The Germ Part 27

Modern Giants

Yes! there are Giants on the earth in these days; but it is their great bulk, and the nearness of our view, which prevents us from perceiving their grandeur. This is how it is that the glory of the present is lost upon the contemporaries of the greatest men; and, perhaps this was Swift's meaning, when he said that Gulliver could not discover exactly what it was that strode among the corn-ridges in the Brobdignagian field: thus, we lose the brightness of things of our own time in consequence of their proximity.

It is of the development of our individual perceptions, and the application thereof to a good use, that the writer humbly endeavours to treat. We will for this purpose take as an example, that which may be held to indicate the civilization of a period more than any thing else; namely, the popular perception of the essentials of Poetry; and endeavour to show that while the beauties of old writers are acknowledged, (tho' not in proportion to the attention of each individual in his works to nature alone) the modern school is contemned and unconsidered; and also that much of the active poetry of modern life is neglected by the majority of the writers themselves.

There seems to be an opinion gaining ground fast, in spite of all the shaking of conventional heads, that the Poets of the present day are equal to all others, excepting one: however this may be, it is certain we are not fair judges, because of the natural reason stated before; and there is decidedly one great fault in the moderns, that not only do they study models with which they can never become intimately acquainted, but that they neglect, or rather reject as worthless, that which they alone can carry on with perfect success: I mean the knowledge of themselves, and the characteristics of their own actual living. Thus, if a modern Poet or Artist (the latter much more culpably errs) seeks a subject exemplifying charity, he rambles into ancient Greece or Rome, awakening not one half the sympathy in the spectator, as do such incidents as may be seen in the streets every day. For instance; walking with a friend the other day, we met an old woman, exceedingly dirty, restlessly pattering along the kerb of a crowded thoroughfare, trying to cross: her eyes were always wandering here and there, and her mouth was never still; her object was evident, but for my own part, I must needs be fastidious and prefer to allow her to take the risk of being run over, to overcoming my own disgust. Not so my friend; he marched up manfully, and putting his arm over the old woman's shoulder, led her across as carefully as though she were a princess. Of course, I was ashamed: ashamed! I was frightened; I expected to see the old woman change into a tall angel and take him off to heaven, leaving me her original shape to repent in. On recovering my thoughts, I was inclined to take up my friend and carry him home in triumph, I felt so strong. Why should not this thing be as poetical as any in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary or any one else? for, so we look at it with a pure thought, we shall see about it the same light the Areopagite saw at Jerusalem surround the Holy Virgin, and the same angels attending and guarding it.

And there is something else we miss; there is the poetry of the things about us; our railways, factories, mines, roaring cities, steam vessels, and the endless novelties and wonders produced every day; which if they were found only in the Thousand and One Nights, or in any poem cla.s.sical or romantic, would be gloried over without end; for as the majority of us know not a bit more about them, but merely their names, we keep up the same mystery, the main thing required for the surprise of the imagination.

Next to Poetry, Painting and Music have most power over the mind; and how do you apply this influence? In what direction is it forced? Why, for the last, you sit in your drawing-rooms, and listen to a quant.i.ty of tinkling of brazen marches of going to war; but you never see before your very eyes, the palpable victory of leading nature by her own power, to a conquest of blessings; and when the music is over, you turn to each other, and enthusiastically whisper, "How fine!"--You point out to others, (as if they had no eyes) the sentiment of a flowing river with the moon on it, as an emblem of the after-peace, but you see not this in the long white cloud of steam, the locomotive pours forth under the same moon, rushing on; the perfect type of the same, with the presentment of the struggle beforehand. The strong engine is never before you, sighing all night, with the white cloud above the chimney-shaft, escaping like the spirits Solomon put his seal upon, in the Arabian Tales; these mightier spirits are bound in a faster vessel; and then let forth, as of little worth, when their work is done.

The Earth shakes under you, from the footfall of the Genii man has made, and you groan about the noise. Vast roads draw together the Earth, and you say how they spoil the prospect, which you never cared a farthing about before.

You revel in Geology: but in chemistry, the modern science, possessing thousands of powers as great as any used yet, you see no glory:--the only thought is so many Acids and Alkalies. You require a metaphor for treachery, and of course you think of our puny old friend the Viper; but the Alkaline, more searching and more unknown, that may destroy you and your race, you have never heard of,--and yet this possesses more of the very quality required, namely, mystery, than any other that is in your hands.

The only ancient character you have retained in its proper force is Love; but you seem never to see any light about the results of long labour of mind, the most intense Love. Devotedness, magnanimity, generosity, you seem to think have left the Earth since the Crusades.

In fact, you never go out into Life: living only in the past world, you go on repeating in new combinations the same elements for the same effect. You have taught an enlightened Public, that the province of Poetry is to reproduce the Ancients; not as Keats did, with the living heart of our own Life; but so as to cause the impression that you are not aware that they had wives and families like yourselves, and laboured and rested like us all.

