Miscellany 12

MISCELLANY 12

by Autolycus

SOME TRICKY  MOMENTS IN VICTORIAN POETRY

...snapped up with some hesitation...

 

On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1871)

Alfred Austin

Flash'd o'er the wires the electric message came,
"He is no better; he is much the same." 

Alfred Austin, appointed Britain’s Poet Laureate after Tennyson's death in 1896, was probably the worst holder of the post. There is some doubt whether or not he did actually write this short but nonetheless striking ode, and therefore whether or not it assisted him in his elevation to this pinnacle.

Moving swiftly on to the next poem, ‘Jameson’s Ride’ was his first published work as Poet Laureate.  For some reason it was unsolicited by the Government, and was nevertheless published in The Times on 11 January 1896. The poem refers to an incident, inastute both politically and militarily, from the period leading up to the second Boer War, a botched raid against the  South African Republic (the Transvaal) carried out by the British colonialist Leander Starr Jameson  and his ‘baffled band’ at the behest of Cecil Rhodes, intended to trigger an uprising by British expatriates workers and lead to the Transvaal joining the British Empire.  It was assumed by the politicians that the joyful inhabitants of Johannesburg would burst out of their town to join Jameson’s men, but, as the poem records, they failed to do so and so the enterprise failed.  The poem is included alongside Austin’s better-known (and briefer) work because of its desperate Victorian rhymes (some indeed almost worthy of Early Hollywood), such as (maybe/baby, forward/nor’ward, pelt/veldt, madmen/bad men, blame us/famous. hiss/this, and because the bathos of the very opening line bodes ill for both the raid and the poem (hint: when writing a heroic poem do not admit at the beginning that it was a fool’s errand), while the matching bathos of the ending almost beats the bathos of the medical report on the Prince of Wales.

Jameson's Ride (1896) 

Alfred Austin

 

Wrong! Is it wrong? well, may be;
But I'm going, boys, all the same.
Do they think me a Burgher's baby,
To be scared by a scolding name?
They may argue, and prate, and order;
Go, tell them to save their breath:
Then, over the Transvaal border,
And gallop for life or death!

Let lawyers and statesmen addle
Their pates over points of law:
If sound be our sword, and saddle,
And gun-gear, who cares one straw?
When men of our own blood pray us
To ride to their kinsfolk's aid,
Not Heaven itself shall stay us
From the rescue they call a raid.

There are girls in the gold-reef city,
There are mothers and children too!
And they cry, "Hurry up! For pity!"
So what can a brave man do?
If even we win they'll blame us:
If we fail, they will howl and hiss.
But there's many a man lives famous
For daring a wrong like this!

So we forded and galloped forward
As hard as our beasts could pelt,
First eastward, then trending nor'ward.
Eight over the rolling veldt;
Till we came to the Burghers lying
In a hollow with hill behind,
And their bullets came hissing, flying,
Like hail on an Arctic wind.

Right sweet is the marksman's rattle,
And sweeter the cannon's roar;
But 'tis bitterly bad to battle,
Beleaguered, and one to four.
I can tell you it wasn't a trifle
To swarm over Krugersdorp Glen,
As they plied us with round and rifle,
And ploughed us again — and again.

Then we made for the gold-reef city,
Retreating, but not in rout.
They had called to us, "Quick! For pity!"
And he said, "They will sally out —
They will hear us come. Who doubts it?"
But how if they don't — what then?
"Well, worry no more about it,
But fight to the death like men."

Not a soul had supped or slumbered
Since the Borderland stream was cleft;
But we fought, even more outnumbered,
Till we had not a cartridge left.
We're not very soft or tender,
Or given to weep for woe,
But it breaks one to have to render
One's sword to the strongest foe.

I suppose we were wrong, were madmen,
Still I think at the Judgment Day,
When God sifts the good from the bad men,
There'll be something more to say.
We were wrong, but we aren't half sorry;
And as one of the baffled band,
I would rather have had that foray
Than the crushing of all the Rand.

Alfred Austin’s predecessor, Tennyson, had his clanging moments, too.  Here we have the melodramatic closing section of his ‘Morte d’Arthur’; the interest lies in ‘the knightly growth that fringed his lips’, a favourite of my old English teacher, who asked us to work out to what Tennyson is referring.  We clean-shaven (in those days) fifth-formers took some time to work it out.  At least his blank verse didn’t need to rhyme.

The Death of Arthur (from Morte d’Arthur)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge,"

And to the barge they came. There those three Queens

Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.

But she that rose the tallest of them all

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,

And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,

And call'd him by his name, complaining loud

And dropping bitter tears against his brow

Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white

And colourless, and like the wither'd moon

Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;

And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls—

That made his forehead like a rising sun

High from the daïs-throne—were parch'd with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shatter'd column lay the King;

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament,

Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

In the next poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Catarina is dying, as she makes quite clear right at the beginning, though the reference is ambiguous because of the floating pronoun: she probably means to say that ‘death is near me, and you are not’, rather than that she herself is near to death while her lover is well and healthy and death is not near to him. She is imagining what her lover Camoens, who is absent abroad, might be thinking.  This too has some dramatic rhymes (e.g., see me/dreamy, prophet/of it) together with the notable invention of a warbling fountain, but is chiefly memorable for the doubly-adverbed ‘oftly’, to rhyme with ‘softly’: ‘Will you oftly/Murmur softly?’

We have cut several stanzas.

From ‘Catarina to Camoens’ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Dying in his absence abroad, and referring to the poem in which he recorded the sweetness of her eyes.

