Lyra Celtica: An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry

by Unknown

CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-CELTIC POETS (WALES)

GEORGE MEREDITH.
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Mr George Meredith, who recently has been addressed in a dedication as “The Prince of Celtdom,” is rather the sovereign of contemporary English literature. Although of Welsh descent and sympathies, and with a nature pre-eminently Celtic in its distinguishing characteristics, Mr Meredith was born in Hampshire on February 12th, 1828. Part of his early education was received in Germany, and after his return to England it was intended that he should pursue the legal profession: an intention set aside on account of an irresistible bias toward literature. His first published writings were in verse: and now this early little book, Poems, published in his twenty-third year (1851) is one of the rarest treasures for the bibliophile. It is dedicated to Thomas Love Peacock, whose intellectual influence upon the young writer is obvious. In 1850 the poet married the daughter of Peacock, but it was not till a year or two later that he definitely set himself to the profession of literature as also a means of livelihood. It is characteristic of him that his first prose book should be one of his most individual writings; for The Shaving of Shagpat might have been written at almost any period of its author’s career. A fascinating and perplexing production it must indeed have seemed at that time, published as it was in a year which, with the exception of two radically distinct American works of pre-eminent note, Longfellow’s Hiawatha and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, was a singularly barren one. The fantasy has always remained a favourite with staunch Meredithians. It was followed two years later by the somewhat akin Farina; and two years passed again before that first important work appeared which so profoundly affected the minds and imagination of Mr Meredith’s contemporaries—the now famous Ordeal of Richard Feverel, (1859). Since that date Mr Meredith has given us what many consider the greatest literary legacy of our time; and unquestionably he has had no compeer in brilliant delineation of life at white heat. It is unnecessary to specify the works of an author with which all lovers of literature must be familiar; but a word must be added as to the delight which the reading world has known this year in the publication of The Amazing Marriage, one of the most brilliant and vivid of all Mr Meredith’s romances, and, in its display of his characteristic quality at his best, ranking with Harry Richmond, The Egoist, and Diana of the Crossways. As a poet George Meredith is less widely known, or, rather, is less widely accepted. There are, nevertheless, many who regard his poetic achievement as perhaps the most essential part of what he has given us. In depth of thought, in clarity of vision, and in remarkable expressional subtlety,—often, if not invariably, set forth in a lyric utterance whose only fault is that of an occasional apparent incoherence due to rapidity of thought and eagerness of rhythmic emotion—he stands here, as in all else, alone. From that extraordinarily powerful study of contemporary life, expressed emotionally and rhythmically in singularly convincing verse, Modern Love, to his latest volume, The Empty Purse, there is a range of rhythmic and lyric beauty which may well be a challenge to posterity to redeem the relative neglect of the mass of Mr Meredith’s contemporaries. I am not of those who consider Mr Meredith’s least popular poems as mere cryptic utterances in verse; for everywhere I find the lyric spirit,—hampered, at times, it is true, by a wind-rush of images, and by a sudden drove of unshepherded words. But who could read “Love in the Valley,” “The Lark Ascending,” “The Woods of Westermain,” “The South-Wester,” “The Hymn to Colour,” to mention five only, without recognising that here indeed we have one of the great poets of our time. The poems by which, owing to the gracious courtesy of Mr Meredith—who has consented to forego for once his great objection to the appearance of any of his poems in miscellaneous collections—he is here represented, are from his later volumes. The “Dirge in Woods,” “Outer and Inner,” and the superb “Hymn to Colour,” are from A Reading of Earth (1888), the volume which contains “Hard Weather,” “The South-Wester,” “The Thrush in February,” “The Appeasement of Demeter,” “Woodland Peace,” the noble ode “Meditation under Stars,” and that flawless and memorable sonnet, “Winter Heavens.” The “Night of Frost in May” is from the volume entitled The Empty Purse (1892). Mr Meredith’s other volume of poetry, the favourite with most of his readers, is Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883). This book includes “The Woods of Westermain,” “The Day of the Daughter of Hades,” “The Lark Ascending,” “Phœbus with Admetus,” “Melampus,” “Love in a Valley,” and the group of sonnets beginning with “Lucifer in Starlight,” and ending with “Time and Sentiment.” All Mr Meredith’s poetical writings are now published by Messrs Macmillan.

