{"id":2506,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2506"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:04","slug":"36-comments-on-some-examples-of-western-poetry-up-to-1900-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/27-letters-on-poetry-and-art\/36-comments-on-some-examples-of-western-poetry-up-to-1900-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-36_Comments on Some Examples of Western Poetry (up to 1900).htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nComments on Some Examples <\/p>\n

\nof Western Poetry <\/p>\n

\n(up to 1900)<\/font> <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n


\nCatullus <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide, <\/p>\n

agit praecipitem in meos iambos? <\/p>\n

quis deus tibi non bene advocatus <\/p>\n

vecordem parat excitare rixam? <\/p>\n

an ut pervenias in ora vulgi? <\/p>\n

quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas? <\/p>\n

eris, quandoquidem meos amores <\/p>\n

cum longa voluisti amare poena. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unless meos amores <\/i>is purposely vague, at least two objects of Catullus’s affections must be in question? Would you say
\nthat this piece is in a vein of good-humoured banter? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI do not think meos amores
\n<\/i>necessarily alludes to more than
\none love affair. I think it is more than good-humoured banter; there seems to me to be a note of careless scorn in it, but no
\nserious anger. I suppose with Catullus one cannot take either his self-depreciation or his self-assertion as a poet very seriously
\n― like most poets of his power he must have been aware of his genius, but expressed it half humourously as one would expect
\nfrom a well-bred man of the world. I don’t know either about his scurrilous attacks
\n―literary invective perhaps, but is there
\nnot a little more to it than that? He puts the lash with something more than a whimsical violence in many places
\n―the verses he
\nwrote after the rupture leave a terrible mark. <\/p>\n

11 January 1937
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-387<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Disertissime Romuli nepotum, <\/p>\n

quot sunt quotque fuere, Marce Tulli, <\/p>\n

quotque post aliis erunt in annis, <\/p>\n

gratias tibi maximas Catullus <\/p>\n

agit pessimus omnium poeta, <\/p>\n

tanto pessimus omnium poeta, <\/p>\n

quanto tu optimus omnium patronus. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Would you not say that Catullus was bound to have looked
\nupon Cicero the man as a pompous ass, however sincerely he may have admired Cicero the man of letters? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI am not sure how his contemporaries regarded Cicero ―were they not hypnotised by his eloquence, scholarship, literary versatility, conversational and epistolatory powers, overflowing vitality? One would think that men like Catullus and Caesar would
\nsee through him, though. There is certainly a note that sounds very like irony in the last three lines, but it is very subtle and
\nothers than Cicero may have regarded it as a graceful eulogy enhanced by the assumption of extreme humility (though only
\na courteous assumption) in the comparison between the poeta<\/i> and the patronus<\/i>. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nVirgil, Shakespeare, Hugo <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think what Belloc meant in crediting Virgil with the power
\nto give us a sense of the Unknown Country [see page 373<\/i>] was that Virgil specialises in a kind of wistful vision of things
\nacross great distances in space or time, which renders them dream-like, gives them an air of ideality. He mentions as an
\ninstance the passage (perhaps in the sixth book of the Aeneid) where the swimmer sees all Italy from the top of a wave <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

prospexsi Italiam summa sublimis ab unda.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI dare say ―<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Sternitur infelix alieno volnere caelumque <\/p>\n

aspicit et dulcis moriens reminiscitur Argos<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nas well as<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-388<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nbelong to the same category. To an ordinary Roman Catholic mind like Belloc’s, which is not conscious of the subtle hierarchy of unseen worlds, whatever is vaguely or remotely appealing ―in short, beautifully misty
\n\t―is mystical, and “revelatory” of the native land of the soul. Add to this that Virgil’s rhythm is exquisitely euphonious, and it is no wonder Belloc
\nshould feel as if the very harps of heaven were echoed by the Mantuan. <\/p>\n

He couples Shakespeare with Virgil as a master of (to put it in a phrase of Arjava’s) “earth-transforming gramarye”.
\nThe quotations he gives from Shakespeare struck me as rather peculiar in the context: I don’t exactly remember them but
\nsomething in the style of “Night’s tapers are burnt out and jocund day” etc. seems to give him a wonderful flash of the
\nUnknown Country! He also alludes to the four magical lines of Keats about Ruth “amid the alien corn” and Victor Hugo’s at
\nleast-for-once truly delicate, unrhetorical passage on the same theme in <\/span>
\n La l\u00e9gende des si\u00e8cles<\/i><\/span>. I wonder if you recollect the
\npassage. Its last two stanzas are especially enchanting:<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTout reposait dans Ur et dans Jerimadeth;<\/p>\n

Les astres
\n\t\t\t\u00e9maillaient le ciel profond et sombre; <\/p>\n

Le croissant fin et clair parmi ces fleurs de l’ombre<\/p>\n

Brillait a l’occident, et Ruth se demandait,
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImmobile, ouvrant l’\u0153il a moitie sous ses voiles,<\/p>\n

Quel dieu, quel moissonneur de l’eternel
\n\t\t\t\u00e9t\u00e9, <\/p>\n

Avait, en s’en allant,
\n\t\t\tn\u00e9gligemment jet\u00e9<\/p>\n

Cette faucille d’or dans le champ des
\n\t\t\t\u00e9toiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you think of them? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf that is Belloc’s idea of the mystic, I can’t put much value on his Roman Catholic mind! Shakespeare’s line and Hugo’s also are
\ngood poetry and may be very enchanting, as you say, but there is nothing in the least deep or mystic about them. Night’s tapers
\nare the usual poetic metaphor, Hugo’s <\/span> moissonneur<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/i>
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tand <\/span><\/span> faucille<\/i>
\n<\/span>
\nd’or<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/i>
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tis an ingenious fancy ―there is nothing true behind it,
\nnot the least shadow of a mystical experience. The lines quoted from Virgil are exceedingly moving and poetic, but it is pathos
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-389<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

of the life planes, not anything more ―Virgil would have stared if he had been told that his
\nripae ulterioris <\/i>was revelatory of the
\nnative land of the soul. These sentimental modern intellectuals are terrible: they will read anything into anything; that is because
\nthey have no touch on the Truth, so they make up for it by a gambolling fancy. <\/p>\n

\n

1 April 1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Shakespeare <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

From what plane are the substance and rhythm of this from Shakespeare?
\n―<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the prophetic soul <\/p>\n

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are they really from his usual plane
\n―the vital? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe origin of the inspiration may be from anywhere, but in
\nShakespeare it always comes through the vital and strongly coloured by it as in some others it comes through the poetic
\nintelligence. What play or poem is this from? I don’t remember it. It sounds almost overmental in origin. <\/p>\n

19 February 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The phrase occurs in Sonnet CVII, beginning <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul <\/p>\n

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, <\/p>\n

Can yet the lease of my true love control, <\/p>\n

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I should like to know is whether the
\nrhythm <\/i>of the words
\nI have picked out is a fusion of the overmental and the vital; or is only the substance from the overmind? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere is something from the Above in the rhythm also, but it is rather covered up by the more ordinary rhythm of the first half
\nline and the two lines that follow. It is curious that this line and a half should have come in as if by accident and have nothing really
\nto do with the restricted subject of the rest. <\/p>\n

19 February 1935
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-390<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Is there something definitely in the rhythm or language of a line of poetry which would prove it to be from a certain plane?
\nFrom what you wrote some days back [see the previous page<\/i>] I gather that
\nthe quotation from Shakespeare I sent has an Overmind movement as well as
\nsubstance coming strongly coloured by the vital. But where and in what lies the
\nvital colour which makes it the highest Shakespearean and not, say, the highest
\nWordsworthian ―the line inspired by Newton?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is a question of feeling, not of
\nintellectual understanding; to distinguish the vital or psychic or any other
\nelement one must have the feeling for its presence ―an intellectual definition
\nis of little value. Take these lines from Shakespeare ―<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eternity was in our lips and eyes, <\/p>\n

Bliss in our brows’ bent; none our parts so poor <\/p>\n

But was a race of heaven ―<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nthey are plainly vital in their excited thrill, for only the vital can
\nspeak with that thrill and pulse of passion ―the rhythm also has the vital undulation and surge so common in Shakespeare. <\/p>\n

I have given an instance elsewhere of Shakespeare’s
\nthought-utterance which is really vital, not intellectual
\n― <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Life is a tale <\/p>\n

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, <\/p>\n

Signifying nothing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHere is a “thought”, a judgment on life, and its origin would
\nnaturally be assigned to the intellect, but as a matter of fact it is a throw-up from Macbeth’s vital being, an emotional or
\nsensational, not an intellectual judgment and its whole turn and rhythm are strongly vital in their vibration and texture. But yet
\nin this passage there is a greater power that has rushed down from above and taken up the vital surge into its movement
\n―so
\nmuch so that if it had been a spiritual experience of which the poet was speaking, we could at once have detected an action of
\nthe illumined spiritual Mind taking up the vital love and soaring into spiritual greatness. <\/p>\n

\nOr take the quotation ―  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-391<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

the prophetic soul <\/p>\n

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHere both style and language come ultimately from a higher above-mind level, but still it is quite different from Wordsworth’s
\nline on Newton which also has altogether an above-head vision and utterance ―and the difference comes because the vision of
\nthe “dreaming soul” is felt through the vital mind and heart before it finds expression; in the lines of Wordsworth the vision
\nof the lone voyager through strange seas of thought has not that peculiar thrill but rather remains in an exaltation of light
\nbetween the mind and some vastness above it. It is this constant vitality, this magnificent vital surge in Shakespeare’s language
\nwhich makes it a sovereign expression, but of life and, so far as it is also a voice of mind or knowledge, not of pure intellectual
\nthought but of life-mind and of life-knowledge. <\/p>\n

27 February 1935
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, <\/p>\n

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and <\/p>\n

Are melted into air, into thin air: <\/p>\n

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, <\/p>\n

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, <\/p>\n

The solemn temples, the great globe itself, <\/p>\n

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, <\/p>\n

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, <\/p>\n

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff <\/p>\n

As dreams are made on; and our little life <\/p>\n

Is rounded with a sleep. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe meaning, on the surface, is that for each of us life will pass away as if it were a dream and what will remain is the sleep of
\ndeath, an undetailed everlasting rest. . . . But from the fourth line onward the language and the rhythm serve to evoke by a
\ncertain large and deep suggestiveness an intuition of some transcendental God-self . . . We are reminded of the Upanishad’s
\ndescription of the mystic trance in which the whole world fades like an illusion and the individual soul enters the supreme
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-392<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Spirit’s unfeatured ecstasy of repose. Shakespeare’s intuition is not pure Upanishad, the supreme Spirit is not clearly felt
\nand whatever profundity is there is vague and unintentional; still, a looming mystic light does appear, stay a little, find a
\nsuggestive contour before receding and falling away to a music sublimely defunctive. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI don’t think Shakespeare had any such idea in his mind. What he is dwelling on is the insubstantiality of the world and of human
\nexistence. “We <\/i>are such stuff” does not point to any God-self. “Dream” and “sleep” would properly imply Somebody who
\ndreams and sleeps, but the two words are merely metaphors. Shakespeare was not an intellectual or philosophic thinker nor
\na mystic one. All that you can say is that there comes out here an impression or intimation of the illusion of Maya, the dream
\ncharacter of life but without any vision or intuition of what is behind the dream and the illusion. There is nothing in the
\npassage that even hints vaguely the sense of something abiding ―all is insubstantial, “into air, into thin air”, “baseless fabric”,
\n“insubstantial pageant”, “we <\/i>are such stuff as dreams are made on”. “Stuff” points to some inert material rather than a spirit
\ndreamer or sleeper. Of course one can always read things into it for one’s own pleasure, but
\n― <\/p>\n

