The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century Part 2

For Life I had never eared greatly, As worth a man's while; Peradventures unsought, Peradventures that finished in nought, Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately Unwon by its style.

In earliest years--why I know not-- I viewed it askance; Conditions of doubt, Conditions that slowly leaked out, May haply have bent me to stand and to show not Much zest for its dance.

With symphonies soft and sweet colour It courted me then, Till evasions seemed wrong, Till evasions gave in to its song, And I warmed, till living aloofly loomed duller Than life among men.

Anew I found nought to set eyes on, When, lifting its hand, It uncloaked a star, Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar, And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon As bright as a brand.

And so, the rough highway forgetting, I pace hill and dale, Regarding the sky, Regarding the vision on high, And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting My pilgrimage fail.

No one of course can judge of another's happiness; but it is difficult to imagine any man on earth who has had a happier life than Mr. Hardy.

He has had his own genius for company all his days; he has been successful in literary art beyond the wildest dreams of his youth; his acute perception has made the beauty of nature a million times more beautiful to him than to most of the children of men; his eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated. He has that which should accompany old age--honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.

The last poem in _Moments of Vision_ blesses rather than curses life.

AFTERWARDS

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say "He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think, "To him this must have been a familiar sight"?

If I pa.s.s during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, Will they say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, But he could do little for them; and now he is gone"?

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, "He hears it not now, but he used to notice such things"?

Should Mr. Hardy ever resort to prayer--which I suppose is unlikely--his prayers ought to be the best in the world. According to Coleridge, he prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast; a beautiful characteristic of our great writer is his tenderness for every living thing. He will be missed by men, women, children, and by the humblest animals; and if trees have any self-consciousness, they will miss him too.

Rudyard Kipling is a Victorian poet, as Thomas Hardy is a Victorian novelist. When Tennyson died in 1892, the world, with approximate unanimity, chose the young man from the East as his successor, and for twenty-five years he has been the Laureate of the British Empire in everything but the t.i.tle. In the eighteenth century, when Gray regarded the offer of the Laureateship as an insult, Mr. Alfred Austin might properly have been appointed; but after the fame of Southey, and the mighty genius of Wordsworth and of Tennyson, it was cruel to put Alfred the Little in the chair of Alfred the Great. It was not an insult to Austin, but an insult to Poetry. With the elevation of the learned and amiable Dr. Bridges in 1913, the public ceased to care who holds the office. This eminently respectable appointment silenced both opposition and applause. We can only echo the language of Gray's letter to Mason, 19 December, 1757: "I interest myself a little in the history of it, and rather wish somebody may accept it that will retrieve the credit of the thing, if it be retrievable, or ever had any credit.... The office itself has always humbled the professor hitherto (even in an age when kings were somebody), if he were a poor writer by making him more conspicuous, and if he were a good one by setting him at war with the little fry of his own profession, for there are poets little enough to envy even a poet-laureat." Mason was willing.

Rudyard Kipling had the double qualification of poetic genius and of convinced Imperialism. He had received a formal accolade from the aged Tennyson, and could have carried on the tradition of British verse and British arms. Nor has any Laureate, in the history of the office, risen more magnificently to an occasion than did Mr. Kipling at the sixtieth anniversary of the reign of the Queen. Each poet made his little speech in verse, and then at the close of the ceremony, came the thrilling _Recessional_, which received as instant applause from the world as if it had been spoken to an audience. In its scriptural phraseology, in its combination of haughty pride and deep contrition, in its "holy hope and high humility," it expressed with austere majesty the genius of the English race. The soul of a great poet entered immediately into the hearts of men, there to abide for ever.

It is interesting to reflect that not the author of the _Recessional_, but the author of _Regina Cara_ was duly chosen for the Laureateship. This poem by Robert Bridges appeared on the same occasion as that immortalized by Kipling, and was subsequently included in the volume of the writer's poetical works, published in 1912. It shows irreproachable reverence for Queen Victoria. Apparently its poetical quality was satisfactory to those who appoint Laureates.

REGINA CARA

Jubilee-Song, for music, 1897

Hark! the world is full of thy praise, England's Queen of many days; Who, knowing how to rule the free, Hast given a crown to monarchy.

Honour, Truth, and growing Peace Follow Britannia's wide increase, And Nature yield her strength unknown To the wisdom born beneath thy throne!

In wisdom and love firm is thy fame: Enemies bow to revere thy name: The world shall never tire to tell Praise of the queen that reigned well.

O Felix anima, Domina pracclara, Amore semper coronabere Regina Cara

Rudyard Kipling's poetry is as familiar to us as the air we breathe.

He is the spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon breed. His gospel of orderly energy is the inspiration of thousands of business offices; his sententious maxims are parts of current speech: the victrola has carried his singing lyrics even farther than the banjo penetrates, of which latter democratic instrument his wonderful poem is the apotheosis. And we have the word of a distinguished British major-general to prove that Mr. Kipling has wrought a miracle of transformation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir George Younghusband, in a recent book, _A Soldier's Memories_, says, "I had never heard the words or expressions that Rudyard Kipling's soldiers used. Many a time did I ask my brother officers whether they had ever heard them.

