Part 12
Till the rugged lines grow perfect, And round to a faultless whole; For the West will have found her singer When her singer has found his soul.
These are fine, swinging strophes, proclaiming the modern ideal from Whitman to Kipling that “the song that is fit for men” must have in it some robust timbre, some resonant fibre, unheard before; that a sturdier race of bards must arise, “sprung from the toilers at the bench and plough,”—that, in fine, the new America must have a more orotund voice to sing her needs.
This has a convincing plausibility on the face of it; but do the facts bear it out,—are virility and democracy and modernity the essential elements of the “song that is fit for men”? If so, then Whitman, who is the apogee of the elemental and democratic, or Kipling, whose tunes blare in one’s ears like the horns of a band, and whose themes are aggressively of the day and hour, would be the ideal types of the new-day poet, and we should find the sturdy laborer and the common folk in general coming to these sources for refreshment, inspiration, and aid in tracing their dreams; but, on the contrary, Whitman, by a frequent paradox of letters, is a poet for the most cultivated and deeply reflective minds. Only such can understand and embrace his universality, and, on the poetic side, enjoy his splendid diction and the wave-like sweep of his rhythms. His formlessness, which was reactive that he might come the nearer to the common heart, is one of the chief barriers that prevent this contact. The unlettered nature, more than all others, demands the ordered symmetry of rhythm as a focus and aid to thought; it demands elemental beauties as well as truths, and hence not only is Whitman ruled out by his own measure, but Kipling also, for again it needs the broadly cultivated mind to take at his true and at his relative value a poet like Kipling. The common mind might be familiar with some poem of occasion, the English laborer might be found singing “Tommy Atkins;” but Kipling’s finer shadings would escape in the beat of his galloping tunes and in the touch-and-go of his subjects.
If, then, Kipling, who outmoderns the moderns in singing what is presumably a song fit for men, and if Whitman, who is as robustly, democratically American as a poet can well be, and trumpeting ever that note,—if these poets do not reach the typical man, if they are not the ones to whom the stalwart laborer comes, or the busy man of affairs, there must be a need anterior to that of which they sing; song must spell something else besides virility, democracy, achievement. It evidently is not the men who _do_, not the men who _act_, that write “the song of fact” for the laborer and the great class of our strong, sincere, common folk. They do not want the song of fact more than do we; they have no other dream to trace than have we. They want the primal things,—love, hope, beauty, the transforming ideal; they want the carbon of their daily experience turned to the crystal; and for this they go to a poet like Burns, who spoke the universal tongue, who took the common ideals and touched them simply, tenderly, not strenuously, to a new form at the will of his fancy. You shall find the boatman or the woodsman knowing his Burns, often his Shakespeare, for he is quick to grasp the human element, or his Scott, for he loves romance, when the strident cry of a Kipling, or of a modern idealist singing of democracy, or of the newer needs of the laborer himself, will be wholly lost on him; and hence this note that one is meeting so often in the recent poets seems to me to be a false and superfluous one.
The “song that is fit for men” is _any_ song that has the essence of truth and beauty in it, and no other _is_ fit for men, no matter where sung. We have not evolved a new _genus homo_ by our conquest of arms; our democracy is not changing human nature; we need virility in song, as Mr. Knowles has said in the earlier poem quoted; we need that “cosmic stuff whence primitive feeling glows,” but we need beauty and spirituality to shape it. Poetry must minister first of all to the inner life. Tennyson and Browning were not concerned with matters of empire, or the passing issues of the day; they were occupied with the essential things,—things of humanity and of the soul, that shall outlast empire, democracy, or time. Heaven forefend that our bards shall spring from a race
Unkempt, athletic, rude, Rough as the prairies, tameless as the sea,
rather let them spring from the very ripest, richest-natured class of men and women, not servile to custom, but having the breadth of vision, the poise, the fine and harmonious development that flowers from the highest cultivation, whether in the schools or in life. It did not emasculate the work of Browning or Milton or Goethe, nor of our own Lowell, or many another, that he had the most profound enrichment that education and traditional culture could give him. Originality is not crushed by cultivation, nor will native impulse go far without it. The need is of a poet who shall divine the underlying harmonies of life, who shall stimulate and develop the higher nature, and disclose the alchemizing truth that shall transmute the gross ore of experience into the fine metal of character and spiritual beauty,—such a poet as Mr. Knowles himself may become when his idealism shall have taken on that inner sight of the mystic which now he shows so definitely in certain phases of his work.
