17 FEBRUARY 1894, Page 20

MR. ROBERT BRIDGES' NEW POEMS.*

IN these new Shorter Poems, Mr. Bridges is more than ever himself, has more distinctly found his own note, and

strikes it more firmly and more sustainedly. As of ohl, he is steeped in Nature, and in Nature of the purest and most unsophisticated. His descriptions are perhaps more elaborate, but they are as delicate, as fine in drawing, and tender in colour as ever. His rhythms are as new and nice and learned as of old, but less hard ; while still there is the old "curious" art alike in the choice and combination of words. An excellent example of his simpler manner, not the most striking, but one whose compass makes it suitable for quotation, is the following :—

"So sweet love seemed that April morn,

When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell—let truth be told—

That love will change in growing old ; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass Quite to forget what once he was, Nor even in fancy to recall The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found, So deep in summer floods is drowned, I wonder, bathed in joy complete, How love so young could be so sweet."

A new departure will be found in the striking little poem called "A Villager," a piece hardly to be styled a poem in dialect, but which, in a subdued and delicate manner, artistically suggests the natural language of the poor Berk- shire woman who is the speaker. She tells, in her own way, how she married her husband, forty years ago, for his good looks, though he was beneath her in station :—

" There was no lad handsomer than Willie was The day that he came to father's house; There was none had an eye as soft and blue, As Willie's was, when he came to woo."

The marriage has not turned out well. Both are "ailing and grey." It is true-

" Willie's eye is as blue and soft As the day when he woo'd me in father's croft."

But she is changed :—

"Yet changed am I in body and mind,

For Willie to me has ne'er been kind ; Merrily drinking an' singing with the men, He would come home late six nights o' the s'en.

An' since the children be grown an' gone He 'as shunned the house an' left me lone : An' less an' less he brings me in 0' the little he now has strength to win.

The roof lets through the wind and the wet, An' master won't mend it with us in's debt : An' all look every day more worn.

An' the best of my gowns be shabby an' torn.

No wonder if words have a-grown to blows : That matters not while nobody knows ; For love him I shall to the end of life ; An' be, as I swore, his own true wife.

An' when I am gone, he'll turn an' see His folly an' wrong, an' be sorry for me ; An' come to me there in the land o' bliss To give me the love I looked for in this."

Mr. Bridges is accused sometimes of want of human passion and sympathy; but no one who had not real feeling

for the meaning of love and the hard lot of the poor could have written "A Villager." His muse is perhaps proud and shy, but he has a heart, and if it is not worn on his sleeve, it is in the right place.

Conspicuous for its subject is the "Eton Ode," written for the ninth jubilee of the college. It is impossible to do justice to this beautiful little poem, except by quoting it whole. It could only have been written by a son, and a pious son, of Eton, who has known himself her influences,—what it is-

" 'Neath breezy skies of June By silver Thames's lulling tune In shade of willow or oak, to try The golden gates of poesy ; "

"By the school-gate 'neath the limes, To muster, waiting the lazy chimes ;"—

(1.) Shorter Poems of Robert Bridges. Book V. Oxford : Printed at his Private Press by Henry DanieL 1893.—(2.) Plays by Robert Bridges. No. VI. "Rumours of the Court." A Comedy in Three Acts. London : George Bell and Sons. 1893.—(3.) The Humours of the Court: a Comedy; and other Poems. By Robert Bridges. London : George Bell and Sons. 1893.

Or—a

and a son, moreover, who knows the real meaning of the history of Eton. Nothing that we have seen written about Eton brings us back more truly to the spirit and intent of that pathetic figure, her founder,—the founder who used to tell his first little collegers to be "good boys, gentle and teachable, servants of the Lord,"—than Mr. Bridges' closing lines, in which he describes how, after all these years, he finds for his sad lot a sort of compensation,—

" Where saint and king, crown'd with content He biddeth a prayer to bless his youth With truth and purity, mother of truth."

