Irish Jesuit Province

James H. Cousins: An Irish PoetAuthor(s): Michael WalshSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 60, No. 711 (Sep., 1932), pp. 532-536Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513336 .

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632

JAMES H. COUSINS-AN IRISH POET BY MICHAEL WALSH.

OST of our Irish writers and poets are wan derers on the face of the earth. In modern times a few of Irelanad's writers living in exile

do their motherland little credit. Genius and ability they undoubtedly possess-but these are allied to dis torted anld erratic notions of art and life. It is to be questioned if they are sincere notions, but it is not my purpose here to discuss them.

Let it be said at the outset that James Cousins is not of the sardonic school-he is a poet with the poet's lofty ideals. Our difficulty with him, however, is the diffi culty we experience with "' AE's" poetry-a copcern with the spirit and the spirit world that gives remote ness to his theme-especially for the Catholic student of poetry. My point is best explained by a short extract from Dr. Cousins' Foreword. " The personalities and events of the Irish Mythos which was the deepest in spiration of the movement (the Irish Literary Revival) had become to me the imaginative incarnations of powers and processes in the universe and in myself." No, a better explanation lies in the fact that one of Dr.

Cousins' books or poems was published by a Theoso phical Publishing House. Therefore it is with poems that fall outside the individual theory, but remain true to the tradition of the English lyric that I am concerned here.

James H. Cousins was born in Belfast in 1873. At the age of twenty-four he came to Dublin, where he soon became associated with the movement known as the Irish Literary Revival. In 1913 Mr. Cousins went to E;ngland and two years later he proceeded to India as & journalist anad educator. In 1919-1920 we find him farther east-in Japan-as university professor of poetry. The University and the Ministry of Education of Japan made him their first foreign Doctor of Literature. Nor did his wanderings cease with the

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JAMES H. COUSINS-AN IRISH POET 533

Orient. In 1929 he crossed the Pacific to America and after two lecture tours he became guest lecturer on poetry for the year 1931-32 in the College of the City of New York and course lecturer on the same subject in the Extension Department of the New York University. It is from America his Selected Poems has come to me the selection is made from forty years' work. So much for time. For space he has had the wide earth for his

inspiration-from the breezes of Connemara to the sun sets of Japan. From this selection I have made my

ownl little selection, and strange to say, the poems I like best are those which are not wholly characteristic of Cousins' thought. Yet they are the poems I should recommend to the average lover of true poetry if he

would be thrilled and delighte.d. The sadness that is sometimes akin to great poetry is often his:

"I am the voice of one who cries

Lo! I have lived my little day Have looked within a woman's eyes And seen them covered up with clay. And I have seen my fairy gold

Turn all to dull misshapen lead; And hungry I have been and cold,

Agd wished me harboured with thle dead."

What has he not seen and heard? Standing amid the

mystery of evening he sees "1 the silver scythe of night

rea,p the aftermath of day." And again he sees " -far

away a mountain peak put on the vestmaieiits of the

dawn. "

In the early part of this book we have "1 The Sleep of

the King " founded on the Irish legend of " Connala, of the Golden Hair." It was the first play performed by The Irish :National Theatre Society in October, 1902. One notes amongst the dramatis personwe the names of Dudley Digges and the late Frank Fay. Then follow lengthy poems founded on ancient Irish myths-poems on Princess Etain and King Eochaidh-and though the hand of the master-poet can always be traced, I always

prefer to pass on to the clear and brief lyric. Edgar

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534 THE IRISH MONTHLY

Allan Poe in his lecture on the poetic principle is a strong advocate of brevity in poetry-though, indeed, his "1 Raven "1 is long enough-but how well sustained! In these days of rush and hurry I like the brief lyric that is able to give me, within its small compass, a world of delight:

4

"Bright hopes that April set a-wing Now fold in August's rich content,

And leave the zest and toil of spring For quiet of accomplishment.

