After the sunset,Before the night,There comes a seasonOf quiet light.After the dying,Before the death,There comes a drawingOf quiet breath.Hush of the daylight,O whisper whyThat childlike breathingBefore we die!
After the sunset,Before the night,There comes a seasonOf quiet light.After the dying,Before the death,There comes a drawingOf quiet breath.Hush of the daylight,O whisper whyThat childlike breathingBefore we die!
After the sunset,Before the night,There comes a seasonOf quiet light.
After the dying,Before the death,There comes a drawingOf quiet breath.
Hush of the daylight,O whisper whyThat childlike breathingBefore we die!
That is a slight thing which does not, of course, represent Michael at anything like her full power; but it does already suggest the emotional basis of her gift, and her lyrical facility. The piece which follows,Jason, is a luckier choice for Henry, not only in that it gives her greater scope, but in that it is probably a maturer work than the other. The comparison would, therefore, be unfair to Michael if one were judging of relative merits; but we are thinking for the moment only of a difference inkindof poetic equipment. And the poem is given for this further fact—;it was chosen by Michael herself to read to Father VincentMcNabb a few days before she died, in exultation at her fellow’s genius:
“Upon the sea-beach I diffuse my limbs;My wail athwart the harping sea-plain heaves;The shards are bitter and the ocean brimsMy sorrow from a fount where darkness grieves;I, Jason, by this vessel of my pride,Lie, as vain flotsam, ’neath its doughty side.A wife I had and children—;she is goneTo her own land—;but first she waved my feetTo where my sons, her wrath had fallen upon,Lay dead together ’neath their cradle sheet.A bride I had, but ere to bed she came,Ashes of flame she was, ashes of flame.And I had comrades in grand years of youth;They are all slain or care no more for deeds.A golden aim I followed to its truth;It is a story now no mortal heeds.Once I drove oxen of fire-shooting lips,Once I was ruler of a ship of ships.” ...The pebbles ground like teeth within a jaw;A moan of angry timber thundered forth;And the great poop of Argo rolled its maw,With a wave’s action, from the south to north;Earth quaked in fear at glimpse of Jason’s doom,As slant on him fell Argo as a tomb.
“Upon the sea-beach I diffuse my limbs;My wail athwart the harping sea-plain heaves;The shards are bitter and the ocean brimsMy sorrow from a fount where darkness grieves;I, Jason, by this vessel of my pride,Lie, as vain flotsam, ’neath its doughty side.A wife I had and children—;she is goneTo her own land—;but first she waved my feetTo where my sons, her wrath had fallen upon,Lay dead together ’neath their cradle sheet.A bride I had, but ere to bed she came,Ashes of flame she was, ashes of flame.And I had comrades in grand years of youth;They are all slain or care no more for deeds.A golden aim I followed to its truth;It is a story now no mortal heeds.Once I drove oxen of fire-shooting lips,Once I was ruler of a ship of ships.” ...The pebbles ground like teeth within a jaw;A moan of angry timber thundered forth;And the great poop of Argo rolled its maw,With a wave’s action, from the south to north;Earth quaked in fear at glimpse of Jason’s doom,As slant on him fell Argo as a tomb.
“Upon the sea-beach I diffuse my limbs;My wail athwart the harping sea-plain heaves;The shards are bitter and the ocean brimsMy sorrow from a fount where darkness grieves;I, Jason, by this vessel of my pride,Lie, as vain flotsam, ’neath its doughty side.
A wife I had and children—;she is goneTo her own land—;but first she waved my feetTo where my sons, her wrath had fallen upon,Lay dead together ’neath their cradle sheet.A bride I had, but ere to bed she came,Ashes of flame she was, ashes of flame.
And I had comrades in grand years of youth;They are all slain or care no more for deeds.A golden aim I followed to its truth;It is a story now no mortal heeds.Once I drove oxen of fire-shooting lips,Once I was ruler of a ship of ships.” ...
The pebbles ground like teeth within a jaw;A moan of angry timber thundered forth;And the great poop of Argo rolled its maw,With a wave’s action, from the south to north;Earth quaked in fear at glimpse of Jason’s doom,As slant on him fell Argo as a tomb.
Clearly there are elements here different from those ofThe Quiet Light. One feels inthis poem a dramatic movement and a sense of tragedy which are not simply given in the data of the noble old story; one sees structural skill in the shaping of the narrative, and recognizes in a memorable line or two—;“A golden aim I followed to its truth” and “Ashes of flame she was, ashes of flame”—;the final concentration of thought and feeling where great poetry begins.
Perhaps we are not mistaken, therefore, in distinguishing, even so early as these two poems, the contrasting qualities of the two poets which, met in happy union, made so clear a single voice that Meredith was amazed when he discovered that Michael Field was two people. One may define these qualities as emotional on the one side and intellectual on the other. It is, of course, the old distinction between rhetoric and imagination, matter and form; and clearly shows itself again in the two volumes of devotional poetry at the end of their life, where Henry is seen as kin to Herbert and Michael as kin to Vaughan. And though the whole story of the collaboration cannot be contained within any statement so simple as that, its fundamentals are rooted in this complementary relation between the two minds.
Returning to the lyrics, I choose frankly thepieces which throw some light on the poets’ lives. And although I do this from an unashamed interest in their story, and without immediate reference to the merits of the verse as poetry, there should be a chance that the poetical values of pieces wrought under the stress of intimate feeling will be not lower but higher than those of others. So, indeed, the event proves; for of the lyrics which may be safely attributed to Michael those are the best which can be called her love-poems. Of love-interest, in the attractive common meaning of the term, there is not a great deal in the work of either poet; and in that of Michael it is mainly comprised in half a dozen songs inUnderneath the Bough. Sapphic affinities notwithstanding (and imaginary adventures in that region), the two ladies had their measure of Victorian reticence; though that did not decline upon Victorian prudishness. But Michael wrote love-poetry of another kind than the romantic, in a series about her fellow which is probably unique in literature. It will be found in the third book ofUnderneath the Bough, and is supplemented by pieces scattered through later books, notably a small group at the end ofMystic Trees. Those poems are a record of her devotion to Edith Cooper, and it is doubtful whether Laura or Beatrice or the DarkLady had a tenderer wooing. They explain, of course, the slightness of a more usual (or, as some would put it, a more normal) love-interest in Michael’s work. But it need not be supposed that there was anything abnormal in this devotion. On the contrary, it was the expression of her mother-instinct, the outflow of the natural feminine impulse to cherish and protect. And this she herself realized perfectly; for there is a passage in one of her letters to Miss Louie Ellis which runs:
I speak as a mother; mothers of some sort we must all become. I have just been watching Henry stripping the garden of all its roses and then piling them in a bowl for me....