He is readier in general to see life’s benign face than its malign one, even though shapen by pain and guilt; and this brings us to the group of poems from his new volume, _Love Triumphant_, turning upon Sin and Remorse, and presenting an element of human passion at once the most provocative of degradation and the most susceptible of spiritual elevation.
Whitman approached this theme from the cosmic standpoint as he would approach any of the universalities of life, not specifically from the spiritual side, in its destiny-shaping effects. It is from this side that Mr. Knowles essays its consideration, presenting chiefly the reactive, retributive phase of guilt,—the sudden spiritual isolation of the soul that has sinned, as if the golden doors that opened on the world had transformed to iron bars imprisoning the soul within its cell of memory. This sense of detachment, of having unwittingly plucked oneself from the flowering beauty of life, of being irrevocably cut off from sap and stem, which is the first and most palpable phase of guilt, predominates in several of the poems. To consider it first, then, the stanzas called “Lost” may be cited as illustrative:
Night scattered gold-dust in the eyes of Earth, My heart was blinded by the excess of stars As, filled with youth and joy, I kept the Way.
The solitary and unweaponed Sun Slew all the hosts of darkness with a smile, And it was Dawn. And still I kept the Way.
The winds, those hounds that only God can leash, Bayed on my track, and made the morning wild With loud confusion, but I kept the Way.
The hours climbed high. Peace, where the zenith broods, Fell, a blue feather from the wings of Heav’n. Lo! it was Noon. And still I kept the Way.
At length one met me as my footsteps flagged,— Within her eyes oblivion, on her lips Delirious dreams—and I forgot the Way.
And still we wander—who knows whitherward, Our sandals torn, in either face despair, Passion burnt out—God! I have lost the Way!
Here is strong and vivid imagery, especially in the third stanza,
The winds, those hounds that only God can leash,
which is a bold and fine stroke not merely in its metaphorical phrasing, but as a symbol of human passions. The entire poem is a vivid piece of symbolism; it is, however, but one phase of the subject, and in “One Woman” and “Sin’s Foliage” one comes again face to face with the same phase, with that terrible memory-haunted eidolon, the visage of one’s own defaced soul. It is in the poem “Betrayed” that a truer perspective begins to be manifest, of which one stanza—
Yet were his hands and conscience clean; Some monstrous Folly rose unseen To teach him crimes he could not mean—
introduces a truth that strikes deeper than the mere spell of impulse,—a truth that suggests the mystery of election in crime: whether one is wholly responsible for the choice which in a moment becomes the pivotal event of his destiny, or whether what Maeterlinck has called the “conniving voices that we cherish at the depths of us” summoned the event, and impelled him inevitably toward its hazard; and, further, whether these voices are not often the commissioned voices, calling one thus to arouse from the somnolence of his soul. On the morrow of the hour in which he has
… fallen from Heav’n to Hell In one mad moment’s fateful spell,
and finds himself in the isolation of his own spirit,—consciousness will awaken, life will be perceived, sympathy will be born, and Pain, with the daily transfiguring face, will companion him, until in the years he again meet Love and the other fair shapes of his destiny. Since no one remains in the hell to which he has fallen, but by his own choosing, Life rebukes the Art that leaves this sense of finality; for the hour of tragedy is rather the beginning than the end, and often so manifestly the birth of the soul into spiritual consciousness that it may well seem that apparent sin is the mere agency of the higher forces of the nature, the shock that displaces ignorance and smug self-complacency and both humanizes and deifies the soul.
In other poems of the group, however, the developing power of sin, and the remedial forces which it evokes for the renewal of the nature, are dwelt upon, so that the poems are redeemed at the last from the impression of hopeless finality which obtained in the earlier ones.
