This little book was written by four friends, three of them
under-graduates at Oxford, and all of them penetrated with the
spirit of the higher culture of our time. The poems, it is clear,
have been carefully selected; and, it is probable, have been
diligently polished. There is not one which is not remarkable for
delicacy of style and conscious aiming after excellence in art.
Whether these qualities promise well for future achievement and
development is a question open to debate. But there can be no
doubt that in _Primavera_ we possess another of those tiny
verse-books like _Ionica_, or Mr. Percy Pinkerton's _Galeazzo_,
which will not lose in freshness and in perfume as the years go
by.
The poems have the distinction of making one wish to be
acquainted with their authors. Though they differ a good deal in
mental tone, perhaps also somewhat in literary merit, they
possess marked common characteristics: a restrained refinement, a
subdued reserve, a gentle melancholy; the note of the latest
Anglican æsthetic school. We find no humour, no _Sturm und
Drang_, no inequalities and incoherences of passion. Even where
it is obvious that the emotion has been intense, possibly of a
rare and peculiar strain, as in Mr. Binyon's "Testamentum Amoris"
and Mr. Phillips's "To a Lost Love," the expression of it obeys
no violence of impulse. A tender tone of regret, rather than of
acute grief, steeps these stanzas (to quote one instance)
addressed to a friend removed into the spiritual world by death.
"Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere
Thou art a thing apart,
Losing in saner happiness
This madness of the heart.
"And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel
A passing breath, a pain;
Disturb'd, as though a door in heaven
Had oped and closed again.
"And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns,
The solemn hymns, shall cease;
A moment half remember me;
Then turn away to peace."
It would be invidious to institute critical comparisons between
the styles of these four friends and their respective merits. It
may, however, be remarked that Mr. Manmohan Ghose's work possesses
a peculiar interest on account of its really notable command of
the subtleties of English prosody and diction, combined with just
a touch of foreign feeling. The artful employment of imperfect
rhymes in "Raymond and Ida" illustrates what I mean. Occasionally,
too, Mr. Ghose produces exactly the right phrase by means of a
felicitous simplicity. Notice the line which I have italicised in
the following stanza:
"In the deep West the heavens grow heavenlier,
Eve after eve; and still
_The glorious stars remember to appear;_
The roses on the hill
Are fragrant as before;
Only thy face, of all that's dear,
I shall see nevermore!"
Take, again, these two lines:
"Forget the shining of the stars, forget
The vernal visitation of the rose."
There is but one piece of blank verse in the book. This prologue
to "Orestes," by Mr. Stephen Phillips, has strength, is firm in
outline, somewhat tardy in movement, fit for sonorous declamation.
The gravity which I have indicated as a ruling quality of all
these youthful compositions makes itself felt here in its proper
place. We might have wished, perhaps, for more of joyous accent in
the ode to "Youth," by Mr. Laurence Binyon, which dwells less on
the rapture of youth than on its sadness--the melancholy of
Theognis over youth's decay:
"O bright new-comer, filled with thoughts of joy,
Joy to be thine amid these pleasant plains,
Know'st thou not, child, what surely coming pains
Await thee, for that eager heart's annoy?
Misunderstanding, disappointment, tears,
Wronged love, spoiled hope, mistrust and ageing fears,
Eternal longing for one perfect friend,
And unavailing wishes without end?"
Mr. Cripps alone permits his Muse a gravely jocund note in his
"Seasons' Comfort." He, too, of the four fellow-versifiers shows
the greater aptitude for experiments, though it may perhaps be
felt that his touch is nowhere quite so sure, nor his artistic
feeling so direct as theirs.
It is difficult to lay the critic's hand lightly enough upon
poems like these, or to make it clear what particular attraction
they possess. With all the charm of rathe spring-flowers, they
suggest the possibilities of varied personality not yet
accentuated in the authors. Let us hope that the four Muses of
the four friends will not, like the primroses,
"die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength,"
but that we shall profit by their summer-songs, while ever
remaining grateful for their _Primavera_.