LOVE IN THE VALLEY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 568, 24 July 1909, Page 9

LOVE IN THE VALLEY.

A correspondent- of tho ; "Wesfcmmstei' Gazette," iu taking exception, tp • a statement. that the 188 X ;. emendation" of Mere-' dith'.s ''Love in the Valley" .made the poem •''intolerable to any- reader fortunate,enough to possess the .first copy" (issued in 1851), has ; some: observations : that will: bo inuch appreciated by lovers of MeredithsThere is no knowing what a .critic will say, but/ as one of 'tho ."fortunate"; possessors of the poems of 1851, I feci _bound to :assure l those •of your readers . who . know only /the present edition",of "Love in the Valley", (its correct title in both editions) that tlley possess incomparably the finer version :-of the poem. In _the first place, ■■ there are twenty-six . stanzas ,in tho present edition and only eleven in the edition; 'of, 1851. Which fifteen stanzas of the present edition did "critic", wish away? lo the minds .of most.lovers of .poetry there are none that can be spared. ' _ y - .. ~ But,* apart from difleronce in. length botwecn the'two poems, let us, compare their respective quality.': Here is the last stanza of of .'1851: ; ■ • Then come, merry April, with all thy birds

and beauties! ': „' ■ WithHhy./cres'cent/.brows; and , -thy. flowery, showery glee; With thy budding leafage and fresh'greenpas- . tures; .'-V "■ ■ :• And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honey- ■ ■ moon for mo! ■ - -- Comej. merry. month ■of the cnckoo and, the violet! . " ~ Come, weeping loveliness in all thy blue delight! - ' •. , Lo! the nest is,.ready,-let me not languish *- -.* longer! ' * • Bring hor ,to my arms on the first May night. :/'■ -- :

In the : present edition this verso, which is, indeed, well enough, has been discarded altogether;-' but wo . have instead , these two stanzas to end . the poem:. - .

Soft new'beech-leaves, up to beamy April; Spreading' bpngh'on bough a primrose moun- ' ■ tain*, you - -Lucid in-the' moon', raise lilies to the ekvfields, . Youngest; green- transfused in silver shining, through. Fairer than the lily, than the wild white cherry; , - .Fair-as in image my seraph love appears, Borne to me by dreads when'dawn is at my

eyelids: ' '' Fair as in tho flesh she swims to me on tears. Could I find a place to be alone with heavon ' : I would speak my "heart out; heaven is my Every .woodland .tree ,Is, flushing like the dogwood, . ' ' 1 Flashing like the whitebeain, swaying, like the reed. ■ Flushing like the dogwood crimson m October; , ' Streaming •' like; the .flag-reed,.. South-west •. blown; . Flashing'as in gusts'the sudden-lighted-white-beam: All seem to know what is for hoavon-alone.' One example will sulfico of the'improvement effected .in the case ,of stanzas -.whioh were not discarded, but amended. ...... . Hero is 1851: . ■ ■■■>-.. Happy, ■ happy time,when, the grey, star ■v twinkles '. Over tho fields all fresh with .bloomy dew; When the cold-cheeked: dawn grows ruddy up the twilight, : '' /■ ' . , A ; And ,the' gold sun wakes, and weds -her in the blue. • •/, Then/ when .my ...darling tempts the early : She' the 'only star that dies' not' with tho . ;dark! Powerless to speak all the ardour 'of my pas- • sion, v.VV . ; .'I ■ catch her little"\hand -as: we' listen to the lark. Hiv'"] ",'Y The Meredith of ;later years . was not "powerless to apeak- the.; ardour^ passion.^ 1 •Here 'is i the . later'"' edition- !ofJ',the.: stanza, > wHipK ; , : we''are;told"by. the>'. critic: is ."intbler'able," if we have 'ever been lucky enough to'.read about his ''catching her little-hand.".. Happy, . happy ; time', ■ -when> the white star hovers- • "»■ ->Lbw over dim fields fresh: with bloomy dew, 'Near tho face of dawn, that draws athwajrt ' .'the darkness, ' ' ■ . i-:Threndin'g it,jvith colour, like yewbernes the Thicker crowd the. shades, as .the , grave East

- deepens, -■> '. - . ■ ; • \-, , : r Glowing, and with • crimson a ■ long cloud - swells. . . , .' Maiden stilKthe morn is; and strange she is, and sccret; ' - - Strange ;h'er- eyes'j; her. cheeks are cold as : cold sea-shells. V v.

