THE BIRD CATCHETH THE EAR OF THE PRIMITIVE MANXXIV. TWO VOICES
THE BIRD CATCHETH THE EAR OF THE PRIMITIVE MAN
Mycompanion has two voices: one is that of a politician, harsh and strident, the other is that of a Homeric harper and ballad-chanter of the days of old. The political voice does not please me much. It is the voice of the “hell-roarer” of the prairies. Lindsay loves a mighty shout, an exultant war-whoop for its own sake, like any Indian. And ... I’ve heard those “glacier boulders across the prairiesrolled.” I have heard the “gigantic troubadour speaking like a siege-gun.” But there is another voice—
Two voices:One was of the deep,The other of a poor old silly sheep.And ... both were thine!
Two voices:One was of the deep,The other of a poor old silly sheep.And ... both were thine!
Two voices:
One was of the deep,
The other of a poor old silly sheep.
And ... both were thine!
as G. W. Steevens once wrote. The other voice is truly of the deep; sonorous and golden, murmuring, and with eternity dreaming in it. That is the voice of the poet.
Some days with us were naturally dedicated to poetry. The steps on the mountains caught the rhythms, the gliding waterfalls and the intensely coloured listening flowers suggested the mood of the poets, and then the peaks, the grandeur, uplifted Lindsay’s spirit. The hymns were silenced. Silence hung on the mute figures of Bryan and Altgelt. We let Roosevelt sleep on. American and European civilisation ceased to fill the mind, and there was only the mountains and poetry. Vachel knew by heart whole books, and he crooned and chanted as we walked, and lifted his head up to the snows and the waterfalls and the skies. He has a bird-like face when he recites;his eyes almost close, his lips purse up and open like a thrush’s beak. He glories in the word of poesy, and entirely forgets himself—
Oh ye who tread the Narrow WayBy Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,Be gentle when the heathen prayTo Buddha at Kamàkura.
Oh ye who tread the Narrow WayBy Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,Be gentle when the heathen prayTo Buddha at Kamàkura.
Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when the heathen pray
To Buddha at Kamàkura.
he chanted over and over again like a prayer, as if those hushed and holy mountains on which we looked were Buddha, Buddha at Kamàkura. And then—
To him the Way, the Law, ApartWhom Maya held beneath her heart,Ananda’s Lord—the Bodhisat.For whoso will, from Pride releasedContemning neither man nor beast,May hear the Soul of all the EastAbout him at Kamàkura.Yea, voice of every Soul that clungTo Life that strove from rung to rung,When Devadatta’s rule was young,The warm wind brings Kamàkura.
To him the Way, the Law, ApartWhom Maya held beneath her heart,Ananda’s Lord—the Bodhisat.For whoso will, from Pride releasedContemning neither man nor beast,May hear the Soul of all the EastAbout him at Kamàkura.Yea, voice of every Soul that clungTo Life that strove from rung to rung,When Devadatta’s rule was young,The warm wind brings Kamàkura.
To him the Way, the Law, ApartWhom Maya held beneath her heart,Ananda’s Lord—the Bodhisat.
To him the Way, the Law, Apart
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda’s Lord—the Bodhisat.
For whoso will, from Pride releasedContemning neither man nor beast,May hear the Soul of all the EastAbout him at Kamàkura.
For whoso will, from Pride released
Contemning neither man nor beast,
May hear the Soul of all the East
About him at Kamàkura.
Yea, voice of every Soul that clungTo Life that strove from rung to rung,When Devadatta’s rule was young,The warm wind brings Kamàkura.
Yea, voice of every Soul that clung
To Life that strove from rung to rung,
When Devadatta’s rule was young,
The warm wind brings Kamàkura.
My eyes had no doubt often passed over these lines without realising their beauty. The printing of a poem is only a guide, a clue to what the poem really is. It is not the poemitself. You have to divine the inner mystery and beauty. The man who can read a poem may help you to divine it for yourself. And this Lindsay did, making this poem live as we walked about—about and about. The beauty of the poem almost depends on pronouncing the word Kamàkura aright. Because we both loved this song we thought of naming some snowy mountain after Buddha, with the great plea—“Be gentle!” Be gentle, all of us!
