the book. It records an experience which the mystic of another age would
have called a revelation, and which he would have apprehended through
the medium of religious emotion. But this poet attains to her ultimate
vision through the phenomena of the real world, apprehended in terms of
the ideal. The warm breath of Spring, rich with scent and sound of the
teeming earth, stirs it to awakening. But though she is walking in
familiar Cambridge with, characteristically, the scene and time exactly
placed: though friendly faces pass and cordial voices give a greeting,
all that suddenly shrivels at the touch of the wild earth spirit. Space
and time curl away in fold after fold; and with them pass successive
forms of strange life immensely remote. But even while reality thus
terribly unfolds, it is perceived to be the _stuff of the world's live
brain_; to have existence only in idea.
And the fens were not. (For fens are dreams
Dreamt by a race long dead;
And the earth is naught, and the sun but seems:
And so those who know have said.)
Thus the facts of science have gone to the making of this poem, as well
as the theories of an idealist philosophy. It is through them both that
imagination takes the forward leap. But neither the one nor the other
can avail to utter the revelation; and even the poet's remarkable gift
of expression can only suffice to suggest the awfulness of it.
So veil beyond veil illimitably lifted:
And I saw the world's naked face,
Before, reeling and baffled and blind, I drifted
Back within the bounds of space.
_John Masefield_
There is one sense at least in which Mr Masefield is the most important
figure amongst contemporary poets. For he has won the popular ear, he
has cast the poetic spell further than any of his compeers, and it has
been given to him to lure the multitudinous reader of magazines--that
wary host which is usually stampeded by the sight of a page of verse.
Now I know that there are cultured persons to whom this fact of
uncritical appreciation is an offence, and to them a writer bent upon
purely scientific criticism would be compelled to yield certain points.
But they would be mainly on finicking questions, as an occasional lapse
from fineness in thought or form, an incidental banality of word or
phrase; or a lack of delicate effects of rhyme and metre. And the whole
business would amount in the end to little more than a petulant
complaint; an impertinent grumble that Mr Masefield happens to be
himself and not, let us say, Mr Robert Bridges; that his individual
genius has carved its own channels and that, in effect, the music of the
sea or the mountain torrent does not happen to be the same thing as the
plash of a fountain in a valley.
But having no quarrel with this offending popularity: rejoicing in it
rather, and the new army of poetry-readers which it has created; and
believing it to be an authentic sign of the poetic spirit of our day,
one is tempted to seek for the cause of it. Luckily, there is a poem
called "Biography" which gives a clue and something more. It is a pæan
of zest for life, of the intense joy in actual living which seems to be
the dynamic of Mr Masefield's genius. There is, most conspicuous and
significant, delight in beauty; a swift, keen, accurate response of
sense to the external world, to sea and sky and hill, to field and
flower. But there is fierce delight, too, in toil and danger, in
strenuous action, in desperate struggle with wind and wave, in the
supreme effort of physical power, in health and strength and skill and
freedom and jollity; and above all, first, last and always, in ships.
But there is delight no less in communion with humanity, in comradeship,
in happy memories of kindred, in still happier mental kinships and
intellectual affinities, in books, in 'glittering moments' of spiritual
perception, in the brooding sense of man's long history.
These are the 'golden instants and bright days' which correctly spell
his life, as this poet is careful to emphasize; and we perceive that the
rapture which they inspire in him, the ardour with which he takes this
sea of life, is of the essence of his poetry. It is seen most clearly
in the lyrics; and that is natural, since these are amongst his early
work, and youth is the heyday of joy. It is found in nearly all of them,
of course in varying degree, colouring substance and shaping form,
evoking often a strong rhythm like a hearty voice that sings as it goes.
So hey for the road, the west road, by mill and forge and fold,
Scent of the fern and song of the lark by brook, and field, and
wold;
Or again, in "Tewkesbury Road,"
O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth
At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the
birds.
And it rings in many songs of the sea, telling of its beauty or terror,
its magic and mystery and hardship, its stately ships and tough
sailor-men and strange harbourages, its breath of romance sharply
tingling with reality, its lure from which there is no escape--
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
Under the wistfulness of that throbs the same zest as that which finds
expression in "Laugh and be Merry"; but the mood has become more
buoyant--
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.
Sometimes a minor key is struck, as in "Prayer;" but even here the joy
is present, revealing itself in sharp regret for the beloved things of
earth. It manifests itself in many ways, subtler or more obvious; but
mainly I think in a questing, venturous spirit which must always be
daring and seeking something beyond. Whether in the material world or
the spiritual, it is always the same--whether it be sea-longing, or
hunger for the City of God, or a vague faring to an unknown bourne, or
the eternal quest for beauty. The poem called "The Seekers" is
beautifully apt in this regard. Simply, clearly, directly, it expresses
the alpha and omega of this genius: the zest which is its driving force
and the aspiration, the tireless and ceaseless pursuit of an ideal,
which is its objective.
Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,
For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.
There is no solace on earth for us--for such as we--
Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.
There is the spirit of adventure, the eternal allure of romance, as old
and as potent as poetry itself. And surely nothing is more engaging,
nothing quicker and stronger and more universal in its appeal, than zest
for life finding expression in this way. In these early lyrics its
spontaneous and simple utterance is very winning; but in the later
narrative poems it is none the less present because, having grown a
little older, it is a little more complex and not so obvious in its
manifestation. Under these longer poems too runs the stream of joy,
somewhat quieter now, perhaps, subdued by contemplation, brought to the
test of actuality, shaping a different form through the conflict of
human will, but still deep and strong, and, as in the earlier work,
expressing its ultimate meaning through the spirit of high adventure.
Thus "The Widow in the Bye Street," which was the first written of these
four narrative poems, is the adventure of motherhood. "Oh!" will protest
some member of the dainty legion which lives in terror of appearances,
"it is a story of lust and murder!" But no; fundamentally, triumphantly,
it is a tale of mother-love, venturing all for the child. Only
superficially is it a tragedy of ungoverned desire and rage, made out of
the incidence of character which we call destiny. The mother's spirit
prevails over all that, and remains unconquerable. In "Daffodil Fields"
there is the adventure of romantic passion. The "Everlasting Mercy," so
obviously as hardly to need the comment, is the high adventure of the
soul; and "Dauber," less clearly perhaps, though quite as certainly, is
that too. But while in the first of these two poems the spirit's spark
is struck into 'absolute human clay,' in "Dauber" it is burning already
in the brain of an artist. Saul Kane, when his soul comes to birth at
the touch of religion, puts off bestiality and rises to a joyful
perception of the meaning of life. The Dauber, with that precious
knowledge already shining within him, but twinned with another, the
supreme and immortal glory of art, with his last breath cries holy
defiance to the elements that snatch his life--_It will go on_.
But there is another reason for the popularity of this poet's work; and
it also is deducible from the poem called "Biography." I mean the
complete and robust humanity which is evinced there. One sees, of
course, that this has a close relation with the zest that we have
already noted; that it is indeed the root of that fine flower. But the
balance of this personality--with power of action and of thought about
equally poised, with the mystic and the humanitarian meeting half-way,
with the ideal and the real twining and intertwining constantly, with
sensuous and spiritual perception almost matched--determines the quality
by which Mr Masefield's poems make so wide and direct an appeal. If
reflectiveness were predominant, if the subjective element outran the
keen dramatic sense, if the ideal were capable of easy victory over the
material (it does conquer, but of that later), this would be poetry of a
very different type. Whether it would be of a finer type it is idle to
speculate, the point for the moment being that it would not command so
large an audience. By just so far as specialization operated, the range
would be made narrower.
It is this sense of humanity which wins; not only explicit, as, for
example, in the deliberate choice of subject avowed once for all in the
early poem called "Consecration"--
The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies,
Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,
.....
The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout,
The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout,
.....
Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold--
Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.
There the poet is responding consciously to the time-spirit: the
awakening social sense which, moving pitifully amongst bitter and ugly
experience, was to evoke the outer realism of his art. That, of course,
being passionately sincere, is a powerful influence. But stronger still
is the unconscious force of personality, this completeness of nature
which in "Biography" is seen as a rare union of powers that are
nevertheless the common heritage of humanity; and which is implicit
everywhere in his work, imbuing it with the compelling attraction of
large human sympathy.
Out of this arise the curiously contrasted elements of Mr Masefield's
poetry. For, as in life itself, and particularly in life that is full
and sound, there is here a perpetual conflict between opposing forces.
It is, perhaps, the most prominent characteristic of this work. It
pervades it throughout, belongs to its very essence and has moulded its
form. It is, of course, most readily apparent in the poet's art. Here
the battling forces of his genius, transferred to the creatures whom he
has created, have made these narrative poems largely dramatic in form.
Here, too, we come upon a clash of realism with romance and idyllic
sweetness. That bald external realism has found much disfavour with
those who do not or will not see its relation to the underlying reality.
And one observes that the critic who professes most to dislike it
hastens to quote the gaudiest example, practically ignoring the many
serene and gracious passages.
