its value. It may add an element of curiosity to biographical history,
but it is upon its own inherent quality that it must depend for
consideration and remembrance. Extraordinary circumstances in the life
and character of the writer may lend an additional interest to his
poetry, and cause it to be studied more attentively from a psychological
point of view, but it must first be genuine poetry, and the questions
of the personality and circumstances of its author are subordinate ones.
Other thieves and blackguards like Francis Villon have doubtless written
verses in the intervals of their debauches, and other ploughmen like
Burns and other weavers like Thom have unquestionably done so under
equally difficult and depressing conditions, but that fact has not
kept their poetry alive or their names in remembrance. There were
contemporaries of Thom, fishermen, turf-cutters, handicraftsmen, and
publicans, whose names are preserved in local history and who even
published forgotten volumes, who wrote verses under circumstances no
less extraordinary than his own, but the world has taken no note of
them, and is not called upon to do so. The question in regard to William
Thom, as to all other poets, is as to what contribution, small or great,
he made to the stock of genuine poetry in form, expression, and essence,
fitting it to stand alone and to speak with a living voice to the
emotions of the world, aside from any pathos or interest connected with
its production. Poetry of this kind in the work of William Thom is very
small in quantity. He published but a single volume, in which the verse
comprises scarcely more than a hundred pages, and much the greater
portion of this is artificial in conception and imperfect in form and
expression. Like many uneducated authors, he endeavored to imitate the
writers of polite literature, who seemed to him models of taste and
fancy, although he had the native good judgment and national feeling to
confine himself to the Scottish dialect, and the greater proportion
of his verses have this weakness of imitation, or were called forth by
special occasions and for a local audience. The poems entitled The Blind
Boy's Pranks, which first attracted attention, are fanciful descriptions
of the doings of Cupid, who is not more at home on the cold streams and
heathery hills of the north of Scotland than on the head of an Italian
image seller in the smoke and grime of London, and has no acquaintance
with the sturdy Scotch lassies with whom he is supposed to play tricks.
The native fairies with which Hogg peopled the raths and mounds of
Ettrick do not appear in Thom's verses..When he wrote of what must
have appealed most strongly to his heart and knowledge, the wrongs and
sufferings of his fellow operatives, he was, as has been said, greatly
influenced by the perfervid and declamatory style of Ebenezer Elliot,
and weakened the force of his descriptions by exaggeration and savage
invective. His songs were for the most part in the vein of the current
Scottish lyric poetry, and, although not without grace and felicity of
expression, rarely above the limits of conventionality and imitation.
The song by which he is most widely known, and which appears in all the
collections of Scottish poetry, The Mitherless Bairn, owes its vogue to
its simple pathos, appealing to the popular emotions rather than to its
quality as poetry. There are forcible and felicitous lines scattered
through Thom's poetry, in which the language and melody combine to
render the thought or sentiment with original power, and touches of
description which show the sensitive eye illumined by the feeling heart,
as this of the winter-beaten birds:--
Like beildless birdies, when they ca'
Frae wet, wee wing the batted snaw,-
and the pervading genuineness of a deep feeling, even if imperfectly
expressed. There was the gloaming of a "waesome light" about his spirit,
which shone through his uncertain gifts of utterance, although its power
would not have been enough to have preserved his poetry in remembrance,
except for two lyrics which reach the very highest level of Scottish
song in their completeness and finish of construction, as well as in
their simplicity and power. It may be believed from the crudity and
imperfection of Thom's other verses that this supreme felicity was
accidental, the perfect rapture of some occasional song of a thrush
breaking out by its own inspiration after many careless warblings,
rather than the deliberate effort of trained skill, and perhaps with
little appreciation of their success. Every poet has his moments
of supreme success when he reaches beyond his ordinary powers, and
execution attains to the level of inspiration, but in most it is seen
to be the culmination of trained skill reached by long labor and
painstaking effort. There is little, however, in Thom's verse to lead to
the expectation of such a flowering of perfect form and expression,
and the impression is strong that they are accidental felicities. But,
however produced, they give him an indisputable title to a place beside
the highest of the Scottish song writers, and will live by their innate
grace and power and feeling, when the rest of his work is forgotten, and
the record of his strange and unfortunate life swallowed up in oblivion.
