We fear that in “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem has hardly added
to his reputation, and we might even doubt whether he was well
advised to publish it at all. “Tufts in an Orchard” gave such
promise, that the author of the exquisite lyrics it contained
might easily have rested on the immediate fame that first effort
procured him:
“Lord, look to England; England looks to you,”
and--
“Great unaffected vampires and the moon,”
are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die.
In “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem preserves and even increases
his old facility of expression, but there is a terrible
falling-off in verbal aptitude.
What are we to think of “The greatest general the world has seen”
applied as a poetic description to Lord Kitchener? Mr. Mayhem
will excuse us if we say that the whole expression is commonplace.
Commonplace thought is bad enough, though it is difficult to
avoid when one tackles a great national subject, and thinks what
all good patriots and men of sense think also. “Pour être poête,”
as M. Yves Guyot proudly said in his receptional address to the
French Academy, “Pour être poête on n’est pas forcément aliéné.”
But commonplace _language_ should always be avoidable, and it is
a fault which we cannot but admit we have found throughout Mr.
Mayhem’s new volume. Thus in “Laura” he compares a young goat
to a “tender flower,” and in “Billings” he calls some little
children “the younglings of the flock.” Again, he says of the
waves at Dover in a gale that they are “horses all in rank, with
manes of snow,” and tells us in “Eton College” that the Thames
“runs like a silver thread amid the green.”
All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even when they
do not touch it. However, there is very genuine feeling in the
description of his old school, and we have no doubt that the bulk
of Etonians will see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly
do.
It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful source of
inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the sonnets addressed
to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O’Brien, Dr. Clark, and General Mercier are
full of vigorous denunciation. It is the more regrettable that
he has missed true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a
misapprehension of planes and values.
“Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again,”
is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would reconsider in
his better moments: “more vile” than what? Than himself? The
expression is far too vague.
“Proud Prelate,” addressed to General Mercier, must be a
misprint, and it is a pity it should have slipped in. What Mr.
Mayhem probably meant was “Proud Cæsar” or “soldier,” or some
other dissyllabic title. The word _prelate_ can properly only be
applied to a bishop, a mitred abbot, or a vicar apostolic.
“Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead canker, crested
worm,” are vigorous and original, but do not save the sonnet. And
as to the last two lines,
“Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years,
For that you certainly could never do,”
Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order of the lines
make a sheer bathos.
Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. Mayhem, his
fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspirations, can be best
appreciated if we quote the following sonnet; the exercise will
also afford us the opportunity (which we are sure Mr. Mayhem will
not resent in such an old friend) of pointing out the dangers
into which his new tendencies may lead him.
“England, if ever it should be thy fate
By fortune’s turn or accident of chance
To fall from craven fears of being great,
And in the tourney with dishevelled lance
To topple headlong, and incur the Hate
Of Spain, America, Germany, and France,
What will you find upon that dreadful date
To check the backward move of your advance?
A little Glory; purchased not with gold
Nor yet with Frankincense (the island blood
Is incommensurate, neither bought nor sold),
But on the poops where Drake and Nelson stood
An iron hand, a stern unflinching eye
To meet the large assaults of Destiny.”
Now, here is a composition that not everyone could have written.
It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism, it strikes the right
note (Mr. Mayhem is a Past Seneschal of the Navy League), and it
breathes throughout the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics.
It is the execution that is defective, and it is to execution
that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he would rise to the level
of his own great conceptions.
We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our meaning clear,
and we do this earnestly for the sake of a young poet to whom the
Anglo-Saxon race owes much, and whom it would be deplorable to
see failing, as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has
failed.
Line 1 is not very striking, but might pass as an introduction;
line 2 is sheer pleonasm--after using the word “fate,” you
cannot use “fortune,” “accident,” “chance,” as though they were
amplifications of your first thought. Moreover, the phrase “by
_fortune’s_ turn” has a familiar sound. It is rather an echo
than a creation.
In line 3, “craven fears of being great” is taken from Tennyson.
The action is legitimate enough. Thus, in Wordsworth’s
“Excursion” are three lines taken bodily from “Paradise Lost,”
in Kipling’s “Stow it” are whole phrases taken from the _Police
Gazette_, and in Mr. Austin’s verses you may frequently find
portions of a _Standard_ leader. Nevertheless, it is a license
which a young poet should be chary of. All these others were men
of an established reputation before they permitted themselves
this liberty.
In line 4, “dishevelled” is a false epithet for “lance”; a lance
has no hair; the adjective can only properly be used of a woman,
a wild beast, or domestic animal.
In line 5, “incur the hate” is a thoroughly unpoetic phrase--we
say so unreservedly. In line 6, we have one of those daring
experiments in metre common to our younger poets; therefore we
hesitate to pronounce upon it, but (if we may presume to advise)
we should give Mr. Mayhem the suggestion made by the _Times_ to
Tennyson--that he should stick to an exact metre until he felt
sure of his style; and in line 8, “the backward move of your
advance” seems a little strained.
It is, however, in the sextet that the chief slips of the sonnet
appear, and they are so characteristic of the author’s later
errors, that we cannot but note them; thus, “purchased not with
gold or _Frankincense_” is a grievous error. It is indeed a good
habit to quote Biblical phrases (a habit which has been the
making of half our poets), but not to confuse them: frankincense
was never used as coin--even by the Hittites. “Incommensurate” is
simply meaningless. How can blood be “incommensurate”? We fear
Mr. Mayhem has fallen into the error of polysyllabic effect,
a modern pitfall. “Island blood” will, however, stir many a
responsive thrill.
The close of the sonnet is a terrible falling off. When you say a
thing is purchased, “not with this but----” the reader naturally
expects an alternative, instead of which Mr. Mayhem goes right
off to another subject! Also (though the allusion to Nelson and
Drake is magnificent) the mention of an iron hand and an eye by
themselves on a poop seems to us a very violent metaphor.
The last line is bad.
We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation for
preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem has many
qualities. He has a rare handling of penultimates, much
potentiality, large framing; he has a very definite chiaroscuro,
and the tones are full and objective; so are the values. We would
not restrain a production in which (as a partner in a publishing
firm) the present writer is directly interested. But we wish
to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and simpler style--to the
“Cassowary,” and the superb interrupted seventh of “The Altar
Ghoul.”
England cannot afford to lose that talent.