THE POET.
In a distant country, at a remote epoch, was born of humble parents a poet. "Born" advisedly, since the poet is always born, not made. Even before he could write he composed little poems, which he would recite aloud. The simple pleasures of the poor, among whom he grew up—intoxication, pugilism, funeral merry-makings—furnished the themes of his verse.
Upon reaching man's estate he adopted the calling of night-watchman, an occupation which provided him at once with a livelihood and ample opportunities for meditation. It is to this period that the "Nocturnes" belong.
Now it happened that the poet's work reached the eye of the Prince, who, anxious to encourage genius, appointed him to some minor place about Court and endowed it with a pension. Moreover, to complete his happiness he gave him in marriage a beautiful and accomplished maiden, for whom the poet had long cherished an ardent but hopeless passion. So, as by enchantment, the course of the poet's existence was changed. He no longer waked while others slept. On the contrary he seldom left his couch until a late hour in the morning, and when at last he rose it was often to pass the rest of the day in a Turkish bath.
Yet in spite of altered circumstances he still remained a poet, for the poet is born, not made, or unmade. The tenor of his poetry however was changed. Instead of the rude and vigorous subjects which formerly engaged his lyre he would now employ his art in verse of the daintiest, to celebrate flowers, ladies' eyebrows and similar trivialities.
This style however was not altogether to the taste of the munificent Prince. He had expected something stronger, something more in the grand manner. So he consulted a Wise Man, an adept in the ways of poets, one greatly in demand as a writer of biographical prefaces to poetical reprints.
The Wise Man heard him to the end and replied as follows: "Sire, you have been ill-advised. Who ever heard of a happy poet? Poetry and prosperity are incompatible. Instead of trying to make your protégé joyful you should have heaped sorrow upon him. It is well known that sorrow ennobles a man and enlarges his emotional experience. 'Poets learn in suffering what they teach in song' sang one of them who knew.
"However it is not too late. When next he seeks your Presence, indicate to him with that tact which is the birthright of princes that he no longer enjoys your favour. At the same time stop his pension and allow him to taste once more the life from which your bounty removed him. Could you contrive that he loses the affection of his wife, and that he falls into a consumption, so much the better. In addition, if it please your Highness, I will arrange that all his work is unfavourably noticed in the Press and that calumnies concerning his private life are circulated in the personal paragraph columns."
"Thanks very much," said the Prince, and dismissed the Wise Man with a handsome fee.
A few days later, when the poet presented himself at Court, the monarch rose from his throne, took a short run and kicked him in a vulnerable part. Breathless the poet was borne by lackeys from the royal presence, wherein he never again showed himself. At the next meeting of the Council the Prince annulled his pension by a stroke of the pen. Thus the poet was thrust back into the cold world.
Now began a period for him of intense unhappiness. Having lost his old business connection he could no longer obtain employment in his original vocation. He had therefore no alternative to avert starvation but to follow the precarious calling of a cab-runner. These events, it will be recalled, happened in a bygone age, before the motor superseded the horse. Often, after a weary trail half across the town behind a luggage-laden Cab, only to find that the family kept a man-servant, he would return to the cellar that was now his home, penniless and exhausted.
Long hours spent over the washtub, to eke out their scanty earnings, had rendered his wife—once the "Fay" of the "Love Songs"—both muscular and short-tempered. On such occasions she would lay hands on the poet and thrash him till he wept. But throughout all he remained a poet, for the poet is born not made. Every tear in falling turned to a sonnet. His sorrows were transmuted into poems—poems now suffused with the concentrated emotions of the human race.
Nevertheless each one as it appeared was brutally slated in the organs controlled by the literary adviser to the Crown, and himself belittled and ridiculed. When, as luck would have it, his wife eloped with a wrestler, a flood of melody poured from his soul which, connoisseurs have assured us, ranks high amongst the lyrical masterpieces of the world. These verses will be found amongst the collection known as "Swan Songs," published posthumously, for, not long after, the poet unfortunately developed phthisis and died.
But though he was thus cut-off in early manhood his name will live for ever. It is borne by a square in the boarding-house quarter of the capital and by a cravat which, though, alas, no longer in the fashion, is still worn every Sunday by countless artisans.
His poems too have achieved immortality. Showily bound they make a favourite school prize and have given entertainment to generations of cultured refined persons, who have never paused in their reading to give a thought to the author of their enjoyment, the sagacious Prince to whose action they owe their emotional treat. His royal Highness's reward was his own aesthetic satisfaction. "By Heaven, this is more like," he rapturously exclaimed as he laid down the last volume of the collected works; "this verse has got some stuff in it." And on the occasion of his next birthday he conferred the Companionship of a Household Order upon the poet's publisher.
"Lord Basil's scratching is said to be due to soreness."—Daily Sketch.
It frequently is.