8 March 1935 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I admit that Shakespeare was not a philosophic or mystic thinker. . . . What, however, surprises me is your saying that
\nthere is not the vaguest hint of something abiding. In the magic performance which Prospero gave to Ferdinand and
\nMiranda . . . Prospero reminded them of what he had said before ―namely, that “these our actors . . . were all spirits”.
\nThey melt into thin air but do not disappear from existence, from conscious being of some character however unearthly:
\nthey just become invisible and what disappears is the visible pageant produced by them, a seemingly material construction which yet was a mere phantom. From this seeming, Prospero catches the suggestion that all that looks material
\nis like a phantom, a dream, which must vanish, leaving no trace. . . .
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-393<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

One can read anything into anything. But Shakespeare says nothing about the material world or there being a base some
\nwhere else or of our being projected into a dream. He says “we are <\/i>such stuff.” The spirits vanish into air, into thin air,
\nas Shakespeare emphasises by repetition, which means to any plain interpretation that they too are unreal, only dream-stuff;
\nhe does not say that they disappear from view but are there behind all the time. The whole stress is on the unreality and
\ninsubstantiality of existence, whether of the pageant or of the spirits or of ourselves
\n―there is no stress anywhere, no mention
\nor hint of an eternal spiritual existence. Shakespeare’s idea here as everywhere is the expression of a mood of the vital mind,
\nit is not a reasoned philosophical conclusion. However if you like to argue that, logically, this or that is the true philosophical
\nconsequence of what Shakespeare says and that therefore the Daemon who inspired him must have meant that, I have no
\nobjection. I was simply interpreting the passage as Shakespeare’s transcribing mind has put it. <\/p>\n

\n

9 March 1934 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just a word more about that passage. If it is taken in vacuo<\/i>, there is no internal justification for my idea which turns on the
\nsurvival of the spirits after the pageant has faded. But almost immediately after the stage indication: ” . . .
\nto a strange, hollow and confused noise, they heavily vanish<\/i>“, occurs this aside on the part of Prospero: “(To the Spirits<\/i>) Well done; avoid; no
\nmore.” The quoted passage follows a little later. Then again Prospero says after Ferdinand and Miranda are gone: “Come
\nwith a thought: ―I thank you: ―Ariel, come.” Thereupon Ariel enters: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ARIEL<\/font>: Thy thoughts I cleave to. What’s thy pleasure? <\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPROSPERO<\/font>:<\/td>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

Spirit,\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

We must prepare to meet with Caliban. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you make of all this? And when Ariel reports how
\nhe has lured Prospero’s enemies into a “foul lake”, Prospero commends him: <\/p>\n

This was well done, my bird.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-394<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Thy shape invisible retain thou still. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still later, comes another stage-direction: “A noise of hunters<\/i>
\nheard. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds . . . ;<\/i> Prospero and Ariel setting them on.<\/i>” Even if this is taken to
\nrefer to Spirits other than those who produce that masque, the previous quotations are sufficient to prove that only the visible shapes and formations vanished ―the entities themselves remained behind all the time. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI don’t see what all that has to do with the meaning of the passage in question which plainly insists that nothing endures. Obviously
\nAriel had an invisible shape ―invisible to human eyes, but the point of the passage is that all shapes and substances and beings
\ndisappear into nothingness. We are concerned with Prospero’s meaning, not with what actually happened to the spirits or for
\nthat matter to the pageant which we might conceive also of having an invisible source or material. He uses the total disappearance of the pageant and the spirits as a base for the idea that all existence is an illusion
\n―it is the idea of the illusion that he
\nenforces. If he had wanted to say, “we disappear, all disappears to view but the reality of us and of all things persists in a greater
\nimmaterial reality”, he would surely have said so or at least not left it to be inferred or reasoned out by you in the twentieth
\ncentury. I repeat however that this is my view of Shakespeare’s meaning and does not affect any possibility of reading into it
\nsomething that Shakespeare’s outer mind did not receive or else did not express. <\/p>\n

10 March 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\nMilton<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And they bowed down to the Gods of their wives . . .
\n\t\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Burnt after them to the bottomless pit . . . <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nCertainly, Milton in the passages you quote had a rhythmical effect in mind; he was much too careful and conscientious a <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1 This is apparently a misquotation of Milton’s line: “And made him bow, to the gods<\/i>
\nof his wives”. ―Ed.<\/i>
\n  
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-395<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\tmetrist and much too consummate a master of rhythm to do anything carelessly
\n\tor without good reason. If he found his inspiration stumbling or becoming
\n\tslipshod in its rhythmical effects, he would have corrected it. <\/p>\n

22 April
\n\t1947 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\t <\/p>\n

\n

\tColeridge <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\t <\/p>\n

\n

\t\tMay I say a word about the four lines of Coleridge which you
\n\tbash in your essay? ―<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He prayeth best who loveth best, <\/p>\n

