Studies of Contemporary Poets Part 17

Perchance you are, O frail and sweet!

Bright anklet-bells from the wild spring's feet,

Or the gleaming tears that some fair bride shed Remembering her lost maidenhead.

The tenderness and delicacy of verse like that might mislead us. We might suppose that the qualities of Mrs Naidu's work were only those which are arbitrarily known as feminine. But this poet, like Mrs Browning, is faithful to her own sensuous and pa.s.sionate temperament.

She has not timidly sheltered behind a convention which, because some women-poets have been austere, prescribes austerity, neutral tones, and a pale light for the woman-artist in this sphere. And, as a result, we have all the evidence of a richly-dowered sensibility responding frankly to the vivid light and colour, the liberal contours and rich scents and great s.p.a.ces of the world she loves; and responding no less warmly and freely to human instincts. Occasionally her verse achieves the expression of sheer sensuous ecstasy. It does that, perhaps, in the two Dance poems--from the very reason that her art is so true and free. The theme requires exactly that treatment; and in "Indian Dancers" there is besides a curiously successful union between the measure that is employed and the subject of the poem--

Their glittering garments of purple are burning like tremulous dawns in the quivering air, And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.

The love-songs, though in many moods, are always the frank expression of emotion that is deep and strong. One that is especially beautiful is the utterance of a young girl who, while her sisters prepare the rites for a religious festival, stands aside with folded hands dreaming of her lover. She is secretly asking herself what need has she to supplicate the G.o.ds, being blessed by love; and again, in the couple of stanzas called "Ecstasy," the rapture has pa.s.sed, by its very intensity, into pain.

Shelter my soul, O my love!

My soul is bent low with the pain And the burden of love, like the grace Of a flower that is smitten with rain: O shelter my soul from thy face!

But, when all is said, it is the life of her people which inspires this poet most perfectly. In the lighter lyrics one sees the fineness of her touch; and in the love-poems the depth of her pa.s.sion. But, in the folk-songs, all the qualities of her genius have contributed. Grace and tenderness have been reinforced by an observant eye, broad sympathy and a capacity for thought which reveals itself not so much as a systematic process as an atmosphere, suffusing the poems with gentle pensiveness.

And always the artistic method is that of picking out the theme in bright sharp lines, and presenting the idea concretely, through the grouping of picturesque facts. There is a poem called "Street Cries"

which is a vivid bit of the life of an Eastern city. First we have early morning, when the workers hurry out, fasting, to their toil; and the cry 'Buy bread, Buy bread' rings down the eager street; then midday, hot and thirsty, when the cry is 'Buy fruit, Buy fruit'; and finally, evening.

When twinkling twilight o'er the gay bazaars, Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars, When lutes are strung and fragrant torches lit On white roof-terraces where lovers sit Drinking together of life's poignant sweet, _Buy flowers, buy flowers_, floats down the singing street.

Another of these shining pictures will be found in "Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad," Mrs Naidu's own city; and again in the song called "In a Latticed Balcony." But there are several others in which, added to the suggestion of an old civilization and strange customs, there is a haunting sense of things older and stranger still. Of such is this one, called "Indian Weavers."

Weavers, weaving at break of day, Why do you weave a garment so gay?...

Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, We weave the robes of a new-born child.

Weavers, weaving solemn and still, Why do you weave in the moonlight chill?...

White as a feather and white as a cloud, We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

"_John Presland_"

The work of "John Presland" reminds one of the trend of contemporary poetry towards the dramatic form. Out of eight volumes published by this poet, five are fully-wrought plays, and one is a tragic love-story told in duologue. That, of course, is a larger proportion of actual drama than most of these poets give; but if an a.n.a.lysis were made, it would probably be found that the dramatic impulse is strong in the work of nearly all of them.

There are very few of those who are making genuine poetry, who are content simply to sing. Indeed, it hardly seems to be a matter of choice, but an urgency, secret and compelling as a natural instinct, by means of which life is commanding expression in literary art. This is not to suggest, however, that no lyrics are being composed. Current poetry often reveals a true lyrical gift, especially in early work; and so long as poets continue to be born young, we shall not lack for songs.

We may find, too, a rare singer like W. H. Davies, for whom genius, temperament and circ.u.mstance have effected a happy isolation from the complexity of modern existence. Owing allegiance chiefly to nature, he is free as the air in body and soul. Unspoilt by books, and saving his spirit humane and merry and sweet from the petty constraints of civilization, he carols as lightly as a robin or a thrush. But he is almost a solitary exception, and may serve to prove the rule that the pure lyric--some intimate emotion bubbling over into music--cannot say all that demands to be said when the poetic spirit is completely in touch with life.

