Suddenly cameRunning along to him naked, with curly hair,That rogue of the lovely world,That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare.The holy boyGazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know.Impudent Cupid stoodPanting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow.(Will you not play?Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy.Is he not holy, like you?Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?).....Marvellous dream!Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try;He has offered his bow for the game.But Jesus went weeping away, and left him therewondering why.
Suddenly cameRunning along to him naked, with curly hair,That rogue of the lovely world,That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare.
The holy boyGazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know.Impudent Cupid stoodPanting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow.
(Will you not play?Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy.Is he not holy, like you?Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?)
.....
Marvellous dream!Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try;He has offered his bow for the game.But Jesus went weeping away, and left him therewondering why.
That may be taken as Mr Monro's most representative poem. On our theory, therefore (of thiswork as a link with the older school), the piece might serve to indicate the point which contemporary poetry has reached, advancing in technique and in thought straight from the previous generation. Not that it is the most 'advanced' piece (in the specific sense of the word) which one could cite from modern poets. Many and strange have been the theories evolved on independent lines, just as numerous weird technical effects have been gained by breaking altogether with the tradition of native prosody. But Mr Monro's poetry continues the tradition; and whether it be in content or in form, it has pushed forward, in the normal manner of healthy growth, from the stage immediately preceding.
The new technical features are clear enough, and all owe their origin to a determination to gain the greatest possible freedom within the laws of English versification. Rhyme is no longer a merely decorative figure, gorgeous but tyrannical. It is an instrument of potential range and power, to be used with restraint by an austere artist. In "Children of Love" it occurs just often enough to convey the gentle sadness of the emotional atmosphere. But very beautiful effects are gained without it, as, for instance, in another of these later poems, called "Great City"—
When I returned at sunset,The serving-maid was singing softlyUnder the dark stairs, and in the houseTwilight had entered like a moonray.Time was so dead I could not understandThe meaning of midday or of midnight,But like falling waters, falling, hissing, falling,Silence seemed an everlasting sound.
When I returned at sunset,The serving-maid was singing softlyUnder the dark stairs, and in the houseTwilight had entered like a moonray.Time was so dead I could not understandThe meaning of midday or of midnight,But like falling waters, falling, hissing, falling,Silence seemed an everlasting sound.
The verse is not now commonly marked by an exact number of syllables or feet, nor the stanza divided into a regular number of verses, except where the subject requires precision of effect. An order of recurrence does exist, however, giving the definite form essential to poetry. But it is determined by factors which make for greater naturalness and flexibility than the hard-and-fast division into ten-or eight-foot lines and stanzas of a precise pattern. The ruling influences now are various—the thought which is to be expressed, and the phases through which it passes: the nature and strength of the emotion, the ebb and flow of the poetic impulse.
Thus, while metrical rhythm is retained, it has been freed from its former monotonous regularity, and has become almost infinitely varied. The dissyllable, dominant hitherto, has taken a much humbler place. Every metre into which Englishwords will run is now adopted, and fresh combinations are constantly being made; while upon the poetic rhythm itself is superimposed the natural rhythm of speech. In most of these devices Mr Monro, and others, are presumably following the precept and example of the Laureate; but in any case there can be no doubt of the richness, suppleness, and variety of the metrical effects attained. Most of the pieces in this little chapbook illustrate at some point the influence of untrammelled speech-rhythm; and in one, called "Hearthstone," it is rather accentuated. I quote from the poem for that reason: the slight excess will enable the device to be observed more readily, but will not obscure other characteristic qualities which are clearly marked here—of tenderness, quiet tone, and delicate colouring.
I want nothing but your fireside now......Your book has dropped unnoticed: you have readSo long you cannot send your brain to bed.The low quiet room and all its things are caughtAnd linger in the meshes of your thought.(Some people think they know time cannot pause.)Your eyes are closing now though not becauseOf sleep. You are searching something with your brain;You have let the old dog's paw drop down again ...Now suddenly you hum a little catch,And pick up the book. The wind rattles the latch;There's a patter of light cool rain and the curtain shakes;The silly dog growls, moves, and almost wakes.The kettle near the fire one moment hums.Then a long peace upon the whole room comes.So the sweet evening will draw to its bedtime end.I want nothing now but your fireside, friend.
I want nothing but your fireside now.
.....
Your book has dropped unnoticed: you have readSo long you cannot send your brain to bed.The low quiet room and all its things are caughtAnd linger in the meshes of your thought.(Some people think they know time cannot pause.)Your eyes are closing now though not becauseOf sleep. You are searching something with your brain;You have let the old dog's paw drop down again ...Now suddenly you hum a little catch,And pick up the book. The wind rattles the latch;There's a patter of light cool rain and the curtain shakes;The silly dog growls, moves, and almost wakes.The kettle near the fire one moment hums.Then a long peace upon the whole room comes.So the sweet evening will draw to its bedtime end.I want nothing now but your fireside, friend.
