Part 6

According to his own biography, William H. Davies was born in a public-house called Church House at Newport, in the County of Monmouthshire, April 20, 1870, of Welsh parents. He was, until Bernard Shaw "discovered" him, a cattleman, a berry-picker, a panhandler--in short, a vagabond. In a preface to Davies' second book, _The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp_ (1906), Shaw describes how the manuscript came into his hands:

"In the year 1905 I received by post a volume of poems by one William H. Davies, whose address was The Farm House, Kensington, S. E. I was surprised to learn that there was still a farmhouse left in Kensington; for I did not then suspect that the Farm House, like the Shepherdess Walks and Nightingale Lane and Whetstone Parks of Bethnal Green and Holborn, is so called nowadays in irony, and is, in fact, a doss-house, or hostelry, where single men can have a night's lodging, for, at most, sixpence.... The author, as far as I could guess, had walked into a printer's or stationer's shop; handed in his manuscript; and ordered his book as he might have ordered a pair of boots. It was marked 'price, half a crown.' An accompanying letter asked me very civilly if I required a half-crown book of verses; and if so, would I please send the author the half crown: if not, would I return the book. This was attractively simple and sensible. I opened the book, and was more puzzled than ever; for before I had read three lines I perceived that the author was a real poet. His work was not in the least strenuous or modern; there was indeed no sign of his ever having read anything otherwise than as a child reads.... Here, I saw, was a genuine innocent, writing odds and ends of verse about odds and ends of things; living quite out of the world in which such things are usually done, and knowing no better (or rather no worse) than to get his book made by the appropriate craftsman and hawk it round like any other ware."

It is more than likely that Davies' first notoriety as a tramp-poet who had ridden the rails in the United States and had had his right foot cut off by a train in Canada, obscured his merits as a genuine singer. Even his early _The Soul's Destroyer_ (1907) revealed that simplicity which is as _naif_ as it is strange. The volumes that followed are more clearly melodious, more like the visionary wonder of Blake, more artistically artless.

With the exception of "The Villain," which has not yet appeared in book form, the following poems are taken from _The Collected Poems of W. H. Davies_ (1916) with the permission of the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

DAYS TOO SHORT

When primroses are out in Spring, And small, blue violets come between; When merry birds sing on boughs green, And rills, as soon as born, must sing;

When butterflies will make side-leaps, As though escaped from Nature's hand Ere perfect quite; and bees will stand Upon their heads in fragrant deeps;

When small clouds are so silvery white Each seems a broken rimmed moon-- When such things are, this world too soon, For me, doth wear the veil of Night.

THE MOON

Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul, Oh, thou fair Moon, so close and bright; Thy beauty makes me like the child That cries aloud to own thy light: The little child that lifts each arm To press thee to her bosom warm.

Though there are birds that sing this night With thy white beams across their throats, Let my deep silence speak for me More than for them their sweetest notes: Who worships thee till music fails, Is greater than thy nightingales.

THE VILLAIN

While joy gave clouds the light of stars, That beamed where'er they looked; And calves and lambs had tottering knees, Excited, while they sucked; While every bird enjoyed his song, Without one thought of harm or wrong-- I turned my head and saw the wind, Not far from where I stood, Dragging the corn by her golden hair, Into a dark and lonely wood.

THE EXAMPLE

Here's an example from A Butterfly; That on a rough, hard rock Happy can lie; Friendless and all alone On this unsweetened stone.

Now let my bed be hard, No care take I; I'll make my joy like this Small Butterfly; Whose happy heart has power To make a stone a flower.

_Hilaire Belloc_

Hilaire Belloc, who has been described as "a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Oxford man, a country gentleman, a soldier, a satirist, a democrat, a novelist, and a practical journalist," was born July 27, 1870. After leaving school he served as a driver in the 8th Regiment of French Artillery at Toul Meurthe-et-Moselle, being at that time a French citizen. He was naturalized as a British subject somewhat later, and in 1906 he entered the House of Commons as Liberal Member for South Salford.