I speak as a mother; mothers of some sort we must all become. I have just been watching Henry stripping the garden of all its roses and then piling them in a bowl for me....
But that Michael was ‘normal’ in the mere sense of having had love-affairs there is proof enough without recourse to the vulgarity of spying into every lyric for a record of actual experience. Her dramatic instinct would make that pitfall even more dangerous in her case than in most, so that one would not dare to venture in the direction at all without a warrant. But, armed with the poet’s confession, one may quote from a tiny sequence which has an almost tropical breath. It tells of a passion that blossomed quickly in hot, bright colour, and died with sudden vehemence.
Across a gaudy roomI looked and saw his face,Beneath the sapless palm-trees, in the gloomOf the distressing place,Where everyone sat tired,Where talk itself grew stale,Where, as the day began to fail,No guest had just the power requiredTo rise and go; I strove with my disgust:But at the sight of him my eyes were firedTo give one glance, as though they mustBe sociable with what they found of fairAnd free and simple in a chamber whereLife was so base.As when a star is litIn the dull, evening sky,Another soon leaps out to answer it,Even so the bright replyCame sudden from his eyes,By all but me unseen.Since then the distance that betweenOur lives unalterably liesIs but a darkness, intimate and still,Which messages may traverse, where repliesMay sparkle from afar, untilThe night becomes a mystery made clearBetween two souls forbidden to draw near:Creator, why?* * *We meet. I cannot look up; I hearHe hopes that the rainy fog will clear:My cheeks flush him back a hope it may,And at last I seek his eyes.Oh, to greet such skies—;The delicate, violet, thunder-gray,Behind a spirit at mortal play!Who cares that the fog should roll away?* * *As two fair vessels side by side,No bond had tiedOur floating peace;We thought that it would never cease,But like swan-creatures we should always glide;And this is loveWe sighed.As two grim vessels side by side,Through wind and tideWar grappled us,With bond as strong as death, and thusWe drove on mortally allied:And this is hateWe cried.* * *Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If a Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy heart and brain, if I could but willFor a single moment that you should die,I would clasp my hands, and wish you ill,And say good-bye.Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If the Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy body and soul, if I could but willFor as long as an hour that you should die,My hands would drop, and my eyes would fill,And the angel fly.
Across a gaudy roomI looked and saw his face,Beneath the sapless palm-trees, in the gloomOf the distressing place,Where everyone sat tired,Where talk itself grew stale,Where, as the day began to fail,No guest had just the power requiredTo rise and go; I strove with my disgust:But at the sight of him my eyes were firedTo give one glance, as though they mustBe sociable with what they found of fairAnd free and simple in a chamber whereLife was so base.As when a star is litIn the dull, evening sky,Another soon leaps out to answer it,Even so the bright replyCame sudden from his eyes,By all but me unseen.Since then the distance that betweenOur lives unalterably liesIs but a darkness, intimate and still,Which messages may traverse, where repliesMay sparkle from afar, untilThe night becomes a mystery made clearBetween two souls forbidden to draw near:Creator, why?* * *We meet. I cannot look up; I hearHe hopes that the rainy fog will clear:My cheeks flush him back a hope it may,And at last I seek his eyes.Oh, to greet such skies—;The delicate, violet, thunder-gray,Behind a spirit at mortal play!Who cares that the fog should roll away?* * *As two fair vessels side by side,No bond had tiedOur floating peace;We thought that it would never cease,But like swan-creatures we should always glide;And this is loveWe sighed.As two grim vessels side by side,Through wind and tideWar grappled us,With bond as strong as death, and thusWe drove on mortally allied:And this is hateWe cried.* * *Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If a Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy heart and brain, if I could but willFor a single moment that you should die,I would clasp my hands, and wish you ill,And say good-bye.Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If the Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy body and soul, if I could but willFor as long as an hour that you should die,My hands would drop, and my eyes would fill,And the angel fly.
Across a gaudy roomI looked and saw his face,Beneath the sapless palm-trees, in the gloomOf the distressing place,Where everyone sat tired,Where talk itself grew stale,Where, as the day began to fail,No guest had just the power requiredTo rise and go; I strove with my disgust:But at the sight of him my eyes were firedTo give one glance, as though they mustBe sociable with what they found of fairAnd free and simple in a chamber whereLife was so base.
As when a star is litIn the dull, evening sky,Another soon leaps out to answer it,Even so the bright replyCame sudden from his eyes,By all but me unseen.Since then the distance that betweenOur lives unalterably liesIs but a darkness, intimate and still,Which messages may traverse, where repliesMay sparkle from afar, untilThe night becomes a mystery made clearBetween two souls forbidden to draw near:Creator, why?* * *We meet. I cannot look up; I hearHe hopes that the rainy fog will clear:My cheeks flush him back a hope it may,And at last I seek his eyes.Oh, to greet such skies—;The delicate, violet, thunder-gray,Behind a spirit at mortal play!Who cares that the fog should roll away?* * *As two fair vessels side by side,No bond had tiedOur floating peace;We thought that it would never cease,But like swan-creatures we should always glide;And this is loveWe sighed.
