Studies of Contemporary Poets Part 11

Sorrow and death I sing-- The canker come on the corn, The fisher lost in the mountain loch, The cry at the mouth of morn.

No other life I sing, For I am sprung of the stock That broke the hilly land for bread, And built the nest in the rock!

That comes directly out of life, and the confidence and sincerity of it are a result. The poet, become aware of the prompting of genius, loyally follows its leading through the common and familiar things of human experience. And partly because of his loyalty to himself; partly because he happens to be in touch with the land--quite literally the oldest and commonest thing of all, except the sea--there comes into his poetry a sense of natural dignity and strength. His themes are simple and touched with universal significance. Thus there is the song of ploughing:

I will go with my father a-ploughing To the green field by the sea, And the rooks and the crows and the seagulls Will come flocking after me.

I will sing to the patient horses With the lark in the white of the air, And my father will sing the plough-song That blesses the cleaving share.

One finds, too, a song of reaping, and one of winter, and one of night.

There is a love-song, pretty and tender, and fresh with the suggestion of breezes and blue skies, which begins like this:

My little dark love is a wineberry, As swarth and as sweet, I hold; But as the dew on the wineberry Her heart is a-cold.

There is a piece, in _Irishry_, which tells of the wonder of childhood, and another in the same book which reverently touches the thought of motherhood and old age:

As a white candle In a holy place, So is the beauty Of an aged face.

As the spent radiance Of the winter sun, So is a woman When her travail done.

Her brood gone from her, And her thoughts as still As the waters Under a ruined mill.

So we might turn from one to another of these old and ever-new themes: not alone in this poet's work, but also in that of Mr Padraic Colum, whom he resembles. We shall notice in their music a characteristic harmony. It is a blending of three diverse elements: the individual, the national, and the universal. One would expect a discord sometimes; but the measure of the success of this verse is that it contrives to be, at one and the same time, specifically lyrical (and therefore a reflection of personality), definitely Irish, and completely human. Most of the poems will ill.u.s.trate this, but for an obvious example take this one by Mr Campbell:

I met a walking-man; His head was old and grey.

I gave him what I had To crutch him on his way.

The man was Mary's Son, I'll swear; A glory trembled in his hair!

And since that blessed day I've never known the pinch: I plough a broad townland, And dig a river-inch; And on my hearth the fire is bright For all that walk by day or night.

If one found that on a bit of torn paper in the wilds of Africa, one would know it for unquestionable Irish. There are half a dozen signs, but the spirit of the last two lines is enough. The element of personality is there, too; clearly visible in tone and choice of words to those who know the poet's work a little. But stronger than all is the human note, with all that it implies of man's need of religion, his incorrigible habit of making G.o.d in his own image, and the half comical, half pathetic materialism of his faith.

There are, of course, some occasions when the blending is unequal: when one or other of the three elements, usually that of national feeling, weighs down the balance. But, on the other hand, there are many pieces in which it is very intimate and subtle. Then it follows that the poet is at his best, for he has forgotten the immediacy of self and country and the world of men and things in the joy of singing. Of such is this "Cradle Song" by Mr Colum:

O, men from the fields!

Come softly within.

Tread softly, softly, O! men coming in.

Mavourneen is going From me and from you, To Mary, the Mother, Whose mantle is blue!

From reek of the smoke And cold of the floor, And the peering of things Across the half-door.

O, men from the fields!

Soft, softly come thro'.

Mary puts round him Her mantle of blue.

Such also is Mr Colum's "Ballad Maker," from which I quote the first and last stanzas:

Once I loved a maiden fair, _Over the hills and far away_.

Lands she had and lovers to spare, _Over the hills and far away_.

And I was stooped and troubled sore, And my face was pale, and the coat I wore Was thin as my supper the night before.

_Over the hills and far away_.

To-morrow, Mavourneen a sleeveen weds, _Over the hills and far away_; With corn in haggard and cattle in shed, _Over the hills and far away_.

And I who have lost her--the dear, the rare, Well, I got me this ballad to sing at the fair, 'Twill bring enough money to drown my care, _Over the hills and far away_.

It is an arresting fact, however, that the spirit of nationality is strong in the work of these poets. True, one may distinguish between a national sense, keen and directly expressed, and the almost subconscious influence of race. The first is a theme deliberately chosen by the poet and variously treated by him. It is a conscious and direct expression--of aspiration or regret. Racial influence is something deeper and more constant: something, too, which quite confounds the sceptic on this particular subject. Whether from inheritance or environment, it has 'bred true' in these poets; and it will be found to pervade their work like an atmosphere. It belongs inalienably to themselves: it is of the essence of their genius, and it is revealed everywhere, in little things as in great, in cadency and idiom as well as in an att.i.tude to life and a certain range of ideas.

But though we may make the distinction, it will hardly do to disengage the strands, because they are so closely bound together. We may only note the predominance of one or the other, with an occasional complete and perfect combination. Perhaps the work in which they are least obvious is the slim volume of Miss Ella Young. But, even here, and choosing two poems where the artistic instinct has completely subdued its material, we shall find some of the signs that we are looking for; and not altogether _because_ we are looking for them. Thus a sonnet, called "The Virgin Mother," suggests its origin in its very t.i.tle and, moreover, it is occupied with a thought of death and a sense of blissful quietude which are familiar in Irish poetry.

