TOM MOORE
In _The Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue_, edited by
Messrs. Stopford A. Brooke and T. W. Rolliston, Thomas Moore is
represented by eleven pieces, to wit, “The Song of Fionnuola,” “The Irish
Peasant to his Mistress,” “At the Mid Hour of Night,” “When He who Adores
Thee,” “After the Battle,” “The Light of Other Days,” “On Music,” “Echo,”
“As Slow our Ship,” “No, not more Welcome,” and “My Birthday.” I do not
suppose for a moment that the editors intended to suggest that this
selection represents in any sense the more popular of Moore’s writings
from the Irish point of view. Only two of the lyrics, indeed, namely,
“The Light of Other Days” and “As Slow our Ship,” are really well known
among lovers of poetry, even in Ireland. We assume, therefore, that the
remaining sets of verses have been inserted because, in the opinion of
Mr. Stopford A. Brooke and his co-editor, they are the best of Moore,
_qua_ poet in the English tongue. We quote here at length “The Song of
Fionnuola”:
“Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water;
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furl’d?
When will heaven, its sweet bells ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bells ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?”
As the devil might inquire—Is this poetry? I believe that I shall have
with me the sounder critics when I say that it is small sentiment very
carelessly set down. In sixteen lines we have quite a number of different
measures, and Moore would seem to have labored under the impression
that he was writing in one. In other words, the verses halt. As to the
sentiment, nobody can question its utter banality. What a critic of Mr.
Stopford Brooke’s caliber can see in it, Heaven alone knows. He might
have got better verses and better sentiment out of any average breach
of promise case. Nor are the remaining pieces much above the standard
required by those eminent judges of poetry, the gentlemen who write
_morceaux_ for the drawing-room. For myself I venture the opinion that
Moore lives on the strength of “Rich and Rare were the Gems she Wore,”
“The Meeting of the Waters,” “The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls,”
“Believe Me if all Those Endearing Young Charms,” “The Minstrel Boy,”
“The Last Rose of Summer,” and the “Canadian Boat Song,” most of which
efforts have been set to music, and are thereby materially aided to
survival. So that on the whole Thomas Moore may not be reckoned as in
any sense a purveyor of the higher kinds of poetry. It is creditable,
however, to the Irish people that they should have produced and put their
emotional and moral trust in a Moore, rather than a Burns. But morals on
one side, Burns is immeasurably the greater poet, even though at times he
wrote drivel of the feeblest sort. All the same it must be confessed that
the general consent which keeps Moore at the head of the Irish poets is
sufficiently grounded. For weak vessel though he may be, we do not find
another Irish poet in the English tongue who could properly be placed
above him. Right down to and including William Allingham, the history of
Irish poetry in the English tongue has been the history of happy-go-lucky
mediocrity. Even Mangan, who has latterly been credited with a share of
the authentic fire, exhibits a facility, a slipshodness and an aptness
to the banal which savor of the librettist. From his most considerable
production we take the following stanzas:
THE NAMELESS ONE
Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul to thee!
Tell thou the world, when bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That there once was one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.
Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.
Roll on, my song, and to after-ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men from wisdom’s pages
The way to live.
And tell how trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song—
With song which alway, sublime or rapid,
Flowed like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid—
A mountain stream.
Tell how the Nameless, condemned for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.
Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
With spirit shipwrecked, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove.
There may be lyrical impulse here, but it is of quite an ordinary
quality. The much vaunted line about “veins that ran lightning,” could, I
think, be paralleled out of previous poets, and the first half of it is
clumsy and cacophonous. “Night-hour” and “light our” might have stepped
straight out of the comic poets, and the same may be said of “years
long” and “tears, long,” which J. K. Stephen would have chortled over for
a “metrical effect.” And when we come to “still, still strove” we are
among the librettists with a vengeance. I have seen James Clarence Mangan
collocated with Poe. If comparisons with America must be made, we should
range him alongside that bright spirit, Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
For Sir Samuel Fergusson, he has been highly praised by Mr. Swinburne,
Aubrey de Vere, and, of course, by Mr. W. B. Yeats. Mr. Yeats pronounces
him to be “the greatest poet Ireland has produced, one who, among the
somewhat sybaritic singers of his day was like some aged sea-king sitting
among the inland wheat and poppies—the savor of the sea about him and its
strength.” Harken to the ancient sea-king:
“Then dire was their disorder, as the wavering line at first
Swayed to and fro irresolute; then all disrupted, burst
Like waters from a broken dam effused upon the plain,
The shelter of Kilultagh’s woods and winding glens to gain.