As two grim vessels side by side,Through wind and tideWar grappled us,With bond as strong as death, and thusWe drove on mortally allied:And this is hateWe cried.* * *Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If a Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy heart and brain, if I could but willFor a single moment that you should die,I would clasp my hands, and wish you ill,And say good-bye.
Go to the grave,Die, die—;be dead!If the Judgment-Angel came and saidThat I could saveMy body and soul, if I could but willFor as long as an hour that you should die,My hands would drop, and my eyes would fill,And the angel fly.
If we were concerned with the art of this verse rather than its tale one would be compelled to consider a touch of rhetoric and a violence of gesture which are characteristic of Michael not at her best; but which do correspond with the turbulent youthful emotion out of which the poems were born. Michael’s authentic love-story, however, is that which centres upon Henry; and the poems to Henry express a master-passion. There was an element of her nature as strong and as constant as its poetic impulse, and that was her affection for her fellow. Indeed, she was greater as a lover than as a poet; for her life was her finest poem, and Henry was its inspiration. It follows that she was never so happy as when she was engaged upon this theme; and that the sequence I have mentioned is a joyful record of the fellowship. Here is a piece which describes the sealing of the bond between the poets inthose early days when they had not yet embarked on their great quest:
It was deep April, and the mornShakspere was born;The world was on us, pressing sore;My love and I took hands and swore,Against the world, to bePoets and lovers evermore,To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,To sing to Charon in his boat,Heartening the timid souls afloat;Of judgment never to take heed,But to those fast-locked souls to speed,Who never from Apollo fled,Who spent no hour among the dead;ContinuallyWith them to dwell,Indifferent to heaven or hell.
It was deep April, and the mornShakspere was born;The world was on us, pressing sore;My love and I took hands and swore,Against the world, to bePoets and lovers evermore,To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,To sing to Charon in his boat,Heartening the timid souls afloat;Of judgment never to take heed,But to those fast-locked souls to speed,Who never from Apollo fled,Who spent no hour among the dead;ContinuallyWith them to dwell,Indifferent to heaven or hell.
It was deep April, and the mornShakspere was born;The world was on us, pressing sore;My love and I took hands and swore,Against the world, to bePoets and lovers evermore,To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,To sing to Charon in his boat,Heartening the timid souls afloat;Of judgment never to take heed,But to those fast-locked souls to speed,Who never from Apollo fled,Who spent no hour among the dead;ContinuallyWith them to dwell,Indifferent to heaven or hell.
Next we may take a portrait of Henry in her girlhood when the two began to collaborate, this giving incidentally a description of what was, on the testimony of intimate friends (and, indeed, of the poets themselves), their method of work:
A girl,Her soul a deep-wave pearlDim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;A face flowered for heart’s ease,A brow’s grace soft as seasSeen thro’ faint forest-trees:A mouth, the lips apart,Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breezeFrom her tempestuous heart.Such: and our souls so knit,I leave a page half-writ—;The work begunWill be to heaven’s conception doneIf she come to it.
A girl,Her soul a deep-wave pearlDim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;A face flowered for heart’s ease,A brow’s grace soft as seasSeen thro’ faint forest-trees:A mouth, the lips apart,Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breezeFrom her tempestuous heart.Such: and our souls so knit,I leave a page half-writ—;The work begunWill be to heaven’s conception doneIf she come to it.
A girl,Her soul a deep-wave pearlDim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;A face flowered for heart’s ease,A brow’s grace soft as seasSeen thro’ faint forest-trees:A mouth, the lips apart,Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breezeFrom her tempestuous heart.Such: and our souls so knit,I leave a page half-writ—;The work begunWill be to heaven’s conception doneIf she come to it.
Exactly in that way the two would often co-operate, working together actually on one piece. When it was a question of a big work—;of a tragedy or a chronicle-play—;there was, of course, a united exploration of the ground and a mapping of it. The two poets would go together to the British Museum or some other great library for the research. The scheme was then fully discussed, ideas were exchanged, conceptions of character formed and tested, and scenes allotted to suit individual taste or aptitude. But the collaboration was even more intimate than that. They would readily interchange their parts; and frequently they would be engaged together upon a page, a speech, or even a single line. It is therefore no poetic licence which declares that the half-written sheet of one would be completed to perfection by the other, but only further proof of the way in which the diverse elements of these two minds were fused in a union so completethat the reader cannot credit a dual authorship, and the poets themselves could hardly distinguish their individual contributions.
There is among the poems to Henry a dainty mock-pastoral in praise of her beauty which might have been written by an Elizabethan songster to his mistress; and a sonnet calledConstancywhich speaks with graver passion:
I love her with the seasons, with the winds,As the stars worship, as anemonesShudder in secret for the sun, as beesBuzz round an open flower: in all kindsMy love is perfect; and in each she findsHerself the goal; then why, intent to teaseAnd rob her delicate spirit of its ease,Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?If she should die, if I were left at largeOn earth without her—;I, on earth, the sameQuick mortal with a thousand cries, her spellShe fears would break. And I confront the charge,As sorrowing and as careless of my fameAs Christ intact before the infidel.
I love her with the seasons, with the winds,As the stars worship, as anemonesShudder in secret for the sun, as beesBuzz round an open flower: in all kindsMy love is perfect; and in each she findsHerself the goal; then why, intent to teaseAnd rob her delicate spirit of its ease,Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?If she should die, if I were left at largeOn earth without her—;I, on earth, the sameQuick mortal with a thousand cries, her spellShe fears would break. And I confront the charge,As sorrowing and as careless of my fameAs Christ intact before the infidel.
I love her with the seasons, with the winds,As the stars worship, as anemonesShudder in secret for the sun, as beesBuzz round an open flower: in all kindsMy love is perfect; and in each she findsHerself the goal; then why, intent to teaseAnd rob her delicate spirit of its ease,Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?If she should die, if I were left at largeOn earth without her—;I, on earth, the sameQuick mortal with a thousand cries, her spellShe fears would break. And I confront the charge,As sorrowing and as careless of my fameAs Christ intact before the infidel.
