THOUGHTFUL BIOGRAPHERS OF the ninth Marquess of Deal, which title he inherited in 1909, judged that his disastrous expedition to the Klondike had not been all loss:
He spent twenty-three months covering the two thousand and forty-three miles getting to Dawson and remained only a few hours, but it was this prolonged and dreadful experience, in which he lost three of his party, including his sister’s only son, that put steel into the heart of the Marquess. When Lloyd George tapped him in 1916 to whip the British industrial effort into line so that Britain could muster its full strength against the Kaiser, he was as well prepared as a man could be to discipline the private sector.
A blue-blooded nobleman and a man who in the privacy of his club had dismissed Lloyd George as ‘that insufferable little Welshman, no gentleman at all,” he rallied to his assignment, became one of Lloyd George’s most trusted adherents, and performed wonders in helping to throw back the German might. In dealing with refractory industrialists who came to him complaining that they simply could not accept the difficulties involved in this wartime measure or that, he never referred to his two years in the Arctic, but he did look the man in the eye, stare him down with what was known as ‘Evelyn’s silent-sneer’ and ask: ‘Difficulties? Do you know what difficulty is?’ and because everyone knew of his experiences in the Arctic, he got his way.
But that was not the characteristic which enabled him to become one of the most effective ministers of war, for as Lloyd George remarked in one of his cabinet summaries: ‘The Marquess of Deal could reach a decision quicker than any man I ever knew, defend it with brilliant logic and ram it down the throats of all who opposed. But if his opponent marshalled relevant facts to support his case, Deal was prepared to listen and even reverse himself, acknowledging with disarming grace: “I could have been wrong.” I asked him once: “Deal, how in God’s name can you be so over-powering when you first thunder out your decision, then be so attentive when the other fellow argues his case? And how did you school yourself to surrender so graciously if his arguments prove superior to yours?” and he gave a cryptic answer: “Because I learned in the Arctic it’s folly to persist in a predetermined course if in your heart you suspect you might be wrong.” I do believe his willingness to listen to others, to bend his will to theirs, anything to keep production humming, helped us win our war against the Boche.’
Among the few personal items Lord Luton carried back to England was Trevor Blythe’s battered copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. He would complete Harry Carpenter’s mission and bring Trevor’s message of love and his precious book to Lady Julia. But before making the presentation he had put together in an elegant limited edition for family and friends a slim volume consisting of three parts: a selection from those Palgrave lyrics Trevor Blythe had read during the night sessions near the Arctic Circle, extracts from his own journal of the expedition, and, most precious of all, disjointed fragments of a poem cycle Blythe had intended to call Borealis.
In selecting the Palgrave poems, Luton chose those which he and the others had especially prized, and that collection is here reprinted in part. The editors express gratitude to the tenth Marquess of Deal for allowing access to this treasured family heirloom, which is now part of the library collection at Wellfleet Castle.
In justifying his choices Luton explained: ‘Three of us were not yet married, so it was understandable that we would find great pleasure in the love poems, and Trevor read to us some of the most beautiful, none better than this first one which we all cherished.’
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that’s young
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee:
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
E. WALLER
Cupid and my Campaspe play’d
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple on his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win;
At last he set her both his eyes—
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
J. LYLY
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:—
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distractión,—
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher,—
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly,—
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat,—
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility,—
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
R. HERRICK
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prythee, why so pale?
Will, if looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prythee, why so pale?
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prythee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do’t?
Prythee, why so mute?
Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,
This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The D—l take her!
SIR J. SUCKLING
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither’d be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!
B. JONSON
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he’s a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
R. HERRICK
‘But the harsh times, the terrible times came when we needed not the reassurances of love but these stern reminders of what the essential character of a man ought to be. Then we turned to those oaklike definitions of how a true Englishman should behave in adversity; poems that sound like bugle calls at night with barbarians at the gate. My heart elates as I recall them.’
How sleep the Brave who sink to rest
By all their Country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit, there!
W. COLLINS
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul
more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,—
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts: who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:—
They also serve who only stand and wait.
J. MILTON
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
B. JONSON
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
P.B. SHELLEY
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
COLONEL LOVELACE
‘And then there was that little song by the master voice of our tongue. Its words were simple and some lines almost comic, but they bespoke the pure joy of being alive. We treasured them, reciting them often to one another when temperatures plunged.’
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo!