But, putting aside the prejudice which has been fostered by a
conventional poetic language, this realistic method does seem to
conflict with certain other characteristics of the work--with the
essential romance of the spirit of adventure, for instance. There does
at first glance appear to be a disturbing lack of unity between that
ardent, wistful and elusive spirit, and the grim actuality here, of
incident and diction; or, on the other hand, between the raw material of
this verse and its elaborate metrical form, or its frequent passages of
rare and delicate beauty. But is it more than an appearance? I think
not. I believe that the incongruity exists only in a canon of poetical
taste which is false to the extent that it is based too narrowly. That
canon has appropriated romance to a certain order of themes and, almost
as exclusively, to a certain manner of expression. Most of our
contemporary poets have cheerfully repudiated the convention so far as
it governed language; building up, each for himself, a fresh, rich,
expressive idiom in which the magic of romance is often vividly
recreated. Some of them, and Mr Masefield pre-eminently, have gone
further. They have perceived the potential romance of all life, and have
broken down the old limit which prescribed to the poet only graceful
figures and pseudo-heroic themes. They have set themselves to express
the wonder and mystery, the ecstasy and exaltation which inhere, however
obscurely, in the lowliest human existence.
Thus we have Saul Kane, the village wastrel of "The Everlasting Mercy,"
glimpsing his heritage, for a moment, in a lucid interval of a drunken
orgy. Suddenly, for a marvellous instant, he is made aware of beauty,
smitten into consciousness of himself and a fugitive apprehension of
reality.
I opened window wide and leaned
Out of that pigstye of the fiend
And felt a cool wind go like grace
About the sleeping market-place.
The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly,
The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy;
.....
And summat made me think of things.
How long those ticking clocks had gone
From church and chapel, on and on,
Ticking the time out, ticking slow
To men and girls who'd come and go,
.....
And how a change had come. And then
I thought, "You tick to different men."
What with the fight and what with drinking
And being awake alone there thinking,
My mind began to carp and tetter,
"If this life's all, the beasts are better."
The elements of that passage, and cumulatively to its end, are genuinely
romantic: the heightened mood, the night setting of darkness and
solemnity, the wondering and regretful gaze into the past, and the sense
of eternal mystery. So, too, though from a very different aspect, is the
amazing power of the mad scene in this poem. The fierce zest of it
courses along a flaming pathway and is as exhilarating in its speed and
vigour as any romantic masterpiece in the older manner. It is difficult
to quote, in justice to the author, from so closely woven a texture; but
there is a short passage which illustrates over again the physical
development that we have already noted balancing mental and spiritual
qualities in this genius. It is the exultation of Kane in his
swiftness, as he rages through the streets with a crowd toiling after
him.
The men who don't know to the root
The joy of being swift of foot,
Have never known divine and fresh
The glory of the gift of flesh,
Nor felt the feet exult, nor gone
Along a dim road, on and on,
Knowing again the bursting glows,
The mating hare in April knows,
Who tingles to the pads with mirth
At being the swiftest thing on earth.
O, if you want to know delight,
Run naked in an autumn night,
And laugh, as I laughed then....
The sensuous ecstasy of that is as strongly contrasted with the
pensiveness of the previous scene at the window as it is with the gentle
rhapsody which follows the drunkard's conversion. Of that rhapsody what
can one say? It is a piece about which words seem inadequate, or totally
futile. Perhaps one comment may be made, however. Reading it for the
twentieth time, and marvelling once more at the religious emotion which,
in its naïve sweetness and intensity is so strange an apparition in our
day, my mind flew, with a sudden sense of enlightenment, back to
Chaucer. At first, reflection made the transition seem abrupt to
absurdity; but the connexion had no doubt been helped subconsciously by
the apt fragment from Lydgate on the fly-leaf of this poem. Thence it
was but a step to the large humanity, the sympathy and tolerance and
generosity, the wide understanding bred of practical knowledge of men
and affairs, of the father of poets. An actual likeness gleamed which
was at the same time piquant and satisfying. For, first, it stimulated
curiosity regarding the use by this poet of the Chaucerian rhyme-royal
in three of these long poems. That evinces a leaning on traditional form
rather curious in so independent an artist. And then it teased the mind
with suggestions that led out of range--about mental affinities, and the
different manifestations of the same type of genius, born into ages so
far apart.
It is not, of course, a question of exact or direct comparison between,
let us say, the _Canterbury Tales_ and these narrative poems of the
twentieth century. It is rather a matter of the spirit of the whole
work, of the personality and its reaction to life, which satisfy one
individual at least of a resemblance. Of course it is not easily
susceptible of proof; but there are passages from the two poets which in
thought, feeling, and even manner of expression, will almost form a
parallel. Consider this stanza from a minor poem of Chaucer, a prayer
to the Virgin in the quaint form of an "A. B. C."
Xristus, thy sone, that in this world alighte,
Up-on the cros to suffre his passioun,
And eek, that Longius his herte pighte,
And made his herte blood to renne adoun;
And al was this for my salvacioun;
And I to him am fals and eek unkinde,
And yit he wol not my dampnacioun--
This thanke I you, socour of al mankinde.