Want of space forbids further citation ; but we would call

attention to the elegy on "Maurice," where strong grief is subdued to the chiselled grace of an Attic stele; or for a complete contrast, to the "Asian Birds," a most clever adapta- tion of the quaint inlaying and jewel-work of Oriental poetry; or for, perhaps, one of the warmest and richest pieces of word-painting that Mr. Bridges has yet written,—the " Sep-

tember Garden."

The new play, the Humours of the Court, is a comedy. As Mr. Bridges frankly tells us, it is a combination of two Spanish comedies, one by Calderon, the other by Lope de Vega. The plot, which is Calderon's, seems rather slight even for a comedy of manners. Whether it would act well, we cannot say. But it is not one of those plays which are not intended to, and certainly could never, act. The incidents are amusing, if not deeply interesting, and are natural, and the characters have consistency and colour. They speak all in the artist's manner, but with a difference. Taking it as a reading-play, we may say that in the various dramatic situations Mr. Bridges finds more scope than in his lyrics for exhibiting his poetry as a "criticism of life." Again and again in his plays he enunciates the lofty philosophy of the poets. In this play, it is the philosophy of love that pre- dominates. Thus one of the best passages in the play is that in the first scene of the second act, where Laura is endeavouring to persuade Frederick to give up his love for her, and marry the Countess for his worldly advantage; and he argues as follows :— "Frederick—

Well, what doth all this come to when 'tis told ?

First is Diana's love. Diana's love Is nothing, for I do not love Diana.

Next are the ducats—fifty thousand ducats.

They are nothing either—by the year ! Why, Laura,

Wer't fifty thousand ducats by the day, "rwere nothing to me. You can little guess

My prodigal soul. I should expend it all, And sit at home, and be as poor as ever.

Laura—

How could you spend so much ?

Frederick— Nothing is much. Man's capabilities being infinite

And his state pitiful, the simplest scheme For bettering any faculty he bath,

Would eat up all the money in the world ; "— and finally cuts her short thus :— "Then waste no more the precious moments, Laura,

To question the great blessing we enjoy. Our hours will all be as this hour to-night; Either to step with in eternity Towards our perfection with unwavering will, Or with a questioning purpose let it slide, And leave us far behind. A man's desires Are his companions, and by them he is known ; But he himself is what he grows to be,

-Using his time ; "— while the finest, perhaps, of all in the play is Ricardo's speech about the same Countess Diana to Frederick :— "Thou dost not know her

Because, I thank thee for it, thou dost not love her. And, friend, thy speech is gross ; why the truth is, There's not a man or woman on God's earth, However humble, mean, or ill-appearing, That bath not in his sight some grace and favour, Which angels see ; but mortals overlook it, Being spiritually blind ; for which affliction They have suffered half their shames, and slain the just.

But Love, God's gift, is spiritual sight;

'Tis the perception, which man lacks of all, Given him of one, to see as angels see.

This is man's marriage ; and what now I love

Is not, friend, what thou seest,—though thou may'st see

A beauty unparalleled,—but rather that

Which by love's gift I see; so say no more."

As one among many passages which show Mr. Bridges' power of description and command of rhythm, we may quote from another speech of Ricardo, in the first scene :— " All this hour

I have seemed in paradise : and the fair prospect Hath quieted my spirit: I think I sail Into the windless haven of my life To-day with happy omens : as the stir And sleep-forbidding rattle of the journey Was like my life till now. Here all is peace ; The still fresh air of this October morning With its resigning odours ; the rich hues Wherein the gay leaves revel to their fall, The deep blue sky ; the misty distances, And splashing fountains ; and I thought I heard A magic service of meandering music Threading the glades and stealing on the lawns. Was I mistaken ?"

He has, too, very happily introduced two beautiful lyrics, which friends of the old shorter poems will recognise, notably, the one beginning :— " My eyes for beauty pine,

My soul for Goddes grace ;"—

while one of the characters—a foolish, fantastical poet, the "wreathed ass," St. Nicholas—gives him the opportunity to

make some amusing and interesting comments on his own art of poetry, and to present some subtle travesties of certain styles of verse.

Altogether, the Humours of the Court must be pronounced a very finished piece of work of no common order—one which adds to the range, if not to the rank of the author of Achilles in Scyros.