Few of the younger poets have a more vital and personal conviction of spiritual things than Mr. Knowles, and its evolution is interesting to note. There is abundant evidence in his earlier verse that he was bred after the strictest letter of the law; but while his faith was “fixed to form,” it was seeking “centre everywhere,” and the later volume widens to an encompassing view worthy the vision of a poet,—the view that finds nothing impervious to the irradiation of spirit. It is variously sung, but most nobly, perhaps, in the following poem:
In buds upon some Aaron’s rod The childlike ancient saw his God; Less credulous, more believing, we Read in the grass—Divinity.
From Horeb’s bush the Presence spoke To earlier faiths and simpler folk; But now each bush that sweeps our fence Flames with the awful Immanence!
To old Zacchæus in his tree What mattered leaves and botany? His sycamore was but a seat Whence he could watch that hallowed street.
But now to us each elm and pine Is vibrant with the Voice divine, Not only from but in the bough Our larger creed beholds Him now.
To the true faith, bark, sap and stem Are wonderful as Bethlehem; No hill nor brook nor field nor herd But mangers the incarnate Word!
* * * * *
Again we touch the healing hem In Nazareth or Jerusalem; We trace again those faultless years; The cross commands our wondering tears.
Yet if to us the Spirit writes On Morning’s manuscript and Night’s, In gospels of the growing grain, Epistles of the pond and plain,
In stars, in atoms, as they roll Each tireless round its occult pole, In wing and worm and fin and fleece, In the wise soil’s surpassing peace,—
Thrice ingrate he whose only look Is backward focused on the Book, Neglectful what the Presence saith, Though He be near as blood and breath!
The only atheist is one Who hears no voice in wind or sun, Believer in some primal curse, Deaf in God’s loving universe!
Mr. Knowles has not embraced the diffusive faith that has no faith to stay it, but is endeavoring to read the newer meaning into the older truths, which is the present-day office of singer and seer. In the matter of personal valor, of optimistic, intrepid mood, Mr. Knowles’ work is altogether commendable. He awaits with buoyant cheer what lies beyond the turn o’ the road. His poem “Fear,” from the first collection, was widely quoted at the time because of its heartening tone, and in his new volume, “A Challenge,” “A Twofold Prayer,” and many another sounds the same invincible note. “Laus Mortis” is a hymn to death holding within it the truer acceptation of that natural and therefore kindly change:
Nay, why should I fear Death, Who gives us life, and in exchange takes breath?
He is like cordial Spring That lifts above the soil each buried thing;
Like autumn, kind and brief— The frost that chills the branches frees the leaf;
Like winter’s stormy hours That spread their fleece of snow to save the flowers.
The lordliest of all things, Life lends us only feet, Death gives us wings.
Fearing no covert thrust, Let me walk onward, armed in valiant trust;
Dreading no unseen knife, Across Death’s threshold step from life to life!
O all ye frightened folk, Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke,
Laid in one equal bed, When once your coverlet of grass is spread,
What daybreak need you fear?— The Love will rule you there that guides you here!
Where Life, the sower, stands, Scattering the ages from his swinging hands,
Thou waitest, Reaper lone, Until the multitudinous grain hath grown.
Scythe-bearer, when Thy blade Harvests my flesh, let me be unafraid.
God’s husbandman thou art, In His unwithering sheaves, O bind my heart!
Mr. Knowles’ work is virile, earnest, individual, free from affectation or imitation; modern in spirit, recognizing the significance of to-day, and its part in the finer realization of to-morrow; sympathetic in feeling, and spiritual in vision. Its limitations are such as may be trusted to time, being chiefly incident to the earnestness noted above, which now and again borders on didacticism. Excess of conviction is, however, a safer equipment for art than a philosophy already parting with its enthusiasms by the tempering of life, being more likely to undergo the shaping of experience without losing the vital part.
