You who in youth the cone-paved forest sought,
Musing until the pines to musing fell;
You who by river-path the witchery caught
Of waters moving under stress of spell;
You who the seas of metaphysics crossed,
And yet returned to art’s consoling haven—
Returned from whence so many souls are lost,
With wisdom’s seal upon your forehead graven—
Well may you now abandon learning’s seat,
And work the ore all seek, not many find;
No sign-post need you to direct your feet,
You draw no riches from another’s mind.
Hail Nature’s coming; bygone be the past;
Hail her New Day; it breaks for man at last.Fulfil the new-born dream of Poesy!
Give her your life in full, she turns from less—
Your life in full—like those who did not die,
Though death holds all they sang in dark duress.
You, knowing Nature to the throbbing core,
You can her wordless prophecies rehearse.
The murmers others heard her heart outpour
Swell to an anthem in your richer verse.
If wider vision brings a wider scope
For art, and depths profounder for emotion,
Yours be the song whose master-tones shall ope
A new poetic heaven o’er earth and ocean.
The New Day comes apace; its virgin fame
Be yours, to fan the fiery soul to flame.
Indeed, he has often said to me: ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, and I did not throw myself upon my little tide until it was too late, and I am not going to repine now.’ For my part, I have been a student of English poetry all my life—it is my chief subject of study—and I predict that when poetic imagination is again perceived to be the supreme poetic gift, Mr. Watts-Dunton’s genius will be acclaimed. In respect of imaginative power, apart from the other poetic qualities—‘the power of seeing a dramatic situation and flashing it upon the physical senses of the listener,’ none of his contemporaries have surpassed him.
I have said in print more than once that I, a Celt myself, can see more Celtic glamour in his poetry than in many of the Celtic poets of our time. And, if we are to judge by the vogue of ‘The Coming of Love’ and ‘Aylwin’ in Wales, the Welsh people seem to see it very clearly. Take, for instance, the sonnet called ‘The Mirrored Stars’ again, given on page 29. It is impossible for Celtic glamour to go further than this; and yet it is rarely noted by critics in discussing the Celtic note in poetry.
In order fully to understand ‘The Coming of Love’ it is necessary to bear in mind a distinction between the two kinds of poetry upon which Mr. Watts-Dunton has often dwelt. “There are,” he tells us, “but two kinds of poetry, but two kinds of art—that which interprets, and that which represents. ‘Poetry is apparent pictures of unapparent realities,’ says the Eastern mind through Zoroaster; ‘the highest, the only operation of art is representation (Gestaltung),’ says the Western mind through Goethe. Both are right.” Madame Galimberti has called Mr. Watts-Dunton ‘the poet of the sunrise’: There are richer descriptions of sunrise in ‘Aylwin’ and ‘The Coming of Love’ than in any other writer I know. “Few poets,” Mr. Watts-Dunton says, “have been successful in painting a sunrise, for the simple reason that, save through the bed-curtains, they do not often see one. They think that all they have to do is to paint a sunset, which they sometimes do see, and call it a sunrise. They are entirely mistaken, however; the two phenomena are both like and unlike. Between the cloud-pageantry of sunrise and of sunset the difference to the student of Nature is as apparent as is the difference to the poet between the various forms of his art.”
‘The Coming of Love’ shows that independence of contemporary vogues and influences which characterizes all Mr. Watts-Dunton’s work, whether in verse or prose, whether in romance or criticism, or in that analysis and exposition of the natural history of minds about which Sainte Beuve speaks. It was as a poet that his energies were first exercised, but this for a long time was known only to his poetical friends. His criticism came many years afterwards, and, as Rossetti used to say, ‘his critical work consists of generalizations of his own experience in the poet’s workshop.’ For many years he was known only in his capacity as a critic. James Russell Lowell is reported to have said: ‘Our ablest critics hitherto have been 18-carat; Theodore Watts goes nearer the pure article.’ Mr. William Sharp, in his study of Rossetti, says: ‘In every sense of the word the friendship thus begun resulted in the greatest benefit to the elder writer, the latter having greater faith in Mr. Watts-Dunton’s literary judgment than seems characteristic with so dominant and individual an intellect as that of Rossetti. Although the latter knew well the sonnet-literature of Italy and England, and was a much-practised master of the heart’s key himself, I have heard him on many occasions refer to Theodore Watts as having still more thorough knowledge on the subject, and as being the most original sonnet-writer living.’