As an author, he has engaged in multiple activities. He has written three satirical novels, one of which, _Mr. Clutterbuck's Election_, sharply exposes British newspapers and underground politics. His _Path to Rome_ (1902) is a high-spirited and ever-delightful travel book which has passed through many editions. His historical studies and biographies of _Robespierre_ and _Marie Antoinette_ (1909) are classics of their kind. As a poet he is only somewhat less engaging. His _Verses_ (1910) is a rather brief collection of poems on a wide variety of themes. Although his humorous and burlesque stanzas are refreshing, Belloc is most himself when he writes either of malt liquor or his beloved Sussex. Though his religious poems are full of a fine romanticism, "The South Country" is the most pictorial and persuasive of his serious poems. His poetic as well as his spiritual kinship with G. K. Chesterton is obvious.

THE SOUTH COUNTRY

When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it's there walking in the high woods That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England I saw them for a day: Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and grey; From their castle-walls a man may see The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England They see the Severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along. They have the secret of the Rocks, And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise, They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes Comes surely from our Sister the Spring When over the sea she flies; The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines But I smell the Sussex air; Nor I never come on a belt of sand But my home is there. And along the sky the line of the Downs So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend: And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end. Who will there be to comfort me Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends Of the men of the Sussex Weald; They watch the stars from silent folds, They stiffly plough the field. By them and the God of the South Country My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man, Or if ever I grow to be old, I will build a house with deep thatch To shelter me from the cold, And there shall the Sussex songs be sung And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood Within a walk of the sea, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me.

_Anthony C. Deane_

Anthony C. Deane was born in 1870 and was the Seatonian prizeman in 1905 at Clare College, Cambridge. He has been Vicar of All Saints, Ennismore Gardens, since 1916. His long list of light verse and essays includes several excellent parodies, the most delightful being found in his _New Rhymes for Old_ (1901).

THE BALLAD OF THE _BILLYCOCK_

It was the good ship _Billycock_, with thirteen men aboard, Athirst to grapple with their country's foes,-- A crew, 'twill be admitted, not numerically fitted To navigate a battleship in prose.

It was the good ship _Billycock_ put out from Plymouth Sound, While lustily the gallant heroes cheered, And all the air was ringing with the merry bo'sun's singing, Till in the gloom of night she disappeared.

But when the morning broke on her, behold, a dozen ships, A dozen ships of France around her lay, (Or, if that isn't plenty, I will gladly make it twenty), And hemmed her close in Salamander Bay.

Then to the Lord High Admiral there spake a cabin-boy: "Methinks," he said, "the odds are somewhat great, And, in the present crisis, a cabin-boy's advice is That you and France had better arbitrate!"

"Pooh!" said the Lord High Admiral, and slapped his manly chest, "Pooh! That would be both cowardly and wrong; Shall I, a gallant fighter, give the needy ballad-writer No suitable material for song?"

"Nay--is the shorthand-writer here?--I tell you, one and all, I mean to do my duty, as I ought; With eager satisfaction let us clear the decks for action And fight the craven Frenchmen!" So they fought.

And (after several stanzas which as yet are incomplete, Describing all the fight in epic style) When the _Billycock_ was going, she'd a dozen prizes towing (Or twenty, as above) in single file!

Ah, long in glowing English hearts the story will remain, The memory of that historic day, And, while we rule the ocean, we will picture with emotion The _Billycock_ in Salamander Bay!

_P.S._--I've lately noticed that the critics--who, I think, In praising _my_ productions are remiss-- Quite easily are captured, and profess themselves enraptured, By patriotic ditties such as this,

For making which you merely take some dauntless Englishmen, Guns, heroism, slaughter, and a fleet-- Ingredients you mingle in a metre with a jingle, And there you have your masterpiece complete!

Why, then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf? The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy-- I mean to take to writing it myself!

A RUSTIC SONG

Oh, I be vun of the useful troibe O' rustic volk, I be; And writin' gennelmen due descroibe The doin's o' such as we; I don't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants, I can't tell 'oes from trowels, But 'ear me mix ma consonants, An' moodle oop all ma vowels!

I talks in a wunnerful dialect That vew can hunderstand, 'Tis Yorkshire-Zummerzet, I expect, With a dash o' the Oirish brand; Sometimes a bloomin' flower of speech I picks from Cockney spots, And when releegious truths I teach, Obsairve ma richt gude Scots!

In most of the bukes, 'twas once the case I 'adn't got much to do, I blessed the 'eroine's purty face, An' I seed the 'ero through; But now, I'm juist a pairsonage! A power o' bukes there be Which from the start to the very last page Entoirely deal with me!

