[_16 Sep. '09_]
In every number up to August, I think, the summary of the _English Review_
began with "Modern Poetry," a proper and necessary formal recognition of
the supremacy of verse. But in the current issue "Modern Poetry" is put
after a "study" of the Chancellor of the Exchequer by Max Beerbohm. A
trifling change! editorially speaking, perhaps an unavoidable change! And
yet it is one of these nothings which are noticed by those who notice such
nothings. Among the poets, some of them fairly new discoveries, whom the
_English Review_ has printed is "J. Marjoram." I do not know what
individuality the name of J. Marjoram conceals, but it is certainly a
pseudonym. Some time ago J. Marjoram published a volume of verse entitled
"Repose" (Alston Rivers), and now Duckworth has published his "New Poems."
The volume is agreeable and provocative. It contains a poem called
"Afternoon Tea," which readers of the _English Review_ will remember. I do
not particularly care for "Afternoon Tea." I find the contrast between the
outcry of a deep passion and the chatter of the tea merely melodramatic,
instead of impressive. And I object to the idiom in which the passion is
expressed. For example:
_To prove I mean love, I'd burn in Hell._
Or:
_You touch the cup_
_With one slim finger.... I'll drink it up,_
_Though it be blood._
We are all quite certain that the lover would not willingly burn in Hell
to prove his love, and that if he drank blood he would be sick. The idiom
is outworn. That J. Marjoram should employ it is a sign, among others,
that he has not yet quite got over the "devout lover" stage in his mood
towards women. He makes a pin say: "She dropped me, pity my despair!"
which is in the worst tradition of _Westminster Gazette_ "Occ. Verse." He
is somewhat too much occupied with this attitudinization before women or
the memory of women. It has about as much to do with the reality of sexual
companionship as the Lord Mayor's procession has to do with the municipal
life of Greater London. Still, J. Marjoram is a genuine poet. In "Fantasy
of the Sick Bed," the principal poem in the book, there are some really
beautiful passages. I would say to him, and I would say to all young
poets, because I feel it deeply: Do not be afraid of your raw material,
especially in the relations between men and women. J. Marjoram well and
epigrammatically writes:
_Yet who despiseth Love_
_As little and incomplete_
_Learns by losing Love_
_How it was sweet!_
True. But, when applied to love with a capital L, and to dropped pins
despairing, a little sane realistic disdain will not be amiss,
particularly in this isle. I want to see the rise of a new school of love
poetry in England. And I believe I shall see it.