Studies of Contemporary Poets Part 14

And one observes that the critic who professes most to dislike it hastens to quote the gaudiest example, practically ignoring the many serene and gracious pa.s.sages.

But, putting aside the prejudice which has been fostered by a conventional poetic language, this realistic method does seem to conflict with certain other characteristics of the work--with the essential romance of the spirit of adventure, for instance. There does at first glance appear to be a disturbing lack of unity between that ardent, wistful and elusive spirit, and the grim actuality here, of incident and diction; or, on the other hand, between the raw material of this verse and its elaborate metrical form, or its frequent pa.s.sages of rare and delicate beauty. But is it more than an appearance? I think not. I believe that the incongruity exists only in a canon of poetical taste which is false to the extent that it is based too narrowly. That canon has appropriated romance to a certain order of themes and, almost as exclusively, to a certain manner of expression. Most of our contemporary poets have cheerfully repudiated the convention so far as it governed language; building up, each for himself, a fresh, rich, expressive idiom in which the magic of romance is often vividly recreated. Some of them, and Mr Masefield pre-eminently, have gone further. They have perceived the potential romance of all life, and have broken down the old limit which prescribed to the poet only graceful figures and pseudo-heroic themes. They have set themselves to express the wonder and mystery, the ecstasy and exaltation which inhere, however obscurely, in the lowliest human existence.

Thus we have Saul Kane, the village wastrel of "The Everlasting Mercy,"

glimpsing his heritage, for a moment, in a lucid interval of a drunken orgy. Suddenly, for a marvellous instant, he is made aware of beauty, smitten into consciousness of himself and a fugitive apprehension of reality.

I opened window wide and leaned Out of that pigstye of the fiend And felt a cool wind go like grace About the sleeping market-place.

The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly, The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy;

And summat made me think of things.

How long those ticking clocks had gone From church and chapel, on and on, Ticking the time out, ticking slow To men and girls who'd come and go,

And how a change had come. And then I thought, "You tick to different men."

What with the fight and what with drinking And being awake alone there thinking, My mind began to carp and tetter, "If this life's all, the beasts are better."

The elements of that pa.s.sage, and c.u.mulatively to its end, are genuinely romantic: the heightened mood, the night setting of darkness and solemnity, the wondering and regretful gaze into the past, and the sense of eternal mystery. So, too, though from a very different aspect, is the amazing power of the mad scene in this poem. The fierce zest of it courses along a flaming pathway and is as exhilarating in its speed and vigour as any romantic masterpiece in the older manner. It is difficult to quote, in justice to the author, from so closely woven a texture; but there is a short pa.s.sage which ill.u.s.trates over again the physical development that we have already noted balancing mental and spiritual qualities in this genius. It is the exultation of Kane in his swiftness, as he rages through the streets with a crowd toiling after him.

The men who don't know to the root The joy of being swift of foot, Have never known divine and fresh The glory of the gift of flesh, Nor felt the feet exult, nor gone Along a dim road, on and on, Knowing again the bursting glows, The mating hare in April knows, Who tingles to the pads with mirth At being the swiftest thing on earth.

O, if you want to know delight, Run naked in an autumn night, And laugh, as I laughed then....

The sensuous ecstasy of that is as strongly contrasted with the pensiveness of the previous scene at the window as it is with the gentle rhapsody which follows the drunkard's conversion. Of that rhapsody what can one say? It is a piece about which words seem inadequate, or totally futile. Perhaps one comment may be made, however. Reading it for the twentieth time, and marvelling once more at the religious emotion which, in its nave sweetness and intensity is so strange an apparition in our day, my mind flew, with a sudden sense of enlightenment, back to Chaucer. At first, reflection made the transition seem abrupt to absurdity; but the connexion had no doubt been helped subconsciously by the apt fragment from Lydgate on the fly-leaf of this poem. Thence it was but a step to the large humanity, the sympathy and tolerance and generosity, the wide understanding bred of practical knowledge of men and affairs, of the father of poets. An actual likeness gleamed which was at the same time piquant and satisfying. For, first, it stimulated curiosity regarding the use by this poet of the Chaucerian rhyme-royal in three of these long poems. That evinces a leaning on traditional form rather curious in so independent an artist. And then it teased the mind with suggestions that led out of range--about mental affinities, and the different manifestations of the same type of genius, born into ages so far apart.

It is not, of course, a question of exact or direct comparison between, let us say, the _Canterbury Tales_ and these narrative poems of the twentieth century. It is rather a matter of the spirit of the whole work, of the personality and its reaction to life, which satisfy one individual at least of a resemblance. Of course it is not easily susceptible of proof; but there are pa.s.sages from the two poets which in thought, feeling, and even manner of expression, will almost form a parallel. Consider this stanza from a minor poem of Chaucer, a prayer to the Virgin in the quaint form of an "A. B. C."

