The Poems of Rosa Mulholland.[4]
Reading edition
The Poems of Rosa Mulholland.[4]
Miss Rosa Mulholland has at last been induced to gather her poems into a volume which will be dear to all lovers of poetry into whose hands it may fall. No person with the faintest glimmering of insight into the subtle mechanism of literary composition in its higher forms could study the prose writings of the author of "The Wicked Woods of Tobereevil," of "Eldergowan," and many other dainty fictions, without being sure that the writer of such prose was a poet also, not merely by nature but by art; and many had learned to follow her initials through the pages of certain magazines. The present work contains nearly all of these scattered lyrics; and, along with them, many that are now printed for the first time combine to form a volume of the truest and holiest poetry that has been heard on earth since Adelaide Procter went to heaven.
The only justification for the too modest title of "Vagrant Verses," which gleams from the cover of this pretty volume, lies in the fact that this most graceful muse wanders from subject to subject according to her fancy, and pursues no heroic or dramatic theme with that exhaustive treatment which exhausts every one except the poet. The poems in this collection are short, written not to order, but under the manifest impulse of inspiration, for the expression only of the deeper thoughts and more vivid feelings of the soul. Except the fine lyrical and dramatic ballad, "The Children of Lir," which occupies eight pages, and the first five pages given to "Emmet's Love," none of the rest of the seventy poems go much beyond a page or two, while they range through every mood, sad or mirthful, and through every form of metre.
We have named the opening poem, which is an exquisitely pathetic soliloquy of Sarah Curran, a year after the death of her betrothed, young Robert Emmet—a nobler tribute to the memory of our great orator's daughter than either Moore's verse or Washington Irving's prose. But the metrical interlacing of the stanzas, and the elevation and refinement of the poetic diction, require a thoughtful perusal to bring out the perfections of this poem, which, therefore, lends itself less readily to quotation. We shall rather begin by giving one shorter poem in full, taken almost at random. Let it be "Wilfulness and Patience," as it teaches a lesson which it would be well for many to take to heart and to learn by heart:—
I said I am going into the garden, Into the flush of the sweetness of life; I can stay in the wilderness no longer, Where sorrow and sickness and pain are so rife; So I shod my feet in their golden sandals, And I looped my gown with a ribbon of blue, And into the garden went I singing, The birds in the boughs fell a-singing too. Just at the wicket I met with Patience, Grave was her face, and pure and kind, But oh, I loved not her ashen mantle, Such sober looks were not to my mind. Said Patience, "Go not into the garden, But come with me by the difficult ways, Over the wastes and the wilderness mountains, To the higher levels of love and praise!" Gaily I laughed as I opened the wicket, And Patience, pitying, flitted away. The garden glory was full of the morning— The morning changed to the glamor of day. O sweet were the winds among my tresses, And sweet the flowers that bent at my knees; Ripe were the fruits that fell at my wishing, But sated soon was my soul with these. And would I were hand in hand with Patience; Tracking her feet on the difficult ways, Over the wastes and the wilderness mountains, To the higher level of love and praise!
The salutary lesson that the singer wants to impress on the young heart, is here taught plainly and directly even by the very name of the piece. But here is another very delicious melody, of which the name and the purport are somewhat more mysterious. It is called "Perdita."
I dipped my hand in the sea, Wantonly— The sun shone red o'er castle and cave; Dreaming, I rocked on the sleepy wave;— I drew a pearl from the sea. Wonderingly. There in my hand it lay: Who could say How from the depths of the ocean calm It rose, and slid itself into my palm? I smiled at finding there Pearl so fair. I kissed the beautiful thing, Marvelling. Poor till now I had grown to be The wealthiest maiden on land or sea, A priceless gem was mine, Pure, divine! I hid the pearl in my breast, Fearful lest The wind should steal, or the wave repent Largess made in mere merriment, And snatch it back again Into the main. But careless grown, ah me! Wantonly I held between two fingers fine My gem above the sparkling brine, Only to see it gleam Across the stream. I felt the treasure slide Under the tide; I saw its mild and delicate ray Glittering upward, fade away. Ah! then my tears did flow, Long ago! I weep, and weep, and weep, Into the deep; Sad am I that I could not hold A treasure richer than virgin gold. That Fate so sweetly gave Out of the wave. I dip my hand in the sea, Longingly; But never more will that jewel white Shed on my soul its tender light. My pearl lies buried deep Where mermaids sleep.
Some readers of this Magazine are, no doubt, for the first time making acquaintance with Miss Mulholland under this character in which others have known her long; and even these newest friends know enough of her already to pronounce upon some of her characteristics. She is not influenced by the spell of modern culture which has invested the poetic diction of recent years with an exquisite expressiveness and delicate beauty. But, while her style is the very antithesis of the tawdry or the commonplace, she has no mannerisms or affectations; she belongs to no school; she does not deem it the poet's duty to cultivate an artificial, recherche, dilettante dialect unknown to Shakespeare and Wordsworth—if we may use a string of epithets which can only be excused for their outlandishness on the plea that they describe something very outlandish. Her meaning is as lucid as her thoughts are high and pure. If, after reading one of her poems carefully, we sometimes have to ask "What does she mean by that?" we ask it not on account of any obscurity in her language, but on account of the depth and height of her thoughts.
