‘POETS’, Swinburne said in his Miscellanies, may be divided into two exhaustive but not exclusive classes, — the gods of harmony and creation, the giants of energy and invention.’
If this be so, Dunbar, Dryden, and Whitman are the ungodlike giants of our poetry.
The sounds arising from these Titans vary from the hot, earthy sound, the rumbling noise of volcanoes about to burst into flames, of Dryden, to the sonorous and oceanic harmony of certain of Whitman’s greatest poems, — or the sound of the huge thundering footsteps of that Blind Harry, William Dunbar.
Sometimes Dunbar is a blinded, blundering, earthy giant, sometimes he has the vastness and strength of a genial, blustering, boisterous north wind, — a geniality that can blacken and turn dangerous. Yet even when he is most wind-like, his spirit has at the same time a queerly animal quality, — almost a smell; his genius has a terrible animal force, stinking and rank like that of Swift; but it is for the most part a genial and friendly rankness, unlike that of Swift. This rank darkness and animal stink is present, or can be present, in nearly all genius, but in most, ‘the angel that stands near the naked man’ has interfused it with sweetness and light.
Dryden, to return to him for a moment, is a Cyclops, a giant with one red eye; he is formed of thick earth and of raging fire, but light, apart from the light that comes from that fire, that huge forge of earthy things, is not for him.
But here comes the sound of the tempestuous voice, the huge thundering footsteps of Blind Harry:
Se quha is cummyn nowe,
Bot I wait nevir howe
With the quhorle wynd?
A soldane owt of Seriand land,
A gyand strang for to stand,
That with the strenth of my hand
Beres may bynd.
Yet I trowe that I vary,
I am the nakit Blynd Hary,
That lang has bene in the Fary
Farleis to fynd;
And yit gif this be nocht I,
I wait I am the spreit of Gy;
Or elkis go by the sky
Licht as the lynd.
• • • • • •
Quha is cummyn heir, bot I,
A bauld bustuous bellamy,
At your Corss to mak a cry,
With a hie sowne.
Quhilk generit am of gyandes kynd,
Fra strang Hercules be strynd;
Of all the occident of Ynd,
My eldaris bair the crowne.
My fore grantschir, hecht Fyn MacKnowle,
That dang the devill and gart him yowle,
The skyis rangd quhen he wald scowle,
And trublit all the air:
He got my grantschir Gog Magog;
Ay quhen he dansit, the warld wald schog,
Five thousand ellis yeid in his frog
Of Heiland pladdis, and mair.
Yet he was bot of tendir youth;
Bot eftir he grewe mekle at fouth
Ellevyne myle wyde was his mouth,
His teith was ten myle squwair.
He wald upon his tais stand,
And tak the sternis downe with his hand,
And set them in a gold garland
Above his wyfis hair.
He had a wyf was lang of clift;
Hir hed wan hier than the lift;
The hevyne rerdit quhen scho wold rift;
The lass was no thing sklendir:
Scho spittit Loch Lomond with her lippis,
Thunner and fyre-flaucht flewe fra her hippis;
Quhen scho was crabit, the son tholit clippis;
The fende durst nocht offend hir.
For cald scho tuke the fever tertane;
For all the claith of Fraunce and Bertane,
Wald nocht be till her leg a gartane,
Thocht scho was ying and tender;
• • • • • •
My father, mekle Gow Mackmorne,
Out of that wyfis wame was schorne,
For litilness scho was forlorne,
Sic a kempe to beir:
Or he of eld was yeris thre’,
He wald step our the Oceane fe’,
The Mone sprang never above his kne;
The hevyn had of him feir.
One thousand yere is past fra mynd
Sen I was generit of his kynd,
Full far among the deserts of Ynde,
Amang lyoun and beir:
Baith the King Arthour and Gawaine
And mony bauld berne in Brettane,
Ar deid, and in the weris slane,
Sen I couth weild a speir.
GLOSSARY.— Farleis: wonders (?). Bustuous: boisterous. Bellamy: boon companion. Strynd: race, offspring, kindred. Dang: knocked out, struck. Yowle: scream, howl. Schog: shake. Yeid: went. Frog: coat. Fouth: abundance. Tais: toes. Lift: firmament. Rift: belch. Fyre-flaucht: lightning, wild-fire. Crabit: peevish, crabbed. Berne: man. Weris: wars.
As we have already seen in the Note on Texture (page 19), consonants are organically ingrown with the vowels: consonants ‘determine the specific nature of the latter’s manifestment’.
