THE HIGH TRADITION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20086, 15 November 1930, Page 13

THE HIGH TRADITION.

A NOTE ON WILLIAM WATSON. [By Ctkano.] IUPSCJAtI/T trarrtfjsw »0B TH? tress.) There is a double pathos in the news that in hi# old age Sit William Watson 18 ill and poor, Pbr the reputation of the poet, as well as his body, is sick. The signatories to the Appeal for him— include Mr Jiudyard Kipling and Mr lidrnftrd Shaw, and one wonders how often these opposites have found them* salves together—say that Sir William puvpodea With Which h<J set otit upon his career, and has "fipllndidly fulfilled He has shown himself "always a great craftsman, and as a 'lord of language' he is in the Miltonie tradition." There will be more agreement with this statQi meat of Sir William's aims than with the estimate of hts achievement. That he has served poetry all his life with noble GiideaVour is Undeniable, and it I(l ,tkat- his last years he should suffer from want and neglect. It is true that when Bridges died he was mentioned for the Laureateship, as he had been When Alfred Austin ceased to eon* fer ridicule oji the office, but in the last decade or go liis fame has waned considerably. To this Georgian generation he is a half-bathetic, halt-comic survival from His moral fervour bores, and his attempts to catch the Miltonic tone-—or many of them—are regarded as pomposity. There W&s a time, however, when William Watsoii really was a Star in j the literary firmament. He began to write in the 'eighties, and liis fame seemed secure when he published "Wordsworth's Grave" in iB9O. This Was followed in 1592 by £t. threnody on Tennyson, which may help to eiolain why he is not thought much of to-day. Watson pietmod Tennyson as greeted m the next World as an equal by Virgil, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, and Keats. Maatftr «-h<> CrflWn'st ott* Untaelddioue days With floTtrer of perfect ispeiscll. But to-dtty the intrinsic weakness of much of his poetry is apparent in these two tributes. The poem on Tennyson has echoes of "Adonais" without its loveliness' and majesty. Matthew Arnold did not worship WordsWOrth tbore fervently than did Watsdn, but Arnold's tribute goes deeper into the heart of the matter, and is much more moving. A few years later Watson daused a stir by his poems on the Armenian atrocities, which illustrate his healthy Victorian, interest in moral questions. "Europe at the Play" Was all too true a picture: 6 languid audience, met to *<o The last act of the tragedy. On that terrific stage afar, Where, burning towns the footlights are—O listless Europe, day by day, Callously liitting' out thd play 1 As early' as 1892, it is Worth noting, Watson foretold, in verses that have had perhaps the widest circulation of all his poems, the co-operation of the colonies iji War.

For ye are still the ancient seed On younger soil let fall—- - Children of Britain's island breed, to whom the Mother in her need. Perchance may one da; call. W&ea the Boer War broke out, how* ever, 'he took the unpopular Hide, and [ ''For' England: Poems Written During Estrangement" bora witness to his .'faith. Then in 1902 there blazed up hi 3 splendid "Coronation Ode." , The other day kn English critic - seemed to find fault •frith ail anthologist for including this ''place of rhetoric." Perhaps it la rhetor ft 5 if to, John of (Jaunt's famous outburst is in the same category; It is the sort of rhetoric which, in my humble opinion, is indistinguishable from poetry, but, of course, this kind of eu* logy of England and her Empire (though it is not undiscriminating eulogy), this touching of politics with high seriousness, are not popular now. The poem Is in the grazed manner, and X doubt whether Watson achieved .anywhere else an equal evenness, "Time, and the ocean, and.some fostering star," "the iria of the Australasian spray", "In dark armipotence and ivied pride' , 4 'The burdening robe of Empire, and its pall"—i» these and other lines there Is, besides beauty, a high processional solemnity, Ajid where, in the whole range of English poetry, are there three lines that sum up the Irish question with so much penetration and beauty as theset Beyond that fatal wave, that from our side Sunders the lonely - and the lovely Bride Whom-We have wedded hut have never won. The Ode was Watson's high-water mark. One suspects that he was disappointed when Asqulth. passed him over for the laureateship. Bridges was a Seat er poet and a greatejr intellectual ree, and his appointment satisfied the poets. Wjateon was born to. be a laureate, official or otherwise* He took his calling very seriously. To him tho poet was a seer, and it was as natural' for him (the poet) to celebrate events as it was to write poems to spring. Watson did both. Unfortunately his sense of humour, like Milton's, was not keen. He chafed under neglect, and did not conceal his feelings. A few years ago he wrote an article, contrasting the poet's rewards with those of the. pugiliftt and the film start He would not be so dishonest, he said, as to say that he did not grudge theso persons their "magnificent rewards.'' Sow can an English poet In his sixty-sixth year, with nearly half a century of concentrated -fend often exhausting labour behind him, and with -a wife and youn* children who, if he dies to-morrow will inherit from hiai scarcely anything tmt hie ' name—how can he truthfully and sincerely say BUch a thing I It might have b«en replied that the experience of earlier poets should have taught this poet what to expect. The protest, though justified in ■ fact, is

hardly aUaSHid. His aefelt i» fcMiOM is also responsible for niilfiy faults in liis poems. Milton is his model, and occasionally he achieves the Mutonie accent. Unfortunately his execution is seldom eq.ua! to his ambition. Ha hft# fta almost fatal facility in metrical resonance, and the sound is often more impassive than the thought. There was a 6ad falling oft during the war, when hd tried to apply the grand manner to Mr Lloyd George and Lord Northclifte. Consider this about the then Prime Minister: Out of that land fc'nowdefl night by l ftiflit .. Receives the confidence of lonesome Btars, And Where CfSKiarvotl' S ruthless Magnificently Oppreas the daunted tido, s*her6 conies-—ho fabled Merlin* eon of 3nAist r Atid broths* to th 6 twilight, hut a toita Win? in a time terrifically real 2* real 6d the time; forfiicd for the tlffle; Kot much beholddit to the niunlftaent PaM, lit mind Or spirit, but frankly of this hour; l'n faggot of perfections, angel or saint, > Created faultless and intolerable; No Sieetiriß plsc# of oil tlie behvetilinfeSSia, But eminently a nMtt id Ktif and apiif Men, tb afHiet th6m With benign alarm. Harass their sluggish and uneager bldod. till, lika himself, they art huiiffry for tho goal. Note the echo of greater poetry in the first lines; sound is used, if sound can be said to bo sa uftedj.aS padding. jßut tliero was Worse to tome. Watson actually coupled Alfred Harmsworth, Lofd Northeliffe, with Alfred thd Gre&t and Alffed Tennystm. The poet- he de--scribes As "Victoria's golden warbjefj" which sounds like a description in a book on birds. The last Alfred was just a Man Wild, in the VerJ- whirlwind of our Woe, From midnight till the lag-jurd dawn began, Oried ' 'Dive as shells-mora • slislla," and so Saved England. 'We may grant the poet sincerity, but, in this particular labour old formulae tike the place of a resolute se&reh tot new phrases} it is Milton, or Tennyson, and much wateh Huinour has gone for a Walk. Yet triuch may be forgiven William Watson tot tlie salts t>t a few things he has done, for his lofty conception of the poet's calling, and for his strict adherence to classical tradition in A time when the old poetical faiths are exposed to the heresies Of unbridled* licence and formlessness. It will not be creditable to English interest in letters if this appeal does not produce a response that Will brighten his last years.