The childlike faith of that, the quiet rapture of adoration, the abandon
and simple confidence, are curiously matched by the following passage
from "The Everlasting Mercy." Saul Kane has found his soul in the
mystical rebirth of Christianity, and dawn coming across the fields
lightens all his world with new significance.
O Christ who holds the open gate,
O Christ who drives the furrow straight,
O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter
Of holy white birds flying after,
Lo, all my heart's field red and torn,
And Thou wilt bring the young green corn,
The young green corn divinely springing,
The young green corn for ever singing;
And when the field is fresh and fair
Thy blessèd feet shall glitter there.
And we will walk the weeded field,
And tell the golden harvest's yield,
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.
So one might go on to contrast the several characteristics of this
poetry, and to trace them back to the combination of qualities in the
author's genius. This elemental religious emotion, dramatically fitted
as it is to the character, could only have found such expression by a
mind which deeply felt the primary human need of religion, and which was
relatively untroubled by abstract philosophy. But set over against that
is the almost pagan joy in the senses, the vigour and love of action
which make so strong a physical basis to this work; whilst, on the other
hand, there stands the astonishing contrast between the lyrical
intensity of the idyllic passages of these poems; and the dramatic power
(at once identified with humanity and detached from it) which has
created characters of ardent vitality.
There is, of course, a corresponding technical contrast; but the fact
that it does 'correspond' is an answer to the critics who object to the
violence of certain scenes or to a literal rendering here and there of
thought or word. Granted that this poet is not much concerned to polish
or refine his verse, it remains true that the same sense of fitness
which closes three of these tragedies in exquisite serenity, governs
elsewhere an occasional crudity of expression or a touch of banality. It
is largely--though not always--a question of dramatic truth. The medium
is related to the material of this poetry and ruled by its moods. Hence
its realism is not an external or arbitrary thing. It is something more
than a trick of style or the adoption of a literary mode, being indeed a
living form evolved by the reality which the poet has designed to
express.
The root of the matter lies in a stanza of "Dauber." The young
artist-seaman, who is the protagonist here, has for long been patiently
toiling at his art at the prompting of instinct--the æsthetic impulse to
capture and make permanent the beauty of the material world. But the
pressure of reality upon him, the unimaginable hardships of a sailor's
existence, have threatened to crush his spirit. A crisis of physical
fear and depression has supervened; terror of the storms that the ship
must soon encounter, of the frightful peril of his work aloft, and of
the brutality of his shipmates, has shaken him to the soul. For a
moment, even his art is obscured, shrouded and almost lost in the whirl
of these overmastering realities. But when it emerges from the chaos it
brings revelation to the painter of its own inviolable relation with
those same realities.
... a thought occurred
Within the painter's brain like a bright bird:
That this, and so much like it, of man's toil,
Compassed by naked manhood in strange places,
Was all heroic, but outside the coil
Within which modern art gleams or grimaces;
That if he drew that line of sailors' faces
Sweating the sail, their passionate play and change,
It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.
That that was what his work meant; it would be
A training in new vision....
One might almost accept that as Mr Masefield's own confession of
artistic faith; it only needs the substitution of the word 'poet' for
the word 'painter' in the second line. But it is not quite complete as
it stands; and an important article of it will be discovered by reading
this poem through and noting the triumph of the ideal over the real,
which is the essential meaning of the work. It is not the most obvious
interpretation, perhaps. The idealist broken by the elements, wasted and
thrown aside, is hardly a victorious figure on the face of things. But,
in spite of that, the poem is a song of victory--of spirit over matter,
of the ideal over reality, of art over life.
The fact is all the more remarkable when we turn for a moment to note
the poet's grip on facts. We have just seen that profound sense of
reality lying at the base of his technical realism; and it has been won,
through a comprehensive experience, by virtue of the balance of his
equipment. There is no bias here, of mind or spirit, which would have
changed the clear humanity of the poet into the philosopher or the
mystic. The naïveté and simple concrete imagery in the expression of
religious feeling are far removed from mysticism. And, on the other
hand, one cannot conceive of Mr Masefield formally ranged with the
abstractions of either the materialist or the idealist school. Yet it is
true that "Dauber" raises the practical issue between the two; and
because the poet has realized life profoundly and dares to tell the
truth about it, the triumph of the ideal is the more complete. He shows
his hero scourged by the elements until all sense is lost but that of
physical torture--
... below
He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck
Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.
... all was an icy blast.
Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice,
Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage,
An utter bridle given to utter vice,
Limitless power mad with endless rage
Withering the soul;
With greater daring still we are shown the spirit itself, cowering in
temporary defeat before material force--
"This is the end," he muttered, "come at last!
I've got to go aloft, facing this cold.
I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold.
... I'm a failure. All
My life has been a failure. They were right.
.....