Xristus, thy sone, that in this world alighte, Up-on the cros to suffre his pa.s.sioun, And eek, that Longius his herte pighte, And made his herte blood to renne adoun; And al was this for my salvacioun; And I to him am fals and eek unkinde, And yit he wol not my dampnacioun-- This thanke I you, socour of al mankinde.

The childlike faith of that, the quiet rapture of adoration, the abandon and simple confidence, are curiously matched by the following pa.s.sage from "The Everlasting Mercy." Saul Kane has found his soul in the mystical rebirth of Christianity, and dawn coming across the fields lightens all his world with new significance.

O Christ who holds the open gate, O Christ who drives the furrow straight, O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter Of holy white birds flying after, Lo, all my heart's field red and torn, And Thou wilt bring the young green corn, The young green corn divinely springing, The young green corn for ever singing; And when the field is fresh and fair Thy blessed feet shall glitter there.

And we will walk the weeded field, And tell the golden harvest's yield, The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.

So one might go on to contrast the several characteristics of this poetry, and to trace them back to the combination of qualities in the author's genius. This elemental religious emotion, dramatically fitted as it is to the character, could only have found such expression by a mind which deeply felt the primary human need of religion, and which was relatively untroubled by abstract philosophy. But set over against that is the almost pagan joy in the senses, the vigour and love of action which make so strong a physical basis to this work; whilst, on the other hand, there stands the astonishing contrast between the lyrical intensity of the idyllic pa.s.sages of these poems; and the dramatic power (at once identified with humanity and detached from it) which has created characters of ardent vitality.

There is, of course, a corresponding technical contrast; but the fact that it does 'correspond' is an answer to the critics who object to the violence of certain scenes or to a literal rendering here and there of thought or word. Granted that this poet is not much concerned to polish or refine his verse, it remains true that the same sense of fitness which closes three of these tragedies in exquisite serenity, governs elsewhere an occasional crudity of expression or a touch of ba.n.a.lity. It is largely--though not always--a question of dramatic truth. The medium is related to the material of this poetry and ruled by its moods. Hence its realism is not an external or arbitrary thing. It is something more than a trick of style or the adoption of a literary mode, being indeed a living form evolved by the reality which the poet has designed to express.

The root of the matter lies in a stanza of "Dauber." The young artist-seaman, who is the protagonist here, has for long been patiently toiling at his art at the prompting of instinct--the aesthetic impulse to capture and make permanent the beauty of the material world. But the pressure of reality upon him, the unimaginable hardships of a sailor's existence, have threatened to crush his spirit. A crisis of physical fear and depression has supervened; terror of the storms that the ship must soon encounter, of the frightful peril of his work aloft, and of the brutality of his shipmates, has shaken him to the soul. For a moment, even his art is obscured, shrouded and almost lost in the whirl of these overmastering realities. But when it emerges from the chaos it brings revelation to the painter of its own inviolable relation with those same realities.

... a thought occurred Within the painter's brain like a bright bird:

That this, and so much like it, of man's toil, Compa.s.sed by naked manhood in strange places, Was all heroic, but outside the coil Within which modern art gleams or grimaces; That if he drew that line of sailors' faces Sweating the sail, their pa.s.sionate play and change, It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.

That that was what his work meant; it would be A training in new vision....

One might almost accept that as Mr Masefield's own confession of artistic faith; it only needs the subst.i.tution of the word 'poet' for the word 'painter' in the second line. But it is not quite complete as it stands; and an important article of it will be discovered by reading this poem through and noting the triumph of the ideal over the real, which is the essential meaning of the work. It is not the most obvious interpretation, perhaps. The idealist broken by the elements, wasted and thrown aside, is hardly a victorious figure on the face of things. But, in spite of that, the poem is a song of victory--of spirit over matter, of the ideal over reality, of art over life.

The fact is all the more remarkable when we turn for a moment to note the poet's grip on facts. We have just seen that profound sense of reality lying at the base of his technical realism; and it has been won, through a comprehensive experience, by virtue of the balance of his equipment. There is no bias here, of mind or spirit, which would have changed the clear humanity of the poet into the philosopher or the mystic. The navete and simple concrete imagery in the expression of religious feeling are far removed from mysticism. And, on the other hand, one cannot conceive of Mr Masefield formally ranged with the abstractions of either the materialist or the idealist school. Yet it is true that "Dauber" raises the practical issue between the two; and because the poet has realized life profoundly and dares to tell the truth about it, the triumph of the ideal is the more complete. He shows his hero scourged by the elements until all sense is lost but that of physical torture--

... below He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.

... all was an icy blast.

Roaring from nether h.e.l.l and filled with ice, Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage, An utter bridle given to utter vice, Limitless power mad with endless rage Withering the soul;

With greater daring still we are shown the spirit itself, cowering in temporary defeat before material force--

"This is the end," he muttered, "come at last!

I've got to go aloft, facing this cold.

I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold.

... I'm a failure. All My life has been a failure. They were right.