ON the door you will not enter   I have gazed too long: adieu! Hope withdraws her “peradventure”;   Death is near me,—and not you!       Come, O lover,       Close and cover These poor eyes you called, I ween, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” When I heard you sing that burden   In my vernal days and bowers, Other praises disregarding,   I but hearkened that of yours,       Only saying       In heart-playing, “Blessèd eyes mine eyes have been, If the sweetest HIS have seen!” But all changes. At this vesper   Cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper,   “Love, I love you,” as before,—       Death pervading       Now and shading Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, As the sweetest ever seen? Yes, I think, were you beside them,   Near the bed I die upon, Though their beauty you denied them,   As you stood there looking down,       You would truly       Call them duly, For the love’s sake found therein, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” And if you looked down upon them,   And if they looked up to you, All the light which has foregone them   Would be gathered back anew;       They would truly       Be as duly Love-transformed to beauty’s sheen, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” But, ah me! you only see me,   In your thoughts of loving man, Smiling soft, perhaps, and dreamy,   Through the wavings of my fan;       And unweeting       Go repeating In your revery serene, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” O my poet, O my prophet!   When you praised their sweetness so, Did you think, in singing of it,   That it might be near to go?       Had you fancies       From their glances, That the grave would quickly screen “Sweetest eyes were ever seen”? No reply. The fountain’s warble   In the courtyard sounds alone. As the water to the marble   So my heart falls with a moan       From love-sighing       To this dying. Death forerunneth Love to win “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” Will you come? When I’m departed   Where all sweetnesses are hid, Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,   Will not lift up either lid,       Cry, O lover,       Love is over! Cry, beneath the cypress green, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” When the Angelus is ringing,   Near the convent will you walk, And recall the choral singing   Which brought angels down our talk?       Spirit-shriven       I viewed heaven, Till you smiled—“Is earth unclean, Sweetest eyes were ever seen?” When beneath the palace-lattice   You ride slow as you have done, And you see a face there that is   Not the old familiar one,       Will you oftly       Murmur softly, “Here ye watched me morn and e’en, Sweetest eyes were ever seen”? Finally, our collection of Tricky Moments in Victorian Verse moves to William Topaz McGonagall, as such collections always must.  For him rhyme was far more important than metre (though the rhyming of ‘Edinburgh’ with ‘sorrow’ - twice - identifies an unexpected local accent). ‘Saving a Train’ is not as well known as it deserves to be in his oeuvre, but the latter is a classic.   Saving a Train William Topaz McGonagall  'Twas in the year of 1869, and on the 19th of November, Which the people in Southern Germany will long remember, The great rain-storm which for twenty hours did pour down, That the rivers were overflowed and petty streams all around.   The rain fell in such torrents as had never been seen before, That it seemed like a second deluge, the mighty torrents' roar, At nine o'clock at night the storm did rage and moan When Carl Springel set out on his crutches all alone -- From the handsome little hut in which he dwelt, With some food to his father, for whom he greatly felt, Who was watching at the railway bridge, Which was built upon a perpendicular rocky ridge.   The bridge was composed of iron and wooden blocks, And crossed o'er the Devil's Gulch, an immense cleft of rocks, Two hundred feet wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep, And enough to make one's flesh to creep.   Far beneath the bridge a mountain-stream did boil and rumble, And on that night did madly toss and tumble; Oh! it must have been an awful sight To see the great cataract falling from such a height.   It was the duty of Carl's father to watch the bridge on stormy nights, And warn the on-coming trains of danger with the red lights; So, on this stormy night, the boy Carl hobbled along Slowly and fearlessly upon his crutches, because he wasn't strong.   He struggled on manfully with all his might Through the fearful darkness of the night, And half-blinded by the heavy rain, But still resolved the bridge to gain.   But when within one hundred yards of the bridge, it gave way with an awful crash, And fell into the roaring flood below, and made a fearful splash, Which rose high above the din of the storm, The like brave Carl never heard since he was born.   Then; 'Father! father!' cried Carl in his loudest tone, 'Father! father!' he shouted again in very pitiful moans; But no answering voice did reply, Which caused him to heave a deep-fetched sigh.   And now to brave Carl the truth was clear That he had lost his father dear, And he cried, 'My poor father's lost, and cannot be found, He's gone down with the bridge, and has been drowned. ' But he resolves to save the on-coming train, So every nerve and muscle he does strain, And he trudges along dauntlessly on his crutches, And tenaciously to them he clutches.   And just in time he reaches his father's car To save the on-coming train from afar, So he seizes the red light, and swings it round, And cried with all his might, 'The bridge is down! The bridge is down!' So forward his father's car he drives, Determined to save the passengers' lives, Struggling hard with might and main, Hoping his struggle won't prove in vain.   So on comes the iron-horse snorting and rumbling, And the mountain-torrent at the bridge kept roaring and tumbling; While brave Carl keeps shouting, 'The bridge is down! The bridge is down!' He cried with a pitiful wail and sound.   But, thank heaven, the engine-driver sees the red light That Carl keeps swinging round his head with all his might; But bang! bang! goes the engine with a terrible crash, And the car is dashed all to smash.   But the breaking of the car stops the train, And poor Carl's struggle is not in vain; But, poor soul, he was found stark dead, Crushed and mangled from foot to head! And the passengers were all loud in Carl's praise, And from the cold wet ground they did him raise, And tears for brave Carl fell silently around, Because he had saved two hundred passengers from being drowned.   In a quiet village cemetery he now sleeps among the silent dead, In the south of Germany, with a tombstone at his head, Erected by the passengers he saved in the train, And which to his memory will long remain.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

William Topaz McGonagall

 

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.” 

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers’ hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov’d most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill’d all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale
How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

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