A VARIED CAREER

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 27

A VARIED CAREER

SCHOLAR AND PATRIOT

(By A. B. Cochran.)

Like many another young poet, Newbolt first joined the ranks of revolt. When he began writing, in the 1890's, the Tennysonian tradition was, of course, supreme, and Newbolt's earliest published work was a definite attempt at showing, by example, how far the great master himself had strayed. The field he chose, the Morte D'Arthur cycle of romance, comprehensively treated by Sir Thomas Malory in the fifteenth century, is one Of much importance. Innumerable later writers, from Spenser to Swinburne, have been attracted by Malory and have used his themes, but in almost every case there has been sophistication of a most unsophisticated original. Tennyson in particular has offended. His estimate of the King as one

"Touch'd by the Adulterous finger of a time

That hover'd between war and wantonness"

is grossly mistaken, while his attempt to make of Arthur "a modern gentleman of 'stateliest port," concerned with 19th century philosophic ideas —a thing he assuredly never was—is a complete misrepresentation. Whatever praise we may reserve for the skill with which it is done. To quote his own words, Newbolt in "Mordred" sought "to supplant the Tennysonian figure of Arthur as the 'blameless King' by bringing back from Malory the very different hero of a very different story —a dark and genuinely tragic one, akin to the earlier scenes of the Nibelungenlied." That the attempt was not very successful need not be much regretted. Quite evidently Newbolt's best work was to be done not in the sphere of poetic drama, but in the short lyric. SONGS AND BALLADS. Here again, though Newbolt may be thought of as belonging to a traditional school, a group embracing Stevenson, Kipling, and Masefield among others, there is still in him much of the spirit of the revolutionary. In a time of literary decadence (and the eighteen-nineties unquestionably tended that way) nothing is more salutary than for a ,poet to recapture the tone of the old ballad. The essence of its style is simplicity; all meretricious ornament is discarded; furthermore, the ballad concerns itself with primitive themes and emotions— love, death, battle, and the like—the appeal of which is universal. In 1896 appeared'A. E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad," in which much of the ballad tradition was revived, and in the following year Newbolt published his "Admirals AH." There is no gainsaying the hearty vigour,- the open-air bvoyancy' of these poems, and toi gether with others subsequently written they show that along two lines in particular Newbolt could write supremely well. He was steeped in the love of the sea, enamoured of the good old sea-dogs—"Effingham, Grenville, Baleigh, Drake," and the rest—and his songs of naval warfare—"Drake's Drum," "Admirals All," "The Fighting Temeraire," and others—are deservedly .among the best-known in the language. As a reminder of his gusto and love for the "Nelson" touch"— Fifteen sail were Ibe~Butchmen bold, <. . Duncan ho hRd but two; >^— __, —.- T^'_, But lie anchored them fast where the Teretshoaled And his colours aloft he flew. "I've taken the depth to a. fathom," he cried, "And I'll sink with a right good Will, For I know when we're all of us under the tide __My_flag will.be-flutterJne still-; . _ THE STYLIST. In spite of the popujar character of Newbolt's verse it would,be.a mistake to think of • him as a mere swordrattler or.jingoist. Besides being a poet he was a scholar and critic, and he never lets the scholar and critic in him suffer at the expense of the spirited ballad-writer. He writes with the economy, of the true craftsman, and there is a fineness and delicacy of touch that appears to better advantage in songs that are less well known. Consider this, from "Outward Bound":— Gray wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set, . To misty deeps The channel sweeps— 0 Mother, think on us who think on thcel Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet The sons in exile on the eternal sea. Or this,' from "Landabunt Alii":— For me (here's nought I would not leave For the good Devon land, Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve Bedewed with spray-drift stand, And hardly bear the red' fruit up That shall be next year's cider-cup. Or this, from a song set to an air by Lawes:— The stir of morning's eager breath— Beautiful Eve's impassioned death— Thou lovest these, thou lovest well, Yet of the Night thou canst not tell. In every land thy feet may tread, Time like a veil Is round thy head!Only the land thou seek'st with me Never hath been nor yet shall be. . It is not far, it Is not near, Name it hath none that Earth can hear; But there thy Soul shall build again Memories long destroyed of men. And Joy thereby shall like a river Wander from deep to deep for ever. Admittedly there is not here the magic of Keats, yet the desired effect is produced with a minimum of effort, and the complete, uncrabbed freedom and fluency of such writing makes it eminently suitable for setting to music. Few modern poets have been more sung or recited. ENVOI. Newbolt in his time played many parts. He began life as a lawyer, held a responsible Government post during the war, and at the end of it wrote its naval history; he has written novels and done important critical and editorial work; yet his fame is not likely to rest on- any of these. He was fond of celebrating the "lesser stars," the "lives obscurely great" of this world, and doubtless in his "Non-combatant" we find Newbolt's own best justification and his claim to the regard of posterity. ... A name without an echo: yet he, too, Within the cloister of his narrow days Fulfilled the ancestral rites, and kept alive The'eternal fire; It may be, not In vnln; For - oiit of those who dropped a downward glance Upon the weakling huddled at his prayers, Perchance some looked beyond him, and then first Beheld tho glory, and what shrine It filled, And to what Spirit sacred: or perchance' Some heard him chanting, though but to himself,' : The old heroic names, and went their way: And hummed his music on the march to death.