‘Aylwin’ and ‘The Coming of Love’ are vitally connected with the poet’s peculiar critical message. Henry Aylwin and Percy Aylwin may be regarded as the embodiment of his philosophy of life. The very popularity of ‘Aylwin’ and ‘The Coming of Love’ is apt to make readers forget the profundity of the philosophical thought upon which they are based, although this profundity has been indicated by such competent critics as Dr. Robertson Nicoll in the ‘Contemporary Review,’ M. Maurice Muret in the ‘Journal des Débats,’ and other thoughtful writers. Upon the inner meaning of the romance and the poem I have, however, ideas of my own to express, which are not in full accordance with any previous criticisms. To me it seems that the two cousins, Henry Aylwin of the romance, and Percy Aylwin of the poem, are phases of a modern Hamlet, a Hamlet who has travelled past the pathetic superstitions of the old cosmogonies to the last milestone of doubting hope and questioning fear, a Hamlet who stands at the portals of the outer darkness, gazing with eyes made wistful by the loss of a beloved woman. In both the romance and the poem the theme is love at war with death. Mr. Watts-Dunton, in his preface to the illustrated edition of ‘Aylwin’ says:—
“It is a story written as a comment on Love’s warfare with death—written to show that, confronted as man is every moment by signs of the fragility and brevity of human life, the great marvel connected with him is not that his thoughts dwell frequently upon the unknown country beyond Orion, where the beloved dead are loving us still, but that he can find time and patience to think upon anything else: a story written further to show how terribly despair becomes intensified when a man has lost—or thinks he has lost—a woman whose love was the only light of his world—when his soul is torn from his body, as it were, and whisked off on the wings of the ‘viewless winds’ right away beyond the farthest star, till the universe hangs beneath his feet a trembling point of twinkling light, and at last even this dies away and his soul cries out for help in that utter darkness and loneliness. It was to depict this phase of human emotion that both ‘Aylwin’ and ‘The Coming of Love’ were written. They were missives from the lonely watch-tower of the writer’s soul, sent out into the strange and busy battle of the world—sent out to find, if possible, another soul or two to whom the watcher was, without knowing it, akin. In ‘Aylwin’ the problem is symbolized by the victory of love over sinister circumstance, whereas in the poem it is symbolized by a mystical dream of ‘Natura Benigna.’
In ‘The Coming of Love’ Percy Aylwin is a poet and a sailor, with such an absorbing love for the sea that he has no room for any other passion; to him an imprisoned seabird is a sufferer almost more pitiable than any imprisoned man, as will be seen by the opening section of the poem, ‘Mother Carey’s Chicken.’ On seeing a storm-petrel in a cage on a cottage wall near Gypsy Dell, he takes down the cage in order to release the bird; then, carrying the bird in the cage, he turns to cross a rustic wooden bridge leading past Gypsy Dell, when he suddenly comes upon a landsman friend of his, a Romany Rye, who is just parting from a young gypsy-girl. Gazing at her beauty, Percy stands dazzled and forgets the petrel. It is symbolical of the inner meaning of the story that the bird now flies away through the half-open door. From that moment, through the magic of love, the land to Percy is richer than the sea: this ends the first phase of the story. The first kiss between the two lovers is thus described:—
If only in dreams may Man be fully blest,
Is heaven a dream? Is she I claspt a dream?
Or stood she here even now where dew-drops gleam
And miles of furze shine yellow down the West?
I seem to clasp her still—still on my breast
Her bosom beats: I see the bright eyes beam.
I think she kissed these lips, for now they seem
Scarce mine: so hallowed of the lips they pressed.
Yon thicket’s breath—can that be eglantine?
Those birds—can they be Morning’s choristers?
Can this be Earth? Can these be banks of furze?
Like burning bushes fired of God they shine!
I seem to know them, though this body of mine
Passed into spirit at the touch of hers!
Percy stays with the gypsies, and the gypsy-girl, Rhona, teaches him Romany. This arouses the jealousy of a gypsy rival—Herne the ‘Scollard.’ Percy Aylwin’s family afterwards succeeds in separating him from her, and he is again sent to sea. While cruising among the coral islands he receives the letter from Rhona which paints her character with unequalled vividness:—