A VOICE IN THE CROWD
The Book of Bodiey Head Verse. Chosen and edited by J. B. Priestley, with a preface by.!. C. Squire. (Bodley Head. 68.).
Fuom a large number of books of verse, some grandiose epics in Spenserian stanza, others the intimate heartaches of country-bred-and-bored young ladies, two alone have seemed worth picking out for comment. Mr. Priestley's collection is enjoyable because it contains a bunch of the choicest blooms from that famous garden which John Lane first began to culth. vate in the days of the Yellow Book. The book, as Mr. Squire points out in the, preface—his tribute to a friend— is a memorial to this publisher who gave so many minor poets an opportunity to be heard. I think it is most valuable because it reminds us how rich an imagination and how skilful a hand were combined in Richard Garnett, whose quality as a poet was overshadowed by his more spectacular feat of carrying the British Museum in his breast pocket. His poems here are moving and beautiful. We have also delightful lyrics from William Watson, Alice Meynell, Ernest Dowson, and others.
The other book is remarkable because it is the work of a poet of an alert consciousness, who has thought out his universe and its values by definitely accepting the philosophical scaf- folding offered him by Bergson. Whether one agrees or not with his selection of mentor, one must find him stimulating because he has form and is vertebrate. That is the essential element so seldom foutsd in practitioners of verse.
Mr. Hamilton's theory expressed in the title poem "The Making," is that art and beauty are an escape from sordid actuality ; that they are the creation of the mind when it works in a condition between pure fantasy and pure reality.
"Yet in that border land between Spirit and matter, in that dubious space Where the sick mind threw shadows on the screen Of the darkling world, there, in that most forlorn Dwelling was Beauty born."
I believe that to be a dangerous heresy which can lead only to a distorted sense of proportion ; to end in cameo-carving, and other innocuous forms of esoteric aesthetics. It gives us a feminine type of artist, who jealously hugs the children of his mind to protect them from the rigour and savagery of the world.' It leads inevitably to an uprooted sort of existence, and to a dread of the smell of earth. Preciosity, and art for art's. sake, are born of this fundamental misconception, and the poet gradually takes that irresponsible position in human society which he holds to-day—that of a creature to be indulged as an• effeminate, highly strung, sensitive plant, too line and perhaps a little too silly for the conunerce of the normal world.
Mr. Hamilton seems to be aware Of this impasse toward which his belief is leading him, for in one poem he speaks of himself as an " impotent rebel," and says
Now I'll begin To work, for this dream-wandering is a sin."
It is certainly this that drags on his wings. Again and again his verse rhythms flag under the intolerable weight of this sterile belief. His poems frequently read as though, with all' his aspiring sensibility, his shoulders are bowed to earth and he dare not face the sun. Yet even with this handicap he lights bravely and with beautiful gesture towards the true faith in a unified world, a universe (he characteristically makes it feminine) which after all is
"Yet whole ; for when her body cries, Her spirit leans and stoops to fill
With passionate warmth and depth of light Bich motion, mood and will : And whole ; for when her spirit calls, Her body to this grace aspires. To lantern in a crystal glass Those insubstantial fires."
I have shown the poet as he is vulgarly pictured. This false view is an effect of that wrong bias in the philosophy of the art. The poet, both as craftsman and critic, should fight it tooth and nail, stamping it out both in his personal contact with individuals, and in the establishment of those first prin- ciples on which he proposes to practise the art. That endeavour involves his private relationships, his religion, ethics, and politics, and his scientific. equipment, It involves his whole life from love of God, woman, friend, child, down to hi physical exercise and diet. It means that of all men he miss be the most masculine ; sleepless, ever-conscious, ever creative, the leader of men towards the full manhood, tha Godhead which is our final evolution from the beast.
is, therefore, no rebel, since he embraces all ; no dreamer, since his every idea is immediately translated into action.
No poet who believes other than this can ever grow like a tree, massive and stately, capturing :starlight and bird-music in its branches, and casting boughs with indifference to afford fire to *arm the souls of men. If he timidly roots himself on the surface soil of life, he can become no more than a frail plant of a season, exquisite and graceful"; gaining, perhaps, ia audacious height by clinging to the trunk of some more rugged giant. Such, I think, is Mr. Hamilton. Sensitive, subtle,- and with uncommon beauty and grace, he gains stature and scope by raising himself on the framework of his master, Bergson. To such a pass is poetry come nowadays, that foi a poet thus to support himself is to be distinguished from the crowd of verse-writers, who use the art only as a means ol emotional and sentimental self-indulgence.
Mr. Hamilton thus :stands out, distinct from these gentle, ineffectual people,--whose little volumes are piled round the present reviewer: They merit no more than the polite courtesy which it is customary to give to amateurs. Certainly it would be disproportiOnately serious to castigate them. Their essays give pleasure to themselves and perhaps to their friends, and
Previous page
