Why we should read Part 8

But we read a philosopher mainly, I take it, to see how he himself reached his serene height of detached interest in the universe. We who have no philosophic bent fondly imagine that it is only after despairing of instinctive happiness that the philosopher turns his back on the struggle of life with his shout of "Sour Grapes." Reading Mr Santayana will correct this delusion.

"We cannot venerate anyone in whom appreciation is not divorced from desire. And this elevation and detachment of the heart need not follow upon any great disappointment; it is finest and sweetest where it is the gradual fruit of many affections now merged and mellowed into a natural piety. Indeed, we are able to frame our idea of the Deity on no other model.... There is perhaps no more frivolous notion than that a good, once attained, loses all its value.... We turn from a beautiful thing, as from a truth or a friend, only to return incessantly, and with increasing appreciation."

This, then, is the reason why we should read Mr Santayana, that we should clarify our aims, readjust our standards, and increase our capacity for appreciating the beautiful, for this is the royal road to the only happiness which is true, steadfast and eternal.

II

THE POEMS OF FRANCIS BRETT-YOUNG

Read but this one song:

"Why have you stolen my delight In all the golden shows of spring When every cherry-tree is white And in the limes the thrushes sing,

O fickler than the April day, O brighter than the golden broom, O blyther than the thrushes' lay, O whiter than the cherry-bloom,

O sweeter than all things that blow ...

Why have you only left for me The broom, the cherry's crown of snow, And thrushes in the linden-tree?"

Is there any need of further reason?

One concedes to that at once a word not often unlocked from one's vocabulary; loveliness is implicit in it, music, harmony, beauty are all there. Alas! that we should have to search among so many heaps of rubble for one rich gem, but this at any rate is well-nigh flawless: for the rest, Mr Brett-Young has approached excellence, achieved haunting lines and oftentimes failed to arouse any emotional feeling at all. He talks of the lovely words that wander through his brain, but they frequently refuse to leave their refuge. He is at his best when he is most simple, as here:

"High on the tufted baobab-tree To-night a rain-bird sang to me A simple song, of three notes only, That made the wilderness more lonely;

For in my brain it echoed nearly, Old village church bells chiming clearly: The sweet cracked bells, just out of tune, Over the mowing gra.s.s in June--

Over the mowing gra.s.s, and meadows Where the low sun casts long shadows, And cuckoos call in the twilight From elm to elm, in level flight.

Now through the evening meadows move Slow couples of young folk in love, Who pause at every crooked stile And kiss in the hawthorn's shade the while:

Like pale moths the summer frocks Hover between the beds of phlox, And old men, feeling it is late, Cease their gossip at the gate,

Till deeper still the twilight grows, And night blossometh, like a rose Full of love and sweet perfume, Whose heart most tender stars illume.

Here the red sun sank like lead, And the sky blackened overhead; Only the locust chirped at me From the shadowy baobab-tree."

I don't deny that this trick of contrasting unpleasant existing conditions with pleasant conditions that surrounded one's past some time before was part of the stock-in-trade of every so-called war poet. I am not at all concerned to defend, nor am I interested in, the contrast. I merely chronicle the aesthetic pleasure that I derive from verses four and five, though neither of these even approaches perfection. But I do maintain that both the poems I have quoted are worth reading. I do maintain that Mr Brett-Young has the instinct of all true poets: he realises that "Beauty is an armour against fate," "that a lovely word is not an idle thing": he is a true lover of Beauty: listen to his confession of faith:

"Beauty and love are one, Even when fierce war clashes: Even when our fiery sun Hath burnt itself to ashes, And the dead planets race Unlighted through blind s.p.a.ce, Beauty will still shine there: Wherefore, I worship her."

He is, moreover, most successful when he invokes her:

"Whither, O my sweet mistress, must I follow thee?

For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, And wait on thy appearing, Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me.

Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers, Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers; Alas! her presence lingers No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers.

Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after;-- Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed By a strange unworldly rest, Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter.

The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread.

Yet when their secret chambers I essayed My spirit sank, dismayed, Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled.

Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: So, suddenly made wise, Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture....

Whither, O divine mistress, must I then follow thee?

Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death That the spirit blossometh, And words that may match my vision shall come to me?"

It is because of these simple short poems that I like Mr Brett-Young's work: in his more ambitious and longer poems like _Thamar_ he leaves me untouched. He cannot convey in words the mysterious mingled effect that the combined colour, music and movement of the Russian ballet produces on the mind.

Let him remain content with the soft, sweet simplicity of Prothalamion and we shall love him the more:

"When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool, The garden of black h.e.l.lebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we pa.s.sed in the twilight, for the wavering heat Of day had waned, and round that shaded plot Of secret beauty the thickets cl.u.s.tered sweet; Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies.

Veiled with soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove; No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love.

No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers.

For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers?

Was ever a moment meeter made for love?

Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this!"

III

THE POEMS OF IRIS TREE

Iris Tree is worth reading for her vivacity, her hatred of shams, her intellectual fireworks, her simple love of the beautiful, her youthful rebellion, her sense of colour, her harmony, her humour, but most of all for this:

"Many things I'd find to charm you, Books and scarves and silken socks, All the seven rainbow colours, Black and white with 'broidered clocks.

Then a stick of polished whalebone And a coat of tawny fur, And a row of gleaming bottles Filled with rose-water and myrrh.

Rarest brandy of the 'fifties, Old liqueurs in leather kegs, Golden Sauterne, copper sherry And a nest of plovers' eggs.

Toys of tortoise-sh.e.l.l and jasper, Little boxes cut in jade; Handkerchiefs of finest cambric, Damask cloths and dim brocade, Six musicians of the Magyar, Madness making harmony; And a bed austere and narrow With a quilt from Barbary.

You shall have a bath of amber, A Venetian looking-gla.s.s, And a crimson-chested parrot On a lawn of terraced gra.s.s.

Then a small Tanagra statue Found anew in ruins old, Or an azure plate from Persia, Or my hair in plaits of gold; Or my scalp that like an Indian You shall carry for a purse, Or my spilt blood in a goblet ...

Or a volume of my verse."