The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century

re-Henley and Thompson-Thomas Hardy a prophet in literature-The Dynasts-his atheism-his lyr

a profound psychological analysis, a resolute intention to discover and to reveal the final truth concerning the children of the sea, that one would hardly expect to find in the works of the wonderful Wizard. Shakespeare was surely a greater poet than Wordsworth; but the man of the Lakes, with the rich inheritance of two centuries, had a capital of thought unpossessed by the great dramatist, which, invested by his own genius, enabled him to draw returns from nature undreamed of by his mighty predecessor. Wordsworth was not great enough to have wr

ay true than a treatise on geology. This is the notable advantage that works of art have over works of science, the advantage of being and remaining true. No matter how important the contribution of scientific books, they are alloyed with inevitable error, and after the death

but bought and sold, when poets were held in such high esteem, when so much was written and published about poetry, when the mere forms of verse were the theme of such hot debate. There are thousands of minor poets, but poetry has ceased to be a minor subject. Any one mentally alive cannot escape it. Poetry is in the air, and everybody is catching it. So

is that although the Genius may arise out of right conditions, he may not; he may come like a thief in the night. The contrast between public interest in poetry in 1918 and in 1830, for an illustration, is unescapable. At that time the critics and the magazine writers assured the world that "poetry is dead." Ambitious young authors were gravely advised not to attempt anything in verse-as though youth eve

our contemporary poets; nor the mistake of despising the giant Victorians. Let us devoutly thank God that poetry has come into its own; that the modern poet, in public estimation, is a Hero; that no one has to apo

er rose from the dead, and the followers of Pan say their god never died at all. It is significant that at the beginning of the twentieth century two English poets wrote side by side, each of whom unconsciously waged an irreconcilable conflict with the other, and each of whom speaks from the grave today to a concourse of followers.

ere. Henley felt in the dust and din of the city the irresistible urge of spring, the invasion

radiant and i

d omnipoten

lls, the undis

laces of the j

ills of man a

oved, each unt

en's prodigal

shameless, el

of faith, while

ly nerved

heart of Lond

s of his rough

ennial, overm

e rolling uni

l for which lif

ondrous and

ks of Burns and in the famous paper on R. L. S., is the main characteristic of his mind and temperament. He was by nature a rebel-a rebel against the Anglican God and against English social conventions. He loved all fighting rebels, and one of his most spirited poems deals affectionately with our Southern Confederate soldiers, in the last days of their hopeless struggle. His most famous lyric is an assertion of the indomitable human will in the presence o

Master of

Captain o

are," said Ril

phrase, and write a lovely musical variation on the theme. I do not think he ever wrote anything more beautiful than his setting of the phrase "Over the hills and far away," which appealed to his memor

n sunsets fl

e sea and

silence a

voice of str

till, as frie

hat cannot

follow the w

hills and

city, stre

each of dea

s that cla

in appoin

calling, ca

ntil you

ings than your

hills and

sound of eb

sight of la

where the goo

changing m

hopes and h

, calls you

dark into

hills and

ist, Miss Willcocks, a child of the twentieth century, has remarked, "It is by their will that we recognize the Elizabethans, by the will that drove them over the seas of passion, as well as over the seas that ebb and flow with the salt tides…. For, from a sensitive correspondence with environment our race has passed int

, all a wonder and a wild desire. He was an inspired poet, careless of method, careless of form, careless of thought-sequences. The zeal for God's house had eaten him up. His poetry is like the burning bush, revealing God in the fire. His strange figures of speech, the molten metal of his language, the sincerity of his faith, have given to his poems a persuasive influence which is beginning to be felt far and wide, and which, I believe, will never die. One critic complains that the young men of Oxford and

fter him, pursuing him with the certainty of capture. In trying to escape, he found torment; in surrender, the peace that passes all understanding. That extraordinary poem, which thrillingly describes the eager, searchi

h and my lying down, a

my w

ind and before, and la

m thy spirit? or whith

sen

ven, thou art there; if

thou a

the morning, and dwel

the

and lead me, and thy r

that which reveals an intense consciousness of the all-enveloping Divine Presence. Children do not seek the love of the

me sedi

ti cruc

bor non s

han London Bridge. Just as when we travel far from those we love, we are brightly aware of their presence, and know that their affection is a greater reality than the scenery from the train window, so Th

he died, there

ntended it for publication, we cannot tell; but despite the roughnesses of rhythm-which take us back to some of Donne's shaggy and splend

