Daniel Corkery's Cultural Criticism: Selected Writings

Their First Fault

Their First Fault1 Many a lyric hangs for us like a rich cloud in the air: we are glad for its balance, its rich glow, almost for its aloofness. Or such a poem we may liken to a well-shaped vase on which the colours have run and fused into a pattern more subtle and moving than the artist’s carefully-wrought design. Such a vase brightens a dark corner – it, too, is a glowing thing, self-contained and aloof from the stir and fretting of the hours. But then somehow it may happen that that haughty vessel or serene cloud suddenly, for all its selfpoised aloofness, takes possession of us and flings us or raises us, not to those serene heavens where we pictured it as mocking at the fret of life, but right into the whirlwinds and quakings of life itself. In Browning’s Paracelsus, there is a lyric,‘Over the Sea our Galleys went,’ which for me at least shone always for and in its own splendour – a rich thing, full of colour and movement, a superb piece of decoration.That and no more. and then that aloof piece of decoration seems suddenly not to have taken on life, but to have taken on some spirit over and above it, for what I feel is that it has flung me through its own power deeper into life than I should have ventured had that self-poised lyric never existed. It opens: Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave, to a speeding wind and a bounding wave — a gallant armament.2 In the galleys are adventurers out to find a better land. They are weary with the toil and with the long journeying, but still brave and with hearts for music and song. all that is theirs of value is with them: they have said farewell to all their past: it has long since fallen below the stars on the horizon. and so they sail. On each deck is a stately tent: Where cedar-pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine: and an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine. That neither noon-tide, nor star-shine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad Might pierce the regal tenement.3 159 What precious freight was enclosed in these central tents of perfumed cedar wood, on every deck? But the story goes on. at last they spy out the dim shape of land. One morn, the land appeared! a speck Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky — avoid it, cried our pilot, check The shout, restrain the longing eye!4 But in vain the wiser pilot went amongst them, crying out his warnings: But the heaving sea was black behind For many a night and many a day, and land, though but a rock, drew nigh;5 and, though but a rock, that land enticed them to its barren bosom – them and their riches – them and their very soul. at last it is time for them to disclose the treasure within the cedar tents. So we broke the cedar pales away, Let the purple awning flap in the wind, and a statue bright was on every deck!6 and then: We, shouted, every man of us, and steered right into the harbour thus, With pomp and pæan glorious. an hundred shapes of lucid stone! all day we built a shrine for each — a shrine of rock for everyone — Nor paused we till in the westering sun We sate together on the beach to sing, because our task was done;7 and then: When lo! what shouts and merry songs! What laughter all the distance stirs! What raft comes loaded with its throngs Of gentle islanders?8 and then: 160 Daniel Corkery’s Cultural Criticism. Selected Writings Oh, then we awoke with a sudden start From our deep dream; we knew, too late, how bare the rock, how desolate, to which we had flung our precious freight. ‘The islets are just at hand,’ they cried; ‘Like cloudlets faint at even sleeping, Our temple-gates are opened wide, Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping For the lucid shapes you bring’ — they cried.9 and then mark what they did next: Yet we called out — ‘Depart! Our gifts, once given, must here abide: Our work is done; we have no heart to mar our...