Show WILLIAM WATSON VATSON A Young English Poet Poe Who is Sing II ing lug His Way Into English Hearts for fur October Mr William VIllIam Watson Vatson is Ss certainly and I the th first among the young youns Eng lish Ush poets of ot toak Mr ad admirers admirers tC t the tho contrary It is about nine years since n the general reading g public on op p teeth both aides of the Atlantic t became l are of or hi his hla name namo the beauty of his panegyric ga on the dead laureate admirers Tenny belle me made some eager admirers believe boUee e h he would be found lound bound the fittest suc BUC I desir ss to the vacated dignity Few lov low 4 tt of Or poetry will deny to him a certain q 4 k and loftiness of tone which Gay gava Ye ground for his admirers es os ost t r Jj haw has beeh begh be b writing or rather has be D rf ofA his hla writings Writing to the world for twenty year ears but the bulk b of f his work r IS small JI Half a dozen e thin tl Vo umes old all the verse that he ho has bas published f h and no great economy n ot of space lg fl would be needed to lb concentrate all their I contents into a Single volume of very Operate moderate size He has Jas as yet tried triad no nl lont poem 1 oem he hes hen s n written odes od 8 sonnet epp epigrams and places piece Partly Part this is is Js duo due to toy y praiseworthy fastidiousness tv hi Iii tt n to t give anything but t finished 1 e i i tie C public partly and this is a will have to bo be considered In la AK his as a poet It arises OJ ass of or Inspiration s It is isto Isto f s sn n to say this for he has bas W s ud nd showering hand band and Bt Must r a PJ tarrying long longe ne e to song her flight In inS S he again ng ke keno no rho and t nth s Was unreel n the a emory r Cf 0 r e that t at has hall as yet et appeared in print Odes and mid Other Poems is tho the volume we Ve wish to consider The most mot conspicuous qualities of or Mr Watsons poetry are lucidity and sanity a clear healthy vision and a carefully trained precision of or phrase The liter literary literary literary ary ancestors to whom he owes most of ot othis his inspiration are Milton Inton and Words worth orto but in II his own cast of mind he Is near akin to the polished writers of the eighteenth enid century c All his work Is I chub elaborated with t orated and perfected e with the utmost t care and all the expressive words have been deliberately chosen for lor their particular particular particular ular place Ilace He lIe has bas none of the indifference ence t nce to epithets s which has been noticed as a an attribute of ot Scotts rapid verse on the tho contrary it Is In the epithets that his hi artistic elaboration is most evident Most Mist I of or his better poems up to the present time have been appreciations of or orf the f great t poets of f fh the h past whether e Jn in inthe the form orm of trO elegy or o of l meditation dl t and d In these compositions his cultivated fe of epithet has full scope His versification is smooth and an harmonious effective c h tt though t g not t as yet distinguished dl I Ih But what t bespeaks a for r mm him i at once the favor of ot all aU lovers lovers of literature Is his bib lofty l sonar sense of the dignity of the poetic oh Ng calling anu d the spirit I of reverence r l with which he regards and strives to follow the great poets of oC the past pasts s f The Tho poem or of V Grave Grav In Invariably InVariably invariably variably recalls such pieces as Arnolds uX Memorial Verses and and again the reflection Is inevitable that though the latter poet Is good the tho older is better Not Jt keen k J music thine Not cloudless boundless I U l ss boundless human view dew Not Sh Shelleys Gush flush of ot rose on peaks di dl divine diNor Nor vine yet the wizard twilight t Coleridge knew What h dst st th m m j I so soe urge large e amends amend Mv For U thou d thy peer p peers po pos possessed 8 d Motion MOU n and Ire flee swift moans means to ra rai i en ends n MU u hn hadie for eLir y feet the gift of ty Poems p gli 0 h J Z n e thu sketCh of Or En n length nth k c century ry ith S Vt a ardor S dot and w er Her He 1 i She 8 w It dui dUt SIt t on JU curled The of the IO f she sa sax w il afi 4 i F 11 YS r The age age grew sated with her sterile f wit Herself waxed weary on ort her bar loveless throne Men felt lifes Ures tide the sweep and surge of or it n nAnd And craved a living voice a natural tone From Tram de y pastures uplands sweet with thyme A virgin breeze br freshened the Jaded day It wafted Collins lonely It l breathed b abroad the frugal frugal note of Gray Poems e pp f fIn In these stanzas and the others which i accompany them every epithet is care carefully carefully fully fUll chosen and tho the note of oC literary allusion fully full expressive only to those thos acquainted with the authors of or whom mention is made is struck again In and nn 1 Again with happy effect err ct Grave is unquestionably a very note noteworthy noteworthY noteworthy worthy poem and one which was right rightly ly marked mark d by more than one literary critic