There are pieces which reveal Henry, quieter perhaps, but deeply tender toward her fellow:
My lady hath a lovely rite:When I am goneNo prayer she saithAs one in fear:For orison,Pressing her pillow whiteWith kisses, just the sacred number,She turns to slumber;Adding sometimes thereto a tearAnd a quick breath.
My lady hath a lovely rite:When I am goneNo prayer she saithAs one in fear:For orison,Pressing her pillow whiteWith kisses, just the sacred number,She turns to slumber;Adding sometimes thereto a tearAnd a quick breath.
My lady hath a lovely rite:When I am goneNo prayer she saithAs one in fear:For orison,Pressing her pillow whiteWith kisses, just the sacred number,She turns to slumber;Adding sometimes thereto a tearAnd a quick breath.
There is a short poem in which Michael is thinking about the nature of Henry’s genius, and perceives its tragic power as her peculiar gift:
Apollo and the Muses taught thee notThy mighty strain, enchantment to the mind,Thralling the heart by spell of holy fears;Awful thou sought’st Erinys’ sacred grot,And the Eternal Goddess, well-inclin’d,Hath given thee songs, for the dull life of tears.
Apollo and the Muses taught thee notThy mighty strain, enchantment to the mind,Thralling the heart by spell of holy fears;Awful thou sought’st Erinys’ sacred grot,And the Eternal Goddess, well-inclin’d,Hath given thee songs, for the dull life of tears.
Apollo and the Muses taught thee notThy mighty strain, enchantment to the mind,Thralling the heart by spell of holy fears;Awful thou sought’st Erinys’ sacred grot,And the Eternal Goddess, well-inclin’d,Hath given thee songs, for the dull life of tears.
And in another piece she compares and contrasts her own gift with that of Henry in imagery as brilliant as its criticism is just:
Mine is the eddying foam and the broken current,Thine the serene-flowing tide, the unshattered rhythm.Light touches me on the surface with glints of sunshine,Dives in thy bosom disclosing a mystic river:Ruffling, the wind takes the crest of my waves resurgent,Stretches his pinions at poise on thy even ripples:What is my song but the tumult of chafing forces,What is thy silence, Beloved, but enchanted music!
Mine is the eddying foam and the broken current,Thine the serene-flowing tide, the unshattered rhythm.Light touches me on the surface with glints of sunshine,Dives in thy bosom disclosing a mystic river:Ruffling, the wind takes the crest of my waves resurgent,Stretches his pinions at poise on thy even ripples:What is my song but the tumult of chafing forces,What is thy silence, Beloved, but enchanted music!
Mine is the eddying foam and the broken current,Thine the serene-flowing tide, the unshattered rhythm.Light touches me on the surface with glints of sunshine,Dives in thy bosom disclosing a mystic river:Ruffling, the wind takes the crest of my waves resurgent,Stretches his pinions at poise on thy even ripples:What is my song but the tumult of chafing forces,What is thy silence, Beloved, but enchanted music!
It is evident that Michael knew herself and her impulsive and exuberant Muse, which, to quote one of the irreverent faithful among her friends, would sometimes merely “fizz” into expression. That it could be too facile, and was, by comparison with Henry’s depth, superficial, is true. Michael had not the syllogistic mind of her fellow, and arrived at conclusions by an intuitive process rather than by reasoning. She was capable of unintelligent questions and occasional stupid moods that exasperated the critical type of mind which is so much cleverer than that. But she brought a positive contribution to the fellowship, nevertheless, in swift perception, intense ardour, keen sensibility, and above all in the generosity of temper that found its chief expression in devotion to her fellow-poet. Thus the most gracious of her love-lyrics is that in which, after having fostered the younger mind with infinite sympathy, making possible all that it became and achieved, she withdraws herself to cede the higher place to her lover:
Methinks my love to thee doth grow,And this the sign:I see the Spirit claim thee,And do not blame thee,Nor break intrusive on the Holy GroundWhere thou of God art found.I watch the fireLeap up, and do not bringFresh water from the springTo keep it from up-flaming higherThan my chilled hands requireFor cherishing.I see thy soul turn to her hidden grot,And follow not;Content thou shouldst preferTo be with her,The heavenly Muse, than ever find in meBest company.
Methinks my love to thee doth grow,And this the sign:I see the Spirit claim thee,And do not blame thee,Nor break intrusive on the Holy GroundWhere thou of God art found.I watch the fireLeap up, and do not bringFresh water from the springTo keep it from up-flaming higherThan my chilled hands requireFor cherishing.I see thy soul turn to her hidden grot,And follow not;Content thou shouldst preferTo be with her,The heavenly Muse, than ever find in meBest company.
Methinks my love to thee doth grow,And this the sign:I see the Spirit claim thee,And do not blame thee,Nor break intrusive on the Holy GroundWhere thou of God art found.
I watch the fireLeap up, and do not bringFresh water from the springTo keep it from up-flaming higherThan my chilled hands requireFor cherishing.
I see thy soul turn to her hidden grot,And follow not;Content thou shouldst preferTo be with her,The heavenly Muse, than ever find in meBest company.
The love-story of Henry’s life was not so frankly revealed; she was never so forthcoming as Michael. Nevertheless, there was such a story, and in outline it seems to have been one of the convergence of kindred minds, of friendship growing to passion, of love declared and reciprocated, but not fulfilled because of some other tie which bound both lover and beloved.
