The humour there, corresponding in degree to the indignation for which it is a veil, is relatively broad. There are many subtler forms of it, however, and one will be found in a charming piece which is apt to our present point. It is called "Nicholas Nye," and tells about an old donkey in an orchard. He is an unprepossessing creature, lame and worn-out: just a bit of animal jettison, thrown away here to end his days in peace. And the poet had a great friendship with him:
But a wonderful gumption was under his skin,
And a clear calm light in his eye,
And once in a while: he'd smile:—
Would Nicholas Nye.
Seem to be smiling at me, he would,
From his bush in the corner, of may,—
Bony and ownerless, widowed and worn,
Knobble-kneed, lonely and grey;
And over the grass would seem to pass
'Neath the deep dark blue of the sky,
Something much better than words between me
And Nicholas Nye.
[Wilfrid Wilson Gibson]
There are a dozen books by this author, the work of about a dozen years. They began to appear in 1902; and they end, so far as the present survey is concerned, with poems that were published in the first half of 1914. They make a good pile, a considerable achievement in bulk alone; and when they are read in sequence, they are found to represent a growing period in the poet's mind and art which corresponds to, and epitomises, the transition stage out of which English poetry is just passing. That is to say, in addition to the growth that one would expect—the ripening and development which would seem to be a normal process—there has occurred an unexpected thing: a complete change of ideal, with steady and rapid progress in the new direction. So that if Mr. Gibson's later books were compared directly with the early ones, they might appear to be by an entirely different hand. Place Urlyn the Harper—which was first published—beside a late play called Womenkind or a still more recent dramatic piece called Bloodybush Edge; and the contrast will be complete. On the one hand there is all the charm of romance, in material and in manner—but very little else. On the other hand there is nothing to which the word charm will strictly apply; an almost complete artistic austerity: but a profound and powerful study of human nature. On the one hand there is a dainty lyrical form appropriate to the theme: there are songs like this one, about the hopeless love of the minstrel for the young queen who is mated with an old harsh king:
I sang of lovers, and she praised my song,
The while the King looked on her with cold eyes,
And 'twixt them on the throne sat mailèd wrong.
I sang of Launcelot and Guenevere,
While in her face I saw old sorrows rise,
And throned between them cowered naked Fear.
I sang of Tristram and La Belle Isoud,
And how they fled the anger of King Mark
To live and love, deep sheltered in a wood.