The musical rhythm of our extracts prepares us for the form which many of Miss Mulholland's inspirations assume—that of the song pure and simple. Those last epithets have here more than the meaning which they usually bear in such a context; for these songs are not only eminently singable, but they are marked by a very attractive purity and simplicity. There are many of them besides this one which alone bears no other name than "Song."
The silent bird is hid in the boughs, The scythe is hid in the corn, The lazy oxen wink and drowse, The grateful sheep are shorn. Redder and redder burns the rose, The lily was ne'er so pale, Stiller and stiller the river flows Along the path to the vale. A little door is hid in the boughs, A face is hiding within; When birds are silent and oxen drowse, Why should a maiden spin? Slower and slower turns the wheel, The face turns red and pale, Brighter and brighter the looks that steal Along the path to the vale.
Here and everywhere how few are the adjectives, and never any slipped in as mere adjectives. Verbs and nouns do duty for them, and the pictures paint themselves. There is more of genius, art, thought, and study in this self-restraining simplicity than in the freer and bolder eloquence that might make young pulses tingle.
This remarkable faculty for musical verse seems to us to enhance the merit of a poem in which a certain ruggedness is introduced of set purpose. At least, we think that the subtle sympathy, which in the workmanship of a true poet links theme and metre together, is curiously exemplified in "News to Tell." What metre is it? A very slight change here and there would conform it to the sober, solemn measure familiar to the least poetical of us in Gray's marvellous "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." That elegiac tone already suits the rhythm here to the pathetic story. But then the wounded soldier, who, perhaps, will not recover after all, but may follow his dead comrade—see how he drags himself with difficulty away from the old gray castle where the young widow and the aged mother are overwhelmed by the news he had to tell; and is not all this with exquisite cunning represented by the halting gait of the metre, in which every line deviates just a little from the normal scheme of five iambics?
Neighbor, lend me your arm, for I am not well, This wound you see is scarcely a fortnight old, All for a sorry message I had to tell, I've travelled many a mile in wet and cold. Yon is the old gray château above the road, He bade me seek it, my comrade brave and gay; Stately forest and river so brown and broad, He showed me the scene as he a-dying lay. I have been there, and, neighbor I am not well; I bore his sword and some of his curling hair, Knocked at the gate and said I had news to tell, Entered a chamber and saw his mother there. Tall and straight with the snows of age on her head, Brave and stern as a soldier's mother might be, Deep in her eyes a living look of the dead, She grasped her staff and silently gazed at me. I thought I'd better be dead than meet her eye; She guessed it all, I'd never a word to tell. Taking the sword in her arms she heaved a sigh, Clasping the curl in her hand, she sobbed and fell. I raised her up; she sate in her stately chair, Her face like death, but not a tear in her eye. We heard a step, a tender voice on the stair Murmuring soft to an infant's cooing cry. My lady she sate erect, and sterner grew, Finger on mouth she motioned me not to stay; A girl came in, the wife of the dead I knew, She held his babe, and, neighbor, I fled away! I tried to run, but I heard the widow's cry. Neighbor, I have been hurt and I am not well: I pray to God that never until I die May I again have such sorry news to tell.
The next piece we shall cite has travelled across the Atlantic, and come back again under false pretences, and without its author's leave or knowledge. Some years ago an American newspaper published some pathetic stanzas, to which it gave as a title "Exquisite Effusion of a Dying Sister of Charity." One into whose hands this journal chanced to fall, read on with interest and pleasure, feeling the verses strangely familiar—till, on reflection, he found that the poem had been published some time before in The Month, over the well-known initials "R. M." As the American journalist named the Irish convent where the Sister of Charity had died—not one of Mrs. Aikenhead's spiritual daughters, but one of those whom we call French Sisters of Charity—the reader aforesaid went to the trouble of writing to the Mother Superior, who gave the following explanation: The holy Sister had been fond of reading and writing verse; and these verses with others were found in her desk after her death and handed over to her relatives as relics. They not comparing them very critically with the nun's genuine literary remains, rashly published them as "The Exquisite Effusion of a Dying Sister of Charity." The foregoing circumstances were soon afterwards published in the Boston Pilot; but the ghost of such a blunder is not so easily laid, and the poem reappears in The Messenger of St. Joseph for last August, under the title of "An Invalid's Plaint," and still attributed to the dying Nun, who had only had the good taste to admire and transcribe Miss Mulholland's poem. In all its wanderings to and fro across the Atlantic many corruptions crept into the text; and it would be an interesting exercise in style to collate the version given by The Messenger with the authorized edition which we here copy from page 136 of "Vagrant Verses," where the poem, of course, bears its original name of "Failure."
