PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOYES, HOUSMAN
Stephen Phillips--his immediate success--influence of
Stratford-on-Avon--his plays--a traditional poet--his
realism--William Watson--his unpromising start--his lament on
the coldness of the age toward poetry--his
Epigrams--_Wordsworth's Grave_--his eminence as a critic
in verse--his anti-imperialism--his Song of Hate--his Byronic
wit--his contempt for the "new" poetry--Alfred Noyes--both
literary and rhetorical--an orthodox poet--a singer--his
democracy--his childlike imagination--his
sea-poems--_Drake_--his optimism--his religious faith--A.
E. Housman--his paganism and pessimism--his modernity--his
originality--his lyrical power--war poems--Ludlow.
The genius of Stephen Phillips was immediately recognized by London
critics. When the thin volume, _Poems_, containing _Marpessa,
Christ in Hades_, and some lyrical pieces, appeared in 1897, it was
greeted by a loud chorus of approval, ceremoniously ratified by the
bestowal of the First Prize from the British Academy. Some of the more
distinguished among his admirers asserted that the nobility,
splendour, and beauty of his verse merited the adjective Miltonic. I
remember that we Americans thought that the English critics had lost
their heads, and we queried what they would say if we praised a new
poet in the United States in any such fashion. But that was before we
had seen the book; when we had once read it for ourselves, we felt no
alarm for the safety of Milton, but we knew that English Literature
had been enriched. Stephen Phillips is among the English poets.
His career extended over the space of twenty-five years, from the
first publication of _Marpessa_ in 1890 to his death on the ninth
of December, 1915. He was born near the city of Oxford, on the
twenty-eighth of July, 1868. His father, the Rev. Dr. Stephen
Phillips, still living, is Precentor of Peterborough Cathedral; his
mother was related to Wordsworth. He was exposed to poetry germs at
the age of eight, for in 1876 his father became Chaplain and Sub-Vicar
at Stratford-on-Avon, and the boy attended the Grammar School. Later
he spent a year at Queens' College, Cambridge, enough to give him the
right to be enrolled in the long list of Cambridge poets. He went on
the stage as a member of Frank Benson's company, and in his time
played many parts, receiving on one occasion a curtain call as the
Ghost in _Hamlet_. This experience--with the early Stratford
inspiration--probably fired his ambition to become a dramatist. The
late Sir George Alexander produced _Paolo and Francesca_;
_Herod_ was acted in London by Beerbohm Tree, and in America by
William Faversham. Neither of these plays was a failure, but it is
regrettable that he wrote for the stage at all. His genius was not
adapted for drama, and the quality of his verse was not improved by
the experiment, although all of his half-dozen pieces have occasional
passages of rare loveliness. His best play, _Paolo and
Francesca_, suffers when compared either with Boker's or
D'Annunzio's treatment of the old story. It lacks the stage-craft of
the former, and the virility of the latter.
Phillips was no pioneer: he followed the great tradition of English
poetry, and must be counted among the legitimate heirs. At his best,
he resembles Keats most of all; and none but a real poet could ever
make us think of Keats. If he be condemned for not breaking new paths,
we may remember the words of a wise man--"It is easier to differ from
the great poets than it is to resemble them." He loved to employ the
standard five-foot measure that has done so much of the best work of
English poetry. In _The Woman with the Dead Soul_, he showed once
more the musical possibilities latent in the heroic couplet, which
Pope had used with such monotonous brilliance. In _Marpessa_, he
gave us blank verse of noble artistry. But he was far more than a mere
technician. He fairly meets the test set by John Davidson. "In the
poet the whole assembly of his being is harmonious; no organ is
master; a diapason extends throughout the entire scale; his whole
body, his whole soul is rapt into the making of his poetry.... Poetry
is the product of originality, of a first-hand experience and
observation of life, of a direct communion with men and women, with
the seasons of the year, with day and night. The critic will therefore
be well-advised, if he have the good fortune to find something that
seems to him poetry, to lay it out in the daylight and the moonlight,
to take it into the street and the fields, to set against it his own
experience and observation of life."
One of the most severe tests of poetry that I know of is to read it
aloud on the shore of an angry sea. Homer, Shakespeare, Milton gain in
splendour with this accompaniment.
With the words of John Davidson in mind, let us take two passages from
_Marpessa_, and measure one against the atmosphere of day and
night, and the other against homely human experience. Although Mr.
Davidson was not thinking of Phillips, I believe he would have
admitted the validity of this verse.
From the dark
The floating smell of flowers invisible,
The mystic yearning of the garden wet,
The moonless-passing night--into his brain
Wandered, until he rose and outward leaned
In the dim summer; 'twas the moment deep
When we are conscious of the secret dawn,
Amid the darkness that we feel is green....
When the long day that glideth without cloud,
The summer day, was at her deep blue hour
Of lilies musical with busy bliss,
Whose very light trembled as with excess,
And heat was frail, and every bush and flower
Was drooping in the glory overcome;
Any poet knows how to speak in authentic tones of the wild passion of
insurgent hearts; but not every poet possesses the rarer gift of
setting the mellower years to harmonious music, as in the following
gracious words:
But if I live with Idas, then we two
On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand
In odours of the open field, and live
In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch
The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun....
