Homilies in Verse
Gleams Britain's Day. By Harry Clifton. (Duckworth. rzs. 6d..
MR. HARRY CLIFTON'S book ought to be the result of great experi- ence, but perhaps it is not. He is giving advice to the world upon matters ranging over the whole universe in some 250 pages of verse —expressing, with a sort of prophetic certitude opinions upon religion, patriotism, love, art, war and peace, which he puts in un- conventional verse. Perhaps rightly enough, since his whole outlook is unconventional, and verse, after all, admits of being freer than prose. There are some readers who after glancing at a few pages will think this is all sheer bravado and nonsense. Bravado it is, but not all nonsense. This cocksureness this mixture of mysticism and satire, and deliberate turning from the sublime to the ridiculous, may be annoying, but much of it dearly springs from conviction and-even imagination ; there are irritating tricks of style, but- the sense comes first and the tricks are part of his effort to convey it. The result is a strange mixture. The language is sometimes that of an old morality play with music-hall humour imposed on it. Hopkins, Doughty and Eliot have had their influence, and also, strangely enough, Francis Thompson. The words "the pomp and regal splendour of the dead " might easily have come from Thompson, but rearrange them like this, and see how differently they sound: The holy men kept fresh their line,
And even the peasants on the soil Knew that the pomp and regal
Splendour of the dead had not ceased to shine.
His verse does not readily lend itself to quotation. The effect is cumulative. One is aware of a character of some force and originality seeking for expression, sometimes to good effect, sometimes clumsily through tricks of versification too often repeated. The poem as a whole is essentially a didactic one, with satirical interludes, though we are never sure when the satire is turning into a sermon.
God is not pleased that if you kiss You stop half way for a Pater Noster.
The book is the product of a curious, whimsical mind, full of energy, squandering it on half-digested ideas, but with illuminating passages which make amends for many pages which are pompous
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