…
But keen-eyed Domnal, when he stood to view the rout, ere long
Spying that white, unmoving head amid the scattering throng,
Exclaimed: ‘Of all their broken host one only man I see
Not flying; and I therefore judge him impotent to be
Of use of limb. Go; take alive,’ he cried, ‘and hither fetch
The hoary-haired unmoving man.…’
… A swift battalion went
And, breaking through the hindmost line, where Kellach sat hard by,
Took him alive; and, chair and man uphoisting shoulder high,
They bore him back, his hoary locks and red eyes gleaming far,
The grimmest standard yet displayed that day o’er all the war;
And grimly, where they set him down, he eyed the encircling ring
Of Bishops and of chafing Chiefs who stood about the King.
Then with his crosier’s nether end turned towards him, Bishop Erc
Said: ‘Wretch abhorred, to thee it is we owe this bloody work;
By whose malignant counsel moved, thy hapless nephew first,
Sought impious aid of foreigners; for which be thou accursed.’”
Surely this is rank butterwoman’s jogtrot to market; the kind of thing
perhaps that Mr. J. Hickory Wood and Mr. Arthur Collins might joyously
and jointly produce for the delight of the babies of England. But for
“the greatest poet Ireland has produced,” for “the aged sea-king sitting
among the inland wheat and poppies” it is poor, poor stuff indeed. Of
course, I do not suggest that Sir Samuel Fergusson—who really was a
Scotchman, and not a sea-king at all—could not do better. The fact,
however, that “the greatest poet Ireland has produced” managed to do so
badly, and was capable even of worse, speaks at any rate a small volume
for Irish poetry.
The sole remaining Irish poet worth troubling about is Aubrey de Vere,
and an examination of his work shows that, while he persistently
exercised himself on Irish subjects, and laid himself open to the charge
of Irish slackness and perfunctoriness, he could write poetry of the kind
which is entirely classic in its derivation. But it is certain that he
cannot be considered to have belonged to the far-famed Keltic movement,
and that he was miles behind Landor, even in the severe classic vein.
I am afraid that, broadly speaking, Ireland has not produced any poet of
convincing greatness at all. The “Treasury of Irish Poetry” compared,
say, with such a collection of English poetry as Palgrave’s “Golden
Treasury” is a ghastly exhibition. Some of the moderns set forward by
the editors have, it is true, accomplished work which is not without a
certain distinction; but the ancients, Thomas Moore included, are not
for the reading of the discriminate. Indeed, Irish poetry in the English
tongue is on the whole, like Ireland itself, a decidedly tumble-down
affair. In a sense the genius of the country may be said to resemble the
genius of Japan. That is to say, while every Irishman may be reckoned
something of a poet in himself, there are no Irish poets; just as
while the Japanese are all poets, none of them has managed to evolve a
respectable poem. This, I cannot help thinking, is a pity for Ireland,
and more to be sorrowed over than her lack of commercial aptitude, than
her poverty, and than her wrongs. There are those who tell us that the
true poetry of the Irish is hidden away in the memories of the peasantry,
taking the shape of Gaelic folk-songs, ballads, and so forth. No doubt
much may be said for this theory, particularly as there is a Gaelic
League which seems to be making a good deal of impression upon certain
sections of the people. At the same time, it seems remarkable that, if
the poetry of the Gael be so rich, and ornate, and satisfactory as those
who are able to read it would have us believe, nobody takes the trouble
to put it before us in a form calculated to preserve it. The Gaelic
character is pretty enough, and I have seen odd translations of Gaelic
poetry which promised rather well for the bulk. Yet it seems more than
doubtful if the “Druid Singers,” as I suppose Mr. Yeats would call them,
ever had among their ranks a Homer, or, for that matter, an Anacreon or a
Theocritus.
And talking of the Gaelic League, I should like to note for the
entertainment of persons of humor, that when I visited its establishment
in Dublin some months back I found the upper portion of the window
occupied by a placard, which announced in large Roman letters that a
“well-known Leaguer” was about to open a shop in Dublin—“Object to push
the sale of Irish provisions.” People are human even in Ireland.