Part 11 (1/2)

O why not speak?--is it so great a thing To cross death's stream and whisper in the ear Of us weak mortals some faint hope or cheer?

Or tell us, dead ones, if the hopes that spring From joyous hours when all seems bright and clear Have any truth. O speak, ye dead, and say If that in hope of dying, live we may.

(_aetat_. 15.)

A metrical essay of which I am more proud is a poem written at the end of 1874, or possibly at the beginning of 1875. With a daring which now seems to me incredible I undertook to write in that most difficult of measures, the Spenserian stanza. The matter of the composition is by no means memorable, but I think I have a right to congratulate myself upon the fact that I was able at that age to manage the triple rhymes and the twelve-syllable line at the end of each stanza without coming a complete cropper. I could not do it now, even if my life depended on it.

TO THE POWERS OF SONG

I

Spirit, whose harmony doth fill the mind, Deign now to hear the wailing of a song That lifts to thee its voice, and strives to find Aught that may raise it from the servile throng Who seek on earth but living to prolong.

For them no G.o.ddess, no fair poets reign, They hear no singing, as the earth along They move to their dull tasks; they live, they wane, They die, and dying, not a thought of thee retain.

II

Thou art the Muse of whom the Grecian knew, The power that reigneth in each loving heart; From thee the sages their great teachings drew.

Thou mak'st life tuneful by the poet's art.

Without thy aid the love-G.o.d's fiery dart Wakes but a savage and a blind desire, Where nought of beauty e'er can claim a part.

Without thee, all to which frail men aspire Has nothing good, is but of this poor earth, no higher.

III

Unhappy they who wander without light, And know thee not, thou G.o.ddess of sweet life; Cursed are they all that live not in thy sight, Cursed by themselves they cannot drown the strife In thee, of pa.s.sion, of the ills so rife On earth; they have no star, no hope, no love, To guide them in the stormy ways of life; They are but as the beasts who slowly move On the world's face, nor care to look for light above.

IV

I am not as these men; I look for light, But none appears, no rays for me are flung.

I would not be with those that sit in night; I fain would be that glorious host among, That band of poets who have greatly sung.

But woe, alas, I cannot, I no power Of singing have, all my tired heart is wrung To think I might have known a happier hour, And sung myself, not let my aching spirit cower.

(_aetat_. 14.)

A bad poem, though interesting from the number of poets mentioned, is a satiric effort ent.i.tled _The Examination_. It supposes that all the living poets have been summoned by Apollo to undergo a compet.i.tive examination. The bards, summoned by postcards, which had just then been introduced, repair to Parna.s.sus and are shown to the Hall. Rossetti and Morris, however, make a fuss because the paper is not to their taste.

Walt Whitman, already a great favourite of mine, ”though spurning a jingle,” is hailed as ”the singer of songs for all time.” Proteus (Wilfrid Blount) is mentioned, for my cult for him was already growing.

Among other poets who appear, but who have since died to fame, are Lord Lytton, Lord Southesk, Lord Lome, Mrs. Singleton, and Martin Tupper. In the end Apollo becomes ”fed up” with his versifiers, and dismisses them all with the intimation that any who have pa.s.sed will receive printed cards. The curtain is rung down with the gloomy couplet:

Six months have elapsed, but no poet or bard, So far as I know, has yet got a card

Another set of verses, written between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, which are worth recalling from the point of view of metre include some English hexameters. I was inspired to write them by an intense admiration of Clough's _Amours de Voyage_, an admiration which grows greater, not lesser, with years.

As I have started upon the subject of verse, I think I had better pursue the course of the stream until, as the old geographers used to say about the Rhine, its waters were lost in the sands, in my case not of Holland but of Prose.

From 1877 to the time when I actually entered Balliol, at eighteen and a half, I went on writing verse, and was fortunate enough to get one or two pieces published. Besides two sonnets which were accepted by _The Spectator_--sonnets whose only _raison d'etre_ was a certain competence of expression--was a poem ent.i.tled _Love's Arrows_, which was accepted, to my great delight, by Sir George Grove, then the Editor of _Macmillan's Magazine_, a periodical given up to _belles-lettres_. The poem may be best described as in the Burne Jones manner. I shall not, however, quote any part of it, except the prose introduction, which I still regard with a certain enthusiasm as a successful fake. It ran as follows:

At a league's distance from the town of Ponteille in Provence and hard by the shrine of Our Lady of Marten, there is in the midst of verdant meadows a little pool, overshadowed on all sides by branching oak-trees, and surrounded at the water's edge by a green sward so fruitful that in spring it seemeth, for the abundance of white lilies, as covered with half-melted snow. Unto this fair place a damsel from out a near village once came to gather white flowers for the decking of Our Lady's chapel; and while so doing saw lying in the gra.s.s a naked boy; in his hair were tangled blue waterflowers, and at his side lay a bow and marvellously wrought quivers of two arrows, one tipped at the point with gold, the other with lead. These the damsel, taking up the quiver, drew out; but as she did so the gold arrow did p.r.i.c.k her finger, and so sorely that, starting at the pain, she let fall the leaden one upon the sleeping boy.

He at the touch of that arrow sprang up, and crying against her with much loathing, fled over the meadows. She followed him to overtake him, but could not, albeit she strove greatly; and soon, wearied with her running, fell upon the gra.s.s in a swoon. Here had she lain, had not a goatherd of those parts found her and brought her to the village. Thus was much woe wrought unto the damsel, for after this she never again knew any joy, nor delighted in aught, save only it were to sit waiting and watching among the lilies by the pool. By these things it seemeth that the boy was not mortal, as she supposed, but rather the Demon or Spirit of Love, whom John of Dreux for his two arrows holdeth to be that same Eros of Greece.--MSS. _Mus. Aix. B._ 754. Needless to say, it was a pure invention and not a copy, or travesty of an old model. I was egregiously proud of the scription at the end which, if I remember rightly, my father helped me to concoct. A certain interest has always attached in my mind to this piece of prose. To read it one would imagine that the author had closely studied the translations of Morris and other Tenderers of the French romances, but as far as I know I had not read any of them. The sole inspiration of my forgery were a few short references in Rossetti and Swinburne. This shows that in the case of literary forgeries one need not be surprised by verisimilitudes, and that it is never safe to say that a literary forger could not have done this or that. If he happens to have a certain flair for language and the tricks of the literary trade, he can do a wonderful amount of forgery upon a very small stock of knowledge. After all, George Byron forged Sonnets by Keats which took in Lord Houghton--a very good judge in the case of Keats.