It is not difficult to see how such a crisis might arise in Henry’s life. Delicate in health and shy of temperament, she was from her childhood sheltered by Michael, and surrounded by a love which she was accustomed to accept as simply as the air she breathed. Just so unconsciously she would receive the homage offered by their friends, drifting intoa closer relation with one of them, both of the lovers cheated by the tranquil air which overlay her depth of feeling, until a sudden surprising passion overtook them. That the awakening for Henry meant renunciation sounds a little old-fashioned to a current philosophy which sees no virtue in the verb ‘to renounce,’ and demands fulfilment, not only as the highest good, but as the holiest duty of the human creature. But either that modern doctrine is not so new as it sounds, or these two ladies were in advance of their time, for they held it, and (at least in their art) persuasively commended it. They wrote a charming play,The Cup of Water, deliberately to claim the woman’s right to love, and to demonstrate the cruelty and waste of frustration. And they once said, in a whimsical letter to a friend:
Doing and being good is all very well in its way; but it is not the same thing as doing and being happy. If the Lord had a lion’s mouth (like the one at Venice), how many complaints I should drop into it about his treatment of young women. All the plants have some sunshine: why not some love in each woman’s life?
Doing and being good is all very well in its way; but it is not the same thing as doing and being happy. If the Lord had a lion’s mouth (like the one at Venice), how many complaints I should drop into it about his treatment of young women. All the plants have some sunshine: why not some love in each woman’s life?
Nevertheless, when it came to the test of action, theory went to the winds, and Henry renounced her lover for her fellow. She held herself bound by every tie of tenderness andgratitude, and no other course was conceivable save to shut the gates of the fortress and bar them against that clamorous joy.
Speak not, reveal not.... There will beIn the unchallenged dark a mystery,And golden hair sprung rapid in a tomb.
Speak not, reveal not.... There will beIn the unchallenged dark a mystery,And golden hair sprung rapid in a tomb.
Speak not, reveal not.... There will beIn the unchallenged dark a mystery,And golden hair sprung rapid in a tomb.
Human instinct may rebel at the spectacle of life so baffled; and common sense, in its short way with problems, may deny a valid cause for the sacrifice. But a longer vision is compelled to observe that fulfilment was not, after all, withheld. It came on the spiritual plane, however; for it is safe to say that we owe the finest work of Michael Field to the fact that Henry did not marry her lover:
Then let a mourner rise and three times callUpon our love, and the long echoes fall.
Then let a mourner rise and three times callUpon our love, and the long echoes fall.
Then let a mourner rise and three times callUpon our love, and the long echoes fall.
Before leaving the volume calledUnderneath the Boughit is convenient to take examples of lyrics in a different kind from those we have been considering. Thus we may select two or three pieces which an easy label would describe as nature-poems. There are not a great many which answer fully to that description, for although our poets adored the beauty of the physical world, their Muse was too prepossessed by the movement of human life to surrender itself completely to Nature. Yet by certainaspects of Nature they were deeply stirred—;great spaces, lofty skies measured by masses of moving cloud, trees blown by the wind—;in short, by just those features in which in old Italian painters people have agreed to see the signs of a religious sense:
O Wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees,And all thy royaltiesSweep through the land to-day.It is mid June,And thou, with all thine instruments in tune,Thine orchestraOf heaving fields, and heavy, swinging fir,Strikest a layThat doth rehearseHer ancient freedom to the universe.All other sound in aweRepeals its law;The bird is mute, the seaSucks up its waves, from rainThe burthened clouds refrain,To listen to thee in thy leafery,Thou unconfined,Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer-wind!
O Wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees,And all thy royaltiesSweep through the land to-day.It is mid June,And thou, with all thine instruments in tune,Thine orchestraOf heaving fields, and heavy, swinging fir,Strikest a layThat doth rehearseHer ancient freedom to the universe.All other sound in aweRepeals its law;The bird is mute, the seaSucks up its waves, from rainThe burthened clouds refrain,To listen to thee in thy leafery,Thou unconfined,Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer-wind!
O Wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees,And all thy royaltiesSweep through the land to-day.It is mid June,And thou, with all thine instruments in tune,Thine orchestraOf heaving fields, and heavy, swinging fir,Strikest a layThat doth rehearseHer ancient freedom to the universe.All other sound in aweRepeals its law;The bird is mute, the seaSucks up its waves, from rainThe burthened clouds refrain,To listen to thee in thy leafery,Thou unconfined,Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer-wind!
The two pieces which follow are chosen because they illustrate the touch of fantasy which our poets often added to their nature-poetry—;a touch which gives such grace and charm to the lyrics of their earlier plays.
I will sing what happened to-night on high:In the frank, wide skyThe wind had put the sun to rout,The tossed west clouds were floating about;From the wreath above me, staid and prim,A star looked out,Preparing to trimHer lamp, and to shine as she had shinedWorlds out of mind:When lo! she felt the wind on her face,And for joy of himShe left the placeWhere she had shinedWorlds out of mind,To run through the frank, wide sky:She was veiled by the clouds a moment or two,Then I saw her scouring across the blue,For joy of the wind.
I will sing what happened to-night on high:In the frank, wide skyThe wind had put the sun to rout,The tossed west clouds were floating about;From the wreath above me, staid and prim,A star looked out,Preparing to trimHer lamp, and to shine as she had shinedWorlds out of mind:When lo! she felt the wind on her face,And for joy of himShe left the placeWhere she had shinedWorlds out of mind,To run through the frank, wide sky:She was veiled by the clouds a moment or two,Then I saw her scouring across the blue,For joy of the wind.
I will sing what happened to-night on high:In the frank, wide skyThe wind had put the sun to rout,The tossed west clouds were floating about;From the wreath above me, staid and prim,A star looked out,Preparing to trimHer lamp, and to shine as she had shinedWorlds out of mind:When lo! she felt the wind on her face,And for joy of himShe left the placeWhere she had shinedWorlds out of mind,To run through the frank, wide sky:She was veiled by the clouds a moment or two,Then I saw her scouring across the blue,For joy of the wind.
* * *
Where winds abound,And fields are hilly,Shy daffadillyLooks down on the ground.Rose cones of larchAre just beginning;Though oaks are spinningNo oak-leaves in March.Spring’s at the core,The boughs are sappy:Good to be happySo long, long before!
Where winds abound,And fields are hilly,Shy daffadillyLooks down on the ground.Rose cones of larchAre just beginning;Though oaks are spinningNo oak-leaves in March.Spring’s at the core,The boughs are sappy:Good to be happySo long, long before!
Where winds abound,And fields are hilly,Shy daffadillyLooks down on the ground.
Rose cones of larchAre just beginning;Though oaks are spinningNo oak-leaves in March.
Spring’s at the core,The boughs are sappy:Good to be happySo long, long before!
The volume calledLong Agowas published as early as 1889: that is to say, four years beforeUnderneath the Boughand nineteen years beforeWild Honey. It is, however, a more perfect work than either of those two, both of which include poems of very various date, circumstance, and merit.Long Agopossesses a unity which they lack, and which characterizes the spirit as well as the form of the book. The fact of its having been designed as a whole and wrought to a finish without any long interruption may account for its effect of singleness in impulse and style; but its more satisfying inner unity no doubt arises from the harmony that existed between the poets and their theme, Sappho. Critics notwithstanding, it was not so audacious as it seemed for two Victorian ladies to plunge into the task of rendering Sapphic ecstasy. For, first, the leader of the sally was herself a flame of Dionysiac fire; and the inscription on the banner of her life, from its beginning to its end, was love. There would appear to be a real resemblance between Michael’s intensity, her exuberance and quick lyrical impulse, and the legendary Sappho. And this, restrained by Henry’s sense of form and deepened by their classical lore in poetry and philosophy, should surely have armed them for the adventure.
There is an ironic flavour now in tasting the comments on the book at its appearance. One of the faithful held up protesting hands at the poets’ audacity. Another described the book as a “ludicrous and lamentable attempt.” Yet Browning praised it, and marked some of the pieces in the manuscript “Good” and “Good indeed!” Meredith wrote to the poets to express his joy in it. TheAcademyreviewer, in June 1889, predicted that it would some day be described as “one of the most exquisite lyrical productions of the latter half of the nineteenth century”; while Wharton, in the preface to the third edition of hisSappho, speaks of the “felicitous paraphrases of Michael Field,” and quotes from four of them. The contrast between the two opinions is as amusing as such things are apt to be to those who are not the subject of them; but Michael Field did not see the joke (perhaps her sense of humourwasdeficient), and the severer judgments pained her. They were probably based on an assumption that the poets were trying to recreate Sappho, a project which might have justified brickbats if it had ever been entertained. But their aim was simply to make short dramatic lyrics out of the scenes suggested to their imagination by the Sapphic fragments. The verdict of those most competent to judge the book is, on balance, that they succeeded remarkably well; while as to the average reader, he will surely find something most attractive in the flashing moods of the verse, in its grace and finish, and in its complete harmony. Truly pagan the work is, whether in its sunny aspects or its dark ones, whether in its philosophy or its art. The pursuit of joy, the adoration of beauty, the ecstasy and the pain of love, the gay light and colour of the physical world, its sweet scents and sounds, its lovely shapes and delicate textures, are all here, their brilliance but the brighter for the shadow that flits about them of death and its finality.
They plaited garlands in their time,They knew the joy of youth’s sweet prime,Quick breath and rapture.Theirs was the violet-weaving bliss,And theirs the white, wreathed brow to kiss,Kiss, and recapture.They plaited garlands, even these,They learned Love’s golden mysteriesOf young Apollo;The lyre unloosed their souls; they layUnder the trembling leaves at play,Bright dreams to follow.They plaited garlands—;heavenly twine!They crowned the cup, they drank the wineOf youth’s deep pleasure.Now, lingering for the lyreless god—;Oh yet, once in their time, they trodA choric measure.
They plaited garlands in their time,They knew the joy of youth’s sweet prime,Quick breath and rapture.Theirs was the violet-weaving bliss,And theirs the white, wreathed brow to kiss,Kiss, and recapture.They plaited garlands, even these,They learned Love’s golden mysteriesOf young Apollo;The lyre unloosed their souls; they layUnder the trembling leaves at play,Bright dreams to follow.They plaited garlands—;heavenly twine!They crowned the cup, they drank the wineOf youth’s deep pleasure.Now, lingering for the lyreless god—;Oh yet, once in their time, they trodA choric measure.
They plaited garlands in their time,They knew the joy of youth’s sweet prime,Quick breath and rapture.Theirs was the violet-weaving bliss,And theirs the white, wreathed brow to kiss,Kiss, and recapture.
They plaited garlands, even these,They learned Love’s golden mysteriesOf young Apollo;The lyre unloosed their souls; they layUnder the trembling leaves at play,Bright dreams to follow.
They plaited garlands—;heavenly twine!They crowned the cup, they drank the wineOf youth’s deep pleasure.Now, lingering for the lyreless god—;Oh yet, once in their time, they trodA choric measure.
* * *
Yea, gold is son of Zeus: no rustIts timeless light can stain;The worm that brings man’s flesh to dustAssaults its strength in vain:More gold than gold the love I sing,A hard, inviolable thing.Men say the passions should grow oldWith waning years; my heartIs incorruptible as gold,’Tis my immortal part:Nor is there any god can layOn love the finger of decay.
Yea, gold is son of Zeus: no rustIts timeless light can stain;The worm that brings man’s flesh to dustAssaults its strength in vain:More gold than gold the love I sing,A hard, inviolable thing.Men say the passions should grow oldWith waning years; my heartIs incorruptible as gold,’Tis my immortal part:Nor is there any god can layOn love the finger of decay.
Yea, gold is son of Zeus: no rustIts timeless light can stain;The worm that brings man’s flesh to dustAssaults its strength in vain:More gold than gold the love I sing,A hard, inviolable thing.
Men say the passions should grow oldWith waning years; my heartIs incorruptible as gold,’Tis my immortal part:Nor is there any god can layOn love the finger of decay.