‘In the deepest tones of harmony.’ wrote Schopenhauer, quoted by Wagner in his book on Beethoven, ‘in the fundamental bass-notes, I recognise the lowest degree of the objectivation of the Will, inorganic nature, the mass of the planet. All the higher tones … are to be regarded … as the accessory vibrations of the deep fundamental tone, at the sound of which they are always to be heard softly vibrating…. This is analogous to the view which requires that all bodies and organisations of nature shall be taken as arising in course of gradual evolution from the mass of the planet: this development is their support as well as their source…. Thus the ground bass is to us in harmony, as inorganic nature is to the world, the rudest mass upon which everything rests, and from which everything rises and is developed.’
If we apply, as we may do, the above to poetry, we may substitute consonants for the bass-notes, vowels for the higher tones.
Now, it would be impossible to say that the higher tones, the vowels, of the terrific Blind Harry, ‘can be heard softly vibrating’. But certainly the huge consonantal system is ‘the rude mass of the planet’, only endowed with a gigantic Will.
• • • • • •
Dunbar’s other poems are roared out by a genial, blustering boisterous north wind, caring nothing for smoothness, — invigorating, not appeasing. Sometimes the roughness dies down, and the sound is like that of a stilled cold wind blowing in the branches of a tree heavy with leaves, creaking discordantly in the tree’s veins.
Both the girl in Dunbar’s’ Ane Brash of Wowing’ and the girl of Skelton’s ‘Lullay, lullay’ are strayed from Fairyland — but how different is the untamed rough vigour of the first from that strange lullaby, blown by a stilled wind out of a cold fairyland beyond our sight, — the fairyland out of which, one day, will drift ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’.
Dunbar’s is a fairyland inhabited by the kind of fairies that colts and calves might see, — and from that land, the cuckoo, the woodgrouse, have flown, bringing back a ‘rubye appil’ from the same tree from which Eve had plucked an apple for Adam.
Everything is vaster than real life. The woman in ‘Ane Brash of Wowing’ and the strange lout she is wooing, are giants. He is the naked Blind Harry as he was in youth.
Sometimes the consonants used are slightly rough or hairy, the words have a kind of coltish roughness and un-couthness of surface and movement, and the vowel-sounds change from a cold tunelessness, sharp as the sound of a wind creaking in a tree, to a piercing, harsh, high, inhuman curlew cry, as in
… My clype, my unspaynit jyane
and
Fow leis me that graceles gane,
which is very strange, contrasted with the wooden clapping sound brought about by the dulled yet hard consonants of ‘clype’ and ‘gane’, and the later ‘claver’ and ‘curldodie’,— and the dulled, closing-in vowels of the following passage:
Quod he, my claver, and my curldodie,
My hony soppis, my sweit possodie,
• • • • • •
Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane!
ANE BRASH OF WOWING
In secreit place this hyndir nycht
I hard ane beyrne say till ane bricht,
My hunny, my hairt, my houp, my heill,
I haif bene lang your lufar leill,
And can of yow gett confort nane;
How lang will ye with denger deill?
Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane.
• • • • • •
‘Te he’ quod scho, and gaif ane gowf,
Be still my tuchan and my calfe,
My new-spain’d howphyn fra the sowk;
And all the blithnes of my bowk;
My sweit swankyng, saif yow allane
Na leid I luiffit all this owk;
Fow leis me that graceles gane.
Quod he, my claver, and my curldodie,
My hony soppis, my sweit possoddie,
By nocht oure bosteous to your billie,
Be warme hartit and nocht illwillie;
• • • • • •
Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane.
Quod scho, my clype, my unspaynit jyane,
With muderis milk yit in your michane,
My belly huddroun, my sweit hurle bawsy,
My huney gukkis, my slawsy gawsy,
Your musing wald perss ane hairt of stane;
So tak gud confort, my gritheidit slawsy;
Fow leis me that graceles gane.
Quoth he, my kid, my capirculyoun,
My tender gyrle, my wally gowdy,
My tirly mirly, my crowdy mowdy;
• • • • • •
Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane.
Quoth scho, Now tak me by the hand,
Wylcum, my golk of maryland,
My chirry and my maikles mynyeoun,
My sowker sweit as ony unyeoun,
My strummil stirk, yit new to spane,
I am applyid to your opinyoun;
Fow leis me that graceles gane.
He gaif til hir ane appill ruby;
Grammercy! quod scho, my sweit cowhuby.
• • • • • •
Fow leis me that graceles gane.
