CHAPTER XI: THE PARADISE OF POETS
We were talking of Love, Constancy, the Ideal. "Who ever loved like thepoets?" cried Lady Violet Lebas, her pure, pale cheek flushing. "Ah, ifever I am to love, he shall be a singer!"
"Tenors are popular, very," said Lord Walter.
"I mean a poet," she answered witheringly.
Near them stood Mr. Witham, the author of "Heart's Chords Tangled."
"Ah," said he, "that reminds me. I have been trying to catch it all themorning. That reminds me of my dream."
"Tell us your dream," murmured Lady Violet Lebas, and he told it.
"It was through an unfortunate but pardonable blunder," said Mr. Witham,"that I died, and reached the Paradise of Poets. I had, indeed,published volumes of verse, but with the most blameless motives. Otherpoets were continually sending me theirs, and, as I could not admirethem, and did not like to reply by critical remarks, I simply printedsome rhymes for the purpose of sending them to the gentlemen who favouredme with theirs. I always wrote on the fly-leaf a quotation from the'Iliad,' about giving copper in exchange for gold; and the few poets whocould read Greek were gratified, while the others, probably, thought acompliment was intended. Nothing could be less culpable or pretentious,but, through some mistake on the part of Charon, I was drafted off to theParadise of Poets.
"Outside the Golden Gate a number of Shadows were waiting, in differentattitudes of depression and languor. Bavius and Maevius were there,still complaining of 'cliques,' railing at Horace for a mere rhymer ofsociety, and at Virgil as a plagiarist, 'Take away his cribs from Homerand Apollonius Rhodius,' quoth honest Maevius, 'and what is there left ofhim?' I also met a society of gentlemen, in Greek costume, of variousages, from a half-naked minstrel with a tortoiseshell lyre in his hand toan elegant of the age of Pericles. They all consorted together, talkingvarious dialects of Aeolic, Ionian, Attic Greek, and so forth, which wereplainly not intelligible to each other. I ventured to ask one of thecompany who he was, but he, with a sweep of his hand, said, 'We areHomer!' When I expressed my regret and surprise that the Golden Gate hadnot yet opened for so distinguished, though collective, an artist, myfriend answered that, according to Fick, Peppmuller, and many otherlearned men, they were Homer. 'But an impostor from Chios has got insomehow,' he said; 'they don't pay the least attention to the Germans inthe Paradise of Poets.'
"At this moment the Golden Gates were thrown apart, and a fair lady, inan early Italian costume, carrying a laurel in her hand, appeared at theentrance. All the Shadows looked up with an air of weary expectation,like people waiting for their turn in a doctor's consulting-room. Shebeckoned to me, however, and I made haste to follow her. The words'Charlatan!' 'You a poet!' in a variety of languages, greeted me by wayof farewell from the Shadows.
"'The renowned Laura, if I am not mistaken,' I ventured to remark,recognising her, indeed, from the miniature in the Laurentian library atFlorence.
"She bowed, and I began to ask for her adorer, Petrarch.
"'Excuse me,' said Laura, as we glided down a mossy path, under the shadeof trees particularly dear to poets, 'excuse me, but the sonneteer ofwhom you speak is one whose name I cannot bear to mention. His conductwith Burns's Clarinda, his heartless infatuation for Stella--'
"'You astonish me,' I said. 'In the Paradise of Poets--'
"'They are poets still--incorrigible!' answered the lady; then slightlyraising her voice of silver, as a beautiful appearance in a toga drewnear, she cried '_Catullo mio_!'
"The greeting between these accomplished ghosts was too kindly to leaveroom for doubt as to the ardour of their affections.
"'Will you, my Catullus,' murmured Laura, 'explain to this poet from theland of fogs, any matters which, to him, may seem puzzling and unfamiliarin our Paradise?'
"The Veronese, with a charming smile, took my hand, and led me to ashadowy arbour, whence we enjoyed a prospect of many rivers and mountainsin the poets' heaven. Among these I recognised the triple crest of theEildons, Grongar Hill, Cithaeron and Etna; while the reed-fringed watersof the Mincius flowed musically between the banks and braes o' bonny Doonto join the Tweed. Blithe ghosts were wandering by, in all varieties ofapparel, and I distinctly observed Dante's Beatrice, leaning loving onthe arm of Sir Philip Sidney, while Dante was closely engaged inconversation with the lost Lenore, celebrated by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.
"'In what can my knowledge of the Paradise of Poets be serviceable toyou, sir?' said Catullus, as he flung himself at the feet of Laura, onthe velvet grass.
"'I am disinclined to seem impertinently curious,' I answered, 'but theladies in this fair, smiling country--have the gods made them poetical?'
"'Not generally,' replied Catullus. 'Indeed, if you would be well withthem, I may warn you never to mention poetry in their hearing. Theynever cared for it while on earth, and in this place it is a topic whichthe prudent carefully avoid among ladies. To tell the truth, they havehad to listen to far too much poetry, and too many discussions on thecaesura. There are, indeed, a few lady poets--very few. Sappho, forexample; indeed I cannot recall any other at this moment. The result isthat Phaon, of all the shadows here, is the most distinguished by thefair. He was not a poet, you know; he got in on account of Sappho, whoadored him. They are estranged now, of course.'
"'You interest me deeply,' I answered. 'And now, will you kindly tell mewhy these ladies are here, if they were not poets?'
"'The women that were our ideals while we dwelt on earth, the women weloved but never won, or, at all events, never wedded, they for whom wesighed while in the arms of a recognised and legitimate affection, havebeen chosen by the Olympians to keep us company in Paradise!'
