Henry Austin Dobson: Verses about Poetry

(TERCENTENARY, 1608-1908)

What need of votive Verse
To strew thy _Laureat Herse_
With that mix'd _Flora_ of th' _Aonian Hill_?
Or _Mincian_ vocall Reed,
That _Cam_ and _Isis_ breed,
When thine own Words are burning in us still?

_Bard, Prophet, Archimage!_
In this Cash-cradled Age,
We grate our scrannel Musick, and we dote:
Where is the Strain unknown,
Through Bronze or Silver blown,
That thrill'd the Welkin with thy woven Note?

Yes,--'we are selfish Men':
Yet would we once again
Might see _Sabrina_ braid her amber Tire;

Or watch the _Comus_ Crew
Sweep down the Glade; or view
Strange-streamer'd Craft from _Javan_ or _Gadire_!

Or could we catch once more,
High up, the Clang and Roar
Of Angel Conflict,--Angel Overthrow;
Or, with a World begun,
Behold the young-ray'd Sun
Flame in the Groves where the _Four Rivers_ go!

Ay me, I fondly dream!
Only the Storm-bird's Scream
Foretells of Tempest in the Days to come;
Nowhere is heard up-climb
The lofty lyric Rhyme,
And the 'God-gifted Organ-voice' is dumb.

YES; when the ways oppose—
When the hard means rebel,
Fairer the work out-grows,—
More potent far the spell.

O Poet, then, forbear
The loosely-sandalled verse,
Choose rather thou to wear
The buskin—strait and terse;

Leave to the tiro’s hand
The limp and shapeless style;
See that thy form demand
The labor of the file.

Sculptor, do thou discard
The yielding clay,—consign
To Paros marble hard
The beauty of thy line;—

Model thy Satyr’s face
For bronze of Syracuse;
In the veined agate trace
The profile of thy Muse.

Painter, that still must mix
But transient tints anew,
Thou in the furnace fix
The firm enamel’s hue;

Let the smooth tile receive
Thy dove-drawn Erycine;
Thy Sirens blue at eve
Coiled in a wash of wine.

All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,—
The Coin, Tiberius;

Even the gods must go;
Only the lofty Rhyme
Not countless years o’erthrow,—
Not long array of time.

Paint, chisel, then, or write;
But, that the work surpass,
With the hard fashion fight,—
With the resisting mass.

To William John Courthope, _March 12, 1903_

When Pope came back from Trojan wars once more,
He found a Bard, to meet him on the shore,
And hail his advent with a strain as clear
As e'er was sung by BYRON or by FRERE.

You, SIR, have travelled from no distant clime,
Yet would JOHN GAY could welcome you in rhyme;
And by some fable not too coldly penned,
Teach how with judgment one may praise a Friend.

There is no need that I should tell in words
Your prowess from _The Paradise of Birds_;
No need to show how surely you have traced
The Life in Poetry, the Law in Taste;
Or mark with what unwearied strength you wear
The weight that WARTON found too great to bear.
There Is no need for this or that. My plan
Is less to laud the Matter than the Man.

This is my brief. We recognise in you
The mind judicial, the untroubled view;
The critic who, without pedantic pose,
Takes his firm foothold on the thing he knows;
Who, free alike from passion or pretence,
Holds the good rule of calm and common sense;
And be the subject or perplexed or plain,--
Clear or confusing,--is throughout urbane,
Patient, persuasive, logical, precise,
And only hard to vanity and vice.

More I could add, but brevity is best;--
These are our claims to honour you as Guest.

Bards of the Future! you that come
With striding march, and roll of drum,
What will your newest challenge be
To our prose-bound community?
What magic will you find to stir
The limp and languid listener?
Will it be daring and dramatic?
Will it be frankly democratic?
Will Pegasus return again
In guise of modern aeroplane,
Descending from a cloudless blue
To drop on us a bomb or two?
I know not. Far be it from me
To darken dark futurity;
Still less to render more perplexed
The last vagary, or the next.
Leave Pindus Hill to those who list,
Iconoclast or anarchist -
So be it. 'They that break shall pay.'
I stand upon the ancient way.
I hold it for a certain thing,
That, blank or rhyming, song must sing;
And more, that what is good for verse,
Need not, by dint of rhyme, grow worse.
I hold that they who deal in rhyme
Must take the standpoint of the time -
But not to catch the public ear,
As mountebank or pulpiteer;
That the old notes are still the new,
If the musician's touch be true -
Nor can the hand that knows its trade
Achieve the trite and ready-made;
That your first theme is Human Life,
Its hopes and fears, its love and strife -
A theme no custom can efface,
Common, but never commonplace;
For this, beyond all doubt, is plain:
The Truth that pleased will please again,
And move men as in bygone years
When Hector's wife smiled through her tears.