GLOSSARY.— Hyndir: last. Beyrne: youth. Ane bricht: a fair one. Hunny: honey. Houp: hope. Heill: welfare. Lufar: lover. Denger: disdain. Howphyn: dolt. Bowk: body. Curldodie: ribwort plantain. Clype: colt. Gukkis: fool. Golk; cuckoo. Maryland: fairyland. Chirry: cherry. Sowker: sugar. Strummil: stumbling. Stirk: Ox. Spane; wean. Cowhuby: cowherd, or booby. Gane: face.
John Skelton’s ‘Lullay, lullay’ is one of the most drowsy-sounding poems in our language:
With Lullay, lullay, like a chylde,
Thou slepyst to long, thou art begylde.
My darlyng dere, my daysy floure,
Let me, quod he, ly in your lap.
Ly styll, quod she, my paramoure,
Ly styll hardely, and take a nap.
Hys hed was hevy, such was his hap,
All drowsy dremyng, dround in slepe,
That of his loue he toke no kepe,
With hey, lullay.
With ba, ba, ba, and bas, bas, bas,
She cheryshed hym both cheke and chyn,
That he wyst never wher he was;
He had forgoten all dedely syn.
He wantyd wyt her love to win.
He trusted her payment, and lost all hys pray:
She left hym slepyng, and stole away,
With hey, lullay.
The rivers rowth, the waters wan;
She sparyd not to wete her fete;
She wadyd over, she found a man
That halysed her hartely and kyst her swete:
Thus after her cold she caught a hete.
My lefe, she sayd, rowtyth in hys bed;
I wys he hath an hevy hed
With hey, lullay.
What dremyst thou, drunckard, drowsy pate!
Thy lust and lykyng is from thee gone;
Thou blynkerd blowboll, thow wakyst to late,
Behold, thou lyeste, luggard, alone.
Well may thou sygh, well may thou grone,
To dele with her so cowardly;
I wys, powle hachet, she bleryd thyne eye.
With hey, lullay.
The sleepy movement owes much to the drone-sound of the alliteration. I know no poem to equal it for drowsiness, excepting the lines about the House of Sleep in John Gower’s ‘Ceix and Alcyone’ (and of this I will speak later) and the even earlier (fourteenth century) anonymous ‘Maid of the Mor’,1 which might have been the song of a wandering bee on some sleepy afternoon. It has, indeed, the circling, wandering, returning movements of the bee:
In the mor lay,
Seuenyst fulle, seuenist fulle,
Maiden in the mor lay,
In the mor lay
Seuenistes fulle ant a day.
Welle was hire mete;
Wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the,—
The primerole ant the,—
Welle was hire mete;
Wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the violet.
Welle (was hire dryng);
Wat was hire dryng?
The chelde water of (the) welle-spring.
Welle was hire bour;
Wat was hire bour?
The rede rose ant te lilie flour.
GLOSSARY.— Mor: moor. Seuenyst: seven nights. Hire: her. Mete: meat. Primerole: primrose. Dryng: drink. Chelde: chilled.
This really is a miracle of poetry, with the change in the vowel sounds of the alliteration, — the darkening from ‘maiden’ to ‘mor’ and the lightening again to the non-alliterative but assonantal ‘lay’, —the change in the second verse from ‘welle’ to ‘wat’, — (this latter having less an effect of darkening than of wandering).
The sound produces a strange effect of moving further away at the end of each line, — (not dying away exactly), — and then of returning with the beginning of the next line. Perhaps this is because the accent falls on the first syllable in many of the lines.
The slight change in speed — (I use this word for want of a better one, since it is a sleepy poem, and yet slowness is not the word either) — is due to the pause between the echoes of
Maiden in the mor lay,
In the mor lay
— (where the accent, in the two lines, is changed), crossed by the line
Seuenyst fulle, seuenist fulle
— which is faintly quicker, because of the three-syllabled ‘seuenyst’.
• • • • • •
Dionysius the Areopagite, speaking on the Divine Names, said: ‘All things in motion desire to make known their own proper movement, and this is an aspiration after the Divine Peace of the whole, which, unfailing, preserves all things from falling, and, unmoved, guards the idiosyncrasy and life of all moving things, so that the things moved, being at peace among themselves, perform their own proper functions’.
John Gower lived but in the light of a mortal day; but Poetry is only another of the Divine Names, and each poet, even if his day is but mortal, is part of the great light. Gower did, though neither a seraph nor an archangel nor a giant, make known the proper movement of his theme, — as in the sleepy sound of these lines from ‘Ceix and Alcyone’:
This Iris, fro the hihe stage
Which undertake hath the message
Hire reyny cope dede upon,
The which was wonderlie begone
With colours of diverse hewe,
An hundred mo than men it knewe;
The hevene lich into a bowe
Sche bende, and as sche cam down lowe,
The God of Slep when that sche fond;
And that was in a strange lond,
Which marcheth upon Chymerie:
For ther, as seith the Poesie,
The God of Slep hath mad his hous,
Which of entaille is merveilous.
