THE TRAGEDY OF BEING A POET.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 532, 12 June 1909, Page 9

THE TRAGEDY OF BEING A POET.

■,"' -"The. Davidson tragedy,' it , miistia . candour be , admitted, is oho of ..a''class in which .-■' we English-7-and: also oiir ■' Scottish neighbours, when bn'o comes to think of Burns— >.; have attained to a somewhat unenviable eminence," writes Mr. Wm. Watson, the poet. V of John Davidson, thepoet, in "The. Times. ... "When; if over, are theso tragedies to cease? It is to. bo feared that we .shall never bo quite without poets, and if the popular...apathy regarding, them .goes on increasing— .' if the intellectual life of the nation becomes more- and more swamped by money-making, ■ ' athletics, and tho devotion of grown men to boys' games—the Poet's Trageay is likely to happen with increased frequency.. One does npt wish one's country to become a'byword for that sort of thing. Landor has drawn a picture of that phase of national decadence when '.'■ : ."'tiny pleasuresioccu'— the place Of glories and of duties; as tho feet Of'fabled-fairies,* when the sun goes down, , • 3?rip o'er tho grass where wrestlers strove by • .-■■.'. day.'" '."■■■ •;.. . ■ " '"■ .'. ."- ; ■ Have we reached, or are we reaching, that, phase? "Everywhere, on all.hands, one seems .to see. evidence that such is the fact. ■■.■' : "Narrowing one's outlook for the moment -'to'literature'-alone," continues Mr. Watson, .."it would appear .that.fiction is tho only form of it which retains any power of effec'tive appeal to the popular intelligence. I Buppose there arc fifty paltry.novelists, who .make anything from £1000 to £2000. a year, : but it is;as possible as it was in. tho early days of Samuel Johnson for a genius capable of conferring lustre on any ago or coun- ., try to -liyo in obscurity and cruel neglect, and to die at last of tho accumulated fury of a lifetime—as John Davidson died.. , : "When recently. an utterly insignificant end uninteresting young woman resorted to • the 'appearance , of .disappearance in order to .escape her Creditors, this groat nation went into throes of excitement over the trumpery gffnjr, but when a man:who had worn out his 'fiery heart and brain in its service goc3 down'.'to. some grave: as unknown as His Who heard the .thunders'of Sinai—goes down to it in the last. bitterness of despair—the British nation is uninterested and unmoved.

-■"■That is perhaps tho first thing to strike one in connection with tho Davidson epieodo, but the matter has i various other aspects. . This episode in tho literary history of England is ono more addition to the long list of tragedies which wo may consider as 6cginnin"i wijth the : deatii of, Spenser,. 'for lack of bread'; (if -Ban Jon son'b words aro to be trusted), and which,emphatically did not end with tbfl tkath *'of;Clihttertoh in his ■ miserable' garret, murdered :by.the .editors jvho had accepted,his contributions, and paid for thorn at tlio _iato of ■■ eightpence for a poem and one .'shilling for an article. For let thero 'be no mistake about it—John Davidson died because he could not make a .tiring. "■:'■■ ■:■'':■.- ■■'.' ■ .

"Whether lie lies at the bottom of eomo disused milling shaft, whero no search can ever reach him, or whether ho "'sloops by the fablo of Belorsus old, •Where, the great-vision of tho guarded Mount Looks towards Naniancos and Bayona's hold'— and ho had lived in sight of that guarded Mount for the last two years—one thing at least is certain: his blood is upon us, as surely as if we had slain him with our very hands. ; "'lTliis was a man who, notwithstanding all tho crudity of his later thinking, all tho resentment against society and Fate which made much of his utterance so turbid, was yet n creaturo with something of tho Divine tiro in him—something of tho infernal firo as well, which also wo need in a poot—and ho passes almost unremarked to his strange and lonely death, as real a singer, when he sang his host, as the great and famous veteran who has just died amid a tempest of praise. What though his 'best' can all bo 'gathered up within tho compass of a few ■pages? Tho same might bo said of twenty English poets of the past, any <ono of whom is as suro of.immortality as Shakespeare or, Milton.".