"When The Grey Moth Night Drew Near"

"Twilight" and "grey" are two of Arthur Symons's favorite words.  This is not surprising given the oftentimes ethereal and, well, twilit ambience of much of the "Decadent" poetry of the 1890s.  However, unlike many Decadent poets, Symons wrote a fair number of poems which have a natural setting (as opposed to being set in, say, an absinthe bar or some other seedy night-time establishment).

     On Inishmaan (Isles of Aran)

In the twilight of the year,
Here, about these twilight ways,
When the grey moth night drew near,
Fluttering on a faint flying,
I would linger out the day's
Delicate and moth-grey dying.

Grey, and faint with sleep, the sea
Should enfold me, and release,
Some old peace to dwell with me.
I would quiet the long crying
Of my heart with mournful peace,
The grey sea's, in its low sighing.

Arthur Symons, Images of Good and Evil (1899).  Symons includes a note to the poem stating that it was written at Tillyra Castle on August 13, 1896. The phrase "some old peace" in line 9 reappears in "By the Pool at the Third Rosses," which was written at Rosses Point, Sligo, on September 1, 1896:  "some old peace I had forgotten" (line 19).

"On Inishmaan" is, I suppose, quintessential 1890s poetry:  "I would quiet the long crying/Of my heart with mournful peace," et cetera.  (Which, to my mind, is not necessarily a bad thing.)  Most importantly, however, one line makes it all worthwhile:  "When the grey moth night drew near." (And, close behind, "the day's/Delicate and moth-grey dying.")  Yes, it is dreamy and "Decadent," but it sounds lovely.

                             Spencer Gore, "View from a Window" (1909)

                  Twilight

The pale grey sea crawls stealthily
Up the pale lilac of the beach;
A bluer grey, the waters reach
To where the horizon ends the sea.

Flushed with a tinge of dusky rose,
The clouds, a twilit lavender,
Flood the low sky, and duskier
The mist comes flooding in, and flows

Into the twilight of the land,
And darkness, coming softly down,
Rustles across the fading sand
And folds its arms about the town.

Arthur Symons, Amoris Victima (1897).  Symons notes that the poem was written in Dieppe (of course!) on August 22, 1895.  Earlier in his career, Symons wrote a three-poem sequence titled "Colour Studies," the first poem of which is titled "At Dieppe."  I think that "Twilight" also qualifies as a "Colour Study" of Dieppe.

                                   Spencer Gore, "Letchworth" (1912)

Life Explained, Part Nineteen: "One Into Darkening Hills Leads On, And One Toward Distant Seas"

I find Walter de la Mare's poetry to be at its best when he abandons the late-Victorian diction of much of his verse.  Although he was close to Edward Thomas, and greatly valued Thomas's poetry, he seldom used the straightforward (but deep) approach that Thomas and Robert Frost embarked upon.  Nonetheless, de la Mare's poetry is still enjoyable.

The following poem is more plain-spoken, and I can almost hear a trace of Thomas in it.  (And not simply because it shares the same scene as "Adlestrop.")  As to the subject:  I suppose that journeys and way-stations on those journeys lend themselves to larger considerations.

                 The Railway Junction

From here through tunnelled gloom the track
Forks into two; and one of these
Wheels onward into darkening hills,
And one toward distant seas.

How still it is; the signal light
At set of sun shines palely green;
A thrush sings; other sound there's none,
Nor traveller to be seen --

Where late there was a throng.  And now,
In peace awhile, I sit alone;
Though soon, at the appointed hour,
I shall myself be gone.

But not their way:  the bow-legged groom,
The parson in black, the widow and son,
The sailor with his cage, the gaunt
Gamekeeper with his gun,

That fair one, too, discreetly veiled --
All, who so mutely came, and went,
Will reach those far nocturnal hills,
Or shores, ere night is spent.

I nothing know why thus we met --
Their thoughts, their longings, hopes, their fate:
And what shall I remember, except --
The evening growing late --

That here through tunnelled gloom the track
Forks into two; of these
One into darkening hills leads on,
And one toward distant seas?

Walter de la Mare, The Fleeting and Other Poems (1933).

                                Spencer Gore, "Letchworth Station" (1912)