[Gregory Dowling]

Yes, I'd have to agree with Roger on that one.

I'm certainly not prepared to go to the barricades over Orwell's phrase. It just struck me as a handy label to use for this thread. Essentially I'm talking about poems that are generally in critical disfavour but which people might like to defend. So, yes, if we're talking about Victorian poetry, the most obvious fault is likely to be sentimentality; as Wendy says, if we can forgive it in Dickens, then maybe we should be able to forgive it in some of these poets as well. But sentimentality isn't the only problem, of course; in some cases critical taste has simply moved against over-emphatic metrical patterns (Swinburne being an obvious example); in others, it may just be the case that we're no longer used to melodramatic narratives in verse form.

Anybody want to take up the cause of Robert W. Service?

[R. S. Gwynn]

Anybody want to take up the cause of Robert W. Service?

I will. "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a great, sly favorite. It seems to be cunningly written as "good bad poetry." Here's a short Service poem I've always treasured:

MY MADONNA

I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And painted her sitting there.

I hid all traces of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.
Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
"'Tis Mary, the Mother of God."

So, I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
Where you and all may see.

[Michael Cantor]

Marcia - the Wilde comment on Little Nell's death scene was nastier than that - I believe it was essentially, "One would have to have a heart of stone to read it without laughing."

[John Whitworth]

And after all, Sam, without Sam McGee and Dan McGrew, how could there have been an Eskimo Nell, and where does she fit in here, and does anyone know who wrote her? I never could find out.

[Henry Quince]

Unless one is merely a snob and a liar it is impossible to say that no one who cares for poetry could not get any pleasure out of such lines as:

That sentence should be taken out and shot. Torture would be too good for it, but might at least make it confess that this farrago of negatives actually says the opposite of what it appears to intend, which I assume to be something like "Only a snob and a liar would say that no one who cares for poetry could get pleasure out of such lines as..." or even "Only a snob and a liar would claim to get no pleasure out of such lines..." Did Orwell — that master of clarity and the direct style —REALLY, seriously write that? If he did, he must have been having a very bad day indeed.

[Gregory Dowling]

You're right, Henry. Particularly strange since, in his essay "Politics and the English Language", Orwell specifically holds up for scorn the use of multiple negatives, quoting a sentence by Harold Laski:

"I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the
Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century
Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter
in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect
which nothing could induce him to tolerate. "

A bad day probably, as you say.

Thanks, Sam, for the Service poem. It could be a potted version of Barry Unsworth's novel, Stone Virgin. Some years back Tony Harrison did a commentary for a TV documentary on the Yukon in R.W. Service style. It's quite enjoyable; he includes it iin his Collected Film Poetry.

[Jerome Betts]

Wouldn't simply removing the 'not' reprieve the sentence Henry wants shot? Perhaps it was the compositor or proof-reader who had a bad day?

[Dan Breene]

Rupert Brooke. Now there's a boyo who's reputation and life's work were blown away by subsequent events. After writing a series of sentimental and patriotic sonnets he died of blood poisoning on a troop ship enroute to Gallipoli. Had he survived that hellhole his Georgian poetics might have undergone the same seachange as Wilfred Owens.
His Heaven is, hands down, the finest piece of light verse ever written.
I wouldn't say his work is good/bad; it's uniformly excellent, sometimes verging on great. But History has disowned him.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I loved Robert W. Service when I was a kid.

And everything by James Whitcomb Riley. 1853–1916. I have a book with his Childhood Poems which I got for Christmas a month after I'd turned four. (According to the inscription. ) I used to know many of them by heart . The Raggedy Man he works for Pa. Little Ophant Annie. (An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you /Ef you don't watch out!).

It doesn't include "When the Frost is on the Punkin", but I knew it by heart too, and I think of it every autumn when the first frost comes.

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best, 5
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here— 10
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock— 15
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; 20
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps 25
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me— 30
I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Not to mention this one. I knew it by heart too.

Casey at the Bat
by Ernest Lawrence Thayer


The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that--
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped--
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey has struck out.