And though the first sweet sting of love be past,
The sweet that almost venom is; though youth,
With tender and extravagant delight,
The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge,
The insane farewell repeated o'er and o'er,
Pass off; there shall succeed a faithful peace;
Beautiful friendship tried by sun and wind,
Durable from the daily dust of life.
And though with sadder, still with kinder eyes,
We shall behold all frailties, we shall haste
To pardon, and with mellowing minds to bless.
Then though we must grow old, we shall grow old
Together, and he shall not greatly miss
My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes,
Too deeply gazed in ever to seem dim;
Nor shall we murmur at, nor much regret
The years that gently bend us to the ground,
And gradually incline our face; that we
Leisurely stooping, and with each slow step,
May curiously inspect our lasting home.
But we shall sit with luminous holy smiles,
Endeared by many griefs, by many a jest,
And custom sweet of living side by side;
And full of memories not unkindly glance
Upon each other. Last, we shall descend
Into the natural ground--not without tears--
One must go first, ah God! one must go first;
After so long one blow for both were good;
Still like old friends, glad to have met, and leave
Behind a wholesome memory on the earth.
Although _Marpessa_ and _Christ in Hades_ are subjects
naturally adapted for poetic treatment, Phillips did not hesitate to
try his art on material less malleable. In some of his poems we find a
realism as honest and clear-sighted as that of Crabbe or Masefield. In
_The Woman with the Dead Soul_ and _The Wife_ we have
naturalism elevated into poetry. He could make a London night as
mystical as a moonlit meadow. And in a brief couplet he has given to
one of the most familiar of metropolitan spectacles a pretty touch of
imagination. The traffic policeman becomes a musician.
The constable with lifted hand
Conducting the orchestral Strand.
Stephen Phillips's second volume of collected verse, _New Poems_
(1907), came ten years after the first, and was to me an agreeable
surprise. His devotion to the drama made me fear that he had burned
himself out in the _Poems_ of 1897; but the later book is as
unmistakably the work of a poet as was the earlier. The mystical
communion with nature is expressed with authority in such poems as
_After Rain_, _Thoughts at Sunrise_, _Thoughts at
Noon_. Indeed the first-named distinctly harks back to that
transcendental mystic of the seventeenth century, Henry Vaughan. The
greatest triumph in the whole volume comes where we should least
expect it, in the eulogy on Gladstone. Even the most sure-footed bards
often miss their path in the Dark Valley. Yet in these seven stanzas
on the Old Parliamentary Hand there is not a single weak line, not a
single false note; word placed on word grows steadily into a column of
majestic beauty.
This poem is all the more refreshing because admiration for Gladstone
had become unfashionable; his work was belittled, his motives
befouled, his clear mentality discounted by thousands of pygmy
politicians and journalistic gnats. The poet, with a poet's love for
mountains, turns the powerful light of his genius on the old giant;
the mists disappear; and we see again a form venerable and august.
The saint and poet dwell apart; but thou
Wast holy in the furious press of men,
And choral in the central rush of life.
Yet didst thou love old branches and a book,
And Roman verses on an English lawn....
Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote,
Nor breach tremendous in the forts of Hell,
Not for these things we praise thee, though these things
Are much; but more, because thou didst discern
In temporal policy the eternal will;
Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note,
And to debate the thunder of the Lord;
To meanest issues fire of the Most High.
William Watson, a Yorkshireman by birth and ancestry, was born on the
second of August, 1858. His first volume, _The Prince's Quest_,
appeared in 1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more unpromising
start, or given so little indication, not only of the flame of genius,
but of the power of thought. No twentieth century English poet has a
stronger personality than William Watson. There is not the slightest
tang of it in _The Prince's Quest_. This long, rambling romance,
in ten sections, is as devoid of flavour as a five-finger exercise. It
is more than objective; it is somnambulistic. It contains hardly any
notable lines, and hardly any bad lines. Although quite dull, it never
deviates into prose--it is always somehow poetical without ever
becoming poetry. It is written in the heroic couplet, written with a
fatal fluency; not good enough and not bad enough to be interesting.
It is like the student's theme, which was returned to him without
corrections, yet with a low mark; and in reply to the student's
resentful question, "Why did you not correct my faults, if you thought
meanly of my work?" the teacher replied wearily, "Your theme has no
faults; it is distinguished by a lack of merit."
In _The Prince's Quest_ Mr. Watson exhibited a rather remarkable
command of a barren technique. He had neither thoughts that breathe,
nor words that burn. He had one or two unusual words--his only
indication of immaturity in style--like "wox" and "himseemed." (Why is
it that when "herseemed" as used by Rossetti, is so beautiful,
"himseemed" should be so irritating!) But aside from a few specimens,
the poem is as free from affectations as it is from passion. When we
remember the faults and the splendours of _Pauline,_ it seems
incredible that a young poet could write so many pages without
stumbling and without soaring; that he could produce a finished work
of mediocrity. I suppose that those who read the poem in 1880 felt
quite sure that its author would never scale the heights; and they
were wrong; because William Watson really has the divine gift, and is
one of the most deservedly eminent among living poets.
