Part 9 (1/2)
Here, for instance, is a puzzling case to be tried _in foro conscientiae_.
In the first edition of 'Goblin Market,' published in 1862, appeared three poems of more breadth of treatment than any of the others: 'Cousin Kate,' a ballad, 'Sister Maude,' a ballad, and 'A Triad,' a sonnet. In subsequent issues of the book these were all omitted. Mr. W. M.
Rossetti, speaking of 'Sister Maude,' says: ”I presume that my sister, with overstrained scrupulosity, considered its moral tone to be somewhat open to exception. In such a view I by no means agree, and I therefore reproduce it.” If Christina's objection was valid when she raised it, it is, of course, valid now, when the beloved poet is in the ”country beyond Orion,” and knows what sanctions are of man's imagining, and what sanctions are more eternal than the movements of the stars.
The question here is, What were Christina Rossetti's wishes? not whether her brother ”agrees” with them. Hence, if it were not certain that some one would soon have restored them, would Mr. W. M. Rossetti have hesitated before doing so? For they are among the most powerful things Christina Rossetti ever wrote, and it was a subject of deep regret to her friends that she suppressed them. Yet she withdrew them from conscientious motives. In 'Sister Maude' she showed how great was her power in the most difficult of all forms of poetic art-the romantic ballad. Splendid as are Gabriel Rossetti's 'Sister Helen' and 'Rose Mary,' the literary _aura_ surrounding them prevents them from seeming-as the best of the Border ballads seem-Nature's very voice muttering in her dreams of the pathos and the mystery of the human story. It was not, perhaps, given even to Rossetti to get very near to that supreme old poet (not forgotten, because never known) who wrote ”May Margaret's” appeal to the ghost of her lover Clerk Saunders:-
Is there ony room at your head, Saunders?
Is there ony room at your feet?
Is there ony room at your side, Saunders, Where fain, fain I wad sleep?
where the very imperfections of the rhymes seem somehow to add to the pathos and the mystery of the chant. But if, indeed, it has been given to any modern poet to get into this atmosphere, it has been given to Christina Rossetti. And so with the ballad of simple human pa.s.sion no modern writer has quite done what Christina Rossetti has done in one of the poems here restored:-
SISTER MAUDE.
Who told my mother of my shame, Who told my father of my dear?
Oh who but Maude, my sister Maude, Who lurked to spy and peer.
Cold he lies, as cold as stone, With his clotted curls about his face: The comeliest corpse in all the world, And worthy of a queen's embrace.
You might have spared his soul, sister, Have spared my soul, your own soul too: Though I had not been born at all, He'd never have looked at you.
My father may sleep in Paradise, My mother at Heaven-gate: But sister Maude shall get no sleep Either early or late.
My father may wear a golden gown, My mother a crown may win; If my dear and I knocked at Heaven-gate Perhaps they'd let us in: But sister Maude, O sister Maude, Bide _you_ with death and sin.
But it is for the personal poems that this volume will be prized most dearly by certain readers.
Mr. W. M. Rossetti speaks of ”the very wide and exceedingly strong outburst of eulogy” of his sister which appeared in the public press after her death. Yet that outburst was far from giving adequate expression to what was felt by some of her readers-those between whom and herself there was a bond of sympathy so sacred and so deep as to be something like a religion. It is not merely that she was the acknowledged queen in that world (outside the arena called ”the literary world”) where poetry is ”its own exceeding great reward,” but to other readers of a different kind altogether-readers who, drawing the deepest delight from such poetry as specially appeals to them, never read any other, and have but small knowledge of poetry as a fine art-her verse was, perhaps, more precious still. They feel that at every page of her writing the beautiful poetry is only the outcome of a life whose almost unexampled beauty fascinates them.
Although Christina Rossetti had more of what is called the unconsciousness of poetic inspiration than any other poet of her time, the writing of poetry was not by any means the chief business of her life. She was too thorough a poet for that. No one felt so deeply as she that poetic art is only at the best the imperfect body in which dwells the poetic soul. No one felt so deeply as she that as the notes of the nightingale are but the involuntary expression of the bird's emotion, and, again, as the perfume of the violet is but the flower's natural breath, so it is and must be with the song of the very poet, and that, therefore, to write beautifully is in a deep and true sense to live beautifully. In the volume before us, as in all her previously published writings, we see at its best what Christianity is as the motive power of poetry. The Christian idea is essentially feminine, and of this feminine quality Christina Rossetti's poetry is full.
In motive power the difference between cla.s.sic and Christian poetry must needs be very great. But whatever may be said in favour of one as against the other, this at least cannot be controverted, that the history of literature shows no human development so beautiful as the ideal Christian woman of our own day. She is unique, indeed. Men of science tell us that among all the fossilized plants we find none of the lovely family of the rose, and in the same way we should search in vain through the entire human record for anything so beautiful as that kind of Christian lady to whom self-abnegation is not only the first of duties, but the first of joys. Yet, no doubt, the Christian idea must needs be more or less flavoured by each personality through which it is expressed.
With regard to Christina Rossetti, while upon herself Christian dogma imposed infinite obligations-obligations which could never be evaded by her without the risk of all the penalties fulminated by all believers-there was in the order of things a sort of ether of universal charity for all others. She would lament, of course, the lapses of every soul, but for these there was a forgiveness which her own lapses could never claim. There was, to be sure, a sweet egotism in this. It was very fascinating, however. This feeling explains what seems somewhat to puzzle the editor, especially in the poem called 'The End of the First Part,' written April 18th, 1849, of which he says, ”'Tears for guilt' is in reference to Christina a very exaggerated phrase”:-
THE END OF THE FIRST PART.
My happy dream is finished with, My dream in which alone I lived so long.
My heart slept-woe is me, it wakeneth; Was weak-I thought it strong.
Oh, weary wakening from a life-true dream!
Oh pleasant dream from which I wake in pain!
I rested all my trust on things that seem, And all my trust is vain.
I must pull down my palace that I built, Dig up the pleasure-gardens of my soul; Must change my laughter to sad tears for guilt, My freedom to control.