Essays by Arthur Christopher Benson Part 17

At midnight, at c.o.c.kcrow, at morning, one certain day, Lo! the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay; Watch, thou, and pray.

Then I answered, Yea.

Pa.s.sing away, saith my G.o.d, pa.s.sing away; Winter pa.s.seth after the long delay; New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray, Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May.

Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray, Arise, come away, night is past, and lo! it is day, My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.

Then I answered, Yea.

The last-mentioned poem is indeed worthy of a technical remark. It is written in an irregular dactylic metre, the longer lines having a beat of five accents, the shorter of three or two; but the whole scheme of rhyme, all three stanzas--a common form with Miss Rossetti--is actually built upon one single rhyme throughout. For such a conception one would be inclined to predicate certain failure; the simplicity is too rude and daring; but consider the result. For sheer simplicity again note her "Christmas Carol":

In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter, Long ago.

Our G.o.d, Heaven cannot hold Him, Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away, When He comes to reign.

In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed The Lord G.o.d Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim Worship night and day, A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay.

Enough for Him whom angels Fall down before, The ox and a.s.s and camel Which adore.

Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Throng'd the air, But only His mother, In her maiden bliss.

Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.

If I were a wise man, I would do my part; Yet what can I give Him?

Give my heart.

which, from beginning to end, has the very note of a Tuscan Adoration.

This exquisite felicity did not continue. It could not be expected that it should. Miss Rossetti had always been capable in her writings of complete and unexpected failures; in many of her lyrics everything is there--style, feeling, harmony, but somehow the mood does not quicken into poetry. In later life she published an immense volume, the _Face of the Deep_, extending to over 550 pages, a devotional commentary on the "Apocalypse." This is written in uncouth and shapeless prose, as a rule; and though it has many suggestive and striking thoughts, and some images of exquisite beauty, yet it is a singular monument of failure. Scattered up and down in it are several hundred religious lyrics, which are never exactly commonplace, but seldom satisfactory. I venture to quote one, which may serve as a fair sample, p. 119, chap. iii. v. 10:

Wisest of sparrows, that sparrow which sitteth alone Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest.

Wisest of swallows, that swallow which timely hath flown Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest; Wisest of sparrows and swallows, if I were as wise!

Wisest of spirits, that spirit which dwelleth apart, Hid in the Presence of G.o.d for a chapel and nest, Sending a wish and a will and a pa.s.sionate heart Over the eddy of life to that Presence in rest, Seated alone and in peace till G.o.d bids it arise.

One word must, perhaps, be said here on the question of her technical skill and metrical handling. With characteristic humility, she was herself of opinion, as appears from a letter to Mr. Gosse, that the inspiration of her sonnets was wholly derived from her brother. That was an entire, if affectionate, mistake. There is no real or even apparent connection. There is none of the intricate scheming, the subtle inter-weaving of tremulous tones which make D. G. Rossetti's sonnets the most musical of English sonnets. But the consequence is that Dante Gabriel's sonnets are not in the least characteristically English. The sonnets of Milton and Wordsworth may be regarded as the true examples of English sonnet-writing, stiff, grave, sober, drawing through precise and even stilted metres to a sonorous and rhetorical close. D. G. Rossetti's are exotic work essentially. But that is not true of Miss Rossetti's.

They are simple and severe. In such a sequence as "Monna Innominata,"

there is not a trace of the luscious and labyrinthine ecstacies of her brother's work; they are indeed far more like Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke; I love, as you would have me, G.o.d the most; Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost; Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look, Unready to forego what I forsook.

This say I, having counted up the cost.

This, though I be the feeblest of G.o.d's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.

Yet while I love my G.o.d the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such, I cannot love you if I love not Him, I cannot love Him if I love not you.

This severity is not the same in her lyrics; it will be obvious from the specimens already quoted, that, if anything, the metrical scheme is not strict enough. In many lines will be found a deficiency of syllables, musically compensated for by variety of accent; many of her rhymes are almost licentious in their vagueness. But for some reason I have found that they do not offend the critical judgment, as Mrs. Browning's do.

Whether it is that the directness and simplicity of the feeling overpowers all minute fastidiousness, or whether they are all part of the careful artlessness of the mood, is hard to determine. But the fact remains, that none but the most inquisitive of critics would be likely to hold that the art is thereby vitiated.

