballads_ (1869); but the
reader who may not be acquainted with his writings should consult the
_Poetical Works, and Other Literary Remains, with a Memoir_ (1879).
Hawker has much of the sombre note which is supposed to be
characteristic of Celtic Cornwall.
RICCARDO STEPHENS. PAGE 321
Dr Stephens is a Cornishman settled in Edinburgh, where he practises as
a physician. He has not, as yet, published any of his poems in book
form; but, none the less, has won (if necessarily, as yet, a limited)
reputation by his exceedingly vigorous and individual poems. He has
written several “Castle Ballads” (of which the very striking “Hell’s
Piper” given here is one)--poems suggested by legendary episodes
connected with Edinburgh Castle, or perhaps only vaguely influenced by
that romantically picturesque and grand vicinage--for Dr Stephens is one
of the many workers, thinkers, and dreamers who congregate in the
settlement founded by Professor Patrick Geddes on the site of Allan
Ramsay’s residence--“New Edinburgh,” as University Hall is sometimes
called, an apt name in more ways than one. Dr Stephens is a poet of
marked originality, and his work has all the Celtic fire and fervour,
with much of that sombre gloom which is held to be characteristically
Cornish. “Hell’s Piper” has lines in it of Dantesque vigour, as those
which depict, among “the shackled earthquakes,” the “reeking halls of
Hell,” and the torture-wrought denizens of that Inferno. “The Phantom
Piper” will never be forgotten by any one who has once read and been
thrilled by this highly-imaginative poem.
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY BRETON
THE POOR CLERK (IN BRETON, “AR C’HLOAREK PAOUR”) PAGE 331
is rather a mediæval than a modern folk-poem. The translation is that of
the late Tom Taylor (_Ballads and Lyrics_, Macmillan), who has the
following note upon it:--“The Klöarek is a seminarist of Tréguier, a
peasant who has a turn for books, or shows some vocation for the
priesthood. Their miserable life, hard study, and abnegation of family
life are provocative of regretful emotion, passionate and mystic
asceticism. The Klöarek is the poet and hero of most of the Breton
_Sônes_; Tréguier, therefore, is the nursery of the elegaic and
religious popular poetry of Brittany.”
THE CROSS BY THE WAY (KROAZ ANN HENT). PAGE 332
_Vide_ preceding Note. This translation is from the same source as last.
THE SECRETS OF THE CLERK, AND LOVE SONG. PAGES 335-337
See Note to “The Poor Clerk.” The first of these poems was probably
composed in the transition period--late mediæval or early modern. Both
are given in the rendering of Mr Alfred M. Williams (_vide_ “Folk-Songs
of Lower Brittany” in _Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry_ (1895)).
“The Love Song” is modern--probably _circa_ 1800, or even 1750.
HERVÉ NOËL LE BRETON. PAGE 338
For all particulars concerning this poet I must refer interested readers
to Mr W. J. Robertson’s brief memoir in that most delightful of all
books of translation, _A Century of French Verse_ (A. D. Innes & Co.,
1895). This is without exception the ablest work of its kind we have. It
is the production of one who is unmistakably himself a poet, who has the
rare double power to translate literally, and at the same time with
subtle art and charm, so that the least possible loss in translation is
involved. In addition to these often exquisitely felicitous, and always
notably able and suggestive renderings, Mr Robertson has prefixed to
each representative selection a brief critical and biographical study of
the poet represented--short _études_ of remarkable insight and critical
merit. Of Hervé Noël le Breton he gives some interesting particulars.
The poet is of the ancient Armorican race, and was born in Nantes in
1851. He has not yet published any volume; and it is from an unpublished
collection, _Rêves et Symboles_, that Mr Robertson has drawn. Strangely
enough, neither in Tiercelin’s Breton Anthology nor anywhere else can I
find any allusion to Hervé Noël le Breton: and his name is unknown to M.