XII
ALICE BROWN
MISS ALICE BROWN has published but one volume of verse; but we live in feelings, not in titles on a cover, and it is possible to prove oneself a poet in one volume of verse, or in one poem thereof. When Miss Brown some years ago paid this tribute at the toll-gate of song by a small volume entitled _The Road to Castaly_, it created no inconsiderable comment among lovers of poetry, and there were not wanting those who saw in it as definite gifts as Miss Brown possesses in fiction; but despite the generous recognition which the collection won, she has not seen fit to follow it with others, and with the exception of occasional poems in the magazines, it remains the sole representation of this phase of her work. Yet within a range of seventy pages she has gathered a stronger group of poems than might be winnowed from several collections of some of those who cultivate verse more assiduously. Nor is this to declare that from cover to cover of her volume the inspired touch is everywhere manifest; doubtless the seventy pages would have gained in strength by compression to fifty. It is, however, to declare that within this compass there is a true accomplishment, at which we shall look briefly.
First, then, the work has personality and magnetism, bringing one at once into sympathetic interchange with the writer. The feeling is not insulated by the art, but is imbued with all the warmth of speech; there are no “wires” but the live wires of vibrant words, conducting their current of impulse directly to the reader. One feels that Miss Brown has written verse not as a pleasant diversion, nor yet with painful self-scrutiny, but only when her nature demanded this form of expression, and hence the motive shapes the mechanism, rather than the reverse.
Miss Brown’s poems are not primarily philosophical, not ethical to the degree of being moralistic; but they have a subtly pervasive spirituality, and in certain lyrics, such as “Hora Christi,” a rare depth of religious emotion. They are records of moods: of the soul, of passing life, of the psychic side of death, of the mutability of love, of ecstatic surrender to nature, of loyalty to service,—in short, they are poems of the intuitions and sympathies, and warm with personality. Perhaps the most buoyant note in the book is that in celebration of the joys of escape from town to country; from the thrall of paving-stones and chimney-pots to the indesecrate seclusion of the pines, where the springy pile of the woodland carpet gives forth a pungent odor to the tread; and where, in Miss Brown’s delicate phrase,
the ferns waver, wakened by no wind Save the green flickering of their blossomy mind.
To read Miss Brown’s “Morning in Camp” is to take a vacation without stirring from one’s armchair,—a vacation by a mountain lake engirt with pine forests, with one’s tent pitched below the “spice-budded” firs and “shimmering birches,” guarded by
… the mountain wall Where the first potencies of dawning fall,
and within sight of the shore where
… the water laps the land, Encircling her with charm of silvery sand;
and where one may lie at dawn in his “tent’s white solitude,” conscious of
… the rapt ecstatic birth Renewed without: the mirrored sky and earth, Married in beauty, consonant in speech, And uttering bliss responsive each to each.
Miss Brown’s rapt poems in celebration of nature range from the impassioned dignity of her stanzas picturing a “Sunrise on Mansfield Mountain” to fancies so delicate that they seem to be caught in gossamer meshes of song. The poems are somewhat inadaptable to quotation, as several of the best, such as “Wood-Longing,” “Pan,” and “Escape,” are written in stanzas whose exuberant impulse carries them so far that they may not be excised midway without destroying a climax. Upon a first reading of some of these periods they give one an impression of being over-sustained; but the imagery is clear, and upon a second reading one is likely to catch the infection of the lines and be borne on with them to the reversal of his first judgment. “Wood-Longing” thrills with the passion of
… the earth When all the ecstasy of myriad birth Afflicts her with a rapturous shuddering,
and celebrating escape from the thraldom of books, it demands of the soul:
Spirit, what wilt thou dare, Just to be one with earth and air? To read the writing on the river bed, And trace God’s mystical mosaic overhead?
* * * * *
O incommunicable speech! For he who reads a book may preach A hundred sermons from its foolish rote And rhyme reiterant on one dull note. But he who spends an hour within the wood Hath fed on fairy food; And who hath eaten of the forest fruit Is ever mute. Nothing may he reveal. Nature hath set her seal Of honor on anointed lips; And one who daring dips His cup within her potent brew Hath drunk of silence too. What doth the robin say, And what the martial jay? Who’ll swear the bluebird’s lilt is all of love, Or who translate the desolation of the dove? For even in the common speech Of feathered fellows, each to each, Abideth still the primal mystery, The brooding past, the germ of life to be; And one poor weed, upspringing to the sun, Breeds all creation’s wonder, new begun.