Now, in all the most vital of this modern verse, poetry has come so close to life as to claim its very ident.i.ty. It has left the twilight of unreality and stepped into clear day. It has broken down the exclusiveness which penned it within a prescribed circle of theme and of language; and it has taken hold upon the world, real and entire.

Moreover, the life upon which it seizes in this way is wider, more complex, more meaningful and varied than ever before. Political and social changes have made humanity a larger thing--whether regarded in the actual numbers which democracy thus brings within the poetic ken, or in their manifold significance. Horizons, both mental and material, have been extended. Science presses on in quiet confidence, the dogmatic phase being over; and its methods as well as its data pa.s.s readily into the collective mind. Religion, no longer synonymous with a single creed or form of worship, can find room within itself for all the spiritual activity of mankind everywhere; and in the juster proportion thus attained, n.o.bler syntheses are shaping. A constructive social sense replaces the old negative commands with a positive duty of service.

Values are changing; new ideals quicken, struggle and fructify; fresh aspects of life, and visions of human destiny, are opened up; while in every sphere the spirit of inquiry and the experimental method generate an energy of conflict which the timid and the sleepy loathe, but which is nevertheless the dynamic of progress.

The poetry of to-day is the very spirit of that multiform life, giving shape and permanence to whatever is finest in it; and for that reason its manner of expression is almost infinitely varied, and often very different from the poetic forms of other ages. That, indeed, is one sign of its vitality: the fact that it is a living organism, capable of adaptation, growth and development. Old forms are modified and new ones created to embody the new ideas. All the resources of prosody are drawn upon--when they will serve--and used with the utmost freedom. And when, as frequently happens, they will not serve; when the established rules of English verse seem inadequate to the present task, they are challenged and thrown aside. Thus there arises, in the technique of poetry itself, a corresponding conflict to that in the world of ideas, indicating a similar vigour and equally prophetic of advance.

In all this variety, however, the dramatic element is a fairly constant feature; and it seems to be growing stronger. It is present in many poems which do not look like drama at all, as for instance in the narratives of Mr Masefield. Here we may find vividly dramatic scenes, astonishingly evolved in the form of an elaborate stanza, or the rhymed couplet; just as the tragedies in _Daily Bread_ by Mr Gibson are wrought out in a quite original unrhymed verse of extreme austerity. Again, much of Mr Abercrombie's work is dramatic in essence, apart from his plays in regular form; and Mrs Woods has completed a third poetical drama, having already published two tragedies in her collected edition.

But there is one fact to be noted in coming from those poets to the drama of "John Presland." With them the dramatic impulse is often subconscious, and it has to fight its way, obscurely sometimes, against a twin impulse towards lyricism. It is strong but not yet dominant; vital, but not yet aware of its own potentiality. It throbs below the surface of alien forms, but it rarely breaks away to an independent existence. And even when it achieves consciousness, as it does most completely perhaps in the work of Mrs Woods, traces of the struggle cling about it still--in a lyrical _motif_, or a fragment of song embedded in the structure of a play, or in a lyric intensity of feeling.

With "John Presland," however, the general tendency is reversed. The dramatic impulse has become a definite and prevailing purpose, with the lyrical element subordinated to it; and, as a consequence, we have here a drama of full stature, a complete, organic, and acutely conscious art-form.

This work reveals in its author an endowment of those qualities which most insistently urge towards the dramatic form: imagination, both creative and constructive, and a gift of almost absolute objectivity. In all the five plays these qualities are conspicuous. Indeed, they are so strong that they effectually screen the poet's personality; and, if he had written nothing but the plays, it is little that one might hope to discover of the individual mind behind them. That is naturally a very desirable result from the dramatist's point of view, and one test of his art. But it p.r.i.c.ks mere human curiosity, and provokes unregenerate glee in the fact that the poet has published lyrics too, three volumes of them; and that they, from their more subjective nature, yield up the outlines of a definite individuality.

But, indeed, one's delight is not pure mischief. It is partly at least in seeing the artistic virtue of this largesse in the lyric--the spontaneity which is equally a merit with the reticence of drama. One is glad, too, of the light thus thrown upon the poet's own philosophy, his affiliations, his outlook, his att.i.tude to life. Judging by the plays alone, we might be cheated into a belief in the complete detachment of our author. The use of historical themes and the rigour of his art create an effect of isolation. He would seem to stand outside the stress of his own time and aloof from the influences which commonly shape the artist. The lyrics show that impression to be false and help to correct it. For while they do not relate the poet, in any narrow sense, to what are specifically called 'modern movements,' they prove that he has an eager interest in his world, and that, being in that world and of it, he is yet 'on the side of the angels.' There is, for example, a splendid fire of reproach in the poem "To Italy," proving a capacity for n.o.ble indignation at the same time as a close hold upon current affairs. The poem is dated September 29, 1911, and is a protest at the action of Italy against Tripoli:

Hearken to your dead heroes, Italy; Hearken to those who made your history A bright and splendid thing ...