The Lord, Who fashioned my hands for working, Set me a task, and it is not done; I tried and tried since the early morning, And now to westward sinketh the sun! Noble the task that was kindly given To one so little and weak as I— Somehow my strength could never grasp it, Never, as days and years went by. Others around me, cheerfully toiling, Showed me their work as they passed away; Filled were their hands to overflowing, Proud were their hearts, and glad and gay. Laden with harvest spoils they entered In at the golden gate of their rest; Laid their sheaves at the feet of the Master, Found their places among the blest. Happy be they who strove to help me, Failing ever in spite of their aid! Fain would their love have borne me onward, But I was unready, and sore afraid. Now I know my task will never be finished, And when the Master calleth my name, The Voice will find me still at my labor, Weeping beside it in weary shame. With empty hands I shall rise to meet Him, And when He looks for the fruits of years, Nothing have I to lay before Him But broken efforts and bitter tears. Yet when He calls I fain would hasten— Mine eyes are dim and their light is gone; And I am as weary as though I carried A burthen of beautiful work well done. I will fold my empty hands on my bosom, Meekly thus in the shape of His Cross; And the Lord, Who made them frail and feeble, Maybe will pity their strife and loss.
It might have been expected that so skilful an artist in beautiful words would be sure occasionally to find the classic sonnet form the most fitting vehicle for some rounded and stately thought. About half a dozen sonnets are strewn over these pages, all cast in the true Petrarchan mould, and all very properly bearing names of their own, like any other form of verse, instead of being labelled promiscuously as "sonnets." The following is called "Love." What a sublime ideal, only to be realized in human love when in its self-denying sacredness it approaches the divine!
True love is that which never can be lost: Though cast away, alone and ownerless, Like a strayed child, that wandering, misses most When night comes down its mother's last caress; True love dies not when banished and forgot, But, solitary, barters still with Heaven The scanty share of joy cast in its lot For joys to the beloved freely given. Love, smiling, stands afar to watch and see Each blessing it has bought, like angel's kiss, Fall on the loved one's face, who ne'er may know At what strange cost thus, overflowingly, His cup is filled, or how its depth of bliss Doth give the measure of another's woe.
As this happens to be the solitary one among Miss Mulholland's sonnets, which in the arrangement of the quatrains varies slightly from the most orthodox tradition of this pharisee of song, I will give another specimen, prettily named "Among the Boughs."
High on a gnarled and mossy forest bough, Dreaming, I hang between the earth and sky, The golden moon through leafy mystery Gazing aslant at me with glowing brow. And since all living creatures slumber now, O nightingale, save only thou and I, Tell me the secret of thine ecstacy, That none may know save only I and thou. Alas, all vainly doth my heart entreat; Thy magic pipe unfolds but to the moon What wonders thee in faëry worlds befell: To her is sung thy midnight-music sweet, And ere she wearies of thy mellow tune, She hath thy secret, and will guard it well!
Unstinted as our extracts have been, there are poems here by the score over which our choice has wavered. Our selection has been made partly with a view to the illustration of the variety and versatility displayed by this new poet in matter and form; and on this principle we are tempted to quote "Girlhood at Midnight" as the only piece of blank verse in Miss Mulholland's repertory, to show how musical, how far from blank, she makes that most difficult and perilous measure. But we must put a restraint on ourselves, and just give one more sample, of the achievements of the author of "The Little Flower Seekers" and "The Wild Birds of Killeevy," in what an old writer calls "the melifluous meeters of poesie." This last is called "A Rebuke." Was there ever a sweeter or gentler rebuke?
Why are you so sad? (sing the little birds, the little birds,) All the sky is blue, We are in our branches, yonder are the herds, And the sun is on the dew; Everything is merry, (sing the happy little birds,) Everything but you! Fire is on the hearthstone, the ship is on the wave, Pretty eggs are in the nest, Yonder sits a mother smiling at a grave, With a baby at her breast; And Christ was on the earth, and the sinner He forgave Is with Him in His rest. We shall droop our wings, (pipes the throstle on the tree,) When everything is done: Time unfurleth yours, that you soar eternally In the regions of the sun. When our day is over, (sings the blackbird in the lea,) Yours is but begun. Then why are you so sad? (warble all the little birds,) While the sky is blue, Brooding over phantoms and vexing about words That never can be true; Everything is merry, (trill the happy, happy birds,) Everything but you!
The setting of these jewels is almost worthy of them. The book is brought out with that faultless taste which has helped to win for the firm of No. 1 Paternoster Sq., such fame as poets' publishers. A large proportion of contemporary poetry of the highest name, including till lately the Laureate's, has appeared under the auspices of Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., who seem to have expended special care on the production of "Vagrant Verses."
And now, as we have let these poems chiefly speak for themselves, enough has been said. We do not hesitate to add in conclusion, that those among us with pretensions to literary culture, who do not hasten to contribute to the exceptional success which awaits a work such as even our brief account proves this work to be, will so far have failed in their duty towards Irish genius. For this book more than any that we have yet received from its author's hand—nay, more than any that we can hope to receive from her, since this is the consummate flower of her best years—will serve to secure for the name of Rosa Mulholland an enduring place among the most richly gifted of the daughters of Erin.
Rev. Matthew Russell, S. J.
Dublin, 1886.
Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.