The Poetry Club

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Title:     The Poetry Club
Author: Talbot Baines Reed [More Titles by Reed]

During one of my terms at G-- (and in speaking of that famous old school it is quite unnecessary to mention more than the first letter of its name) a serious epidemic broke out. It affected chiefly the lower half of the upper school, and during the brief period of its duration it assumed so malignant a type that it is still a marvel to me how any one of its victims ever survived it. The medical and other authorities were utterly incompetent to deal with it. In fact--incredible as it may seem--they deliberately ignored its existence, and left the sufferers to pull through as and how they could. Had it been an ordinary outbreak, as, for instance, scarlatina or diphtheria, or even measles, they would have cleared the school between two "call-overs," and had us all either in the infirmary or in four-wheelers at our parents' doors. But just because they had not got this--the most destructive kind of all epidemics--down on their list of infectious disorders, they chose to disregard it utterly, and leave us all to sink or swim, without even calling in the doctor to see us or giving our people at home the option of withdrawing us from our infected surroundings.

I love the old place too well to dwell further on this gross case of neglect. The present authorities no doubt would not repeat the error of their predecessors. Should they be tempted to do so, I trust the present harrowing revelation may be in time to avert the repetition of the calamity of which I was not only a witness but a victim.

The fact is, in the term to which I allude, we fellows in the upper Fifth and lower Sixth took to _writing poetry_! I don't know how the distemper broke out, or who brought it to G--. Certain it is we all took it, some worse than others; and had not the Christmas holidays happily intervened to scatter us and so reduce the perils of the contagion, the results might have been worse even than they were.

Now, one poet in a school is bad enough; and two usually make a place very uncomfortable for any ordinarily constituted person. But at G-- it was not a case of one poet or even two. There were twenty of us, if there was one, and we each of us considered our claim to the laurel wreath paramount. Indeed, like the bards of old, we fell to the most unseemly contentions, and hated one another as only poets can hate.

It was my tragic lot to act as hon. secretary to the "Poetry Club," which constituted the hospital, so to speak in which our disease worked out its course during that melancholy term. Why they selected me, it is not for me to inquire. Some of my friends assured me afterwards that it was because, having no pretensions or even capacity to be a poet myself, I was looked upon as the only impartial member of our afflicted fraternity. No doubt they thought it a good reason. Had I known it at the time I should have repudiated the base insinuation with scorn. For I humbly conceived that I was a poet of the first water; and had indeed corrected a great many mistakes in Wordsworth and other writers, and written fifty-six or fifty-seven sonnets before ever the club was thought of. And Stray himself, who was accounted our Laureate, had only written thirty-four, and they averaged quite a line less than mine!

Be that as it may, I was secretary of the club, and to that circumstance the reader is indebted for the treat to which I am about to admit him. For in my official capacity I became custodian of not a few of the poetical aspirations of our members; and as, after the abatement of the disease, they none of them demanded back their handiwork--if poetry can ever be called handiwork--these effusions have remained in my charge ever since.

Some of them are far too sacred and tender for publication, and of others, at this distance of time, I confess I can make nothing at all. But there lies a batch before me which will serve as a specimen of our talents, and can hardly hurt the feelings of any one responsible for their production.

Our club, as I have said, was highly competitive in its operations. It by no means contented us each to follow his own course and woo his own muse. No, we all set our caps at the same muse and tried to cut one another out. If I happened to write an ode to a blackbird--and I wrote four or five--every one else must write an ode to a blackbird too; until the luckless songster must have hated the sound of its own name.

It was no easy work finding fit subjects for these poetic competitions. But the papers lying here before me remind me at least of one which excited great interest and keen rivalry. Complaints had been made that the club had hitherto devoted itself almost altogether to abstract rhapsodies, and had omitted the cultivation of itself in the epic or heroic side of its genius. On the other hand, the abstract rhapsodists protested that any one could write ballads, and that the subject to be chosen should at least be such as would admit of any treatment. One member suggested we should try the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, as being both abstract and historical--but he was deemed to be a scoffer. Eventually Stray said, why not take a simple nursery rhyme and work upon it, just as musicians take some simple melody as the theme of their great compositions?

It was a good idea, and after some consideration--for we had most of us forgotten our nursery rhymes--we fixed upon the tragical history of "Jack and Jill;" and decided to deal with it.

The understanding was that we might treat it any way we liked except-- notable exception--in prose!