No, never. But, sure enough, a few years after the soldiers thought, and talked, and expressed themselves exactly as Rudyard Kipling had taught them in his stories. Rudyard Kipling made the modern soldier.

Other writers have gone on with the good work, and they have between them manufactured the cheery, devil-may-care, lovable person enshrined in our hearts as Thomas Atkins. Before he had learned from reading stories about himself that he, as an individual, also possessed the above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of the fact. My early recollections of the British soldier are of a bluff, rather surly person, never the least jocose or light-hearted except perhaps when he had too much beer."

This is extraordinary testimony to the power of literature--from a first-cla.s.s fighting man. It is as though John Sargent should paint an inaccurate but idealized portrait, and the original should make it accurate by imitation. The soldiers were transformed by the renewing of their minds. Beholding with open face as in a gla.s.s a certain image, they were changed into the same image, by the spirit of the poet. This is certainly a greater achievement than correct reporting.

It is quite possible, too, that the _officers_' att.i.tude toward Tommy Atkins had been altered by the _Barrack-Room Ballads_, and this new att.i.tude produced results in character.

I give General Younghusband's testimony for what it is worth. It is important if true. But it is only fair to add that it has been contradicted by another military officer, who affirms that Kipling reported the soldier as he was. Readers may take their choice. At all events the transformation of character by discipline, cleanliness, hard work, and danger is the ever-present moral in Mr. Kipling's verse. He loves to take the raw recruit or the boyish, self-conscious, awkward subaltern, and show how he may become an efficient man, happy in the happiness that accompanies success. It is a Philistine goal, but one that has the advantage of being attainable. The reach of this particular poet seldom exceeds his grasp. And although thus far in his career--he is only fifty-two, and we may hope as well as remember--his best poetry belongs to the nineteenth century rather than the twentieth, so universally popular a homily as _If_ indicates that he has by no means lost the power of preaching in verse. With the exception of some sad lapses, his latter poems have come nearer the earlier level of production than his stories. For that matter, from the beginning I have thought that the genius of Rudyard Kipling had more authentic expression in poetry than in prose. I therefore hope that after the war he will become one of the leaders in the advance of English poetry in the twentieth century, as he will remain one of the imperishable monuments of Victorian literature. The verse published in his latest volume of stories, _A Diversity of Creatures_, 1917, has the stamp of his original mind, and _Macdonough's Song_ is impressive. And in a poem which does not appear in this collection, but which was written at the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Kipling was, I believe, the first to use the name _Hun_--an appellation of considerable adhesive power. Do roses stick like burrs?

His influence on other poets has of course been powerful. As Eden Phillpotts is to Thomas Hardy, so is Robert Service to Rudyard Kipling. Like Bret Harte in California, Mr. Service found gold in the Klondike. But it is not merely in his interpretation of the life of a distant country that the new poet reminds one of his prototype; both in matter and in manner he may justly be called the Kipling of the North. His verse has an extraordinary popularity among American college undergraduates, the reasons for which are evident. They read, discuss him, and quote him with joy, and he might well be proud of the adoration of so many of our eager, adventurous, high-hearted youth.

Yet, while Mr. Service is undoubtedly a real poet, his work as a whole seems a clear echo, rather than a new song. It is good, but it is reminiscent of his reading, not merely of Mr. Kipling, but of poetry in general. In _The Land G.o.d Forgot_, a fine poem, beginning

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lordly mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate,

the opening line infallibly brings to mind Henley's

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade.

The poetry of Mr. Service has the merits and the faults of the "red blood" school in fiction, ill.u.s.trated by the late Jack London and the lively Rex Beach. It is not the highest form of art. It insists on being heard, but it smells of mortality. You cannot give permanence to a book by printing it in italic type.

It is indeed difficult to express in pure artistic form great primitive experiences, even with long years of intimate first-hand knowledge. No one doubts Mr. Service's accuracy or sincerity. But many men have had abundance of material, rich and new, only to find it unmanageable. Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling succeeded where thousands have failed. Think of the possibilities of Australia! And from that vast region only one great artist has spoken--Percy Grainger.

CHAPTER II

PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOYES, HOUSMAN

Stephen Phillips--his immediate success--influence of Stratford-on-Avon--his plays--a traditional poet--his realism--William Watson--his unpromising start--his lament on the coldness of the age toward poetry--his Epigrams--_Wordsworth's Grave_--his eminence as a critic in verse--his anti-imperialism--his Song of Hate--his Byronic wit--his contempt for the "new" poetry--Alfred Noyes--both literary and rhetorical--an orthodox poet--a singer--his democracy--his childlike imagination--his sea-poems--_Drake_--his optimism--his religious faith--A.