Another poem which became a possession of the heart was that of Sydney Lanier, little-known in England—
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skiesBy so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.Like the greatness of God is the greatness withinThe range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skiesBy so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.Like the greatness of God is the greatness withinThe range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skies
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,
In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skies
By so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.Like the greatness of God is the greatness withinThe range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
By so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,
I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.
Like the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
This poet of southern Georgia gave, I thought,voice to a part of America, and it was a part I had tramped in too, a land of moss-hung forests and marshes, of marsh-blossoms and many birds. In that beautiful first verse how the word “secretly” in the first line enchants the ear, and then the wonderful effect of the phrase “greatness of God” when taken with wing-flight of birds rising o’er the reeds!
Talking of the modern poets, we agreed that a poem was little if there was not sound in it—melody—resonance. We found a common fellowship in Poe, and my companion rolled forth under a low and threatening heaven the cadences of “Ulalume,” his favourite poem, he averred.
Browning meant nothing to him, but he was fond of some of the early poems of Tennyson, especially of “Maud,” which greatly inspired him. Curiously enough, the latter poems of Tennyson were unknown to him—
On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead,“The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through his head,
On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead,“The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through his head,
On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead,
“The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through his head,
and the kindred poems among the last pages of the collected works of Tennyson.
Matthew Arnold had never touched him, but the music of Keats he understood naturally at sight. Of his own American poets he did not care for Whitman, whom he is so often told he resembles, but he loved Longfellow and all such word-music as—
Sandalphon the angel of glory,Sandalphon the angel of prayer,
Sandalphon the angel of glory,Sandalphon the angel of prayer,
Sandalphon the angel of glory,
Sandalphon the angel of prayer,
all of which he said one day as we were climbing among the rocks.
He began loving poetry by learning it by heart and reciting it for his own joy, and I began by writing in an exercise-book all the soldiers’ poems of Thomas Campbell and reading them—“a thousand times o’er”—
My little one kissed me a thousand times o’er,And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.“Stay, stay with us! rest! thou art weary and worn,”And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,And the voice in my dreaming ear—melted away!
My little one kissed me a thousand times o’er,And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.“Stay, stay with us! rest! thou art weary and worn,”And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,And the voice in my dreaming ear—melted away!
My little one kissed me a thousand times o’er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
“Stay, stay with us! rest! thou art weary and worn,”
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear—melted away!
How precious are the recollections of one’s first love of poetry! If as a boy you read the “Golden Legend” walking in country laneswhen the hay was cut in swathes in the fields on either hand; if you have ever lain in the midst of a cornfield and crooned to yourself the exultant promises of Rabbi ben Ezra, or climbed mountains with “Marmion” in your heart, or lisped the “Ode to a Nightingale” to the first girl you loved, how touching it will always be in memory!
The poet and the tramp shared thus their recollections as they wandered amidst heights and depths. They surely know much more of one another now!
I think the poetLearned to be a poet,By living with the poetsTill he became a poet.He had the great need in himTo give a song a tune.So he listened how the birds sangAnd he began to croon.Now he’s singing for a livingAnd living for his singing.And his companion’s singing,And all of us are singing,Because he’s learned to sing.
I think the poetLearned to be a poet,By living with the poetsTill he became a poet.He had the great need in himTo give a song a tune.So he listened how the birds sangAnd he began to croon.Now he’s singing for a livingAnd living for his singing.And his companion’s singing,And all of us are singing,Because he’s learned to sing.
I think the poetLearned to be a poet,By living with the poetsTill he became a poet.
I think the poet
Learned to be a poet,
By living with the poets
Till he became a poet.
He had the great need in himTo give a song a tune.So he listened how the birds sangAnd he began to croon.
He had the great need in him
To give a song a tune.
So he listened how the birds sang
And he began to croon.
Now he’s singing for a livingAnd living for his singing.And his companion’s singing,And all of us are singing,Because he’s learned to sing.
Now he’s singing for a living
And living for his singing.
And his companion’s singing,
And all of us are singing,
Because he’s learned to sing.