... What Mazzini said Have you so soon forgotten? You, who bled With Garibaldi, and the thousand more?

He spoke, and your young men to battle bore His gospel with them, of men's brotherhood, Of Justice, that before the tyrant, stood Accusing, and of truth and charity.

His dust to-day lies with you, Italy; Where lie his words? That sword is in your hand To seize unrighteously another's land-- Your fleet in foreign waters. By what right Dare you act so, save arrogance of might, Such cruel force as ground the Austrian heel Upon your Lombard cities, ringed with steel Unhappy Naples and despairing Rome, That exiled Garibaldi from his home, That served itself with sycophants and knaves, That filled the prisons and the nameless graves, Till, like a sunrise o'er a stormy sea, Flashed out the spirit of free Italy?

Like all Mr Presland's work, this poem is closely woven: quotation does not serve it well, but this pa.s.sage will at least indicate its theme and temper, and thus light up personality. There is, in the same volume, _Songs of Changing Skies_, a bit of spiritual autobiography called "To Robert Browning." It destroys at once any fiction of literary isolation; although to be sure there are cute critics who will declare that the resemblance to Browning in some of these lyrics is too obvious to need the discipular confession. It may be that these clever people are right.

Yes, perhaps one would recognize certain signs in poems like "A Present from Luther" and "An Error of Luther's." But the whole question of influence is nearly always made too much of, especially in its mere outward marks. Granting the love of Browning and the debt to his teaching, which are honourably admitted here, some effect upon thought and style would be inevitable. But a deeper and more potent cause of the resemblance lies in a real affinity of mind, in buoyancy and breadth and tenacious belief in good; and in a similar poetic equipment. One must not launch upon a comparison, but it may be observed that he has profited by his master's faults, artistic and philosophical, at least as much as by his merits. For, probably warned by example, this poet works with patient care to express his thought simply; and he has attained a style of perfect clearness. While his philosophy, though full of brave hope, has escaped the unreason of that optimism which declares that 'All's well.' True, he makes Joan say, in the last words of his "Joan of Arc":

... so near eternity The evil dwindles, good alone remains, And good triumphant--G.o.d is merciful.

But that is dramatically appropriate--the logic of Joan's character. And it seems to me that a more intimate and sincere expression is to be found in the chastened mood of a sonnet called "To April":

There will be other days as fair as these Which I shall never see; for other eyes The lyric loveliness of cherry trees Shall bloom milk-white against the windy skies And I not praise them; where upon the stream The faery tracery of willows lies I shall not see the sunlight's flying gleam, Nor watch the swallows sudden dip and rise.

Most mutable the forms of beauty are, Yet Beauty most eternal and unchanged, Perfect for us, and for posterity Still perfect; yearly is the pageant ranged.

And dare we wish that our poor dust should mar The wonder of such immortality?

The wistfulness of that wins by its grace where a more strenuous optimism provokes a challenge; just as the tentative 'perhaps' in the last line of "Sophocles' Antigone" softly woos the sceptic:

There are fair flowers that never came to fruit; Cut by sharp winds, or eaten by late frost, Barrenly in forgetfulness, they're lost To little-heedful Nature; so, in suit, Beneath the footsteps of calamity Young lives and lovely innocently come To total up old evil's deadly sum-- Do the G.o.ds pity dead Antigone?

We look too close, we look too close on earth At good and evil; blind are Nature's laws That kill, or make alive, and so are done.

Not in the circle of this death and birth May we perceive a justifying cause, Beyond, perhaps, for G.o.d and good are one.

One must not pause to gather up the threads of personality in these three volumes of lyrics; and, with the more important work in drama still ahead, it is only possible just to glance at their specific values. All the pieces are not equally good, of course, but there is a proportion of exquisite poetry in each volume, and--a healthy sign--the proportion is greatest in the last of the three, _Songs of Changing Skies_, published in 1913. Of this best work there are at least three kinds. There is that which one may call the lyric proper, small in size, simple in design, light in texture, the free expression of a single mood. Such is "From a Window," in which the peculiar charm of the poet's verse in this kind is well seen. It is not a showy attractiveness: it does not storm the senses nor clamour for approval. It enters the mind quietly, and perhaps with some hesitancy; but having entered, it takes absolute possession.