This is the first one of them, grown from the banks of the Ythan, a
little stream near Inverury, where Thom wandered some evening after the
day's benumbing labor at the loom:--
YTHANSIDE.
I had ae nicht, and only ane,
On flo'ry Ythanside;
An' kith or kindred I hae nane
That dwall by Ythanside;
Yet midnicht dream and morning vow,
At hame they winna bide,
But pu' and pu' my willing heart
Awa' to Ythanside.
What gars its restless wand'ring wish
Seek aye to Ythanside,
An' hover round yon fairy bush
That spreads o'er Ythanside?
I think I see its pawkie boughs,
Where lovers weel might hide;
An', oh, what heart could safely sit
Yon nicht on Ythanside.
Could I return and own the scaith
I thole frae Ythanside,
Would her mild eye bend lythe on me
Ance mair on Ythanside?
Or would she crush my lowly love
Beneath a brow o' pride?
I daurna claim and maurna blame
Her heart on Ythanside.
I 'll rue yon high and heathy seat
That hangs o'er Ythanside;
I 'll rue the mill where bumies meet;
I 'll rue ye, Ythanside.
And you, ye moon, wi' luckless licht,
Pour'd a' your gowden tide
O'er sic a brow! sic e'en yon nicht!
Oh, weary Ythanside.
This is the other one in a somewhat different vein, but with equal magic
in its melody and tender sweetness of expression:--
WHISPER LOW.
Slowly, slowly the cauld moon creeps
Wi' a licht unloesome to see;
It dwalls on the window whaur my love sleeps,
An 'she winna wauken to me.
Wearie, wearie, the hours, and slow,
Wauken, my lovie, and whisper low.
There's nae ae sang in heaven's licht,
Nor on the green earth doun,
Like soun's which kind love kens at nicht,
When whispers hap the soun';
Hearin', fearin', sichin' so--
Whisper, my bonnie love, whisper low!
They lack nae licht wha weel can speak
In love's ain wordless wile;
Her ee-bree creepin' on my cheek
Betrays her pawkie smile.
Happy, happy, silent so--
Breathin' bonnie love, whisper low!
Was yon a waft o' her wee white han'
Wi' a warnin' "wheest" to me?
Or was it a gleam o' that fause moon fa'in
On my poor misguided ee?
Wearie, wearie, wearie O--
Wauken, my lovie, an' whisper low!
The poor hand-loom weaver, struggling with the day's darg from the cold
dawn to the cheerless night, and with but fitful gleams of light and
hap-piness in the squalid misery of existence, and half unconsciously it
may be, has interpreted the sad-ness and sweetness of love's despair and
love's long-ing, with a melody and a rapture of utterance which touch
the immortal sympathies of the heart through the magic of poetry,
and will live in the emanations of his spirit to the eyes that for
generations to come shall light upon these modest violets of song.
Much greater and more fortunate men have failed to join the "choir
invisible," and the poetry of loftier and stronger minds has perished,
while these songs will remain in the immortal life of simple thought and
deep feeling.
FOLK-SONGS OF LOWER BRITTANY.
|The publication in 1859 of Count Hersart de Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz,
or collection of ancient Breton ballads and folk-songs, excited almost
as much interest in the literary world as Bishop Percy's Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry a century earlier, if not reaching to the point
of that evoked by Macpherson's Ossian. The interest was historical and
ethnological as well as literary. Here were historical ballads, full of
fire and passion and pathos, dealing not alone with such comparatively
recent and recognized historic figures as Bernard du Guesclin and Jean
de Montfort, but dating back to the sixth century and earlier, having
for definite characters Merlin and King Arthur, and containing distinct
traces of Druidic and bardic influence, which had been preserved, not in
manuscript, as were the remains of Celtic poetry in Wales and Ireland,
but by oral tradition and as a part of the still living folk-poetry
of the people. It was no wonder that great interest was excited by
the apparent evidence that a people living in the midst of European
civilization had preserved an unbroken tradition of popular poetry for
thirteen centuries, with strong traces of heathen influence extending
back much farther, in almost absolute purity of language and definite
historic characterization, and it was regarded from an ethnologic point
of view as of hardly less importance than the discoveries of the remains
of the Lake dwellers and other tokens of the existence of prehistoric
man. Apparent credibility was given to the authenticity of the
collection by the fact that the Breton people had preserved their
language in its native condition and form, and by their customs, dress,
and manner of life were marked off from the rest of the French people by
a distinct line, which showed the strength, originality, and
persistence of the race. It was known that they retained the original
characteristics of the Celtic race, its fervency of religious faith, its
melancholy, its sensitiveness to the mysterious influences of nature,
its passion and its loyalty, and that many of its customs and habits of
life were distinct survivals of mediævalism, and utterly anomalous
to the spirit of modern civilization. It was therefore not thought
impossible, if extraordinary, that the ancient ballads should have been
preserved in their original purity, and the compositions of the ancient
bards and minstrels still remain to be collected from the lips of the
wandering mendicant singers, who gathered audiences about them at Fairs
and Pardons, or lightened the gloom of the winter evenings in the
farm kitchens with song and legend. The character of the ballads in
Villemarque's collection was singularly well adapted to produce
this belief. They were simple in construction, impregnated with the
characteristics of the people, their faith, their loyalty, their
purity and gravity of thought, their subjection to the influence of
the supernatural, and their devoted patriotism, and, aside from their
genuine strength and elevation as poetry, were a faithful reflection of
the thoughts and habits of their people, and of the authentic facts of
their history. There were no signs of such incongruous piecing of the
thoughts of a later civilization and the style of a later literature
upon an ancient substance, as were visible in Bishop Percy's emendations
and completions of the English and Scottish ballads, but they were
complete and homogeneous in the very spirit and language of ancient
poetry. As a consequence, they were not only accepted as genuine and
authentic, but there was an immense interest created in the study and
revival of the Breton language and literature, and an appreciation of
the characteristics and influence of the Celtic race in France, which
has continued and deepened to the present time. An academy was founded,
with M. de Villemarqué for its president, and assemblies of bards and
scholars were held like the Welsh Eistedfodds, and there was a temporary
Breton rage like that for the Highland Scotch under the influence of the
Waverley novels, although no ruler of France went so far as to appear in
the Breton hat and waistcoat, as George the Fourth did in the Highland
kilt during his visit to Edinburgh. Several translations of the ballads
of the Barzaz Breiz appeared in German, and Mr. Tom Taylor rendered them
into English, in a version singularly compounded of archaic phraseology
and stage rhetoric. But the later investigation of careful and
conscientious collectors of Breton folkpoetry, like M. F. M. Luzel and
others, has destroyed the faith in the authenticity of M. Yillemarqué's
ballads almost as completely as in that of Macpherson's Ossian. They are
not to be found in existence among the present singers or the survivors
of the generation from whom M. Villemarqué professed to have gathered
them, except in a very mutilated form, and with most of their flowers of
poetry ruthlessly swept away. Experiments have been tried at gatherings
of the most famous depositories of folk-poetry and the most accomplished
singers, by repeating the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz to them, but they
have in all cases either professed total ignorance, or insisted upon
such amendments as deprived them of all but the faintest resemblance;
while the only occasions in which they have been heard sung by the
peasantry have been traced to the scattered leaves of the book itself.
A hot literary controversy has been waged over the authenticity of M.
Villemarqué's ballads, but the best opinion has settled into the belief
that they are fabrications and reconstructions from fragments not more
authentic and genuine than those which were the basis of Macpherson's
Ossian or Chatterton's poems of Rowley, although M. Villemarqué was as
thoroughly possessed with the spirit of Breton poetry, and as saturated
with the knowledge of Breton history, as Sir Walter Scott was with
Scottish poetry and Scottish history, and in one sense they were as
genuine as the ballads of The Baron of Smalholme and Thomas the Rhymer.
But the idea that the contemporary poems relating to Merlin and King
Arthur, and even those of the exploits of Du Guesclin and The Combat of
the Thirty, had been preserved in faithful and uncorrupted condition by
oral tradition, and were still a portion of the folk-songs of the
Breton peasantry, to say nothing of the survival of Druidic poetry
and tradition in a distinct form, attractive as it is to the historic
imagination, must be given up, like the belief in the survival of the
epic of Fingal.
It does not do to expect too much from folkpoetry in the way of the
perpetuation of history.
