A MINOR POET’S VERSES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XXV, 23 June 1894, Page 582

A MINOR POET’S VERSES.

(POEMS BY WILLIAM WATSON. MACMILLAN AND CO.) VERY sweet, very skilful, frequently very thoughtful are the lyrics contained in Mr Watson’s elegantly

printed volume of 150 pages, yet, with one or two exceptions, there seems no necessity that they should ever have been written. In the work of the ordinary minor poet we do not look for this test of greatness, necessity, we are content to inhale the perfume of the flower as we pass and to make no inquiry concerning it. We accept it because it is there ; it pleases us that it should be there, but we do not ask how it is there or why. But to the author of • Wordsworth’s Grave’ it would seem on account of that one poem that we might fairly apply a higher standard of criticism. It is the indefeasible right of the critic to demand from any writer work as good as he has done, and it is in the ethics of criticism that he should demand it. Beautiful as these lyrics are, they lack both the strength and directness of that poem which could embody four true criticisms in as many lines. Not that Mr Watson’s poetry was ever so remarkable for its robustness as for its delicate insight and exactness. He is a critic, it may be said, before he is an artist, and an artist before he is a poet, but he is a poet for all that, and, if not of the first, at any rate of the second order of magnitude. Listen to him at his best in this volume : LIFE WITHOUT HEALTH. Behold life builded as a goodly house And grown a mansion ruinous With winter blowing through its crumbling walls! The master paceth up and down his halls, And in the empty hours Can hear the tottering of his towers And tremor of their bases underground. And oft he starts and looks around At creaking of a distant door Or echo of his footfall on the floor. Thinking it may be one whom he awaits, And hath for many days awaited. Coming to lead him through the mouldering gates Out somewhere from his home dilapidated. One of the most interesting poems of the collection is inscribed • To Edward Dowden : on receiving from him a copy of the “ Life of Shelley,” ’ the poet whom at last the sea Gave to the fire, from whose wild arms the winds Took him, and shook him broadcast to the world. In this Mr Watson traces his own descent from Shelley through Keats to Wordsworth. It is curious he makes no mention of Rossetti, who must be responsible for— Onward the chariot of the Untarrying moves, Nor day divulges him nor night conceals ; Thou hear’st the echo of unreturning hooves And thunder of irrevocable wheels. And eager flutt'ring of life’s ignorant wings, The smouldering infelicity of man One counterpoising orient sultry kiss. These verses are Rossetti undiluted, and they fall rather curiously from the lips of a singer who a year or two back was at the pains of pointing out to what extent that poet was over-rated. A good deal of the influence of Tennyson is also discernible, and indeed, even in his best work, it cannot be said that Mr Watson strikes a note which is puiely and decisively his own. No doubt he owes much to the author of Michael, the purity and saneness of even his most trivial numbers bear witness to the fact, but he owes hardly less to Tennyson, who taught him the art of melody, and Rossetti, who lent him colour and bloom. Whether he will ever arrive at a note distinctly his own, is a question we should not like to answer either one way or the other on the evidence of the volume before us. Meanwhile, Mr Watson has given us a book full of the grace of finished workmanship, and which judged by any standard short of the highest cannot fail to arouse our unqualified admiration and pleasure.