In the manuscript volume containing "Gawain and the Green Knight," is the singular poem, "Pearl," which has been described as the "In Memoriam" of the fourteenth century. It is, indeed, an elegy by one who has lost a "Pearl," probably a Margaret, who dies before she is two years old. The poet bewails his loss, and speaks, in a vision, with his Pearl, concerning religion and the future life. The poem (edited, paraphrased, and annotated by Mr. Gollancz) was praised by Tennyson as "True pearl of our poetic prime".
"Pearl" is written in stanzas of twelve lines, with some resemblance to the form of the Italian sonnet (in fourteen lines), with which the author may have been familiar. The system of rhyming may be roughly illustrated thus,
Pearl that for princes' pleasure may
Be cleanly closed in gold so clear,
Out of the Orient dare I say,
Never I proved her precious peer;
So round, so rich, and in such array,
So small, so smooth the sides of her were,
Whenever I judged of jewels gay
Shapeliest still was the sight of her.
Alas, in an arbour I lost her here,
Through grass to ground she passed, I wot,
I dwine, forsaken of sweet love's cheer,
Of my privy Pearl without a spot.
The same rhymes persevere through the first eight lines, as in a sonnet, the rhyme of the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines continues in the ninth and eleventh; a new rhyme appears in the tenth and twelfth lines: and throughout there is much alliteration. In stanzas 1 to 5, "pearl withouten spot" comes always as a "refrain" at the close, and other refrains end each set of five or six stanzas, as in the old French ballade. The form is thus difficult and highly artificial, the making of the poem was, as Tennyson says, "the dull mechanic exercise" to deaden the pain of the singer.
The poet, fallen on the grassy grave of the lost child, lies entranced, but his spirit floats forth to a strange land of cliffs and woods, where the leaves shine as burnished silver, and birds of strange hues float and sing. He comes to a river crystal-clear, whose pearls glow like sapphire and emerald, but that river has no ford, and may not be crossed by living man. On the farther shore he sees a maiden clad in white and in pearls, fresh as a fleur-de-lis; she is the Blessed Damosel, the Lady Pearl. Her locks are golden, and her crown is of pearls and gold. She tells the dreamer that she is not lost: his Pearl is in a coffer; safely set in the garden of Paradise. She comforts him with the hope and comfort of Christ. Henceforward her discourse is religious: he strives to cross that River, and to reach the shining city of the Apocalypse; but he wakes on the grave of his child; and consoles himself with the promise of the Communion of the Saints. The machinery of the Dream, and the River, are borrowed (as all poets then borrowed), from the famous French "Roman de la Rose" (1240) with its allegorical characters. This fashion of poetry, always beginning with a dream, in which the dreamer has visionary adventures with allegorical personages, became a kind of literary epidemic, terribly tedious and conventional, as time went on.
The poet has given to his lay the charm of sorrow not without hope, and a dainty grace of artifice that is not insincere; "of his tears are pearls made".
As to the author of "Pearl," there is much difference of opinion. Nothing in the two edifying poems in the same manuscript, "Cleanness" and "Patience," makes it improbable that he wrote them. "Gawain and the Green Knight" is a very different composition, yet of lofty character; the author of "Pearl" may have written it, just as the author of "The Lotus Eaters" wrote "The Northern Farmer," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade".
Huchown.
With a number of other poems, "Pearl" has been claimed for a Scot, Huchown, Sir Hugh of Eglintoun, an Ayrshire laird, known as a fighting man, a diplomatist, and a judge, in the reign of David II of Scotland; he "flourished" between 1342 and 1377. Or perhaps Huchown was a priest, nobody knows.