CHESTERTON AS POET

HE book” is worth the money, there is such a lot T o f it, but the editing is defective, the misprints are the work of the devil, because they alter or obscure the sense, and the index is almost a joke. The second edition of this book, if done with better cunning, should be more valuable than the first, seeing that there are omissions to be made good and better proof- reading to be expected. On p. 10, 1. 5 , ‘the news dragons ’ is not a shy at Northbrook or Beavermere, but a misprint for new dragons. On p. 21 ‘ Great Dos- toievsky’s dance ’ should be ‘ Dostoiesky dance,’ dance being a verb in the subjunctive, a mood abhorred of casual or half-educated persons in every land. And on p. I I 5 ‘ no hand hath ere let fall ’ is obviously the error of an amanuensis which ought to have been put right in printing. Mr. Chesterton cannot be ex- pected to correct his own pkoofs, they are so many, but someone is expected to be careful for him.

We miss a ballade or two, such as the threnody for Queen Anne, and that one beginning

containing the memorable lines : 0 you that dwell where city smoke and grime

Hearing below bridges o’er the giant slime Returning rivers to the ancient sea.

A poem on the Christian Social Union meeting at Nottingham would have been worth including foras- much as it adds to the gaiety of this nation. How- ever, it requires a note by the author, since in this case he does not write in his own name nor in any known onomastic, but solely as an impartial, too im- partial, onlooker. We do not deny that a complete

(Burns, Oates and Washbourne ; 10/6 net [of course].)

* T h e Collected Poems of G . K . Chesterton.

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Chwterton as Poet

edition of Chesterton’s verse is next door to the im- possible, since some of it is scattered in private col- lections, as, for instance, an ode to Heckmondwike and a ballade on the same subject; and some more is probably laid away in the crowded pigeon-holes of his own memory, as the libretti of operas on Chris- tian Science and kindred subjects. But the French, being dreadfully logical, do not proceed to the impos- sible until they have done the possible, and in this edition the possible has not been attacked with that determination which the subject appears to justify. It should also be noted that the chronological order runs backwards, so that only a devout and convinced Chestertonian may observe the growth of his thought and the mellowing of his temper; and lastly that the facetious and topical verses are scattered about the volume with a contempt not bred of familiarity. How- ever, as some of the topical and smiling verses sound a solemn note alternately with a rude remark, this last-mentioned lack of care will offend nothing but the wisdom of the overwise. Yet we cannot dismiss

I ’ this part of our subject without remarking on p. 42, 1. 13, ‘ This will never do.’

0 the Swank of the Bank and the cheque you give it-

I t is quite obvious that this is not the printer’s fault, but the editor’s, and it is very glaring. The line should run :

Oh the swank of the Bank and the cheque you gave it, blank !

0 is not used except in apostrophe. Oh is an excla- mation. Dictated work suffers from the occasional owlishness of even the best amanuensis, and the, editor’s business is to make good such lapses. Mr. Chesterton can be subtle, but where is he obscure? Only, in our experience, where the editor is in league with the ‘ devil.’

Blac&iats

It has been said that Schubert could set a washing- bill to music, and that it probably would be very good music. So with G.K.C. He takes unpromising subjects, and if they do not yield to his hands a lyric delight they at least throb with lyric impulse, from the song of the Good Rich Man to the incomparable political tameness of the British Public, The Secret People, p. 157. One must pardon a certain rough- ness of treatment and a colloquialism not of the salon but of the market-place, since the diction is deliber- ately chosen along with the subject, and because he gives abundant proof of more sublimate qualities when chanting higher things, as, e.g., in the famous trans- lation of Du Bellay’s < Heureux qui comme Ulysse’ and Dante’s Bernard0 m’accennava e sorridea from the thirty-third canto of the Paradiso. H e must have been smitten or (Yorkshire word) smittled with Kip- ling’s lilt and language in the days when taste was livelier than judgment, and he abides a good sample of what Kipling would have been if he had been more spiritual-minded. Compare his ‘ Song of Gifts to God ’ with Kipling’s still more lyrical ballad of the sea protesting against the angel’s word that sea shall be no more. The Kipling poem is a splendid thing, but merely leaves one tingling, whereas the ‘Song of Gifts ’ leaves one thinking, which is all to the good, besides the fact that its cubic content of pure poetry is larger and its specific gravity immense.

Under strong provocation he can hurl a very pon- derous projectile as in the blank verses entitled The Monster, or in the next order, p. 4, The Modern Manichee. This is powerful controversy, whereas The Monster is a weighty contribution to the most enormous of all subjects, God’s interference in the world of men. When he was very young and young love stirred him, he overweighted some of his lyrics with clash of cymbals and a kind of violence, but now

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that he is old he has better use for his strength, though much of it is spent in Political Economy or Economist Politics, and ‘ sign’s on ’ he gives us less of that in which he excels all poets that ever wrote, the poetic use of History. The Ballad of the White Horse shows what he can make with English History, and Lepanto with story of greater moment.

Only the latter poem is an epic lyric, and the for- mer a lyrical epic in seven books, which ought tcr be a school-classic, and will be as soon as patriotism again takes the form of making one’s own country a better place to live in. Very few poets now writing English have so strong an oistros as our author. It is heard in such whelming lines as:

H e knows his God forgotten, and he seeks no

But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-

Some critics condemn dramatic treatment as theatri- cal, but such theatricality as this would mean money to a dozen theatres at least. Cure the aversion with The Ballad of the White Horse, and read :

more a sign,

line !

Great wine like blood from Burgundy, Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,

And marble like solid moonlight, And gold like frozen fire.

Scents that a man might swill in a cup, Stones that a man might eat,

And the great smooth women like ivory That the Turks sell in the street.

Note how the intensity grows with every phrase, and so does the frenzy of sensuality, and consider that where a poet can forget himself like this, and not forget his technique, he is the supreme lyrist and a cause of poetry in others.

JOHN O’CONNOR. 61 7