Part 6 (1/2)
When Harry played at tennis it was well for this our Isle-- He c.o.c.ked his nose at Interdicts; he 'stablished us the while-- He was l.u.s.tful; he was vengeful; he was hot and hard and proud; But he set his England fairly in the sight of all the crowd.
So Harry played at tennis, and we perfected the game Which astonished swaggering Spaniards when the fat Armada came.
And possession did he give us of our souls in st.u.r.diness; And he gave us peace from priesthood: and he gave us English Bess!
When Harry played at tennis we began to know this thing-- That a mighty people prospers in a mighty-minded king.
We boasted not our righteousness--we took on us our sin, For Bluff Hal was just an Englishman who played the game to win.
You will perceive that in the third stanza the word 'soul' occurs: and I invite you to compare this author's idea of a soul with Mr.
Trench's. This author will have nothing to do with the old advice about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before G.o.d.
The old notion that to conquer self is a higher feat than to take a city he dismisses out of hand. ”Be l.u.s.tful be vengeful,” says he, ”but play the game to win, and you have my applause. Get what you want, set England fairly in sight of the crowd, and you are a mighty-minded man.” Now the first and last comment upon such a doctrine must be that, if a G.o.d exist, it is false. It sets up a part to override the whole: it flaunts a local success against the austere majesty of Divine law. In brief, it foolishly derides the universal, saying that it chooses to consider the particular as more important. But it is not. Poetry's concern is with the universal: and what makes the Celts (however much you may dislike them) the most considerable force in English poetry at this moment is that they occupy themselves with that universal truth, which, before any technical accomplishment, is the guarantee of good poetry.
Now, when you tell yourself that the days of 'English Bess' were jolly fine empire-making days, and produced great poets (Shakespeare, for example) worthy of them; and when you go on to reflect that these also are jolly fine empire-making days, but that somehow Mr. Austin is your laureate, and that the only poetry which counts is being written by men out of harmony with your present empire-making mood, the easiest plan (if you happen to think the difference worth considering) will be to call the Muse a traitress, and declare that every poem better than Mr. Austin's is a vote given to--whatever nation your Yellow Press happens to be insulting at this moment.
But, if you care to look a little deeper, you may find that some difference in your methods of empire-making is partly accountable for the change. A true poet must cling to universal truth; and by insulting it (as, for example, by importing into present-day politics the spirit which would excuse the iniquities of Henry VIII. on the ground that 'he gave us English Bess'!) you are driving the true poet out of your midst. Read over the verses above quoted, and then repeat to yourself, slowly, these lines:--
”Last, if upon the cold, green-mantling sea Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar, Both castaway, And one must perish--let it not be he Whom thou art sworn to obey.”
I ask no more. If a man cannot see the difference at once, I almost despair of making him perceive why poetry refuses just now even more obstinately than trade (if that be possible) to 'follow the flag.'
It will not follow, because you are waving the flag over self-deception. You may be as blithe as Plato in casting out the poets from your commonwealth--though for other reasons than his.
You may be as blithe as Dogberry in determining, of reading and writing, that they may appear when there is no need of such vanity.
But you are certainly driving them forth to say, in place of ”O beloved city of Cecrops!” ”O beloved city of G.o.d!” There was a time, not many years ago, when an honest poet could have used both cries together and deemed that he meant the same thing by the two.
But the two cries to-day have an utterly different meaning--and by your compulsion or by the compulsion of such politics as you have come to tolerate.
And therefore the young poet whom I have quoted has joined the band of those poets whom we are forcing out of the city, to leave our ideals to the fate which, since the world began, has overtaken all ideals which could not get themselves 'accepted by song.' Even as we drum these poets out we know that they are the only ones worth reckoning with, and that man cannot support himself upon a.s.surances that he is the strongest fellow in the world, and the richest, and owns the biggest house, and pays the biggest rates, and wins whatever game he plays at, and stands so high in his clothes that while the Southern Cross rises over his hat-brim it is already broad day on the seat of his breeches. For that is what it all comes to: and the sentence upon the man who neglects the warning of these poets, while he heaps up great possessions, is still, ”Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” And where is the national soul you would choose, at that hasty summons, to present for inspection, having to stand your trial upon it? Try Park Lane, or run and knock up the Laureate, and then come and report your success!
Weeks ago I was greatly reproached by a correspondent for misusing the word 'Celtic,' and informed that to call Mr. Yeats or Mr. Trench a Celt is a grave abuse of ethnical terms; that a notable percentage of the names connected with the 'Celtic Revival'--Hyde, Sigerson, Atkinson, Stokes--are not Celtic at all but Teutonic; that, in short, I have been following the mult.i.tude to speak loosely. Well, I confess it, and I will confess further that the lax use of the word 'Celt' ill beseems one who has been irritated often enough by the attempts of well-meaning but muddle-headed people who get hold of this or that poet and straightly a.s.sign this or that quality of his verse to a certain set of corpuscles in his mixed blood. Although I believe that my correspondent is too hasty in labelling men's descent from their names--for the mother has usually some share in producing a child; although I believe that Mr. Yeats, for instance, inherits Cornish blood on one side, even if Irish be denied him on the other; yet the rebuke contains some justice.
Still, I must maintain that these well-meaning theorists err only in applying a broad distinction with overmuch nicety. There is, after all, a certain quality in a poem of Blake's, or a prose pa.s.sage of Charlotte Bronte's, which a critic is not only unable to ignore, but which--if he has any 'comparative' sense--he finds himself accounting for by saying, ”This man, or this woman, must be a Celt or have some admixture of Celtic blood.” I say quite confidently that quality cannot be ignored. You open (let us say) a volume of Blake, and your eye falls on these two lines--
”When the stars threw down their spears And watered heaven with their tears,”
And at once you are aware of an imagination different in kind from the imagination you would recognise as English. Let us, if you please, rule out all debate of superiority; let us take Shakespeare for comparison, and Shakespeare at his best:--
”These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”
Finer poetry than this I can hardly find in English to quote for you.
But fine as it is, will you not observe the matter-of-factness (call it healthy, if you will, and I shall not gainsay you) beneath Shakespeare's n.o.ble language? It says divinely what it has to say; and what it has to say is full of solemn thought. But, for better or worse (or, rather, without question of better or worse), Blake's imagination is moving on a different plane. We may think it an uncomfortably superhuman plane; but let us note the difference, and note further that this plane was habitual with Blake. Now because of his immense powers we are accustomed to think of Shakespeare as almost superhuman: we pay that tribute to his genius, his strength, and the enormous impression they produce on us. But a single couplet of Blake's will carry more of this uncanny superhuman imagination than the whole five acts of _Hamlet_. So great is Shakespeare, that he tempts us to think him capable of any flight of wing; but set down a line or two of Blake's--
”A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage . . .
A skylark wounded on the wing Doth make a cherub cease to sing.”
--And, simple as the thought is, at once you feel it to lie outside the range of Shakespeare's philosophy. Shakespeare's men are fine, brave, companionable fellows, full of pa.s.sionate love, jealousy, ambition; of humour, gravity, strength of mind; of laughter and rage, of the joy and stress of living. But self-sacrifice scarcely enters into their notion of the scheme of things, and they are by no means men to go to death for an idea. We remember what figure Shakespeare made of Sir John Oldcastle, and I wish we could forget what figure he made of Joan of Arc. Within the bounds of his philosophy--the philosophy, gloriously stated, of ordinary brave, full-blooded men-- he is a great encourager of virtue; and so such lines as--
”The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is l.u.s.t in action . . .”
Are thoroughly Shakespearean, while such lines as--
”A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage . . .”