... so near eternity
The evil dwindles, good alone remains,
And good triumphant—God is merciful.
But that is dramatically appropriate—the logic of Joan's character. And it seems to me that a more intimate and sincere expression is to be found in the chastened mood of a sonnet called "To April":
There will be other days as fair as these
Which I shall never see; for other eyes
The lyric loveliness of cherry trees
Shall bloom milk-white against the windy skies
And I not praise them; where upon the stream
The faëry tracery of willows lies
I shall not see the sunlight's flying gleam,
Nor watch the swallows sudden dip and rise.
Most mutable the forms of beauty are,
Yet Beauty most eternal and unchanged,
Perfect for us, and for posterity
Still perfect; yearly is the pageant ranged.
And dare we wish that our poor dust should mar
The wonder of such immortality?
The wistfulness of that wins by its grace where a more strenuous optimism provokes a challenge; just as the tentative 'perhaps' in the last line of "Sophocles' Antigone" softly woos the sceptic:
There are fair flowers that never came to fruit;
Cut by sharp winds, or eaten by late frost,
Barrenly in forgetfulness, they're lost
To little-heedful Nature; so, in suit,
Beneath the footsteps of calamity
Young lives and lovely innocently come
To total up old evil's deadly sum—
Do the gods pity dead Antigone?
We look too close, we look too close on earth
At good and evil; blind are Nature's laws
That kill, or make alive, and so are done.
Not in the circle of this death and birth
May we perceive a justifying cause,
Beyond, perhaps, for God and good are one.
One must not pause to gather up the threads of personality in these three volumes of lyrics; and, with the more important work in drama still ahead, it is only possible just to glance at their specific values. All the pieces are not equally good, of course, but there is a proportion of exquisite poetry in each volume, and—a healthy sign—the proportion is greatest in the last of the three, Songs of Changing Skies, published in 1913. Of this best work there are at least three kinds. There is that which one may call the lyric proper, small in size, simple in design, light in texture, the free expression of a single mood. Such is "From a Window," in which the peculiar charm of the poet's verse in this kind is well seen. It is not a showy attractiveness: it does not storm the senses nor clamour for approval. It enters the mind quietly, and perhaps with some hesitancy; but having entered, it takes absolute possession.
To-night I hear the soft Spring rain that falls
Across the gardens, in the falling dusk,
The Spring dusk, very slow;
And that clear, single-noted bird that calls
Insistently, from somewhere in the gloom
Of wet Spring leafage, or the scattering bloom
Of one tall pear-tree.
On, on, on, they go,
Those single, sweet, reiterated sounds,
Having no passion, similarly free
Of laughter, and of memory, and of tears,
Poignantly sweet, across the falling rain,
They fall upon my ears.
The delicate rapture of that will fairly represent most of the nature poetry in these volumes; and it may stand alike for its music and the technical means by which that music is conveyed. It will be seen that there is a close relation between means and end; that the simple language, natural phrasing and controlled freedom of movement, directly subserve the final effect of clear sweetness. A similar adaptation will be found in verse which is written in a sharply contrasted manner. In "Atlantic Rollers," for instance, we have a bigger theme, demanding by its nature a swifter and stronger treatment. And surely the wild energy and sound, the dazzling light and colour of stormy breakers have been almost brought within sight and sound, in the speed and vigour of this poem. There is the opening rush, secretly obedient to a metrical scheme; there is a choice of words which are themselves dynamic; the rapid, cumulative pressure of the verse, with epithets only to help the rising movement until the crest is reached, at say the tenth or twelfth line; and then a slight diminution of speed and force, as a richer style describes the breaking wave.