MR. Bridges's new volume of poems (the first that he has published since he became Poet Laureate) must be read for what it is, the work of a man seventy-five years of age. This statement is not made as an excuse: there are weak—occasional and patriotic—poems in the book, but some also which are beautiful additions to his canon. But some of his critics, so inadequate is still the recognition of what he has done, have treated the book as though his claim to be a great poet rested partly upon it, failing to read it, as they should, in the light of all that has gone before it. Properly regarded, it awakes not disappointment, but wonder that a poet so old should still sometimes have the genuine impulse, should still keep his spirit fresh, and should still be capable of ingenious and fruitful experiments in technique—experiments moreover in which the content is never subordinated to the form, however exacting and interesting the form may be. October, Noel, Our Lady, Flycatchers, The West Front, Trafalgar Square, and Fortunatus Nimium are all poems that any man might be proud to write in his prime; and beyond these there is the delicious invention of The Flowering Tree:
What Fairy fann'd my dreams
while I slept in the sun?
As if a flowering tree
were standing over me:
Its young stem strong and lithe
went branching overhead,
And willowy sprays around
fell tasselling to the ground
All with wild blossom gay
as is the cherry in May ...
The sunlight was enmesh'd
in the shifting splendour
And I saw through on high
to soft lakes of blue sky:...
So I slept enchanted
under my loving tree
Till from his late resting
the sweet songster of night,
Rousing, awakened me:
Then! this—the birdis note—
Was the voice of thy throat
which thou gav'st me to kiss.
The occasion may suitably be seized to make a few notes on Mr. Bridges's shorter—never mind the title and the word "lyrical"—poems as a whole.
II
Mr. Bridges is often written of as though he were primarily a technician. He has always taken a keen interest in prosody; he has written books, and formulated theories, about it; his experiments in classical metres and his notions about English spelling have, to those who have not troubled to discover the intellectual strength and the strong common sense which commonly marks his linguistic writings, given him something of the air of a pedant. But the theoriser and the innovator of the "shorter poems" has nothing to do with pedantry. There are poems in which the scrutinous eye may detect very elaborate pains. April 1885 is a fabric of internal rhyme, assonance, and alliteration which it would be hard to parallel in English:
Wanton with long delay the gay Spring leaping cometh;
The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May:
All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth:
The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day.
Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower
At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter's drouth:
On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud uptower
In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south.
That may be called a tour-de-force; as a rule, though Mr. Bridges's variety of stanza and rhythm is immense, the craftsman never intrudes. His ingenuities merely serve their purpose; his music cannot be separated from his sense; his rhythms are sought, and found, as the only suitable rhythms for the words and the scenes that are being expressed and described. How otherwise than in the beautiful movement used can we imagine the picture of A Passer By?—the fresh blue day, the crowded sail, the vision of a queenly progress across the world to a far harbour in the south? It is one of fifty such feats, triumphs of fastidious art, never completely understood until the poems are read aloud. His power of music has developed steadily throughout his career, but scarcely a poem of any period can be quoted without illustrating his surpassing technical gifts. We shall come to many presently; here, when we are thinking primarily of the skill with which he weaves a close-fitting garment of sound for his thought, we may take as a single example, London Snow: