JMB and Matthew Arnold

[Nicholas]

This is a poem of Matthew Arnold's:


Lines written in Kensington Gardens

In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screened by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crowned, red-boled pine- trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirred forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretched out,
And eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world, which roars hard by,
Be others happy if they can!
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

I, on men's impious uproar hurled,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace for ever new!
When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass!
The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

Quite a few Barrie themes here:  the child and the nurse, the spotted trout, rural Pan.  The black-crowned, red-boled pine-trees may be the original site of the Fairies' Winter Palace, now gone. Later: On re-reading The Little White Bird I see that the Winter Palace  was by a grove of Spanish chestnut trees.

I find it interesting the way contemporary artists (and scientists) sometimes circle about the same subject.

[andrew]

Well spotted, Nicholas! I'd forgotten about "the rural Pan", and I sure enough Barrie would have known the poem (he gave the collected works to Michael Ll D when M was 12). Matthew Arnold was also one of Arthur's favourite poets, which might have given he and JMB something in common.

I also have reason to be grateful to MA - it was quoting "The Buried Life" that brought me and my wife together!

[Moondust]

After being utterly bewildered by extracts of Arnold's lit-crit during my first term at uni, I have avoided him on principle ever since. This poem is, however, quite enjoyable and might actually re-instate some positivity on my part...

I made a post in the Peter Pan forum about an E M Forster story with similar themes to PP. It seems that around the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods, a real fascination with the god Pan as a symbol of freedom from social constraints and a return to a natural way of living emerged. Stuff like Machen's "The Great God Pan" focuses more on a darker side of the figure, more of the satyr than the playful child, but then again, interpretations of PP often draw out underlying dark notes in his characterisation which are naievely glossed over by children readers/viewers.

This article is good for the idea of Pan emerging as a literary theme around that time:

http://litthe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/19/1/22.pdf

The link is to Oxford Journals though, I hope you're able to access it elsewhere, it's so fascinating. If the link doesn't work I'll try to find the article elsewhere online, it's a really interesting read for background context to Barrie's inspiration.