It is only fair to add, that in the edition of his works in 1898,
_The Prince's Quest_ did not appear; he was persuaded, however,
to include it in the two-volume edition of 1905, where it enjoys
considerable revision, "wox" becoming normal, and "himseemed" becoming
dissyllabic. For my part, I am glad that it has now been definitely
retained. It is important in the study of a poet's development. It
would seem that the William Watson of the last twenty-five years, a
fiery, eager, sensitive man, with a burning passion to express himself
on moral and political ideas, learned the mastery of his art before he
had anything to say.
Perhaps, being a thoroughly honest craftsman, he felt that he ought to
keep his thoughts to himself, until he knew how to express them. After
proving it on an impersonal romance, he was then ready to speak his
mind. No poet has spoken his mind more plainly.
In an interesting address, delivered in various cities in the United
States, and published in 1913, called _The Poet's Place in the
Scheme of Life,_ Mr. Watson said, "Since my arrival on these shores
I have been told that here also the public interest in poetry is
visibly on the wane." Now whoever told him that was mistaken. The
public interest in poetry and in poets has visibly _wox_, to use
Mr. Watson's word. It is always true that an original genius, like
Browning, like Ibsen, like Wagner, must wait some time for public
recognition, although these three all lived long enough to receive not
only appreciation, but idolatry; but the "reading public" has no
difficulty in recognizing immediately first-rate work, when it is
produced in the familiar forms of art. In the Preface that preceded
his printed lecture, Mr. Watson complained with some natural
resentment, though with no petulance, that his poem, _King
Alfred_, starred as it was from the old armories of literature,
received scarcely any critical comment, and attracted no attention.
But the reason is plain enough--_King Alfred_, as a whole, is a
dull poem, and is therefore not provocative of eager discussion. The
critics and the public rose in reverence before _Wordsworth's
Grave_, because it is a noble work of art. Its author did not have
to tell us of its beauty--it was as clear as a cathedral.
I do not agree with Mr. Watson or with Mr. Mackaye, that real poets
are speaking to deaf ears, or that they should be stimulated by forced
attention. I once heard Percy Mackaye make an eloquent and high-minded
address, where, if my memory serves me rightly, he advocated something
like a stipend for young poets. A distinguished old man in the
audience, now with God, whispered audibly, "What most of them need is
hanging!" I do not think they should be rewarded either by cash or the
gallows. Let them make their way, and if they have genius, the public
will find it out. If all they have is talent, and no means to support
it, poetry had better become their avocation.
Mr. Watson has expressly disclaimed that in his lecture he was
lamenting merely "the insufficient praise bestowed upon living poets."
It is certainly true that most poets cannot live by the sale of their
works. Is this especially the fault of our age? is it the fault of our
poets? is it a fault in human nature? Mr. Watson said, "Yet I am bound
to admit that this need for the poet is felt by but few persons in our
day. With one exception there is not a single living English poet, the
sales of whose poems would not have been thought contemptible by Scott
and Byron. The exception is, of course, that apostle of British
imperialism--that vehement and voluble glorifier of Britannic ideals,
whom I dare say you will readily identify from my brief, and, I hope,
not disparaging description of him. With that one brilliant and
salient exception, England's living singers succeed in reaching only a
pitifully small audience." In commenting on this passage, we ought to
remember that Scott and Byron were colossal figures, so big that no
eye could miss them; and that the reason why Kipling has enjoyed
substantial rewards is not because of his political views, nor because
of his glorification of the British Empire, but simply because of his
literary genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to the common
run of poets, not merely in royalties, but in creative power.
Furthermore, shortly after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes
and then John Masefield passed from city to city in America in a march
of triumph. Mr. Gibson and Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere;
"Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; Rupert Brooke has been
canonized.
Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers "his poetical
contemporaries in England" his "most sincere condolences on the hard
fate which condemned them to be born there at all in the latter part
of the nineteenth century." But he is not mistaken in wishing that
more people everywhere were appreciative of true poetry. I wish this
with all my heart, not so much for the poet's sake, as for that of the
people. But the chosen spirits are not rarer in our time than
formerly. The fault is in human nature. Material blessings are
instantly appreciated by every man, woman, and child, and by all the
animals. For one person who knows the joys of listening to music, or
looking at pictures, or reading poetry, there are a hundred thousand
who know only the joys of food, clothing, shelter. Spiritual delights
are not so immediately apparent as the gratification of physical
desires. Perhaps if they were, man's growth would stop. As Browning
says,
While were it so with the soul,--this gift of truth
Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure
To prosper as the body's gain is wont,--
Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth
Crumble; for he both reasons and decides,
Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire
For gold or purple once he knows its worth?
Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain?
Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift,
Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,
And straightway in his life acknowledge it,
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.