Lastly, of all the great themes with which Miss Rossetti deals, she is, above all writers, the singer of Death. Whether as the eternal home-coming, or the quiet relief after the intolerable restlessness of the world, or as the deep reality in which the fretful vanities of life are merged, it is always in view, as the dark majestic portal to which the weary road winds at last. True, in one of the earliest and most beautiful of all her lyrics, the sense of dissatisfied loneliness is carried on beyond the gate of Death.

AT HOME.

When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house; I pa.s.sed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat.

Said one: "To-morrow we shall be Plod, plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea."

Said one: "Before the turn of tide, We will achieve the eyrie-seat."

Said one; "To-morrow shall be like To-day, but much more sweet."

"To-morrow," said they, strong with hope.

And dwelt upon the pleasant way.

"To-morrow," cried they one and all, While no one spoke of yesterday.

Their life stood full at blessed noon; I, only I, had pa.s.sed away.

"To-morrow and to-day," they cried; I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast No chill across the tablecloth; I all-forgotten shivered, sad To stay and yet to part how loth.

I pa.s.sed from the familiar room, I, who from love had pa.s.sed away.

Like the remembrance of a guest That tarrieth but a day.

But, if we can but read into it the hallowing radiance of a tremulous hope, the poem, which as Ellen Alleyne she contributed to the Germ in the days of her unregenerate energies, may be her requiem now:

DREAM LAND.

Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep Awake her not.

Led by a single star.

She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn.

For twilight cold and lorn And water springs.

Through sleep, as through a veil, She sees the sky look pale, And hears the nightingale That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest Shed over brow and breast; Her face is toward the west, The purple land.

She cannot see the grain Ripening on hill and plain; She cannot feel the rain Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore Upon a mossy sh.o.r.e; Rest, rest, at the heart's core Till time shall cease.

Sleep that no pain shall wake; Night that no morn shall break Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace.

1895.

THE POETRY OF EDMUND GOSSE

It happened the other day, in the library of a remote house, that I lighted upon a shelf of old _Blackwoods_, from fifty to sixty years old, and, being confined to the house by wet weather, read largely in them.

Christopher North was at his glory then, with his flagrant egotism and stupid bellowings. But what struck me most in the old pages was that, with all his loud Philistinism, he was penetrated with a profound respect for poetry. It is hardly too much to say that poetry was the staple product of the magazine. Almost every number contained long, nightmare poems in Cowperian blank verse by Delta or some other tedious unknown. Mrs. Hemans fluted monotonously. Almost every number, too, contained an article of poetical criticism; even the terrible _Noctes Ambrosianae_ are full of low verses. All this contrasted sharply, I will not say painfully, with modern tendencies. I do not think we are less wanting in respect for really great poetry now, but there is a large cla.s.s of persons writing verses now which for feeling, expression, and execution beat Delta and Christopher North's favourites out of the field. At the same time, the minor poet is the perennial gibe of the journalist, who would have us believe that the only audience that exists for these amiable singers are themselves. And this is not impossibly the case. But all who take a serious and hopeful view of literature will believe that there are shadowy instincts in the human heart which even journalism cannot satisfy, and the large cla.s.s of persons--youthful, perhaps, and, as Praed says, "so thankful for illusion"--which the earth is constantly producing, will continue to be grateful to any one who "from the soul speaks instant to the soul."

But between the greater and the lesser lights there are a few living poets who, without captivating an unwilling public, have, at least, extorted a recognition from it: those gentlemen whom the _Westminster Budget_ not long ago represented in a genial caricature as trying the effect of a laurel wreath on their more or less scanty locks before a mirror. And one of these was Mr. Gosse. His poetical work extends over a period of some five-and-twenty years. His first book, _On Viol and Flute_, written when the author was hardly out of his teens, was instantly welcomed by the critics as an offshoot of the Rossetti school, but untainted by any of the uncomfortable irregularities of that fellowship. Since then he has produced _New Poems; Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems; King Erik_, a literary tragedy; while, last of all, there appeared, in 1894, a volume ent.i.tled _In Russet and Silver_. This essay will treat exclusively of Mr. Gosse's poetical work, although the present writer may freely confess his conviction that Mr. Gosse's true vehicle, in which he works more spontaneously, is melodious and amusing prose.

The first point that strikes any careful and critical reader of the volumes I have mentioned is the steady and virile progress that the art of the writer compa.s.ses. _On Viol and Flute_ was a graceful, tender volume, of sensuous and picturesque, but essentially superficial verse.