In the deep violet air, Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard, But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.
Is the wood’ s dim heart, And the fragrant pine, Incense, and a shrine Of her coming? Apart, I wait for a sign.
What the sudden hush said, She will hear, and forsake, Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!
She will hearken and glide, From her place of deep rest,
93 The Song Without Words
Dove-eyed, with the breast Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.
四十四、無言之歌
花香在深沉的空中 不見枝頭的蠢動 耳際毫無聲息
除了遙遙遠方 依稀 鳴囀的鳥啼
是否在林中的幽幽深處 那飄香的松樹
讓她的到來有所棲宿 孤孑！讓我獨處
帶著一線希望，我此地佇足
驀然的沉默聲息 會傳到她耳際
又飛快為了我而忘記 她的床，茵茵碧綠：
她會耳聞身起
她會聽見，輕快走來 從她沉沉歇息的地方 帶著柔和雙眼鴿子模樣 與溫腴的胸膛，到我身旁：
松樹頷首稽顙
Appendix
Biography of Ernest Christopher Dowson (1868-1900)
Born August 2, 1867 in Lee, Kent, Ernest Dowson enjoyed an infancy a lot brighter than the impression offered by the brief description of his life by Dr. Longaker. Alfred Dowson, his father, received fair income from his dry dock, the Bridge Dock in Limehouse, which has been handed down to him, and at the same time cultivated an impressive literary atmosphere to nourish the family and to feast the guests ever visited. The young
Dowson’ s mother, Annie Dowson née Swan, is reported in various volumes a sensitive, intelligent, shy lady of Scottish descent. In spite of the considerable disparity in their ages,
the parents had in their dwelling, “The Grove” at Belmont Hill in Lee, due comfort and livelihood. Also noticeable is that they directed their lives in many ways in common, especially to the profound literary interest, and unfortunately to the aggravating health and mind that later led to untimely death.
It was not until the child Dowson reached the age 10 when Alfred Dowson started facing the fact that his interest in literary works and associates has by far outpaced that in his business. While he indulged himself in literature, the dry dock was left uncared-for. The result was increasingly dwindling income. In addition to the worsening financial situation of the family, the physical affliction that stroke both of the parents has also influenced the childhood of Ernest Dowson. For a more salubrious climate away from the cold and damp of London, to fight against the physical affliction that affected both the parents, the family took regular trips to the southern part of Europe, no matter how reluctantly for their financial concern.
When poverty and tuberculosis struck the family, it was the time when the young Dowson was ready to go to public school. Even if it was pointed out that at the moment his parents were more concerned about their own health and wealth, than his formal education, it is recognizable that without his father’ s encouragement, he would not have acquired his impressive literal and literary knowledge of Latin. Neither is it fair to say such a plight of his family impeded his studies of any kind. On the contrary, it is the unstable life full of frequent travels that endowed with him an excellent command of French and a decent one of Italian. Under such circumstances, his language talents known to us were revealed, and later impressed his classmates, tutor at Queen’ s College, and his contemporary literary figures.
At the age of 19, his father decided to sent him to Oxford, where he studied for five terms, and left without a degree. His first weeks at Queen’ s was characterized by maladjustment due to his lack of school life in his earlier years. Unfamiliar with the ways and thoughts of the classmates at his age, he appeared shy and unresponsive. He was somewhat isolated by the topics in others’ conversations and sports activities he never tried his hand at. With the lapsing of the first few weeks, the situation turned out friendlier to the young poet. He started his contact with others, through mutual interest in literature. By the next spring term, his room at the top of the back quadrangle on campus has won its regular visitors,94 and his literary works and literacy of ancient Roman poets drew a great attention, both his classmates and that of the authorities in Oxford.
Here in Oxford, where Walter Pater and Schopenhauer started sowing their thoughts among the young minds, Dowson rendered his literary talents recognizable and furthered his studies in Latin poetry and French works. First starting his attendance as a commoner, he was later recommended to read for Honours; the discussions of Latin and French literatures with friends accompanied him late into the night. Recollected by one of his intimate classmates, this year was “one of the happiest in his life.”95
When his college life seemed to exercise more and more positive influences over his mind and health, the Long Vacation of 1887 called an end to it. The young poet who finally shed a light of cheer afterwards returned from home, tinged with the color of the Dowsons, sick and gloomy.96 Although it is suggested that “the novelty of college life had
94 Mostly his most intimate fellow students, W. R. Thomas, Arthur Moore, and Sam Smith.
95 Longaker, Mark. 35-36.
96 Report has it that “ Apparently nothing significant happened to him during his vacation to cause him to adopt a different attitude toward university life,” along with a proof of his meeting with his cousin.
worn off,”97 it makes less sense for the change to take place after a long vacation away from school. It is more likely that the delicate health and the innate melancholy which he
succeeded from his parents have during this period grown more synergistic in the depressing atmosphere in his home and later diverted him from his academic pursuits.