One of the functions of the poet is to awaken men and women to the
knowledge of the delights of the mind, to give them life instead of
existence. As Mr. Watson nobly expresses it, the aim of the poet "is
to keep fresh within us our often flagging sense of life's greatness
and grandeur." We can exist on food; but we cannot live without our
poets, who lift us to higher planes of thought and feeling. The poetry
of William Watson has done this service for us again and again.
In 1884 appeared _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_. I do not
think these have been sufficiently admired. As an epigrammatist Mr.
Watson has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary verse. The epigram
is a quite definite form of art, especially cultivated by the poets in
the first half of the seventeenth century. Their formula the terse
expression of obscene thoughts. Mr. Watson excels the best of them in
wit, concision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes no attempt
to rival them as a garbage-collector. Of the large number of epigrams
that he has contributed to English literature, I find the majority not
only interesting, but richly stimulating. This one ought to please Mr.
H. G. Wells:
When whelmed are altar, priest, and creed;
When all the faiths have passed;
Perhaps, from darkening incense freed,
God may emerge at last.
This one, despite its subject, is far above doggerel:
His friends he loved. His direst earthly foes--
Cats--believe he did but feign to hate.
My hand will miss the insinuated nose,
Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at fate.
But his best epigrams are on purely literary themes:
Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's ope.
How welcome--after gong and cymbal's din--
The continuity, the long slow slope
And vast curves of the gradual violin!
With the publication in 1890 of his masterpiece, _Wordsworth's
Grave_, William Watson came into his own. This is worthy of the man
it honours, and what higher praise could be given? It is superior,
both in penetration and in beauty, to Matthew Arnold's famous
_Memorial Verses_. Indeed, in the art of writing subtle literary
criticism in rhythmical language that is itself high and pure poetry,
Mr. Watson is unapproachable by any of his contemporaries, and I do
not know of any poet in English literature who has surpassed him. This
is his specialty, this is his clearest title to permanent fame. And
although his criticism is so valuable, when employed on a sympathetic
theme, that he must be ranked among our modern interpreters of
literature, his style in expressing it could not possibly be
translated into prose, sure test of its poetical greatness. In his
_Apologia_, he says
I have full oft
In singers' selves found me a theme of song,
Holding these also to be very part
Of Nature's greatness, and accounting not
Their descants least heroical of deeds.
The poem _Wordsworth's Grave_ not only expresses, as no one else
has expressed, the quality of Wordsworth's genius, but in single lines
assigned to each, the same service is done for Milton, Shakespeare,
Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron. This is a matchless illustration of the
kind of criticism that is in itself genius; for we may quarrel with
Mr. Spingarn as much as we please on his general dogmatic principle of
the identity of genius and taste; here we have so admirable an example
of what he means by creative criticism, that it is a pity he did not
think of it himself. "For it still remains true," says Mr. Spingarn,
"that the aesthetic critic, in his moments of highest power, rises to
heights where he is at one with, the creator whom he is interpreting.
At that moment criticism and 'creation' are one."
All great poets have the power of noble indignation, a divine wrath
against wickedness in high places. The poets, like the prophets of
old, pour out their irrepressible fury against what they believe to be
cruelty and oppression. Milton's magnificent Piedmont sonnet is a
glorious roar of righteous rage; and since his time the poets have
ever been the spokesmen for the insulted and injured. Robert Burns,
more than most statesmen, helped to make the world safe for democracy.
I do not know what humanity would do without its poets--they are the
champions of the individual against the tyranny of power, the cruel
selfishness of kings, and the artificial conventions of society. We
may or may not agree with Mr. Watson's anti-imperialistic sentiments
as expressed in the early days of our century, he himself, like most
of us, has changed his mind on many subjects since the outbreak of the
world-war, and unless he ceases to develop, will probably change it
many times in the future. But whatever our opinions, we cannot help
admiring lines like these, published in 1897:
HOW WEARY IS OUR HEART
Of kings and courts; of kingly, courtly ways
In which the life of man is bought and sold;
How weary is our heart these many days!
Of ceremonious embassies that hold
Parley with Hell in fine and silken phrase,
How weary is our heart these many days!
Of wavering counsellors neither hot nor cold,
Whom from His mouth God speweth, be it told
How weary is our heart these many days!
Yea, for the ravelled night is round the lands,
And sick are we of all the imperial story.
The tramp of Power, and its long trail of pain;
The mighty brows in meanest arts grown hoary;
The mighty hands,
That in the dear, affronted name of Peace
Bind down a people to be racked and slain;
The emulous armies waxing without cease,
All-puissant all in vain;
The pacts and leagues to murder by delays,
And the dumb throngs that on the deaf thrones gaze;
The common loveless lust of territory;
The lips that only babble of their mart,
While to the night the shrieking hamlets blaze;
The bought allegiance, and the purchased praise,
False honour, and shameful glory;--
Of all the evil whereof this is part,
How weary is our heart,
How weary is our heart these many days!