I cannot trfench , indefinitely upon your .space. Suffice it .to say I .that I' ha've;ri6t .quoted .the. weakest of the:'stanzas'; of 1851, as those know: vrho:, have read about "the.-idle'.lord-ling;", who,'as the. youthful poet fears, .riiay. ' "bride her. mind •; with'" jewels I" (How one can imagine the Meredith.:' of . later;- years throwing back'his-headj-to laugh at that!) Nor are those stanzas which I. nave quoted from the later edition any better than the other twenty-three, which I have,not quoted. u\ boy of twonty-one wrote a pretty, love poem, .'with touches of genius' in it. 'At. tho height of matured art;and feeling the great poet developed his boyish song' into one of the great achievements of 1 the -humari ; race. If England knew in what really' consisted her glory and. her .majesty, she would not only ■ btiry her -great men in ■'Westminster Abbey,'but'her - sops, and daughters would not be ignorant of the greatest of lovei lyrics which no country but England could possibly, have producedT-br, neglected. > ... . NOTES.

Mr. A. St. John Adcock's lengthy Mlustratod article on Miss Mario Corelli in a current monthly contains some matter .new to the general public. It now appears that the "Introductory Notice" to., the' "Canterbury" edition of "Love Letters ,of a Violinist," by Eric .Mackay, who was fosterbrother ot, the iauthor . of- "The: Sorrows of Satan,"wwa r . written . ; ,by-Miss .(Jyreili herself. '...'Th'osei-old enough to recall ' the lively interest .-talien in the. first'number, of the "Canterbury".series"trill remember that the. lit'cle .volumo in: question was dedicated "To Marie." The introduction was ..written ; over, tho letters "G.D." The b'opk was published in -'1886, . tljo .: year yin ' ,-which -MissN Marie Corelli's first novel,"A .Romance of i Two Worlds," ■ appeared. There was an .extraordinary amount of. "gush" in; the introduction. Rumours-wore rife as to'the writer's name, but the secret was well kept. _ Miss Corelli is becoming .quite communicative—if she supplied this information to Mr. Adcock, who is enthusiastic enough to say that Miss Corelli once lectured'iu Edinburgh to an audience of 4000 —in tho Music Hall, the utmost'capacity of which is less than 1800 seats. ; , ;

Mr. Wilfrid Meynell has reprinted Francis Thompson's essay on Shelley that appeared posthumously last July in the "Dublin Review."- Originally written-for and rejected twenty years.ago by that quarterly (an English writer, observes), it still bears tlio marks of. squeezing and kneading that' were to make it acceptable to those who looked for conformity with traditions that , wore Catholic in its narrower sense rather than literary. .There is a residuum of reconciliation and pleading, but the acute criticism and suggestion of the essay—its incisive thought, its opulent, selected diction—are; little impaired. ■ It is a plea and an- apologia for Shelley—at once the eternal child of poetry and >tta arch-mctaphysic—tinged and quickened with the experience, tho sorrows, one had almost said the sentimentality of Thompson.' Take this- passage:—"He is still at play save only that his play is such as manhood stops to watch, and his playthingsi arc those tfhich the gods give their children. The universo is his box of toys. He dabbles his fingers in the-day-fall. He is gold-dusty with tumbling amidst tho stars. Ho makes bright mischief with the moon. The metoors, nuzzle their noses in his hand. Ho teases into growling tho kennelled thunder, and laughs at the shaking of its liery chain. He dances-in and out of the gates of Heaven; its floor id» littered with his broken

fancies. Ho runs wild over the fields of ether. He chases tho rolling world. _ Ho gets between the foet of the horses of tho sun. Ho stands in tho lap of patient Isaturo, and twines her loosened tresses after a hundred wilful fashions, to see how she will look liicest in--his song."- It is rather tho , poetry of critioism 1 than poetic criticism: it might, too, stand for what flujmpson himself' in a better world than -this,_ Thompson not trailing his clouds of agony, might.have been. ■

Mr. Edmund Gosse contributes to . tho June "Fortnightly" somo memories of Swinburne dealing mainly with the years 18(4 to 1880.-'* As to 'tho poets ' 'unique; appearance/''Mr. Gosse writes: ■ _ "Ho was short, with shoulders that sloped more than, i a woman's, , from which rose a long and, slendor. neck, , surmounted, by- an enormous,head. Tho cranium was out.of all proportion to the rest of the structure. His spiue was rigid, and though he often bowed, the heaviness of his . head lasso papavero collo, lie seemed never .to bend his back.. Except iu' consequence of a certain physical weakness .. . . he . seemed 'immune from all the maladies that; pursue mankind. _ He did not know fatigue, his agility- and brightness ifere.almost mechanical.'.' _ He required very little . sleep,' and _Mr. Gosse s3ys that when he has parted, from him in tho evening "he has:simply sat back in. the deep sofa in'his sittingroom, his little , feet . close; together, his arms against his side, folded in his. frock-coat like a grasshopper in its wing-covers, and fallen asleep, 'apparently for the night, before. I could blow out the candles and steal forth from tho door." ; Swinburne; Mr. Gosso; goes on to. say, was more a hyperfcrophied intelligence , than a man": i . .'-. ' •' "His vast brain seemed ,to weigh down and -give solidity to a frame otherwise as light as thistledown, a body almost as lmmaterial as'that'of a fairy. , In the streets ho had the movements' of a somnambulist, and often have .I seen him passing like a ghost across the • traffic of Holborn, or threading -the pressure .of-:c'arts Eastward in, "Gray's Inn Road,'without glancing to the' left or tho right,'' like something blown before the wind." v : • ~ -Mr..Gosse at one time often, met hurt on the deserted northern pavement of Great Coram Street," when returning from his work, at the British .. :'. ■ , Alluding to. the" accident which nearly cost the poet : his life' when bathing'ait Etretat m .1870, when he- was "pusuod floating Jiko a. medusa, with i ishilling hair and j was caught a long, way out to sea ■by a yachtsman who . happened to be Guy de j Maupassant, Mr. Gosso* says:. . . . "I may record that~in describing this incident, to ,ine not long after it happened Swinburne said that lie pjflected with' satisfaction, when lie made up his mind that he must ■be drowned, .thairh© had just finally revised-the proofs of,' Songs before Sunrise, and that he was a little older tjian (I think he said not so old as) Shelley when he was drowned.". ' , He further told how sailors wrapped him in. a sail and perched him on deck, where, to their amazement, lio. recited the poems of Victor Hugo in a very loud voice till they got back to Etretat,"

Among ■ the good things," written in America on the death 'of Swinburne is.™ article by - Mr. Francis ;F. Browne.; Mr. ■Browne holds that the poet has been underrated •by . his. own generation, will' not nea,r of the'' charge of "verbosity,' and -claims that he has revealed' himself .both ' as a profound' .scholar and :as a . severe and serious tWnlcer upon the, gravest problems tliat confront the human intellect." Mote-over, people judge him by his'inferior work. lor a hundred:. who glibly quote 'Dolores and 'Laus' Veneris' there is hardly: one who knows .'Athens' and •'Thalassius,' and The Ariiiada' and 'the 'Last Oracle,' and 'By.'the North'Sea'' and 1 'Songs, before . Sunrise.' Yet those are .the works," he contends,; 'which make him one of. the greatest of English poets." He. thinks . it: possiblo 'that his dramas may .last longer than' his lyrics, but here again tho poet is known by his: inferior work.' People know "Atalanta in Calydon," and are ignorant of the "far nobler" "Erechfcheus"; "Ciiastelard" had a' popularity,' but not the.''incomparably finer productions" "Bothwcll'! and "Mary Stuart." As.closet dramas, MivvSwinbiirne's are the masterpieces of. the age; v: All of which is remarkably stimulating- criticism, whether one entirely acquiesces-br not. .

Mr. S. H. Butcher, M.P., recently ( quoted from a letter of CardinarNewman,' which, he said, had. not been published. before. Writing in. 1869," ;Nwman 'said i—"L have . been .obliged to take great pains with, everything I have .written, and I. often write chapters over .arid: over again, besides innumerable corrections and. interlined additions.' '. 1 ■ think' I have .written, for writing's sake, but my. one arid single- desire ;and aim has been to do what is difficult, namely, to express clearly and exactly my meaning. ,-Tliia' has. been the ; motive and principle of all my corrections and re-writings. When I .have read over a passage. which I had written a few days , before, I havd found, it so obscure to mysolf that I have either put it altogether aside, or fiercely corrected' it." "That,"' said Mr. Butcher,, "was from a master of lucidity and simplicity, and showed how hard of . attainment j those • qualities were." ...

"The Voice of God Unheard and the Reason AVhy." By Jno. A. D. Adains. Dunedin: Messrs. Gordon and Gotch. ';

This is a small volume written in reply to Sir Robert Anderson's'"The Silence of God." The subject dealt.';with is the well-known question, "Why -does 1 God permit the' sihr- and misery' of' -the ■- world?"—in. / other; 'words, "Why is 'God silent?'' :Tn 'contradistinction to Sir Robert Anderson, who felt that, in his own words, "Heaven has been dumb for eighteen long centuries," and that "when the testimony passed out from the narrow sphere of Judaism . . . that voice (the miraculous) died afray for ever," the author holds-that God is not keeping silence to-day, although His voice may bo unheard by most. Tho argument is closely reasoned with . a wealth of-Scriptural illustration.-.