Moreover, conflicts between his literary pursuits and college life loomed large since his return. Unused to the confinement in school life, he left his quadrangle and found his new dwelling on the Grove Street, where he started his own life and his friendship with another contemporary poet and schoolmate, Lionel Johnson. Wide as his reading range was, none of his school assignments were covered. It was not only the life but also the requirements of school that did not meet his taste, or, he failed to meet.
Now the undergraduate believed that his refuge against “abhorrent Nature” should be found in art, his literary pursuits, not in the insipid works assigned to earn a degree. It is not surprising that he saw no necessity of the terms ahead. He chose to focus his attention on his own writing and reading. Regardless of the persuasion by his tutor and the
arguments with friends, he decided to leave school. Never convinced by “the value of fulfilling the requirements for a degree,” he left Queen’ s in March, 1888. “Without financial emergency at home” or “difficulty with the authorities,” the decision was all his own.
Partly out of the disappointment he brought to his father, and partly out of his loyalty to his family, he went home to assist in his father’ s business. An ill-qualified business
(Longaker, Mark. 36) In the only collection of Dowson’ s letters now available (Flower, Desmond &
Maas, Henry, ed. The Letters of Ernest Dowson. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1967.), no letters of 1887 have been included. The reason remained unknown.
97 Longaker, Mark. 37.
runner, like the father, he surprisingly proved a competent bookkeeper. Before “the intolerable ennui of the office,” as he told his friend, completely wore out his loyalty to his family, he had intermittently kept the ledgers at the dock house for five years. No matter how beautiful the landscape around the Bridge Dock might be, as he sometimes described, it was definitely not a working environment which could nurture his pursuits of letters.
What kept him working as a bookkeeper for such a long time was that knowing the financial difficulty which had been haunting his family since he was 10, he always wanted to do his best to contribute to his family. No doubt, his love for his family was deep enough to delay his search for something he never thought about giving up.
Later on, through his friend,98 he found a job as an assistant editor of a magazine.
Were this magazine more well established, had the editor more resources, and were
Dowson able to find more contributors and to cater to the proletarian taste, this would have been a promising job more related to his pursuits. In the beginning, he was all so serious when he started this new job in addition to his service to his family, but, in the end, only five weeks later, The Critic, the short-lived magazine, with all odds against it, gave its last breath at the five issues. Dowson was no doubt a Muse’ s child, but the Lady Luck seemed to ignore him from time to time.
Down from college, he was never short of companionship. During the years following his departure from Queen’ s, even when he had to face the tedious job of dry-docking, he never failed to possess friends whom he could share his interests with. Except for conversations with his most intimate friends at this time,99 his frequent evening visits to the
98 Victor Plarr.
99 Charles Sayle, Frank Walton, and Victor Plarr.
Crown100, where he met new literary pursuers and kept contacts with his old friends, also helped him to fight “the intolerable ennui of the office.” Though often known as forlorn, desolate by later generations, Dowson seemed always more light-hearted in a company than alone.
As far as his works are concerned, the following two events happening during this period were definitely influential; so are they significant in his short life span of 32 years.
The first is his embracing the Church, his conversion to the Roman Catholic. Such an inclination was said to be perceived in his Oxford days, while some indicated that the formal conversion was not performed until 1891.101 Little as we know about his life, the reason for his conversion can also be replaced by surmises. Personal experience at Queen’ s, influence from relatives who are Catholic both come to justify; while some asserts that “it was the picturesqueness of the Roman ritual that attracted him,” still some advocates that the poet of “Extreme Unction” harbors a kind of devotion far beyond the beauty of the ritual. Certain is that he once told a friend, “I am for the old faith. I've become a Catholic, as every artist must.”102 Whatever the reason which inspired this line is, his works like
“The Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration,” “Benedictio Domini,” and probably the most typical “Extreme Unction” do reveal the Catholic element which claims an important dimension in his life.
More often, to readers acquainted with Dowson, more conscious are they of his love for Adelaide than of his love for religion. Back in his stay at Queen’ s when his works first
100 A very famous gathering place for young artists in London at that time, where Paul Verlaine also paid his visit on his trip to London in November, 1893. It is usually compared to the Mermaid Tavern by critics.
101 Longaker, Mark. 66.
caught the public attention, he extolled “the beauty of innocence” in “Sonnets of a Little Girl,” and drew from the work his standard of true beauty. When he first met Adelaide103, the daughter of the owner who ran the eating place Poland, he was immediately enthralled by her charm. Dowson never mentioned her physical beauty, and hers, according to his friends, was actually far from stunning. It would rather be the her “unspoiled, unaffected grace and sincerity” which made him an infatuated adorer. A little Polish girl nearly 12, Adelaide Foltinowicz arrested his attention and later his love—“the natural result of his devotion of the beauty of innocence.”104
The course of his love, true and unrequited, never did run smoothly. His friends and family first took his love as a passing interest. When they found out his passion grew all but more serious, so did their concern and objecting. This only made his love stronger. His love his friends and family never understood; his poems and thoughts Adelaide failed to appreciate. Yet, for years before she married a waiter and so broke his heart, Dowson’ s emotional dependence on Adelaide was surely heartfelt delight even the gatherings at the Crown could not compete. No one ever read Dowson’ s love poems can deny in his works the absent presence of “the child,” his Muse, though not his destiny. Her name, Adelaide Foltinowicz, has since been one of the names most often associated with the poet and lives in his eternal lines.