Another poem I cite in full, not for its power and beauty, but as a
curiosity. I do not think it has been remembered that in the _New
Poems_ of 1909 Mr. Watson published a poem of Hate some years
before the Teutonic hymn became famous. It is worth reading again,
because it so exactly expresses the cold reserve of the Anglo-Saxon,
in contrast with the sentimentality of the German. There is, of
course, no indication that its author had Germany in mind.
HATE
(To certain foreign detractors)
Sirs, if the truth must needs be told,
We love not you that rail and scold;
And, yet, my masters, you may wait
Till the Greek Calends for our hate.
No spendthrifts of our hate are we;
Our hate is used with husbandry.
We hold our hate too choice a thing
For light and careless lavishing.
We cannot, dare not, make it cheap!
For holy uses will we keep.
A thing so pure, a thing so great
As Heaven's benignant gift of hate.
Is there no ancient, sceptred Wrong?
No torturing Power, endured too long?
Yea; and for these our hatred shall
Be cloistered and kept virginal.
He found occasion to draw from his cold storage of hate much sooner
than he had anticipated. Being a convinced anti-imperialist, and
having not a spark of antagonism to Germany, the early days of August,
1914, shocked no one in the world more than him. But after the first
maze of bewilderment and horror, he drew his pen against the Kaiser in
holy wrath. Most of his war poems have been collected in the little
volume _The Man Who Saw,_ published in the summer of 1917. He has
now at all events one satisfaction, that of being in absolute harmony
with the national sentiment. In his Preface, after commenting on the
pain he had suffered in times past at finding himself in opposition to
the majority of his countrymen, he manfully says, "During the present
war, with all its agonies and horrors, he has had at any rate the one
private satisfaction of feeling not even the most momentary doubt or
misgiving as to the perfect righteousness of his country's cause.
There is nothing on earth of which he is more certain than that this
Empire, throughout this supreme ordeal, has shaped her course by the
light of purest duty." The volume opens with a fine tribute to Mr.
Lloyd George, "the man who saw," and _The Kaiser's Dirge_ is a
savage malediction. The poems in this book--of decidedly unequal
merit--have the fire of indignation if not always the flame of
inspiration. Taken as a whole, they are more interesting
psychologically than as a contribution to English verse. I sympathize
with the author's feelings, and admire his sincerity; but his
reputation as a poet is not heightened overmuch. Perhaps the best poem
in the collection is _The Yellow Pansy_, accompanied with
Shakespeare's line, "There's pansies--that's for thoughts."
Winter had swooped, a lean and hungry hawk;
It seemed an age since summer was entombed;
Yet in our garden, on its frozen stalk,
A yellow pansy bloomed.
'Twas Nature saying by trope and metaphor:
"Behold, when empire against empire strives,
Though all else perish, ground 'neath iron war,
The golden thought survives."
Although, with the exception of his marriage and travels in America,
Mr. Watson's verse tells us little of the facts of his life, few poets
have ever revealed more of the history of their mind. What manner of
man he is we know without waiting for the publication of his intimate
correspondence. It is fortunate for his temperament that, combined
with an almost morbid sensitiveness, he has something of Byron's power
of hitting back. His numerous volumes contain many verses scoring off
adverse critics, upon whom he exercises a sword of satire not always
to be found among a poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give him
both relief and delight. Apart from these thrusts edged with personal
bitterness, William Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical
wit that immediately recalls Byron, who might himself have written
some of the stanzas in _The Eloping Angels_. Faust requests
Mephisto to procure for them both admission into heaven for
half-an-hour:
To whom Mephisto: "Ah, you underrate
The hazards and the dangers, my good Sir.
Peter is stony as his name; the gate,
Excepting to invited guests, won't stir.
'Tis long since he and I were intimate;
We differed;--but to bygones why refer?
Still, there are windows; if a peep through these
Would serve your turn, we'll start whene'er you please...."
So Faust and his companion entered, by
The window, the abodes where seraphs dwell.
"Already morning quickens in the sky,
And soon will sound the heavenly matin bell;
Our time is short," Mephisto said, "for I
Have an appointment about noon in hell.
Dear, dear! why, heaven has hardly changed one bit
Since the old days before the historic split."
The excellent conventional technique displayed in _The Prince's
Quest_ has characterized nearly every page of Mr. Watson's works.
He is not only content to walk in the ways of traditional poesy, he
glories in it. He has a contempt for heretics and experimenters, which
he has expressed frequently not only in prose, but in verse. It is
natural that he should worship Tennyson; natural (and unfortunate for
him) that he can see little in Browning. And if he is blind to
Browning, what he thinks of contemporary "new" poets may easily be
imagined. With or without inspiration, he believes that hard work is
necessary, and that good workmanship ought to be rated more highly.
