Saturday, •1I•
uary 6, 1934.
THREE
THE RECORD.
11,1•/1•11•11•11•1•11•.•11•11•11•11•11•11•1111111•11•.•11•0•:
OUR LITIRARY PAGE ;
•a•
141.1.1.,1•11•11,1111 /11•,,•11•F
•,•••14.1011•11•11.11•1,•11•1,
Victorian Poets
;
(By S.R.H.S.1 Tennyso. (Continued). But the mostvonderful of all Tennyson's poenas i that supreme elegy, "In Mem: .am." fl the poet's shaken faith we see the ation's crumbling beThe poet personal sorrow at liefs. the loss of his fend becomes the cry of humanity in, ts every desolation. There must be lder streets up yonder. cry a thoustd stricken hearts. The night passel dout t goes; in a dawn of optimist the ruem and the nation are convirati of immorality and f eel the presenceq God: "Strong Son of CA immortal Love. Whern we. thatial. ,2 not seen thy face, B v faith. and Eta alone, embrace, l elieving where wi annot prove; 'Thine an these ash f light and shade: Thou madest Lif/ii man and brute; `-"•,-•:.! !raciest petit: and lo, thy foot the skull whit thou hat made. • \cit not leaTeus in the dust: tradest nal. he knows not • 7 t made to die; nrt la 2 I:ilia • _,Idu41041i
lie: know , S art.: how: Our wills are offs; to make them thine." His other great *irk is "The Idylls of the King," buit !en the Celtic legends of King Artut and his knights ' the Round TIblt as gathered in Morte cl'iribur. The poet's plan was an epic lit he. produced rather a succestitor o poems, each sep-ate episode or ci, , linked by the 'Arthur. There :ning personalit• also an elleglar s wing "the sense war with the ;ot"---that is. the -uggle between tie nimal and spiri'.al natures of mn. Atthur gathers . round him— "A glorious ion-TO, t.he flower of men. To serve as maid or the mighty world, And he the fair t4nser of a time. I made them lay ;Irk hands in mine and swear. To reverence theKing. as if he were Their conscierne, nd tbeir conscience as their Ting o break the lvenen aed uphold the Christ. To ride abraad reciressing human wrongs, To speak no slamr. no, not listen to it, To honour his invevord as if his God's To lead sweet llvt in purest chastity, co love one msitic only cleave to her, And worship lerby 'ears of noble deeds " But the kingcin c chivalry per'sties; the knigit,de. rt their King: is Queen. Guinete. fails him: and todred, the traIt t. cs up arms g.inst him. A s 'Tb old order c et yielding place o new. \ nd God fulfils lOsel in many wa\,. Lest one good m hould corrupt he wc,r1d. Co :ort thyself, hat comfort is in e • lived m7 , and that which 1 ave done He withii litnself mak pure! Itit thou, shoulus ever see my face again, a e for re y 4101. More things are er :h deans of. Where. f ore let tly 010 like a fill me night and 'ay. ,e. • than sheep or . .1 that the :- paths in ii 'ire within the ied their anci , - ough, Lane ht not hands cried to the gre. tholic uncle hatnr those who - cried Lord I ; rought the tw, earth is every together; and 11 remembers a delym,„; the feet e paid some years T all. Yorkshire, \\*hid' ,ord Bingley) place! ;It( was recoverwremost an arIn, There Georetlosapht,t and ern tiy happy in hiss not the me!had the joy of heal S. of Tenn. eiving Holy Communi and rugged: lid excellent family, ir and beauty, his childhood. TT'pon his lips, two friends rerwmism in his into the inn.
t
1
penetrable thickets of life, calling upon the pessimist to leave his shadows, to take courage, to challenge the devil, and to fight. It was amg before the world would lisen, longer still before it would follow where he called. Browning takes all human experience from his material. His are not pretty poems; they are of life's agonies, its disappointment, disillusion, dismay. Great is his gallery of portraits. Landor says: `15ince Chaucer was alive and hale, No man bath walked along our road with a step So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse." When towards the end of his life he was asked if he were a Christian. a thundered "No" came back. But Browning was more Christian than he knew. He believed in what Stevenson called "the ultimate decency of things." His was a robust faith that looked life in the eves. He fought on with cheerful courage. and, in the end, the world recognised him and followed. In the words of his first poem: " I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way. T shall arrive what time, what circuit hut unless Goa sends His Or fireballs, sleet or stifling a, . 'sn some His good time, I shall arrive. He guides me and the bird. In His good time." To-dav he has arrived. For long he was neglected because of the obscurity of his style. Tennyson declared that of the poem, Sordello. he understood only the first and last lines. and they were both lies. There is something to be said for the charge. Intellect, heart, and imagination chase each other across his pages with bewildering swiftness. He has much to say; to him the manner does not matter. He follows mental trains at pace his reader cannot keep. mustering details dug from the inexhaustible depths of his varied knowledge, and huddling them in the stream of a livel)' talk. Browning was horn in London in 1812. Lilce Tennyson. he devoted the whole of his life to poetry, his first poems appearing in 1833, and his last volume on the very day of his death. in 1889. In Pauline. his first book. he pays tri bute to Shelley:— "Sun-treader. life and light he thine for ever! Thou art gone from tie: years go band spring Gladdens, and the young earth is beats tiful. Yet thy song comes not, other barde arise, But none like thee." This was followed by Paracelsus and a play. Strafford. written for the famtaus actor. Macready. It was for Macready's son that Browning wrote that charming badinage. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. With Bells and Pomegranates he commences the series of dramatic poems, the first of which was Pippa Passes, a powerful and graceful poem. Pippa, the little Italian silk-weaver, goes out to enjoy her one holiday of the year. She imagines herself, in turn. in the places of the famous people whose houses she passes singing' 'The year's at the spring. And day's at the morn: Morning's at seevn: The hill-side's dew-pexled: The lark's on the wing: The snail's on the thorn: God's in His heaven: All's right with the world!" The sound of the silver rain of this falling song comes to the ear of those who are hesitating between e•nod and evil. Good prevails. and Pippa returns home at night, the unknowing messenger of Heaven. After the appeaarnce of Bells and Pomegranates. Browning married Elizabeth Parrett, who, as a poet wes better known than her hitsband. They made their home in Italy for fifteen year, until, on the death of hie wife. he re. turned to England Thee Ttalie-, Years are the period of hie best work. Men and Women. Dramatic Personae. and Dramatic Tdyls. There poems show intense dramatic newer. "My s tress." says Browning. "lay upon the deevlopmerit of . the Soul Little else is .worth studying." In speeches or dramatics lyrics, he gives sold studies: he deee net reere- ese his own emotions.
but makes the characters speak, explain their actions, and reveal the motives that lie behind them. Thus Abt Vogler reveals the musician's soul; Muleykeh gives the soul of an Arab; Fra Lippo Lippi the soul of the painter. In his masterpiece, The Ring and the Book, the longest poem written in the English language, there is no plot. In a succession of speeches the different actors tell their story of a murder and reveal at the same time their own characters. The most interesting of the actors are Count Guido, the murderer; Caponsacchi, a young priest; Pompilia, and the Pope. These dramatic monologues are a far cry from the simple freshness of— "Oh, to be in England now that April's, there And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the or. chard bough In England—now! And after April, when May follows, And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge— That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could r ecapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, And will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups. the little children dower--Far brighter than this gaudy melonflower!" In the last volume. Asolando. published on the very day the poet. died, in the Palazzo Rezzonico. in Venice much of this early freshness comes back, but is still the same creed ot 'One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward. Never doubted clouds would break. Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph. Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. Sleep to wake. No, at noonday in the bustle of man's
work-tame greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry 'Speed fight on. fare ever, There as here!" Mathew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Swinburne are other singers of the Victorian Age and then come the Georgians, Rupert Brooke, Walter de la Mare, and James No language in the Elroy Flecker. world is so full of good things as ours.
B OOKS
New and recent F ATHER DAMIEN," by Piers Compton. An account of an act of renunciation and sacrifIce that stagg•red world ..... 5/3 T. JEROME,' by Paul Monc•aut The early years of the wittiest of all the early Christian writers THEONAS,“ conversations of a sage, by Jacques Maritain • 9/VIGIL, - by a S:ster of Notre Dem• (de Namur) . Meditations filled with fresh thoughts and stimulating suggestions - THE CELTIC PEOPLES AND RENAISSANCE EUROPE.- by David Matthew. A study of the Celtic and Spanish influences on Elizabethan history. 27,6 - PRIESTLY VOCATION,- by Rev. John 17 Blowick -THE AGE OF THE GODS." by Christopher Dawson. According to "The Times Literary Supplement, this is the best short account of our knowledge of prehistoric man that has to f ar been wcitten 12 9 -SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS,- by Fr. Bruno, O.D.C. Makes us s•• the Saint as a living reality 27/.. "PUGIN,- by Michael Trappes-Lornei. The portrait of a mediaeval Victorian. 22/6 • SIR BERTPAM WINDLE." bt Tay'or, S.N.D., D.Sc. great scientist—a Fellow Society —and a saintly -HAWORTH PARSONAG C. Clarke. A picture amily f
PELLEGRINI 7 72 HAY STREET 'Phone: B 16 Aiebourne. Sydnoy. Bricbit 10W
St. Ildephonsus' College NEW NORCIA. CONDUCTED BY THE MARIST BROTHERS
Next Term begins TUESDAY, FEB. 6, 1934° 1
eiping w•
Housewives -n to Economise
H2OU SANDS of housewives agree that the safest way to cut down the food hills is to shop at the Charlie Carter Stores. One reason for the low prices at Carters is the huge-scale buying of W estralia's Biggest Grocers. Anether is that wherever possible, Carters do their own manufacturing here in W estern Australia — soap from Carters' soap factory, flour from Carters' mill, cakes and pastry from 'Carters' cake factory, and prime. fresh fish brought on Carters' own boats—everything of the highest quality and always perfectly fresh!
CHARLIE
Super Qualify Lowes Prices
irg.' deliver free
n NriliCSuburbs
CARTER E
566 HAY STREET. 170-176 MURRAY STREET. DELAIDE STREET, FREMANTLE