Now Day's worn out, and Dusk has claimed a share Of earth and sky and all the things that be, I lay my tired head against your knee, And feel your fingers smooth my tangled hair.

I loved you once, when I had heart to dare, And sought you over many a land and sea; Yet all the while you waited here for me In a sweet stillness shut away from care.

I have no longing now, no dreams of bliss.

But drowsed in peace through the soft gloom I wait Until the stars be kindled by G.o.d's breath; For then you'll bend above me with the kiss Earth's children long for when the hour grows late, Mother of Consolation, Sovereign Death.

In the blank-verse piece called "Twilight" it is again the t.i.tle which conveys the direct sign of affinity, but it will also be found to lurk in every line:

The sky is silver-pale with just one star, One lonely wanderer from the shining host Of Night's companions. Through the drowsy woods The shadows creep and touch with quietness The curling fern-heads and the ancient trees.

The sea is all a-glimmer with faint lights That change and move as if the unseen prow Of Niamh's galley cleft its waveless floor, And Niamh stood there with the magic token, The apple-branch with silver singing leaves.

The wind has stolen away as though it feared To stir the fringes of her faery mantle Dream-woven in the Land of Heart's Desire, And all the world is hushed as though she called Ossian again, and no one answered her.

Now that, in inspiration and imagery, is very clearly derived from native legendary sources. But no one would expect to find in such work a direct expression of national feeling. The backward-looking poet, the one who is drawn instinctively to old themes and times, has not usually the temper for politics, even on the higher plane. Or if he have, he will make a rigid separation in style and treatment between his poetry in the two kinds. Thus Miss Milligan sharply differentiates her lays on heroic subjects from her lyrics. The lays try to catch the spirit of the age out of which the stories came. The lyrics, as lyrics should, reflect no other spirit than the poet's own. The lays are somewhat strict in form: they are in a brisk narrative style, with a swinging rhythm and plenty of vigour. The songs, depending on varying sense impressions and fluctuating emotion, are more irregular as to form and, at the same time, stronger in their appeal to human sympathy. It is in them that the poet is able to express the pa.s.sionate love of country which, superimposed on a deep sense of Ireland's melancholy history and an intense longing for freedom, is the birthright of so many Irish poets.

One would like to quote entire the lovely "Song of Freedom," in which the poet hears in wind and wave and brook a joyous prophecy. But here is the last stanza:

To Ara of Connacht's isles, As I went sailing o'er the sea, The wind's word, the brook's word, The wave's word, was plain to me---- "_As we are, though she is not As we are, shall Banba be---- There is no King can rule the wind There is no fetter for the sea._"

More beautiful and significant, perhaps, is a fragment from "There Were Trees in Tir-Conal":

Fallen in Erin are all those leafy forests; The oaks lie buried under bogland mould; Only in legends dim are they remembered, Only in ancient books their fame is told.

But seers, who dream of times to come, have promised Forests shall rise again where perished these; And of this desolate land it shall be spoken, "In Tir-Conal of the territories there are trees."

The prophetic figure there, of course, is symbolical; but thinking of the basis it has in fact--of the schemes which are afoot in the Isle for afforestation--one cannot help wondering whether it was consciously suggested by them. Not that there need be the slightest relation, of course. The poetical soul will often take a leap in the dark and reach a shining summit long before the careful people who travel by daylight along beaten tracks are half way up the hill. Still, there is proof that this group of writers is keenly interested in the question of the land and the organized effort to reclaim it. It is the more practical form of their patriotism, and the sign by which one knows it for something more than a sentiment. It is a deeply rooted and reasoned sense that the well-being of a nation, and therefore its strength and greatness, come ultimately from the soil and depend upon the close and faithful relation of the people to it. That surely is the conviction which underlies the work of a poet like Mr Padraic Colum, and particularly such a piece as his "Plougher":

Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken; Beside him two horses--a plough!

Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn-man there in the sunset, And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!

Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage; The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them.

A head's breadth? Ay, but therein is h.e.l.l's depth, and the height up to heaven, And the thrones of the G.o.ds and their halls, their chariots, purples and splendours.

In closing this study we must take a glance at two recent volumes, one containing the poetry of Mr Seumas O'Sullivan and the other Mr Cousins'

latest work. Mr O'Sullivan's book is curiously interesting, inasmuch as it unites certain contrasted qualities which are found separately in the other poets we have been considering. Thus, this poet is 'literary' in the sense of knowing and loving good books, in his familiarity with the old literature of his country, and in the fact that those things have had a palpable influence upon him. Temperamentally he is an artist, with the artistic instinct to subordinate everything to the beauty of his work. But he is also like the more 'popular' poets in his lyrical gift and in the range and depth of his sympathies; so that his collected poems of 1912 may be regarded in some degree as an epitome of modern Irish poetry. There you will find work which indicates that its author might have lived very happily in a visionary world of aesthetic delight.