Thus the technique of modern poetry would seem to be moving towards a more exact rendering of the music and the meaning of our language. That is to say, there is, in prosody itself, an impulse towards truth of expression, which may be found to correspond to the heightened sense of external fact in contemporary poetic genius, as well as to its closer hold upon reality. Thence comes the realism of much good poetry now being written: triune, as all genuine realism must be, since it proceeds out of a spiritual conviction, a mental process and actual craftsmanship. That Mr Monro's work is also trending in this direction, almost every piece in his last little book will testify. And if it seem a surprising fact, that is only because one has found it necessary to quote from the more subjective of his early lyrics. It would have been possible, out of the narrative called "Judas," or the "Impressions" at the end ofBefore Dawn, to indicate this poet'sobjective power. He has a gift of detachment; of cool and exact observation; and to this is joined a dexterity of satiric touch which serves indignation well. Hence the portraits of the epicure at the Carlton and the city swindler in the rôle of county gentleman. Hence, too, poems like "The Virgin" or "A Suicide": though here it is unfortunate that imagination has been allowed to play upon abnormal subjects. The result may be an acute psychological study; and interesting on that account. But if it is to be a choice between two extremes, most people will prefer work in which fantasy has gone off to a region in the opposite direction. There is one poem in which this bizarre sprite has taken holiday; and thence comes the piece of glimmering unreality called "Overheard on a Saltmarsh."
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?Give them me.No.Give them me. Give them me.No.Then I will howl all night in the reeds,Lie in the mud and howl for them.Goblin, why do you love them so?They are better than stars or water,Better than voices of winds that sing,Better than any man's fair daughter,Your green glass beads on a silver ring.Hush I stole them out of the moon.Give me your beads, I desire them.No.I will howl in a deep lagoonFor your green glass beads, I love them so.Give them me. Give them.No.
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?Give them me.No.Give them me. Give them me.No.Then I will howl all night in the reeds,Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?They are better than stars or water,Better than voices of winds that sing,Better than any man's fair daughter,Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I desire them.No.I will howl in a deep lagoonFor your green glass beads, I love them so.Give them me. Give them.No.
But in his more representative work, the intellectual realism which comes from an acute sense of fact is clearly operative. We have seen, too, from the earliest published verse of this poet, the continual struggle of what one may call a religion of reality—belief in the sanctity and beauty and value of the real world—for spiritual mastery. In the later poems the two elements become deepened and are more closely combined: they are, too, seeking expression through a technique which is directed to the same realistic purpose. And as a result we get such a piece of quiet fidelity as "London Interior"; or a tragedy like "Carrion," in which the logic of life and death, controlling emotion with beautiful gravity, is suddenly broken by a sob. It is the last of four war-poems; a series representing thecall of battle to the soldier, his departure, a fighting retreat, and finally, in "Carrion," his death—
It is plain now what you are. Your head has droppedInto a furrow. And the lovely curveOf your strong leg has wasted and is proppedAgainst a ridge of the ploughed land's watery swerve......You are fuel for a coming spring if they leave you here;The crop that will rise from your bones is healthy bread.You died—we know you—without a word of fear,And as they loved you living I love you dead.No girl would kiss you. But thenNo girls would ever kiss the earthIn the manner they hug the lips of men:You are not known to them in this, your second birth......Hush, I hear the guns. Are you still asleep?Surely I saw you a little heave to reply.I can hardly think you will not turn over and creepAlong the furrows trenchward as if to die.
It is plain now what you are. Your head has droppedInto a furrow. And the lovely curveOf your strong leg has wasted and is proppedAgainst a ridge of the ploughed land's watery swerve.
.....
You are fuel for a coming spring if they leave you here;The crop that will rise from your bones is healthy bread.You died—we know you—without a word of fear,And as they loved you living I love you dead.
No girl would kiss you. But thenNo girls would ever kiss the earthIn the manner they hug the lips of men:You are not known to them in this, your second birth.
.....
Hush, I hear the guns. Are you still asleep?Surely I saw you a little heave to reply.I can hardly think you will not turn over and creepAlong the furrows trenchward as if to die.