Louis Tiercelin, M. Anatole le Braz, and M. Charles Le Goffic,
respectively the most eminent living Breton anthologist, Breton
folk-lorist, and Breton poet-romancist and critic. For several reasons I
take it that Le Breton is an assumed name; and it is even possible that
the Armorican blood is only in the brain, and not in the body of the
author of _Rêves et Symboles_. “The Burden of Lost Souls” is in three
parts, of which that given here is the first. Here is the second:
THE BURDEN OF LOST SOULS.
II.
This is our doom. To walk for ever and ever
The wilderness unblest,
To weary soul and sense in vain endeavour
And find no coign of rest;
To feel the pulse of speech and passion thronging
On lips for ever dumb,
To gaze on parched skies relentless, longing
For clouds that will not come;
Thirsty, to drink of loathsome waters crawling
With nameless things obscene,
To feel the dews from heaven like fire-drops falling,
And neither shade nor screen;
To fill from springs illusive riddled vessels,
Like the Danaïdes,
To grapple with the wind that whirls and wrestles,
Knowing no lapse of ease;
To weave fantastic webs that shrink and crumble
Before they leave the loom,
To build with travail aëry towers that tumble
And temples like the tomb;
To watch the stately pomp and proud procession
Of splendid shapes and things,
And pine in silent solitary session
Because we have no wings;
To woo from confused sleep forlorn the dismal
Oblivion of despair;
To seek in sudden glimpse of dreams abysmal
Sights beautiful and rare,
And waking, wild with terror, see the vision
Cancelled in swift eclipse,
Mocked by the pallid phantoms of derision,
With spectral eyes and lips;
To turn in endless circles round these purlieus
With troops of spirits pale,
Whose everlasting song is like the curlew’s,
One ceaseless, changeless wail.
Mr Robertson gives four poems by this poet: “_La Plainte des Damnés_,”
“_Vers les Etoiles_,” “_Le Tombeau du Poète_,” and “_Hymne au Sommeil_.”
His translation of the last-named also appears in this anthology.
VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM. (1838-1889.) PAGE 342
This famous French novelist and poet was born at St Brieuc, in Brittany,
of parents who were each of old Breton stock. The full details of the
life and work of Philippe-Auguste-Mathias de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam,
son of the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and his wife Marie
Françoise le Nepveu de Carfort, can be read in the recently-published
_Life_, by the late Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey--an English
translation of which, by Lady Mary Lloyd, was issued last year by Mr
Heinemann. This distinguished writer lived in misfortune, and died amid
darker shadows than those he had too long been bitterly acquainted with.
His first volume of poems was published when he was little more than
twenty years old--as Mr Robertson says, “one of the most remarkable ever
written by so young a poet.” The young Breton poet came under the strong
personal influence of Baudelaire, and in the process he lost much of his
native Celtic fire and spirituality. Besides the poems given here,
“Confession” (“_D’aveu_”) and “Discouragement” (“_Découragement_”), Mr
Robertson translates, in his _Century of French Verse_,
“_Eblouissement_” and “_Les Présents_.”
