The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century Part 3

And though with sadder, still with kinder eyes, We shall behold all frailties, we shall haste To pardon, and with mellowing minds to bless.

Then though we must grow old, we shall grow old Together, and he shall not greatly miss My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes, Too deeply gazed in ever to seem dim; Nor shall we murmur at, nor much regret The years that gently bend us to the ground, And gradually incline our face; that we Leisurely stooping, and with each slow step, May curiously inspect our lasting home.

But we shall sit with luminous holy smiles, Endeared by many griefs, by many a jest, And custom sweet of living side by side; And full of memories not unkindly glance Upon each other. Last, we shall descend Into the natural ground--not without tears-- One must go first, ah G.o.d! one must go first; After so long one blow for both were good; Still like old friends, glad to have met, and leave Behind a wholesome memory on the earth.

Although _Marpessa_ and _Christ in Hades_ are subjects naturally adapted for poetic treatment, Phillips did not hesitate to try his art on material less malleable. In some of his poems we find a realism as honest and clear-sighted as that of Crabbe or Masefield. In _The Woman with the Dead Soul_ and _The Wife_ we have naturalism elevated into poetry. He could make a London night as mystical as a moonlit meadow. And in a brief couplet he has given to one of the most familiar of metropolitan spectacles a pretty touch of imagination. The traffic policeman becomes a musician.

The constable with lifted hand Conducting the orchestral Strand.

Stephen Phillips's second volume of collected verse, _New Poems_ (1907), came ten years after the first, and was to me an agreeable surprise. His devotion to the drama made me fear that he had burned himself out in the _Poems_ of 1897; but the later book is as unmistakably the work of a poet as was the earlier. The mystical communion with nature is expressed with authority in such poems as _After Rain_, _Thoughts at Sunrise_, _Thoughts at Noon_. Indeed the first-named distinctly harks back to that transcendental mystic of the seventeenth century, Henry Vaughan. The greatest triumph in the whole volume comes where we should least expect it, in the eulogy on Gladstone. Even the most sure-footed bards often miss their path in the Dark Valley. Yet in these seven stanzas on the Old Parliamentary Hand there is not a single weak line, not a single false note; word placed on word grows steadily into a column of majestic beauty.

This poem is all the more refres.h.i.+ng because admiration for Gladstone had become unfas.h.i.+onable; his work was belittled, his motives befouled, his clear mentality discounted by thousands of pygmy politicians and journalistic gnats. The poet, with a poet's love for mountains, turns the powerful light of his genius on the old giant; the mists disappear; and we see again a form venerable and august.

The saint and poet dwell apart; but thou Wast holy in the furious press of men, And choral in the central rush of life.

Yet didst thou love old branches and a book, And Roman verses on an English lawn....

Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote, Nor breach tremendous in the forts of h.e.l.l, Not for these things we praise thee, though these things Are much; but more, because thou didst discern In temporal policy the eternal will;

Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note, And to debate the thunder of the Lord; To meanest issues fire of the Most High.

William Watson, a Yorks.h.i.+reman by birth and ancestry, was born on the second of August, 1858. His first volume, _The Prince's Quest_, appeared in 1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more unpromising start, or given so little indication, not only of the flame of genius, but of the power of thought. No twentieth century English poet has a stronger personality than William Watson. There is not the slightest tang of it in _The Prince's Quest_. This long, rambling romance, in ten sections, is as devoid of flavour as a five-finger exercise. It is more than objective; it is somnambulistic. It contains hardly any notable lines, and hardly any bad lines. Although quite dull, it never deviates into prose--it is always somehow poetical without ever becoming poetry. It is written in the heroic couplet, written with a fatal fluency; not good enough and not bad enough to be interesting.

It is like the student's theme, which was returned to him without corrections, yet with a low mark; and in reply to the student's resentful question, "Why did you not correct my faults, if you thought meanly of my work?" the teacher replied wearily, "Your theme has no faults; it is distinguished by a lack of merit."

In _The Prince's Quest_ Mr. Watson exhibited a rather remarkable command of a barren technique. He had neither thoughts that breathe, nor words that burn. He had one or two unusual words--his only indication of immaturity in style--like "wox" and "himseemed." (Why is it that when "herseemed" as used by Rossetti, is so beautiful, "himseemed" should be so irritating!) But aside from a few specimens, the poem is as free from affectations as it is from pa.s.sion. When we remember the faults and the splendours of _Pauline,_ it seems incredible that a young poet could write so many pages without stumbling and without soaring; that he could produce a finished work of mediocrity. I suppose that those who read the poem in 1880 felt quite sure that its author would never scale the heights; and they were wrong; because William Watson really has the divine gift, and is one of the most deservedly eminent among living poets.

It is only fair to add, that in the edition of his works in 1898, _The Prince's Quest_ did not appear; he was persuaded, however, to include it in the two-volume edition of 1905, where it enjoys considerable revision, "wox" becoming normal, and "himseemed" becoming dissyllabic. For my part, I am glad that it has now been definitely retained. It is important in the study of a poet's development. It would seem that the William Watson of the last twenty-five years, a fiery, eager, sensitive man, with a burning pa.s.sion to express himself on moral and political ideas, learned the mastery of his art before he had anything to say.

