ERNEST DOWSON

Evening Star, Issue 22099, 20 April 1935, Page 23

ERNEST DOWSON

Mr Desmond Flower has edited ‘ The Poetical Works of Ernest Christopher Dowson,’ an edition containing forty poems that were not in eai’lier collective volumes. Dowson is best known by his * Cynara ’ poem, but ho wrote much other verse, besides stories, and he provided several transiations. Ine Times Literary Supplement ’ notes in Dowson’s poetry similarities to the work of other poets of the ’nineties. One is A. E. Housman, the author of ‘ A Shropshire lad ’: — There are passages in Dowson which are almost ‘ Shropshire Lad ’; and the first explanation is that both go back to Catullus. Other similarities are too difficult to explain without more facts. The ‘ Shropshire Lad,’ published in 1800, made use of the following stanza term: — Lie down, lie down, young yeoman; What use to rise and rise? Rise man a thousand mornings Yet down at last ho lies, And then the man is wise. Dowson’s first volume of poems, ‘ Verses,’ published in 1896, uses virtually the same stanza, though for other effects: — The long, long winter weather. These many years and days, Since she, and Death, together, Loft me the wearier ways; And now, these tardy bays! At times Dowson resembles the extremely individual manner of Hardy’s verse, and this may be counted a contemporary bond. More important, for the way poetry has developed since, are Dowson’s • experiments and achievements in rhythm. In this he stands beside Mr Yeats.