POETS AND POETRY.

MR. HUGHES'S " GIPSY NIGHT."

Qurre a• large proportion of the poems in Mr. Hughes's first volume have already appeared in the columns of the Spectator, notably, the title poem, "Feba de se," " Aenigma," and " Eternal Gratitude." This is a circumstance which will, I think, n she Spectator readers• enjoy the little book in which they are now collected rather more than will the general public. Mr. Hughes's verse has many virtues, chief among which, perhaps, is the fact that it is never " minor." It' lacks that atmosphere of genial, amiable twaddle that we asso- ciate with that word. His work is invariably vigorous and

intelligent. But the pleasure of readers who come to the book with no previous acquaintance will probably be diminished by the obscurity which shrouds so many of the pieces. But let them persevere : the- poems are worth it. There • is not one of them which has not-sense in it, not one which in a hundred years, when- perhaps those coral insects, the annotators, have raised their scaling steps about it, will not be found to be perfectly justifiable, perfectly comprehensible. But to return to the book's immediate impact. Mr. Hughes seems to have a pro- digious idea of the intellect of his readers : indeed, he possesses as much respect for them as Mr. Arnold Bennett seems to have contempt. Take, for example, a poem in the present collection called " Judy" :— " Sand hot to haunches ; Sun beating eyes down, Yet they peer under lashes At the hill's crown :

• Gipsy Right. By Richard Hughes. Golden Cockerel Preen, Waltham St. Lawrence, Berks. 148. 6d. net.]

Seo host the hill slants

Up the sky half way; Over the to tall clouds

Poke, gold and grey.

Down: see a green field Tipped on its short edge, Its upper rim straggled round By a black hedge.

Crass bright as now brass t Uneven dark gorse

Stuck to its own shadow, Like Judy that black horse.

Birds clatter numberless,

And the breeze tells That bean-flower somewhere Has ousted the blue-bells ; Birds clatter numberless In the muffled wood, Big feet move slowly : Mean no good."

This poem is first, of course, a typical example of the tele. graphese style preferred by the Graves-Rickward-Hughes school In the first verse the rhythm is perceived to be fairly well marked, abrupt and jerky, but I maintain that by the time the reader has got to the second verse he will be so much occupied in trying to follow the outlines of the picture which is being pre- sented to his eyes, and in the subsequent verses so concerned to puzzle out the ultimate meaning and purpose of the poem, that he will completely lose the beat of the rhythm. To the greater number. of readers, that is, the poem will not fulfil its poetic function, but will make an effect like that of a vigorous, crabbed piece of prose. The absolute meaning of the poem seems to me very easily missed. I think many readers will run away with the idea that it is intended to be a piece of equine psychology ; that the poet is trying to tell us what it feels like to be' inside the black mare's hide. It is Judy's eyes, they will-conclude, that are beaten down by the sun and it was her special interest in the subject—her selective attention—which made- the- greenness of the grass so prominent a feature in the landscape. Then note the special- stress. which is put on- the smell of bean-flowers. Again, her uncom- menting acceptance of the fact that the thing moving about in the wood is there to some sinister end ! Read so the poem does not seem particularly. happy or successful. After all this rationalization of the conclusion to whioh he has in fact jumped the reader may be surprised to learn that equine psychology was not the least what the poet was aiming at, but that he was merely painting a cubist landscape, and called it •after the mare for no better reason than because she was the only living creature introduced. I don't want especially to pick- holes in this par- ticular poem, but merely to cite it as typifying what seems to me Mr. Hughes's chief fault. I suppose that it is to be expected in an ago of transition that poets, should seem obscure ; it is probably their readers and not. they who are at fault, for the poets are the light advance guard and move sprightly forward, unencumbered, their whole attention directed to the business. It may be better that they should write as they feel than write as their. contemporaries will understand, but. I cannot help thinking that a gocd.deal of the obscurity that readers-complain of in Mr. Turner, the Sitwells, and so on could be remedied if the poets themselves really took in the fact that they don't always convey their meaning and realized the necessity of throwing out a clue or two. It is probably true that all art worth having demands an effort on the part of reader or onlooker, but I don't want poetry to degenerate into a sort of game of acrostics, as a whole layer of it once did when Abraham Cowley and the other metaphysical poets flourished. I fancy that this whole question of " difficult " poetry is often not a matter of tampering with the verse itself, but could be set right by a few-journalistic tricks, felicitous titles and so on. Suppose Mr. Hughes had

called his poem " Cubist Landscape " ? Then I think that we should have enjoyed its ingenious exactitude, its definite outline, its quality of solidity, almost immediately, instead of spending the whole of our first encounter with it in trying to get the focus. In this connexion, if he ever should revise his titles or add notes, I commend to Mr. Hughes's attention also " Cottager is Given the Bird," " A Man," and the " Bird's- nester."

But to turn to the larger and more agreeable subject of Mr. Hughes's virtues. Now, seeing his poems collected together, wo realize how remarkable is their intellectual content, by which I do not merely mean that Mr. Hughes can think, but that he has the much rarer gift of putting his thoughts into a poem and keeping them there. So many poets if they are able to think at all appear to offer the result of their cogitation to the public in a sieve. The thought has been there, but it has somehow oozed and trickled through the fabric of the poem. The verse will not bear re-reading, we find out its poverty almost at first perusal. I think there ie only one poem in Mr. Hughes's little volume that will not bear repeated reading.. Even the light pieces, such as " Poets, Painters, Puddings," contain little niceties, little special individual touches, small pleasant sub- jokes, or an agreeable oddness of point of view which keep, them freeh under the test of a third and fourth reading.

But the reader who has not seen the poems in our columns must not be left with the impression that Mr. Hughes cannot sing when he chooses. He is a difficult poet from whom to quote ; his poems need to be read in their entirety—lyrical verses like the following, for example, gaining immensely by the juxtaposition of /waterer. passages. The reader must believe me when I say that the slight over-sugariness of the following is entirely neutralized and compensated for by the other ingredients in the poem from which it is taken :— " There are more shadows in this loamy cup Than God could count : and oh, but it is fair ; The kindly green and rounded trunks, that meet Under the soil with twinings of their feet And in the sky with twinings of their arms : The yellow stools, the still ungathered charms Of berry, woodland herb, and bryony, And mid-wood's changeling child, Anemone.

- . . . . - •

Quiet-as a grave beneath a spire

I lie and watch the pointed climbing fire, I lie and watch the smoky weather-cock That climbs too high,- and bends to the breeze's shock, And breaks, and dances off across the skies

Gay as a flurry of blue butterflies."

Some of the storm-pieces—" The Singing Furies " and " Storm, to the Theme of Polyphemus "—are also admirable, as is the more classical and traditional " The Image."

Gipsy Night is the best maiden volume of poems that has

been published for several years.

A. WILLWAI-Rraue