Irish Jesuit Province

Katharine Tynan's Poetic HarvestingAuthor(s): Michael WalshSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 690 (Dec., 1930), pp. 627-631Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20512914 .

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627

KATHARINE TYNAN'S POETIC HARVESTING.

IT was in the pages of THE IRISH MONTHLY that Katharine Tynuan first won recognition as a poet. She was one of that brilliant company that

gathered about Father Matthew Russell, and that was first introduced to the world throtugh the pages of this

magazine. It is a far cry to 1885, when Katharine Tynan pub

lished her first volumae of verse. Now there comes to us for review her "Collected Poems" (MacMillan, lOs. Gd.)

In an age in which literature-and even that branch of literature that is poetry-is wrested from its high purpose and forced to serve as the vehicle of decadent thought and pagan concepts of life, it is a, joy to come upon something worthy of so rare a gift as that of the poet. For the poet-even, the poet of sad songs-is one of the privileged ones of Heaven. His v-isions and dreams-" the light that never was on sea or land - give him a pleasure that is not shared by the average pilgrim who walks the sober pathways of this earth.

It is by translating his vision into the terms of poetry that he gives others an opportunity of glimpsing some of the beauty he has seen.

Katharine Tynan, in her songs, has maintained the Vrictorian tradition for pure, clear and direct singing the tradition of Wordsworth and Tennyson. One agrees with AD. in his introduction to this volume when he dwells on the natural ease with which she writes poetry. The metre in which the majority of her poems are written is peculiar to herself. It was this

metre of hers, if I mistake not, that no less a poet than

Francis Thompson praised. The form in which her poems are cast is individual. She created a form to suit her thoughts and moods, just as Tennyson created a form; as Hardy did.

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628 THE IRISH MONTHLY

Her subjects are many and varied. She is the poet of human love and longing and loneliness, jnst as she is the poet of hope and happiness In a spiritual world beyond the stars. Her " Collected Poems " are divided thus: "' The Old Country," "1 Mother and Child," "Songs of Love, Life and Death," "Saints and

Angels," " Prayers and Desires," "Heaven and Earth," "In War-time," " Birds and Flowers and Beauty of Earth," " Legends and Fantasies," " The Tree-lover," and " Personalia."

All the poems in the first section seem to have been written in exile (those who have read Katharine Tynan's Reminiscences will remember that much of her life's lot was cast in crowded London).

It was probably in the West End of London that she looked southwards and missed the mountains-for did her blue native hills not greet her at the southern end of many of Dublin's streets?

"Since I have lost the mountains, I Look for them in the waste of sky,

And think to see at the street's close The lovely line of blue and rose

The mountairns keep that once I know."

Poignant, indeed, is the poem, " At Euston Station." She sees the home train departing:

" There is the train I used to take In the good days of yore,

When I went home for love's dear sake, I who go home no more.

Oh, that's an Irish voice I hear, And that's an Irish face,

And these will come when dawn is near To the beloved place."

The four other stanzas of this poem are equally fraught with yearning.

Amongst the poems grouped under the heading, "Mother and Child," the verses entitled "c Any

Mother "9 come to us from the unfathomable depths of genuine mother love, charged with a passion and feeling

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TYNAN'S POETIC HARVESTING 629

that make this poem the best on Its subject we have ever read. Mrs. Hinkson once described for me that lovely ethereal mortal who was Alice Meyneil. Do not these two stanzas define her?

"Colours of air and flame, The glory whence she came,

Yet float about her in our dusty sphere. Silence and rapture still Brought from the heavenly hill,

WN"hence she hath travelled to our exile drear.

Slight as a lance she is, And tall as Lent lilies.

Aspiring like a flame in windless air, Incense and breath of spice,

Kept from her Paradise, Haunt her from slender feet to ebon hair."

She prays that the Heaven of an old countryman ma-y

not lose in its essentials the dear rulstic scenes that he loved.

"Now may deep country beckon and ope and fields of God receive him!

For an old rosy countryman be dewy meadows spread! Under the shadow of great hills, by singing waters leave

him. Be sure he will be well content where flocks and herds are

fed."

In three further stanzas she pictures the Heaven that the old man of the fields would love, and concluides thus:

"Thou Who art Shepherd of the flock: Thy flock knows no repining!

Give him not mansions ivory-white nor splendid palaces, Give him instead the happy fields, the mountains still and

shining And let him walk with Thee about Thy Shepherd's

business.

In " Poems in War-time how different Is the :note

she strikes from that of the poets of pessimism and

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630 THE IRISH MONTHLY

gloom. John Davidson, A. E. Houseman, Stephen Philips-their greatest poems ar-e poems of despair. Lovely and unforgettable as their mw;4e i.<. they give us but. a, dark cloud with no lining of silver. It is here the Catholic poet has the advantage. It was out of

Francis Thompson's Catholicism the " Hound of Heaven " came. It is Katharine Tynan's Faith that gives us many, many charming verses. Notable amongst these is " Introit. An Echo."

" I look and see the world is fair, And marvel much at- what can move

The Lord of Earth, the Lord of Air To such extremity of love.

Seeing we have so short a space To abide on this side of the tomb,

We could have borne a barer place, An unadorned but cleanly room.

Pilgrim am I and wayfarer, Sojourner one night at an inn;

What matters if the room -is bare, So that the bed and sheets be cleant

But, ah, dear Lord, this would not suit Thy love for me, impure, unkind;

Thou settest the daisies at my feet, Mak'st me the sky, mak'st me the wind.

Me doth ingenious Love devise The mountains and the lakes and sea,

All roses and the peacock's eyes; The sun runs round its course for me.

For me the children and the lambs For me the nightingale and lark,

All fields and meadows a-nd tall palms And the starred curtain of the dark."

And so on the lines run in wonder and gratitude and

praise. And fa%ultless logic must at length lead her to ask;:

"Since Thou dost such delights provide For passing earth and sinfuil men,

What can it be Thou settest aside For man when he is risen again ?

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TYNAN'S POETIC HARVESTING 631

What a. poem for Aldous HuxleOy to read, or even Einstein.... One could quiote manDy beautiful lines manv perfect poems from the renmaining, seetions of this volume-poems on trees and flowers and the green earth. "The Oak and the MIan " is perhaps notable

in the tree section. Then there is the " Children of Lir," a lov-ely poem that ought to be better known. It is one of those poenms one does not forget.

There are many poems here that the anthologist will keep fresh and green-poems with the green anDd dew of the April morning about them-pensive poems of exile and loss, and, above all, glad poems of hope and beauty beyond the grave.

I shall conclude by quoting from "Ts Fore word: K Katharine Tynan says of herself that she was

born under a kind star. It is true. She is happy in

religion, friendship, children, instantly kindling at any beauty in gardens, flowers, in slky and &louds. She has, too, that spiritual bravery -which makes beauty out of death or sorrow. A friend passes, and he is sped on his journey, not with despair, but with hope, almost with imaginative gaiety. It is a great gift this, which on a sudden changes our gloom to a glory."

MICHAEL WALSH.

THE PRAYER OF INNOCENCE.

The picture where the Gentle Jesus hung Upon the Cross she scanned with ruthful eyes, Then backward turned the pages till she found The Babe of Bethlehem and Paradise; And as- her curls embowered the book she held, She whispered " Don't grow up.'"

Sweet, for my part I pray you too that you will ne,'er grow up To leave the Kingdom of the young of heart.

.M. ST. T.

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