E. Housman--his paganism and pessimism--his modernity--his originality--his lyrical power--war poems--Ludlow.

The genius of Stephen Phillips was immediately recognized by London critics. When the thin volume, _Poems_, containing _Marpessa, Christ in Hades_, and some lyrical pieces, appeared in 1897, it was greeted by a loud chorus of approval, ceremoniously ratified by the bestowal of the First Prize from the British Academy. Some of the more distinguished among his admirers a.s.serted that the n.o.bility, splendour, and beauty of his verse merited the adjective Miltonic. I remember that we Americans thought that the English critics had lost their heads, and we queried what they would say if we praised a new poet in the United States in any such fashion. But that was before we had seen the book; when we had once read it for ourselves, we felt no alarm for the safety of Milton, but we knew that English Literature had been enriched. Stephen Phillips is among the English poets.

His career extended over the s.p.a.ce of twenty-five years, from the first publication of _Marpessa_ in 1890 to his death on the ninth of December, 1915. He was born near the city of Oxford, on the twenty-eighth of July, 1868. His father, the Rev. Dr. Stephen Phillips, still living, is Precentor of Peterborough Cathedral; his mother was related to Wordsworth. He was exposed to poetry germs at the age of eight, for in 1876 his father became Chaplain and Sub-Vicar at Stratford-on-Avon, and the boy attended the Grammar School. Later he spent a year at Queens' College, Cambridge, enough to give him the right to be enrolled in the long list of Cambridge poets. He went on the stage as a member of Frank Benson's company, and in his time played many parts, receiving on one occasion a curtain call as the Ghost in _Hamlet_. This experience--with the early Stratford inspiration--probably fired his ambition to become a dramatist. The late Sir George Alexander produced _Paolo and Francesca_; _Herod_ was acted in London by Beerbohm Tree, and in America by William Faversham. Neither of these plays was a failure, but it is regrettable that he wrote for the stage at all. His genius was not adapted for drama, and the quality of his verse was not improved by the experiment, although all of his half-dozen pieces have occasional pa.s.sages of rare loveliness. His best play, _Paolo and Francesca_, suffers when compared either with Boker's or D'Annunzio's treatment of the old story. It lacks the stage-craft of the former, and the virility of the latter.

Phillips was no pioneer: he followed the great tradition of English poetry, and must be counted among the legitimate heirs. At his best, he resembles Keats most of all; and none but a real poet could ever make us think of Keats. If he be condemned for not breaking new paths, we may remember the words of a wise man--"It is easier to differ from the great poets than it is to resemble them." He loved to employ the standard five-foot measure that has done so much of the best work of English poetry. In _The Woman with the Dead Soul_, he showed once more the musical possibilities latent in the heroic couplet, which Pope had used with such monotonous brilliance. In _Marpessa_, he gave us blank verse of n.o.ble artistry. But he was far more than a mere technician. He fairly meets the test set by John Davidson. "In the poet the whole a.s.sembly of his being is harmonious; no organ is master; a diapason extends throughout the entire scale; his whole body, his whole soul is rapt into the making of his poetry.... Poetry is the product of originality, of a first-hand experience and observation of life, of a direct communion with men and women, with the seasons of the year, with day and night. The critic will therefore be well-advised, if he have the good fortune to find something that seems to him poetry, to lay it out in the daylight and the moonlight, to take it into the street and the fields, to set against it his own experience and observation of life."

One of the most severe tests of poetry that I know of is to read it aloud on the sh.o.r.e of an angry sea. Homer, Shakespeare, Milton gain in splendour with this accompaniment.

With the words of John Davidson in mind, let us take two pa.s.sages from _Marpessa_, and measure one against the atmosphere of day and night, and the other against homely human experience. Although Mr.

Davidson was not thinking of Phillips, I believe he would have admitted the validity of this verse.

From the dark The floating smell of flowers invisible, The mystic yearning of the garden wet, The moonless-pa.s.sing night--into his brain Wandered, until he rose and outward leaned In the dim summer; 'twas the moment deep When we are conscious of the secret dawn, Amid the darkness that we feel is green....

When the long day that glideth without cloud, The summer day, was at her deep blue hour Of lilies musical with busy bliss, Whose very light trembled as with excess, And heat was frail, and every bush and flower Was drooping in the glory overcome;

Any poet knows how to speak in authentic tones of the wild pa.s.sion of insurgent hearts; but not every poet possesses the rarer gift of setting the mellower years to harmonious music, as in the following gracious words:

But if I live with Idas, then we two On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand In odours of the open field, and live In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun....

And though the first sweet sting of love be past, The sweet that almost venom is; though youth, With tender and extravagant delight, The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge, The insane farewell repeated o'er and o'er, Pa.s.s off; there shall succeed a faithful peace; Beautiful friendship tried by sun and wind, Durable from the daily dust of life.