Perhaps, being a thoroughly honest craftsman, he felt that he ought to keep his thoughts to himself, until he knew how to express them. After proving it on an impersonal romance, he was then ready to speak his mind. No poet has spoken his mind more plainly.

In an interesting address, delivered in various cities in the United States, and published in 1913, called _The Poet's Place in the Scheme of Life,_ Mr. Watson said, "Since my arrival on these sh.o.r.es I have been told that here also the public interest in poetry is visibly on the wane." Now whoever told him that was mistaken. The public interest in poetry and in poets has visibly _wox_, to use Mr. Watson's word. It is always true that an original genius, like Browning, like Ibsen, like Wagner, must wait some time for public recognition, although these three all lived long enough to receive not only appreciation, but idolatry; but the "reading public" has no difficulty in recognizing immediately first-rate work, when it is produced in the familiar forms of art. In the Preface that preceded his printed lecture, Mr. Watson complained with some natural resentment, though with no petulance, that his poem, _King Alfred_, starred as it was from the old armories of literature, received scarcely any critical comment, and attracted no attention.

But the reason is plain enough--_King Alfred_, as a whole, is a dull poem, and is therefore not provocative of eager discussion. The critics and the public rose in reverence before _Wordsworth's Grave_, because it is a n.o.ble work of art. Its author did not have to tell us of its beauty--it was as clear as a cathedral.

I do not agree with Mr. Watson or with Mr. Mackaye, that real poets are speaking to deaf ears, or that they should be stimulated by forced attention. I once heard Percy Mackaye make an eloquent and high-minded address, where, if my memory serves me rightly, he advocated something like a stipend for young poets. A distinguished old man in the audience, now with G.o.d, whispered audibly, "What most of them need is hanging!" I do not think they should be rewarded either by cash or the gallows. Let them make their way, and if they have genius, the public will find it out. If all they have is talent, and no means to support it, poetry had better become their avocation.

Mr. Watson has expressly disclaimed that in his lecture he was lamenting merely "the insufficient praise bestowed upon living poets."

It is certainly true that most poets cannot live by the sale of their works. Is this especially the fault of our age? is it the fault of our poets? is it a fault in human nature? Mr. Watson said, "Yet I am bound to admit that this need for the poet is felt by but few persons in our day. With one exception there is not a single living English poet, the sales of whose poems would not have been thought contemptible by Scott and Byron. The exception is, of course, that apostle of British imperialism--that vehement and voluble glorifier of Britannic ideals, whom I dare say you will readily identify from my brief, and, I hope, not disparaging description of him. With that one brilliant and salient exception, England's living singers succeed in reaching only a pitifully small audience." In commenting on this pa.s.sage, we ought to remember that Scott and Byron were colossal figures, so big that no eye could miss them; and that the reason why Kipling has enjoyed substantial rewards is not because of his political views, nor because of his glorification of the British Empire, but simply because of his literary genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to the common run of poets, not merely in royalties, but in creative power.

Furthermore, shortly after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes and then John Masefield pa.s.sed from city to city in America in a march of triumph. Mr. Gibson and Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere; "Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; Rupert Brooke has been canonized.

Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers "his poetical contemporaries in England" his "most sincere condolences on the hard fate which condemned them to be born there at all in the latter part of the nineteenth century." But he is not mistaken in wis.h.i.+ng that more people everywhere were appreciative of true poetry. I wish this with all my heart, not so much for the poet's sake, as for that of the people. But the chosen spirits are not rarer in our time than formerly. The fault is in human nature. Material blessings are instantly appreciated by every man, woman, and child, and by all the animals. For one person who knows the joys of listening to music, or looking at pictures, or reading poetry, there are a hundred thousand who know only the joys of food, clothing, shelter. Spiritual delights are not so immediately apparent as the gratification of physical desires. Perhaps if they were, man's growth would stop. As Browning says,

While were it so with the soul,--this gift of truth Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure To prosper as the body's gain is wont,-- Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth Crumble; for he both reasons and decides, Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire For gold or purple once he knows its worth?

Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain?

Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs s.h.i.+ft, Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, And straightway in his life acknowledge it, As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.

One of the functions of the poet is to awaken men and women to the knowledge of the delights of the mind, to give them life instead of existence. As Mr. Watson n.o.bly expresses it, the aim of the poet "is to keep fresh within us our often flagging sense of life's greatness and grandeur." We can exist on food; but we cannot live without our poets, who lift us to higher planes of thought and feeling. The poetry of William Watson has done this service for us again and again.

In 1884 appeared _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_. I do not think these have been sufficiently admired. As an epigrammatist Mr.

Watson has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary verse. The epigram is a quite definite form of art, especially cultivated by the poets in the first half of the seventeenth century. Their formula the terse expression of obscene thoughts. Mr. Watson excels the best of them in wit, concision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes no attempt to rival them as a garbage-collector. Of the large number of epigrams that he has contributed to English literature, I find the majority not only interesting, but richly stimulating. This one ought to please Mr.

