Oscar Wilde Part 20

"This English Thames is holier far than Rome Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone, To fleck their blue waves,--G.o.d is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear."

The green fields and the smell of the good brown earth come as a refreshing contrast to the incense laden atmosphere of foreign cathedrals. And yet his fancy delights in commingling the two. In the "violet-gleaming" b.u.t.terflies he finds Roman Monsignore (he anglicises the word by the way and gives it a plural "s,"), a lazy pike is "some mitred old Bishop _in partibis_," and "The wind, the restless prisoner of the trees, does well for Palestrina."

He revels in the contrast that the refreshing simplicity of rural England presents to the pomp and splendour of Rome. The "lingering orange afterglow" is "more fair than all Rome's lordliest pageants." The "blue-green beanfields" "tremulous with the last shower" bring sweeter perfume at eventide than "the odorous flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing." Bird life suggests the conceit that--

"Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Ma.s.s, Were out of tune now for a small brown bird Sings overhead."

His love of nature, his pa.s.sion for flowers and the music of nature find continued and ecstatic expression.

"Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves."

Everything appeals to him, "the heavy lowing cattle stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate," the mower whetting his scythe, the milkmaid carolling blithely as she trips along.

"Sweet are the hips upon the Kentish leas, And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees That round and round the linden blossoms play; And sweet the heifer breathing on the stall And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall."

No matter that he mixes up the seasons somewhat and that having sung of bursting figs he refers, in the next line, to the cuckoo mocking the spring--"when the last violet loiters by the well"--the poem is still a pastoral breathing its fresh flower-filled atmosphere of the English countryside. Wilde is, however, saturated with cla.s.sical lore and (though on some minds the fantasy may jar) he introduces Daphnus and Linus, Syrinx and Cytheraea. But he is faithful to his English land, he talks of roses which "all day long in vales aeolian a lad might seek for"

and which "overgrows our hedges like a wanton courtesan, unthrifty of its beauty," a real Shakespearean touch. "Many an unsung elegy," he tells us, "Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames." He peoples the whole countryside with faun and nymph--

"Some Maenad girl with vine leaves on her breast Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans, So softly that the little nested thrush Will never wake, and then will shrilly laugh and leap will rush Down the green valley where the fallen dew Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store, Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew Trample the loosetrife down along the sh.o.r.e, And where their horned master sits in state Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate."

And yet the religious influence still makes itself felt.

"Why must I behold [he exclaims]

The wan white face of that deserted Christ Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold?"

but it is only momentary, and once more he sports with the sylvan G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses till

"The heron pa.s.ses homeward from the mere, The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, Gold world by world the silent stars appear And like a blossom blows--before the breeze A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky."

and he hears "the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate."

Wilde never wrote anything better in verse than this with the single exception of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." The poem deserves to rank among the finest pastorals in the language. It is essentially musical, written with artistic restraint and with a discrimination of the use of words and their combination that marks the great artist. It is a true nature poem and it will appeal to all those who prefer musical verse to the artificial manufacture of rhymes, and simple sentences to the torturing of words into unheard-of combinations.

As a contrast to it comes the "Magdalen Walks" which, in construction and rhythm, is somewhat lacking in ease and freedom. It is a curious thing that Wilde's affections seemed to alternate between the unordered simplicity of English woods and meadows and the trim artificial parterres and bouquets of Versailles or Sans Souci. There is a constraint about the metre of this poem which does rather suggest a man walking along a trim avenue from which he can perceive flowers, meadows and riotous hedges--in the distance. There is also a suggestion of Tennyson's "Maud" about--

"And the plane to the pine tree is whispering some tale of love Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green And the gloom of the wych elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove."

"Impression du Matin" might be said to be a successful attempt to render a Whistler pastel into verse, but there is a human note about the last verse that elevates the poem far above such a mere _tour de force_, and there is a fine sense of effect in the picture of the "pale woman all alone" standing in the glimmering light of the gas lamp as the rays of the sun just touch her hair.

"A Serenade" and "Endymion" possess all the qualities that a musical setting demands, but do not call for especial comment. It is, however, in "La Bella Donna della mia Mante" that the expression of the poet's genius finds vent.

"As a pomegranate, cut in twain, White-seeded, is her crimson mouth"

is as perfect a metaphor as one could well wish to find.

