A POETESS OF PAIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2728, 27 June 1906, Page 76

A POETESS OF PAIN.

-Br- Frank Morton". A stripling and a- maiden Come wand'ring up th» way; His eyes are glad with springtime Her face is fair with May. Of warmth, and sun and sweetness All Nature takes a part; The ice of all the ages "Weighs down upon my heart. Asrr Levt. She was a Jewess. Sho thought deeply. She had the gift of song. She was a very woman. Here 13 a combination rich in potentialities of good or ill, of joy or tears. Such a woman walks in a great light, or goea swiftly down into the shrouding dark. Amy Levy had, with the qualities of 'her insistent womanhood, the qualities of her tragic race. She learned a little, -strove a little, sang a little, suffered much. She loved a little— l dare say; though that is not plainly written in the record. • At least, one hopes that she -loved. Thai makes th 6 fesb easier to understand; ennobles, as ifc were, the closing tragedy. JShedied by her own act, before she had completed her twenty-eighth year. I -aih not a reckless admirer of her nation; but, l detest and abhor those smug generalities of. abuse with which people sometimes- «eek to deride and belittle the Jews. There are sordid, and contemptible, and mendacious Jews, juefc as there are sordid, and contemptible, and mendacious English and Scots ; probably "in about the same proportion. But the true Hebrew has strong qualities, and is not a pallid monotony of half-tones. He is good or bad; and when he 13 good, his goodness shines as a white light. Amy' Levy was a good Jewess. Some women are at best but half-women; but the true Jewess is always, for good or for evil, a woman absolute in all her body and blood. Amy Levy was of this type. . Of her heredity I otherwise know nothing', and I have carefully abstained from acquiring information — gratuitous information is the bane of this age. There may have been some morbid taint; inherent or acquired, there must have been. Perhaps her heart was slow, or there- was obscure nervous trouble. I don't know. I am only dealing with the woman as her work, reveal her. What immediately appeals to one in Amy Levy's verse is that it is vivid with her nationality and her sex. Not that it is " sexy " in the modern sense — oh, not in the slightest. • But it is woman's verse, and as it stands—a monument slight enough — no man could have written it. Nor, as to the matter of nationality, docs the verse deal ' with . specially Jewish incidents or aspects. In art, the Jews are above all ! things catholic. Spinoza was, essentially, a man of no restricted race or time. Heine, that noblo Jew, was more French than he was German, and more Greek than, he was French. It is for their artists and seers - that the Jews will be held in honour while the race survives. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, but it seems hardly right to recall ■--the fact in a valorous Christian communityr' The cheap tradition that the Jews are always usurers and generally millionaires is as absurd as it is mistaken. The great majority of the Jewish people are still very poor and very humble, children of the Ghetto or thereabout. They have been scourged and buffeted, tortured and oppressed, for two thousand years, to the everlasting shame of Christendom. The by-ways and back-alleys of the great cities swarm with them. They fall an easy prey, these poor Hebrews, to the sweater and tho slum' landlord. They are not always clean, and they are seldom beautiful; but they live in their families and groups in love and gentleness one with another, and they are in many great matters everything tbat the nauseous Jew of melodrama, and gutter tradition is not. the back of all tneic troubles there is the strong bulwark of their faith; through all the gloom of their circumstances and condition shines the constant star of their ,hope. Amy Levy, thp victim of ancient problems, lost her faith, and her star went out in blackness. One likes her ver-es. I was saying, because in all of them there throbs the strong puke of her womanhood. She was a woman of sorrows always, but it was the woes of the race she felt most keenly. Poor child, because she bruised her tender hands in vain battering on the gates of the Enigma, • her heart broke and her courage failed her. She was, if you will, the martyr of her temperament; but her last thought, depend upon it, was rather for humanity than for herself. It is not easy to select fragments of her verses for citation. She had a notable lyrical gift ; but she desired rather to' teach and to protest than to sing. The cry of " Art for Art's Sake !" wa% not hers. "Evil I see, and i,ain," she eried — Evil I see, and pain; within my heart There is no voice that whispers " All is well." Ot all mysteries, the ancient mystery of pain baffled and distressed her most. She found herself, as -he looked on a suffering world — sweetness befoul-ed amid these miry ways, virtue in agony beneath the wheels of circumstance — she found that she could not solace herself with theories of the ultimate good. Her heart bled, and she cried — poor panting rebel! — What's this? yrhafs this? There are not seats for ail! Soms men must stand without the gates; and some Must linger by the table, ill-supplied With broken meats, One man gets meat for two, Tlie while another hungers. If I stand "Without the' portals, seeing others eat Where I had thought to satiate the pangs Of mine own hunger; shall I then come forth iWhen all is done, and drink mv Lord's good health In my Lord's water? Shall I not ratter turn And curse him, curse him for a niggard host ? She was by preference and instinct the

