GREAT LINES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 26

GREAT LINES

SOME- PREFERENCES ANCIENT AND MODERN SHAKESPEARE TO BLUNDEN (Written for the "Evening Post" by - ■ A.M.) ' ' "If I were to be imprisoned and ai lowed only one single poem, I shoulc choose the 'Ode on Intimations of Im .mortality.* For that contains, I thins all that one needs by which to live anc die." So writes the compiler of a rnev> book of letters, "Call Back Yesterday,' by Lady Charnwood, the wife of v the man who wrote one of the best biographies of Lincoln, if not the best Considering .this, I wondered'what Lady Charnwood would say was the best, line in "Intimations," for on her reckoning .that would be the finest in Wordsworth, and the finest in Wordsworth are among the very purest gold of our poetry. That set .me thinking of'an irritating cutting I have had by me for some time, a scrap that points to hidden ; riches.,. It refers to a discussion last year in the English Press on the best lines in English poetry, and cites a few preferences, but I have not been able to find the source. Perhaps some "Post" readers have been more fortunate. PREFERENCES OF THE GREAT. Best lines ar,e as perennial a subject of discussion as single books or authors for a desert island. There is, of course, no finality about such discussions,, but that doesn't matter. Nor can there be such a thing as a best line; only a 'number- of lines ranked m the very first class. But one line, or two or three lines, may.move you more than any others. The charm of such comparisons is part of the-charm of literature. - -The magic landscape opens out once more, with its castles and cottages, its mountains and rivers, its trees and meadows golden in the sun, its valleys and peaks shrouded m pity and terror. We clarify our judgments afresh, and find delight in the preferences of our friends and of the great of this and previous ages. If your own choice goes to "We are such stuff as dreamsare made on,"- you-will- bethrilled to find that Carlyle and Goethe agree1 with you. Gladstone told MorJey he was divided between three, of • which the most glorious was Milton's, but unfortunately when Morley came to-write the "Life" he couldn't remember which |it was. Perhaps you would like to amuse yourself looking in Mil- . /ton for the finest line; you will be like a small boy taken into a huge cake shop and asked to choose one. Gladstone's other Wo were a^line from the "Odyssey," which is outside our field, and Wordsworth's "Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." Wordsworth would ,have a good many backers: "We feel that we are greater tl.an we know"; "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns"; "Thoughts that d 6 often lie, tod deep for tears"; "Voyaging through strange seas of thought ajgne." Tennyson thought the second of this group "almost the grandest in the language," and also picked put Milton's "Silence, ye troubled waters, and thou, deep peace." Morley himself considered "the-most melting and melodious line" in all English Macbeth's VAfter life's fitful fever he sleeps well.'' THE GREAT THRILL. It is hard to be restricted to one line. Take the' "Macbeth" passage ( just quoted. -Its effect, overpowering in the theatre, is greatly enhanced by the words that go before. Duncan-ls In his grave; I ■ After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. And one of■ the. supreme passages of Wordsworth' is 'two' lines that cannot be divided. ; ; And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. i But what is a great line? Different critics may interpret it differently. Do we mean a Taeautiful line, and if so, I what do we mean-by beauty? Is a moving line necessarily a beautiful line? "To lie in cold corruption and to rot" moves one by ternWle realism, but is it beautiful? The highest class should" be reserved, I think, for the ' •-■ lines that give what Sir Arthur QuillerCouch calls , the Great Thrill—"the sudden shiver, the awed surprise of the : magic of .poetry,"-Some years ago an ' American journal invited choices of : the most beautiful single unes, and " there were some instructive responses. •"A thing of, beauty, is -a- joy forever"' is; : ! itself a thing of 'beauty,-, but not/^T '".- submit, of, rare beauty.': It»|xpresses : well a moral ideaV'-butdt does."riot move' • the imagination ■ greatly, and-i^et: going; • thoughts 'that 'exceed our ,grasj3i It ' does not give.'lthe-'Great.Thrill. A more1 beautiful line of Keats..: included .n *-■ this list is ".^For'ever wiltXthou love ; and she be; fair," arid there;, can be no ; 'comparison between.'1 ."A':' thing- of - beauty .is' a joy forever" and the "• famous "magic casements" ■passage/, or, ■'". "Tha moving-- waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores; Such passages are in the .seventh : heaven; there is a perfect marriage of ■' sound and sense, and .the effect is to : make, one tremble with surprise and delight. Ai! E. Housman asked about "six simple words ~_ of : Milton" — "Nymphs and. shepherds, dance no ':' more"—"what'-is7.it that ban draw tears, ■as I know it cari.'to the eyes'iof more " readers than one? What in the world ■'. is there to cry about? Why have the mere' words the physical effect of pathos/when the. sense- of the passage is blithe and gay? I can only - say, because they are poetry, and • find their way to something in man V which is obscure and latent, some- "■ thing older than the present organisation of his nature, like the patches of fen which still linger here and there -in the drained ■. lands of Cambridgeshire." .The nature of poetry—sub- .. stance and form. ■Suppose we were 'to say, "Shepherds ,and nymphs.do not ■ dance any more,"'would a tear come to.any eye?■'••■■■■"■ r • Nor can I believe that a tear is . started by some of the other lines in . this American list. "An honest man's ■- the noblest work of God." An admir- > able sentiment, but, is it beautiful, ' does rt touch the depths? Compare 'it with Tennyson's simple statement of : natural change: The long day wanes: the Blow moon climbs: ~v the deep -. - ■ , . - Moans round with many voices.- ■ ■ .;. or-with "The furrow followed free,'.'; / though here again more than one line -' is necessary. Which reminds me that : George Meredith's choice of ''great ':. lines was from Tennyson, now so much ■ fallen in reputation: , I: ~..,. . . . Oa one side lay the ocran,, and-'on one " Lay a great-water, and theyrioon was full. -■-' But when a,, reader puts .forward.- the ." same poet's "Love will conquer: at the : : ' last," it is a fair thing'to say that anyone, even Ella Wheeler Wilcox, ' could have /written it. ...'.-;... .-, \| WHAT OF TODAY? !■ Yes, magic is the test, that magic • wMch so often .gives to themost com- ' mon things "the light that never was, ,: on.sea or'lattdi'"--Elevation'of thought ': alone- is not enough. Matthew Arnold's "advice *is still sound, that we should carry in our minds touchstones •of poetry,- ■by which -to - judge what

comes new to us.?- Symposiums c ■ best' lines help us'' ; :to" store:' up sue standards..: "There is one glory of th sun,: and; another glory of the moor . and another gl.ory of ( the stars; fc one star differeth from another i. I glory." Yes; there are different kind f. of beauty,, and if we test aright w • shall know reasonably well what t .. admit to the different classes—the ele .. ga'nt,. tha .beautiful, the grand, th sublime. ,Nor' should we deny admis sioh- toscontemporary poetry simpl; because:'it'Hasvnot-'-passed through .th> judgment!court;- of- time: .;If literatur is,:;a "living''.thing.:it,'mu / st ;add to it .-■ glories. "Ih- the-'.]ist:;l.!. have quotei i there is one":line"; by.la--»livihg poet • "The feather-footed^ moments tip-to' ~ past." ■ This by Edmund'Blunden is ; i good line, but not a great one. Fa. r finer is "Some bell-like evening whei ' the may's in; bloom," one of the love i liest of lines about the English country - side. . In a hundred years what, wil . they be picking out from this time 0: i ours? Among lyrics "Innisfree" prob : ably, and other things of. Yeats. "Lik< ; the pale .waters in their wintry race.' f And someone may put forward Mase^ • field's "Coming in solemn beauty like I slow old tunes of Spain," or "Anr : beauty -in the heart; breaks like i ' flower." What shall, we have to offei • then, .we of-the country, that is callec ■ the •'Britain of; the' South? ' "'.The. hour- "• -glass>fills with' weather! like a .wine oJ i slow' content." ,;> Here'" I' submit, is c 1 Newr''Zpaland-viine^fit;;foLgo4in'' ; ,goqdls ■' .(SicpWiorld ■•- company. ■ -Any:- o'ther-r en- ■'• tlies?;,':",;-; ';'.,:'■:... •.'■ {?■'. ■■ •< V- '>?'-"- 'V£.