Mrs Naidu is one of the two Indian poets who within the last few years have produced remarkable English poetry. The second of the two is, of course, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has come to us a little later, who has published more, and whose recent visit to this country has brought him more closely under the public eye. Mrs Naidu is not so well known; but she deserves to be, for although the bulk of her work is not so large, its quality, so far as it can be compared with that of her compatriot, will easily bear the test. It is, however, so different in kind, and reveals a genius so contrasting, that one is piqued by an apparent problem. How is it that two children of what we are pleased to call the changeless East, under conditions nearly identical, should have produced results which are so different?
Both of these poets are lyrists born; both come of an old and distinguished Bengali ancestry; in both the culture of East and West are happily met; and both are working in the same artistic medium. Yet the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore is mystical, philosophic, and contemplative, remaining oriental therefore to that degree; and permitting a doubt of theQuarterlyreviewer's dictum that "Gitanjali"is a synthesis of western and oriental elements. The complete synthesis would seem to rest with Mrs Naidu, whose poetry, though truly native to her motherland, is more sensuous than mystical, human and passionate rather than spiritual, and reveals a mentality more active than contemplative. Her affiliation with the Occident is so much the more complete; but her Eastern origin is never in doubt.
The themes of her verse and their setting are derived from her own country. But her thought, with something of the energy of the strenuous West and something of its 'divine discontent,' plays upon the surface of an older and deeper calm which is her birthright. So, in her "Salutation to the Eternal Peace," she sings
What care I for the world's loud weariness,Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost blessWith delicate sheaves of mellow silences?
What care I for the world's loud weariness,Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost blessWith delicate sheaves of mellow silences?
Two distinguished poet-friends of Mrs Naidu—Mr Edmund Gosse and Mr Arthur Symons—have introduced her two principal volumes of verse with interesting biographical notes. The facts thus put in our possession convey a picture to the mind which is instantly recognizable in the poems. A gracious and glowing personality appears, quick and warm with human feeling, exquisitely sensitive to beauty andreceptive of ideas, wearing its culture, old and new, scientific and humane, with simplicity; but, as Mr Symons says, "a spirit of too much fire in too frail a body," and one moreover who has suffered and fought to the limit of human endurance.
We hear of birth and childhood in Hyderabad; of early scientific training by a father whose great learning was matched by his public spirit: of a first poem at the age of eleven, written in an impulse of reaction when a sum in algebra 'would notcome right': of coming to England at the age of sixteen with a scholarship from the Nizam college; and of three years spent here, studying at King's College, London, and at Girton, with glorious intervals of holiday in Italy.
We hear, too, of a love-story that would make an idyll; of passion so strong and a will so resolute as almost to be incredible in such a delicate creature; of a marriage in defiance of caste, a few years of brilliant happiness and then a tragedy. And all through, as a dark background to the adventurous romance of her life, there is the shadow of weakness and ill-health. That shadow creeps into her poems, impressively, now and then. Indeed, if it were lacking, the bright oriental colouring would be almost too vivid. So, apart from its psychological and human interest, we may be thankful for such apoem as "To the God of Pain." It softens and deepens the final impression of the work.
For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice.
For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice.
The poem is purely subjective, of course, as is the still more moving piece, "The Poet to Death," in the same volume.
Tarry a while, till I am satisfiedOf love and grief, of earth and altering sky;Till all my human hungers are fulfilled,O Death, I cannot die!
Tarry a while, till I am satisfiedOf love and grief, of earth and altering sky;Till all my human hungers are fulfilled,O Death, I cannot die!
We know that that is a cry out of actual and repeated experience; and from that point of view alone it has poignant interest. But what are we to say about the spirit of it—the philosophy which is implicit in it? Here is an added value of a higher kind, evidence of a mind which has taken its own stand upon reality, and which has no easy consolations when confronting the facts of existence. For this mind, neither the religions of East nor West are allowed to veil the truth; neither the hope of Nirvana nor the promise of Paradise may drug her sense of the value of life nor darken her perception of the beauty of phenomena. Resignation and renunciation are alike impossible to this ardent being who loves the earth so passionately; but the 'sternlyscientific' nature of that early training—the description is her own—has made futile regret impossible, too. She has entered into full possession of the thought of our time; and strongly individual as she is, she has evolved for herself, to use her own words, a "subtle philosophy of living from moment to moment." That is no shallow epicureanism, however, for as she sings in a poem contrasting our changeful life with the immutable peace of the Buddha on his lotus-throne—
Nought shall conquer or controlThe heavenward hunger of our soul.
Nought shall conquer or controlThe heavenward hunger of our soul.
It is as though, realizing that the present is the only moment of which we are certain, she had determined to crowd that moment to the utmost limit of living.
From such a philosophy, materialism of a nobler kind, one would expect a love of the concrete and tangible, a delight in sense impressions, and quick and strong emotion. Those are, in fact, the characteristics of much of the poetry in these two volumes,The Golden ThresholdandThe Bird of Time. The beauty of the material world, of line and especially of colour, is caught and recorded joyously. Life is regarded mainly from the outside, in action, or as a pageant; as an interesting event or a picturesque group. It is not often brooded over, and reflectionis generally evident in but the lightest touches. The proportion of strictly subjective verse is small, and is not, on the whole, the finest work technically.
The introspective note seems unfavourable to Mrs Naidu's art: naturally so, one would conclude, from the buoyant temperament that is revealed. The love-songs are perhaps an exception, for one or two, which (as we know) treat fragments of the poet's own story, are fine in idea and in technique alike. There is, for example, "An Indian Love Song," in the first stanza of which the lover begs for his lady's love. But she reminds him of the barriers of caste between them; she is afraid to profane the laws of her father's creed; and her lover's kinsmen, in times past, have broken the altars of her people and slaughtered their sacred kine. The lover replies:
What are the sins of my race, Beloved, what are my people to thee?And what are thy shrine, and kine and kindred, what are thy gods to me?Love recks not of feuds and bitter follies, of stranger, comrade orkin,Alike in his ear sound the temple bells and the cry of themuezzin.
What are the sins of my race, Beloved, what are my people to thee?And what are thy shrine, and kine and kindred, what are thy gods to me?Love recks not of feuds and bitter follies, of stranger, comrade orkin,Alike in his ear sound the temple bells and the cry of themuezzin.
There is also in the second volume the "Dirge," in which the poet mourns the death of the husbandwhom she had dared to marry against the laws of caste; and which almost unconsciously reveals the influence of centuries of Suttee upon the mind of Indian womanhood.
Shatter her shining bracelets, break the stringThreading the mystic marriage-beads that clingLoth to desert a sobbing throat so sweet,Unbind the golden anklets on her feet,Divest her of her azure veils and cloudHer living beauty in a living shroud.
Shatter her shining bracelets, break the stringThreading the mystic marriage-beads that clingLoth to desert a sobbing throat so sweet,Unbind the golden anklets on her feet,Divest her of her azure veils and cloudHer living beauty in a living shroud.
Even here, however, the effect is gained by colour and movement; by the grouping of images rather than by the development of an idea; and that will be found to be Mrs Naidu's method in the many delightful lyrics of these volumes where she is most successful. The "Folk Songs" of her first book are an example. One assumes that they are early work, partly because they are the first group in the earlier of the two volumes; but more particularly because they adopt so literally the advice which Mr Edmund Gosse gave her at the beginning of her career. When she came as a girl to England and was a student of London University at King's College, she submitted to Mr Gosse a bundle of manuscript poems. He describes them as accurate and careful work, but too derivative; modelled too palpably on the great poets of theprevious generation. His advice, therefore, was that they should be destroyed, and that the author should start afresh upon native themes and in her own manner. The counsel was exactly followed: the manuscript went into the wastepaper basket, and the poet set to work on what we cannot doubt is this first group of songs made out of the lives of her own people.
There is all the hemisphere between these lyrics and those of late-Victorian England. Here we find a "Village Song" of a mother to the little bride who is still all but a baby; and to whom the fairies call so insistently that she will not stay "for bridal songs and bridal cakes and sandal-scented leisure." In the song of the "Palanquin Bearers" we positively see the lithe and rhythmic movements which bear some Indian beauty along, lightly "as a pearl on a string." And there is a song written to one of the tunes of those native minstrels who wander, free and wild as the wind, singing of
The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,And happy and simple and sorrowful things.
The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,And happy and simple and sorrowful things.
The "Harvest Hymn" raises thanksgiving for strange bounties to gods of unfamiliar names; and the "Cradle Song" evokes a tropical night, heavy with scent and drenched with dew—
Sweet, shut your eyes,The wild fire-fliesDance through the fairyneem;From the poppy-bole,For you I stoleA little, lovely dream.
Sweet, shut your eyes,The wild fire-fliesDance through the fairyneem;From the poppy-bole,For you I stoleA little, lovely dream.
In its lightness and grace, this poem is one of the exquisite things in our language: one of the little lyric flights, like William Watson's "April," which in their clear sweetness and apparent spontaneity are like some small bird's song. Mrs Naidu has said of herself—"I sing just as the birds do"; and as regards her loveliest lyrics (there are a fair proportion of them) she speaks a larger truth than she meant. Their simplicity and abandonment to the sheer joy of singing are infinitely refreshing; and fragile though they seem, one suspects them of great vitality. In the later volume there is another called "Golden Cassia"—the bright blooms that her people call mere 'woodland flowers.' The poet has other fancies about them; sometimes they seem to her like fragments of a fallen star—
Or golden lamps for a fairy shrine,Or golden pitchers for fairy wine.Perchance you are, O frail and sweet!Bright anklet-bells from the wild spring's feet,Or the gleaming tears that some fair bride shedRemembering her lost maidenhead.
