CHAPTER XXXIII

POETRY AND TIME

It is good to know the names of the great English poets and the order of time in which they come; we may write out such a list for ourselves if we hope to enjoy poetry. Many of you will find no difficulty in learning by heart the names of the poets, or in remembering the centuries to which they belong. The question mark after the first date in the case of Chaucer and Spenser means that there is no exact record of the year in which either of these poets was born.

Chaucer 1340 ? -- 1400 Spenser, 1552 ? -- 1599 Shakespeare, 1564 -- 1616 Milton, 1608 -- 1674 Dryden, 1631 -- 1700 Pope, 1688 -- 1744 Wordsworth, 1770 -- 1850 Coleridge, 1772 -- 1834 Byron, 1788 -- 1824 Shelley, 1792 -- 1822 Keats, 1795 -- 1821 Tennyson, 1809 -- 1892 Browning, 1812 -- 1889

We do not enjoy the work of all these poets equally; in any case, boys and girls, men and {231} women, have individual preferences. Some people find greater enjoyment in the work of Byron than in the work, let us suppose, of Tennyson. Others greatly prefer Tennyson to Browning; and again these may not care for Byron. But many people find delight in reading Browning's poetry. Still, we should remember that all these writers are great poets, and that each has had power over his own generation and other generations as well.

Chaucer, as you know, is difficult to read because he lived so many hundreds of years ago, and the English language has changed considerably since the time when he wrote poetry. The same may be said of Spenser, although in a less degree. Dryden and Pope helped to perfect the style of English poetry, and this, possibly, is their outstanding claim to greatness.

It may help us to know and enjoy poetry if we choose one or two of the poems written by these great poets.

You may have found the work of Chaucer already, but it is the Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ which most people, who read Chaucer at all, know best. A little study will help us to read some of Chaucer's lines. We know also of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, of Una and the Red Cross Knight. Shakespeare lives as the master of English literature. We have some knowledge of his plays, but we have not yet spoken of his sonnets.

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, usually divided into an octave--eight lines--and a sestet--six lines. There are three varieties of the {232} sonnet form in English poetry. That used by Shakespeare has three four-line stanzas, the first line in each stanza rhyming with the third, and the second line with the fourth; these stanzas are followed by a rhyming couplet. Those of you who are specially interested in verse forms will find under the heading "technical terms", an interesting note on the sonnet in Mr. H. W. Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English Usage_. Some of the most beautiful short poems in the world have taken the form of the sonnet. Read Shakespeare's sonnet beginning with the lines,--

That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

See with what beauty Shakespeare clothes the bare branches of winter trees. Many times in our lives, we will think with joy of Shakespeare's words when we look at the leafless boughs of trees and remember how the birds in summer sang in the leafy bowers like choristers in a choir. Shakespeare used nine words only to give us this joy.

Milton, who was a great poet, also wrote sonnets. The best known of his sonnets was written on his own blindness. It begins with the line,

When I consider how my light is spent.

But the most loved poem by Milton is the "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity". The beginning of the first stanza is as follows:

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It was the Winter wilde, While the Heav'n-born-childe All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in aw to him, Had doff't her gawdy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize:

Of Dryden, read part of "Alexander's Feast"; and from Pope's work choose the gay, amusing poem called "The Rape of the Lock". Wordsworth's sonnets are specially beautiful; we should read "Upon Westminster Bridge", and one other called "The World". His longer poem, "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood", will express for you how beautiful the world is in your eyes, perhaps more perfectly than the work of any other of the great poets.

Coleridge's poem, "Do You Ask What the Birds Say?" we should read; Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"; Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind", or his poem "To a Skylark"; Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes"; Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur"; and Browning's "Saul".

Listen to the music of the first lines belonging to the poems named in the last paragraph, if you still are not quite certain that there is delight in reading poetry.

Coleridge's poem begins:--

Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet, and Thrush, say "I love and I love!" In the winter they're silent--the wind is so strong; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.

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The first four lines of Bryon's poem, "She Walks in Beauty," are:--

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes:--

The first stanza of Shelley's "To a Skylark" is:--

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Even this one verse by Shelley gives us the feeling of rising high towards heaven with the bird and hearing his song.

The beginning of Keats' poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes", is one of the most beautiful and alluring openings in all poetry:--

St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;--

Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" is a story of Arthur and the Round Table, and the great sword Excalibur. Its opening lines read:--

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea;--

Browning's poems, "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix", "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and "Hervé Riel", you are likely to know already. "Saul" is a more difficult poem, but in it Browning shows his great power as a poet. {235} His love poetry, in such poems as "The Last Ride Together", and "One Word More", is considered Browning's finest work. "Saul" is a story taken from the Bible. David plays on his harp to Saul, who is ill. He tries to find help for Saul in his despondency. David finally tells Saul that God must be a man as well as God, so that He may help us all.

He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!

Do you remember how we discovered earlier in this book that time decides what is great in writing? This is true of the work of poets. We can see for ourselves how widely great poets differ in their work. Some write sweet, simple, clear and lovely songs; others write poetry which is difficult to read and understand. The simple, clear and lovely songs may last longer than the difficult poems. But if the difficult poetry contains great meaning, it may last too. A poet sometimes is great for the people of his own generation, but the ages that follow may not care for his work. Yet it may be that after a hundred years or so, people will love the poet's work again.

Is great poetry being written now! It is difficult for anyone to answer this question with {236} certainty. Some very lovely poetry has been written in this twentieth century, in the same way that beautiful verse has been written in the English language for hundreds of years.

Examples of this beautiful verse from Chaucer's time to the end of the nineteenth century, we may find in such books as Palgrave's _Golden Treasury of English Verse_; and _The Oxford Book of English Verse_, 1250-1900, edited by Mr. Quiller-Couch. Several anthologies, called _Books of Georgian Poetry_, and others beside, contain poetry written in the twentieth century.

There are many poets of whose work we have not spoken. Some of their names you know already; some you will learn by and by. These poets may have lived long ago, or no longer ago than last century, or they may be living to-day. Three outstanding names belonging to the Victorian Age are those of Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Charles Algernon Swinburne. We should remember the names also of a group of women who have written poetry: Mrs. Browning, Christina Rossetti, Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson, who is an American poet.

Some modern poets are: Rudyard Kipling, Robert Bridges, W. B. Yeats, Rupert Brooke, James Elroy Flecker, Laurence Binyon, William Watson, George Russell, W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, Alice Meynell, Katherine Tynan, W. W. Gibson, John Masefield, James Stephens, Lascelles Abercrombie, Siegfried Sassoon, Ralph Hodgson, Edmund Blunden, and a sister and two brothers, three poets in one family, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell.

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For an ending we may quote a verse from a poem written by a modern poet, Mr. Walter de la Mare. The name of the poem is "The Listeners":

'Is there anybody there!' said the Traveller Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor; And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said.

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YOUR COUNTRY AND BOOKS

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