All things both great and small: <\/p>\n

For the dear God, who loveth us, <\/p>\n

He made and loveth all. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe sentimentalism of the “dear God” is obviously extra childlike and sounds childish even. If it had been written by Coleridge
\nas his own contribution to thought or his personal feeling described in its native language it would have ranked him very low.
\nBut Coleridge was a great metaphysician or at any rate an acute and wide-winged thinker, not a sentimental prattling poet of the
\nthird order. Mark that the idea in the lines is not essentially poor; otherwise expressed it could rank among great thoughts
\nand stand as the basis of a philosophy and ethics founded on bhakti. There are one or two lines of the Gita which are based
\non a similar thought, though from the Vedantic, not the dualist point of view. But throughout the
\nAncient Mariner <\/i>Coleridge is
\nlooking at things from the point of view and the state of mind of the most simple and childlike personality possible, the Ancient
\nMariner who feels and thinks only with the barest ideas and the most elementary and primitive emotions. The lines he writes
\nhere record the feeling which such a mind and heart would draw from what he had gone through. Are they not then perfectly in
\nplace and just in the right tone for such a purpose? You may say that it lowers the tone of the poem. I don’t know
\n―the tone of
\nthe poem is deliberately intended to be that of an unsophisticated ballad simplicity and ballad mentality
\n―it is not the ideas but
\nthe extraordinary beauty of rhythm and vividness of vision and   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-396<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfidelity to a certain mystic childlike key that makes it such a wonderful and perfect poem. This is of course only a point of
\nview; but it came to me several times as an answer that could be made to your criticism, so I put it on paper. <\/p>\n

4 February 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n *<\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

In Shelley’s Skylark <\/i>
\nmy heart does not easily melt towards one simile ―<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like a high-born maiden <\/p>\n

In a palace-tower, <\/p>\n

Soothing her love-laden <\/p>\n

Soul in secret hour <\/p>\n

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes I am inclined even to feel this is an atrocity. Then
\nI wonder whether the sentimental stuff shouldn’t be cut out and replaced by something deeper although in Shelley’s style
\nas much as possible ―something like: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like a child who wanders <\/p>\n

In an ancient wood <\/p>\n

Where the strange glow squanders <\/p>\n

All its secret mood <\/p>\n

Upon her lilting soul lost in that solitude. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe attempt to rewrite Shelley better than Shelley himself is a rash and hopeless endeavour. Your proposed stanza is twentieth
\ncentury mysticism quite out of place in the Skylark <\/i>and has not the simple felicity and magic and music of Shelley’s verse. I fail
\nto see why the high-born maiden is an atrocity ―it expresses the romantic attitude towards love which was sentimental and
\nemotional, attempting to lift it out of the coarseness of life into a mental-vital idealism which was an attempt to resuscitate the
\nattitude of chivalry and the troubadours. Romantic and unreal, if you like, but not atrocious. <\/p>\n

8 November 1934 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI objected to your criticisms and cutting up of the Skylark<\/i>, because the whole of it seems to me to proceed from a wrong
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-397<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

starting point altogether. You seem to start with the assumption that the poem ought to be an intellectual whole with coherent parts, a logical structure. Your contention is that the main idea, consistent in other stanzas, is of a spiritual something,
\nan incorporeal joy etc., and the stanzas you condemn as not consistent with the idea and tone of the rest come from an
\ninferior less spiritual inspiration and lower the level of the poem. Accordingly you propose to cut out these excrescences and insert
\nsome manipulations which would make the amended whole the perfect poem the Skylark
\n<\/i>should be. <\/p>\n

I do not deny that from that standpoint your deductions are logical. The poem arranged as you want it, without these too
\nearthly verses, would be a single ethereal impalpable shining tissue. It would be more subtly ethereal (not more spiritual), far
\nfrom the earth, winging between the rainbow and the lightnings and ignorant of anything less brilliant and unearthly. Only it
\nwould be Shelley with something of himself left out, the Skylark<\/i> incomplete with part of its fullness of tone vanished and a big
\nhole in the middle ―a beautiful poem, but no longer so worthy of its place among the few supreme English lyrics. That at least
\nis what I feel. One thing more ―even if these stanzas are an imperfection, I do not think it wise to meddle with them either
\nby elimination or re-doing. To interfere with the imperfections of the great poets of the past is a hazardous business
\n―their
\nimperfections as well as their perfections are part of themselves. Imagine a drama of Shakespeare with all the blots scratched out
\nand all the scoriae done over and smoothed to a perfect polish! It would be Shakespeare no longer. And this is Shelley whose
\nstrange and sweet and luminous magic of lyrical rhythm and language, when he is at his best and here he is at his best, in
\nthe impugned stanzas as well as in the others, is his own secret and no other shall ever recover it. To meddle here is inevitably
\nto mar. Things as great or greater in another kind may be done, but not with this unique and inimitable note. To omit, to change
\nwords or lines, to modify rhythms seems to me inadmissible.2<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t2 The result is bound to be like Landor’s rewriting of Milton
\n―very good Landor but
\nvery bad Milton. <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-398<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

I do not altogether appreciate your references to Mrs. Shelley and the firefly and your cynical and sarcastic picture of the high-born maiden as she appears to you
\n\t―all that has nothing
\nto do with Shelley’s poetic conception which is alone relevant to the matter. I could draw a realistic picture of the poet “singing
\nhymns unbidden” and unwanted and asking occasionally as he wrote whether dinner was ready
\n\t―with hopes, but also with
\nfears that he might not get it, his butcher’s bill being unpaid for a long time. Or I might cavil scientifically about the nature of
\nsunsets and sunrise and rainbow drops and ask what was the use of all this romantic flummery when there are real things to write
\nabout. Or I might quote the critic ―I don’t remember who he was ―who said that Shelley certainly did not believe that the
\nskylark was a spirit and not a bird and so the whole conception of the poem is false, insincere, ethereal humbug and therefore not
\ntrue poetry because poetry must be sincere. Such points of view are irrelevant. Shelley is not concerned with the real life of the
\nhigh-born maiden or the poet any more than with the ornithology of the skylark or with other material things. His glow-worm
\nis something more than a material glow-worm. He is concerned with the soul love-laden, with the dreams of the poet, with the
\nsoul of beauty behind the glow-worm’s light and the colour and fragrance of the rose. It is that he is feeling and it is linked in his
\nvision with the essential something he has felt behind the song of the skylark. And because he so felt it he was not only entitled
\nbut bound to make place for it in his inspired lyrical theme. <\/p>\n

