English Literature
lyric genius, and he produced many songs--"Bonnie Doon," "My Love's like a
Red, Red Rose," "Auld Lang Syne," "Highland Mary," and the soul-stirring
"Scots wha hae," composed while galloping over the moor in a storm--which
have made the name of Burns known wherever the English language is spoken,
and honored wherever Scotchmen gather together. He died miserably in 1796,
when only thirty-seven years old. His last letter was an appeal to a friend
for money to stave off the bailiff, and one of his last poems a tribute to
Jessie Lewars, a kind lassie who helped to care for him in his illness.
This last exquisite lyric, "O wert thou in the cauld blast," set to
Mendelssohn's music, is one of our best known songs, though its history is
seldom suspected by those who sing it.
THE POETRY OF BURNS. The publication of the Kilmarnock Burns, with the
title _Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect_ (1786), marks an epoch in the
history of English Literature, like the publication of Spenser's
_Shepherd's Calendar_. After a century of cold and formal poetry, relieved
only by the romanticism of Gray and Cowper, these fresh inspired songs went
straight to the heart, like the music of returning birds in springtime. It
was a little volume, but a great book; and we think of Marlowe's line,
"Infinite riches in a little room," in connection with it. Such poems as
"The Cotter's Saturday Night," "To a Mouse," "To Mountain Daisy," "Man was
Made To Mourn," "The Twa Dogs," "Address to the Deil," and "Halloween,"
suggest that the whole spirit of the romantic revival is embodied in this
obscure plowman. Love, humor, pathos, the response to nature,--all the
poetic qualities that touch the human heart are here; and the heart was
touched as it had not been since the days of Elizabeth. If the reader will
note again the six characteristics of the romantic movement, and then read
six poems of Burns, he will see at once how perfectly this one man
expresses the new idea. Or take a single suggestion,--
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love forever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted--
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
The "essence of a thousand love tales" is in that one little song. Because
he embodies the new spirit of romanticism, critics give him a high place in
the history of our literature; and because his songs go straight to the
heart, he is the poet of common men.
Of Burns's many songs for music little need be said. They have found their
way into the hearts of a whole people, and there they speak for themselves.
They range from the exquisite "O wert thou in the cauld blast," to the
tremendous appeal to Scottish patriotism in "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace
bled," which, Carlyle said, should be sung with the throat of the
whirlwind. Many of these songs were composed in his best days, when
following the plow or resting after his work, while the music of some old
Scotch song was ringing in his head. It is largely because he thought of
music while he composed that so many of his poems have the singing quality,
suggesting a melody as we read them.
Among his poems of nature, "To a Mouse" and "To a Mountain Daisy" are
unquestionably the best, suggesting the poetical possibilities that daily
pass unnoticed under our feet. These two poems are as near as Burns ever
comes to appreciating nature for its own sake. The majority of his poems,
like "Winter" and "Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon," regard nature in the
same way that Gray regarded it, as a background for the play of human
emotions.
Of his poems of emotion there is an immense number. It is a curious fact
that the world is always laughing and crying at the same moment; and we can
hardly read a page of Burns without finding this natural juxtaposition of
smiles and tears. It is noteworthy also that all strong emotions, when
expressed naturally, lend themselves to poetry; and Burns, more than any
other writer, has an astonishing faculty of describing his own emotions
with vividness and simplicity, so that they appeal instantly to our own.
One cannot read, "I love my Jean," for instance, without being in love with
some idealized woman; or "To Mary in Heaven," without sharing the personal
grief of one who has loved and lost.
Besides the songs of nature and of human emotion, Burns has given us a
large number of poems for which no general title can be given. Noteworthy
among these are "A man's a man for a' that," which voices the new romantic
estimate of humanity; "The Vision," from which we get a strong impression
of Burns's early ideals; the "Epistle to a Young Friend," from which,
rather than from his satires, we learn Burns's personal views of religion
and honor; the "Address to the Unco Guid," which is the poet's plea for
mercy in judgment; and "A Bard's Epitaph," which, as a summary of his own
life, might well be written at the end of his poems. "Halloween," a picture
of rustic merrymaking, and "The Twa Dogs" a contrast between the rich and
poor, are generally classed among the poet's best works; but one unfamiliar
with the Scotch dialect will find them rather difficult.
Of Burns's longer poems the two best worth reading are "The Cotter's
Saturday Night" and "Tam o' Shanter,"--the one giving the most perfect
picture we possess of a noble poverty; the other being the most lively and
the least objectionable of his humorous works. It would be difficult to
find elsewhere such a combination of the grewsome and the ridiculous as is
packed up in "Tam o' Shanter." With the exception of these two, the longer
poems add little to the author's fame or to our own enjoyment. It is better
for the beginner to read Burns's exquisite songs and gladly to recognize
his place in the hearts of a people, and forget the rest, since they only
sadden us and obscure the poet's better nature.
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
"Pipe a song about a lamb;"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again;"
So I piped:, he wept to hear.
"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read;"
So he vanished from my sight,
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.[206]
Of all the romantic poets of the eighteenth century, Blake is the most
independent and the most original. In his earliest work, written when he
was scarcely more than a child, he seems to go back to the Elizabethan song
writers for his models; but for the greater part of his life he was the
poet of inspiration alone, following no man's lead, and obeying no voice
but that which he heard in his own mystic soul. Though the most
extraordinary literary genius of his age, he had practically no influence
upon it. Indeed, we hardly yet understand this poet of pure fancy, this
mystic this transcendental madman, who remained to the end of his busy life
an incomprehensible child.
LIFE. Blake, the son of a London tradesman, was a strange, imaginative
child, whose soul was more at home with brooks and flowers and fairies than
with the crowd of the city streets. Beyond learning to read and write, he
received education; but he began, at ten years, to copy prints and to write
verses. He also began a long course of art study, which resulted in his
publishing his own books, adorned with marginal engravings colored by
hand,--an unusual setting, worthy of the strong artistic sense that shows
itself in many of his early verses. As a child he had visions of God and
the angels looking in at his window; and as a man he thought he received
visits from the souls of the great dead, Moses, Virgil, Homer, Dante,
Milton,--"majestic shadows, gray but luminous," he calls them. He seems
never to have asked himself the question how far these visions were pure
illusions, but believed and trusted them implicitly. To him all nature was
a vast spiritual symbolism, wherein he saw elves, fairies, devils,
angels,--all looking at him in friendship or enmity through the eyes of
flowers and stars:
With the blue sky spread over with wings,
And the mild sun that mounts and sings;
With trees and fields full of fairy elves,
And little devils who fight for themselves;
With angels planted in hawthorne bowers,
And God himself in the passing hours.
And this curious, pantheistic conception of nature was not a matter of
creed, but the very essence of Blake's life. Strangely enough, he made no
attempt to found a new religious cult, but followed his own way, singing
cheerfully, working patiently, in the face of discouragement and failure.
That writers of far less genius were exalted to favor, while he remained
poor and obscure, does not seem to have troubled him in the least. For over
forty years he labored diligently at book engraving, guided in his art by
Michael Angelo. but inventing his own curious designs, at which we still
wonder. The illustrations for Young's "Night Thoughts," for Blair's
"Grave," and the "Inventions to the Book of Job," show the peculiarity of
Blake's mind quite as clearly as his poems. While he worked at his trade he
flung off--for he never seemed to compose--disjointed visions and
incomprehensible rhapsodies, with an occasional little gem that still sets
our hearts to singing:
Ah, sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Rise from their graves, and aspire
Where my sunflower wishes to go!
That is a curious flower to find growing in the London street; but it
suggests Blake's own life, which was outwardly busy and quiet, but inwardly
full of adventure and excitement. His last huge prophetic works, like
_Jerusalem_ and _Milton_ (1804), were dictated to him, he declares, by
supernatural means, and even against his own will. They are only half
intelligible, but here and there one sees flashes of the same poetic beauty
that marks his little poems. Critics generally dismiss Blake with the word
"madman"; but that is only an evasion. At best, he is the writer of
exquisite lyrics; at worst, he is mad only "north-northwest," like Hamlet;
and the puzzle is to find the method in his madness. The most amazing thing
about him is the perfectly sane and cheerful way in which he moved through
poverty and obscurity, flinging out exquisite poems or senseless
rhapsodies, as a child might play with gems or straws or sunbeams
indifferently. He was a gentle, kindly, most unworldly little man, with
extraordinary eyes, which seem even in the lifeless portraits to reflect
some unusual hypnotic power. He died obscurely, smiling at a vision of
Paradise, in 1827. That was nearly a century ago, yet he still remains one
of the most incomprehensible figures in our literature.
WORKS OF BLAKE. The _Poetical Sketches_, published in 1783, is a collection
of Blake's earliest poetry, much of it written in boyhood. It contains much
crude and incoherent work, but also a few lyrics of striking originality.