(Being an attempt to capture an admired manner.)

IT was, I think, Mr. S. P. B. Mais who told us that we live ‘in an age of amazing geniuses.’ The observation is so profoundly true, and one owes so much to this critic’s sane and luminous appreciations of contemporary writers, that one cannot help feeling surprised that he nowhere makes any mention of Grigsby. Certainly, in these fruitful times, a man cannot criticise all his fellow-authors; there are other omissions, notably D. S. Ballowby, Geoffrey Domsteen, Hilda Perkstone (who wrote Wherefore?), and Anna Lummit; nevertheless, a lover of contemporary letters can hardly forgive the critic’s strange neglect of Grigsby. Therefore, although making no pretence of being specially fitted for the task, I feel that my long admiration for the poet and my several years’ acquaintance with the man himself, render it a duty on my part to try and give a sketch, however slight, of his career, personality, aims and achievements.

Harold Hopkins Grigsby, poet and littÉrateur, was born sometime in the late seventies of the last century in the pleasant old town of Channingford. Like many other famous men of letters, he came from a family that showed no particular devotion to literature or the other arts; his father, a not very prosperous corn-merchant, spent his leisure hours breeding fox-terriers, while his mother was chiefly occupied with domestic duties. Grigsby himself, troubled maybe by painful memories, has said little of these early days, so little that I am unable to state where it was he received his education, but tuition of some sort he undoubtedly had. When we next see him, he is nearing the threshold of manhood, and is far removed from Channingford, being at Wolverhampton, apprenticed to an oil and colour merchant. There, in the oil and colour shop, he was indeed a caged soul; even yet he cannot speak of those Wolverhampton days without a trace of bitterness: ‘The oil did not make my path more smooth; the colour did not make my world less drab,’ he has said to me more than once. Then it was that his fancy began to take wing; he turned to literature. Friendless, away from home, misunderstood by those about him, he turned to the poets for consolation. ‘I owe more than man can repay,’ he has frankly confessed to me, ‘to Snipper’s fourpenny “Flowers of Poesie” series!’ He became an ardent student of the poet’s craft, and it was not long before he himself began to write. Several little things of his found their way into the Poets’ Corner of the local journal, and shortly after his twenty-second birthday, there appeared the first volume from his pen, Blossoms of Sorrow (West Midland Almanac and Railway Guide Publishing Co.). It was not a success, being rather an immature production and quite unlike the poet’s later work; indeed, for years, he was ashamed of the volume, and refused to speak of it even to his intimate friends. Yet those of us who are fortunate enough to possess a copy (it is very scarce now, and must fetch a good price), can turn to Blossoms of Sorrow and find, here and there, the definite promise of what has since been so magnificently achieved, can discover among so much immature writing more than a few hints of what was to come, the occasional note of the real Grigsby. Lines like these:

Or

are not without their significance now, when we know to what fulness of meaning and felicity of phrase such things are leading us.

About this time came the darkest hour of Grigsby’s early struggles. The volume, as I have said, was a failure; meanwhile, the poet’s father had died, owing money; and there had been a quarrel with the oil and colour merchant. Grigsby had now neither employment nor friends to whom he could turn. But the good fortune that has attended some few of our poets (notably Wordsworth) waited upon Grigsby when he had almost given up hope. He learned to his surprise that an aunt, whom he had not seen for years, had died leaving him a considerable sum of money, for the most part safely invested in Imperial Mineral Waters Pref. He was now free to devote all his time to the pursuit of letters, and it was not long before he did what most young geniuses do sooner or later, he went up to London. I have not space to chronicle his early years there, though a full record would make a very fascinating chapter in the literary life of the time; let it suffice to say that he moved as far as was possible in the literary and artistic world, formed many valuable friendships, yet never let a day pass without taking up his pen. Like many other brilliant young literary men, he soon came under the influence of R. U. Bortwith, the editor of the Pale Review and the literary oracle of his day. It was in the Pale Review that Grigsby’s first narrative poem, ‘Palomides,’ appeared, along with occasional lyrics. He also edited The Apothecary in English Literature in the well-known series published by Messrs. Downe & Cashe, wrote a monograph on Henry Kirke White, and contributed some excellent criticisms and reviews to various periodicals. All this time, though he was becoming known to a small but influential group of critics and editors, no second volume of verse had come from his pen.