Or golden lamps for a fairy shrine,Or golden pitchers for fairy wine.
Perchance you are, O frail and sweet!Bright anklet-bells from the wild spring's feet,
Or the gleaming tears that some fair bride shedRemembering her lost maidenhead.
The tenderness and delicacy of verse like that might mislead us. We might suppose that the qualities of Mrs Naidu's work were only those which are arbitrarily known as feminine. But this poet, like Mrs Browning, is faithful to her own sensuous and passionate temperament. She has not timidly sheltered behind a convention which, because some women-poets have been austere, prescribes austerity, neutral tones, and a pale light for the woman-artist in this sphere. And, as a result, we have all the evidence of a richly-dowered sensibility responding frankly to the vivid light and colour, the liberal contours and rich scents and great spaces of the world she loves; and responding no less warmly and freely to human instincts. Occasionally her verse achieves the expression of sheer sensuous ecstasy. It does that, perhaps, in the two Dance poems—from the very reason that her art is so true and free. The theme requires exactly that treatment; and in "Indian Dancers" there is besides a curiously successful union between the measure that is employed and the subject of the poem—
Their glittering garments of purple are burning like tremulous dawns inthe quivering air,And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of theirrhythmical, slumber-soft feet.
Their glittering garments of purple are burning like tremulous dawns inthe quivering air,And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of theirrhythmical, slumber-soft feet.
The love-songs, though in many moods, are always the frank expression of emotion that is deep and strong. One that is especially beautiful is the utterance of a young girl who, while her sisters prepare the rites for a religious festival, stands aside with folded hands dreaming of her lover. She is secretly asking herself what need has she to supplicate the gods, being blessed by love; and again, in the couple of stanzas called "Ecstasy," the rapture has passed, by its very intensity, into pain.
Shelter my soul, O my love!My soul is bent low with the painAnd the burden of love, like the graceOf a flower that is smitten with rain:O shelter my soul from thy face!
Shelter my soul, O my love!My soul is bent low with the painAnd the burden of love, like the graceOf a flower that is smitten with rain:O shelter my soul from thy face!
But, when all is said, it is the life of her people which inspires this poet most perfectly. In the lighter lyrics one sees the fineness of her touch; and in the love-poems the depth of her passion. But, in the folk-songs, all the qualities of her genius have contributed. Grace and tenderness have been reinforced by an observant eye, broad sympathy and a capacity for thought which reveals itself not so much as a systematic process as an atmosphere, suffusing the poems with gentle pensiveness. And always the artistic method is that of picking out thetheme in bright sharp lines, and presenting the idea concretely, through the grouping of picturesque facts. There is a poem called "Street Cries" which is a vivid bit of the life of an Eastern city. First we have early morning, when the workers hurry out, fasting, to their toil; and the cry 'Buy bread, Buy bread' rings down the eager street; then midday, hot and thirsty, when the cry is 'Buy fruit, Buy fruit'; and finally, evening.
When twinkling twilight o'er the gay bazaars,Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars,When lutes are strung and fragrant torches litOn white roof-terraces where lovers sitDrinking together of life's poignant sweet,Buy flowers, buy flowers, floats down the singing street.
When twinkling twilight o'er the gay bazaars,Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars,When lutes are strung and fragrant torches litOn white roof-terraces where lovers sitDrinking together of life's poignant sweet,Buy flowers, buy flowers, floats down the singing street.
Another of these shining pictures will be found in "Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad," Mrs Naidu's own city; and again in the song called "In a Latticed Balcony." But there are several others in which, added to the suggestion of an old civilization and strange customs, there is a haunting sense of things older and stranger still. Of such is this one, called "Indian Weavers."
Weavers, weaving at break of day,Why do you weave a garment so gay?...Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,We weave the robes of a new-born child......Weavers, weaving solemn and still,Why do you weave in the moonlight chill?...White as a feather and white as a cloud,We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.
Weavers, weaving at break of day,Why do you weave a garment so gay?...Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,We weave the robes of a new-born child.
.....
Weavers, weaving solemn and still,Why do you weave in the moonlight chill?...White as a feather and white as a cloud,We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.
The work of "John Presland" reminds one of the trend of contemporary poetry towards the dramatic form. Out of eight volumes published by this poet, five are fully-wrought plays, and one is a tragic love-story told in duologue. That, of course, is a larger proportion of actual drama than most of these poets give; but if an analysis were made, it would probably be found that the dramatic impulse is strong in the work of nearly all of them.