"'Then wherefore,' I interrupted, 'do I see Robert Burns loitering withthat lady in a ruff,--Cassandra, I make no doubt--Ronsard's Cassandra?And why is the incomparable Clarinda inseparable from Petrarch; and MissPatty Blount, Pope's flame, from the Syrian Meleager, while _his_Heliodore is manifestly devoted to Mr. Emerson, whom, by the way, I amdelighted, if rather surprised, to see here?'
"'Ah,' said Catullus, 'you are a new-comer among us. Poets will bepoets, and no sooner have they attained their desire, and dwelt in thecompany of their earthly Ideals, than they feel strangely, yetirresistibly drawn to Another. So it was in life, so it will ever be. NoIdeal can survive a daily companionship, and fortunate is the poet whodid not marry his first love!'
"'As far as that goes,' I answered, 'most of you were highly favoured;indeed, I do not remember any poet whose Ideal was his wife, or whosefirst love led him to the altar.'
"'I was not a marrying man myself,' answered the Veronese; 'few of uswere. Myself, Horace, Virgil--we were all bachelors.'
"'And Lesbia!'
"I said this in a low voice, for Laura was weaving bay into a chaplet,and inattentive to our conversation.
"'Poor Lesbia!' said Catullus, with a suppressed sigh. 'How I misjudgedthat girl! How cruel, how causeless were my reproaches,' and wildlyrending his curled locks and laurel crown, he fled into a thicket, whencethere soon arose the melancholy notes of the Ausonian lyre.'
"'He is incorrigible,' said Laura, very coldly; and she deliberatelybegan to tear and toss away the fragments of the chaplet she had beenweaving. 'I shall never break him of that habit of versifying. But theyare all alike.'
"'Is there nobody here,' said I, 'who is happy with his Ideal--nobody buthas exchanged Ideals with some other poet?'
"'There is one,' she said. 'He comes of a northern tribe; and in hislife-time he never rhymed upon his unattainable lady, or if rhyme he did,the accents never carried her name to the ears of the vulgar. Lookthere.'
"She pointed to the river at our feet, and I knew the mounted figure thatwas riding the ford, with a green-mantled lady beside him like the FairyQueen.
"Surely I had read of her, and knew her--
"'She whose blue eyes their secret told, Though shaded by her locks of gold.'
"'They are different; I know not why.
They are constant,' said Laura,and rising with an air of chagrin, she disappeared among the boughs ofthe trees that bear her name.
"'Unhappy hearts of poets,' I mused. 'Light things and sacred they are,but even in their Paradise, and among their chosen, with every wishfulfilled, and united to their beloved, they cannot be at rest!'
"Thus moralising, I wended my way to a crag, whence there was a wideprospect. Certain poets were standing there, looking down into an abyss,and to them I joined myself.
"'Ah, I cannot bear it!' said a voice, and, as he turned away, his browalready clearing, his pain already forgotten, I beheld the august form ofShakespeare.
"Marking my curiosity before it was expressed, he answered the unutteredquestion.
"'That is a sight for Pagans,' he said, 'and may give them pleasure. Butmy Paradise were embittered if I had to watch the sorrows of others, andtheir torments, however well deserved. The others are gazing on thepurgatory of critics and commentators.'
"He passed from me, and I joined the 'Ionian father of the rest'--Homer,who, with a countenance of unspeakable majesty, was seated on a throne ofrock, between the Mantuan Virgil of the laurel crown, Hugo, Sophocles,Milton, Lovelace, Tennyson, and Shelley.
"At their feet I beheld, in a vast and gloomy hall, many an honestcritic, many an erudite commentator, an army of reviewers. Some werecondemned to roll logs up insuperable heights, whence they descendedthundering to the plain. Others were set to impositions, and Iparticularly observed that the Homeric commentators were obliged to writeout the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' in their complete shape, and were alwaysdriven by fiends to the task when they prayed for the bare charity ofbeing permitted to leave out the 'interpolations.' Others, fearful tonarrate, were torn into as many fragments as they had made of theseimmortal epics. Others, such as Aristarchus, were spitted on their owncritical signs of disapproval. Many reviewers were compelled to read thebooks which they had criticised without perusal, and it was terrible towatch the agonies of the worthy pressmen who were set to this unwontedtask. 'May we not be let off with the preface?' they cried in piteousaccents. 'May we not glance at the table of contents and be done withit?' But the presiding demons (who had been Examiners in the bodilylife) drove them remorseless to their toils.
"Among the condemned I could not but witness, with sympathy, thepunishment reserved for translators. The translators of Virgil, inparticular, were a vast and motley assemblage of most respectable men.Bishops were there, from Gawain Douglas downwards; Judges, in theirermine; professors, clergymen, civil servants, writhing in all thetortures that the blank verse, the anapaestic measure, the metre of the'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' the heroic couplet and similar devices caninflict. For all these men had loved Virgil, though not wisely: and nowtheir penance was to hear each other read their own translations."
"That must have been more than they could bear," said Lady Violet
"Yes," said Mr. Witham; "I should know, for down I fell into Tartaruswith a crash, and writhed among the Translators."
"Why?" asked Lady Violet.
"Because I have translated Theocritus!"
"Mr. Witham," said Lady Violet, "did you meet your ideal woman when youwere in the Paradise of Poets?"
"She yet walks this earth," said the bard, with a too significant bow.
Lady Violet turned coldly away.
* * *
Mr. Witham was never invited to the Blues again--the name of Lord Azure'splace in Kent.
The Poet is shut out of Paradise.