In this phase of his life, except the office that could dull anyone’ s mind, Dowson was
102 Ibid. 67-71.
103 Often referred to by Dowson in his letters as “ Missie” or in his work “ child.”
104 Reports of the date they first met clashed. According to Dr. Longaker, they met sometime in 1891 when Dowson dined in Soho. (Longaker, Mark. 74.) Yet Dr. Flower pointed out that they met by November, 1889, (Flower, Desmond. 15) with his earliest but indirect mention of her in his letter to Arthur Moore on November 7, 1889. (Ibid. 114)
far from a sullen figure. His conversion has provided somehow another shelter for his soul;
his first years in love with Adelaide, even more pleasant; his companionship of his close friends, new or old, was always a source of delight to him; the frequent gatherings at the Crown helped refresh him from the boring burden of the family business. He had at the moment things his prime deserved, outside family.
The years from 1890 to 1894 were among his most productive middle twenties.
From his stay at Queen’ s his poetic faculty had been drawing more and more attention.
First was his “Sonnets of a Little Girl,” which demonstrated his poetic talents on campus, then “Amor Unbratilis,” one of the poems which staged his debut in the literary circle, opened the eyes of the Londoners, and finally “Cynara,” secured his stance in the English literature and made him widely known. Even today, to readers less acquainted with Dowson, his name can often be associated with this unique lyric poem. The increasing recognition allowed him more contacts with other literary figures of his time.
Now, the young poet, more than just going to the Crown for acquaintances on literary topics, he finally found his way into a group he himself belonged to. The group often held its gatherings at the dining spot, Cheshire Cheese. The participants in time called
themselves “Rhymers,” and the informally formed circle, the “Rhymers’ Club.” Through their dinners together, they exchanged their poetic works as well as their common
appreciation for Walter Pater’ s thinking and Paul Verlaine’ s Art Poétique. However, it is crucial to point out that the Rhymers’ Club was by no means a group consisted only of young poets of the time who followed any single literary creed. On the contrary, the Rhymer’ s Club contained differences in ages, conceptions, personalities, and poetic interests. It is but a makeshift to address some of the poets of the nineties, not to be
mistaken that they were a group of uniform literary assertions. It is more correct and objective to indicate that, as Dr. Longaker suggested, “the Rhymers’ Club was the result of many influences and it expressed its interests in many voices.”105
The Rhymers’ Club furthered Ernest Dowson’ s literary reputation by issuing
collections of poems by this Club. When the idea was forged to put their works in print by the late months of 1891, the Rhymers scheduled their meetings for their anthology, Book of the Rhymers’ Club. The first Book of the Rhymers’ Club, published in the autumn of 1892, included six poems by Dowson, “The Carmelite Nuns of the Perpetual
Adoration,”(later in other collections “Carmelite” was omitted ) “Amor Umbratilis,” “O Mors! Quam Amara Est Memoria Tua Homini Pacem Habenti in Substantiis Suis,” “Ad Domnulam Suam,” “Vanitas,” “Villanelle of Sunset”; the second Book of the Rhymers’
Club, the Club’ s swan song chanted in 1894, included another six poems by Dowson,
“Extremem Unction,” “To One in Bedlam,” “Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae,” “Growth,” “The Garden of Shadow,” “You Would Have Understood Me Had You Waited.” Poems by Dowson in both collections are eligible to demonstrate the fine qualities of Dowson, and it is said that the poetic works by Dowson included did honor these two volumes. When Yeats talked about the Book of the Rhymers’ Club, he did not hesitate to let known that it is Dowson’ s works which makes him preserve his copy.106 Reviews favored Dowson at this time were even more than ever.
Between the publications of the two volumes, Dowson’ s attendance of the Club’ s meetings became irregular. Partly because of his frequent colds and rheumatism, partly
105 Longaker, Mark. 90.
106 Ibid. 110.
because of his transient enthusiasm in his nature, his participation in the group dropped increasingly until the publication of the second anthology of the Club. Again active for the second publication, sometime before the Club’ s demise, Dowson resumed his presence in the meetings held until the summer of 1894 when the Club ceased to be. But for the mutual expectation for the publication, this group would have probably been dissolved earlier. The dissolution of the Club of course brought regret to Dowson. It provided him not only chances to publish his works, but also an organization, though sometimes
disappointing for the disparity between its members, he could identify himself with.
Nevertheless, for a “heterogeneous group with nothing but a common interest in verse,”107 the two-year life span should prove a grace.
Whatever else the Club might offer to Dowson, it would never be the improvement of his congenital introversion. At those meetings, he was never an dominant talker of
Whatever else the Club might offer to Dowson, it would never be the improvement of his congenital introversion. At those meetings, he was never an dominant talker of