There are very few of those who are making genuine poetry, who are content simply to sing. Indeed, it hardly seems to be a matter of choice, but an urgency, secret and compelling as a natural instinct, by means of which life is commanding expression in literary art. This is not to suggest, however, that no lyrics are being composed. Current poetry often reveals a true lyrical gift, especially in early work; and so long as poets continue to be born young, we shall not lack for songs. We may find, too, a rare singer like W. H. Davies, for whom genius, temperament and circumstance have effected a happy isolation from the complexity of modern existence. Owing allegiance chiefly to nature, he is free as the air in body and soul. Unspoilt bybooks, and saving his spirit humane and merry and sweet from the petty constraints of civilization, he carols as lightly as a robin or a thrush. But he is almost a solitary exception, and may serve to prove the rule that the pure lyric—some intimate emotion bubbling over into music—cannot say all that demands to be said when the poetic spirit is completely in touch with life.
Now, in all the most vital of this modern verse, poetry has come so close to life as to claim its very identity. It has left the twilight of unreality and stepped into clear day. It has broken down the exclusiveness which penned it within a prescribed circle of theme and of language; and it has taken hold upon the world, real and entire. Moreover, the life upon which it seizes in this way is wider, more complex, more meaningful and varied than ever before. Political and social changes have made humanity a larger thing—whether regarded in the actual numbers which democracy thus brings within the poetic ken, or in their manifold significance. Horizons, both mental and material, have been extended. Science presses on in quiet confidence, the dogmatic phase being over; and its methods as well as its data pass readily into the collective mind. Religion, no longer synonymous with a single creed or form of worship, can findroom within itself for all the spiritual activity of mankind everywhere; and in the juster proportion thus attained, nobler syntheses are shaping. A constructive social sense replaces the old negative commands with a positive duty of service. Values are changing; new ideals quicken, struggle and fructify; fresh aspects of life, and visions of human destiny, are opened up; while in every sphere the spirit of inquiry and the experimental method generate an energy of conflict which the timid and the sleepy loathe, but which is nevertheless the dynamic of progress.
The poetry of to-day is the very spirit of that multiform life, giving shape and permanence to whatever is finest in it; and for that reason its manner of expression is almost infinitely varied, and often very different from the poetic forms of other ages. That, indeed, is one sign of its vitality: the fact that it is a living organism, capable of adaptation, growth and development. Old forms are modified and new ones created to embody the new ideas. All the resources of prosody are drawn upon—when they will serve—and used with the utmost freedom. And when, as frequently happens, they will not serve; when the established rules of English verse seem inadequate to the present task, they are challenged and thrown aside. Thus there arises,in the technique of poetry itself, a corresponding conflict to that in the world of ideas, indicating a similar vigour and equally prophetic of advance.
In all this variety, however, the dramatic element is a fairly constant feature; and it seems to be growing stronger. It is present in many poems which do not look like drama at all, as for instance in the narratives of Mr Masefield. Here we may find vividly dramatic scenes, astonishingly evolved in the form of an elaborate stanza, or the rhymed couplet; just as the tragedies inDaily Breadby Mr Gibson are wrought out in a quite original unrhymed verse of extreme austerity. Again, much of Mr Abercrombie's work is dramatic in essence, apart from his plays in regular form; and Mrs Woods has completed a third poetical drama, having already published two tragedies in her collected edition.
But there is one fact to be noted in coming from those poets to the drama of "John Presland." With them the dramatic impulse is often subconscious, and it has to fight its way, obscurely sometimes, against a twin impulse towards lyricism. It is strong but not yet dominant; vital, but not yet aware of its own potentiality. It throbs below the surface of alien forms, but it rarely breaks away to an independent existence. And even when itachieves consciousness, as it does most completely perhaps in the work of Mrs Woods, traces of the struggle cling about it still—in a lyricalmotif, or a fragment of song embedded in the structure of a play, or in a lyric intensity of feeling. With "John Presland," however, the general tendency is reversed. The dramatic impulse has become a definite and prevailing purpose, with the lyrical element subordinated to it; and, as a consequence, we have here a drama of full stature, a complete, organic, and acutely conscious art-form.
This work reveals in its author an endowment of those qualities which most insistently urge towards the dramatic form: imagination, both creative and constructive, and a gift of almost absolute objectivity. In all the five plays these qualities are conspicuous. Indeed, they are so strong that they effectually screen the poet's personality; and, if he had written nothing but the plays, it is little that one might hope to discover of the individual mind behind them. That is naturally a very desirable result from the dramatist's point of view, and one test of his art. But it pricks mere human curiosity, and provokes unregenerate glee in the fact that the poet has published lyrics too, three volumes of them; and that they, from their more subjective nature, yield up the outlines of a definite individuality.