This idea has become an obsession; Mr. Watson writes too much about
the sweat of his brow, and vents his spleen on "modern" poets too
often. In his latest volume, _Retrogression_, published in 1917,
thirty-two of the fifty-two poems are devoted to the defence of
standards of poetic art and of purity of speech. They are all
interesting and contain some truth; but if the "new" poetry and the
"new" criticism are really balderdash, they should not require so much
attention from one of the most eminent of contemporary writers. I
think Mr. Watson is rather stiff-necked and obstinate, like an honest,
hearty country squire, in his sturdy following of tradition. Smooth
technique is a fine thing in art; but I do not care whether a poem is
written in conventional metre or in free verse, so long as it is
unmistakably poetry. And no garments yet invented or the lack of them
can conceal true poetry. Perhaps the Traditionalist might reply that
uninspired verse gracefully written is better than uninspired verse
abominably written. So it is; but why bother about either? He might
once more insist that inspired poetry gracefully written is better
than inspired poetry ungracefully written. And I should reply that it
depended altogether on the subject. I should not like to see Whitman's
_Spirit that formed this Scene_ turned into a Spenserian stanza.
I cannot forget that David Mallet tried to smoothen Hamlet's soliloquy
by jamming it into the heroic couplet. Mr. Watson thinks that the
great John Donne is dead. On the contrary, he is audibly alive; and
the only time he really approached dissolution was when Pope
"versified" him.
Stephen Phillips, William Watson, Alfred Noyes--each published his
first volume of poems at the age of twenty-two, additional evidence of
the old truth that poets are born, not made. Alfred Noyes is a
Staffordshire man, though his report of the county differs from that
of Arnold Bennett as poetry differs from prose. They did not see the
same things in Staffordshire, and if they had, they would not have
been the same things, anyhow. Mr. Noyes was born on the sixteenth of
September, 1880, and made his first departure from the traditions of
English poetry in going to Oxford. There he was an excellent
illustration of _mens sana in corpore sano_, writing verses and
rowing on his college crew. He is married to an American wife, is a
professor at Princeton, and understands the spirit of America better
than most visitors who write clever books about us. He has the
wholesome, modest, cheerful temperament of the American college
undergraduate, and the Princeton students are fortunate, not only in
hearing his lectures, but in the opportunity of fellowship with such a
man.
Mr. Noyes is one of the few poets who can read his own verses
effectively, the reason being that his mind is by nature both literary
and rhetorical--a rare union. The purely literary temperament is
usually marked by a certain shyness which unfits its owner for the
public platform. I have heard poets read passionate poetry in a
muffled sing-song, something like a child learning to "recite." The
works of Alfred Noyes gain distinctly by his oral interpretation of
them.
He is prolific. Although still a young man, he has a long list of
books to his credit; and it is rather surprising that in such a
profusion of literary experiments, the general level should be so
high. He writes blank verse, octosyllabics, terza-rima, sonnets, and
is particularly fond of long rolling lines that have in them the music
of the sea. His ideas require no enlargement of the orchestra, and he
generally avoids by-paths, or unbeaten tracks, content to go lustily
singing along the highway. Perhaps it shows more courage to compete
with standard poets in standard measures, than to elude dangerous
comparisons by making or adopting a new fashion. Mr. Noyes openly
challenges the masters on their own field and with their own weapons.
Yet he shows nothing of the schoolmasterish contempt for the "new"
poetry so characteristic of Mr. Watson. He actually admires Blake, who
was in spirit a twentieth century poet, and he has written a fine poem
_On the Death of Francis Thompson_, though he has nothing of
Thompson in him except religious faith.
In the time-worn but useful classification of versemakers under the
labels _Vates_ and _Poeta_, Alfred Noyes belongs clearly to
the latter group. He is not without ideas, but he is primarily an
artist, a singer. He is one of the most melodious of modern writers,
with a witchery in words that at its best is irresistible. He has an
extraordinary command of the resources of language and rhythm. Were
this all he possessed, he would be nothing but a graceful musician.
But he has the imagination of the inspired poet, giving him creative
power to reveal anew the majesty of the untamed sea, and the mystery
of the stars. With this clairvoyance--essential in poetry--he has a
hearty, charming, incondescending sympathy with "common" people,
common flowers, common music. One of his most original and most
captivating poems is _The Tramp Transfigured, an Episode in the Life
of a Corn-flower Millionaire_. This contains a character worthy of
Dickens, a faery touch of fantasy, a rippling, singing melody, with
delightful audacities of rime.
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer!
Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff--
"Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger;
Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off."
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer,
"Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough,
"I must get to Piddinghoe tomorrow if I can, sir!"
"Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff,"
Says I, like a toff,
"Where d'you mean to sleep tonight? God made this grass for go'ff."
His masterpiece, _The Barrel-Organ_, has something of Kipling's
rollicking music, with less noise and more refinement. Out of the
mechanical grinding of the hand organ, with the accompaniment of city
omnibuses, we get the very breath of spring in almost intolerable
sweetness. This poem affects the head, the heart, and the feet. I defy
any man or woman to read it without surrendering to the magic of the
lilacs, the magic of old memories, the magic of the poet. Nor has one
ever read this poem without going immediately back to the first line,
and reading it all over again, so susceptible are we to the romantic
pleasure of melancholy.
Mon coeur est un luth suspendu:
Sitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne.
