"Dirge In Woods": George Meredith And Po Chu-i

Charles Whitehead's sonnet "A type of human life this forest old" ("Life Explained, Part Five": September 2, 2010) reminds me of a poem by George Meredith (1828-1909) that shares, I think, a similar feeling:

            Dirge in Woods

A wind sways the pines,
               And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
The pine-tree drops its dead;
They are quiet, as under the sea.
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
               And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
               Even we,
               Even so.

George Meredith, A Reading of Earth (1888).

                                                  Howard Phipps
                                "Edge of the Wood, Broadchalke"

Meredith's poem in turn reminds me of certain Chinese poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907).  I am thinking of the writing of poets such as Wang Wei, Po Chu-i, Li Po, and Tu Fu.  The following poem is by Po Chu-i (772-846), and is translated by Arthur Waley (1889-1966).

The western wind has blown but a few days;
Yet the first leaf already flies from the bough.
On the drying paths I walk in my thin shoes;
In the first cold I have donned my quilted coat.
Through shallow ditches the floods are clearing away;
Through sparse bamboos trickles a slanting light.
In the early dusk, down an alley of green moss,
The garden boy is leading the cranes home.

                                  Howard Phipps, "The Clarendon Way"                

Life Explained, Part Five: "A Type Of Human Life This Forest Old"

Charles Whitehead (1804-1862) had some early literary success in London, where one of his friends was a young Charles Dickens.  When Whitehead was asked by the publishing firm of Chapman & Hall to provide the text for sketches produced by the illustrator Robert Seymour, Whitehead declined the offer, but suggested that the firm use Dickens.  The result of this recommendation was The Pickwick Papers.

According to his discreet Victorian biographer, Whitehead was "a man of singularly nervous temperament" whose "career [was] irreparably marred by one fatal propensity -- a propensity which he acquired early in life, perchance at the Grotto tavern."  H. T. Mackenzie Bell, A Forgotten Genius: Charles Whitehead (1884).  The Grotto was "much frequented by young literary men, artists, and some few actors," and Whitehead was "the leading spirit of the place, being there every night."  Due to his "one pernicious habit, the influence of which he could never throw off," Whitehead migrated to Australia, where he hoped to make a fresh start.  Unfortunately, he died in Melbourne from (according to hospital records) "the effects of destitution."

Given this biographical background, one might well expect that a sonnet by Whitehead providing an Explanation of Life would not be, say, cheery.  And one would be right.  That being said, I think that it is a fine poem.  It sounds almost Elizabethan -- like something that could have been written by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, or Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, as they awaited their beheadings.

A type of human life this forest old;
All leafy, wither'd, blooming, teeming, blasted;
Bloom that the reign of summer hath outlasted,
And early sere, and blight that flaunts in gold;
And grass, like sorrow, springing from the mould,
Choking the wholesome tree; and verdure wasted,
Like peace; and berries, like our bliss, untasted;
And thorns, like adverse chances, uncontroll'd.
These flowers are joy that ne'er shall form a wreath;
These lilies are unsure affection crown'd
Above neglect, the water; underneath,
Reeds, which are hope, still sadly standing, drown'd.
This hoary sedge is age of noteless years,
This pool, epitome of human tears!

                     Laurits Andersen Ring, "Trunks of Alders" (1893)