Nay! There's naught to screen.
'Twas I that ... Nay!
And, if he's hot, at times,
You know he's much to try him;
The racket that he works in, all day long,
Would wear the best of tempers.
Why, mother, who should know as well as you
How soon a riveter is done?
The hammers break a man, before his time;
And father was a shattered man at forty;
And Philip's thirty-five;
And if he's failed a bit ...
And, sometimes, over-hasty,
Well, I am hasty, too;
You know my temper; no one knows it better.
Occasionally, it is true, the principle on which the verse is built is too strictly applied: the phraseology is abrupt beyond the required effect; and the lines, instead of following a rule which seems to measure their length by a natural pause, are broken arbitrarily. Speaking broadly, however, it is beautifully fitted to the themes of Daily Bread, though one is not so sure about it in a poem like "Akra the Slave." This is a delightful narrative, akin in subject to the earlier work, and belonging to that period much more than to the date at which it was published, 1910. One cannot linger upon it, nor even upon the more important work which followed, and is happily still continuing—more important because it indicates development and marked progress along the new lines. The three parts of Fires carry forward the conception of Daily Bread, but now in narrative style, permitting therefore a relaxation of the austere dramatic truth of the dialogue form. The verse is modified accordingly, as will be seen in this passage from "The Shop": A workman has entered his favourite shop—the little general-store of a poor neighbourhood—to buy his evening paper. But he is not attended to immediately; and a sickly little girl who has come for a fraction of a loaf and a screw of tea, is also waiting. The shopkeeper is engrossed with a parcel from the country—from a little convalescent son who has gone for the first time to his father's native place:
Next night, as I went in, I caught
A strange, fresh smell. The postman had just brought
A precious box from Cornwall, and the shop
Was lit with primroses, that lay atop
A Cornish pasty, and a pot of cream:
And as, with gentle hands, the father lifted
The flowers his little son had plucked for him,
He stood a moment in a far-off dream,
As though in glad remembrances he drifted
On Western seas: and, as his eyes grew dim,
He stooped, and buried them in deep, sweet bloom:
Till, hearing, once again, the poor child's cough,
He served her hurriedly, and sent her off,
Quite happily, with thin hands filled with flowers.
And, as I followed to the street, the gloom
Was starred with primroses; and many hours
The strange, shy flickering surprise
Of that child's keen, enchanted eyes
Lit up my heart, and brightened my dull room.
Music has come in again, in frequent and sometimes intricate rhyme; in metrical lightness and variety; in a fuller and more harmonious language. The spirit of this later work remains humanitarian, but it is not concentrated now solely upon the tragic aspects of the workers' lives. A wider range is taken, and comedy enters, with an accession of urbanity from which characterization gains a mellower note. The world of nature, too, banished for a time in the exclusive study of humanity, returns to enrich this later poetry with a store of loving observation, an intimate knowledge of wild creatures, and the refreshing sense of a healthful open-air life in which, over a deep consciousness of sterner things, plays a jolly comradeship with wind and weather.
[Ralph Hodgson]
The format of Mr Hodgson's published work is almost as interesting as the poetry itself—and that is saying a good deal. For all of his poetry that matters (there is an earlier, experimental volume which is not notable) has been issued during the past two or three years in the form of chapbook and broadside.
It was a new publishing venture, quietly launched At the Sign of Flying Fame, and piloted now through the rapids of a larger success by the Poetry Bookshop. In a sense, of course, it is not a new thing at all, but a revival of the means by which ballad and romance were conveyed into the hands of the people a couple of centuries ago. Yet it is no imitation of a quaint style for the sake of its picturesqueness, nor the haphazard choice of a vehicle unsuited either to the author or his public, nor a mere bid for popular favour.
The peculiar interest of the revival lies in the fact that it is part of the larger movement, the renascent spirit of poetry which has been visibly stirring the face of the waters in these past few years. The reappearance of the chapbook synchronized with that, and is closely related with it. For it is found to be as well fitted to the form and the content of the newest poetry as it is suited to the need of the newest audience. On the one hand it brings to the freshly awakened public a book which is cheap enough to acquire and small enough readily to become a familiar possession of the mind. On the other hand, it is suited perfectly to the simple themes and metrical effects of the work hitherto published in this form; and is designed only to include small poems of unquestioned excellence. Here may be perceived the more important factors which go to the formation of literary taste; and while one would estimate that the educational value of these little books is therefore high, aptly meeting the need of the novice in poetry, it is clear that the discriminating mind also is likely to find them satisfying.