Like the remains of prehistoric people buried in geologic strata, it has
been subject to the inevitable destruction of natural forces and to the
attrition of time, and only remains like the fragments of implements and
the piles of kitchen middens, from which careful study can extract the
evidences of former existence and habits. It is only when ancient
poetry has been committed to writing, like the poems of Homer and the
Scandinavian sagas, that it can be preserved in anything like a complete
state; and while there is a singular tenacity in popular poetry, it
cannot endure for centuries by oral tradition alone, however secluded
the people or however strong their national and poetic spirit. Sir
Walter Scott was only just in time to save the Border ballads of the
previous two centuries, and the usual duration of popular ballads in
anything but an indistinct and fragmentary condition is even less.
But, although the authenticity of the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz is
discredited, it cannot be said that there is no genuine and valuable
Breton folk-song. On the contrary, it exists in very great quantity and
of a high quality, not only as poetry, but as illustrating the character
and history of the people. The Breton race is not only a profoundly
poetical one, by its pensive, mystic, and deeply religious character,
but by its secluded condition apart from the currents of modern
education, and its occupations in the gloomy, wind-swept, and
rain-beaten fields and on the mysterious and terrifying seas, is
particularly subject to the influences which make folk-song a part of
its life and the natural expression of its thoughts and emotions. Nor is
its folk-poetry entirely without value in the strictly historical sense,
although anything like absolute accuracy or the definite remains of
contemporary historic verse are not to be expected. As in the extant
folk-lore of other nations, the roots run far back, and evidences of
the traditions and customs of former ages survive in a fragmentary and
altered state, in which may be traced the tokens of the existence of the
race in the earliest dawn of history and even before any known records.
Thus, if there are no authentic poems of the time of Merlin and King
Arthur in the Breton folk-songs of the present day, their names and
traditions survive; and, if the school culture of the Druids does not
survive in the poems of numeral questions on the characters and events
of the Bible, as imagined or invented by M. Villemarqué, no less
fragments of their customs and worship remain in the habits and
traditions of the people in and outside of their religious ritual,
and are perpetuated in their folk-songs, if with as little definite
knowledge as of the rites once performed at the feet of the dolmens or
in the temple of Karnac. The fairies, and the dwarfs, and the spirits
of the sea and air still survive, and are dreaded or invoked in the same
spirit, if with less fervency than the saints and powers of the Church.
Thus M. Paul Sebillot, in his Contes des Marins, gathered in Upper
Brittany, tells that the sailors shake their fists at and threaten with
their knives an unfavorable wind, and there are numerous actual
customs as well as traditions among the Breton people which are evident
survivals from heathen ages, while the rites of the Church itself have
many traces of the adoption of forms of nature worship. This element of
the supernatural, like the traditions of actual history, is fading away
in Brittany as in all other countries, but enough remains to throw
a strong light on the ancient customs, as well as the fundamental
character of the race, and to inform its folk-poetry with this element
to a degree which that of few modern nations possesses.
The interest of modern folk-poetry is, however, mainly in quality as
poetry, its expression with eloquence and feeling of the emotions of the
human heart, and the representation which it gives of the quality of the
mind, the temperament, the degree of intelligence, and the habits and
customs of the people who produced it. In this view the two latest
volumes of the collection of Breton folksongs by F. M. Luzel, Sonniou
Breiz-Izel (Paris.
