"STREETS."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1675, 15 February 1913, Page 9

"STREETS."

DOUGLAS GOLDWNG'S "POETS -GUIDE" TO LONDON. London is a mother and a mistress to this young poet, and each of her solcndid highways and squalid by-ways se'ema to him a .symbol of some train of thought in her creativo mind. To him tho name of Camden Town is as magical and musical as that of Xanadu, nay more so, and when ho meditates on the meaning of this or that climbing suburban street haunted by shadowy lovers—

Oft through tho dripping, moonless night, Up West End Lane and Frognal Rise, They trace their footsteps by the light Ot love that fills their weary eyes— they are for him (and for his readers at times) as surely the paths of adventurous living as those which traverso the tranquil countryside from sea to sea, and when the leagues of slorin nnd bitterness aro passed begin again on the further s'do and go on forever. Such universal thoroughfares as the Strand, where everybody is at home except the prig, are beyond Mr. Goldring's artistry, not being a combination of Villon and Verlaine, and having a fitting sense of his limitations he has. wisely left them unsung. But he Joves the streets (such as Hill Streot) in which little houses stand patiently, expectantly— Little r houses, though prim, have often a .secret glance ' That can 6peak lo a heart outside— as much as he loathes the castles of Mr. Galsworthy's family of Foresites— From Notting Hill to Hyde Park Square The streets have an inhuman air, The houses (six imposing floors; Dark, formidable, fierce, front doors; Tall windows, sightless, sealed, and blind; Must shelter, they're so vast and cold, None but the ugly and the old-Ball-room or billiard-room behind) when they appear in his mind's eye pompously, professionally. In ' either case he finds expressions for his loving and loathing in which the "mot juste" is so seldom missed that at times he is too "correct" to convince us of the reality ■ of hia . emotions. He is un- ■ kind to the inhabitants 'of tho small Hampstead houses with bright front doors (mostly green) and shy windows that look out on the Heath when he'says of them—

Their lives aro one delicate tea—with the ." : lamp .not lit • ■; In autjumn' and winter. • In summer a ' . rose Climbs, in through the window wide, and . ; caresses, it; ■■ '• • ■ And always there, are. "petit-fours," musio, and-dreams—and repose.

In point iof poetic. fact Hampstead is the one universal suburb, a timeless Bohemia' indeed lifted half-way to,. Heaven above the mist and hum of the central city. But when Tie'comes to the Heath itself and its much-remembering trees— ~- Trees, amorous trees that fold maternal . arms ■Over joined lips and halting vows halfheard— he pneo more regains that graciousness which"-is the equity'(so muchimore than more justice!) of all poetical criticism of life and living. iWhon he sings of the mean streets that run in blue lines through Mr. Charles Booth's wonderful map of London he sometimes tries to bo strong, and merely, succeeds in being rowdy. Cherry Gardens, in Eotherhithe, for_ example, is libelled in. the verses which show us a drowned drunkard on a cold'slab in the new mortuary and end with, the stanra— ..'..., : But I mayn't warm him where he lies : Because I.have no ring to show: Yet I'vo his -bruises on my eyes: And bore his,child a month ago. There is really and truly no place in London where moral truths are so. inevitably the truisms of morality as in this far-away, purlieu, where'the small fruit of luxuries "a deux" are never allowed to ripen, .the married couplo next door intervening. You have got to "show tho ring, love," if you want to live in Cherry •Gardens, 1 Eotherhithe. Much more to iour mind are the lines on Acacia Itoad, •Barking, which begin: .... $11 down Acaciai-Eoad.therelare email ,".'' bo'iv-windows' '■*: Jutting.put' neighbourly neads: in ■ tho ''■ street, ' '■''■.' And in each sits, framed, an old woman, They watch the couples who pass or meet— or those on Charlton Yale, with- its nocturnal vision of the waterway.out into foreign seas' afar— .

.Through lines ■ of lights the river .glides, ' Bestrewn with many a green-eyed ship,' And swiftly down the slinking'tides All night the heavy steamers 6lip. After all, the greatest and most significant of' London's thoroughfares is the oldest and least-known of all—the historio river which is the motive of the city's growth through uncounted centuries. But best of all theso lyrical elegies (the phrase is deliberately chosen)'is that in which he meets'the old joyous Satyr inKingsland Road,,N.E., ; whose heart is full 61'.. fun though .his hair is white and his eves dim. Though ho lives «nd toils in London, this merry old creature is an own brother to the.'ancient Satyrs-'of the countrjside thus describedby another young poet of muoh achievement and more promise: Great rolling gladsome shapes, • Who prop themselves on skins of wins By purple piles of grapes. ■ Their huge brbwn bellies quake with mirth, .'.•■, Their ancient eye 9 are bright, And there they sit and roar old tales "Far, -far into the night. ■ Mr.' Goldring's lover of life (in the Kingsland.Eoad in the bleak North-East) carries a very heavy sack.' But ho has dropped the burden of the joys that made for joylessness, and.sings in his twittering voice like a true subject of the urban Pan- ■