champion of all crushed and broken things, the passionate, powerless friend of the oppressed and sad. A woman, she had drunk to the dregs that cup of tragic reality which is woman's portion. Fighting for place and foothold along the line of greatest resistance, ehe gained mach knowledge, but no oeaee. She cried to fch© high goda for succour, and they flung her a wreath- of laurel. When all hopes failed her, she abandoned hope. It is in the women of ambition that this tragedy of womanhood centres chiefly. The men they despise ridicule tttiem; the men of their plane and preference stand akof. All said, it is woman's chief happiness to be wife and mother; and wives and mothers are chosen and approved for other things than their knowledge of the abstraot sciences, their realisation of the futility of life. We prate a good deal aboot'the advancement of women, and the equality of women, and the enfranchisement of women, and all the rest of that claptrap ; but tho woman of brains and individualityStill wins little sympathy. Thus, characteristically, we find Amy Levy going back acrors the years to champion Xantippe. Very finely she does it. The Xantippe she presents is a peerless, strenuous woman, who says of herself — Pled the years Till seventeen had found me tall aaid strong, And fairer, runs it. than. Athenian maids Are wont to seem; I had not learnt ii well — My lesson of dumb patience — and I stood At Life's great threshold with a beating heart, And soul resolved to conquer and attain. In a world vowed to cool philosophy and easy pleasure, a world where even the greatest 'and noblest minds dwelt much on Asx-Aiia and Alkibiades, jt was a high dream for a mere maiden. But it was a time of intellectual activity and reconstruction, and even a maiden may have been caught in the wave. Already Xantippe had eeen the immortal sage. We know that he was not comely of feature, and so far can sympathise. Once, wa4king 'thwart the crowded marketplace, With other maidens, bearing in th-e twig 3 White doves for Aphrodite's sacrifice, I saw him, all ungainly and uncouth, Yet many gathered round to hear his words, Tall youths and stranger-maidens — Sokraies — I saw his face and marked it, half with awe, j Half with a quick repulsion at the shape. She tells how, all unwillingly, she was wedded to the eeer, and how, with that quick awakening o)f womanhood and love, new dreams and aspirations stirred in her, | hopes to be to this man helpmeet and companion. And then, disappointment, emfeitfcerment, and the' usual protest. It is easy to believe, indeed, that this philosopher could not have been a perfect husband. Gseat philosophers seldom are, even apart from special disabilities. Our Xantippe puts it well, — Yet. maidens, mark; I would not that y# thought J blame my lord departed, for he meant No evil, so I take it, to his wife. 'Twas only that the high philosopher, Pregnant with noble theories and great thoughts, •Deigned Mot to stoop to touch so slight a thing As the fine fabric of a woman's brain — So. subtle as a passionate woman's soul. I think if he had stooped « little, and cared, I might have .risen nearer to his height, And not lain shattered, neither fit for use As goodly household vessel, nor for that Par finer thing which I had hoped to be. Some few lit women, reading, will understand. Of all hopeless sad marriages, marriages such as these are generally saddest and mobt hopeless. If this is the true Xantippe— and why not? — she is not a creature for scorning. At first I fought my fate with gentle words, With high endeavours after greater things; Striving to win the soul of Sokrates, Like some slight bird, who sings her burning love To human master, till at length she finds Her tender language wholly misconceived, And that same hand whose kind caress she sought, With fingers flippant flings the careless corn. Quotation of thU poem must end here ; but so much will serve for suggestion, commendation, what you will. In " Magdalen," she voices a different woman, a woman even sadder. Here we have a woman lured by love to shame, addressing her betrayer as shame crawls on to death. It is the sort of poem that will serve to make every true woman love Amy Levy, and every true man feel mean. There never yet wae a man true enough lo be really worthy to touch a true woman's hand ; but that 13 a truth we men generally find it convenient to fcrget. However, here epeaks Magdalen — All things I can endure save one. The bare, blank room where is no sun; The parcelled hours ; the pallet hard ; The outer women's cold regard; The Pastor's iterated "sin"; — These things could I endure, and count No overstrain'd, unjust amount ; No undue payment for such bliss — Yea, all things bear, save only this : Tbat you, who knew what thing would be, Have wrought this evil unto me. ... How strange, that you should work my wee! How strange! I wonder, do you know How gladly, gladly I had died ' (And life was very sweet that tide) To save you from the least, light ill? How gladly I had borne your pain. With one great pulse we 9eemed to thrill, — Nay, but we thrilled with pulses twain. Here is one of the otoinal enigmas in the path of gentle womanhood, a tiling more sad and terrible than almost anything < j I c c in life. I think you will easily aeq-iit me of a tendency to cant. Certainly I am little disposed to offer myself as champion of the specialists in morality. But this thing, so often repeated, to easily and scurvily londoned, is the permanent shame and reproach of manhood. To err is human. So long as come men are hardy and some women wanton, some men masterly and some women weak, some men and »om»n oagor to latiorh in the face of precept end count tho world well lost — juet so long things 'rrcgular happen. These things one cm understand and pai-don, though oven thcro i!ie womau has invariably the v.'or-t of the position. But that, otherwj.-e. a mnn should turn traitor to the most •■acred vows that a man should hound to ignominy and miserable death, or worse, ihp. vnman who has trusted him mo'-t utterly. —oh. this is a horror! Magdalen, f<-,r=aken on her pallet, has cue sad source of solace — The doctor "saya lhat I shall Ale. Ycu. that I knew in. daj s go- c by, I fa^ii would •■so jour faca once more, I Con i^ell its features o'ei imd o'er: | And totlcli your hai-d and feel your l.^-s. i Look in you ejes and t"l! yon tins. j Thai a!! "is dene, that I am free; ! That you. through all eternity. , Have neither part nox lot m mo.

As to the deliberate motive of Amy Levy's death it is fruitless to inquireMany are born to be broken on the wheel, and some the breaking process make 3 bitterly mad. Amy Levy's temperament was passionate and sombre; and because joy was not for her, she always eagerly hungered for joy. There are extant some iines she penned after a Richter concert. Here as always, you get the characteri&tio yearning of her note. For one*, for one fleeting hour, to hold ' The fair shape the music that rose and fell ' Revealed and concealed like a veiling fold ; To catch for an instant the sweet June spell. For once, for one hour, to catch and k«ep I The sweet June secret that mocks the heart ; i Xow lurking calm, like a thing asleep, Now hither and thither with start and dart. Then the sick, slow grief of the weary years, The slow, sick grief and the sudden pain ; The long days of labour, the nights of tears — Xo more these things would I hold in vain. I would hoid my life as a thing of worth ; Pour praise to the gods for a precious thing. Lo, June in her fairness is on the earth, And never a joy does the niggard bring. And again, with even sadder significance, this, '"A Crossroads Epitaph — When first the world grew dark to mo I call'd on God. yet came not he. Whereon, as wearier wax'd my lot, Ori Love I call'd, but Love came not. When a worse evil did befall, Death, on thee "only did I call. The manner of the death of this sweet singer is neither to rail nor to moralise over. Such fruits of life as she reached soured on her palate. All things most desired eluded her, and finally she eluded all things. And now — who can tell? Perchance, those mysteries that bafßed her are solved, those doubts that tore her blent in perfect comprehension Percha-tice she sleeps serenely in abiding shadow. Whichever is, one likes to think, is best. On-e of her sonnets seems appropriate here — Most wonderful and strange it seems, that I Who but a little time ago was tost , High on the waves of passion and of pain, With aching heart and wildly throbbing brain, Who peered into the darkness, deeming vain All things there found if but One thing were lost, Thus* calm and still and silent here should lie, Wa-tching and waiting— waiting passively. The dark has failed, and before mine eyes | Have long grey flats expanded, dim and bare ; And through the changing guises all thing 3

wear Inevitable Law I recognise: Yet in ray heart a hint of feeling lies Which half a hope and half is a despair. And somehow that brings us back to what R after all, my main point. There never yet was a man true enough to be really worthy to touch a true woman's hand.