The greatest, perhaps, of modern poets seeming to take refuge from this, has looked into the heart of man, and shown you its pulsations, fears, self-doubts, hates, goodness, devotedness, and n.o.ble world-love; this is not done under pretty flowers of metaphor in the lispings of a pet parson, or in the strong but uncertain fashion of the American school; still less in the dry operose quackery of professed doctors of psychology, mere chaff not studied from nature, and therefore worthless, never felt, and therefore useless; but with the firm knowing hand of the anatomist, demonstrating and making clear to others, that the knowledge may be applied to purpose. All this difficult task is achieved so that you may read till your own soul is before you, and you know it; but the enervated public complains that the work is obscure forsooth: so we are always looking for green gra.s.s--verdant meads, tall pines, vineyards, etc., as the essentials of poetry; these are all very pretty and very delicate, the dust blows not in your eyes, but Chaucer has told us all this, and while it was new, far better than any one else; why are we not to have something besides? Let us see a little of the poetry of man's own works,--"Visibly in his garden walketh G.o.d."

The great portion of the public take a morbid delight in such works as Frankenstein, that "Poor, impossible monster abhorred," who would be disgusting if he were not so extremely ludicrous: and all this search after impossible mystery, such trumpery! growing into the popular taste, is fed with garbage; doing more harm than all the preachings and poundings of optimistic Reviews will be able to remedy in an hundred years.

The study of such matters as these does other harm than merely poisoning the mind in one direction; it renders us sceptical of virtue in others, and we lose the power of pure perception. So --reading the glorious tale of Griselda and looking about you, you say there never was such a woman; your wise men say she was a fool; are there no such fools round about you? pray look close:--so the result of this is, you see no lesson in such things, or at least cannot apply it, and therefore the powers of the author are thrown away. Do you think G.o.d made Boccaccio and Chaucer to amuse you in your idle hours, only that you might sit listening like crowned idiots, and then debate concerning their faithfulness to truth? You never can imagine but they knew more of nature than any of us, or that they had less reverence for her.

In reference to Painting, the Public are taught to look with delight upon murky old masters, with dismally demoniac trees, and dull waters of lead, colourless and like ice; upon rocks that make geologists wonder, their angles are so impossible, their fractures are so new.

Thousands are given for uncomfortable Dutch sun-lights; but if you are shown a transcript of day itself, with the purple shadow upon the mountains, and across the still lake, you know nothing of it because your fathers never bought such: so you look for nothing in it; nay, let me set you in the actual place, let the water damp your feet, stand in the chill of the shadow itself, and you will never tell me the colour on the hill, or where the last of the crows caught the sinking sunlight. Letting observation sleep, what can you know of nature? and you _are_ a judge of landscape indeed. So it is that the world is taught to think of nature, as seen through other men's eyes, without any reference to its own original powers of perception, and much natural beauty is lost.

To the Castle Ramparts

The Castle is erect on the hill's top, To moulder there all day and night: it stands With the long shadow lying at its foot.

That is a weary height which you must climb Before you reach it; and a dizziness Turns in your eyes when you look down from it, So standing clearly up into the sky.

I rose one day, having a mind to see it.

'Twas on a clear Spring morning, and a blackbird Awoke me with his warbling near my window: My dream had fashioned this into a song That some one with grey eyes was singing me, And which had drawn me so into myself That all the other shapes of sleep were gone: And then, at last, it woke me, as I said.

The sun shone fully in on me; and brisk Cool airs, that had been cold but for his warmth, Blow thro' the open cas.e.m.e.nt, and sweet smells Of flowers with the dew yet fresh upon them,-- Rose-buds, and showery lilacs, and what stayed Of April wallflowers.

I set early forth, Wishing to reach the Castle when the heat Should weigh upon it, vertical at noon.

My path lay thro' green open fields at first, With now and then trees rising statelily Out of the gra.s.s; and afterwards came lanes Closed in by hedges smelling of the may, And overshadowed by the meeting trees.

So I walked on with none but pleasant thoughts; The Spring was in me, not alone around me, And smiles came rippling o'er my lips for nothing.

I reached at length,--issuing from a lane Which wound so that it seemed about to end Always, yet ended not for a long while,-- A s.p.a.ce of ground thick gra.s.sed and level to The overhanging sky and the strong sun: Before me the brown sultry hill stood out, Peaked by its rooted Castle, like a part Of its own self. I laid me in the gra.s.s, Turning from it, and looking on the sky, And listening to the humming in the air That hums when no sound is; because I chose To gaze on that which I had left, not that Which I had yet to see. As one who strives After some knowledge known not till he sought, Whose soul acquaints him that his step by step Has led him to a few steps next the end, Which he foresees already, waits a little Before he pa.s.ses onward, gathering Together in his thoughts what he has done.

Rising after a while, the ascent began.