"Charmides" is a more ambitious effort than anything he had yet attempted. The word-painting is obviously inspired by Keats, for whose work he had an intense admiration. Such lines as "Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes," and "Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold"

might have been taken straight out of "Lamia," so truly has he caught the spirit of his master. But if enamoured of Keats's gorgeous colouring Wilde revelled in the construction of jewelled phrase and crimson line, there is another source of inspiration noticeable in the poem. Had Shakespeare never written "Venus and Adonis," Wilde might have written "Charmides" but it would not have been the same poem. The difference between the true poet who has studied the great verse of bygone ages and the mere imitator is that one will produce a work of art enhanced by the suggestions derived from the contemplation of the highest conception of genius, whereas the other will outrun the constable and merely accentuate and burlesque the distinguishing characteristics of the work of others. In the case in point, whilst we note with pleasure and interest the points of resemblance between the poem and the models that its author has followed, we are conscious that what we are reading is a work of art in itself and that its intrinsic merits are enhanced by the points of resemblance and do not depend on them for their existence.

There is another poem--"Ballade de Marguerite"--which recalls memories of Keats, closely resembling as it does "La Belle Dame Sans Merci."

Rarely has the old ballad form been more successfully treated. We catch the very spirit of mediaevalism in the lines--

"Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys (On her soul may our Lady have grammercy!) Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle I might swing the censer and ring the bell."

It is so easy to overdo the thing, to produce a bad counterfeit made up of Wardour Street English, that to retain the simplicity of language and the slight _soupcon_ of Chaucerian English requires all the skill of a master craftsman, and the intimate knowledge of the value and date of words that can only result from a close acquaintance with the works of the ballad writers.

In "The Dole of the King's Daughter" Wilde again essays the ballad form, but this time the treatment shows more traces of the Rossetti influence.

The ballad spirit is maintained with unerring skill and the form perfectly adhered to throughout. To quote good old Izaak Walton--"old-fashioned poetry but choicely good."

As conveying the idea of impending tragedy nothing could be more effective than the simplicity of the lines

"There are two that ride from the south and east And two from the north and west, For the black raven a goodly feast For the king's daughter rest."

In this ballad as in the "Chanson" he uses the old device, so common in ancient ballads, of making the alternate lines parenthetical, as, for instance--

"There is one man who loves her true, (Red, O red, is the stain of gore!) He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew, (One grave will do for four)."

A rather clever parody of this mode of construction is worth quoting here--

"SAGE GREEN"

(_By a Fading-out aesthete_)

"My love is as fair as a lily flower.

(_The Peac.o.c.k blue has a sacred sheen!_) Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.

(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_)

Her face is as wan as the water white.

(_The Peac.o.c.k blue has a sacred sheen!_) Alack! she heedeth it never at all.

(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_)

The China plate it is pure on the wall.

(_The Peac.o.c.k blue has a sacred sheen!_) With languorous loving and purple pain.

(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_)

And woe is me that I never may win; (_The Peac.o.c.k blue has a sacred sheen!_) For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin.

(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_)"

Among the sonnets written at this period the one on Keats's grave in which he does homage to him whom he reverenced as a master is especially felicitous in its ending--

"Thy name was writ in water--it shall stand And tears like mine will keep thy memory green As Isabella did her Basil-tree."

Than the graceful introducing of Keats's poem no more delicate epitaph could be well imagined. Sh.e.l.ley's last resting-place likewise inspired his pen and there is an "Impression de Voyage" written at Katakolo at the period of his visit to Greece in company with Professor Mahaffy, the concluding line of which, "I stood upon the soil of Greece at last,"

conveys more by its reticence than could be expressed in volumes.

Of his five theatrical sonnets headed "Impressions de Theatre," one is addressed to the late Sir Henry Irving and the three others to Miss Ellen Terry. It is curious that of the three Shakespearean characters he mentioned as worthier of the actor's great talents than Fabiendei Franchi--viz. Lear, Romeo, and Richard III.,--the only one that Irving ever played was Romeo, and in that part he was a decided failure, which, considering his peculiar mannerisms and method, as well as his age at the time, was not to be wondered at. The fifth was probably intended for Madame Sarah Bernhardt, whose wonderful rendering of Phedre could not fail to deeply impress so cultured a critic as the author of these poems.

In "Panthea" Oscar Wilde gives rein to his amorous fancy, and, inspired by the poets of Greece and Rome, peoples the world with G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses who mourn the old glad pagan days--