STRAN

visible, w

angible, we

nowable, we

sible, we

h soar to fi

lunge to fi

of the sta

e rumour of

e wheeling s

umbed conce

pinions, wo

own clay-sh

eep their an

stone, and

is your est

e many-splen

sad thou cans

pon thy so

he traffic of

xt Heaven and

ight, my Soul

ng heaven b

st walking o

nesareth,

April 1910 number of the Dublin Review. Both are great poems; but Lilium Regis is made doubly impressive by the present war. With the clairvoyance of approaching death, Thompson foresaw the wor

UM R

ing! low lies t

en the hour of

adise on the night-w

the secrets o

King! I speak

ost sorrowful

hand for the trou

be the breakin

alk, when the blast

s of the king f

rstand that thine

and with power

in blood, and their

st sorrowful

nd hark what sound

e coming to the

ing! I shall no

ee the hour o

and wake, like a flower

joy the odours

King, remember

mouth sang; and

ore His way, sing

n the Night was

double distinction of being one of the great Victorian novelists, and one of the most notable poets of the twentieth century. At nearly eighty years of age, he is in full intellectual vigour, enjoys a creativ

rld. In 1898, with the volume called Wessex Poems, embellished with illustrations from his own hand, he challenged criticism as a professional poet. The moderate but definite success of this collection emboldened him to produce in 1901, Poems of the Past and Present. In 1904, 1906, 1908, were issued successive

is a notable fact that the present poetic revival, wherein are enlisted so many enthusiastic youthful volunteers, should have had as one of its prophets and leaders a veteran of such power and fame. Perhaps Mr. Hardy would regard his own personal choice as no factor; the Immanent and Unc

erring as a means of expression poetry to prose, each thinking his own verse better than his novels, and each writing verse that in substance and

him a vindication of his despair, and therefore proof of the blind folly of those who pray to Our Father in Heaven. He is, though I think not avowedly so, an adherent of the philosophy of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann. The primal force, from which all thing

, second, of the Holy Spirit. In the composition of In Memoriam, Tennyson knew that an invocation of the Muse would give an intolerable air of artificiality to the poem; he therefore, in the introductory stanzas, offered up a prayer to the Son of God. Now it was impossible for Mr. Hardy to make use of Greek Deities, or of Jehovah, or of any revelation o

channels of Causation, even in verse, and excluded the celestial machinery of, say, Paradise Lost, as peremptorily as that of the Iliad or the Eddas. And the abandonment of the Masculine pronoun in allusions to the First or Fundamental Energy seemed a

ly be the fate of all drama other than that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a kindred question not without interest." The question has been since answered in another way than that implied, not merely by the success of community

he work as a whole, and now that it is ten years old, we know that no man on earth except Mr. Hardy could have written it." To produce this particular epic required a poet, a prose master, a dramatist, a philosopher, and an architect. Mr. Hardy is each and all

e of its low elevation on the purely literary s

s curious on

ion of his

d why so many pages in The Dynasts arouse only an intellectual interest. But no one can read the whole drama without an immense respect for the range and the grasp of the author's mind.

und of Heaven-in few words, it seems to be, "Resist the Lord, and He will flee from you." Mr. Hardy is not content with banishing God from the realm of modern thought; he is not content merely with killing Him; he means

owly stepp

ws, scoop-eyed a

files across

mystic form th

skill in concision. He was man-like at first, then an amorphous cloud, then endow

d by our ow

lace, we grew

on our maker

had imagined

's stayless s

ising rud

Monarch of o

ank; and now ha

r in former years-perhaps as a boy-he, too, had worshipped, and

prop their f

own: with all

ck speechless,

rned for, I, too,

is reiterated, together with a hint, that when we have once and for all put God in His grave, some

o bear such

uestion for eac

my growing si

itive gleam lo

lift the g

who stood al

the horizon th

t?" Each mourner

mposed a cr

good, and many

uzzled 'twixt th

I followed

God's Funeral, called A Plaint to Man, where God remonstrates with man for

the whole of

d be told, and

been faced in

ife with depe

heart's res

od bonded cl

-kindness f

help unsoug

as been more than usually successful in fashioning both language and rhythm into a garment worthy of the thought. No one can read The Impercipient without recognizing that Mr.

tter taste rather refreshing. The titles of his recent collections, Time's Laughingstocks and Satires of Circumstance, sufficiently indicate the ill fortune awaiting his personages. At his best, his lyrics written in the minor key have a noble, solemn adagio movement. At his worst-for like a

fter reading A Tramp-woman's Tragedy, one unhesitatingly accords Mr. Hardy a place among the