Broken and bare the soil was; and thin gra.s.s, Dry and scarce green, was scattered here and there In tufts: and, toiling up, my knees almost Reaching my chin, one hand upon my knee, Or grasping sometimes at the earth, I went, With eyes fixed on the next step to be taken, Not glancing right or left; till, at the end, I stood straight up, and the tower stood straight up Before my face. One tower, and nothing more; For all the rest has gone this way and that, And is not anywhere, saving a few Fragments that lie about, some on the top, Some fallen half down on either side the hill, Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground.

The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with green Patches of mildew and of ivy woven Over the sightless loopholes and the sides: And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle, Or scurry to catch food; and their fine webs Touch at your face wherever you may pa.s.s.

The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fry Of insects in one spot quivered for ever, Out and in, in and out, with glancing wings That caught the light, and buzzings here and there; That little life which swarms about large death; No one too many or too few, but each Ordained, and being each in its own place.

The ancient door, cut deep into the wall, And cramped with iron rusty now and rotten, Was open half: and, when I strove to move it That I might have free pa.s.sage inwards, stood Unmoved and creaking with old uselessness: So, pushing it, I entered, while the dust Was shaken down upon me from all sides.

The narrow stairs, lighted by scanty streaks That poured in thro' the loopholes pierced high up, Wound with the winding tower, until I gained, Delivered from the closeness and the damp And the dim air, the outer battlements.

There opposite, the tower's black turret-girth Suppressed the multiplied steep chasm of fathoms, So that immediately the fields far down Lay to their heaving distance for the eyes, Satisfied with one gaze unconsciously, To pa.s.s to glory of heaven, and to know light.

Here was no need of thinking:--merely sense Was found sufficient: the wind made me free, Breathed, and returned by me in a hard breath: And what at first seemed silence, being roused By callings of the cuckoo from far off, Resolved itself into a sound of trees That swayed, and into chirps reciprocal On each side, and revolving drone of flies.

Then, stepping to the brink, and looking sheer To where the slope ceased in the level stretch Of country, I sat down to lay my head Backwards into a single ivy-bush Complex of leaf. I lay there till the wind Blew to me, from a church seen miles away, Half the hour's chimes.

Great clouds were arched abroad Like angels' wings; returning beneath which, I lingered homewards. All their forms had merged And loosened when my walk was ended; and, While yet I saw the sun a perfect disc, There was the moon beginning in the sky.

Pax Vobis

'Tis of the Father Hilary.

He strove, but could not pray: so took The darkened stair, where his feet shook A sad blind echo. He kept up Slowly. 'Twas a chill sway of air That autumn noon within the stair, Sick, dizzy, like a turning cup.

His brain perplexed him, void and thin: He shut his eyes and felt it spin; The obscure deafness hemmed him in.

He said: "the air is calm outside."

He leaned unto the gallery Where the chime keeps the night and day: It hurt his brain,--he could not pray.

He had his face upon the stone: Deep 'twixt the narrow shafts, his eye Pa.s.sed all the roofs unto the sky Whose greyness the wind swept alone.

Close by his feet he saw it shake With wind in pools that the rains make: The ripple set his eyes to ache.

He said, "Calm hath its peace outside."

He stood within the mystery Girding G.o.d's blessed Eucharist: The organ and the chaunt had ceased: A few words paused against his ear, Said from the altar: drawn round him, The silence was at rest and dim.

He could not pray. The bell shook clear And ceased. All was great awe,--the breath Of G.o.d in man, that warranteth Wholly the inner things of Faith.

He said: "There is the world outside."

_Ghent: Church of St. Bavon._

A Modern Idyl

"Pride clings to age, for few and withered powers, Which fall on youth in pleasures manifold, Like some bright dancer with a crowd of flowers And scented presents more than she can hold:

"Or as it were a child beneath a tree, Who in his healthy joy holds hand and cap Beneath the shaken boughs, and eagerly Expects the fruit to fall into his lap."

So thought I while my cousin sat alone, Moving with many leaves in under tone, And, sheened as snow lit by a pale moonlight, Her childish dress struck clearly on the sight: That, as the lilies growing by her side Casting their silver radiance forth with pride, She seemed to dart an arrowy halo round, Brightening the spring time trees, brightening the ground; And beauty, like keen l.u.s.tre from a star, Glorified all the garden near and far.

The sunlight smote the grey and mossy wall Where, 'mid the leaves, the peaches one and all, Most like twin cherubim entranced above, Leaned their soft cheeks together, pressed in love.

As the child sat, the tendrils shook round her; And, blended tenderly in middle air, Gleamed the long orchard through the ivied gate: And slanting sunbeams made the heart elate, Startling it into gladness like the sound,-- Which echo childlike mimicks faintly round Blending it with the lull of some far flood,-- Of one long shout heard in a quiet wood.

A gurgling laugh far off the fountain sent, As if the mermaid shape that in it bent Spoke with subdued and faintest melody: And birds sang their whole hearts spontaneously.

When from your books released, pa.s.s here your hours, Dear child, the sweet companion of these flowers, These poplars, scented shrubs, and blossomed boughs Of fruit-trees, where the noisy sparrows house, Shaking from off the leaves the beaded dew.