as indicating that its author might have a very distinguished future before him Akin to the th elegy of oC Tennyson is ts the poem Weyo Wey commemorating o the so sot centenary c t of Shelley Sir Mr Watson has as so far been e es most s successful when x he has s been n writing writ writing ing about g fe his fu furi brother ri t poets His I sobriety s sobriety t tet ety et of Judgment his sense of the great traditions of or English literature and his precision of language are ar especially suited to such work and his appreciation appreciation of Shelley le is a fine e example of his s powers W h l eor ss Shelley I was his first love as he has elsewhere told us and his early admira admiration admiration tion finds a fitting expression in this poem which wo we 0 regret IS overlong for reproduction in our pages But this is a class of o subject soon exhausted ex cx exhausted hausted One would wish to see Sir Mr 1 lr Watson develop some som other theme and andin andIn andin in this 1119 respect the longest poem in marked a new departure In The Dream Dreamt of Man Mr Watson Vatson describes a vision of or mans suc successive successive successive victories in every sphere of knowledge culminating in his triumph over death et and d how this triumph by leaving nothing not iu further fu ert to conquer c l and a aby by robbing man of ot all cause alike for lor hope and fear lear left him a d prey to un unutterable unutterable unutterable weariness and satiety till he God to release death once more And behold his soul seul rejoiced rot not The Tho breath of whose being was strife For life liCe with nothing to vanquish Seemed but the shadow of or life i r No uNo goal invited and promised And nd divinely provocative shone And Fear ear having fled her hee sister Blest Ble t Hope in her ner train was gone And the crowning and cope copo of achieve achievement achievement ment anent Was hell than defeat e more re dire ire ireThe The torment of or all things compassed The plague of desire And did man the invincible queller Man with his foot on his fo roes foes s sIn In boundless satiety s hungered Restless R from fro utter repose Victor of pf nature victor Of the prince of the powers of the air all By mighty weariness vanquished And crowned with august despair 1 p 23 21 This This poem poem the moral of or which Is iden identical Identical identical with that of or Brownings shows a greater strength of imagination than Mr air Watson has elsewhere dis displayed displayed played and though not his best work It Itis ItIs itis is perhaps the most full rull of promise for forthe forthe the future The Tho remaining pieces In this volume are shorter and of less Import Importance Importance importance ance but they maintain the high level leel of oC excellence reached by tho the longer poem and servo serve to complete a no volume of or very unusual charm Space forbids us to quote at greater length from this volume which all aU lovers of poetry will regret was not planned on OIl ona OIla a larger and more ambitious scale It Itis ItIs Itis is for this that Mr lr Watsons Raisons admirers are now nor no looking So far as lie be has gone already we may say sa reverting to the metaphor with which this article began that his genius is of real precious metal but that the vein is a thin one Thin veins eins of ore are sometimes broaden and deepen as they go onward and It is our hope that this may be bo the case with our author He has the aspirations the train ing the technique of or a true poet what he hI at present lacks is III the higher Inspiration Inspiration ration If Ie he has strength enough for a no sustained effort of or imagination without losing the finished manner of or his earlier work then he ht will be of the company of oC o the th poets whose fame rame has hils been and Is Isso so dear to him hm Of his prose writings we need not Speak s eak They are as al their title indicates Ild I a tes the th Excursions E ns of o a Rhymer Into a 11 realm which Is not his own There h ha has many man equals and superiors in der deed d even his literary taste seems to desert him since we find him in Un the I 10 introduction to 0 his s anthology 0 of love vo poets poems poems entitled Lyric Love totally failing to appreciate the chars charm of 01 the Elizabethan song writers But this mat tera little Itis as a poet not as a critic of ot poets that we look to him In the hope that he may yet win his place in the great company compan of English singers Indeed if Mr Watson is not he Eng lish Ush poet pest of or the near future we shall be at a loss where to find him It is true e that It If the phrases of or English re reviewers reviewers viewers could be trusted there would be little difficulty fn Th finding not one merely but many poets poeta s oC ot the first or der in England today but a a reviewer who knows how hard bard it IS II to hold the bal hal balance balance ance even between n the th present and the past iJ to o be fie just t without t being either elther vM cold or o effusive s e will not criticise too curiously the phrases of others |