Pre-Raphaelite and other Poets

by Lafcadio Hearn

I have said that this poem is emotional rather than didactic; yet there is a moral suggestion in it, the suggestion of what one foolish indulgence in lust may cause. For in the case of Attila, who had already scores and scores of wives, the marriage with Ildico was a mere piece of brutal indulgence and cruelty, and it proved his death. Then again, of course, it was a good thing for the world that Attila died when he did. It would seem as if nature tahes very good care that men who are only brutal and cunning shall not be allowed to rule human life for a great length of time. Their own passions or their own follies eventually destroy them.

There is yet another suggestion in the poem, which Meredith is very fond of making, both in his novels and in his verse. He thinks that an old man should never marry a young woman, no matter how great the merit of the old man may be. Here and there will be many to disagree with Meredith, and to quote such cases as that of the great French engineer, De Lesseps, who married only when he was more than sixty years old, and thereafter raised a very numerous family of remarkably fine children. But in a general way, Meredith is probably right. He expounds his ideas very clearly in a little poem called "The Last Contention." In this "last contention" the poet addresses an old man who wants to marry a young girl. He represents the mind of the man as that of a captain, directing a ship, and the ship is the body, the constitution, the physical part of the individual. With this explanation we may quote a few verses of the poem. It is cruel; but it is very moral and perhaps very just.

Young captain of a crazy bark!
O tameless heart in battered frame!
Thy sailing orders have a mark,
And hers is not the name.
For action all thine iron clanks
In cravings for a splendid prize;
Again to race or bump thy planks
With any flag that flies.
Admires thee Nature with much pride;
She clasps thee for a gift of morn.
Till thou art set against the tide.
And then beware her scorn.
This lady of the luting tongue,
The flash in darkness, billow's grace.
For thee the worship; for the young
In muscle the embrace.
Soar on thy manhood clear for those
Whose toothless Winter claws at May,
And take her as the vein of rose
Athwart an evening grey.

I have left out the most cruel verses; but these are significant enough. The person addressed might be one of those old generals or admirals who figure so often in the novels of Meredith, some brave old man, with a great reputation for courage and skill and the arts of courtesy. Such men may be able to win a young wife, rather by help of their wealth, social position, and reputation than by real love. The poet says that one should not try to do this. And he says that the man who does it, or wishes to do it, is like a skilful captain who trusts too much to his seamanship, forgetting that his vessel is in a state of decay. The heart may be young enough, but that is not sufficient. Nature seems to love and favour grand old men, but not if they do what is not according to Nature's laws. Therefore if marriages between old and young prove to be unfortunate, the fault is in most cases with the old. The old man may admire, may reverence a beautiful young person; but only as we admire a work of art, at a distance, or beautiful colours in the sunset sky. Let me call your attention to the use of the phrases "flash in darkness" and "billow's grace." The Greeks said that life was like a flash between two darknesses—the darkness of the mystery out of which we come, and the darkness of the mystery into which we go. It is a very beautiful and a very profound comparison; the poet here uses it especially in reference to the beautiful period of youth, which is short. He suggests that an old man should have wisdom enough to think of youth and of beauty as passing illusions. "Billow's grace" is a very striking simile. The charm of movement in a graceful person is something which no art can reproduce. It is beauty of motion, and the instant that the motion stops, the charm is not. The beauty of water, flowing water, is of this kind. Even while you admire the motion of a wave, gilded by the sunlight, the wave has passed.

And now we shall turn to a very important division of Meredith's poems—those dealing with the philosophy of life as a whole. On this subject most of the great English poets are apt to be a little didactic in the religious sense. Meredith is also didactic—but not in a religious sense. One peculiarity of his work is the total absence of theological doctrine of any kind. He talks to you about the laws of the universe, the laws of life, the laws of nature—never about the laws of any God or any religion. When he does mention the word God or the word religion, it is always in such a way that you feel he considers such things only as symbols—useful symbols, perhaps, but symbols only. I shall speak only of two remarkable poems of this kind. The first, called "The Woods of Westermain," considers especially the struggle of human life, and the duties of man in that struggle. The other poem, entitled "Earth and Man," treats more largely of the problem of the universe—the great mystery of the questions, Where do we come from? Why do we exist? Whither are we going? Let us first take the "Woods of Westermain."

Why the poem should be called by the name of "The Woods of Westermain," I am not able to tell you; but I think that the name contains a suggestion about occidental life as contrasted with oriental life. However, I am not sure, but, at all events, the subject of the poem is not a real forest, but the forest of human existence, the place in which the struggle of life goes on—therefore, in the true sense, Nature.

The great teaching of this poem is that Nature has given us powers and senses not for pleasure, not for the obtaining of selfish enjoyment, but for battle. All that we know at present about the reason of life is summed up in that fact. The great natural duty of every man is to fight, morally and physically, and though he has a perfect right to enjoy himself, to seek pleasure at proper times and places, he must never allow pleasure to interfere with the supreme duty of struggle in battle; the first requisite, therefore, is courage, the first thing necessary is never to be afraid. In the ancient fairy-tales of Europe, we find many stories about enchanted forests, goblin forests. The knight, the hero of the story, enters a great wood, which seems very green and pleasant to the eye. As he lies down under a tree, however, he sees strange shapes looking at him—shapes of fairies, shapes of demons, shapes of giants. But he rides on, and they do not do him any harm. After a while he arrives safely at his destination. Quite otherwise in the case of the cowardly knight. When he finds himself in the forest he becomes afraid, and terrible shapes rise up about him, come close to him, at last attack him and tear him to pieces. Now the forest of life is just like the enchanted forest of the old fairy-tales. If you are afraid, you are destroyed. If you are not afraid, all is bright and beautiful.

Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Nothing harms beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves.
Toss your heart up with the lark,
Float at peace with mouse and worm,
Fair you fare.
Only at a dread of dark
Quaver, and they quit their form:
Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Here the snake across your path
Stretches in his golden bath;
Mossy-footed squirrels leap
Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep.
. . . . . . .
Each has business of his own;
But should you distrust a tone,
Then beware!
Shudder all the haunted roods,
All the eyeballs under hoods
Shroud you in their glare.

I am not sure that this imagery can appeal to you as it was intended to appeal to the Western reader, because it partly depends for effect upon the knowledge of the old fairy-tale pictures. In Western ghost stories and fairy stories, goblins and other phantoms are usually represented in long robes with hoods over their faces, and very big, wicked eyes. That is why the poet speaks so often of the hoods and the eyeballs. The meaning is that, in this world, just so soon as you begin to suspect and to be afraid, everything really becomes to you terrible—even as in the old fairy-tales a tree was only a tree to the sight of a brave man, but to the cowardly man its roots became feet and its branches horrible arms and claws, and its crest a goblin face.