Tribute to Hilaire Belloc

To H. B.

Success, as very well you knew, Is not becoming rich and swell, But doing what you meant to do, And doing it supremely well.

You laughed at lords and dons and things You praised the good and damned the rotten, Drank beer and wine and blood of kings, And what you wrote won't be forgotten.

You knew the better from the worse, And sooner would have died than barter The heritage of deathless verse For titles or a star and garter.

For stars the light of morning scatters, And garters serve ignoble ends, And you have told us all that matters Is laughter and the love of friends.

Friends you have had ; some went before, And some remain to follow after ; With all of them you shared the roar Of deep-lunged Rabelaisian laughter.

And when at last the shadows fall, There at the ending of the road The boat is waiting for your call To bear you down the Evenlode.

NORWICH.

That, from the friend to whom Belloc dedicated his great Heroin Poem in Praise of Wine, is the Vale which will surely be pasted now at the end of our Sonnets and Verse.

This Competition was set when Hilaire Belloc was alive and well its entries were judged when he was dead. Most of them had been written, obviously, before the news of his accident was abroad. Some had in them the premonition of the end. All were verses of friendship (which had not been demanded by the question) as well as of praise (which had). They made a gay sheaf of flowers, from friends known and unknown, for the grave of a wonderful old man. But read them, where necessary, as tributes to a man alive, who never asked for reverence to be rendered, even to Caesar : only to God.

The following poem was written when the Evening Standard was serialising its proprietor's advice on achieving Success, and encourage- ment to the young to go out for its glittering prizes : Success I Had you pursued the road Commended in the Evening Standard, In vain had tender Evenlode

Among the western wolds meandered ;

In vain had you the long ways trod

That Buonaparte himself made shady, And bound, at Rome, your heart to God, And paid your devoirs to Our Lady ; In vain the praise of wine and song

Had thundered out with voice and book ; In vain . . . but need it take so long To prove you're not Lord Beaverbrook ?

Dear Belloc, you are old and poor

—At least Lord Beaverbrook would think it—

But stand a moment at your door, And take a cup in hand, and drink it, And breathe tie summer scent of limes

In English air that filled and made you,

And think of all the words and rhymes That owned you Master and obeyed you, And, where a Sussex upland stands To let night's shadow fall upon her, Receive into your poet's hands Not wealth, but love : not pride, but honour.

L. E. J.

H. S. Mackintosh sent in two versions, of which I slightly preferred this : How could you write these sorry lines ?

What ! no success, achievement, glory ?

Your banner in the forefront shines : Who else occasions such furore ?

An author who superbly writes In any mode, on any topic, Befogs our pigeonholing wights

They find you too kaleidoscopic. Then some there are who leave no name But greatness which the earth inherits, And some achieve thd Halls of Fame

On very meretricious merits.

You, very much apart from these,

Have "rung the bell," "brought back the penny"— Enriched a million devotees— And who can say as much ?—Not many I

And from among the other entries :

But who's to judge success, Old Friend, Or balance " ares " with " might-have-beens " ? Posterity may mark the end— We know the inestimable means.

The mellow sweetness in the air, The wine's bouquet, the Presence hinted, The happy accent—how Hilaire !- Can these be caught, assessed—or printed?

Achievement sounds a dusty thing

(Like pinning butterflies in cases) : We see your brightness on the wing And feel its flutter in our faces.

As long as men have eyes to read

And glimpse the Person through the reading, —You may not call it " to succeed "- But you'll go on, Old Friend, succeeding. P. M.

So long you've lived, great Hilaire B., (Maybe you did not mean to do it) You've nigh survived Posterity. That is Success, as 1 construe it.

'Tis common fate of Men of Letters To die—before their rise to fame— Hung in denigratory fetters

By pert Reviewers such as . , (1)

You have outlived the rise and fall

Of Acclamation and Neglect ; So now, 0 greatest of them all, Accept this tribute of Respect.

May you survive to ninety-three—

Or longer, if it does not bore you— Then terminate your Odyssey To find your Fame has gone before you

(1) Shame I G. W. S. C.

What do you think deserves success, Who rank yourself as undeserving, Yet all your life have dared profess

A staunch philosophy unswerving ?

What is success, do you suppose,

Who make no claim to have succeeded ? Incomparable verse and prose— Have they no part in what is needed ?

Is it a credit or a shame That you have used a life's endeavour With faith and courage to proclaim The true against the merely clever ?

And if these things shall count for naught,

And be forgotten soon hereafter, What of your lighter moods that taught

A solemn world the grace of laughter ?

Disclaim desert, renouncing fame :

Humility shall not avail you. Posterity will, just the same,

Take care that honour shall not fail you.

Though modesty's a virtue rare Unlooked for in a famous writer,

Achievement's yours—and since it's there, Denial only makes it brighter.

W. BERNARD WAKE.

These tributes to Hilaire Belloc are from the entries for Spectator Competition No. 177 set in this form :

Hilaire Belloc will be eighty-three on July 27th. In his " Dedicatory Ode " he wrote :

And One (Myself I mean—no less) Ah Posterity believe it— Not only don't deserve success

But hasn't managed to achieve it.

Readers are asked to compose not more than six stanzas (in the same mood and metre) of an " Expostulatory Ode " in answer to this self-depreciation, and in praise of Hilaire Belloc.

A prize of £3 is awarded to Lord Norwich for his entry and of £1

each to L. E. J. and H. S. Mackintosh. RICHARD USBORNE.