* * *
Thou burnest us; thy torches’ flashing spires,Eros, we hail!Thou burnest us, Immortal, but the firesThou kindlest fail:We die,And thine effulgent braziers pale.Ah, Phaon, thou who hast abandoned me,Thou who dost smileTo think deserted Lesbos rings with thee,A little whileGone byThere will be muteness in thine isle.Even as a god who finds his temple-flameSunken, unfed,Who, loving not the priestess, loves the fameBright altars spread,Wilt sighTo find thy lyric glory dead?Or will Damophyla, the lovely-haired,My music learn,Singing how Sappho of thy love despaired,Till thou dost burn,While I,Eros! am quenched within my urn?
Thou burnest us; thy torches’ flashing spires,Eros, we hail!Thou burnest us, Immortal, but the firesThou kindlest fail:We die,And thine effulgent braziers pale.Ah, Phaon, thou who hast abandoned me,Thou who dost smileTo think deserted Lesbos rings with thee,A little whileGone byThere will be muteness in thine isle.Even as a god who finds his temple-flameSunken, unfed,Who, loving not the priestess, loves the fameBright altars spread,Wilt sighTo find thy lyric glory dead?Or will Damophyla, the lovely-haired,My music learn,Singing how Sappho of thy love despaired,Till thou dost burn,While I,Eros! am quenched within my urn?
Thou burnest us; thy torches’ flashing spires,Eros, we hail!Thou burnest us, Immortal, but the firesThou kindlest fail:We die,And thine effulgent braziers pale.
Ah, Phaon, thou who hast abandoned me,Thou who dost smileTo think deserted Lesbos rings with thee,A little whileGone byThere will be muteness in thine isle.
Even as a god who finds his temple-flameSunken, unfed,Who, loving not the priestess, loves the fameBright altars spread,Wilt sighTo find thy lyric glory dead?
Or will Damophyla, the lovely-haired,My music learn,Singing how Sappho of thy love despaired,Till thou dost burn,While I,Eros! am quenched within my urn?
* * *
I sang to women gathered round;Forth from my own heart-springsWelled out the passion; of the painI sang if the beloved in vainIs sighed for—;whenThey stood untouched, as at the soundOf unfamiliar things,Oh, then my heart turned cold, and thenI dropt my wings.Trembling I seek thy holy ground,Apollo, lord of kings;Thou hast the darts that kill. Oh, freeThe senseless world of apathy,Pierce it! for whenIn poet’s strain no joy is found,His call no answer brings,Oh, then my heart turns cold, and thenI drop my wings.When through thy breast wild wrath doth spreadAnd work thy inmost being harm,Leave thou the fiery word unsaid,Guard thee; be calm.Closed be thy lips: where Love perchanceLies at the door to be thy guest,Shall there be noise and dissonance?Quiet were best.Apollo, when they do thee wrong,Speechless thou tak’st the golden dart:I will refrain my barking tongue,And strike the heart.
I sang to women gathered round;Forth from my own heart-springsWelled out the passion; of the painI sang if the beloved in vainIs sighed for—;whenThey stood untouched, as at the soundOf unfamiliar things,Oh, then my heart turned cold, and thenI dropt my wings.Trembling I seek thy holy ground,Apollo, lord of kings;Thou hast the darts that kill. Oh, freeThe senseless world of apathy,Pierce it! for whenIn poet’s strain no joy is found,His call no answer brings,Oh, then my heart turns cold, and thenI drop my wings.When through thy breast wild wrath doth spreadAnd work thy inmost being harm,Leave thou the fiery word unsaid,Guard thee; be calm.Closed be thy lips: where Love perchanceLies at the door to be thy guest,Shall there be noise and dissonance?Quiet were best.Apollo, when they do thee wrong,Speechless thou tak’st the golden dart:I will refrain my barking tongue,And strike the heart.
I sang to women gathered round;Forth from my own heart-springsWelled out the passion; of the painI sang if the beloved in vainIs sighed for—;whenThey stood untouched, as at the soundOf unfamiliar things,Oh, then my heart turned cold, and thenI dropt my wings.
Trembling I seek thy holy ground,Apollo, lord of kings;Thou hast the darts that kill. Oh, freeThe senseless world of apathy,Pierce it! for whenIn poet’s strain no joy is found,His call no answer brings,Oh, then my heart turns cold, and thenI drop my wings.
When through thy breast wild wrath doth spreadAnd work thy inmost being harm,Leave thou the fiery word unsaid,Guard thee; be calm.
Closed be thy lips: where Love perchanceLies at the door to be thy guest,Shall there be noise and dissonance?Quiet were best.
Apollo, when they do thee wrong,Speechless thou tak’st the golden dart:I will refrain my barking tongue,And strike the heart.
To pass immediately fromLong Agoto the poets’ last lyrical works may seem a wilful act, considering the length of time between the books, and their amazing unlikeness. Yet there is a very great interest in the contrast and all that it implies, and a piquancy which one may hope is not too irreverent in the reflection that at the root there is no great difference, after all, between the Lesbian songs and the Christian ones.
The volume calledPoems of Adorationwas published in 1912, andMystic Treesin 1913. They were both signed Michael Field, but the first is all Henry’s work with the exception of two pieces, and the second is all by Michael except the poems calledQui Renovat Juventutem MeamandThe Homage of Death. The two volumes therefore provide material for a useful study from the point of view of the collaboration; and they are a positive lure to a comparison with the devotional poetry of the seventeenth century, notably, of course, with Herbert and Vaughan. One would not go so far as to claim an absolute likeness between Henry and George Herbert, if only because Henry does not spread herself in tedious moralizing nor indulge inconcetti. To that extent her work is purer poetry and, one would suppose, purer religion than that of the old poet; and she rises oftener to sublimity. But in essentials the two are close akin—;in sweetness and strength and clarity, in their sense of form, and in terse, vigorous expression. Between Michael and Vaughan the likeness is even closer, and would tempt one far if it were not that our limits prevent straying. But indeed the human and spiritual values of the two books transcend mere literary questions so greatly as to make those look trivial and even impertinent.
