Ardours and Endurances Part 1

Ardours and Endurances.

by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols.

INTRODUCTION

1. _Of the nature of the poet_:

"We are (often) so impressed by the power of poetry that we think of it as something made by a wonderful and unusual person: we do not realize the fact that all the wonder and marvel is in our own brains, that the poet is ourselves. He speaks our language better than we do merely because he is more skilful with it than we are; his skill is part of our skill, his power of our power; generations of English-speaking men and women have made us sensible to these things, and our sensibility comes from the same source that the poet's power of stimulating it comes from.

Given a little more sensitiveness to external stimuli, a little more power of a.s.sociating ideas, a co-ordination of the functions of expression somewhat more apt, a sense of rhythm somewhat keener than the average--given these things we should be poets, too, even as he is....

_He is one of us._"

2. _Of what English poetry consists_:

"English poetry is not a rhythm of sound, but a rhythm of ideas, and the flow of attention-stresses (_i.e._, varying qualities of words and cadence) which determines its beauty is inseparably connected with the thought; for each of them is a judgment of ident.i.ty, or a judgment of relation, or an expression of relation, and not a thing of mere empty sound.... He who would think of it as a pleasing arrangement of vocal sounds has missed all chance of ever understanding its meaning. There awaits him only the barren generalities of a foreign prosody, tedious, pedantic, fruitless. And he will flounder ceaselessly amid the scattered timbers of its iambuses, spondees, dactyls, tribrachs, never reaching the firm ground of truth."

"AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF ENGLISH POETRY,"[1]

_by_ MARK LIDDELL.

[1] _Published by Grant Richards (1902). This remarkable book, establishing English poetry as a thing governed from within by its own necessities, and not by rules of aesthetics imposed on it from without, formulates principles which, unperceived, have governed English poetry from the earliest times, which find their greatest exemplar in Shakespeare, and which, though beginning to be realized by the less pedantic of the moderns, are in its pages for the first time lucidly expounded and--such is their adequacy--can, in the end, only be regarded as indubitably proven._--R. M. B. N., 1917.

BOOK I

ARDOURS AND ENDURANCES

TO THE MEMORY OF MY TRUSTY AND GALLANT FRIENDS: HAROLD STUART GOUGH (_King's Royal Rifle Corps_) AND RICHARD PINSENT (_the Worcester Regiment_)

"For what is life if measured by the s.p.a.ce, Not by the act?"

BEN JONSON.

THE SUMMONS

I.--TO----

Asleep within the deadest hour of night And, turning with the earth, I was aware How suddenly the eastern curve was bright, As when the sun arises from his lair.

But not the sun arose: it was thy hair Shaken up heaven in tossing leagues of light.

Since then I know that neither night nor day May I escape thee, O my heavenly h.e.l.l!

Awake, in dreams, thou springest to waylay And should I dare to die, I know full well Whose voice would mock me in the mourning bell, Whose face would greet me in h.e.l.l's fiery way.

II.--THE PAST

How to escape the bondage of the past?

I fly thee, yet my spirit finds no calms Save when she deems her rocked within those arms To which, from which she ne'er was caught or cast.

O sadness of a heart so spent in vain, That drank its age's fuel in an hour: For whom the whole world burning had not power To quick with life the smouldered wick again!

III.--THE RECKONING

The whole world burns, and with it burns my flesh.

Arise, thou spirit spent by sterile tears; Thine eyes were ardent once, thy looks were fresh, Thy brow shone bright amid thy shining peers.

Fame calls thee not, thou who hast vainly strayed So far for her; nor Pa.s.sion, who in the past Gave thee her ghost to wed and to be paid; Nor Love, whose anguish only learned to last.

Honour it is that calls: canst thou forget Once thou wert strong? Listen; the solemn call Sounds but this once again. Put by regret For summons missed, or thou hast missed them all.

Body is ready, Fortune pleased; O let Not the poor Past cost the proud Future's fall.

FAREWELL TO PLACE OF COMFORT

FAREWELL TO PLACE OF COMFORT

For the last time, maybe, upon the knoll I stand. The eve is golden, languid, sad....

Day like a tragic actor plays his role To the last whispered word, and falls gold-clad.

I, too, take leave of all I ever had.

They shall not say I went with heavy heart: Heavy I am, but soon I shall be free; I love them all, but O I now depart A little sadly, strangely, fearfully, As one who goes to try a Mystery.

The bell is sounding down in Dedham Vale: Be still, O bell! too often standing here When all the air was tremulous, fine, and pale, Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear, Out of my stony heart has struck a tear.

And now tears are not mine. I have release From all the former and the later pain; Like the mid-sea I rock in boundless peace, Soothed by the charity of the deep sea rain....

Calm rain! Calm sea! Calm found, long sought in vain.

O bronzen pines, evening of gold and blue, Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pools below, Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the dew, Farewell! Farewell! There is no more to do.

We have been happy. Happy now I go.