Under an hell there is a cave,
Which of the sonne mai naught have.
So that noman mai knowe ariht
The point between the dai and nyht:
Ther is no fyr, ther is no sparke,
Ther is no dore, which mai charke,
Whereof an ihye scholde unschette,
So that inward ther is no lette.
And for to speke of that withoute,
Ther stan no gret tree nyh aboute
Wher on ther myhte crowe or pie
Alihte, for to clepe or crie;
Ther is no cok to crowe day,
No beste non which noise may;
The hell bot al aboute round
Ther is gravende upon the ground
Popi, which beith the sed of slep,
With other herbes suche an hep.
A stille water for the nones
Rennende upon the smale stones,
Which hihte of Lethe’s the rivere,
Under that hell is such manere
Ther is, which gifth gret appetit
To slepe. And thus full of delit
Slep hath his hous; and of his couch
Withinne his chambre if I schal touche,
Of hebenus that slepi tree
The bordes al aboute be.
GLOSSARY.— Hihe: high. Hire: her. Reyny: rainy. Lich: light. Sche: she. Hell: hall. Charke: shut loudly. Ihye: eye. Unschette: unshut. Lette: prevention. Gravende: growing. Rennende: running. Hihte: called, named. Hebenus: ebony.
The sleepy sound owes much to the rarity of pauses.
In other poems of Gower’s, the shining, glistening quality that was part of the physical and spiritual nature of Chaucer’s poetry was present, too, in his contemporary, Gower, though Gower’s day was not universal, like Chaucer’s, nor was he living in the midst of that day; it was, with him, a lovely memory of youth, — the memory of one hot morning when, like the Orfeo of a still earlier poet,
He might se him bisides
Oft in hot undertides,
The king o’ fairy, with his rout
Com to hunt him al about
With dim cri and bloweing
And houndes also with him berking.
For Gower it was one day, never to be lived again, not all days:
The Flees he tok and goth to Bote,
The Sonne schyneth bryhte and hote,
The Flees of Gold schon forth withal,
The water glistreth overal.
Medea wepte and sigheth ofte,
And stod upon a Tour aloft:
And prively withinne hirselfe,
Ther here it nouther ten, ne twelve,
Sche preide, and seide ‘O God him spede,
The kniht which hath my maidenheide.’
And ay sche loketh toward thyle,
But whan sche sih withinne a while
The Flees glistrende ayein the Sonne,
Sche saide ‘Ha lord, now al is wonne,
Hir kniht the field hath overcome;
Hir lord, that he ne were alonde,
Bot I dar take this on honde,
If that sche hadde wynges two,
Sche wolde have flowe with him tho
Strawht ther he was in the Bot.
GLOSSARY.— Ther here it nouther ten, ne twelve: in other words, she did not heed the passing of time. Thyle: the isle. Alonde: on the land.
We were to see that sun of youth again, shining like the Golden Fleece, four hundred years later, in certain poems of William Morris.
But to return to John Skelton. Certain of his poems to young girls have the notes we hear in the woods in spring, wild bird-songs, a murmuration of starlings, a watch of nightingales, and a charm of goldfinches. Sometimes they grow sharp as a spring flower, and from the same ground from which sprang this refrain of an Elizabethan song by an anonymous author, rediscovered by Mr. Norman Ault:
With lily, germander and sops-in-wine,
With sweet-briar
And bonfire
And strawberry wire
And columbine.
• • • •
Never, for a moment, is there heard the voice of a man.
In the lovely ‘To Maystres Isabell Pennell’, after the first three lines, each line is the shape of a honeycomb.
‘In the construction’, says Mr. Tickner Edwardes in his book on the honey-bee (Methuen), ‘of the six-sided cell, with its base composed of three rhombs or diamonds, the bee has adapted a form which our greatest arithmeticians admit to be the best possible for her requirements, and she endeavours to keep to this form whenever practicable.’
Here, then, is the six-sided cell, with its base composed of six rhombs or diamonds:
My mayden Isabell,
Reflaring rosabell,
The flagrant camamell;
The ruddy rosary,
The soverayne rosemary,
The praty strawbery;
• • •
and the ‘endeless welth’ of which we hear at the end of the poem, is that which the dusky workers in fields and gardens bring home to their hives when they
… having laboured hard from light
to light With golden thighes come singing home at night;
and like John Day’s bee,
The windowes of my hive, with blossoms dight,
Are porters to let in our comfort, light.