Alfred Noyes understands the heart of the child; as is proved by his
_Flower of Old Japan_, and _Forest of Wild Thyme_, a kind of
singing Alice-in-Wonderland. These are the veritable stuff of
dreams--wholly apart from the law of causation--one vision fading into
another. It is our fault, and not that of the poet, that Mr. Noyes had
to explain them: "It is no new wisdom to regard these things through
the eyes of little children; and I know--however insignificant they
may be to others--these two tales contain as deep and true things as
I, personally, have the power to express. I hope, therefore, that I
may be pardoned, in these hurried days, for pointing out that the two
poems are not to be taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to
follow the careless and happy feet of children back into the kingdom
of those dreams which, as we said above, are the sole reality worth
living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic
jests--if any care to call them so--for which mankind has endured so
many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of
modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten." Mr. William J.
Locke says he would rather give up clean linen and tobacco than give
up his dreams.
Nearly all English poetry smells of the sea; the waves rule Britannia.
Alfred Noyes loves the ocean, and loves the old sea-dogs of
Devonshire. He is not a literary poet, like William Watson, and has
seldom given indication of possessing the insight or the
interpretative power of his contemporary in dealing with pure
literature. He has the blessed gift of admiration, and his poems on
Swinburne, Meredith, and other masters show a high reverence; but they
are without subtlety, and lack the discriminating phrase. He is,
however, deeply read in Elizabethan verse and prose, as his _Tales
of the Mermaid Tavern_, one of his longest, most painstaking, and
least successful works, proves; and of all the Elizabethan men of
action, Drake is his hero. The English lovers of the sea, and the
German lovers of efficiency, have both done honour to Drake. I
remember years ago, being in the town of Offenburg in Germany, and
seeing at a distance a colossal statue, feeling some surprise when I
discovered that the monument was erected to Sir Francis Drake, "in
recognition of his having introduced the potato into Europe." Here was
where eulogy became almost too specific, and I felt that their Drake
was not my Drake.
Mr. Noyes called _Drake_, published in 1908, an English Epic. It
is not really an epic--it is a historical romance in verse, as
_Aurora Leigh_ is a novel. It is interesting from beginning to
end, more interesting as narrative than as poetry. It is big rather
than great, rhetorical rather than literary, declamatory rather than
passionate. And while many descriptive passages are fine, the pictures
of the terrible storm near Cape Horn are surely less vivid than those
in _Dauber_. Had Mr. Noyes written _Drake_ without the
songs, and written nothing else, I should not feel certain that he was
a poet; I should regard him as an extremely fluent versifier, with
remarkable skill in telling a rattling good story. But the
_Songs_, especially the one beginning, "Now the purple night is
past," could have been written only by a poet. In _Forty Singing
Seamen_ there is displayed an imagination quite superior to
anything in _Drake_; and I would not trade _The Admiral's
Ghost_ for the whole "epic."
As a specific illustration of his lyrical power, the following poem
may be cited.
THE MAY-TREE
The May-tree on the hill
Stands in the night
So fragrant and so still,
So dusky white.
That, stealing from the wood,
In that sweet air,
You'd think Diana stood
Before you there.
If it be so, her bloom
Trembles with bliss.
She waits across the gloom
Her shepherd's kiss.
Touch her. A bird will start
From those pure snows,--
The dark and fluttering heart
Endymion knows.
Alfred Noyes is "among the English poets." His position is secure. But
because he has never identified himself with the "new" poetry--either
in choice of material or in free verse and polyphonic prose--it would
he a mistake to suppose that he is afraid to make metrical
experiments. The fact of the matter is, that after he had mastered the
technique of conventional rime and rhythm, as shown in many of his
lyrical pieces, he began playing new tunes on the old instrument. In
_The Tramp Transfigured_, to which I find myself always returning
in a consideration of his work, because it displays some of the
highest qualities of pure poetry, there are new metrical effects. The
same is true of the Prelude to the _Forest of Wild Thyme_, and of
_The Burial of a Queen_; there are new metres used in _Rank and
File_ and in _Mount Ida_. The poem _Astrid_, included in
the volume _The Lord of Misrule_ (1915), is an experiment in
_initial_ rhymes. Try reading it aloud.
White-armed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!--
Nightly wandered weeping thro' the ferns in the moon,
Slowly, weaving her strange garland in the forest,
Crowned with white violets,
Gowned in green.
Holy was that glen where she glided,
Making her wild garland as Merlin had bidden her,
Breaking off the milk-white horns of the honeysuckle,
Sweetly dripped the new upon her small white
Feet.
The English national poetry of Mr. Noyes worthily expresses the spirit
of the British people, and indeed of the Anglo-Saxon race. We are no
lovers of war; military ambition or the glory of conquest is not
sufficient motive to call either Great Britain or America to arms; but
if the gun-drunken Germans really believed that the English and
Americans would not fight to save the world from an unspeakable
despotism, they made the mistake of their lives. There must be a
Cause, there must be an Idea, to draw out the full fighting strength
of the Anglo-Saxons. Alfred Noyes made a correct diagnosis and a
correct prophecy in 1911, when he published _The Sword of
England_.