To-night I hear the soft Spring rain that falls Across the gardens, in the falling dusk, The Spring dusk, very slow; And that clear, single-noted bird that calls Insistently, from somewhere in the gloom Of wet Spring leaf.a.ge, or the scattering bloom Of one tall pear-tree.

On, on, on, they go, Those single, sweet, reiterated sounds, Having no pa.s.sion, similarly free Of laughter, and of memory, and of tears, Poignantly sweet, across the falling rain, They fall upon my ears.

The delicate rapture of that will fairly represent most of the nature poetry in these volumes; and it may stand alike for its music and the technical means by which that music is conveyed. It will be seen that there is a close relation between means and end; that the simple language, natural phrasing and controlled freedom of movement, directly subserve the final effect of clear sweetness. A similar adaptation will be found in verse which is written in a sharply contrasted manner. In "Atlantic Rollers," for instance, we have a bigger theme, demanding by its nature a swifter and stronger treatment. And surely the wild energy and sound, the dazzling light and colour of stormy breakers have been almost brought within sight and sound, in the speed and vigour of this poem. There is the opening rush, secretly obedient to a metrical scheme; there is a choice of words which are themselves dynamic; the rapid, c.u.mulative pressure of the verse, with epithets only to help the rising movement until the crest is reached, at say the tenth or twelfth line; and then a slight diminution of speed and force, as a richer style describes the breaking wave.

Do you dare face the wind now? Such a wind, Bending the hardy cliff-gra.s.s all one way, Hurling the breakers in huge battle-play On these old rocks, whose age leaves Time behind, --The whorls and rockets of the fiery ma.s.s Ere earth was earth--shoots over them the spray In furious beauty, then is twisted, wreathed, Dispersed, flung inland, beaten in our face, Until we pant as if we hardly breathed The common air. See how the billows race Landward in white-maned squadrons that are shot With sparks of sunshine.

Where they leap in sight First, on the clear horizon, they fleck white The blue profundity; then, as clouds shift, Are grey, and umber, and pale amethyst; Then, great green ramparts in the bay uplift, Perfect a moment, ere they break and fall In fierce white smother on the rocky wall.

The third kind of lyric is perhaps the most interesting, for it points directly to the poet's dramatic gift. It appears quite early in this work; and indeed, a striking example of it is the duologue which gives its name to the author's first book, _The Marionettes_, published in 1907. It is described in the sub-t.i.tle as _A Puppet Show_, and a definition of its form would probably be a dramatic lyric. Yet, although the tragic story is sharply outlined and is told by the voices of husband and wife alternately, the poem is not so dramatic in essence as other pieces which are more strictly lyrical in form, notably "Outside Canossa," in the last book. In _The Marionettes_ we see the events of the story as they are reflected in the minds of the interlocutors; as the mood or the thought which they have given rise to. They do not live and move before us in visible action: which is to say, the lyric element predominates. "Outside Canossa," on the other hand, is frankly narrative in form, and has an historical theme. It relates the famous episode of the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV by Hildebrand, and is necessarily concerned with material that is static in its nature. It must define and describe the scene, announce the antecedents of the story, and throw light upon character. In spite of this, however, the conception of the poem is dramatic; and certain vivid situations have been created. As we read we actually live in this snow-clothed, silent forest world; we stand inside the king's tent as he returns each evening from his bare-foot, bare-headed penance outside Hildebrand's castle gate; and we tremble, with the waiting courtiers, at the fury of outraged pride in his eyes.

Yesterday, Speech leapt from out the King, as leaps A sword-blade, dazzling in the sun From out its scabbard; as there leaps Fire from the mountain, ere it run Destruction-dealing, far and wide.

"Rather as Satan d.a.m.ned, I say, Falling through pride, yet keeping pride, Than buy salvation at this price...."

To the enraged King the Queen enters softly, carrying her little son; and though her husband has threatened death to any who should approach him, though he sits with his unsheathed dagger ready to strike, she walks steadily to his side, places the child upon his knee, and goes slowly out without a word.

Through the door The King has hurled the dagger, holds His son against his breast, and pain Contorts him, like a smitten oak; Then sets the child upon the floor, And rises, and undoes the clasp Of his great mantle (like a stain Of blood it lies about his feet).

Next from his head he takes the crown, Holds it arm's-length, and drops it down Suddenly, from his loosened grasp, And for the third time goes he forth, Bare-footed as a penitent, Humble, and excommunicate, To stand all day in falling snow Outside Canossa's guarded gate, Till Hildebrand shall mercy show.