Life's wave seems spent . . . A leaf drops dead: Yet here where hints of autumn pass

The Mother's living hand has spread The fresh new green of after-grass!

Come forth beloved and share with me The Mother's miracle of cheer.

Our perished budding-time let be, Lo! life can blossom all the year.

A smile can start eternal spring Although our summer fade and pass;

And love to loving hearts can bring The greenness of the after-grass."

What thoughts even a little boy blowing soap bubbles out of an old pipe can bring him. A few pages farther

on we come to lines " In memory of Francis Sheehy

Skeffington " :

" Nor dreamed that when in April showers New life's green banners were unfurled,

You in the clash of iron powers Should fall, and, falling, shake the world."

On the banks of the Suez Canal when James Cousins was on his way to the East he saw a passer-by " with

lonely deserts in his stride and the setting sun playing searchlights through his arms."

" Sir !-if our speech hath meaning for thine ears And we and thou be each what each appears

Turn unto us thy dusky face and tell

What dream of what Rebecca by what well Glimmers below thy turban."

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JAMES H. COUSINS-AN IRISH POET 535

It is meet that the Taj Mahal, one of the world's gems of architecture, should stir his poet-soul by its beauty. This palace at Agra, North India, was built by the Mohammedan Emperor, Sha Jahan, over the body of his

wife, Mumtaj Mahal. It was begun in 1630 and finished in twenty years by twenty thousand workmen. The

volume contains also a Processional Ode for the placing of the mask of Francis Thompson in the home of Yon6 Noguchi, the poet, in Japan, in 1920.

"Too soon he went the dreaded human way, Those eyes grew dim That shone with the flying glory of seraphim On heavenly embassage....

Starry-willed He, from the blare alnd clash of life distilled Celestial music, throwing back to heaven Heaven's voice with earth's own sister-music

filled." On a HE:imalayan height he finds himself above the rain bow and his verses with the title " Above the Rainbow" open thus:

"I stand on a Himalayan height Watching the shower and sunlight march. Deep in a valley's early night A rainbow builds its Roman arch. .

O hills where light and darkness meet! O moment chastening and proud That puts below my climbing feet The sign God set upon the cloud' !"

There are narrative poems like '' A Tibetan Banner which bring us into the land and atmosphere of Buddha; its prayer-wheels and its sense of mystery. His " Spring in Kashmir "' holds as lovely a four-line

stanza as one could hope to find anywhere in modern

poetry "Lo! i'n an exquisite pretence,

The Indian may doth here assume Snow shapes, and hold iu white suspense Her lovely avalanche of bloom'?'

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536 THE IRISH MONTHLY

It is a pity that the bulk of Dr. Cousins' poetry is of the quality-already suggested-though always of a high order. This eternal occupation with a Spirit in things about us-or to be more definite this line of spiritual thought (is it Theosophy or Pantheism?)-towards which his mind tends leaves us perhaps without some gems of poetry of a kind that would appeal to all. But we are thankful for what we have got. Who could sing "To Ireland " in this strain but Cousins:

"Something within this earth of me With yours an ancient friendship knows; But deeper than nativity My ultimate allegiance goes. Unto my heart's wild seaward strife You spread the foot-spring of the shore. You were to me the door of life, But life grew larger than its door."

There are poems here idyllic in their very titles such as " Birds Before Dawn in Kashmir " and " Morning

Song in Hawaii." There has been much in the Irish Literary

Renaissance which has been strangely alien to Irish Catholic thought, but there have also been-and not a few-poems of enduring beauty which must touch the hearts of all lovers of true poetry. Cousins has written many of the latter-yea, poured them forth from a soul sincere in its yearning for the beautiful. I conclude with him, thinking of the dead poets of Ire land-of Pearse, of Plunkett, of Ledwidge and of

Kettle:

"These unto me their hands will reach Over the archway of the sun Speaking the single spirit-speech From heights where East and West are one."

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