DEVOTIONAL POETRY IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 2

DEVOTIONAL POETRY IN THE VICTORIAN ERA

[Written by C. K. Ali.e.v, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] It would not be an easy matter to differentiate between the writing ol hymns and the writing of devotional poetry. Many poems are hymns (or at any rate their authors ascribe that title to them), and some hymns arc poetry; but that sonic writing lends itself to liturgical use and that some docs not is a postulate that one generally accepts. This consideration is written without any recourse to catalogues; if it chances to stimulate research on the part of others it will have served its purpose. The name of Tennyson, of course, is synonymous with the Victorian Age, but I cannot recall that any lines ol Tennyson have found their way into an English hymnal. ‘ Crossing the Bar ’ is frequently snug in churches, but it belong to the class of sacred ballad of which ‘ The Holy City and ‘Nazareth’ are examples. In Memoriam ’ has placed Tennyson ku all time on an intellectual throne such as Matthew Arnold prescribes tor the “strong son of God” invoked at the outset. The poem overshadows the age, as the figure of Tennyson himself. . . , There is irony in the thought that the frail little woman who was associated, in the minds of many, with Swinburne and others in undermining the supports that stayed the gigantic figure of Tennyson above all contemporary heads, has been coupled with John Henry Newman as the greatest writer of devotional poetry ot the last century. Christina Rossetti appeared before the public in a dual character. Secondarily, she was the poetess of the new romance, the hit' o sl *‘ ter, so to speak, of the pre-Raphaol-ites. With ‘ The Goblin Market, and other poems she succeeded where me Germ’ had failed. ‘ Tho Germ, it will be remembered, was the unfortunate name bestowed upon the organ or the pre-Raphaelite brethren, which made a tentative appeal to the public in three issues, and then disappeared. Primarily, she was a ' woman bent upon the task of interpreting her religion for the comfort and admonition of others. In the two volumes of verses that were published in her uletime, the devotional poems took second place in order of pagination only, ihey were her principal preoccupation. it is interesting to reflect that when she was selecting poems for the second collection, she found an objection to one in its similarity of theme to Tennyson s 1 Palace of Art.’ Upon such a palace she turned her back, as she did upon the house of domesticity. Twice wooed and never wed, she knew ot what she wrote when she indited of renunciation. Her conception of the function or poetry differed widely from that held by so many Georgian or Edwardian poets. To take James Elroy I‘lecker as an example of the latter, he has sot down his theory of the poet s ealling, both in his pwn prose, and through t ie mouth of his creature, Hassan. me poet must need weave his pattern mt of his experience, and the sole purpose of that pattern is the satisfaction and consent of the beholder. Such assent we give to * The Goblin Market, Iho Prince’s Progress,’ and to many ot Christina Rossetti’s lyrics, such as the exquisite ‘A Birthday, whiffli lattci lias attracted mofe than one composer. But these are poems for Urn coterie, not for the crowd. ‘ Uphill, winch appeared in ‘ Macmillan s Magazine some time before the publication ot ‘ The Goblin Market ’ volume, had a further appeal than that of an intellectual challenge. It was a commentary on tho human story set out succinctly by one who knew how to spear;.

Does the road wind uphill all the way ? Yes—to tho very end. Will the day’s journey last the whole long day? . From morn till night, my mend.

‘ Uuhill.’ however, is not a devotional poem in the strict' sense of the term. It is not coloured by Christina Rossetti’s very definite faith. Of such poems there are abundant examples in the second volume as well as the first. Both Francis Thomson and Evelyn Underhill, if we may include the latter among the Victorians, echo her, consciously or unconsciously, in the lilt of ‘ The Hound of Heaven and La Cathedral Englutic.’ There is a poem of Christina Rossettis entitled 'Despised and Rejected,’ which moves to that measure which seems peculiarly suited to the wedding of defeat with reconciliation. It needs but to quote a stanza to recall both the baffled fugitive and the submerged cathedral.

My sun is set. I dwell In darkness as a dead man out ct

sight; . And none remains, not one, Not one, that I should tell To him mine evil plight, This bitter night. I will make fast my door, That hollow friends may trouble mo no more.

Mention of Francis Thomson recalls certain poems written by his one-time guardian angel, Mrs Meynell. Alice Meyncll is far too fastidious a poet to bo over-pietistic, but through many of her poems there breathes the spirit of her faith. It is implicit rather than expressed. It is but human to seek for some reassurance that wo have outgrown our fathers. 11 Good-bye to all that” is the cry of a modern poet. Yet have we so effectually changed our habit of mind? A study of the memorial verses that are to bo found m the columns of our daily papers often reveals man’s primal need of expression, and his lack of means to express withal. To find entertainment jn such verses is tantamount to making merry over a man at his prayers. They testify to the human need for expression. Only to the poet is it given to express this need in universal terms. Gilbert Chesterton and Hilaire Belloo have both written devotional verso in the course of their voluminous writings, but these would seem to belong to an ago later than that of Tennyson or Christina Rossetti, if devotional verse can bo said to belong to any ago at all. There is about them a controversial tone that is absent from the more introspective poetry of the Victorians. One poem at least of U. K. Chesterton’s has found its way into an English hynmah _ It is curious to reflect that Mr ■ Kipling, whose ‘ Recessional ’ was suggested by that apotheosis of_ Victorianism, the Diamond Jubilee, is also among tho hymn-writers. There is little that could bo called devotional in Id's other recorded verse. He would seem rather to celebrate a Judaic God. Devotional poetry may ho in unexpected quarters. Richard lo Guideline has written one lyric in which ho recounts his recognition of the Christ spirit “in every London lane and street.” Oscar Wild ' and Aubrey Beardsley, tho protagonists of tho movement that has been called “decadent,” have both invoked their Redeemer in their extremity. Tho Root Laureate does not come within the scope of tin's consideration. He is cm-

plmtically of the new age. Yet wo may cite him as a link between the past and tho present. It is a matter of individual opinion whether in ‘The Everlasting Mercy’ he has enshrined the aspirations of the man in tho street, or whether ho has merely exploited that ineptitude which so often manifests itself in the memorial versos already mentioned.

It has been possible within the space of this short article merely to suggest a few salient names from as many and as varied angles at possible. There no doubt exist many instances of single poems written at some spiritual crisis by persons who have never consciously practised the art of writing verse. Jf a collection of suck poems could bo made it might servo to support iho theory of verbal inspiration. Poetry may not have its rules, but it has its canons. That statement may sound like a contradiction in terms, since a canon was originally nothing more than a twelve-inch rule. By u canon of poetry 1 mean that 1 y which the poem stands four-square to the beholder, offending neither his sense of form nor, let it be added, bis sense of humour. There is plenty of fun to bo found among iho epitaphs, as everybody knows, but a poem that is the outcome of some apocalypse, though it be couched in iho terms of a St. Prancis in ids most festive mood, will place no stumbling block in the way of poet or peasant who comes to tho reading of it, or the heaving of it, or the singing of if, in the spirit of devotion.