‘To Maystres Isabell Pennell’, as Mr. de la Mare has said in Come Hither, is ‘the loveliest and gayest song of praise and sweetness to “a young thing” I have ever seen.’
By saynt Mary, my lady,
Your mammy and your dady
Brought forth a godely babi!
My mayden Isabell,
Reflaring rosabell,
The flagrant camamell;
The ruddy rosary,
The soverayne rosemary,
The praty strawbery;
The ieloffer well set,
The propre vyolet;
Enuwyd your colowre
Is lyke the dasy flowre
After the Aprill showre;
Sterre of the morrow gray,
The blossom on the spray,
The fresshest flowre of May;
Maydenly demure,
Of womanhode the lure;
Wherfore I make you sure,
It were an hevenly helth,
It were an endeles welth,
A lyfe for God hymselfe,
To here this nightingale,
Amonge the byrdes smale,
Warbelynge in the vale,
Dug, dug,
lug, iug,
Good yere and good luk,
With chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk!
In the twist of this poem we have the spring bird’s song, and the closely juxtaposed assonances ‘May’ and ‘Maydenly demure’ are round like buds.
‘Ieloffer’, says Mr. de la Mare in a note upon this poem in Come Hither, ‘gelofer, gelofre, gillofre, gelevor, gillyvor, gillofer, jerefloure, gerraflour — all these are ways of spelling “gillyflower” “gelofre” coming nearest to its original French: “giroflée”, meaning spiced like the clove.1 There were of old, I find, three kinds of gillyflowers: the clove, the stock, and the wall. It was the first of these kinds that was meant in the earlier writers by the small clove carnation (or Coronation, because it was made into chaplets or garlands). Its Greek name was dianthus (the flower divine); and its twin sister is the Pink, so called because its edges are pinked, that is, jagged, notched, scalloped, Country names for it are Sweet John, Pagiants, Blunket, and Sops-in-Wine, for it spices what it floats in, and used to be candied for a sweetmeat. Blossoming in July, the gillyflower suggests July-flower, and if Julia is one’s sweetheart, it may also be a Julie-flower. So one name may carry many echoes. It has been truly described as a gimp and gallant flower, and, says Parkington, who wrote Paradisus Terrestris, it was the chiefest of account in Tudor gardens. There was a garden in Westminster in his own time belonging to a Master Ralph Tuggie, famous all London over for the beauty and variety of its gillyflowers: e.g. “Master Tuggie his Princesse”, “Master Bradshaw his daintie Ladie”, “The Red Hulo”, “The Fair Maid of Kent”, “Lustie Gallant”, “The Speckled Tawny”, and “Ruffling Robin”.’
To these enumerated by Mr. de la Mare, I might add these pinks or carnations that once grew in Master Tuggie’s garden, and that I have gathered from my brother Sacheverell Sitwell’s book, Old-fashioned Flowers, ‘Master Tuggie his Rose Gillyflower’, the ‘Striped Tawny’, the ‘Flaked’, and the ‘Feathered Tawny’, the ‘Chrystall’ or ‘Chrystalline’, the ‘Red Chrystall’, the ‘Fragrant’ and the ‘Striped Savadge’; the ‘Rose Savadge’, the ‘Greatest Granado’, the ‘Cambersine’, the ‘Bristol Blush’, the ‘Red Dover’, the ‘Queen’s Dainty’, the ‘Brazil’, the ‘Turkey .. .’, together with Master Parkinson’s ‘Feathered or Jagged Pinks’, ‘Star Pinks’, and ‘Great Thrifts’ — which are called, also, ‘Sweet Johns’ and ‘Sweet Williams’.
The sweet perfume of those pinks remains to us after four centuries. It blows through a later garden:
To smell those odours that do rise
From out the wealth and spiceries:
So smels the flowre of blooming Clove,
Or roses smother’d in the stove:
So smels the Aire of spicèd wine;
Or essences of Jessamine:
So smels the breath about the hives,
Where wel the work of hony thrives,
And all the busy Factours come
Laden with wax and hony home:
So smell those neat and woven Bowers
All over-archt with Oringe flowers,
And almond blossoms, that so mix
To make rich those Aromatikes.
So smell those bracelets and those bands
Of Amber chaft between the hands,
When thus embalmed they transpire
A noble perfume from the fire.
• • • •
Though here, the perfume is more spiced, and the air in which it lives, less cool.