Welsh Journals

Fair is the robe of Autumn, fairer far Than the gay livery of the tickle Spring, Or Summer's flaunting pride; and fairest now At this calm season, hour of sweet repose After diurnal toil. But these bright colours are soon lost in the grey oblivion of twilight: The sun descends, a globe of flaming red, As if in anger of a guilty world; And the gay-colour'u clouds, that shone so late Attendant on his fiery chariot-wheels, Put on their palmer's weeds of amice grey, To meet the silent step of evening star. The mist, slow gathering in reluctant folds, Covers the distant mountains. The curfew tolls in a neighbouring village and the poet awakens from his day-dreams to a con- sciousness of the keenness of the evening air. Unlike Wordsworth, Cary also introduces a number of human figures into his canvas. Over the hill-top he sees the shepherd-boy leading his flock homeward to rest, and on the wings of the breeze are borne to him sounds of revelry from a distant valley-it is the husbandman drinking merrily at the thought of his bursting garners. But there is a darker side-in the shade of the dense woods robbers lie in wait for the unsus- pecting wayfarer, and in contrast to the abund- ance of the prosperous farmer we have the woman in rags, bending over a fire of bracken in the open. She is one of a miserable race dwelling in the barren hills, who, remote from the sound of holy bells, eke out a scanty living by an uncertain trade in pottery fetched on asses' backs from the Midlands. No gypsies are they, though neces- sity compels them to wander from town to town, and when grey evening spreads her quiet wing to sleep beneath the starry sky. In Cary's poem we likewise hear an echo of contemporary events. Those were years of tension in the political world. The French Revolution had assumed a more and more anarchic form in January, 1793, the King was guillotined, and in the summer, just before Wordsworth set out for the Wye, he had seen the fleet off Portsmouth preparing for war with France. Trouble was also brewing in Poland, which had been divided early in 1793, the lion's share falling to Russia under the Empress Catharine. These events were in Cary's mind and explain his outburst: Who shall avenge thy cause, thou injured Pole, On that fell She-wolf of the North, whose fang, Ravenous and keen as the wide scythe of Death, Gores the fair bosom of thy land? His sympathies were evidently on the side of the Poles, and later on, when they had risen in rebellion under Kosciusko, the former adjutant of Washington, Cary wrote an ode in his honour. This connects him with Coleridge and with Keats, who, seeing portraits of King Alfred and Kosciusko on the walls of Leigh Hunt's library, wrote a sonnet in praise of these defenders of their countries against the invader. Like many of the young intellectuals of his day, Cary viewed war with disapproval and sym- pathised with the humble men who bore the brunt of it. The wars waged by tyrants that laid waste fertile lands and ancient cities seemed to him an atrocity and the pompous peace cele- brations at their close an impious mockery. His attitude is seen when, in a passage reminiscent of Hamlet, he says This goodly earth, of frame design'd so fair, Mountains and woods and seas, and overhead Hung like a gorgeous temple with bright lamps, Was not created to be made the spoil Of sacrilegious robbers; nor high man, Who bears the stamp of Godhead in his face, To crouch and tremble at a brother's frown. Cary realised that the wars undertaken by such despots as Catharine of Russia were carried on by humble men who had no interest in the matter and often no knowledge of the cause. In an effective contrast, alter picturing the light- hearted shepherd boy, he tells how his soldier brother On foreign plains, from his low hut decoy'd, To stand the brunt of mad ambition's sport, And fight the quarrels of he knows not whom, Hears now the secret call of sentinel; Or, as beneath the counterscarp he stands, Over his head the rumour of loud bomb, That voids its dire contents of sulph'rous flame; Ruing the hour in which he left his home, And calm contentedness of shepherd's life, For sleepless nights, lean want, and thankless toil. With this one may well compare two pictures drawn by Wordsworth. The first is in Guilt and Sorrow," composed like Cary's Mountain Seat in 1793, where he describes a sailor carried off by the press-gang, separated from his family, and now after years returning in a patched and faded coat to find his way home on foot through a land overflowing with the abund- ance of harvest, but offering him neither food nor shelter. The second occurs in the fourth book of The Prelude," where the poet tells how on a summer night he met an old soldier resting on a milestone. A more meagre man Was never seen before by night or day. Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth Looked ghastly in the moonlight. Companionless, motionless he sat, muttering 1011 sounds as if in pain, but when the poet drew near He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm In measured gesture lifted to his head Returned my salutation. Slowly, uncomplainingly, with a strange half- absence, as of one knowing too well the import ance of his theme, but feeling it no longer," he told his tale and was led by the poet to a cottage for shelter. Cary's poem reveals also his interest in Wales, not least as the setting of the fascinating stories of mediaeval romance, wondrous tales of magicians, dwarfs, forests, enchanted caves, fair damsels, elfin knights and gorgeous chivalry. Incidentally he remarks how such romances, and