I may observe in passing that the ethereal and impalpable
\nare not more spiritual than the tangible and the concrete ―they may seem more easily subtle and ideal to the idealising
\nand abstracting mind, but that is a different affair. One can feel the spiritual through the embodied and concrete as well as
\nthrough its opposite. But Shelley was not a spiritual poet and the Skylark
\n<\/i>is not a spiritual lyric. Shelley looked, it is true,
\nalways towards a light, a beauty, a truth behind the appearance of things, but he never got through the idealising mind
\nto the spiritual experience. What he did get was something of the purest emotional or aesthetic feeling or purest subtle mind
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-399<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

touch of an essence behind the appearance, an essence of ideal light, truth or beauty. It is that he expresses with a strange aerial
\nmagic or a curious supersensuously sensuous intensity in his finest lyrics. It is that we must seek in the
\nSkylark <\/i>and, if we
\nfind it, we have no right to claim something else. It is there all through and in abundance
\n\t―it is its perfection that creates the
\nsustained perfection of the poem. There is not and there ought not to be an intellectual sequence, a linked argument, a logical
\nstructure. It is a sequence of feeling and of ideal perceptions with an occult logic of their own that sustains the lyric and makes it a
\nfaultless whole. In this sequence the verses you condemn have an indefeasible right of place. Shelley was not only a poet of other
\nworlds, of Epipsychidion <\/i>and of The Witch of Atlas<\/i>; he was passionately interested in bringing the light, beauty and truth of
\nthe ideal super-world from which he came into the earth life ―he tried to find it there wherever he could, he tried to infuse it
\nwherever he missed it. The mental, the vital, the physical cannot be left out of the whole he saw in order to yield place only
\nto the ethereal and impalpable. As he heard the skylark and felt the subtle essence of light and beauty in its song, he felt
\ntoo the call of the same essence of light and beauty elsewhere and it is the things behind which he felt that he compares to
\nthe hymn of the skylark ―the essence of ideal light and beauty behind things mental, the poet and his hymn, behind things
\nvital, the soul of romantic love, behind things physical, the light of the glow-worm, the passionate intensity of the perfume of
\nthe rose. I cannot see an ordinary glow-worm in the lines of Shelley’s stanza ―it is a light from beyond finding expression in
\nthat glimmer and illumining the dell of dew and the secrecy of flowers and grass, that is there. This illumination of the earthly
\nmind, vital, physical with his super-world light is a main part of Shelley; excise that and the whole of Shelley is no longer there,
\nthere is only the ineffectual angel beating his wings in the void; excise it from the
\nSkylark <\/i>and the true whole of the Skylark <\/i>is
\nno longer there. <\/p>\n

\n

18 November 1934
\n   <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-400<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n Swinburne <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

I want to make a short series of notes according to some
\nresponses to great poetry ―and what I am sending tonight is meant to be the opening section: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No better example, perhaps, of a certain style of great poetry can be produced than these lines from Swinburne: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these <\/p>\n

A lyre of many faultless agonies. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Considered thus separately, they have a suggestion richer than in their context, and convey on their passionate music a stimulus towards an idealistic discipline and high ascetic transport. . . . <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does it all sound a stale old story? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is not new
\n―but it is difficult to say anything new in these
\nmatters. It is well written. I don’t know though that there is any “aching idealism” or “high ascetic transport” in these lines of
\nSwinburne. An acceptance of suffering for oneself may have it ―an infliction of suffering from one’s own perversely passionate
\npleasure on another can hardly have it. <\/p>\n

23 December 1934 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t understand how it is possible to take objection to my
\nreading, for the vision is certainly of the acceptance of the suffering inflicted.
\nI cannot accept this “certainly”. I do not see that any acceptance of the suffering is implied, still less a rapturous acceptance. If I
\nremember right, the supposed recipient of the pain is made to object that it is cruel
\n\t―she is not supposed to reply “Oh how
\nexquisite!” <\/p>\n

24 December 1934 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don’t you think the idea of the infliction of suffering must
\nbe kept apart from the point made by you in your first note that the infliction was for a perversely passionate pleasure
\n\t― and also from the question whether in Swinburne’s poetry it   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-401<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

is objected to by the recipient or not, since the lines are now taken by themselves<\/i>? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhy should the lines be taken by themselves as if they were not a part of Swinburne’s poem? I cannot see any idealistic discipline
\nor high ascetic transport in a sadistic desire however poetically expressed. An erotic perversity is neither ideal nor a discipline. <\/p>\n

