MEREDITH'S EARLY POETRY!

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 799, 23 April 1910, Page 9

MEREDITH'S EARLY POETRY!

(Poems' Written in Early Youth. By . George Meredith.) . The contents of. this, volume will for the most part, be new, even to the most enthusiastic admirers of Meredith's poetry. It includes the whole of his lirst/ book, published, when ha was twenty-three, in 1851. with a quotation from. florae's' "Orion' ,, on'its title-page and dedicated '"with \profound admiration and affectionate, respect" to his father-in-law/'Thomas' Love Peacock. This is followed by the.'greater but less familiar part/ of ' the : volume entitled ''Modern Love,", and by fourteen pieces contributed to various periodicals between 1851 and 1890.-' The poems are 'interesting, then, not' only as a revelation of first tendencies and ideals, and unpractised accomplishments, but also of Meredith's mature judgment and critical taste with regard to his own work, since apparently none of these poems was deemed worthy of inclusion in his later volumes. .

Precocious singularity in a poet not infrequently ends in protracted selfimitation. But with Meredith, although there is curious evidence in- these youthful verses of certain drifts of thought and feeling, and peculiarities of manner, it is , clear that his real originality grew upon him until it amounted to little else than, perverseness. Not for him, as for, so many artists, that long and difficult journey from complexity to simplicity. Close and eager observation "of and insight into nature are here; a delight in wild and open and wooded spaces, in skylark and nightingale, in star and south-west wind and streaming storm-tossed trees; and that livelong joy in beautyof form,' in youth and energy and courage, ■ pursuit and tamelessness. Here : and there, too —but by. comparison how very rarely—the reader, is caught back by those vivid and congested phrases, that - intoxicated _elo-; quence that is heightened and bufstill in effect littlo.. else than prosej by that splendid and' perplexing welter! of metaphor and imagery; and also by what became at last an habitual, impetuosity of-■■expression: " which .so often; leaves, together with the. delight of its , vivid originality, an impatience of its. roughness behind it. Throughout his: life Meredith was in conflict not only with the world without, but with the; world within. We catch many a glimpse even here of the alert and confident mind that refused to sweeten; or disguise .unpalatable truths, was so', often at daggers drawn with a sensitive and' perhaps even sentimental, heart,' and found so ready a weapon in a\ caustic and f uUrbodiedJ. humour'; and' matchless wit to. pierce through, ; pretence and niceness, leaving beauty to win its way as best it could. ' Airthese rare things in'.poetry are 'here .''in bud; awaiting time's.', unsealing. On ■ the other hand, that clear/ arid tranquil presentation, of ■thought ■ and emotion, riftingi'intd a less, changing world the things' of earth' and experience, which in other-poets is usually the ideal on which their hope is set, is far more evident in these rather crude and boyishi verses than in much of Meredith's later, work. Not. often in tke poetry most characteristically Me-redithian do we meet with the simplicity of such lines as these, on. the snowdrop, that

. : ... ever in a placid, pure repose, More like a spirit with its, look serene, Droops'its pal* cheek veined thro' with infant green; . . Never too often does , he- haunt the memory, with the restrained.and tender feeling of such lines. .False and fair! . I scarce_know why, But standing in the lonely air, And underneath the blessed sky, I plead for thee in my despair;— For thee cut off, both heart and eye From Hiring.truth;,thy spring quite dry; For..thee,. that -heaven my thought ; may;-share/ ' ••"' . ■'. : ■ !Forget-=-how. false! • and think—how -■- '■fair!''"-.: ■■'■'..■■■■'.■: :

