Part 1
A VISION OF LIFE
A VISION OF LIFE
POEMS. BY DARRELL FIGGIS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
TO MY WIFE
For nigh four years now have these poems sought to snuff the open breeze, returning ever to me broken and disappointed. What bitterness was in this--how deep you alone know!--was yours also; but I alone knew that rarer bounty of your instant and unfailing comfort. Therefore, dear, these poems are dedicate to you beyond my power to alter or avert; and it lies for me now but to confirm the finding of the years.
INTRODUCTION
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
There are signs of a certain stirring in English poetry, a minor Renaissance of which Francis Thompson may be regarded as the chief ensign and example. It is partly the Elizabethan spirit, that permanent English thing working its way again to the surface; but, of course, like every Renaissance, it is in many ways unlike its origin and model. It is as true in art as it is in religion, that when a man is born again, he is born different. And the latest Elizabethanism has differed not only from the actual Elizabethan work, but from other revivals of it. The great romantic movement which was at its height about the beginning of the nineteenth century, the movement of which Coleridge is perhaps the most typical product, this movement was and even claimed to be a return to the Elizabethan inspiration. This, of course, it was in its revolt against the rhymed rationalism of Pope, in its claim that poetry was a sort of super-sense which Pope would have called nonsense. But there were two elements in the Coleridge and Wordsworth movement which prevented it, splendid as it was, from being perfectly Elizabethan.
The first was a certain craze for simplicity, even for a somewhat barbaric simplicity; a craze which was much connected with the growing influence of Germany and the purely Northern theory of our national origin. People were trying to be Anglo-Saxon instead of English. In style and diction this produced an almost pedantic plainness and love of Teutonic roots which, whatever else it was, was utterly antagonistic to the spirit of the Elizabethans. This business of the plain Saxon speech is entirely appropriate as eulogy on certain suitable things, such as the translation of the Bible; it is permissible as eulogy, but it is intolerable as condemnation. It is certainly part of the beauty of Bunyan’s work that it is built out of plain words, just as it is part of the beauty of Westminster Cathedral that it is built out of plain bricks. But as for saying that no building shall be built out of stone or marble or timber, that is quite another matter, and quite an unreasonable one. Coleridge, in the _Ancient Mariner_, did frequently manage strange and fine effects with the bald words of a ballad. But because I will not go without--
“They fixed on me their stony eyes That in the moon did glitter,”
is no reason at all why I should go without--
“Re-visits thus the glimpses of the moon.”
The richness and variegation of the old Elizabethan style permitted peculiar and poignant effects which the Wordsworthian ballad, and even the Tennysonian lyric, did not attempt to revive. The principal objection to writing Anglo-Saxon instead of English is, after all, a very simple one: it is that the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary is one of the smallest in the world, while the English vocabulary is one of the largest.
Mr. Darrell Figgis is one of those who give this impression of a latter-day return to the Elizabethan spirit; that is, to the real Elizabethan spirit which the romantic movement omitted--the spirit of Elizabethan enrichment and involution. The element to which I refer is already sufficiently well known in the work of Francis Thompson, in whom it could be, and indeed has been, called, not only Elizabethan complexity, but even Elizabethan affectation. The work of Mr. Darrell Figgis is less elaborate than that extreme though triumphant example; but it has the same essential qualities of sustained and systematic metrical style, of line linked with line in a process requiring the reader’s attention, and remote in its very nature from the startling simplicity of the old romantic ballad. If this kind of poetry prevails, people will have to listen to it rather as they listen to good and rather difficult music, not as they listen to scattered brilliancies in a speech by Mr. Bernard Shaw. Mr. Figgis is even Elizabethan (as was Francis Thompson also) in attempts at abrupt lyric metres, not always easy to achieve. But there was, indeed, another respect in which the early nineteenth century failed to be fully renaissant of the Renaissance. I mean that taste of sickness and aimless revolt which dominated Byron and even Shelley, and discoloured the moods of Coleridge. I am well aware of how much of strong art, of mercy, and egalitarian justice there was in the revolt, and those men in England who were its essential and spiritual enemies (such as Gifford in literature and Castlereagh in politics) are now covered with a contempt which can never be wiped away. Yet, when all is said, the weakness of the indispensable Revolution was in its artistic voices, in their notes of negation, of license, and of despair. When all is said, the Revolution succeeded in France, because it was chiefly an affair of soldiers; the Revolution failed in England, because it was chiefly an affair of poets. If any twopenny placeman could call it mere anarchy, if any tenth-rate Tory can say that it hated God and man, the blame does not lie with the stoical religion of Robespierre or the enormous common sense of Danton; it lies with Byron or Shelley or their belated brother Swinburne.
In this connection it is pleasant to feel that the new stirrings of the old influence are without any recurrence to the mere sentiment of ruin. In this respect the rising men rather follow Browning, who had the hope and heartiness of the Elizabethans, as well as their mystification and elaborate wit; indeed, he had everything of the Elizabethans, except their ease. Francis Thompson spoke from a secure tower of faith. Mr. Darrell Figgis is on the side of the angels. Nothing is more satisfying in his poetry, apart from its many incidental beauties, than the evidence it offers of a certain return to right feeling and faith in life, not as an early dream of transcendentalism, but as an ultimate result of experience. The thing which tired people call optimism is growing in many as a matter of mere fair-mindedness, and the fact is that at last a man of the world may be permitted to admire the world. I will not deny that much of my pleasure in Mr. Figgis’ work arises from a sympathy with his serious and sincere enjoyment of beauty and the great things that life begets. I should like to have quoted more than one line from his _Vision of Life_. But, after all, the ground of my gratitude and mental kinship is mostly in this: that it really is a vision of life, and not merely a vision of destruction.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
CONTENTS
PAGE
A VISION OF LIFE 3
TO A THRUSH 50
MULTUM IN PARVO 56
“FRIENDS VANISH AT MY FACE” 62
“A FANCY FAIR COMES FLOATING ON MY THOUGHT” 63
“AS IS THE SILVER NIGHT” 64
“BELOVED, HAST PERCEIVED A THROSTLE TUNE” 66
EXILE 68
“OH, I HAVE THEE, ASTHORE” 69
“EACH HATH THE TYPE OF BLISS WITHIN HIS THOUGHT” 71
A WORD TO THE CZAR 72
VIKING-THROES 74
“SENTENTIOUS” 77
AN IDYLL OF THE BROADS 80
TO A “CANTERBURY BELL”! 83
THE GOLDEN MUSICIAN 87
TO ---- 99
A VISION OF LIFE
A VISION OF LIFE
I sat brewing awhile, one even’s close, Life’s Destiny and Purpose. In the grate A flickering fire shone, Withered and wan, Dishevelled as a hectic Autumn rose. So, as I sate, With elfish toe leaping the shrinking embers A spiritous Presence passed, and on my thought Visions of faded days, paled friendships, dreams Of rapturous Mays smitten to drear Decembers, In evanescent postures wrought From forth the flickering gleams. So death-still ranged the Night athwart the gloom Icy and cavernous, that the embers’ tune Spake sharp and sudden, chasing the shade and flame In elfish gambol round the sombre room. So stepped the Night’s high noon; While Time, steady of sinew and of brow Implacable, upwound upon its spool The fitful hours of innocence and shame. Nor solitary, Night in its high rule, Reigned, for from forth the frosty bowers Deft messengers of airy fashion came The rude Earth to endow With heavenly mysteries of flowers. So sat I, and my mood grew calm and still: Irk fretted away; care, soilure, and distress, The smutch of strife, at the gaunt Night’s caress Unruffled into lofty peace. A will Ineffable, previsionary, swelled My thought to something of a twilit mood. Earth faded awhile; the frame of sensible things Obliviously smote my sensitive touch; The populous warm walls, the grate that held Ashes and smoulderings, The frore behoof, and all of fashion such, Transmuted were unto the larger scope Of visionary aspect. Thus on wings Of guideless flight, and thought I fain would cope, A Vision fared on me whate’er I would. Then seemed the twilight heavy with filmy glows: Forth from before my sight two several ways In opposite invitation rose, Oweing no kith, diverse of hue as aim. Darkling the Right ran, thro’ a drear amaze Craggy and barren, fulfilled of sloughs