LECONTE DE LISLE. (1818-1894.) PAGE 344
“The great Creole poet, Charles Marie René Leconte, known as Leconte de
Lisle, was the child of a Breton father and a Gascon mother, and was
born at St Paul, in the isle of Bourbon (_Réunion_) in 1818. He had the
Celtic clearness of vision and love of beauty, and the vigour and
courage of the Pyrenean race. In his youth he travelled through the East
Indies, and the vivid impressions of tropical colour and warmth which
are visible in his poetry derive their value from the personal
observation of Nature in those regions” (W. J. Robertson, _A Century of
French Verse_). Leconte de Lisle, one of the greatest of modern French
poets, is assured of immortality by his beautiful trilogy:--_Poèmes
Antiques_ (1852), _Poèmes Barbares_ (1862), and _Poèmes Tragiques_
(1884). The reader who, unfamiliar with this poet, wishes to know more
of Leconte de Lisle and his work, cannot do better than turn first to Mr
Robertson’s biographical and critical memoir in _A Century of French
Verse_. There, too, he will find five poems from _Poèmes Antiques_,
including the long “_Dies Iræ_”; two from _Poèmes Barbares_, and two
from _Poèmes Tragiques_. Of the two given here, the first (“The Black
Panther”) is from _Poèmes Barbares_, and “The Spring” (“_La Source_”)
from _Poèmes Antiques_. Leconte de Lisle strove after an ideal
perfection of form. The spirit of that almost flawless work of his, is
of intellectual emotion rather than of passion; but in colour, and
splendour of imagery, no romanticist can surpass him. He is of the great
minds who create, calm and serene. He is often classed with the two
great master-spirits of modern German and French literature; but, while
he has neither the lyric rush nor epic sweep of Victor Hugo, nor the
philosophical modernity and innate human sentiment of Gœthe, he is much
more akin to the latter than to the former. For the rest, to quote Mr
Robertson, “he gives the noblest expression to human revolt and desire,
to ideal dreams, and to the pure and sometimes pathetic love of external
nature.”
LEO-KERMORVAN. PAGE 348
Leo-Kermorvan has been represented here as one of the most distinctively
Celtic of the contemporary Breton poets. In translating his “Taliesen,”
as well as Louis Tiercelin’s “By Menec’hi Shore,” I have endeavoured to
convey the atmosphere, as well as to be literal; and, partly to this
end, and partly because of a personal preference for unrhymed metrical
translation, have not ventured to make a rhymed paraphrase. M. Kermorvan
is a poet worthy to be named with his two most notable living
compatriots, Tristran Corbière and Charles Le Goffic.
LOUIS TIERCELIN. PAGE 351
(See foregoing note.) M. Tiercelin is a Breton poet and critic, perhaps
best known as co-editor of the _Parnasse de la Bretagne_. No more
characteristic Breton poem, apart from folk-poetry, could close _Lyra
Celtica_. It is the keynote of the poetry that is common to all the
Celtic races.
THE CELTIC FRINGE
BLISS CARMAN. PAGE 355
Mr Bliss Carman, the trans-Atlantic poet who, it seems to me, has the
most distinctive note of any American poet (and the word “American” is
used in its widest sense), is of Scoto-Celtic descent through his
father’s side, and of East-Anglian through the maternal side; but was
born of a family long settled in Canada--viz., at Fredericton, New
Brunswick, in 1861. His poetry is intensely individual, and with a lyric
note at once poignant and reserved. Work of very high quality is
expected of him, on both sides of the Atlantic; for his beautiful lyrics
and poems have appeared in the periodicals of both countries. His slight
volume, _Low Tide on Grand-Pré_ (1893), is published in this country by
Mr Nutt. About half of the _Songs from Vagabondia_ (written in
collaboration with Mr Richard Hovey) are of his authorship. This book,
published in 1894 by Messrs Stone & Kimball of Chicago, is to be had
here through Mr Elkin Mathews. It is from the _Songs_ that the stirring
war-chant of “Gamelbar” comes.
ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON. PAGE 361
This distinguished American lady is descended from old Highland stock. I
know of no other book by her than _Songs and Lyrics_ (Boston, Osgood &
Co., 1881), but that is one which all lovers of poetry should possess.
Miss Hutchinson’s name is best known in connection with that colossal
and invaluable work, the _Cyclopædia of American Literature_ (eleven
vols.), in which she was the collaborator of Mr Edmund Clarence Stedman.
HUGH M‘CULLOCH. PAGE 364
This descendant of an old Highland family is the author of _The Quest of
Heracles_ (Stone & Kimball, Chicago, 1894).
DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT. PAGE 365
Mr Scott is a member of one of the many Scoto-Celtic families settled in
Canada. He was born at Ottawa in 1862, and is the author of _The Magic
House_ (1893).
