‘Spring!—the breezy spinster, sour-apple green,
Acidulous virgin, lengthy and lean,
And all our red-flannelled days at an end....’
or the familiar lines from ‘Decayed Trades,’ with all its quaint symbolism:
‘Weary of butchers with hands as heavy as lead,
And fruiterers, fulsome as their old wares;
Weary of bakers, sweaty with paste, and seemingly dead
To all higher things, to all nobler cares.’
Though opinions may differ as to the value of the ‘No Verb’ manner, none can deny the beauty of the verse in Nullity. Indeed, the only just complaint that can be urged against Grigsby in this volume concerns itself with the note of pessimism that undoubtedly finds its way into the majority of the poems. But this, I have reason to know, was not the result of a foolish pose; Grigsby has always been too sincere an artist for that; but he himself was journeying through the ‘valley of the shadow’ at the time when the book was written, and the verses are the genuine expression of his moods and thoughts. There is no trace of pessimism or bitterness in his later work.
It was shortly after the appearance of Nullity, if my memory serves me, that I met the poet for the first time. I had dropped into the habit of looking in at Ivorstein’s studio, and it was on one of my visits there that I found a group of artists and men of letters listening intently to a tall, slim young man in their midst. He was declaiming, if I remember rightly, against Miss Sylvia Sylcox, the popular poetess, whose Noughts and Kisses was then going through edition after edition. The speaker was no other than Grigsby; and when afterwards I had the fortune to make my way homewards in his company, I counted myself a lucky man. Nor was I wrong, for after years of—what he has been good enough to call—friendship, my admiration for the artist is only equalled by my respect for the man. A brilliant conversationalist, witty yet always kindly, with a fund of just comment upon authors living and dead always to hand, I know no man of letters who makes such a genial, wise companion. But this is by the way. A little later, the great happiness of his life came to him, his marriage, which in itself did not a little to widen his outlook and touch his work to even finer issues. The lady of his choice, who has proved herself an invaluable helpmate and a very charming hostess, was Miss Cecilia Snorks, daughter of the late Canon Snorks, and herself the writer of two well-known books, Humble Hearts in Many Mansions and The Heptameron Retold for Children. But we must pass lightly over the next few years, during which time, however, Grigsby’s pen was not idle. He published two slim volumes, Palomides and Other Poems and Buckingham: A Tragedy, which did not attract so much attention as Nullity, but yet commanded respect and doubtless added to their author’s reputation. Also, as before, he was engaged in periodical work, for the most part critical essays and reviews, many of which he afterwards collected and published in A Poet—And Some Others (Downe and Cashe). Then, after a prolonged retreat in South Lancashire, he produced the work his friends had long been expecting, the work that many of us believe has given him—or will give him—a high place in English literature. I refer, of course, to The Golden Garnering, a volume of lyrics of no great size, but yet packed with poetry of the highest order. Here, at last, we have the true Grigsby, self-confident, matured, in full command of his powers. All that had gone before, his childhood at Channingford, the early struggles at Wolverhampton, the days and nights with his brilliant set in London, the ripeness of later, quieter years, all lead to The Golden Garnering; and not in vain, for it is one of the few enduring contributions of this age to letters. In these lyrics of Grigsby’s, one discovers all the best qualities of our older English verse, along with a great deal that is new, being native to the poet. Over and above the beautiful lyrical flow, the sharply etched phrase, the abundant fine imagery, familiar to all lovers of our verse, there is a touch of restless modernity, an increasing burden of thought, that mark the true poet of our own time. Dropping the ‘No Verb’ manner and returning with increased power to the older forms, Grigsby, in this volume, presents us with an extraordinary variety of measures, alike only in their marvellous fitness for each subject and mood. At times, he will move us with exquisite cadences, perfectly wedded to the matter, as in—
‘Sleep, gentle sleep, I know not whence it comes,
Sleep from the dusk of some immortal dream,
Clouds to the eyes and hazes o’er the mind....’
At other times, we are roused and delighted by one startling yet just image, as in—
‘Day, a white pack, chases the black fox, Night,
And faster than horse and hound, the fled-away shades....’
Again, the poet will express himself with force and passion, yet seem to be singing a carelessly beautiful song, as, for example, in the oft-quoted ‘Hymn to the Clubmen’—