And so we went off to our studies and gave ourselves up to our inspirations. The result, the reader shall judge of for himself. Only he shall never know the real names of the poets; nor will anything induce me to disclose which particular production was the performance of the humble Author of this veritable narrative.

I will select the specimens haphazard, and distinguish them only by their numbers.

Number 1 was a follower of the classic models, and rendered the story in Homeric fashion.

Attend, ye Nine! and aid me, while I sing
The cruel fate of two whom heaven's dread king
Hurled headlong to their doom. Scarce had the sun
His blazing course for one brief hour run
When Jack arose and radiant climbed the mount
To where beneath the summit sprang the fount.
Nor went he single; Jill, the beauteous maid,
Danced at his side, and took his proffered aid.
Together went they, pail in hand, and sang
Their love songs till the leafy valleys rang.
Alas! the fount scarce reached, the heedless swain
Turned on his foot and slipped and turned again.
Then fell he headlong: and the woe-struck maid,
Jealous of his fell doom, a moment stayed
And watched him; then to the depths she rushed
And shared his fate. Behold them, mangled, crushed.
Weep, oh my muse! for Jack, for Jill your tears outpour,
For hand-in-hand they'll climb the hill no more.

After this somewhat severe version of the story it is a relief to turn to the lighter rendering of the same affecting theme by Number 2. Number 2 was evidently an admirer of that species of poetry which begins everything at the wrong end, and seems to expect the reader to assist the poet in understanding what it is the latter is driving at.

What's the matter, Jack? Lost your head, poor wight!
I always told you the block wasn't screwed on too tight.
Tumbled? Is that it? It's a mercy you lit on your head.
Nothing brittle in that;--if you'd come on your feet instead--
Broke it? No, never! You have? I knew it was slightly cracked:
Never mind that there was nought to come out--that's a comforting
fact!
What! two of you? Who is the other? Not Jill, I declare!
Is her head cracked too? On my word, you're a pair.
Have I seen a pail lying about? Why, no, I have not.
Pails don't grow wild on this hill--that is, that I wot.
Oh, you dropped it, you did? Oh, I see, 'twas your pail,
And it tumbled you both o'er the rock? That's your tale.
It may turn up somewhere, perhaps. So you fell
Off the edge of the path that leads up to the well?
Well, all's well that ends well, at least so 'tis said;
But next time you'd better stay down, and try to fall uphill instead.

Some of us at the time thought highly of this performance. I remember one fellow saying that Number 2 seemed to have caught the spirit of Mr Browning without his vagueness, which was a very great compliment.

Number 3's poetry ran chiefly in dramatic lines. He therefore boldly threw the narrative into dialogue form:--

_Shepherdess_.--Alas, my Jack is dead!

_Shepherd_.--I mourn for lovely Jill.

_Both_.--A common fate o'ertook them on the hill.

_Shepherdess_.--I watched them go--him and the hateful minx.

_Shepherd_.--I smiled to mark his footsteps on the brinks.

_Both_.--Cruel deceiver he/she! shameless intriguer she/he!

_Shepherdess_.--'Twas she who lured him o'er the cruel ledge.

_Shepherd_.--'Twas he who basely dragged her to the edge.

_Both_.--Oh! faithless he/she! oh! monstrous traitor she/he!

_Shepherdess_.--Her fate no tongue shall mourn, no eye shall weep; _Shepherd_.--His doom was all deserved upon the steep.

_Both_.--Oh! hapless he/she! oh! wicked wicked she/he!

_Shepherdess_.--Take warning, Shepherd; trust no faithless Jill.

_Shepherd_.--Nor you, fair nymph, with Jack e'er climb a hill.

_Both_.--Oh, woe is me! and woe, oh woe is thee!

_Shepherdess_.--With thee, poor youth, I fain would shed a tear.

_Shepherd_.--Maiden, with thee I'd sit and weep a year.

_Both_.--Wouldst thou but smile, I too would dry mine eye; Nay, let's do both, and laugh here till we cry.

Number 4 was a specimen of the simple ditty style which leaves nothing unexplained, and never goes out of its course for the sake of a well- turned phrase.

When Jack was twelve and Jill was ten
Their mother said, "My dear children,
I want you both to take the pail
We bought last week from Mr Gale,
And fill it full of water clear,
And don't be long away, do you hear?"
Then Master Jack and Sister Jill
Raced gaily up the Primrose Hill,
And filled the pail up to the top,
And tried not spill a single drop.
But sad to tell, just half way down
Jack tripped upon a hidden stone,
And tumbled down and cut his head
So badly that it nearly bled.
And Jill was so alarmed that she.
Let drop the pail immediately
And fell down too, and sprained her hand,
And had to go to Dr Bland
And get it looked to; while poor Jack
Was put to bed upon his back.