THOMAS D’ARCY M‘CGEE. (1821-1868.) PAGE 366
This distinguished Irishman is to be accounted only an adopted American.
He emigrated to the States in 1842, edited _The Boston Pilot_, and in
1857 went to Montreal and entered the Canadian Parliament. It was when
returning from a night-session that he was assassinated in Ottawa by
Fenian malcontents.
MARY C. G. GILLINGTON (MRS BYRON) AND ALICE E. GILLINGTON. PAGES 368-373
These two sisters, whose names have become so deservedly well-known by
their contributions to British and American periodicals, are of Celtic
blood, though born and resident in England. They are included here as
representative of the Anglo Celtic strain so potent in England itself.
The elder, Mrs Byron, was born in Cheshire in 1861. Their joint volume,
_Poems_, was published in 1892. Mr Elkin Mathews has just published a
volume entitled, _A Little Book of Lyrics_, by Mrs Byron.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Apropos, let me quote a word or two from Dr Douglas Hyde: “We all
remember the inimitable felicity with which that great English-speaking
Gael, Sir Walter Scott, has caught,” &c. (with this note) “Both
the Buccleugh Scots, and the other four branches of the name, were
originally Gaelic-speaking Celts.”
[2] “Failte do Mharcus Latharna ’s do ’Mhnaoi oig Rioghail.”
[3] Published by Mr Fisher Unwin at a shilling. The reader will have
to discount Mr Brooke’s over-emphasis on the word Irish, which he
frequently uses instead of Celtic, even when alluding to Scoto-Celtic
literature and influence.
[4] “On the first day of the =Trogan-month=, we, to the number
of Fianna’s three battalions, practised to repair to Arran, and there
to have our fill of hunting until such time as from the tree-tops the
cuckoo would call in Ireland. More melodious than all birds whatsoever,
it was to give ear to the voices of the birds as they rose from the
billows, and from the island’s coast line; thrice fifty separate flocks
there are that encircled her, and they clad in all brilliance of all
colours; as blue, and green, and azure, and yellow.”
[5] Readers should obtain Dr Hyde’s “Three Sorrows of Story-Telling”
(1/-), wherein the beautiful old tale of Deirdrê is re-told by one who
is at once a poet and a scholar.
[6] Whence comes the “Prologue to Gaul,” given at p. 187 of this book.
[7] =Dearg=-=drúchtach=--i.e. “Dewy-Red”--was the name of St
Columba’s boat.
[8] That is, “Back turned to Ireland.”
[9] Solitary cell.
[10] i.e. the sheepskin or deerskin coverings for apertures, still used
in some remote shealings and =bothain=.
[11] Shed.
[12] Here probably the byre.
[13] =Gracie óg mo-chridhe=--“Young Gracie, my heart.”
[14] Pron. =Cawn dhu dee-lish=--i.e. “darling black head.”
[15] The second line to the refrain translates the first.
[16] Creek.
[17] Piglings.
[18] Potatoes.
[19] My heart’s delight.
[20] A large basket carried on the back.
[21] =Maura du=, “Dear Mary.”
[22] =Asthore machree=, “The darling of my heart.”
[23] Pron. =Colleen Dhun=--a “brown (haired) girl.”
[24] Low Country.
[25] Mull.
[26] =Eilidh= is pronounced Eily (liq.).
[27] than.
[28] of hers.
[29] frightened.
[30] Hobgoblins.
[31] The Blackrock is a bold, dark, pillared mass of schist, which
rises midway on the shore of Widemouth Bay, near Bude, and is held
to be the lair of the troubled spirit of Featherstone the wrecker,
imprisoned therein until he shall have accomplished his doom.
[32] The =bazvalan=, the bearer of the rod of broom.
[33] Twilight.
[34] Pronounce like English “hind.”
[35] Gaelic pronunciation of Mull.