In
glancing over this collected edition of his work one
must give the first word to praise to Mr. Scott for
his memoir. It would be difficult to accomplish so delicate
a task more adequately. We have the few facts of Lampman's
life simply related, but with a temper and sympathy
and style altogether unusual and delightful.
For
the casual reader Archibald Lampman's name will as yet
have an unfamiliar sound, perhaps; but I cannot help
thinking that this devoted interpreter of Nature must
in time be accorded an incontestable place among the
greater band of English poets. It is not necessary to
attempt to estimate Lampman's place among contemporary
writers. The truer benefit is to be derived from the
simple enjoyment of his work. In the field of his choice
he is a master. His sonnets, so full of wood and field
lore, so gentle and so wise in their outlook on life,
are an almost incomparable vade mecum for the
northern lover of Nature. They have all the strict literal
adherence to outward fact, which is so characteristic
of modern art. This lends them a charm which must attract
even the unpoetic. At the same time they have the magic
pull, the mysterious reach, the incommunicable wizardry
of diction that only the veritable poets have at their
command. Like Wordsworth, too, he needs no resounding
theme, but is at home in the commonest happenings and
finds a princely opportunity for art even in the simplest
subjects. His sonnet on the song sparrow is an instance:
Fair
little scout, that when the iron year
Changes, and the first fleecy clouds deploy,
Comest with such a sudden burst of joy,
Lifting on winter's doomed and broken rear
That song of silvery triumph blithe and clear;
Not yet quite conscious of the happy glow,
We hungered for some surer touch, and lo!
One morning we awake and thou art here,
And thousands of frail-stemmed hepaticas,
With their crisp leaves and pure as perfect hues,
Light sleepers, ready for the guide's news,
Spring at thy note beside the forest ways-
Next to thy song, the first to deck the hour-
The classic lyrist and the classic flower.
Or,
again, in the sonnet on Evening, we have the same faithfulness
to the outward object and the same inward illumination
of sight, the same felicity of phrase:
From
upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail.
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky
Beats up into the lucent solitudes,
Or drops with guiding wing. The stilly woods
Grow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously.
Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine ear;
The lonely cricket gossips at my feet,
From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear
Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweet
In full Pandean chorus. One by one
Shine out the stars, and the great night comes on.
All
of Mr. Lampman's poetry is filled with just such satisfying
pictures as these, which sing to the eye as well as
to the ear. Often a couple of lines or even a single
pentameter suffice to convey the idyll, as in the lines,
Beyond
it stands a plum-tree in full blow.
Creamy with bloom, and humming like a hive,
Or,
The
hopeful solemn, many-murmured night, night.
In
another aspect of his genius this Canadian poet appears
as a calm, prophetic gospeller of peace and wisdom and
unworldly progress:
THE
CLEARER SELF
Before
me grew the human soul,
And after I am dead and gone,
Through grades of effort and control
The marvellous work shall still
go on,
Each mortal in his little span
Hath only lived if he have shown
What greatness there can be in man
Above the measured and the known;
How through the ancient layers of night,
In gradual victory secure,
Grows ever with increasing light
The energy serene and pure:
The soul that from a monstrous past,
From age to age, from hour to
hour,
Feels upward to some height at last
Of unimagined grace and power.
Though yet the sacred fire be dull,
In folds of thwarting matter
furled,
Ere death be night, while life is full,
O master spirit of the world,
Grant me to know, to seek, to find,
In some small measure though
it be,
Emerging from the waste and blind,
The clearer self, the grander
me!
In
Lampman, Canada had a poet worthy of her lovely features,
her serene and sterling aspirations, her simple traditions
of plain living and high thinking. His was not a muse
of battles, nor of heroics, and the splendid history
of his native land found him no celebrant. He was not
a balladist; he did not write of deeds and persons,
but in that quiet region where religions are born and
the ideas of men are moulded he was at home. The glad
mysterious wisdom of the solitary north was his, and
the insight which often passes understanding. His life
was not distracted by the noise and smother and futility
of our great centres of activity, he was secure in the
tenor of his communing with great nature. And the singleness
of his work is his recompense.
It
is a favorite deduction of the omniscient reviewer to
say that Canada can never have a literature until she
is independent, and that her artists must be imitators
for the most part. Those who know Canada, will have
other and higher confidence in her future, whether they
feel called upon to enunciate their faith or not. Meanwhile
here is one poet at least, the product of her soil,
who must be given a distinguished place among the great
before he finds his peers.