25 December 1934 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I took the lines in vacuo <\/i>and stopped there, you might object, but I have not done that in my notes. What I have
\ndone, after saying that the lines are great poetry, is to catch their suggestion, first supposing one had come across them
\nby themselves and did not know their original context, and, then, taking them in their proper context. If one saw them
\nseparately, would not one be inclined to read in them the suggestion I have submitted, owing to the image-word “lyre”
\nand the adjective “faultless” applied to “agonies”? What harm can there be in using such an illustrative device? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI am unable to see what there is in the lines, whether taken separately or in the context or both that is anything more than
\nwhat Swinburne meant to put it, a rhapsodic glorification and enthusiasmos
\n<\/i>of sadistic passion ―just as the other passage3<\/font><\/sup>
\nis a magnificent outburst of the magnified ego. But one is no more ascetic or ideal or a discipline than the other
\n―unless you
\nmean the ideal of sadistic passion or the ideal of the magnified ego. The poetry is superb, but I do not see what the passion
\nin them transfigures or into what it is transfigured ―it is sublimated into its own extreme expression or figure, if you like
\n―but that is all. To make somebody else’s body into a “lyre” <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t3 Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,<\/i>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tExcept these kisses of my lips on thine<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBrand them with immortality; . . .<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut in the light and laughter, in the moan<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd music, and in grasp of lip and hand<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd shudder of water that makes felt on land<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe immeasurable tremour of all the sea,<\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMemories shall mix and metaphor of me.<\/i>  
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-402<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof agonies does not transfigure the fact itself, the erotic side on which it expresses. Or if it does, what is this something high of
\nwhich it is a glimmer? When one meets one’s own suffering with fortitude, there is an ascetic discipline, an ideal of self-mastery
\n―but to meet somebody else’s pain caused by oneself with an ecstasy of pleasure in it is not quite the same thing. Or if one
\ncan turn one’s own pain into a sort of ecstasy of Ananda, not of perverse masochistic pleasure, so that pain disappears from
\none’s existence, then that is some kind of transfiguration ―but can the same be said of turning somebody else’s agony into a
\nsubject for one’s own rapture? It may be a transfiguration, but a very Asuric transfiguration. <\/p>\n

\n 26 December 1934 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n *<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nYour explanation has convinced me that the lines in their context had better be
\nconsidered without any idealising ingenuity; so I shall recast that portion and
\nsend it to you. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIt does not seem to me legitimate to turn the meaning of lines
\nin a poem upside down like that by lopping the syntax and giving it a twist
\nwhich turns into something else ―
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nune autre histoire<\/i><\/span>.
\nBut even so, it only turns an acme of perverse sadism into an acme of perverse masochism. To make one’s body a lyre of agonies, faultless (?) or not ―I don’t know quite what is meant by a faultless agony
\n―is not an ascetic discipline or a spiritual
\nsacrifice. One has to bear pain with fortitude when it comes, but to inflict it wantonly on oneself is not spiritual. I am aware
\nof the austerities of the Tapaswis of old, but these, condemned by the Gita as Asuric tapasya, had at least for their motive a
\nmastery over the physical consciousness and might therefore be called a discipline, but to torture oneself or allow oneself to be
\ntortured either for the joy of it or the beauty of it was not their idea ―be it either the victim’s joy or the torturer’s; for I don’t
\nquite know to whom is the fierce sacrifice here supposed to be dedicated. An extremity of pain has nothing in it that is ideal or
\nspiritual. <\/p>\n

27 December 1934
\n   <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-403<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Mallarme<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLe vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui<\/p>\n

Va-t-il nous
\n\t\t\td\u00e9chirer avec un coup d’aile ivre<\/p>\n

Ce lac dur oublie que hante sous le givre<\/p>\n

Le transparent glacier des vols qui n’ont pas fui!
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUn cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui<\/p>\n

Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se
\n\t\t\td\u00e9livre<\/p>\n

Pour n’avoir pas chante
\n\t\t\tla r\u00e9gion ou vivre<\/p>\n

Quand du
\n\t\t\tst\u00e9rile hiver a resplendi l’ennui. <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTout son col secouera cette blanche agonie<\/p>\n

Par l’espace inflige a l’oiseau qui le nie, <\/p>\n

Mais non l’horreur du sol ou le plumage est pris.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFant\u00f4me qu’a ce lieu son pur \u00e9clat assigne, <\/p>\n

Il s’immobilise au songe froid de
\n\t\t\tm\u00e9pris<\/p>\n

Que
\n\t\t\tv\u00eat parmi l’exil inutile le Cygne.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I tried to break this nut of
\n\t\t\tMallarm\u00e9’s . . . but, pardi<\/i>, it was a
\nhard nut. Really what a tortuous trend and how he has turned the images! “The transparent glacier of flights haunting the
\nhard lake under the frost”! The frost or snow has become the glacier (icefield) and the icefield composes the lake
\n\t―that’s
\nwhat I imaged. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHow does hoar-frost or rime become the glacier? “Givre” is not
\nthe same as “glace” ―it is not ice, but a covering of hoar-frost such as you see on the trees etc., the congealed moisture of the
\nair ―that is the “<\/span>blanche agonie<\/span>” which has come down from the insulted Space on the swan and on the lake. He can shake
\noff that but the glacier holds him; he can no more rise into the skies, caught in the frozen cold mass of the failures of the soul
\nthat refused to fly upward and escape. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you think of the sonnet? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOne of the finest sonnets I have ever read. <\/p>\n

Magnificent line, by the way, “<\/span>Le transparent glacier des<\/i>
\nvols qui n’ont pas fui!<\/i>“<\/span>
\n\t\t\tThis idea of the denied flights (imprisoned <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-404<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tpowers) of the soul that have frozen into a glacier seems to me as powerful as it is violent. Of course in French such
\nexpressions were quite new ―in some other languages they were already possible. You will find lots of kindred things in
\nthe most modern poetry which specialises in violent revelatory (or at least would-be revelatory) images. You disapprove? Well,
\none may do so, ―classical taste does; but I find myself obliged here to admire. <\/p>\n

\n 16 December 1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Heredia<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tComme un vol de gerfauts hors du charnier natal,<\/p>\n

Fatigu\u00e9<\/font>s de porter leurs
\n\t\t\tmis\u00e8res hautaines, <\/p>\n

De Palos de Moguer, routiers et capitaines<\/p>\n

Partaient, ivres d’un
\n\t\t\tr\u00eave h\u00e9ro\u00efque et brutal. <\/span>
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIls allaient conqu\u00e9rir le fabuleux m\u00e9tal<\/p>\n

Que Cipango murit dans ses mines lointaines,<\/p>\n

Et les vents alizes inclinaient leurs antennes<\/p>\n

Aux bords
\n\t\t\tmyst\u00e9rieux du monde Occidental.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChaque soir, esp\u00e9rant des lendemains \u00e9piques, <\/p>\n

