THE END OF IT (From New, Poems, 1897) She did not love to love; but hated him Was because love to cast out had no skill Her own self-will made void her own self's will. JOHN DAVIDSON [JOHN DAVIDSON, born 1857 and educated at Edinburgh University (1876-7), was for some years a schoolmaster. His first publication was Bruce, a poetic drama (1886). In 1889 he came to London, where he lived by his pen as journalist and writer of fiction. Fleet Street Eclogues (1893, John Lane) first made his reputation as a poet. He was granted a Civil List Pension in 1906. He was found drowned at Penzance in 1909. His output was large. The author of a number of volumes of verse, he was also responsible for many novels and plays.] To one at least of the definitions of poetry does the work of John Davidson correspond. It is a criticism of life, a series of essays in human values. What, he asks, is the real worth of this mode of thought, of this course of action? How far are the world's accepted standards absolutely valid? These are the questions he puts and answers, sometimes in philosophical narratives, sometimes in more directly discursive dialogues and soliloquies. The greater part of Davidson's work is frankly didactic. He is without that disinterested passion for pure psychology which led Browning to expound so many contradictory philosophies of life, simply because the mind of men had conceived them and that all mental activity, as such, deserves consideration. Davidson is a moralist, not a psychologist. He always sets out to prove something, and each poem is an argument in support of his general philosophy. "It has been said: Ye must be born again. I say to you: Men must be that they are." In these lines Davidson has given expression to the fundamental article of his creed. His poems are the elaboration of this theme. There is no one infallible prescription which a man must follow in order to lead a good life. Salvation is to be found in the untrammelled development of personality; there are as many roads to it as there are individuals seeking it. The traditional prejudices of thought, the conditions of modern life, at once artificial and sordid, are fetters which cramp human growth, which, worn long enough, will dwarf and distort the spirit of man. We must away with these, says Davidson. Men must be free to work out their own salvation unhindered by an artificial complication of circumstances. Davidson's philosophy is one of strenuous romanticism, combining as it does the creeds of individualistic anarchy and moral earnestness. He rejects some of the most flashy tenets of romanticism-the idea of "genius" as the supreme good, and the notion of a spiritual "escape" out of the material world. He denies the possibility of separating the spiritual from the material, the soul from the body. Men must live in action, reaching good through the purifying ordeal of evil and sorrow. The escape from material active life is an escape from responsibility. Davidson's anarchic individual has a touch of the muscular Christian in him. We have called Davidson a didactic poet; and if we want to pigeon-hole and classify any farther, we may add that he has the makings of a "nature-poet." His natural descriptions display a very genuine appreciation and are often beautiful, though he is apt to bring nature into his poems in order to enforce the somewhat hackneyed moral, "God made the country and man made the town." His descriptive methods are those of the seventeenth century. He paints nature in those elaborately anthropomorphic conceits so dear to Crashaw and his contemporaries of the "metaphysical" school. Such an image as "In chestnut sconces opening wide Tapers shall burn some fresh May morn," is an example of the suggestive charm of this sort of description when carried out successfully. And Davidson is generally successful, though his conceits lapse sometimes into mere quaintness, as when he speaks of sun and cloud playing a game of blind-man's buff, in the course of which the sun claims "Forfeit on forfeit, as he pressed The mountains to his burning breast." This unevenness, this tendency to slip suddenly from beauty to absurdity, is characteristic of Davidson's whole work. Passages of striking originality alternate with flat conventionalities that are poetical only as "poetic diction" is poetical. In his Ballads, for instance those didactic romances enriched with all the ornaments of cultured poetry and as unlike real ballads as well might be stanzas, of a force and brilliance truly poetical, shine out from dull sing-song passages of rhymed prose. In Davidson's work, together with flatness, the other and opposite fault of overemphasis is frequently to be found. In reading him we are likely to be troubled with "the sulphurous huff-snuff" of a good deal of high-astounding fustian. But in studying uneven work, it is the business of the appreciative reader to look not at the depressions, but at the poetical elevations. Davidson possesses the Art of Rising as well as the Art of Sinking. The merits which, at the crest of his achievement, he displays are among the cardinal poetic virtues. The terse expression of concentrated thought, imaginative boldness, beauty as well of imagery as of diction-these are qualities of Davidson's poetry at its best. Add to this his earnest moral purpose, and even the critic who still retains the conception of poetry as a "sugared pill" of doctrine made palatable by fancy, will subscribe to the judgment which allows Davidson a place among the poets. PIPER, PLAY 1 Now the furnaces are out, ALDOUS HUXLEY. And the aching anvils sleep; Though we be o'erlaboured men Bridled looms delay their din; All the humming wheels are spent; Busy spindles cease to spin; Warp and woof must rest content. For a little we are free! Foot it, girls, and shake your curls, Haggard creatures though we be! Racked and soiled, the faded air Freshens in our holiday; Clouds and tides our respite share; Breezes linger by the way. 1"Piper, Play" and "A Ballad of Heaven" are reprinted by permission of Mr. Davidson's publishers, John Lane Company. They are copyrighted 1904, by John Lane. Piper, rest! Piper, rest! Melt the sun into your tune! We are of the humblest grade; Till our hearts are in our throats. Nameless as the stars of night Now the furnaces are out, And the aching anvils sleep; Wearied people though we be, A BALLAD OF HEAVEN He wrought at one great work for years; His wife and child went clothed in rags, He trod his measures on the flags, And high in heaven his music carved. |