and mire; Most straitly was it limned, and oft each side Fell sheer to plumbless horror steep, that swept Spaceless, in ebon vastiness awide. Surmounted it thus dizzily; o’erleapt Fell chasms perilously athwart; abysms gaunt, Remorseless bracken tarns, the desert’s haunt, Each slippery spiss and slough, it overcame, Winding and wending ever higher and higher Tortuous yet steady-sure. Even so, despite I could not see Aught goal, withal its callow brow to daunt The hazardous soul, it bore a subtle lure Touching the deepest founts of high desire. Stretched on my Left, thus did it seem to me, Broadly a rich demesne lay, liberal And affluent, in spacious festival Arrayed. Mirth and the wealth of song Swelled thro’ its gaily caparisoned cope, Whose portals swung wide ope-- Falling upon my ears in ribaldry And merry laughter lewd: Nowhither led it seemingly; soft and strong Giddily sprang its mirth and ultimate hope. Yet scarce could I resolve it, for its air Quivered and scintillated glamours dense, A palpable mist of golden vapour, whence, On my amazing sight, there flitted nude The flash of forms voluptuous and rare, Whose ruby lips soft ruddy juices woo’d. Pondering I hovered; each the several ways Touched its responsive motion: this, that wound Whither I knew not, travail amid and stain, Awoke the fount of thought; that, the sheer gain Of liberal ecstasy, of flowing days And nightless hours forgetful, bound around Of irkless ease: this spake Olympus found, Endeavour’s glowing thew, Achievement high; That struck all blood to fever, till I fain Had slipped the leash. Perplexedly sat I. Then from the mirth and ribaldry outstept Beauty her very self: Of motion free, In grace voluptuous she swam on me, Her pursed lips murmurous of a mellow strain. Soft as the stars at evenfall Smiled her rare eyes from forth the shimmering air Hanging about her yet--her veriest pall, Save that an all-exuberant tide of hair Entwound her soft and sensuous flesh. So swept She, gracious; I her other-heedless thane. Rare love, mellow voluptuous love, Shone from her wondrous eyes, fell from her tongue Melodious, dwelt on the delicate bloom Of her seductive limbs: munificence Of love rioted in her wayward hair Falling heedlessly, and clung Ecstatic in the tremulous air’s perfume. Visionary I gazed; my mutinous blood, Each drop particularly fraught with so Complete an ecstasy, coursed thro’ my sense With populous colloquy, pouring a vast flood Of dizzy whispers on my ears awhile. Invitingly oped she her arms; a smile Broke her soft lips; then, rapturously and low, Fluted this murmurous music thro’ the air, In woven assonances, liquid measures, Her blissful syllables spelling the pleasures Her wares that were.
“Sweet, come with me; learn out my rare requite! Sweet, come to me, so shall I be to thee A passionate delight! Let us enwrap us in the robes of Pleasure; Owe no confining marge, but full and free Hold Love’s exultant measure.
Claim lordship on these lips; make this embrace Of strenuous limbs thine to the tilth of days; The exquisitry of this face, If so to thee, scan with thine eager eyes: Flash linking flash, all in a wondering gaze, Twin in our ecstasies.
The fragrant largess of this liberal hair Shall twine us twain about as we shall twine Hid in Love’s secret lair; Or mantle down thy shoulder as I lay This peach-soft bloom of loveliness on thine And Love’s low message say.
Then come to me; yea, let me be to thee Love’s veriest scope of all; in these soft eyes Spell thine Eternity. Ah, wherefore hesitant hang? These plenteous halls Hunger for thee, as I, with full surmise: Lords be we all, not thralls!”