His friendship with Bortwith, however, soon brought him into touch with several other young poets, Robert Blorridge, Geoffrey Domsteen, Anna Lummit, and others, and it was not long before the famous ‘No Verb’ group was formed, a group of which, I have reason to know, he was the leading member. Whatever may be said to the contrary, there is no doubt that it was Grigsby, and Grigsby alone, who kept the ‘No Verbs’ together. By this time, everyone knows the aims and achievements of this enthusiastic little band of writers; how they triumphed in spite of a storm of hostile criticism is now ancient history; and we are only concerned with the movement so far as it affected Grigsby. To him most of the credit is due, for the original idea was his: I have had the story from his own lips. They were talking late one night at Domsteen’s, some four or five young poets, and the subject was, as usual, their art. It was agreed upon by all present that the old forms of verse were outworn, and that if the fresh beauty of English poetry was to be restored, there would have to be a change of form. It was then that Grigsby, in a flash, saw a solution to the problem—the Verb!—English verse must be shorn of its verbs to recover its beauty and arise rejuvenated. The idea was quickly outlined, and all his hearers took it up with enthusiasm. There and then, it was decided to eliminate the verb, and the group dispersed to begin experiments with the new form. Who can forget the battle that followed—the indignant letters, the replies, the hisses of derision and disapproval from pedantic critics, the answering battle-cry of ‘Down with the Verb!’? But we are not concerned now with the movement itself, but with what was its finest fruit—Grigsby’s second volume, Nullity, the book that made his reputation. It was only to be expected that a volume by a writer so original, and, moreover, written in the ‘No Verb’ manner, would be ignored or derided by conservative critics; nevertheless, it met with a warm welcome in some influential quarters. A review that appeared in The Bellman’s Journal was particularly enthusiastic, and did credit to its author, who, by a singular coincidence, chanced to be no less than Grigsby’s cousin. All good judges would not hesitate now to agree with the concluding remarks of the review: ‘By his sincerity, courage, extraordinary wealth of imagery and happiness of phrase, force of passion and depth of thought, Mr. Grigsby in Nullity has shown himself not only a writer to be reckoned with, but one who has gained for himself, in one bound, a foremost place among contemporary poets.’ No sooner does one recall the volume than countless wonderful lines leap to the memory, passages of such sombre beauty as:

or such well-remembered things as:

or the familiar lines from ‘Decayed Trades,’ with all its quaint symbolism:

Though opinions may differ as to the value of the ‘No Verb’ manner, none can deny the beauty of the verse in Nullity. Indeed, the only just complaint that can be urged against Grigsby in this volume concerns itself with the note of pessimism that undoubtedly finds its way into the majority of the poems. But this, I have reason to know, was not the result of a foolish pose; Grigsby has always been too sincere an artist for that; but he himself was journeying through the ‘valley of the shadow’ at the time when the book was written, and the verses are the genuine expression of his moods and thoughts. There is no trace of pessimism or bitterness in his later work.