But, indeed, one's delight is not pure mischief. It is partly at least in seeing the artistic virtue of this largesse in the lyric—the spontaneity which is equally a merit with the reticence of drama. One is glad, too, of the light thus thrown upon the poet's own philosophy, his affiliations, his outlook, his attitude to life. Judging by the plays alone, we might be cheated into a belief in the complete detachment of our author. The use of historical themes and the rigour of his art create an effect of isolation. He would seem to stand outside the stress of his own time and aloof from the influences which commonly shape the artist. The lyrics show that impression to be false and help to correct it. For while they do not relate the poet, in any narrow sense, to what are specifically called 'modern movements,' they prove that he has an eager interest in his world, and that, being in that world and of it, he is yet 'on the side of the angels.' There is, for example, a splendid fire of reproach in the poem "To Italy," proving a capacity for noble indignation at the same time as a close hold upon current affairs. The poem is dated September 29, 1911, and is a protest at the action of Italy against Tripoli:
Hearken to your dead heroes, Italy;Hearken to those who made your historyA bright and splendid thing ...... What Mazzini saidHave you so soon forgotten? You, who bledWith Garibaldi, and the thousand more?He spoke, and your young men to battle boreHis gospel with them, of men's brotherhood,Of Justice, that before the tyrant, stoodAccusing, and of truth and charity.His dust to-day lies with you, Italy;Where lie his words? That sword is in your handTo seize unrighteously another's land—Your fleet in foreign waters. By what rightDare you act so, save arrogance of might,Such cruel force as ground the Austrian heelUpon your Lombard cities, ringed with steelUnhappy Naples and despairing Rome,That exiled Garibaldi from his home,That served itself with sycophants and knaves,That filled the prisons and the nameless graves,Till, like a sunrise o'er a stormy sea,Flashed out the spirit of free Italy?
Hearken to your dead heroes, Italy;Hearken to those who made your historyA bright and splendid thing ...... What Mazzini saidHave you so soon forgotten? You, who bledWith Garibaldi, and the thousand more?He spoke, and your young men to battle boreHis gospel with them, of men's brotherhood,Of Justice, that before the tyrant, stoodAccusing, and of truth and charity.His dust to-day lies with you, Italy;Where lie his words? That sword is in your handTo seize unrighteously another's land—Your fleet in foreign waters. By what rightDare you act so, save arrogance of might,Such cruel force as ground the Austrian heelUpon your Lombard cities, ringed with steelUnhappy Naples and despairing Rome,That exiled Garibaldi from his home,That served itself with sycophants and knaves,That filled the prisons and the nameless graves,Till, like a sunrise o'er a stormy sea,Flashed out the spirit of free Italy?
Like all Mr Presland's work, this poem is closely woven: quotation does not serve it well, but this passage will at least indicate its theme and temper, and thus light up personality. There is, in the same volume,Songs of Changing Skies, a bit of spiritual autobiography called "To Robert Browning." It destroys at once any fiction of literary isolation; although to be sure there are cute critics who will declare that the resemblance to Browning in some ofthese lyrics is too obvious to need the discipular confession. It may be that these clever people are right. Yes, perhaps one would recognize certain signs in poems like "A Present from Luther" and "An Error of Luther's." But the whole question of influence is nearly always made too much of, especially in its mere outward marks. Granting the love of Browning and the debt to his teaching, which are honourably admitted here, some effect upon thought and style would be inevitable. But a deeper and more potent cause of the resemblance lies in a real affinity of mind, in buoyancy and breadth and tenacious belief in good; and in a similar poetic equipment. One must not launch upon a comparison, but it may be observed that he has profited by his master's faults, artistic and philosophical, at least as much as by his merits. For, probably warned by example, this poet works with patient care to express his thought simply; and he has attained a style of perfect clearness. While his philosophy, though full of brave hope, has escaped the unreason of that optimism which declares that 'All's well.' True, he makes Joan say, in the last words of his "Joan of Arc":
... so near eternityThe evil dwindles, good alone remains,And good triumphant—God is merciful.
... so near eternityThe evil dwindles, good alone remains,And good triumphant—God is merciful.