So ceased she: flashing from her challenging eyes Arch invitations, boldly coy. The air, Loth to let slip such bliss, Clung to its echoing whispers, murmurous-wise, In passionate ecstasy. And yet, howe’er Each swollen vein of mine with knotted strain Stood high, content for one celestial kiss To cheapen Life and Thought, a distant pain Fettered me with disturbed uncertainty. Hesitant I glanced away; held of a doubt; Tost ’twixt passion and fear: tentatively My eye shot roundabout, Each freighting all my venture on a thought. Then from the silvery glooms, a wizardry, fraught With an imperative touch, fell on my soul, Drawing all my thought thither with harsh control. So, as I glowered upon its portals, wan, Gaunt, lofty, lifting up a parlous height Of shadowy phantasy, before its brink Palely the air shivered, and its atoms shone Pregnant with waking light. Unknowing what its purport, what to think Scarce dared I hazard--gazing, smote to trance, Riveted there with every thought and glance. The pallid atoms, hither-thither mazed, Smitten with iridescent rigours, shaped As to an outline--gaunt and leanly draped With flowing vesture, bony arms upraised Talon-befingered. Its Visage all was wan, Harrowed and sexless, like some skeleton Draped o’er with lifeless skin. Its Brow, or what Seemed like to Brow, hungered the heavy skies. Its glittering eyes Gleamed coldly in great orbs. ’Twas steely-lipped. Its Trunk, Its ruinous Midst--oh, tell it not! Most like ’twas to a livid dream forgot, And waked to horror at fell Memory’s whims! A sweaty Terror sat upon my limbs; My natural Fell awoke to life, and stood Erect with palpable horror; and all my blood Crowded its mart of motion, fear-begot, Thither to escape. Then from the Phantom chill Upon the palpitant air these measures dripped In numbers ill. “Mortal, be not deceived! Despise these cloying measures, they are false! Withhold imagination from the calls Of sensuous privilege. Straightway be cleaved Thence, and away! And hearken now to me. Heed these rare strictures! Prize not thy frail self: Strive for a larger Weal; Felicity Foots only thus. Perplex thy brain for Man, And his complacent peace: eschew the pelf Of isolate happiness; so shall thy span Compound the highest achievement. Manacles Spell subtler bliss than liberty; in sooth Are veriest liberty; yet if not so, Thine the dear joy of conning out the cells Of worthier constraint. Scan virtuous Truth; Search out her compeers with a quickening throe Of ecstasied thought. Love Justice. Knowledge sue And track, following on tho’ dark disruth Dog all thy painful way. Think nobly true; Compassionately soothe the sick of soul, Life’s troubled children. Learn a high control, And abdicate thyself, Love’s grace to woo. Let Equity thine equal fingers turn On low and lofty, sleek and lean alike, Achievement’s sons and whoso hungering yearn: Discriminate not ’twixt, for all are one And indivisible. Base passions shun And flee: strike not at all; yet if thou strike, Strike for the high and meritorious claim, As thou may’st judge: let not thy wrath Abide the twilight fall; nor let thy shame Of liverous passions issue forth On days that step not yet, sullying thy thought And others’ peace--weightier these than thine! Be kind, be true, be sweet, to all and aught. Ponder these principles; deep at thy soul Will commendation leap in greeting; lo, Even now bestirs thy thought. Arise, divine Life as a loftier scroll To trace thy character on, come weal or woe. Passion is soon be-charred; but elevate thought Strews an increasing largess. Turn aside Yon ruddy Whore mellisonant; malign She and her subtle craft are, howsoe’er Deceit encompasses her feverous lair. This thy true lot of life, withal ’tis fraught With hardihood and hazard so: abide Its mandate to thee, tread it dauntlessly. ’Tis its abundant recompense; and a court All-continent. As is my tongue allied With thy quick thought, so hearken thou to me, Fearful of nought!” Joint with its utterance so, Twisting, It thrust Its talon fingers thro’ The misty portals, spare and gaunt. Below Fearfully sat I then, tho’ less of fear Shook o’er my limbs; for thought had spurned the soil, Touched by the words, and broken on my ear A callow incongruity betwixt The lips that uttered what the words did woo. The pale air drank the silence, as the coil Of tortuous precepts ceased. Then, intermixt, Dizzy, as was each thought and riotous sense, There unwound thence Vivid upon my soul this nucleus clear: So forth I uttered:-- “Tell, tell me thy Name! Who art thou that so bidd’st me? Whence thy claim: Wherefrom derives it? Whither its purport high? Art thou thine own? If so, declare me now What rare enfranchisement shall bondage ply At thy behest? Else, forth produce thy script; Unwind thy high commission, whereto bow Perforce I need, heedless of pleasures clipt, Or purple rapture, on yon path awry To attempt a hazardous snare!”
Toward me then turned It; and with baneful stare Struck chill my mood defiant. Irked with thought, Fear, and the lees of passion, sat I thus; While the dim Spectre touched Its answer, wrought Icily dolorous. “I am Duty: I Sway all the lot of man. His tentative life Steps subtly to my measures; in fine deed Is my attenuate speech:--at very strife His tongue invokes mine arm. I ratify His hesitant counsels, troublous thoughts, with thrall And edict; or annul his querulous creed. Evanishment were very loss of all: It would evacuate the World of what Coheres its several elements; social peace, Concord and Amity, the common lot Of neighbourly calm, would rot and palter. Cease Rebellious queries; heed my formulate call: Strip to it, and proceed!” Then borne upon a breath Melodious, swept a wonder-wealth of song Vivifying all the air. Again my blood It wrought to populous utterance, hot as strong In riotous desire. Were it to Death, My passion mouthed no bit, but in a flood Tumultuous had swept me on its wide Revelry high, out to the perilous Main Lawless as limnless, save that the Spectral Bane Fettered me helpless. So once more My tongue uprose: “Show me thy script!” I cried, Poised ’twixt the blushing ecstasy, and the frore Spectre of ruinous side. “What is’t to me, this social affluence, The agglomerate frame of peace, when ecstasy Raps loudly at my soul? What gain hast thou? Yon dismal gloom, barren and dim and chill, Say, what felicity Commensurate with this Lady’s exquisite sense Bestows it? Utter thy delightful fill Alternate for my choice; hereafter, now, Or how thou wilt! Yet if not so, declare Thy dread commission, bounden upon my soul! Expound me aught for iridescent goal Whereto this region stretches! Do I fall, Pale Ogre, how shall large omnipotence Brace thy lean thew? Oh, speak! I conjure thee, speak! If on a bleak Perilous pivot swung; if in the abyss Of Failure clutched, while subtle whispers hiss Sinuous about me--say, what benison fair Awakes to comfort from thy callow thrall? If Ill and Sorrow rear Spectral athwart my eyes, and this hued cheek Fall ashen like thine own, what then thy cheer, Grim Apparition? what thy comfort then, Dim Spectre? Hold tho’; have enough of this! Fearless I ask again, Art uttered of another; or art weak, Continent in thyself? Comest thou with bliss For largess? Else, declare thy peerless script, Disclose thy high commission, Ogre blear, Thou talon-fingered Horror, steely-lipped!”
Doubtfully ceased I: wound amid my frame Raged complicated elements. Aerial thought On metaphysic pinion soared aloft; While tremulous passion struck my blood, and wrought Sensual within me, fell and subtly soft. Fear, anger, scorn and doubt, in complex claim Tost all disorderly. Yet most to cleave Decision knew I then, whate’er might be, Out from the tangled elements. So I turned Whither the Shape let fall Its jaw to weave Its chill articulation passionlessly. Ill-eeriely fell Its speech, as tho’ It spurned Life’s various intonation, to answer me What in high mien I sought. “Mortal, not mine Scripts to declare; neither attorneys high To sate thy heart wherewith. My voice proceeds Swift to thy nobler self. Didst thou apply Reason thereto, or thought deliberative, What hesitancy were there? Loftier than creeds Is my transcendent Word; that yet doth twine Rooted amid thy need. They that supine Wallow in fell lasciviousness, are brutes Trivial, corporeal; their weary bliss, Blinding their very selves, I say, despise: Esteem not that they misesteem. Rare fruits, Self-generative, of elevate thought, and mind Delicately poised, I proffer thee. Be wise; Set up on high thy pleasure: so to live Were to be quit of chance.--That thou amiss Shouldst cast thy fluttering days were piteous-blind, Seeing they are all, and veriest all: fulfil Thy days, then, with a high felicity. Too soon shall Death sweep up thy militant will; And bind thee in the dark. Yet heed thou this: Tho’ thou snuff out; a thing that was; yet still, The texture of thy thought, the workmanship Of hand or utterant lip, Thy heart’s aroma, personality In sooth, shall flourish yet, for good or ill, Upon the broad Earth’s face. So take my voice, And, knowing it true, utterly cast thy choice! I am thine Ultimate Good, Supreme, and Free, Nothing above me in the wide Universe.”