ECHOES OF ICELAND IN LATER POETS.
After William Morris the northern strain that we have been listening for in the English poets seems feeble and not worth noting. Nevertheless, it must be remarked that in the harp of a thousand strings that wakes to music under the bard's hands, there is a sweep which thrills to the ancient traditions of the Northland. Now and then the poet reaches for these strings, and gladdens us with some reminiscence of
old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago.
As had already been intimated, the table of contents in a present-day volume of poetry is very apt to show an Old Norse title. Thus Robert Lord Lytton's Poems Historical and Characteristic (London, 1877) reveals among the poems on European, Oriental, classic and mediaeval subjects, "The Death of Earl Hacon," a strong piece inspired by an incident in Heimskringla. In Robert Buchanan's multifarious versifying occurs this title: "Balder the Beautiful, A Song of Divine Death," but only the title is Old Norse; nothing in the poem suggests that origin except a notion or two of the end of all things. "Hakon" is the title of a short virile piece more nearly of the Norse spirit. Sidney Dobell's drama Balder has only the title to suggest the Icelandic, but Gerald Massey has the true ring in a number of lyrics, with themes drawn from the records of Norway's relations with England. In "The Norseman" there is a trumpet strain that recalls the best of the border-ballads; there is also a truthfulness of portraiture that argues a poet's, intuition in Gerald Massey, if not an acquaintance with the sagas:
The Norseman's King must stand up tall,
If he would be head over all;
Mainmast of Battle! when the plain
Is miry-red with bloody rain!
And grip his weapon for the fight,
Until his knuckles grin tooth-white,
The banner-staff he bears is best
If double handful for the rest:
When "follow me" cries the Norseman.
He knows the gentler side of Old Norse character, too, a side which, as we have seen, was not suspected till Carlyle came:
He hides at heart of his rough life,
A world of sweetness for the Wife;
From his rude breast a Babe may press
Soft milk of human tenderness,—
Make his eyes water, his heart dance,
And sunrise in his countenance:
In merriest mood his ale he quaffs
By firelight, and with jolly heart laughs
The blithe, great-hearted Norseman.
The poem "Old King Hake," is as strikingly true in characterization as the preceding. In half a dozen strophes Massey has told a whole saga, and has found time, too, to describe "an iron hero of Norse mould." How miserable a personage is the Italian that flits through Browning's pages when contrasted with this hero:
When angry, out the blood would start
With old King Hake;
Not sneak in dark caves of the heart,
Where curls the snake,
And secret Murder's hiss is heard
Ere the deed be done:
He wove no web of wile and word;
He bore with none.
When sharp within its sheath asleep
Lay his good sword,
He held it royal work to keep
His kingly word.
A man of valour, bloody and wild,
In Viking need;
And yet of firelight feeling mild
As honey-mead.
Another poem, "The Banner-Bearer of King Olaf," pictures the strong fighter in a death he rejoiced to die. It is a good poem of the class that nerves men to die for the flag, and it has the Old Norse spirit. These poems are all from Massey's volume My Lyrical Life (London. 1889).
A glance at the other poems in Gerald Massey's volumes shows that like Morris, and like Kingsley, and like Carlyle, the poet was a workman eager to do for the workman. Is it not suggestive that these men found themselves drawn to Old Norse character and life? The Icelandic republic cherished character as the highest quality of citizenship, and put few or no social obstacles in the way of its achievement. The literature inspired by that life reveals a fellowship among the members of that republic that is the envy of social reformers of the present day. Morris makes one of the personages in The Story of the Glittering Plain (Chap. I) say these words: "And as for Lord, I knew not this word, for here dwell we the Sons of the Raven in good fellowship, with our wives that we have wedded, and our mothers who have borne us, and our sisters who serve us." Almost may this description serve for Iceland in its golden age, and so it is no wonder that the socialist, the priest, and the philosopher of our own disjointed times go back to the sagas for ideals to serve their countrymen.
We have no other poets to mention by name in connection with this Old Norse influence, although doubtless a search through the countless volumes that the presses drop into a cold and uncaring world would reveal other poems with Scandinavian themes. We close this section of our investigation with the remark already made, that, in the tables of titles in volumes of contemporary verse, acknowledgment to Old Norse poetry and prose are not the rarity they once were, and in poems of any kind allusions to the same sources are very common.