ForPoems of Adorationwas published only a few months before Henry died. Much of the book was composed at dead of night, during great pain, when, as her father confessor has remarked, “most of us would be trying not toblaspheme.” The poems are in fact those of a dying woman, and one who had refused herself any alleviating drug. Two of them,Extreme UnctionandAfter Anointing, were written when she was at the point of death and had received the last offices of the Church. Some bear evidence of acute crises of body or soul; and in some the vision of the mysteries of her faith is so vivid that the poet herself is almost overwhelmed. Once or twice, when she has gone to the limit of spiritual sight, she falters; but never does that fine intelligence stumble into the outer darkness. Perceiving that it is coming near the verge of sanity, it draws back in time to leave the vision distinct and credible.
To the strict eye of criticism these poignant facts may appear irrelevant. I cannot bring myself to think that such splendour of soul has no relation to the art that it produced; but those persons who insist on cleaving the two asunder may be reassured as to the technical accomplishment of this poetry. Often cast into something of the poets’ earlier dramatic form, its music is sweet, its measures are rhythmical, and its language has force and clarity. It has a majesty which proclaims its origin, and one has no need to know the circumstances of its birth. Imagination rises, swift and daring, to heights which are sometimes sublime, as in thefirst poem quoted below. Here the conception of Christ the wine-treader is treated with magnificent audacity of image and metaphor, while underneath runs a stream of thought which, though it makes great leaps now and then, pouring its strong current into cataract as it goes, yet bears its craft safely up and on.
DESOLATION
Who comes?...O Beautiful!Low thunder thrums,As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.The sun runs forthTo stare at Him, who journeys northFrom Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayedIn vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.O beautiful and whole,In that red stole!Behold,O clustered grapes,His garment rolled,And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!See, there is bloodNow on His garment, vest and hood;For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,Though there is none to playThe Vintage-lay.The WordOf God, His name ...But nothing heardSave beat of His lone feet forever stirredTo tread the press—;None with Him in His loneliness;No treader with Him in the spume, no man.
Who comes?...O Beautiful!Low thunder thrums,As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.The sun runs forthTo stare at Him, who journeys northFrom Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayedIn vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.O beautiful and whole,In that red stole!Behold,O clustered grapes,His garment rolled,And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!See, there is bloodNow on His garment, vest and hood;For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,Though there is none to playThe Vintage-lay.The WordOf God, His name ...But nothing heardSave beat of His lone feet forever stirredTo tread the press—;None with Him in His loneliness;No treader with Him in the spume, no man.
Who comes?...O Beautiful!Low thunder thrums,As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.The sun runs forthTo stare at Him, who journeys northFrom Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayedIn vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.O beautiful and whole,In that red stole!
Behold,O clustered grapes,His garment rolled,And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!See, there is bloodNow on His garment, vest and hood;For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,Though there is none to playThe Vintage-lay.
The WordOf God, His name ...But nothing heardSave beat of His lone feet forever stirredTo tread the press—;None with Him in His loneliness;No treader with Him in the spume, no man.
. . . . .
O taskOf sacrifice,That we may baskIn clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!O Treader lone,How pitiful Thy shadow thrownAthwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wadeAmong the berries, dark and wet,Thee we forget!
O taskOf sacrifice,That we may baskIn clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!O Treader lone,How pitiful Thy shadow thrownAthwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wadeAmong the berries, dark and wet,Thee we forget!
O taskOf sacrifice,That we may baskIn clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!O Treader lone,How pitiful Thy shadow thrownAthwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wadeAmong the berries, dark and wet,Thee we forget!
THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Lo, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—;“Father, the Paraclete is sent,Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—;I must die:Sure as a star within the firmamentMust be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....His Son is back among us, with His own,And craving at our hands an altar-stone.Thereon, a victim, meek He takes His place;And while to offer Him His priests make bold,He looketh upward to His Father’s face.
Lo, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—;“Father, the Paraclete is sent,Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—;I must die:Sure as a star within the firmamentMust be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....His Son is back among us, with His own,And craving at our hands an altar-stone.Thereon, a victim, meek He takes His place;And while to offer Him His priests make bold,He looketh upward to His Father’s face.
Lo, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—;“Father, the Paraclete is sent,Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—;I must die:Sure as a star within the firmamentMust be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....His Son is back among us, with His own,And craving at our hands an altar-stone.Thereon, a victim, meek He takes His place;And while to offer Him His priests make bold,He looketh upward to His Father’s face.
THE HOMAGE OF DEATH
How willinglyI yield to TheeThis very dust!My body—;that was not enough!Fair was it as a silken stuff,Or as a spice, or gold,Fair to behold!Beloved, I give Thee allThis Adam’s Fall,This my desert—;Thy Father would not let Thee seeCorruption, but I give it Thee.Behold me thus abhorred,My penance, Lord!A handful in Thy Hand,As if of fair, white sand,Thou wroughtest me;Clean was I for a little while....This dust is of another style;Its fumes, most vile of sinTo stink begin.
How willinglyI yield to TheeThis very dust!My body—;that was not enough!Fair was it as a silken stuff,Or as a spice, or gold,Fair to behold!Beloved, I give Thee allThis Adam’s Fall,This my desert—;Thy Father would not let Thee seeCorruption, but I give it Thee.Behold me thus abhorred,My penance, Lord!A handful in Thy Hand,As if of fair, white sand,Thou wroughtest me;Clean was I for a little while....This dust is of another style;Its fumes, most vile of sinTo stink begin.
How willinglyI yield to TheeThis very dust!My body—;that was not enough!Fair was it as a silken stuff,Or as a spice, or gold,Fair to behold!
Beloved, I give Thee allThis Adam’s Fall,This my desert—;Thy Father would not let Thee seeCorruption, but I give it Thee.Behold me thus abhorred,My penance, Lord!
A handful in Thy Hand,As if of fair, white sand,Thou wroughtest me;Clean was I for a little while....This dust is of another style;Its fumes, most vile of sinTo stink begin.
. . . . .