Emile Bouillon, 1890), are particularly interesting. His two
previous volumes, Gwerzion Breiz-Izel, were devoted to the fantastic,
supernatural, and tragic ballads which held a place by the side of the
fabulous tales in the minds of the people, were derived from the
remote past, and had little connection with the life of to-day. On
the contrary, the Sonniou, for which songs is the somewhat imperfect
equivalent in English, are the immediate interpretation of their
thoughts and emotions, the transcripts of their present life, and its
events, sung and told by living poets, or those who have lived within a
time to make them a part of the present people. They include the songs
which are sung by the cradles to drowsing infants, the hopes and sorrows
of love, the joyous welcomes to weddings, the homely pains of married
life, and the sorrows for the common lot of death, the chants
of religious faith and worship, the charms against diseases, the
accompaniments of labor and the peculiarities of trade and occupation,
the homely reflections on the conduct of life, and the rustic humor and
satire, and, in short, all the thoughts and events, which mark the
daily life of the people. Of their absolute genuineness there can be no
question. They have all the internal evidence in their construction and
language, the simplicity and abruptness of thought, the imperfection of
utterance combined with untaught eloquence and strength, the occasional
vulgarity by the side of an equally great delicacy, the simple and
powerful melody, and all the characteristics of popular poetry, which
are as unmistakable as the perfumes of the flowers of the field. Their
collection has been the work of forty-five years, in which M. Luzel has
indefatigably traversed the provinces of Lower Brittany, visiting the
solitary huts of the sabot makers and hemp-weavers, colloquing with
wandering beggars, listening to the songs and stories at the kitchen
firesides of lonely farms in winter, gathering the singers at the Fair
around him in the tap-rooms, taking down the songs of nursing mothers,
the sailors on shipboard and the soldiers in the barracks, the shepherds
on the plains and the laborers in the fields, and, in short, gathering
every form of verse which is the expression of the popular thoughts
and emotions. They are naturally of less purely literary merit than the
ballads of the Barzaz Breiz, which are carefully arranged, trimmed, and
decorated for poetical effect. It is always a sign for suspicion
when folk-poetry is too good. The picturesque garments of the Breton
peasantry must show the signs of actual wear and even the stains of
grease and dirt, if they are to have the genuine effect, and when
they are of too fine material, too carefully arranged, and shining and
spotless, the impression is that they are simply stage costumes
drawn from the theatrical wardrobe. Even the beggar with his rags too
artistically draped suggests the painter's model. So there must be
the element of reality in their defects before the folk-songs can be
accepted as really genuine, and it adds a power and even a literary
effect to them, which in its peculiar flavor the most accomplished
literary art cannot produce. We seem to hear the speech of living men,
to feel the thoughts of simple hearts through the imperfect utterance,
and to experience all the flavor of actual and homely life. The pieces
in the Sonniou collected by M. Luzel have all this quality. They have
the coarse material and the patches of garments actually worn, and their
charm is due to their native picturesqueness and originality. There is
no false sentiment, however deep the feeling, and the homely thoughts
are expressed in homely phrases, with natural imagery drawn from the
aspect of nature about them and their avocations in life. Their standard
of conventionality in speech differs from that of polite society, and
there are words and phrases which smack of a coarse and natural life,
but they are, nevertheless, singularly pure in thought, and show the
soundness and honesty of the Breton character, as well as its tenderness
and warmth of affection. If not great refinement, there is great depth
of feeling, and actual vulgarity of thought is as rare as immoral
suggestion, even in the rude satires and humorous narratives.
The beginning of all folk-song is in the cooing melodies which the
mothers chant by the inspiration of nature by the cradles of their
drowsing infants, and in which the affections of their hearts take an
articulate form as naturally as the songs of birds. The _berceuses_,
or cradle songs, of the Breton peasantry have all the elements of deep
feeling and childish simplicity of expression which characterize the
voice of motherhood in every clime and every station in life, and unite
the queen and the peasant in a common bond. The same lovely and touching
images suggest themselves, and the same simple and soothing melody flows
naturally from the lips. This Breton cradle song might find its parallel
in thought and language in many nations:--
CRADLE SONG.
Toutouie la, la, my little child,
Toutouie la, la.
Your mother is here, my little child,
To rock you softly, little dear.
Your mother is here, my little lamb,
She will sing you a little song.
The other day she wept sorely;
Now she smiles, the little mother.
Toutouie la, la, my little bird,
In the sweet breast of thy rose tree.
To fly to heaven, my little angel,
Do not spread your little wing.
There is also the element of infantile humor, as in all nursery songs,
to bring smiles to the rosy cheeks, with food for the simple imagination
open-ing its eyes on the birds and beasts around it, and endowing them
with human life. One can feel how a child would appreciate the little
story of The Fox Gallant with a sense at once of reality and hu-mor:--
THE FOX GALLANT.
I had a pullet and I had but one,
A fox carried her off, and now I have none.
The fox has carried her off from the sill of my door,
And more than that, I think, he has done me disgrace.
But I perceive Jean le Ri and also Herod,
And I ask them, have you not seen my pullet.
And I pass my head out of the front room window.
I see my pullet, who on the village green is dancing,
And the fox by her side with a Flanders basket;
With pears and with apples he is treating my pullet.