SEBASTIAN EVANS.
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Born in 1830, the grandson of the Rev. Lewis Evans, a well-known Welsh astronomer, and the son of the Rev. Arthur Benoni Evans, a linguist, scholar, and author. He was not the only one of this parentage who came to some distinction, for his brother, John Evans, F.R.S., became President of the Society of Antiquaries, and his sister, Anne, had some repute as a poetess and musician. Sebastian Evans won a fair measure of fugitive fame by his Brother Fabian’s Manuscript and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1865). In the early ’70’s Dr Evans published his second volume, In the Studio: a Decade of Poems (Macmillan). The true note of his strangely subtle and illusive muse is not that of either irony or audacity as commonly supposed, but rather a living belief in the passage of the contemporary mind and aspiration from the sureties of the ancient faith to the assurance of a still finer faith to come. Among his short poems perhaps the most indicative is that entitled “The Banners”—

Lordly banners, waving to the stars,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew,
Trustful youth is wending to the wars,
Strong in ancient faith to battle with the new.
Lordly banners, trodden in the clay,
Lie upon the mountain dank with other dew,
Hapless Youth hath lost the bloody day,
Ancient faith is feeble, stronger is the new.
Lordly banners, other than of yore,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew:
Youth to battle girdeth him once more,
New and Old are feeble,—mighty is the True!

EBENEZER JONES. (1820-1860.)
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Of Welsh parentage and descent, Ebenezer Jones was born in Islington, London. Much has been written upon the famous Chartist poet, both in his relation to the socialistic movements in which he participated, and in literary criticism of his two at one time much discussed volumes, Studies of Sensation and Event (1843), and Studies of Resemblance and Consent (1849); but perhaps the best critical summary of his life-work is that of Mr Wm. J. Linton in Miles’ Poets and Poetry of the Century, Vol. V. The two poems by which Ebenezer Jones is represented here are respectively from his second and first volumes.

EMILY DAVIS (MRS PFEIFFER). (1841-1890.)
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Mrs Pfeiffer, many of whose poems achieved a wide popularity, was the daughter of a Welsh gentleman settled in Oxfordshire, and an officer in the army. She was born in Wales. Of her several volumes of verse, the first was Gerard’s Monument, etc. (1873), and the best are Sonnets and Other Songs, Under the Aspens (1884), and Sonnets (1887).

ERNEST RHYS.
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“The House of Hendra” is not given here intact: for the whole poem, see A London Rose, etc. (Elkin Mathews). Mr Rhys is the most noteworthy of the younger generation of Welsh poets and romancists, and may well be accepted as the leader of the Neo-Celtic movement in Wales. He has in a more marked degree than almost any of his compatriots of his own period the gift of style; and already his enthusiasm, knowledge, and fine and notable work in prose and verse have brought him to the front as the recognised representative of young Wales. Of Welsh parentage, Mr Rhys was born in London in 1860, spent much of his boyhood in South Wales, and his youth and early manhood in the north-country, where he intended to follow the profession of a mining engineer. However, he came to London in the early ’eighties and settled down to literary work. His first publication in book form was The Great Cockney Tragedy (1891). His poems first became known to the outside reading world through his contributions to The Book of the Rhymers’ Club (1893). In the following year he published his first and as yet sole volume of verse: A London Rose: and Other Rhymes, whence comes the fine “House of Hendra” by which he is represented here. Besides other writings, in prose, Mr Ernest Rhys was editor of the “Camelot Series” of popular reprints and translations in 65 volumes (1885-1890), and now is critical editor of The Lyric Poets (Dent), one of the most delightful poets-series extant.