Studies of Contemporary Poets Part 22

MRS. GWYLLIM. Powers That set my spirit to swing on such a thread Over mere blackness, teach me now to guide it!

NELTO. Mother, the moon dips.

MRS. GWYLLIM. Go, my daughter, go!

And let these hands, these miserable hands, Too weak to avenge my children, let them be Yet strong enough to pull upon my head G.o.d's everlasting judgment! All that weight Fall on me only!

We see what follows in the closing scenes as a fulfilment of that prayer. Nelto takes the boat to meet Gwyllim, intending to row him over to the false light that she herself has placed. When he has stepped ash.o.r.e she is to push off instantly, and leave him either to stride forward into the quicksand, or to be drowned by the tide. Owain and his mother peer from their window through the darkness, trying to follow Nelto's movements by the light on her boat. They have locked Shonnin in his room that he may not know what they are doing and interfere. But he manages to awaken a sleeping child in the next room, and is released in time to discover what is afoot. He seizes another lantern and rushes down to the bay to signal a warning to his father. Meantime Mrs Gwyllim and Owain search the opposite sh.o.r.e with a telescope; they see the light on the boat approach it, stop for just so long as a man would need to clamber out, and then move away. For a few seconds they distinguish the swaying light that Gwyllim carries, and then it disappears. To their strained imagination it seems that they hear his terrible cry as he reaches the quicksand; and at the same time they are horrified to see that Nelto's boat is returning to him. She also has heard the cry, and has gone back to try to save her father. The light moves forward, slowly at first and then more quickly, as Nelto seems to spring ash.o.r.e. A moment afterwards it too goes out.

No other sign comes to the watchers, for when they turn their gla.s.ses to the nearer sh.o.r.e Shonnin also has disappeared. They keep their dreadful vigil till dawn; and then the mother, pitifully hoping against hope, goes out to seek her children.--She returns with Nelto's shawl.

MRS. GWYLLIM. Where are my children, if they are not there?

They cannot both be--Owain, where are they?

OWAIN _[Makes a gesture towards the sea]_. Mother, May G.o.d have mercy on us!

MRS. GWYLLIM. No, not both, Not both! She's somewhere in the house. Come, Ellen!

She is afraid to come. Come, Nelto, Nelto!

Shonnin, my heart's adored, Shonnin, my love, Do not be angry with me, answer, Shonnin, Shonnin! Not dead--not dead!

OWAIN. O hush--hush--hus.h.!.+

In a summary of this kind it is impossible to indicate all the dramatic values of the work. One cannot show, for instance, how the characters come to life, and by touches bold or subtle, develop an individuality out of which the conflict of the drama springs. Even the conflict itself can hardly be suggested, for an outline of the story gives only the physical action; whilst there is a spiritual struggle in the minds of at least two of the characters which is infinitely more tragical. And neither can one hope to convey any sense of the force with which the play takes possession of the mind. That is of course, its chief artistic excellence; and on a moment's consideration it is seen to be a remarkable achievement. For although the poet is working towards a catastrophe very remote from ordinary experience, and in a poetic medium deeply stamped with the marks of an earlier age, she has succeeded in evoking a powerful illusion of reality. Here and there, indeed, are signs that the handicap she has imposed upon herself is almost too great. There is, perhaps, a shade of excess in the portraiture of Gwyllim; or, to put it in another way, the author has not taken an opportunity to balance what is extraordinary in this character with the relief which would have suggested a complete personality. And now and then there is a hint of incongruity in the use of a rich Elizabethan diction, even for Owain, who is supposed to be steeped in the literature of that age.

Those are not radical defects, however, for they do not interrupt the enjoyment of the drama: they only emerge as an afterthought. If the incompleteness of Gwyllim disturbed our conviction of his villainy, the whole plot would be weakened. Whereas we are profoundly convinced that the wrongs of his family are intolerable, and the revolt a natural consequence. Similarly, if the exuberant Elizabethan language were really unfitted to the spirit of the work, I imagine that it would be barely possible to read the drama through, so irritating would be its inept.i.tude. But, as a fact, the language wins upon us somehow as the right expression for these people. We are probably satisfied, subconsciously, that human creatures who have been thrust back to an almost elemental stage of pa.s.sion and thought, might talk in some such way. In any case the emotional force of that old style, with its vivid imagery and metaphor and its copious flow, does somehow suit the intensity and gloomy grandeur of this play.