“Sunrise on Mansfield Mountain,” written in fine resonant pentameter, and building up stanza by stanza to the supreme climax of the dawn, is, as noted above, one of the finest achievements of Miss Brown’s volume, but one that will least bear the severing of its passages from their place in the growing whole. It is full of notable phrases, as that in the apostrophe,—
O changeless guardians! O ye wizard firs!
* * * * *
What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite To odorous hot lendings of the heart?—
wherein the very pungency of the pine is infused into the words. But more adaptable to quotation in its compactness is the lyric entitled “Candlemas,” captivating in form and spontaneity, though no more felicitous in fancy or rhythm than many other of her nature poems:
O hearken, all ye little weeds That lie beneath the snow, (So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!) The sun hath risen for royal deeds, A valiant wind the vanguard leads; Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds Before ye rise and blow.
O furry living things, adream On winter’s drowsy breast, (How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!) Arise and follow where a gleam Of wizard gold unbinds the stream, And all the woodland windings seem With sweet expectance blest.
My birds, come back! the hollow sky Is weary for your note. (Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!) Ere May’s soft minions hereward fly, Shame on ye, laggards, to deny The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye, The tawny, shining coat!
Mr. Archer, in his _Poets of the Younger Generation_, quotes this poem as the gem of Miss Brown’s collection; and it certainly is a charming lyric, but not more so to my thinking than several of an entirely different nature, which will also in time’s trial by fire remain the true coin. It needs a somewhat broader and deeper term, however, than “charming” to qualify such poems as “Hora Christi,” “On Pilgrimage,” “Seaward Bound,” “The Return,” “The Message,” “The Slanderer,” “Lethe,” and “In Extremis,” in which life speaks a word charged with more vital significance. “On Pilgrimage” (A. D. 1250) reveals an art that is above praise. With only the simplest words Miss Brown has infused into this poem the very essence of pain, of numb, bewildered hopelessness. One feels it as a palpable atmosphere:
My love hath turned her to another mate. (O grief too strange for tears!) So must I make the barren earth my home; So do I still on feeble questing roam, An outcast from mine own unfriending gate, Through the wan years.
My love hath rid her of my patient heart. (Wake not, O frozen breast!) Yet still there’s one to pour her oil and wine, And all life’s banquet counteth most divine. O Thou, Who also hadst in joy no part, Give me Thy rest!
What strength have I to cleanse Thy stolen tomb, For Christendom’s release? Naked, at last, of hope and trust am I, Too weak to sue for human charity. A beggar to Thy holy shrine I come. Grant me but peace!
And now in contrast with these exquisitely pathetic lines, to show that the tragic side of life is not alone interpreted in Miss Brown’s verse, and that she sees the temperamental contrasts of passion, witness the cavalier parting of this “West-Country Lover,” to whom the light o’ love is too fatuous a gleam to risk one’s way in following. The dash and spirit of these lines are worthy a seventeenth-century gallant:
Then, lady, at last thou art sick of my sighing. Good-bye! So long as I sue, thou wilt still be denying? Good-bye! Ah, well! shall I vow then to serve thee forever, And swear no unkindness our kinship can sever? Nay, nay, dear my lass! here’s an end of endeavor. Good-bye!
Yet let no sweet ruth for my misery grieve thee. Good-bye! The man who has loved knows as well how to leave thee. Good-bye! The gorse is enkindled, there’s bloom on the heather, And love is my joy, but so too is fair weather; I still ride abroad, though we ride not together. Good-bye!
My horse is my mate; let the wind be my master. Good-bye! Though Care may pursue, yet my hound follows faster. Good-bye! The red deer’s a-tremble in coverts unbroken. He hears the hoof-thunder; he scents the death-token. Shall I mope at home, under vows never spoken? Good-bye!