Alfred M. Williams

“ The aspects of nature, particularly the loneliness of vast plains such as exist in Hungary, and the enforced pensiveness of the shepherd life, exercise a powerful influence in giving a melancholy tinge to popular poetry, and in its melody and in its thought it breathes the note of the rain-laden breeze that sighs across the vast expanse, and the lights of whose magic sunshine are rather of sadness than exhilaration. ”

“ In its original and simplest form, before she had interpolated a verse to express some of her theological ideas, it is the perfect interpretation of a sweet, solemn, and simple thought, the tenderest and purest emotion, breathed in an equally simple, but absolutely perfect melody, that is like the flowing of limpid water, crystal clear and unbroken to the end. The heart of the world has responded, and it has a place like none other in the tongue of song. ”

“ But, in spite of their exploits, the gallows always waits for them, and the ballads end with the dismal spectacle of the body swinging in the wind on the deadly tree, while in the midst of their carousings the note of sadness and the foreboding of certain fate constantly intrudes. The Magyar brigand ballads have a much deeper element of poetry and passion than is to be found in the coarse humor and vulgar trickery of the English Robin Hood ballads, and express a finer and more delicate fibre of national feeling. ”

“ It can only be said that there was something in the national genius of the Lowland Scotch different from that of their more stolid neighbors at the south and their more mystical neighbors at the north, and which fitted them for the production of popular poetry in song and ballad at once elevated and impassioned, and which has resulted in a quantity and quality which no other province of the world has rivaled. ”

“ As has been said, the underlying and predominant element of these Roumanian folk-songs is melancholy, and rarely, if ever, in those of any nation, is the sorrow of death and parting more vividly and powerfully expressed. The voices speak from beyond the grave, but they seem to intensify rather than lighten the grief, and the calm and beauty of nature bring no consolation to the stricken heart, but only deepen the agony. ”

“ There are times when the vitality of poetry seems to be lost as one feels the simple and direct power of some of these ancient songs which spring from the heart and not from the head, and all modern verse seems like the pale and artificial product of intellectuality, weakened feeling, and language refined until it has lost its strength, and one is almost tempted to believe that civilization is as fatal to poetry as it is to religious enthusiasm. ”

“ The beginning of all folk-song is in the cooing melodies which the mothers chant by the inspiration of nature by the cradles of their drowsing infants, and in which the affections of their hearts take an articulate form as naturally as the songs of birds. The berceuses, or cradle songs, of the Breton peasantry have all the elements of deep feeling and childish simplicity of expression which characterize the voice of motherhood in every clime and every station in life, and unite the queen and the peasant in a common bond. ”

“ And the history of the minor Scottish poets is full of the homely pathos of unrequited toil, of pinching poverty, and of hopeless struggles with life, redeemed by honest virtue, patience, and thrift, or clouded with still deeper misfortune, and absolutely and irredeemably wrecked by dissipation and improvidence. But upon none, in whom the divine spark of genius existed, did the burdens of life fall more heavily than upon William Thom, or the tragedies of existence reach a blacker depth of misery. ”

“ A conspicuous feature of the excellence of Congal as an original poem is the vividness and faithfulness with which the natural scenery of Ireland is painted. The dark and barren hills, the tawny and foam-flecked streams, the misty seas, the vast and lonely raths and burial places of heroes, the emerald fields bathed with dew and glittering with sunshine, all the characteristics of Irish scenery, with their soul of meaning, which appeals to the heart as well as the outward form to the eye, are depicted with remarkable power, and make a living element in which the figures move. ”

“ The human heart has not lost its strength of feeling nor its power of expression, and modern poetry is greater in its power and wider in its scope than folk-song. But it has lost some of the peculiar strength which comes from simplicity of feeling and overmastering power of passion; and its language, if it has many delicate shades of meaning, which that of a primitive people has not, has lost the clearness and vividness of expression of those whose words are few, but which are the creation of their hearts and not of their intellects. ”

“ The genius of folk-song and ballad poetry had always been remarkably developed in Scotland, in comparison, at least, with England, and, in spite of many characteristics among the Lowlanders, worldly thrift, bitter and barren bigotry, and a sort of dourness and hardheadedness, not calculated to encourage sentiment and emotion; and the student of racial distinctions may be inclined to attribute it to the influence of Celtic blood and tradition, creating a vein of sensitiveness, tenderness, and susceptibility to the magic of song and music in the strong and hard fabric of the Saxon character. ”