It was shortly after the appearance of Nullity, if my memory serves me, that I met the poet for the first time. I had dropped into the habit of looking in at Ivorstein’s studio, and it was on one of my visits there that I found a group of artists and men of letters listening intently to a tall, slim young man in their midst. He was declaiming, if I remember rightly, against Miss Sylvia Sylcox, the popular poetess, whose Noughts and Kisses was then going through edition after edition. The speaker was no other than Grigsby; and when afterwards I had the fortune to make my way homewards in his company, I counted myself a lucky man. Nor was I wrong, for after years of—what he has been good enough to call—friendship, my admiration for the artist is only equalled by my respect for the man. A brilliant conversationalist, witty yet always kindly, with a fund of just comment upon authors living and dead always to hand, I know no man of letters who makes such a genial, wise companion. But this is by the way. A little later, the great happiness of his life came to him, his marriage, which in itself did not a little to widen his outlook and touch his work to even finer issues. The lady of his choice, who has proved herself an invaluable helpmate and a very charming hostess, was Miss Cecilia Snorks, daughter of the late Canon Snorks, and herself the writer of two well-known books, Humble Hearts in Many Mansions and The Heptameron Retold for Children. But we must pass lightly over the next few years, during which time, however, Grigsby’s pen was not idle. He published two slim volumes, Palomides and Other Poems and Buckingham: A Tragedy, which did not attract so much attention as Nullity, but yet commanded respect and doubtless added to their author’s reputation. Also, as before, he was engaged in periodical work, for the most part critical essays and reviews, many of which he afterwards collected and published in A Poet—And Some Others (Downe and Cashe). Then, after a prolonged retreat in South Lancashire, he produced the work his friends had long been expecting, the work that many of us believe has given him—or will give him—a high place in English literature. I refer, of course, to The Golden Garnering, a volume of lyrics of no great size, but yet packed with poetry of the highest order. Here, at last, we have the true Grigsby, self-confident, matured, in full command of his powers. All that had gone before, his childhood at Channingford, the early struggles at Wolverhampton, the days and nights with his brilliant set in London, the ripeness of later, quieter years, all lead to The Golden Garnering; and not in vain, for it is one of the few enduring contributions of this age to letters. In these lyrics of Grigsby’s, one discovers all the best qualities of our older English verse, along with a great deal that is new, being native to the poet. Over and above the beautiful lyrical flow, the sharply etched phrase, the abundant fine imagery, familiar to all lovers of our verse, there is a touch of restless modernity, an increasing burden of thought, that mark the true poet of our own time. Dropping the ‘No Verb’ manner and returning with increased power to the older forms, Grigsby, in this volume, presents us with an extraordinary variety of measures, alike only in their marvellous fitness for each subject and mood. At times, he will move us with exquisite cadences, perfectly wedded to the matter, as in—

At other times, we are roused and delighted by one startling yet just image, as in—

Again, the poet will express himself with force and passion, yet seem to be singing a carelessly beautiful song, as, for example, in the oft-quoted ‘Hymn to the Clubmen’—

Or in the less lyrical but still more forceful and characteristic lines beginning:

And, here and there, we see the poet using the full compass of his instrument, as in the now famous ‘To the Ox,’ and particularly the familiar fourth stanza, beginning:

But one could go on quoting until the volume was exhausted. There is, however, something still to be said before leaving The Golden Garnering. There is no doubt that Grigsby shows himself in this book as one in the true tradition of our great English poets; he takes his place in that magnificent procession which includes Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley and all the other masters of the craft; and his verse has so clearly the same qualities as that of his great predecessors that perhaps it is not surprising that some critics, of more ill-will than knowledge or judgment, have gone so far as to accuse Grigsby of plagiarism. The accusation is, of course, so unjust, nay, so utterly absurd, that it merely recoils on the heads of those who have been foolish enough to make it. But as some of the passages quoted above have been actually cited as instances of the so-called plagiarism, readers who have not already dismissed these charges have here an opportunity of discovering what importance need be attached to them. Those of us who know the poet have no fear of the result. And here, this slight sketch of Grigsby’s life and work must end. He has much yet to offer a public that is looking to him more and more for vision and hope; there is, to my knowledge, at least one volume still in manuscript that will surprise even the most ardent lovers of The Golden Garnering. We may be sure that what follows from his pen will not fall below the very high standard he has set himself. And pondering over the poet’s career, still happily unfinished, though none of us can hope to claim such genius, we may at least try to emulate the other virtues that, in this rare instance among men of letters, go along with it, the patience and perseverance, the unselfish, even temper, and, not least, that devotion to a high ideal which is not so uncommon among men of our race as our enemies would have us believe.