H. G. Wells:

When whelmed are altar, priest, and creed; When all the faiths have pa.s.sed; Perhaps, from darkening incense freed, G.o.d may emerge at last.

This one, despite its subject, is far above doggerel:

His friends he loved. His direst earthly foes-- Cats--believe he did but feign to hate.

My hand will miss the insinuated nose, Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at fate.

But his best epigrams are on purely literary themes:

Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's ope.

How welcome--after gong and cymbal's din-- The continuity, the long slow slope And vast curves of the gradual violin!

With the publication in 1890 of his masterpiece, _Wordsworth's Grave_, William Watson came into his own. This is worthy of the man it honours, and what higher praise could be given? It is superior, both in penetration and in beauty, to Matthew Arnold's famous _Memorial Verses_. Indeed, in the art of writing subtle literary criticism in rhythmical language that is itself high and pure poetry, Mr. Watson is unapproachable by any of his contemporaries, and I do not know of any poet in English literature who has surpa.s.sed him. This is his specialty, this is his clearest t.i.tle to permanent fame. And although his criticism is so valuable, when employed on a sympathetic theme, that he must be ranked among our modern interpreters of literature, his style in expressing it could not possibly be translated into prose, sure test of its poetical greatness. In his _Apologia_, he says

I have full oft In singers' selves found me a theme of song, Holding these also to be very part Of Nature's greatness, and accounting not Their descants least heroical of deeds.

The poem _Wordsworth's Grave_ not only expresses, as no one else has expressed, the quality of Wordsworth's genius, but in single lines a.s.signed to each, the same service is done for Milton, Shakespeare, Sh.e.l.ley, Coleridge, and Byron. This is a matchless ill.u.s.tration of the kind of criticism that is in itself genius; for we may quarrel with Mr. Spingarn as much as we please on his general dogmatic principle of the ident.i.ty of genius and taste; here we have so admirable an example of what he means by creative criticism, that it is a pity he did not think of it himself. "For it still remains true," says Mr. Spingarn, "that the aesthetic critic, in his moments of highest power, rises to heights where he is at one with, the creator whom he is interpreting.

At that moment criticism and 'creation' are one."

All great poets have the power of n.o.ble indignation, a divine wrath against wickedness in high places. The poets, like the prophets of old, pour out their irrepressible fury against what they believe to be cruelty and oppression. Milton's magnificent Piedmont sonnet is a glorious roar of righteous rage; and since his time the poets have ever been the spokesmen for the insulted and injured. Robert Burns, more than most statesmen, helped to make the world safe for democracy.

I do not know what humanity would do without its poets--they are the champions of the individual against the tyranny of power, the cruel selfishness of kings, and the artificial conventions of society. We may or may not agree with Mr. Watson's anti-imperialistic sentiments as expressed in the early days of our century, he himself, like most of us, has changed his mind on many subjects since the outbreak of the world-war, and unless he ceases to develop, will probably change it many times in the future. But whatever our opinions, we cannot help admiring lines like these, published in 1897:

HOW WEARY IS OUR HEART

Of kings and courts; of kingly, courtly ways In which the life of man is bought and sold; How weary is our heart these many days!

Of ceremonious emba.s.sies that hold Parley with h.e.l.l in fine and silken phrase, How weary is our heart these many days!

Of wavering counsellors neither hot nor cold, Whom from His mouth G.o.d speweth, be it told How weary is our heart these many days!

Yea, for the ravelled night is round the lands, And sick are we of all the imperial story.

The tramp of Power, and its long trail of pain; The mighty brows in meanest arts grown h.o.a.ry; The mighty hands, That in the dear, affronted name of Peace Bind down a people to be racked and slain; The emulous armies waxing without cease, All-puissant all in vain; The pacts and leagues to murder by delays, And the dumb throngs that on the deaf thrones gaze; The common loveless l.u.s.t of territory; The lips that only babble of their mart, While to the night the shrieking hamlets blaze; The bought allegiance, and the purchased praise, False honour, and shameful glory;-- Of all the evil whereof this is part, How weary is our heart, How weary is our heart these many days!

Another poem I cite in full, not for its power and beauty, but as a curiosity. I do not think it has been remembered that in the _New Poems_ of 1909 Mr. Watson published a poem of Hate some years before the Teutonic hymn became famous. It is worth reading again, because it so exactly expresses the cold reserve of the Anglo-Saxon, in contrast with the sentimentality of the German. There is, of course, no indication that its author had Germany in mind.

HATE

(To certain foreign detractors)

Sirs, if the truth must needs be told, We love not you that rail and scold; And, yet, my masters, you may wait Till the Greek Calends for our hate.

No spendthrifts of our hate are we; Our hate is used with husbandry.

We hold our hate too choice a thing For light and careless lavis.h.i.+ng.

We cannot, dare not, make it cheap!

For holy uses will we keep.

A thing so pure, a thing so great As Heaven's benignant gift of hate.

Is there no ancient, sceptred Wrong?

No torturing Power, endured too long?

Yea; and for these our hatred shall Be cloistered and kept virginal.