“ The maiden surprised by her lover as she lies asleep beneath the shade is a favorite subject in all folk-poetry, but it is seldom that it has been treated with a greater grace and charm than in La Belle Endormie. The sentiment has all the simplicity and purity of spontaneous love, and the language the sweet naïveté of folk-song, however much of its charm may have vanished in the translation. ”

“ The reader of Scottish ballads knows how invariably the recipient of a letter first smiles and then has his eyes blinded by tears, and recalls the constant repetition of familiar images and descriptions. So in the Breton folk-songs the lover constantly declares that he has worn out three pairs of sabots in coming to see her without being able to find out her thought, and that he has watched in the wind and rain through the night with no consolation but the sound of her soft breathing through the key-hole of the door ”

“ It is needless to say that for a poet to possess the self-restraint to be entirely faithful to his originals, and aim mainly at reproducing their form as well as spirit, is more rare, and may be said to have less power, than one who creates an original structure of poetry upon the basis of ancient romance; but he has his function also, and may be something more than a mere translator, as he gives his material shape in modern form and with the embellishments of his own genius, while he yet preserves the ancient characteristics. ”

“ It is this supreme felicity, when it occurs, by which the lyric song of man, with only the elements of harsh and prosaic speech and common words to frame it, rivals the magic of the bird's note in joyous ecstasy or sorrow, and floods the heart, as it captivates the ear, with emotions sweeter and deeper, more ethereal and more mysterious, than life had seemed able to give. ”

“ The grief was as bitter and the patriotism as sincere among the inmates of the crowded tenement houses and the narrow and barren homes of the families of the workingmen of New York as among their sisters in the farmhouses in the country, whose surroundings better lent themselves to the illumination of poetry, and it cost as much to put down the tin pail of the city laborer as for the farmer to
Lay down the axe, fling by the spade,
and even more in pinching poverty and lack of resource. ”

“ Lady Nairne's poetical genius was entirely lyric. There was no Cotter's Saturday Night, much less any scene from Poosey Nancy's alehouse, or witch's gathering at Kirk Alloway, in her interpretation of Scotch life, and her voice was only the pure lilt of Scotch song, grave or gay. Without determined literary ambition and the responsibility of a known name, the stimulus of production was not absorbing and lasting, and a good deal of her work was simply occasional, careless, and imperfect. ”

“ There is one of Lady Nairne's songs not quite perfect, for one forced and faulty line in the refrain, which has a higher touch of the imagination than any of the others. The influence of the magic of nature in the interpretation of human sorrow or gladness, and the wild mystery of the birds' melody upon the heart, which is characteristic of the highest order of the folk-song, and which, in its irregularity and simplicity, not less than the melody, which is nature's own voice, rather than the rhythm of art, is beyond the reach of any deliberate skill. ”

“ Next to cradle songs, the creations of motherly affection, come the songs of youthful passion, when the instinct of love wakes in the hearts of the young man and the maid; and they sing, also, as naturally and simply as birds do in pairing time. There is often a touching inconsequence in these simple strains, a transcript of nature as it speaks to the heart, and finds almost inarticulate utterance in emotions of joy and sorrow, which is like the warbling of a bird, often ending its trill of gladness with a plaintive note. ”

“ As has been said, the chief value of folk-song is in its genuineness, in the accuracy with which it reflects not only the emotions, but the habits and customs of the people, so that their peculiar life becomes visible before our eyes. There is an indefinable charm, not only in the impression of reality, but in the very rudeness and imperfection of the speech, which gives an effect beyond literary art, when deep emotion or domestic pathos are seen through it. ”

“ But in spite of this discredit, which was more of a personal literary quarrel than a critical attack upon the quality of the poetry itself, its value was at once instinctively recognized as a new and original revelation, as an appeal to sensibilities in human nature which had been stifled by the narrow and dry reasoning of English and Continental poetry at the time, and as a breath from the wide air of nature itself. ”