The wit or the point o' what I spakes Ye've got to find if ye can; A wunnerful difference spellin' makes In the 'ands of a competent man! I mayn't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants, I mayn't knaw 'oes from trowels, But I does ma wark, if ma consonants Be properly mixed with ma vowels!

_J. M. Synge_

The most brilliant star of the Celtic revival was born at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1871. As a child in Wicklow, he was already fascinated by the strange idioms and the rhythmic speech he heard there, a native utterance which was his greatest delight and which was to be rich material for his greatest work. He did not use this folk-language merely as he heard it. He was an artist first and last, and as an artist he bent and shaped the rough material, selecting with great fastidiousness, so that in his plays every speech is, as he himself declared all good speech should be, "as fully flavored as a nut or apple." Even in _The Tinker's Wedding_ (1907), possibly the least important of his plays, one is arrested by snatches like:

"That's a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if sleep's a grand thing, it's a grand thing to be waking up a day the like of this, when there's a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you'll hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hill."

For some time, Synge's career was uncertain. He went to Germany half intending to become a professional musician. There he studied the theory of music, perfecting himself meanwhile in Gaelic and Hebrew, winning prizes in both of these languages. Yeats found him in France in 1898 and advised him to go to the Aran Islands, to live there as if he were one of the people. "Express a life," said Yeats, "that has never found expression." Synge went. He became part of the life of Aran, living upon salt fish and eggs, talking Irish for the most part but listening also to that beautiful English which, to quote Yeats again, "has grown up in Irish-speaking districts and takes its vocabulary from the time of Malory and of the translators of the Bible, but its idiom and vivid metaphor from Irish." The result of this close contact was five of the greatest poetic prose dramas not only of his own generation, but of several generations preceding it. (See Preface.)

In _Riders to the Sea_ (1903), _The Well of the Saints_ (1905), and _The Playboy of the Western World_ (1907) we have a richness of imagery, a new language startling in its vigor, a wildness and passion that contrast strangely with the suave mysticism and delicate spirituality of his associates in the Irish Theatre.

Synge's _Poems and Translations_ (1910), a volume which was not issued until after his death, contains not only his few hard and earthy verses, but also Synge's theory of poetry. The translations, which have been rendered in a highly intensified prose, are as racy as anything in his plays; his versions of Villon and Petrarch are remarkable for their adherence to the original and still radiate the poet's own personality.

Synge died, just as he was beginning to attain fame, at a private hospital in Dublin March 24, 1909.

BEG-INNISH

Bring Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude To dance in Beg-Innish,[13] And when the lads (they're in Dunquin) Have sold their crabs and fish, Wave fawny shawls and call them in, And call the little girls who spin, And seven weavers from Dunquin, To dance in Beg-Innish.

I'll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean, Where nets are laid to dry, I've silken strings would draw a dance From girls are lame or shy; Four strings I've brought from Spain and France To make your long men skip and prance, Till stars look out to see the dance Where nets are laid to dry.

We'll have no priest or peeler in To dance in Beg-Innish; But we'll have drink from M'riarty Jim Rowed round while gannets fish, A keg with porter to the brim, That every lad may have his whim, Till we up sails with M'riarty Jim And sail from Beg-Innish.

A TRANSLATION FROM PETRARCH

(_He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth_)

What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness.

What a grudge I am bearing the Heavens that are after taking her, and shutting her in with greediness, the Heavens that do push their bolt against so many.

What a grudge I am bearing the blessed saints that have got her sweet company, that I am always seeking; and what a grudge I am bearing against Death, that is standing in her two eyes, and will not call me with a word.

TO THE OAKS OF GLENCREE

My arms are round you, and I lean Against you, while the lark Sings over us, and golden lights, and green Shadows are on your bark.

There'll come a season when you'll stretch Black boards to cover me; Then in Mount Jerome I will lie, poor wretch, With worms eternally.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] (The accent is on the last syllable.)

_Nora Hopper Chesson_

Nora Hopper was born in Exeter on January 2, 1871, and married W. H. Chesson, a well-known writer, in 1901. Although the Irish element in her work is acquired and incidental, there is a distinct if somewhat fitful race consciousness in _Ballads in Prose_ (1894) and _Under Quickened Boughs_ (1896). She died suddenly April 14, 1906.

A CONNAUGHT LAMENT

I will arise and go hence to the west, And dig me a grave where the hill-winds call; But O were I dead, were I dust, the fall Of my own love's footstep would break my rest!