- Was it in'-part;.-wilful' , , petulance, in part even indolence, that left so much of his work in :a state that suggests to the strenuous reader, a very free and yet congested translation from one language into another, with neither of which the translator seems quite at his ease? Mere inorganic difficulty of construction is n'ever ; evidence of profundity of thought or of complexity of feeling,. Of the poetry that "has survived its ago, how very small a part is else than pure and clear in expression.Even; in Donne it is the fire, jiot the smoke, that shines. And it is because there-is so little trace, and yet a distinct trace, of conflict and perplexity in , these forgotten poems that such a threadbare and -tiresome question recurs to the miiid. We are almost tempted ■ to ; think that Meredith himself in a whimsical mood set about the task .of deliberately parodying his. own , mannerism in the following lines from a'poem entitled,"To Children; for Tyiv ants," which was published for the first time in ISB7: — Strike not thy dog with a stick! I did it yesterday: Not to undo though I gained . The Paradise; heavy it rained' On 'Kobold's flanks,: and he lay. Little Bruno, our long-ear -pup, From his hunt had come back- to > my heel. ' • -'" I heard a.sharp worrying sound, . • And Bruno foamed on tlio ground, With Koby as making a meal. 1 did what I could not undo .Whore the Rates of the Paradise shut Behind me: I deemed it was just. I deemed it was just. I left Koby crouched in (he dust, _ • Some yards from the woodman's hut. ... In & young writer want of craft usually betokens want of thought or of energy. We see this plainly in such lines as — His minstrelsy may be unchaste—. ; "Pis-much, unto' tli'tit motley taste, And loud the laughter lie provokes From these sad slaves of obscene jokes. Crudeness such as this is what every poet has {to learn to roject or refashion. I

It is the moment of inspiration when tile thought flashes into being, its form its very self, that reveals the poet and divides his work from that'which is merely the elaborated outcome of good intention or taste. And no reader with any insight could have easily failed to discover numberless lines and passages of abundant promise in these first efforts after self-expression, such, for instance, as-—

Each perfect in its place; and each _ 4 content With that perfection which its being meant. .... or, Heed not their despair!— Tliou are thy future, not thy past. and whole poems, too, of complete achievement, such as "Daphne," "South-West Wind 111 the Woodland," and "The Sleeping City"—the last not the only poem in this book made almost unintelligible' by extremely capricious punctuation. Only eleven years, but eleven years devoted to tho writing of many . novels, including "Richard Feverel," separate tho poems of this first volume from the maturity and complexity of "Modern Love."

. But by far the most interesting thing in this interesting volume is the inclusion among the poems of-1851 of what must bo a very early version of "Love .in the Valley." The finished, rewritten poem was first published in "Macmillan's Magazine," in 1878. A note at the end of "Poems and Lyrics," 1883, informs the reader that "a sketch of this poem appeared in a ! volume published many years back, now. ex-, tinct." According to Mr. Le Galliehne's bibliography of Meredith's works, howover, this "sketch" was not included in the 1851 volume. And for reasons unexplained the book now under review has been published, except for the bare date.and its-sub-title, without notes or. introduction 'of any'kind'to'enlighten, thereader as to its source or the history of;its contents. . "Love in the Valley," as it stands here, consists of only eleven stanzas, four of which appear to have be?.'i entirely omitted, while others, contain only a few lines, or less, of those substituted for them, in the completed poem. The differenpe in outlook, judgment, and mastery between the two versions is extraordinary. The first is boyish, rather hard, very practical, and, though still unmistakably Meredith, even a little early-Victorian in such a verse as—.■

Comes a sudden question—should a strange Land pluck her! . Oh! what;an anguish smites me at the .'<': ..thought. . Should some idle lordling bribe her mind ;■:■-■': with .jewels!— ~: ■. •-....■'• , Can-such'beauty ever thus be bought? Sometimes the huntsmen prancing down : the valley 'Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth; ' . They see as I i;ee, mine is the fairest! Would she were older and could read •'■ my .worth! ■ : . .

But without a line by line comparison it is impossible to show the richness and delicacy and imagination that have made of verse neither very, original nor striking perhaps the- most beautiful, certainly the mest finished and bestloved, of ail Meredith's poems. It may. not be over-fanciful to suppose that the love 'scene between Richard and Lu-jy, in- the moonlight and stillness, with, the; churring of the night-jar, in *ie shadow of the woods, may have been the 'dramatisation of some actual episode recorded in this first transcript/ with just that <ne thread,, ."Clattering one note like a brown eve-jar," on which-to weave what is one of the'most delightful of,.the verses in the poem as it stands now, in memory:— *. \

Lovely are the curves of the white owl .. : sweeping : Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, .- - - Brooding o'er the gloom, spins >the ! brown eve-jar. ■ ' ; Darker grows the valley, more and'more forgetting.So were it with me if forgetting could be 'willed. . Tell the grassy hollow that~ holds the !. bubblm|- ; well-spring—': :' : '. - Tell it to:forg«t the source that keeps ■. .it filled. - - ' ■ —London "Times."