Songs of Action (article 16 june 1898)
This article published in The Daily Chronicle on 16 june 1898 includes 4 extracts of poems written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Songs of Action is a collected volume of poems written by Arthur Conan Doyle published by Smith, Elder & Co. on 8 june 1898.
Article
"Songs of Action." by A. Conan Doyle.
(London: Smith, Elder & Co. 5s.)
Readers of "The White Company" do not need to be told that Dr. Conan Doyle can write spirited verse. This little book of "Songs of Action" opens with "The Song of the Bow" from that romance — a ditty with a swing which no one who has read it can have forgotten. Both in subject and in style it strikes the keynote of the volume. Dr. Doyle has a hearty, healthy relish for all outdoor sports, the game of war among the rest, and he has a happy knack of expressing this relish in cantering, rub-a-dub rhythms. His rhymes lack technical artistry, exquisiteness of diction; but they are, almost without exception, "rattling good verses." They ought to be a godsend to the reciter, who we trust will appreciate them. Dr. