Chapter VI: Preface: To Notes (2)

42. 'TOM'S GARLAND. Sonnet: common rhythm, but with hurried feet: two codas. Dromore, Sept. '87.' With full title, A.--Another autograph in B is identical. In line 9 there is a strong accent on _I_.--l. 10, the capital initial of _country_ is doubtful.--Rhythmical marks omitted. The author's own explanation of this poem may be read in a letter written to me from 'Dublin, Feb. 10, '88: ... I laughed outright and often, but very sardonically, to think you and the Canon could not construe my last son- net; that he had to write to you for a crib. It is plain I must go no further on this road: if you and he cannot understand me who will? Yet, declaimed, the strange constructions would be dramatic and effective. Must I interpret it? It means then that, as St. Paul and Plato and Hobbes and everybody says, the commonwealth or well-ordered human society is like one man; a body with many members and each its function; some higher, some lower, but all honourable, from the honour which belongs to the whole. The head is the sovereign, who has no superior but God and from heaven receives his or her authority: we must then imagine this head as bare (see St. Paul much on this) and covered, so to say, only with the sun and stars, of which the crown is a symbol, which is an ornament but not a covering; it has an enormous hat or skullcap, the vault of heaven. The foot is the day- labourer, and this is armed with hobnail boots, because it has to wear and be worn by the ground; which again is symbolical; for it is navvies or day-labourers who, on the great scale or in gangs and millions, mainly trench, tunnel, blast, and in other ways disfigure, "mammock" the earth and, on a small scale, singly, and superficially stamp it with their footprints. And the "garlands" of nails they wear are therefore the visible badge of the place they fill, the lowest in the commonwealth. But this place still shares the common honour, and if it wants one advantage, glory or public fame, makes up for it by another, ease of mind, absence of care; and these things are symbolised by the gold and the iron garlands. (O, once explained, how clear it all is!) Therefore the scene of the poem is laid at evening, when they are giving over work and one after another pile their picks, with which they earn their living, and swing off home, knocking sparks out of mother earth not now by labour and of choice but by the mere footing, being strong-shod and making no hardship of hard- ness, taking all easy. And so to supper and bed. Here comes a violent but effective hyperbaton or suspension, in which the action of the mind mimics that of the labourer-- surveys his lot, low but free from care; then by a sudden strong act throws it over the shoulder or tosses it away as a light matter. The witnessing of which lightheartedness makes me indignant with the fools of Radical Levellers. But presently I remember that this is all very well for those who are in, however low in, the Commonwealth and share in any way the common weal; but that the curse of our times is that many do not share it, that they are out- casts from it and have neither security nor splendour; that they share care with the high and obscurity with the low, but wealth or comfort with neither. And this state of things, I say, is the origin of Loafers, Tramps, Corner- boys, Roughs, Socialists and other pests of society. And I think that it is a very pregnant sonnet, and in point of execution very highly wrought, too much so, I am afraid. ... G.M.H.'

43. 'HARRY PLOUGHMAN. Dromore, Sept. 1887.' Autograph in A.--Autograph in B has several emendations written over without deletion of original. Text is B with these corrections, which are all good.--line 10, _features_ is the verb.--13, _'s_ is _his_. I have put a colon at _plough_, in place of author's full stop, for the convenience of reader.-- 15 = _his lilylocks windlaced_. 'Saxo cere- comminuit -brum.'--17, _Them. These_, A.--In the last three lines the grammar intends, 'How his churl's grace governs the movement of his booted (in bluff hide) feet, as they are matched in a race with the wet shining furrow overturned by the share'. G. M. H. thought well of this sonnet and wrote on Sept. 28, 1887: 'I have been touching up some old sonnets you have never seen and have within a few days done the whole of one, I hope, very good one and most of another; the one finished is a direct picture of a ploughman, without afterthought. But when you read it let me know if there is anything like it in Walt Whit- man; as perhaps there may be, and I should be sorry for that.' And again on Oct. 11, '87: 'I will enclose the sonnet on Harry Ploughman, in which burden-lines (they might be recited by a chorus) are freely used: there is in this very heavily loaded sprung rhythm a call for their employment. The rhythm of this sonnet, which is alto- gether for recital, and not for perusal (as by nature verse should be), is very highly studied. From much consider- ing it I can no longer gather any impression of it: perhaps it will strike you as intolerably violent and artificial.' And again on Nov. 6, '87: 'I want Harry Ploughman to be a vivid figure before the mind's eye; if he is not that the sonnet fails. The difficulties are of syntax no doubt. Dividing a compound word by a clause sandwiched into it was a desperate deed, I feel, and I do not feel that it was an unquestionable success.'

44, 45, 46, 47. These four sonnets (together with No. 56) are all written undated in a small hand on the two sides of a half-sheet of common sermon-paper, in the order in which they are here printed. They probably date back as early as 1885, and may be all, or some of them, those referred to in a letter of Sept. 1, 1885: 'I shall shortly have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded and harassed mind, if in any leisure I try to do anything I make no way--nor with my work, alas! but so it must be.' I have no certain nor single identification of date.

44. _To seem the stranger_. H, with corrections which my text embodies.--l. 14, _began_. I have no other explanation than to suppose an omitted relative pronoun, like _Hero savest_ in No. 17. The sentence would then stand for 'leaves me a lonely (one who only) began'. No title.

45. _I wake and feel_. H, with corrections which text embodies: no title.

46. PATIENCE. As 45. l. 2, _Patience is_. The initial capital is mine, and the comma after _ivy_ in line 6. No title.

47 _My own heart_. As 45.--1. 6, I have added the comma after _comfortless_; that word has the same grammatical value as _dark_ in the following line. 'I cast for comfort, (which) I can no more find in my comfortless (world) than a blind man in his dark world. . . .'--l. 10, MS. accents _let_.-- 13 and 14, the text here from a good correction separately written (as far as _mountains_) on the top margin of No. 56. There are therefore two writings of _betweenpie_, a strange word, in which _pie_ apparently makes a compound verb with _between_, meaning 'as the sky seen between dark mountains is brightly dappled', the grammar such as _intervariegates_ would make. This word might have delighted William Barnes, if the verb 'to pie' existed. It seems not to exist, and to be forbidden by homophonic absurdities.

48. 'HERACLITEAN FIRE. (Sprung rhythm, with many out- rides and hurried feet: sonnet with two [_sic_] codas.) July 26, 1888. Co. Dublin. The last sonnet [this] pro- visional only.' Autograph in A.--I have found no other copy nor trace of draft. The title is from A.--line 6, con- struction obscure, _rutpeel_ may be a compound word, MS. uncertain. 8, ? omitted relative pronoun. If so = 'the manmarks that treadmire toil foot-fretted in it'. MS. does not hyphen nor quite join up _foot_ with _fretted_.-- 12. MS. has no caesural mark.--On Aug. 18, '88, he wrote: 'I will now go to bed, the more so as I am going to preach tomorrow and put plainly to a Highland congrega- tion of MacDonalds, Mackintoshes, Mackillops, and the rest what I am putting not at all so plainly to the rest of the world, or rather to you and Canon Dixon, in a sonnet in sprung rhythm with two codas.' And again on Sept. 25, '88: 'Lately I sent you a sonnet on the Heraclitean Fire, in which a great deal of early Greek philosophical thought was distilled; but the liquor of the distillation did not taste very greek, did it? The effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise. So it must be on every original artist to some degree, on me to a marked degree. Perhaps then more reading would only _refine my singularity_, which is not what you want.' Note, that the sonnet has three codas, not two.

49. ALFONSUS. Text from autograph with title and 'upon the first falling of his feast after his canonisation' in B. An autograph in A, sent Oct. 3 from Dublin asking for im- mediate criticism, because the sonnet had to go to Majorca. 'I ask your opinion of a sonnet written to order on the occasion of the first feast since his canonisation proper of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a laybrother of our Order, who for 40 years acted as hall porter to the College of Palma in Majorca; he was, it is believed, much favoured by God with heavenly light and much persecuted by evil spirits. The sonnet (I say it snorting) aims at being intelligible.' And on Oct. 9, '88, 'I am obliged for your criticisms, "con- tents of which noted", indeed acted on. I have improved the sestet. . . . (He defends 'hew') ... at any rate whatever is markedly featured in stone or what is like stone is most naturally said to be hewn, and to _shape_, itself, means in old English to hew and the Hebrew _bara_ to create, even, properly means to hew. But life and living things are not naturally said to be hewn: they grow, and their growth is by trickling increment. . . . The (first) line now stands "Glory is a flame off exploit, so we say ".'

50. 'JUSTUS ES, &c. Jer. xii. 1 (for title), March 17,'89.' Autograph in A.--Similar autograph in B, which reads line 9, _Sir, life on thy great cause_. Text from A, which seems the later, being written in the peculiar faint ink of the corrections in B, and embodying them.--Early drafts in H.

51. 'To R. B. April 22, '89.' Autograph in A. This, the last poem sent to me, came on April 29.--No other copy, but the working drafts in H.--In line 6 the word _moulds_ was substituted by me for _combs_ of original, when the sonnet was published by Miles; and I leave it, having no doubt that G. M. H. would have made some such alteration.

52. 'SUMMA.' This poem had, I believe, the ambitious design which its title suggests. What was done of it was destroyed, with other things, when he joined the Jesuits. My copy is a contemporary autograph of 16 lines, written when he was still an undergraduate; I give the first four. A.

53. _What being_. Two scraps in H. I take the apparently later one, and have inserted the comma in line 3.

54. 'ON THE PORTRAIT, &c. Monastereven, Co. Kildare, Christmas, '86.' Autograph with full title, no corrections, in A. Early drafts in H.

55. _The sea took pity_. Undated pencil scrap in H.

56. ASHBOUGHS (my title). In H in two versions; first as a curtal sonnet (like 13 and 22) on same sheet with the four sonnets 44-47, and preceding them: second, an apparently later version in the same metre on a page by itself; with expanded variation from seventh line, making thirteen lines for eleven. I print the whole of this second MS., and have put brackets to show what I think would make the best version of the poem: for if the bracketed words were omitted the original curtal sonnet form would be preserved and carry the good corrections. The uncom- fortable _eye_ in the added portion was perhaps to be worked as a vocative referring to first line (?).

57. _Hope holds_. In H, a torn undated scrap which carries a vivid splotch of local colour.--line 4, a variant has _A growing burnish brighter than_.

58. ST. WINEFRED. G. M. H. began a tragedy on St. Winefred Oct. '79, for which he subsequently wrote the chorus, No. 36, above. He was at it again in 1881, and had mentioned the play in his letters, and when, some years later, I determined to write my _Feast of Bacchus_ in six- stressed verse, I sent him a sample of it, and asked him to let me see what he had made of the measure. The MS. which he sent me, April 1, 1885, was copied, and that copy is the text in this book, from A, the original not being discoverable. It may therefore contain copyist's errors. Twenty years later, when I was writing my _Demeter_ for the lady-students at Somerville College, I re- membered the first line of Caradoc's soliloquy, and made some use of it. On the other hand the broken line _I have read her eyes_ in my 1st part of _Nero_ is proved by date to be a coincidence, and not a reminiscence.--Caradoc was to 'die impenitent, struck by the finger of God'.

59. _What shall I do_. Sent me in a letter with his own melody and a note on the poem. 'This is not final of course. Perhaps the name of England is too exclusive.' Date Clongower, Aug. 1885. A.

60. _The times are nightfall_. Revised and corrected draft in H. The first two lines are corrected from the original opening in old syllabic verse:

The times are nightfall and the light grows less;
The times are winter and a world undone;

61. 'CHEERY BEGGAR.' Undated draft with much correction, in H. Text is the outcome.

62 and 63. These are my interpretation of the intention of some unfinished disordered verses on a sheet of paper in H. In 63, line 1, _furl_ is I think unmistakable: an apparently rejected earlier version had _Soft childhood's carmine dew-drift down_.

64. 'THE WOODLARK.' Draft on one sheet of small notepaper in H. Fragments in some disorder: the arrangement of them in the text satisfies me. The word _sheath_ is printed for _sheaf_ of MS., and _sheaf_ recurs in correc- tions. Dating of July 5, '76.

65. 'MOONRISE. June 19, 1876.' H. Note at foot shows intention to rewrite with one stress more in the second half of each line, and the first is thus rewritten 'in the white of the dusk, in the walk of the morning'.

66. CUCKOO. From a scrap in H without date or title.

67. It being impossible to satisfy myself I give this MS. in facsimile as an example, after p. 92.

68. _The child is father_. From a newspaper cutting with another very poor comic triolet sent me by G. M. H. They are signed _BRAN_. His comic attempts were not generally so successful as this is.

69. _The shepherd's brow_. In H. Various consecutive full drafts on the same sheet as 51, and date April 3, '89. The text is what seems to be the latest draft: it has no corrections. Thus its date is between 50 and 51. It might be argued that this sonnet has the same right to be recognised as a finished poem with the sonnets 44-47, but those had several years recognition whereas this must have been thrown off one day in a cynical mood, which he could not have wished permanently to intrude among his last serious poems.

70. 'TO HIS WATCH.' H. On a sheet by itself; apparently a fair copy with corrections embodied in this text, except that the original 8th line, which is not deleted, is preferred to the alternative suggestion, _Is sweetest comfort's carol or worst woe's smart_.

71. _Strike, churl_. H, on same page with a draft of part of No. 45.--l. 4, _Have at_ is a correction for _aim at_.--This scrap is some evidence for the earlier dating of the four sonnets.

72. 'EPITHALAMION.' Four sides of pencilled rough sketches, and five sides of quarto first draft, on 'Royal University of Ireland' candidates paper, as if G. M. H. had written it while supervising an examination. Fragments in disorder with erasures and corrections; undated. H.--The text, which omits only two disconnected lines, is my arrange- ment of the fragments, and embodies the latest corrections. It was to have been an Ode on the occasion of his brother's marriage, which fixes the date as 1888. It is mentioned in a letter of May 25, whence the title comes.--I have printed _dene_ for _dean_ (in two places). In l. 9 of poem cover = covert, which should be in text, as G. M. H. never spelt phonetically.--l. 11, _of_ may be _at_, MS. uncertain.-- page 90, line 16, _shoots_ is, I think, a noun.

73. _Thee, God, I come from_. Unfinished draft in H. Undated, probably '85, on same sheet with first draft of No. 38.-- l. 2, _day long_. MS. as two words with accent on _day_.-- l. 17, above the words _before me_ the words _left with me_ are written as alternative, but text is not deleted. All the rest of this hymn is without question. In l. 19, _Yea_ is right. After the verses printed in text there is some versified _credo_ intended to form part of the complete poem; thus:

Jesus Christ sacrificed
On the cross. . . .
Moulded, he, in maiden's womb,
Lived and died and from the tomb
Rose in power and is our
Judge that comes to deal our doom.

74. _To him who_. Text is an underlined version among working drafts in H.--line 6, _freed_ = got rid of, banished. This sense of the word is obsolete; it occurs twice in Shakespeare, cp. Cymb. III. vi. 79, 'He wrings at some distress . . . would I could free 't!'.

FINIS