Number 4 regarded his performance with a certain amount of pride. He said it was after the manner of Wordsworth, and was a protest against the inflated style of most modern poetry, which seemed to have for its sole object to conceal its meaning from the reader. We had a good specimen of this kind of writing from Number 5, who wrote in blank verse, as he said, "after the German."

I know not why--why seek to know? Is not
All life a problem? and the tiniest pulse
Beats with a throb which the remotest star
Feels in its orbit? Why ask me? Rather say
Whence these vague yearnings, whither swells this heart,
Like some wild floweret leaping at the dawn?
'Tis not for me, 'tis not for thee to tell,
But Time shall be our teacher, and his voice
Shall fall unheard, unheeded in the midst!
Still art thou doubtful? Then arise and sing
Into the Empyrean vault, while I
Drift in the vagueness of the Ambrosian night.

We none of us dared inquire of Number 5 what was the particular bearing of these masterly lines upon the history of Jack and Jill. I can picture the smile of pitying contempt with which such a preposterous question would have been met. And I observe by the figures noted at the back of this poem that it received very few marks short of the highest award.

Number 6 posed as democratic poet, who appealed to the ear of the populace in terms to which they are best accustomed.

'Twas a lovely day in August, at the top of Ludgate Hill
I met a gay young couple, and I think I see them still;
They were drinking at the fountain to cool their parching lips,
And they said to one another, looking up between their sips--

_Chorus_--I'd sooner have it hot, love; I'd rather have it hot;
It's nicer with the chill off--much nicer, is it not?

They took a four-wheel growler for a drive all round the town,
And told the knowing cabby not to let his _gee-gee_ down;
But they'd scarcely got to Fleet Street when their off-hind-wheel went bang,
And they pitched on to the kerb-stone, while the crowd around them sang--

_Chorus_--I'm glad you've got it hot, love; I'm pleased you've got it hot;
It's nicer with the chill off--much nicer, is it not?

Moral.

Now all you gay young couples, list to my fond appeal,
Beware of four-wheel growlers with spokes in their off-hind-wheel;
And when you go up Ludgate Hill, all on a summer day,
Don't drink much at the fountain; or if you do, I say--
Be sure and take it hot, love; be sure and take it hot;
It's nicer with the chill off--much nicer, is it not?

This poem was not highly marked, although Number 6 confessed he had sat up all night writing it. He thought we had missed the underlying philosophy of his version, and was sorry for it. As he said, the first essential of a poem is that it should be read, and he believed no one could deny that he had at least written up to that requirement.

There was a more serious moral hidden in Number 7's version, which was stated to be on the models of the early sonnets:--

Two lovers on one common errand bound,
One common fate o'erwhelms; and so, me-seems,
A fable have we of our daily round,
Who in these groves of learning here are found
Climbing Parnassus' slopes. Our aim is one,
And one the path by which we strive to soar;
Yet, truer still, or ere the prize be won,
A common ruin hurls us to our doom.
'Twere best we parted, you and I; so, Fate,
Baulked of her double prey, may seek in vain,
And miss us both upon the shadowy plain.

The writer of Number 8 I always suspected of being a borrower of other people's ideas. In fact it seemed as if he must have had "A Thousand and One Gems" open before him while he was at work, and to have drawn liberally from its pages.

The way was long, the night was cold,
And Jack and Jill were young and bold.
"Try not the hill," the old man said,
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead."
A voice replied far up the height,
"We've many a step to walk this night."
Ah, luckless speech! ah, bootless boast!
Two minutes more and they were lost.
Who would not weep for Jack and Jill?
They died, though much against their will.
And the birds of the air all fell sobbing and sighing
As they heard of these two unfortunates dying.

The concluding line (which was the only original one in the poem) was specially weak, and Number 8, I observe, only received one vote, and that was probably given by himself.

But, for originality and humour, Number 9's version was the most distinguished of the lot. With it I conclude, and if I may express an unbiassed opinion, many years after the memorable contest, I consider it far and away the best version of the story of Jack and Jill I have ever met with.

Jack and Jill
Went up a hill
To fetch a pail of water,
Jack fell down
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

[The end]
Talbot Baines Reed's short story: The Poetry Club

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