My heart in my bosom is black as a sloe! I heed not cuckoo, nor wren, nor swallow: Like a flying leaf in the sky's blue hollow The heart in my breast is, that beats so low.

Because of the words your lips have spoken, (O dear black head that I must not follow) My heart is a grave that is stripped and hollow, As ice on the water my heart is broken.

O lips forgetful and kindness fickle, The swallow goes south with you: I go west Where fields are empty and scythes at rest. I am the poppy and you the sickle; My heart is broken within my breast.

_Eva Gore-Booth_

Eva Gore-Booth, the second daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth and the sister of Countess Marcievicz, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1872. She first appeared in "A. E."'s anthology, _New Songs_, in which so many of the modern Irish poets first came forward.

Her initial volume, _Poems_ (1898), showed practically no distinction--not even the customary "promise." But _The One and the Many_ (1904) and _The Sorrowful Princess_ (1907) revealed the gift of the Celtic singer who is half mystic, half minstrel. Primarily philosophic, her verse often turns to lyrics as haunting as the two examples here reprinted.

THE WAVES OF BREFFNY

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart, But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill, And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind: But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way, Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal; But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray, And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

WALLS

Free to all souls the hidden beauty calls, The sea thrift dwelling on her spray-swept height, The lofty rose, the low-grown aconite, The gliding river and the stream that brawls Down the sharp cliffs with constant breaks and falls-- All these are equal in the equal light-- All waters mirror the one Infinite.

God made a garden, it was men built walls; But the wide sea from men is wholly freed; Freely the great waves rise and storm and break, Nor softlier go for any landlord's need, Where rhythmic tides flow for no miser's sake And none hath profit of the brown sea-weed, But all things give themselves, yet none may take.

_Moira O'Neill_

Moira O'Neill is known chiefly by a remarkable little collection of only twenty-five lyrics, _Songs from the Glens of Antrim_ (1900), simple tunes as unaffected as the peasants of whom she sings. The best of her poetry is dramatic without being theatrical; melodious without falling into the tinkle of most "popular" sentimental verse.

A BROKEN SONG

'_Where am I from?_' From the green hills of Erin. '_Have I no song then?_' My songs are all sung. '_What o' my love?_' 'Tis alone I am farin'. Old grows my heart, an' my voice yet is young.

'_If she was tall?_' Like a king's own daughter. '_If she was fair?_' Like a mornin' o' May. When she'd come laughin' 'twas the runnin' wather, When she'd come blushin' 'twas the break o' day.

'_Where did she dwell?_' Where one'st I had my dwellin'. '_Who loved her best?_' There's no one now will know. '_Where is she gone?_' Och, why would I be tellin'! Where she is gone there I can never go.

BEAUTY'S A FLOWER

_Youth's for an hour, Beauty's a flower, But love is the jewel that wins the world._

Youth's for an hour, an' the taste o' life is sweet, Ailes was a girl that stepped on two bare feet; In all my days I never seen the one as fair as she, I'd have lost my life for Ailes, an' she never cared for me.

Beauty's a flower, an' the days o' life are long, There's little knowin' who may live to sing another song; For Ailes was the fairest, but another is my wife, An' Mary--God be good to her!--is all I love in life.

_Youth's for an hour, Beauty's a flower, But love is the jewel that wins the world._

_John McCrae_

John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, in 1872. He was graduated in arts in 1894 and in medicine in 1898. He finished his studies at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and returned to Canada, joining the staff of the Medical School of McGill University. He was a lieutenant of artillery in South Africa (1899-1900) and was in charge of the Medical Division of the McGill Canadian General Hospital during the World War. After serving two years, he died of pneumonia, January, 1918, his volume _In Flanders Fields_ (1919) appearing posthumously.

Few who read the title poem of his book, possibly the most widely-read poem produced by the war, realize that it is a perfect rondeau, one of the loveliest (and strictest) of the French forms.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

_Ford Madox Hueffer_

Ford Madox Hueffer was born in 1873 and is best known as the author of many novels, two of which, _Romance_ and _The Inheritors_, were written in collaboration with Joseph Conrad. He has written also several critical studies, those on Rossetti and Henry James being the most notable. His _On Heaven and Other Poems_ appeared in 1916.

CLAIR DE LUNE

I