She sheds no blood to that vain god of strife
Whom tyrants call "renown";
She knows that only they who reverence life
Can nobly lay it down;
And these will ride from child and home and love,
Through death and hell that day;
But O, her faith, her flag, must burn above,
Her soul must lead the way!
I think none the worse of the mental force exhibited in the poetry of
Alfred Noyes because he is an optimist. It is a common error to
suppose that cheerfulness is a sign of a superficial mind, and
melancholy the mark of deep thinking. Pessimism in itself is no proof
of intellectual greatness. Every honest man must report the world as
he sees it, both in its external manifestations and in the equally
salient fact of human emotion. Mr. Noyes has always loved life, and
rejoiced in it; he loves the beauty of the world and believes that
history proves progress. In an unashamed testimony to the happiness of
living he is simply telling truths of his own experience. Happiness is
not necessarily thoughtlessness; many men and women have gone through
pessimism and come out on serener heights.
Alfred Noyes proves, as Browning proved, that it is possible to be an
inspired poet and in every other respect to remain normal. He is
healthy-minded, without a trace of affectation or decadence. He
follows the Tennysonian tradition in seeing that "Beauty, Good, and
Knowledge are three sisters." He is religious. A clear-headed,
pure-hearted Englishman is Alfred Noyes.
Although _A Shropshire Lad_ was published in 1896, there is
nothing of the nineteenth century in it except the date, and nothing
Victorian except the allusions to the Queen. A double puzzle confronts
the reader: how could a University Professor of Latin write this kind
of poetry, and how, after having published it, could he refrain from
writing more? Since the date of its appearance, he has published an
edition of _Manilius_, Book I, followed nine years later by Book
II; also an edition of _Juvenal_, and many papers representing
the result of original research. Possibly
Chill Pedantry repressed his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.
Alfred Edward Housman was born on the twenty-sixth of March, 1859, was
graduated from Oxford, was Professor of Latin at University College,
London, from 1892 to 1911, and since then has been Professor of Latin
at Cambridge. Few poets have made a deeper impression on the
literature of the time than he; and the sixty-three short lyrics in
one small volume form a slender wedge for so powerful an impact. This
poetry, except in finished workmanship, follows no English tradition;
it is as unorthodox as Samuel Butler; it is thoroughly "modern" in
tone, in temper, and in emphasis. Although entirely original, it
reminds one in many ways of the verse of Thomas Hardy. It has his
paganism, his pessimism, his human sympathy, his austere pride in the
tragedy of frustration, his curt refusal to pipe a merry tune, to make
one of a holiday crowd.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
Those lines might have been written by Thomas Hardy. They express not
merely his view of life, but his faith in the healing power of the
bitter herb of pessimism. But we should remember that _A Shropshire
Lad_ was published before the first volume of Mr. Hardy's verse
appeared, and that the lyrical element displayed is natural rather
than acquired.
Though at the time of its publication the author was thirty-six years
old, many of the poems must have been written in the twenties. The
style is mature, but the constant dwelling on death and the grave is a
mark of youth. Young poets love to write about death, because its
contrast to their present condition forms a romantic tragedy, sharply
dramatic and yet instinctively felt to be remote. Tennyson's first
volume is full of the details of dissolution, the falling jaw, the
eye-balls fixing, the sharp-headed worm. Aged poets do not usually
write in this manner, because death seems more realistic than
romantic. It is a fact rather than an idea. When a young poet is
obsessed with the idea of death, it is a sign, not of morbidity, but
of normality.
The originality in this book consists not in the contrast between love
and the grave, but in the acute self-consciousness of youth, in the
pagan determination to enjoy nature without waiting till life's summer
is past.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
The death of the body is not the greatest tragedy in this volume, for
suicide, a thought that youth loves to play with, is twice glorified.
The death of love is often treated with an ironical bitterness that
makes one think of _Time's Laughingstocks_.
Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.
The point of view expressed in _The Carpenter's Son_ is
singularly detached not only from conventional religious belief, but
from conventional reverence. But the originality in _A Shropshire
Lad_, while more strikingly displayed in some poems than in others,
leaves its mark on them all. It is the originality of a man who thinks
his own thoughts with shy obstinacy, makes up his mind in secret
meditation, quite unaffected by current opinion. It is not the poetry
of a rebel; it is the poetry of an independent man, too indifferent to
the crowd even to fight them. And now and then we find a lyric of
flawless beauty, that lingers in the mind like the glow of a sunset.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went,
And cannot come again.
Mr. Housman's poems are nearer to the twentieth century in spirit than
the work of the late Victorians, and many of them are curiously
prophetic of the dark days of the present war. What strange vision
made him write such poems as _The Recruit_, _The Street Sounds
to the Soldiers' Tread_, _The Day of Battle_, and _On the
Idle Hill of Summer_? Change the colour of the uniforms, and these
four poems would fit today's tragedy accurately. They are indeed
superior to most of the war poems written by the professional poets
since 1914.
Ludlow, for ever associated with. Milton's _Comus_, is now and
will be for many years to come also significant in the minds of men as
the home of a Shropshire lad.