"KINGS AND A POET."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 888, 6 August 1910, Page 9

"KINGS AND A POET."

Under this felicitous heading, tho London "Nation." thus reviews Mr. William Watson's new volume. "Sable and Purple": It is nothing remarkable that poets :should be, as, a rule, .more 'concerned with the, functions and duties, as well as with the splendours and tragedies "of -kingship, than' men of ordinary brain. "A god is not so- glorious as a king"; the poet's -extravagance is at least comprehensiblo when wo remember that kingship to him is but the translation of his ,own_ conscious lience into another region of intellect. iAnd it is, therefore; moro often kingship than, any particular king , that a poet' will celebrate. When Mr. William Watson composed his admirable "Ode on tho Coronation'-'of'King Inward the Seventh," it was really the splendours '.and: majesties of the English kingship'that:he chanted, and; though to mean thoughts it may seem a. paradox, tho English kingship was tho more splendid . and tho more majestic for liis celebration of. it. '.That reign is ended; but the voice which sang its beginning is 'happily still , with us to lament its conclusion and offer ceremonious music, to the new reign. Mr. William Watson, with the largo phrase, the lucid , and dignified thought that are usual with him, says in "Sable and Purple" his farewell to King Edward;'and his greeting to King George. ■It is' no small 'thing that we English still have a poet who caii speak adequately. and withal with perfect dig-' riity, .of the English t-hrono. And wo have not always been so fortunate. Quito apart from the Southeys of our literature, the . tribes of. official and semi-official poets who drearily cried up their kings as monsters of . flawless virtue when • alive, and when they died offered to relieve St. Peter, of his duties—quite apart from those, we have had many . poets 'of rare, and noble quality who. forgot' both.- reason and their'own dignity , when kings and kingship were the thenio. For kingship itself,; as well as kings, may be flattered. But there is also another and ivastly. more honourable tradition.in our poetry with respect to^ this matter; it is voiced by .poets like Langland who, while honouring, his king, sturdily -told, him' that' "Might of the Commons made him, to .reign," and like Mas- ' singer, whose words Charles 'I found "too insolent," though, had he attended to them, he .might .have saved hiscrown. ;: Mr., Watso'n.belongs to this high tradition... .Ho honours' •■kingship . with ; thati grave and: free rovergnqej ■to provoke "whicli'. is,", oil'"the'-.otlior; hand, the highest honour: that' kingship can achieve. ; He- needs no superlatives to make his praise high enough for him whom ; he praises;— "Honour the happy dead with sober praise,' \ Who'living'would,have scorned the fulsome phrase : , . Meet for . the languorous Orient's jewelled ear. ■ ; This .was -the English King, that loved . the. English-ways." . That is. the tone in which any king, who : ,was. indeed ; a king, .would wish to be spoken of when lie died. Equally grave and honorable is the Welcome tothe new King "Sea-10-ver • and sea-rover, throned hence- ■ forth Amid'the paths and passes of the sea; Tou thai have sailed oat of our stormy North, '. _ And ; have not sailed in vain, To all the golden shores where now you " reign, Through every, ocean gate whereof you keep the key:. . . .. 0 may your power and your. dominion - stanu ... Fixt on what things soever make Life ■ fair, And on what things soever make men . free, ' In duteous love of ordered liberty:

So shall your praise' be blown from ' strand to strand ending with tho prayer that, "the inscrutable years" may — ' "Weave for your' brows 1 a wreath that .". shall not fade— A chaplot and a crown divinely made Out of your' people's love,'your people's trust; For. wanting these all else were but as . dust In .that great balance wherein lungs are weighed." . That is how an English poet should sing of the English kingship; for in siich language the spirit of a free nation is formed ~to_ music. But '.'Sable and Purple" is a much, more personal- poem than tho Coronation Ode, necessarily so from its occasion; tlie poet rather speaks directly to his two -kings than celebrates tho throne or the idea of kingship.. Possibly for this, reason, it is not such a memorable composition as its .great forerunner, the Coronation Ode. There is hardly any of that fine poem's splendid imagery,' few of tho ''high astounding terms" and ringing lines in "Sablo and Purple.". Yet there is in it a quality that no other poet now living can "give us a simple majesty of phrase, a poetry that can dispense ivith all poetic ornament: — . "Then, called'to .rule the State Which he had only served, : He saw clear Duty plain, nor from that • ' highway swerved, And, unappallcd by his majestic fate, Pretended not to greatness, yet, was great." But Edward VII and George V are not the only Kings in Mr. Watson's new volume. With a juxtaposition, tho significance of which is doubtless intentional, the ceremonial poems addressed, to the Sovereigns of tho poet's own time are. followed by one, more discursive, dealing with the man who is traditionally, and; perhaps, historically also, tho type of English kingship, Alfred the Great. This is certainly tho finest poem m .the ■ book, and one of the most satisfactory poems Mr. Watson has yet written; and it is also a .very considerable addition to the praise of Alfred and . to tho English poetry of kingship. It is a dialogue, written in beautifully modulated blank verse, between Alfred and Asser, "good bishop and wellproven friend." -The language throughout, if occasionally tesselatcd somewhat after the Tennysonian way, is notable, and uses almost evory device poets know of to make diction exalted above common •wont; and the duties which are the privilege of kings have not often :found .loftier expri'S-iio'.i. • 'I here is "not much of warrior left" in tho kine Asscr visits. Alfred .greets him

"feebly sitting, pierced with many nails of pain"; and confesses that "in my flesh there is a voice, That telleth me my days henceforth aro few." But what mainly. tortures him is "to go hence, unsure if what I wrought , , And moulded be more lasting than the . abode • Yon swallow builds, out of a littlo clay, And lines with feathers.'' They remember tho old wars, when they fought with "those dim minds In shining mail, the heathen kings Whose keels were tho swift ploughshares of tho sea, Who tilted not earth, save with the harrow of war." And tho/king feels .again the old battlo glee when he reminds himself how, after long lying hid "amid the tusks and antlers of the brake," ho made such recovery of his scattered strength as enabled hiin to . "smite the host at Ethrmclune, And drive them flying before me to their hold, ' , . With crash of battle-axe through ncalp and skull, , , . t And hewing of great limbs as boughs lopt off, . . . When thunder hurls him on tho cringing weald." But all this, tlieso glimpses and snatches of the epic stuff that still waits for its 'poet in the life of Alfred, serve only here as prelude to the expression of an ideal kingship which Air. Watson puts unto Alfred's mouth. u I ever looked, 5 ' lie makes, him say, "beyond the sword-mown field To other harvest. 5 ' What that other harvest should be is, no doubt, fairly obvious, but such description of it as Mr. Matsoli can give is by no means obvious, and is, moreover, in those days of commercial patriotism, of some considerable value. Tho whole- end of kingcraft is summed up in theso lines: , "A king's mo&t Icing-like, most king- • worthy toil ' Begins, not ends, when ho hath buildeu

him A bulwark 'gainst liis foes. Then comes

, the l:tsk Of rearing tor liis people such a house That they within, for fiery love of it, Shall leap as a lion if enemy threat the : door."

How a poet, speaking through King Alfred, would manage such a task, far enough from anything-within tho view of. political materialism, may perhaps be guessed. It is enough for us to say here that such a message will bear plenty of repetition, so long ns it is set to such music as Mr. Watson can summon. There are, of course, subsidiary themes in tho poem; tho most important of them is Alfred's tragic consciousness that ho has only made a slight beginning of kingship's main task. He has only known such peace "as ever'listens for the step of war," and when ho goes he can only pray "That there come not back The tranipler of my orchard and my field, / • To .fill the wlieel-tracks of his wain with \ .blood!"' and, in fact, ho knows that the realm, lie has founded is already breaking up. Enough, however, has been quotd from "King. Alfred" to mako it evident that Mr.' Watson has given us a poem, of noblo purport and magnificent expression. . I