I am not sure that it suits _The Princess of Hanover_ quite so well--which is curious, considering that we have, in the royal theme of this drama, a subject which might be supposed to require an ornate style. But in treating the tragic love-story of Sophia of Zell the poet was bound to reproduce something of the atmosphere of the Hanoverian Court, with its intrigues and indecencies and absurd conventionality.

And at such points poetry lends too large a dignity. In those scenes, however, where as in "Wild Justice," the author comes to deal with naked pa.s.sion and with turbulent thought that is driving some person of the drama to disaster, the instrument is admirably fitted to its purpose.

Thus, in the second half of the play, when the unfortunate Princess at last yields to her lover, Konigsmarck, and plots with him to escape from her sottish husband, there are moments when it seems that no other medium would serve. There is, for example, the crucial scene in the second act when the endurance of the Princess finally gives way. The action turns here directly towards its tragic culmination; for the Princess, who had hitherto saved her honour at the cost of her love, suddenly breaks down at an insult from the old Electress. The revulsion of feeling as she flings restraint away carries her to an ecstatic sense of liberty. As the Electress goes out and she is left alone with her lady-in-waiting, she laughs bitterly and declares that she is now free for ever from the House of Hanover.

LEONORA. Weeping, dear lady, Will balm our misery better than laughter.

PRINCESS. Misery? I am mad with all the joy Of all my years, my youth-consuming years'

h.o.a.rded, unspent delight.

Say, Leonora, Where are my wings? Do they not shoot up radiant, A splendour of snowy vans, swimming the air Just ere the rush of rapture?

One might quote a dozen such pa.s.sages, in which a rush of emotion seems to overflow most naturally into poetical extravagance. There is the rhapsody of the Electress--significantly, upon the theme of Queen Elizabeth. There are the love-scenes, pa.s.sionate or tender, between Konigsmarck and the Princess; and the fierce moods--of sheer avidity or hatred or remorse--of the courtesan who contrives their downfall. But the only other ill.u.s.tration which need be given is taken from the last scene of the play; and has a further importance which must be noted. I mean the tragic irony which underlies it, and, running throughout the scene, closes the play on a note of appalling mockery.

The scene is in the Electoral Palace at night, or rather very early morning, when the grey light is slowly coming. The Princess and Leonora have come into the outer hall of their apartments to burn certain papers in the fireplace there. Their plans are all made for flight with Konigsmarck on the following day; and as they kindle the fire they talk, the Princess eagerly and Leonora with more caution, about their chances of escape. But on the very spot where they stand, Konigsmarck had been secretly a.s.sa.s.sinated less than an hour before. And at this moment, while they are talking, his body is being hastily bricked into a disused staircase leading out of the hall. Faint sounds of the work reach the ears of the ladies as they begin their task; but though Leonora is disquieted, the Princess will not listen to her fears. She is on the crest of a mood of exaltation--

PRINCESS. The night is almost over, Soon will the topmost towers discern the day.

The day! The day! O last of all the days I have spent in extreme penury of joy, In garish misery, unhelped wrong, And in unpardonable dishonour....

Up lingering dawn!

Why dost thou creep so pale, like one afraid?

I want the sun! I want to-morrow!

LEONORA. Madam, There was a hand on the door. What can these builders Be doing here at this hour?

PRINCESS. Why, they're building.

What does it matter? Let them build all night, I warrant they'll not build a wall so high Love cannot overleap it.

_Bibliography_

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

_Interludes and Poems._ John Lane. 1908.

_The Sale of St Thomas._ Published by the Author. (Out of Print.) 1911.

_Emblems of Love._ John Lane. 1912.

_Deborah._ John Lane. 1913.

Contributions to _New Numbers_, February, April, August, December, 1914. (Out of Print.)

EVA GORE BOOTH

_The Three Resurrections and The Triumph of Maeve._ Longmans. 1905.

_The Agate Lamp._ Longmans. 1912.

_The Sorrowful Princess._ Longmans. 1907.

RUPERT BROOKE

_Poems._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1911.

_1914 and Other Poems._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1915.

Contributions to _New Numbers_. (See ABERCROMBIE.)

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

_The Mountainy Singer._ Maunsel. 1909.

_Irishry._ Maunsel. 1913.

PADRAIC COLUM