L’azur phosphorescent de la mer des Tropiques<\/p>\n

Enchantait leur sommeil d’un mirage dore;<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOu penches a l’avant des blanches caravelles,<\/p>\n

Ils regardaient monter en un ciel ignore<\/p>\n

Du fond de
\n\t\t\tl’Oc\u00e9an des \u00e9toiles nouvelles.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many Frenchmen regard Heredia’s “<\/span>Les
\n\t\t\tConqu\u00e9rants<\/span>” as the
\neighth wonder of the world. Flecker says of Heredia that he was “the most perfect poet that ever lived (Horace not in it)”. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI cannot say that I find Heredia’s sonnet to be either an eighth wonder or any wonder. Heredia was a careful workman in word
\nand rhythm and from that point of view the sonnet is faultless. If that is all that is needed for perfection, it is perfect. But otherwise, except for the image in the first two lines and the vigour of the fourth, I find it empty: Horace, at least, was seldom that.
\nThese extravagant estimates of minor poets are only the self  <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-405<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

assertive challenge put forth by a personal preference they have. <\/p>\n

\n

24 June 1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Samain and Flecker <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I am sending you two poems
\n\t―one is Albert Samain’s famous <\/span>
\nPannyre aux talons d’or<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/i>
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tand the other is Flecker’s much-praised translation of it. I shall be very much interested in
\nyour comparison of the two. Here is Samain:<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDans la salle en rumeur un silence a passe… <\/p>\n

Pannyre aux talons d’or s’avance pour danser. <\/p>\n

Un voile aux mille plis la cache tout
\n\t\t\tenti\u00e8re. <\/p>\n

D’un long trille d’argent la flute la
\n\t\t\tpremi\u00e8re,<\/p>\n

L’invite; elle
\n\t\t\ts’\u00e9lance, entre-croise ses pas,<\/p>\n

Et, du lent mouvement imprime par ses bras,<\/p>\n

Donne un rythme bizarre a
\n\t\t\tl’\u00e9toffe nombreuse,<\/p>\n

Qui
\n\t\t\ts’\u00e9largit, ondule, et se gonfle et se creuse,<\/p>\n

Et se
\n\t\t\td\u00e9ploie enfin en large tourbillon… <\/p>\n

Et Pannyre devient fleur, flamme, papillon! <\/p>\n

Tous se taisent; les yeux la suivent en extase.<\/p>\n

Peu a peu la fureur de la danse l’embrase. <\/p>\n

Elle tourne toujours; vite! plus vite encor! <\/p>\n

La flamme
\n\t\t\t\u00e9perdument vacille aux flambeaux d’or!… <\/p>\n

Puis, brusque, elle
\n\t\t\ts’arr\u00eate au milieu de la salle; <\/p>\n

Et le voile qui tourne autour d’elle en spirale, <\/p>\n

Suspendu dans sa course, apaise ses longs plis, <\/p>\n

Et, se collant aux seins aigus, aux flancs polis, <\/p>\n

Comme au travers d’une eau soyeuse et continue, <\/p>\n

Dans un divin
\n\t\t\t\u00e9clair, montre Pannyre nue. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nHere is Flecker: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The revel pauses and the room is still: <\/p>\n

The silver flute invites her with a trill, <\/p>\n

And, buried in her great veils fold on fold, <\/p>\n

Rises to dance Pannyra, Heel of Gold. <\/p>\n

Her light steps cross; her subtle arm impels <\/p>\n

The clinging drapery; it shrinks and swells, <\/p>\n

Hollows and floats, and bursts into a whirl:
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-406<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

She is a flower, a moth, a flaming girl. <\/p>\n

All lips are silent; eyes are all in trance: <\/p>\n

She slowly wakes the madness of the dance, <\/p>\n

Windy and wild the golden torches burn; <\/p>\n

She turns, and swifter yet she tries to turn, <\/p>\n

Then stops: a sudden marble stiff she stands. <\/p>\n

The veil that round her coiled its spiral bands, <\/p>\n

Checked in its course, brings all its folds to rest, <\/p>\n

And clinging to bright limb and pointed breast <\/p>\n

Shows, as beneath silk waters woven fine, <\/p>\n

Pannyra naked in a flash divine! <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t"All here," says a critic, "is bright and sparkling as the jewels on the
\n\tdancer’s breast, but there is one ill-adjusted word ―pointed <\/i>breast ―which is perhaps more physiological than
\npoetic.” Personally I don’t somehow react very happily to the word “girl” in line
\n\t8<\/font><\/sup>. <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\nSamain’s poem is a fine piece of work, inspired and perfect; Flecker’s is good only in substance, an adequate picture, one
\nmay say, but the expression and verse are admirable within their limits. The difference is that the French has vision and
\nthe inspired movement that comes with vision ―all on the vital plane, of course,
\n\t―but the English version has only physical
\nsight, sometimes with a little glow in it, and the precision that comes with that sight. I do not know why your critical sense
\nobjects to “girl”. This line [“She is a flower, a moth, a flaming<\/i> girl<\/i>“] and one other, “Windy and wild the golden torches burn”
\nare the only two that rise above the plane of physical sight. <\/p>\n

But both these poems have the distinction of being perfectly
\nsatisfying in their own kind. . . . <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP.S. “Flaming girl” and “pointed breast” might be wrong in spirit
\nas a translation of the French ―but that is just what Flecker’s poem is not, in spite of its apparent or outward fidelity, it is in
\nspirit quite a different poem. <\/p>\n

