Part 1 (2/2)
His own strength as a poet suggests to the reader the idea of a spirited horse reined in tightly and persistently,--a horse which prances wildly at times and frets and foams at the bit, and might, on the least provocation, run wild in a furious and headlong career, sweeping all conventionalities out of its road by a sheer, straight-ahead gallop. Mr.
Mackay is, however, a careful, even precise rider, and he keeps a firm hand on his restless Pegasus--so firm that, as his taste always leads him to depict the most fanciful and fine emotions, his steady resoluteness of restraint commands not only our admiration but our respect. While pa.s.sionate to an extreme in the ”Love-Letters,” he is never indelicate; the coa.r.s.e, almost brutal, allusions made by some writers to certain phases of so-called love, which are best left unsuggested, never defile the pen of our present author, who may almost be called fastidious in such matters. How beautiful and all-sufficing to the mind is the line expressing the utter satisfaction of a victorious lover:--
”_Crowned with a kiss and sceptred with a joy!_”
No details are needed here--all is said. The ”Violinist,” though by turns regretful, sorrowful, and despairing, is supreme throughout. He speaks of the ”lady of his song” as
”The lady for whose sake I shall be strong, But never weak or diffident again.”
The supremacy of manhood is insisted on always; and the lover, though he entreats, implores, wonders and raves as all lovers do, never forgets his own dignity. He will take no second-best affection on his lady's part--this he plainly states in verse 19 of Letter V. Again, in the last letter of all, he a.s.serts his mastery--and this is as it should be; absolute authority, as he knows, is the way to win and to keep a woman's affections. Such lovely fancies as
”Phoebus loosens all his golden hair Right down the sky--and daisies turn and stare At things we see not with our human wit,”
and
”A tuneful noise Broke from the copse where late a breeze was slain, And nightingales in ecstacy of pain Did break their hearts with singing the old joys,”
abound all through the book. And here it is as well to mark the decision of our poet, even in trifles. The breeze he speaks of is not _hushed_, or _still_--none of the usual epithets are applied to it--it is ”_slain_,” as utterly and as pitifully as though it were a murdered child. This originality of conception is remarkable, and comes out in such lines as
”I will unpack my mind of all its fears”--
where the word ”_unpack_” is singularly appropriate, and again--
”O sweet To-morrow! Youngest of the sons Of old King Time, _to whom Creation runs_ As men to G.o.d_.”
”Where a daisy grows, There grows a joy!”
and beautiful and dainty to a high degree is the quaint ”Retrospect,”
where the lover enthusiastically draws the sun and moon into his ecstasies, and makes them seem to partake in his admiration of his lady's loveliness.
A graver and more philosophic turn of mind will be found in ”A Song of Servitude,” and ”A Rhapsody of Death;” but, judged from a critical standpoint, Eric Mackay is a purely pa.s.sionate poet, straying amongst the most voluptuous imaginings, and sometimes seeming to despise the joys of Heaven itself for the sake of love. Thus he lays himself open to an accusation of blasphemy from ultra-religious persons, yet it must be remembered that in this respect he in no way exceeds the emotions of Romeo, and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, or any of those lovers whose pa.s.sion has earned for their names an undying celebrity.
In closing the present notice we can but express a hope that this volume of Eric Mackay's poems may meet with the welcome it deserves from true lovers of Art; for Art includes Poetry; and Poetry, as properly defined is one of its grandest and most enduring forms.
G. D.
*** Some of the miscellaneous poems in this collection (including ”Beethoven at the Piano”) were published by the author a few years ago, under a pseudonym, now discarded.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PRELUDE Letter I]
LETTER I.
PRELUDE.
I.
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