Tuwhit! tuwhoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
W. SHAKESPEARE
Lord Luton introduced the Trevor Blythe fragments from his proposed poem sequence Borealis with this appropriate disclaimer: ‘We must remember that these are the introductory attempts of a young poet striving to find his way. He had already proved at Oxford that he could write the traditional three-verse rhymed lyric, and his sonnets won him prizes, but later he felt obligated, and properly so, to experiment with forms, length of line, rhyme and blank verse. What he would have kept and what discarded we cannot conjecture; but obviously some of his attempts succeed much better than others.
‘He began under the influence of the standard elegy, sixteen lines of fairly competent unrhymed iambic pentameter’:
Hark! From the distant village tolls the bell
Summoning to prayer all those who feel the need
Of more than mortal sustenance. These rites
Can be discharged by those who hear the cry
Of brass on brass to speed the well-worn prayer,
To bless the child newborn or ease the gray
And palsied head to its eternal rest.
I hear a sterner call: the road untrod,
The heathen who has never seen the light,
The passage through dark seas uncharted still,
The desert that they claim no man can pass,
The virgin mountain peaks ne’er stepped upon,
The lure of gold still hiding in the ground,
The call, the call from some untended Grail:
‘Find me! Rescue me before I tarnish!
And yours shall be the shout of triumph …’
‘The long middle portion of the poem,’ explained Luton, ‘had not been attempted, and although Blythe must have contemplated how it would develop, he left no notes. However, he did leave on two pages unattached to the longer poem, but obviously intended to be a part, a lyrical passage celebrating his adventures on the Mackenzie during the days when all was proceeding on schedule.’
Broad Mackenzie helped to speed us
Caribou came down to feed us
Arctic winds could not defeat us
Ravens came to guide and greet us.
Endless nights were not oppressive
For our minds flared forth in wonder
Never mean nor small-possessive
As we talked our world asunder.
Blizzards whistled in but spared us
Challenge tempted us and dared us.
Borealis explodes in the night
Leaping and twisting in tortured forms
Conflagrations of shimmering light
Heavens ablaze in celestial storms.
Tumble and tremble
Teasing the eye
With forms they resemble.
There leaps a bridge to the moon
Here drops a chasm to hell
Soars high that silver balloon
Borealis ablaze and all’s well.
Patterns tremendous
Clashes stupendous
Behold that vast fire as it rages
Then fades to pastel as it ages
And drifts from the sky all too soon
Borealis asleep and all’s well.
Spring days bring cheer
No cold to fear
New sun to warm
Nothing to harm
Arctic gods sat on our shoulder
Whisp’ring to us ‘Bolder, bolder!’
We became the lords of winter
Brushing off the icy splinter
Dangling from our frozen portal
Till the cry came ‘You are mortal.’
‘At this point,’ Luton wrote, ‘Trevor was prepared to deal with the death of his friend and companion, Philip, but only eight unsatisfactory lines in an unusual meter remain of what he certainly planned as an extended threnody’:
Mighty Mackenzie, enraged at our boldness,
Drew from the lakes she hid high in her mountains
Torrents of water locked up in the coldness
Sent it cascading in perilous fountains.
Ice blocks as big as an emperor’s palace
Gouged out whole forests and left the trees bending
Lurking to snatch at young men unattending
Eager to drown them in hideous malice.
‘Obviously dissatisfied with the meter though pleased with the words, he crossed them out, pencilling the caution: “Graver, much graver rhythm!” Then he turned to the closing, the lines that had won praise from Harry Carpenter’:
… the fault was mine.
I visualized the Grail a shining light,
Perceptible from any vale in which
I and my helpers struggled. It would be
A constant beacon, milestone in the sky,
Signalling far
Calling to goal.
I did not comprehend that it could function
Only by flashing back light from me. Its gleam
Existed, but in partnership with mine,
And I had launched the search a blind man,
Nothing within myself to guide the way,
No silver in my soul to match the blaze
Of what I sought, nor did I test the peaks
That would forever bar me from my goal
Till I broke through with force and fortitude
To conquer them and in my victory
Conquer myself as well.
I see my fellow seekers lost in darkness
And know that I have failed to lead the way.
Mountains engirt us, rivers swirl, we lose
Our trail and cry: ‘Reluctant Paladins we,
Who seek our Golden Grail by fleeing from it.’
TREVOR BLYTHE
The Arctic Circle
Belated spring 1898
The major part of this small and valued publication reappeared later in Luton’s highly regarded An Englishman in the Far Corners, published in 1928, by which time he had become ninth Marquess of Deal, aloof and white-haired but still slim and erect.