Who March Away, is singularly halting and awkward. His complete poetical works are interesting because they proceed from an interesting m

metimes, and thou

ore, gone round

mind to touch an

orth my arm to

and what duty

y I have con

t no such facu

o be a great poet without possessing much intellectual wealth; just as it is possible to be a great singer, and yet be both shallow and dull. The divine gift of poetry seems sometimes as accidental as the formation of

lace. I never get the unmistakable spinal chill. He has too thorough a command of his thoughts; they never possess him, and they never soar away with him. Prose may be controlled, but poetry is a possession. Mr. Hardy is too keenly aware of what he is about. In

the fallacies of pessimism consists in the fact that its advocates often call a witness to the stand whose testimony counts against them. Nobody really loves life, loves this world, like your pessimist; nobody is more reluctant to leave it. He therefore, to support his argument that life is evil, calls up evidence which proves that it is brief and transitory. But if life is evil, one of its few redeeming f

HAD NEVER CA

had never e

h a man

ntures

s that finis

outh and through m

by its

years-why

ed it

ions o

that slowly

bent me to stan

t for it

ies soft and

rted m

ions seem

ns gave in

ill living aloo

ife am

d nought to

ifting

loaked

t from fog-

eams burning fro

ht as a

rough highwa

hill an

ing th

the visi

umed have no hu

grimag

y all his days; he has been successful in literary art beyond the wildest dreams of his youth; his acute perception has made the beauty of nature a million times more beautiful t

ts of Vision blesses r

ERW

latched its postern b

laps its glad green

s new-spun silk,

ho used to noti

when, like an eyeli

comes crossing th

ed upland thorn, w

st have been a

me nocturnal blackn

g travels furtiv

ve that such innocent c

h

ittle for them; a

I have been stilled at

o

-starred heavens

se on those who will

had an eye for

my bell of quittance

eze cuts a pause i

ain, as they were

w, but he used to n

prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast; a beautiful characteristic of our great writer is his tenderness for every living t

he mighty genius of Wordsworth and of Tennyson, it was cruel to put Alfred the Little in the chair of Alfred the Great. It was not an insult to Austin, but an insult to Poetry. With the elevation of the learned and amiable Dr. Bridges in 1913, the public ceased to care who holds the office. This eminently respectable appointment silenced both opposition and applause. We can only echo the language of Gray's letter to Mason, 19 December, 1757: "I interest myself a little in th

icently to an occasion than did Mr. Kipling at the sixtieth anniversary of the reign of the Queen. Each poet made his little speech in verse, and then at the close of the ceremony, came the thrilling Recessional, which received as instant applause from the world as if it had been spoken to an

bert Bridges appeared on the same occasion as that immortalized by Kipling, and was subsequently included in the volume of the writer's poetical works,

INA

ong, for

rld is full

Queen of

g how to ru

a crown t

uth, and g

annia's wid

ield her str

m born benea

d love firm

w to rever

hall never

e queen that

ima, Domin

emper c

ina

has wrought a miracle of transformation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir George Younghusband, in a recent book, A Soldier's Memories, says, "I had never heard the words or expressions that Rudyard Kipling's soldiers used. Many a time did I ask my brother officers whether they had ever heard them. No, never. But, sure enough, a few years after the soldiers thought, and talked, and expressed themselves exactly as Rudyard Kipling had taught them in his stories. Rudyard Kipling made the modern soldi

imitation. The soldiers were transformed by the renewing of their minds. Beholding with open face as in a glass a certain image, they were changed into the same image, by the spirit of the poet. This is certainly a g

as the advantage of being attainable. The reach of this particular poet seldom exceeds his grasp. And although thus far in his career-he is only fifty-two, and we may hope as well as remember-his best poetry belongs to the nineteenth century rather than the twentieth, so universally popular a homily as If indicates that he has by no means lost the power of preaching in verse. With the exception of some sad lapses, his latter poems have come nearer the earlier level of production than his stories. For that matter, from the beginning I have thought that the genius of Rudyard Kipling had more authentic expression in po

of his prototype; both in matter and in manner he may justly be called the Kipling of the North. His verse has an extraordinary popularity among American college undergraduates, the reasons for which are evident. They read, discuss him, and quote him with joy, and he might well be proud of the adoration of so ma

sunsets f

ys dreadly

mountains s

death, as st

infallibly brings

n sunsets fl

d by the late Jack London and the lively Rex Beach. It is not the highest form of art. It insists on bei

Service's accuracy or sincerity. But many men have had abundance of material, rich and new, only to find it unmanageable. Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipl