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Chapter XI
IN DEFENCE OF A LAUREATE : ALFRED AUSTIN
When Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1892, laid down the laurel which he had, as he himself sang, received from Wordsworth
greener from the brows Of him who uttered nothing base,
and when that laurel, greener still from the brows of him who uttered nothing unlovely, passed after four years of hesitation to another Alfred, Alfred Austin, there was much scornful wagging of heads and raising of horrified hands among the critics and the partisans of other candidates for the English Poet-laureateship. Smiles were freely exchanged, and much wit was expended in permutations and combinations of the Alfreds of England, beginning with " the Great," and invariably ending with the last and—as was inferred—least, the new Laureate. Slowly but surely a conventional atmosphere of implied mediocrity was thus wrapped about the name, and one seldom heard or saw it mentioned except when a new book of the Laureate's caused a momentary flutter.
But outside the circle of the critics and partisans, there have always been not a few lovers of the true and pure and beautiful in verse who recognised these qualities in the work of Mr. Austin, and, deeming them more akin to the things that make for life and longevity in verse than turgid rhythms or splendid superficialities, gave his poetry a place of honour on their bookshelves and in their memories.
What quarrel the critics had with the new Laureate has never been, so far as I know, clearly stated. Certain it is that no one with a reputation for literary acumen to lose, would be daring enough to deny Mr. Austin an honourable, if not a lofty, place in the ranks of the English Bards.
It may be, however, that the great shades of Wordsworth and Tennyson dwarfed their successor, the difference between them being intensified and exaggerated by partisanship. And yet, admitting such difference in the quality of the work of each, it scarcely seems fair to bring Mr. Austin, the Laureate, to the measure of a great interlude which was most decidedly exceptional in the history of that particular office. It is hardly necessary to mention that the reader of certain portions of the works of Wordsworth would go nearer deciding that he was an enemy of England than that he died with its official laurel on his brow, while Tennyson went to Celtic Mythology for the substance of his life-work, and consistently fell below his average in his official verses.
If we consider for a moment the qualities which, apart from either the broad or academic canons of literary criticism, should naturally characterise the bulk of the work of an English Laureate, it is possible that, after all, we may come to the conclusion that the worst choice was not made when Mr. Austin was appointed to that office. No one will deny that the first qualification is that the works of an English Laureate be English. In this qualification students of poetry will certainly admit that Mr. Austin's writings in verse may stand beside those of his contemporaries, or even his two predecessors, not only in the unconscious revelation of the poet which stamps his nationality on every link of his chain of song but also in the conscious celebration of those things which are the true expression and the last stronghold of a nation—her intimate home-life, her fields, her skies, her gardens, her eternal quiet things, her changes of colour and vesture as season follows season. One could cull from Mr." Austin's poems numerous nosegays of song in which love of country and love of nature are inextricably interwoven, for he is indeed to both, as he claims he is to Nature,
....a student and interpreter, Loving to read what lessons lurk In her unlettered handiwork, To find the helpful meanings writ In waves that break, in clouds that flit, Infer from her uncertain text A helpful creed for souls perplexed, To them, her busy calm impart And harmonise the human heart.
In his " Defence of English Spring " he takes a grumbler through copse and woodland, along hedgerow and over field, darting hither and thither to point out the beauties of lavender and celandine, marsh-marigold, primrose, buttercup, and the other simple things that make the chaste splendour of an English. Spring. And are not the birds of the air part and parcel of the same ? Have they not nestled on their mother's bosom ? and do they not sing as does their poet, " for sheer joy of singing ?"
Hear you the lark advancing now Through seas of air with rippling prow.
Is not that " rippling prow " a dainty touch exhibiting true vision into the fundamental unity that lies behind all things and finds expression in the " likes " and the paradoxes of the poets ? But the lark is not unaccompanied, for
The willow-warbler mounts, then drops, And in his silvery solo stops Just as it bubbles to the him
To hear if any answer him. Every Western nature-lover knows that song, and if you say the words " silvery solo " over and over, are they not an incantation to call up the Spring in the heart of Winter ?
The poet will not allow the grumbler to take refuge from a sudden shower of slashing hail. "For these," he says loftily, as the other turns up his coat collar for protection, " one neither flies nor stirs;"
They are but April skirmishers Thrown out to cover the advance Of gleaming spear and glittering lance With which the sunshine scours amain Heav'n, earth, and air, and routs the rain.
So Poet and Critic go through the pageant of Spring, pausing now and then—one suspects at the instigation of the poet—to cross philosophic swords, and it must be confessed that the poet, on his own showing, comes off best-This is how he lectures his victim in a fragrant corner among violets and primroses.
Why from the plain truth should I shrink ? In woods men feel, in town they think. Yet which is best ? Thought, Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked, Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age pants on, to find A melting mirage of the mind. But feeling never wanders far. Content to fare with things that are ; From Nature's simples to distil Homely receipt for homely ill.
But it must not be thought that the Poet is merely prejudiced through ignorance of the beauties of other lands. On the contrary we have his assurance that
Oft has he seen the almonds bloom Round Dante's cradle, Petrarch's tomb, Oft watched Rome's dead campagna break To Asphodels for April's sake.
But none of these, or many scenes that he lias visi ted and enshrined in his verses, can match for him the rapture of his own Spring.
With us it loiters more than where It comes, it goes, half unaware ; Makes Winter short, makes Summer long, In A utumn half renews its song Nor even then doth hence depart, But hybernates within my heart.
So much for Mr. Austin in the role of Defender of the Faith in the English Spring. He is equally at home, equally intimate, equally sweet and pure in Summer, " when nights are only dreamier days," in russet Autumn, or hoary Winter.
A furt her qualification of the work of an English Laureate should undoubtedly be atriotism, a love of Motherland profound and unchangeable, that rejoices when honour is heaped upon her, and in her days of degradation looks upon her with a countenance "more in sorrow than in anger." Whatever may be one's personal opinion on matters of national polity, no one can fail to acknowledge the spirit of patriotism in the sonnet addressed to England in 1878 at the termination of a period of anxiety happily relieved :
Men deemed thee fallen, did they ? fallen like Rome. Coiled into self to foil a Vandal throng : Not wholly shorn of strength, but vainly strong; Weaned from thy fame by a too happy home, Scanning the ridges of thy teeming loam, Counting thy flocks, humming thy harvest song, Callous, because thyself secure, gainst wrong, Behind the impassable fences of the foam. The dupes ! Thou dost but stand erect, and lot The nations cluster round ; and while the horde Of wolfish backs slouch homeward to their snow, Thou, "mid thy sheaves in
peaceful seasons stored, Smilingly leaning on thy undrawn sword !
The " wolfish backs " were later called by more complimentary names !
The ultimate place which Alfred Austin will occupy among the poets will depend on other qualities than these, into the consideration of which I do not propose to enter here. I am content to act as introducer of those ignorant of his works to a field of refined pleasure, occasional exaltation, simple chaste melody, clear if prescribed vision. While I demur to Mr. Austin's being ranked amongst the least of the lesser poets, I am far from claiming for him a place amongst the greatest of the great. But I do claim that in every poem which he has written, something of the insight, the sensitiveness, the impalpable essence of Beauty and Truth, are enshrined. Into many of the deeper problems of life Mr. Austin has penetrated, but he has done so not with the intellect, but with the intuition of the Poet. He has " mounted with the lark," and " left the bird of wisdom blinking," as he advises another to do. His intimacy with Nature kept him free from the morbid introspection of his age, and endowed him with a freshness that defies time. He is of those whom the gods love, not perhaps with the burning passionateness wherewith they loved Shelley, but with a tender solicitude;-and in the White winter of age he died young. Such is the oracle, and such his own interpretation :
The favoured of the gods die young, for they, They grow not old with grief and deadening time, But will keep April moisture in their heart, May's music in their ears. Their voice revives. Revives, rejuvenates the wintry world, Flushes the veins of gnarled and knotted age, And crowns the majesty of life with leaves As green as are the saplings.
So it is with Mr. Austin ; and his works will, I aver, take their place with that goodly company who sang to sweeten the heart of the world rather than to rouse it to action. They are of the garden, not of the place of assembly, and as such are less solicitous of recognition. To Mr. Austin
The sweetest minister of fame Is she who broods upon one's name, But calls it not aloud.
And if I have sinned in thus disobeying the Poet's injunction, may I be forgiven. |