But that is dramatically appropriate—the logic of Joan's character. And it seems to me that a more intimate and sincere expression is to be found in the chastened mood of a sonnet called "To April":
There will be other days as fair as theseWhich I shall never see; for other eyesThe lyric loveliness of cherry treesShall bloom milk-white against the windy skiesAnd I not praise them; where upon the streamThe faëry tracery of willows liesI shall not see the sunlight's flying gleam,Nor watch the swallows sudden dip and rise.Most mutable the forms of beauty are,Yet Beauty most eternal and unchanged,Perfect for us, and for posterityStill perfect; yearly is the pageant ranged.And dare we wish that our poor dust should marThe wonder of such immortality?
There will be other days as fair as theseWhich I shall never see; for other eyesThe lyric loveliness of cherry treesShall bloom milk-white against the windy skiesAnd I not praise them; where upon the streamThe faëry tracery of willows liesI shall not see the sunlight's flying gleam,Nor watch the swallows sudden dip and rise.
Most mutable the forms of beauty are,Yet Beauty most eternal and unchanged,Perfect for us, and for posterityStill perfect; yearly is the pageant ranged.And dare we wish that our poor dust should marThe wonder of such immortality?
The wistfulness of that wins by its grace where a more strenuous optimism provokes a challenge; just as the tentative 'perhaps' in the last line of "Sophocles' Antigone" softly woos the sceptic:
There are fair flowers that never came to fruit;Cut by sharp winds, or eaten by late frost,Barrenly in forgetfulness, they're lostTo little-heedful Nature; so, in suit,Beneath the footsteps of calamityYoung lives and lovely innocently comeTo total up old evil's deadly sum—Do the gods pity dead Antigone?We look too close, we look too close on earthAt good and evil; blind are Nature's lawsThat kill, or make alive, and so are done.Not in the circle of this death and birthMay we perceive a justifying cause,Beyond, perhaps, for God and good are one.
There are fair flowers that never came to fruit;Cut by sharp winds, or eaten by late frost,Barrenly in forgetfulness, they're lostTo little-heedful Nature; so, in suit,Beneath the footsteps of calamityYoung lives and lovely innocently comeTo total up old evil's deadly sum—Do the gods pity dead Antigone?We look too close, we look too close on earthAt good and evil; blind are Nature's lawsThat kill, or make alive, and so are done.Not in the circle of this death and birthMay we perceive a justifying cause,Beyond, perhaps, for God and good are one.
One must not pause to gather up the threads of personality in these three volumes of lyrics; and, with the more important work in drama still ahead, it is only possible just to glance at their specific values. All the pieces are not equally good, of course, but there is a proportion of exquisite poetry in each volume, and—a healthy sign—the proportion is greatest in the last of the three,Songs of Changing Skies, published in 1913. Of this best work there are at least three kinds. There is that which one may call the lyric proper, small in size, simple in design, light in texture, the free expression of a single mood. Such is "From a Window," in which the peculiar charm of the poet's verse in this kind is well seen. It is not a showy attractiveness: it does not storm the senses nor clamour for approval. It enters the mind quietly, and perhaps with somehesitancy; but having entered, it takes absolute possession.
To-night I hear the soft Spring rain that fallsAcross the gardens, in the falling dusk,The Spring dusk, very slow;And that clear, single-noted bird that callsInsistently, from somewhere in the gloomOf wet Spring leafage, or the scattering bloomOf one tall pear-tree.On, on, on, they go,Those single, sweet, reiterated sounds,Having no passion, similarly freeOf laughter, and of memory, and of tears,Poignantly sweet, across the falling rain,They fall upon my ears.
To-night I hear the soft Spring rain that fallsAcross the gardens, in the falling dusk,The Spring dusk, very slow;And that clear, single-noted bird that callsInsistently, from somewhere in the gloomOf wet Spring leafage, or the scattering bloomOf one tall pear-tree.On, on, on, they go,Those single, sweet, reiterated sounds,Having no passion, similarly freeOf laughter, and of memory, and of tears,Poignantly sweet, across the falling rain,They fall upon my ears.
The delicate rapture of that will fairly represent most of the nature poetry in these volumes; and it may stand alike for its music and the technical means by which that music is conveyed. It will be seen that there is a close relation between means and end; that the simple language, natural phrasing and controlled freedom of movement, directly subserve the final effect of clear sweetness. A similar adaptation will be found in verse which is written in a sharply contrasted manner. In "Atlantic Rollers," for instance, we have a bigger theme, demanding by its nature a swifter and stronger treatment. And surely the wild energy and sound,the dazzling light and colour of stormy breakers have been almost brought within sight and sound, in the speed and vigour of this poem. There is the opening rush, secretly obedient to a metrical scheme; there is a choice of words which are themselves dynamic; the rapid, cumulative pressure of the verse, with epithets only to help the rising movement until the crest is reached, at say the tenth or twelfth line; and then a slight diminution of speed and force, as a richer style describes the breaking wave.