“ A marked feature in these folk-songs of Roumania, as in those of all other nations, is the place which fighting has in them, the songs of the soldiers who are going to battle for their native land, and the emotions of heroism, courage, and self-devotion; but as in all these songs there is an underlying element of melancholy, mysticism, and refined and delicate feeling, quite different from the savage ferocity, heartiness, and humor of more northern nations, and there is no trace whatever of the farcical rudeness and cunning which is attached to some of the heroes of the Scandinavian ballads. ”

“ The most conspicuous example in our time of an attempt to reproduce the spirit of legendary romance in original poetry is, of course, The Idylls of the King, and the impress of a very thorough study and saturation of the spirit of the ancient chronicles is as visible as the exquisite substance of original poetry. But the stories of The Idylls of the King are based upon, rather than' closely reproduce, the legends of Arthurian romance, and the spirit has been elevated and refined by that of modern poetry and the nature of Tennyson's own genius to essential unreality. ”

“ The finest efflorescence of Scotch lyric poetry, which is the richest and finest in the English language, if not in the world, was that of the Jacobite era, and the influence which followed it and inspired the renaissance of Scotch song is the genius of Burns, Hogg, Cunningham, Lady Nairne, and many more of less distinction, who made a galaxy of singers hardly less remarkable in their way, as marking an era in literature, than the dramatists of the Elizabethan age. ”

“ The Breton women, who spend hours at the spinning-wheel, as in all other countries, accompany the monotonous and musical drone with long chants, that hypnotize the sense of labor, which are often merely improvisations with as little sense and meaning as the lullabies for infants. But here is one into which the old spinner puts the thoughts of her willingness to make sacrifice of her all in order that her son might be educated as a priest, and her hopes of reward from his filial piety. The soothing and monotonous melody is necessarily lost in the translation. ”

“ It seems to be the same in lyric poetry, and when the power does come, then we have the touch which makes it song, as the thrill of the lark, and the ecstasy of the mocking-bird in the tropic night, are songs. The magic may not be prolonged through an entire lyric. It seldom is. It may be only in a single line or in a single verse. It may not be even the highest strain of feeling or nobility of sentiment, and may even carry with it little definite meaning upon analysis. ”

“ There have been crofters, shepherds, farm laborers, tailors, weavers, and shoemakers, servant lassies and old wives, who have given expression to their feelings in verse and song, with more or less skill and success, and testified to the strength of the national genius which has made Scotland so peculiarly the land of song, and filled the lower bed of bracken and furze in which the higher and rarer flowers of Scottish minstrelsy have stood preeminent. ”

“ Its original merits are the force and vigor of the narrative, the vivid descriptions of scenery, the strength and impressiveness of the supernatural figures, the genuine inspiration of battle in the combats, and the easy mastery of the "long, resounding line" in the verse. There is no modern poem which so thoroughly reproduces the ancient form and spirit of a bygone age, and in which so complete and accurate an idea can be obtained of the element of a vanished poetry as in Congal, and, as has been said, it is like a restoration in shape and substance of a ruined castle. ”

“ The words of these windlass and bowline "shanties" have, of course, little of the element of finished poetry about them. They are not songs, but chants, whose purpose is to give accentuation and force to the exertion of united strength rather than to the expression of sentiment, and of which the rhythmical melody is the essential element. Whether they be new or old, they always have been essentially improvisations, capable of being stopped at any moment or added to indefinitely, and, like the refrains of the old ballads, are dependent upon the sound rather than the sense for their effect. ”

“ Like beildless birdies, when they ca'
Frae wet, wee wing the batted snaw,-
and the pervading genuineness of a deep feeling, even if imperfectly expressed. There was the gloaming of a "waesome light" about his spirit, which shone through his uncertain gifts of utterance, although its power would not have been enough to have preserved his poetry in remembrance, except for two lyrics which reach the very highest level of Scottish song in their completeness and finish of construction, as well as in their simplicity and power. ”

“ Now there it lies—ah, woe is me!—beneath the falling rain.
Of all the lads that joined the dance each took some sign
from me—
One took my girdle, and thou know'st full well which that
may be,
The one, my sister of the cross, I fashioned with thee.
My chain, sweet sister of the cross, another took; what needs
To tell thee which—the one which hath two strings of
golden beads.
Another took my flower from me—and which one dost thou
know?
It is, my sister of the cross, the floweret that doth blow
In autumn days among the grass, where thick the plum-trees
grow. ”