23 June 1932
\n   <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-407<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Hopkins and Kipling <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I should like to have a few words from you on the poetic style and technique of
\nthese two quotations. The first is an instance of Gerard Manley Hopkins’
\npolyphony "at its most magnificent and intricate": <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable,
\n\t\t\t<\/font>|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b>
\n vaulty, voluminous, . . . stupendous <\/p>\n

Evening strains to be t\u00ed<\/font>me’s
\n\t\t\tv\u00e1<\/font>st,
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/b><\/b>
\n <\/sup>womb-of-all, home-of-all,
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

hearse-of-all night. <\/p>\n

Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west,
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b>
\n her wild hollow hoarlight
\n\t\t\thung to the height <\/p>\n

Waste; her earliest stars, earlstars,
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/b><\/b>
\n<\/sup> st\u00e1<\/font>rs principal, overbend
\n\t\t\tus, <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tF\u00ed<\/font>re-f\u00e9<\/font>aturing
\n\t\t\theaven. For earth |<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b>
\n her
\n\t\t\tbeing has unbound; her dapple is at an end, as-<\/p>\n

tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs;
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b>
\n self
\n\t\t\t\u00ed<\/font>n self steep\u00e8<\/font>d and p\u00e1<\/font>shed ―q\u00fa<\/font>ite<\/p>\n

Disremembering, d\u00ed<\/font>sm\u00e9<\/font>mbering
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\u00e1<\/font>ll now. Heart, you round me
\n\t\t\tright <\/p>\n

With:
\n\t\t\t\u00d3<\/font>ur
\n\t\t\t\u00e9<\/font>vening is over us; \u00f3<\/font>ur night
\n\t\t\t|<\/font><\/sup><\/b><\/b>
\n wh\u00e9<\/font>lms, wh\u00e9<\/font>lms,
\n\t\t\t\u00e1<\/font>nd will end us . . .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe next quotation illustrates Kipling’s Tommy-Atkins-music at its most vivid and onomatopoeic
\n\t―lines considered by Lascelles Abercrombie to be a masterly fusion of all the elements necessary in poetic technique: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Less you want your toes trod off you’d better get back at once, <\/p>\n

For the bullocks are walking two by two, <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-408<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The byles <\/i>are walking two by two, <\/p>\n

And the elephants bring the guns. <\/p>\n

Ho! Yuss! <\/p>\n

Great ―big ―long ―black ―forty-pounder guns. <\/p>\n

Jiggery-jolty to and fro, <\/p>\n

Each as big as a launch in tow ―<\/p>\n

Blind ―dumb ―broad-breached ―beggars o’
\nbattering-guns. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMy verdict on Kipling’s lines would be that they are fit for
\nthe columns of The Illustrated Weekly of India <\/i>and nowhere else. I refuse to accept this journalistic jingle as poetry. As
\nfor Abercrombie’s comment, ―unspeakable rubbish, unhappily spoken! <\/p>\n

Hopkins is a different proposition; he is a poet, which Kipling never was nor could be. He has vision, power, originality; but his technique errs by excess; he piles on you his effects, repeats, exaggerates and in the end it is perhaps great in
\neffort, but not great in success. Much material is there, many new suggestions, but not a work realised, not a harmoniously
\nperfect whole. <\/p>\n

30 December 1932
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


\nGeorge Santayana <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There we live o’er, amid angelic powers, <\/p>\n

Our lives without remorse, as if not ours, <\/p>\n

And others’ lives with love, as if our own; <\/p>\n

For we behold, from those eternal towers,<\/p>\n

The deathless beauty of all winged hours, <\/p>\n

And have our being in their truth alone.
\n. . . and I knew <\/p>\n

The wings of sacred Eros as he flew <\/p>\n

And left me to the love of things not seen. <\/p>\n

‘T is a sad love, like an eternal prayer, <\/p>\n

And knows no keen delight, no faint surcease. <\/p>\n

Yet from the seasons hath the earth increase, <\/p>\n

And heaven shines as if the gods were there.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-409<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Had Dian passed there could no deeper peace <\/p>\n

Embalm the purple stretches of the air. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

George Santayana, the writer of these, is a Spaniard who has a post at Harvard
\n―English is not his mother tongue. In spite
\nof traditionalism and lack of any very individual or developed technique, is there not some
\n\t\t\tarresting quality in the above
\nextracts? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt [the two extracts considered as a unit<\/i>] has a considerable
\nbeauty of thought and language in it. It is a great pity that it is so derivative in form as to sound like an echo. With so much
\nmastery of language and ease of rhythm it should have been possible to find a form of his own and an original style. The
\npoetic power and vision are there and he has done as much with it as could be done with a borrowed technique. If he had found
\nhis own, he might have ranked high as a poet. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nFiona Macleod <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Would you please comment on the passages from Fiona Macleod? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1) So through the grey dune-grasses <\/p>\n

Not the wind only cries, <\/p>\n

But a dim sea-wrought Shadow<\/p>\n

Breathes drowned sighs. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2)
\n. . . with trampling sounds <\/p>\n

As of herds confusedly crowding gorges? ―. . . <\/p>\n

The gloom that is the hush’d air of the Grave, . . . <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3) As the bird of Brigid, made of foam and the pale moonwhite
\nwine <\/p>\n

Of dreams, flits under the sombre windless plumes of the
\npine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4)
\n. . . the wheeling cry <\/p>\n

Where in the dusk the lapwing slips and falls <\/p>\n

From ledge to ledge of darkness.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-410<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n1) There is a very distinct charm about it. I am not sure of the entire success. <\/p>\n

\n 2) I could not pronounce on this without seeing the poem as a whole or at least more of it. It depends on how it comes
\ninto the general scheme of the rhythm. <\/p>\n

\n 3) Very fine and original and authentic in rhythm, it is
\nabsolutely the native rhythm of what she expresses. <\/p>\n

\n 4) This I think magnificent.
\n   <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-411<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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