I'll never paint. Best let it end to-night.

I'll slip over the side. I've tried and failed."

And then, finally, the poet does not shrink from the last and grimmest reality. He seems to say--Let material force do its utmost against this man. Admit the most dreadful possibility; shatter the life, with its fine promise, its aspiration and toil and precious perception of beauty, and fling it to the elements which claim it. Nevertheless the spirit will conquer, as it has won in the long fight hitherto and will continue to win. When the Dauber had been goaded almost beyond endurance by the cruelty of his shipmates, and when their taunts had availed at last to conjure in him a sickening doubt of his vocation, the poet represents him as turning instinctively to his easel, and healed in a moment of all the abas.e.m.e.nt and derision--

He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line, And then came peace, and gentle beauty came, Turning his spirit's water into wine, Lightening his darkness with a touch of flame:

So, too, when the horror of the storm and the immense danger of his work aloft had shaken his manhood for a moment: when he saw his life as one 'long defeat of doing nothing well' and death seemed an easy escape from it, a rallying cry from the spirit sent him to face his duty:

And then he bit his lips, clenching his mind, And staggered out to muster, beating back The coward frozen self of him that whined.

And in the last extremity, when he lay upon the deck broken by his fall and rapidly slipping back into the eternal silence, the ideal gleamed before him still. _It will go on!_ he cried; and the four small words, considered in their setting, with the weight of the story behind them, have deep significance. For they bring a challenge to reality from a poet who has very clearly apprehended it; and in their triumphant idealism they put the corner-stone upon his philosophy and his art.

_Harold Monro_

The poetry of Mr Monro--that which counts most, the later work--is of so fine a texture and so subtle a perfume that its charm may elude the average reader. It is, moreover, very individual in its form; and the unusual element in it, which is yet not sufficiently bizarre to s.n.a.t.c.h attention, may tend to repel even the poetry lover. That person, as we know, still prefers to take his poetry in the traditional manner; and hence the audience for work like this, delicately sensitive and quietly thoughtful, is likely to be small. It will be fully appreciative, however, gladly exchanging stormy raptures for a serene and satisfying beauty; and it will be of a temper which will delight to trace in this work, subdued almost to a murmur, the same influences which are urging some of his contemporaries to louder, more emphatic, and more copious expression.

A particular interest of this poetry is precisely the way in which those influences have been subdued. It is that which gives the individual stamp to its art; but, curiously, it is also that which marks its heredity, and defines its place in the succession of English poetry.

There is independence here, but not isolation; nor is there violent conflict with an older poetic ideal. On the contrary, a reconciliation has been made; balance has been attained; and revolutionary principles, whether in the region of technique or ideas, have been harnessed and controlled. So that this work, while fairly representing the new poetry, is clearly related in the direct line to the old. A little "Impression,"

one of a group at the end of the volume called _Before Dawn_, will ill.u.s.trate this:

She was young and blithe and fair, Firm of purpose, sweet and strong, Perfect was her crown of hair, Perfect most of all her song.

Yesterday beneath an oak, She was chanting in the wood: Wandering harmonies awoke; Sleeping echoes understood.

To-day without a song, without a word, She seems to drag one piteous fallen wing Along the ground, and, like a wounded bird, Move silent, having lost the heart to sing.

She was young and blithe and fair, Firm of purpose, sweet and strong, Perfect was her crown of hair, Perfect most of all her song.

One may cite a piece like that, breaking away, in the third stanza, to a freer and more fitting rhythm, as an example of the normal development of English prosody. And that is, perhaps, the final significance of Mr Monro's work. With less temptation to waywardness than a more exuberant genius, he has achieved a completer harmony. But it was not so easy a task as the quiet manner would cheat one into supposing; and, of course, it has not always been so successfully done. There are many pieces--beautiful nevertheless--where external influences have not been completely subdued. From them one may measure the strength with which contemporary thought claims this poet. For it appears that he, too, cannot be at ease in Zion; that he is troubled and ashamed by reason of a social conscience; that he is haunted by an unappeasable questioning spirit; that he is perpetually seeking after the spiritual element in existence. Indeed, so clear and persistent is this last motive, that if one were aiming epithets it would be possible to fit the word 'religious' to the essential nature of Mr Monro's poetry. Of course, no poet, be he great or small, can be packed into the compa.s.s of a single word. His work will mean much more, and sometimes greatly different from that. And the word religious in this connexion is more than usually hazardous, for almost all the connotations are against it. It is true that the common meaning, bandied on the lips of happy irresponsibles, has no application here. On the contrary, it seems sometimes completely reversed; and the good unthinking folk would find themselves nonplussed by such a piece as that called "The Poets are Waiting," in the chapbook which Mr Munro published at the end of 1914. Yet it is of the essence of religion; and it most faithfully presents the spiritual crisis which was precipitated by the Great War for many who had clung to a last vague hope of some intelligent providence--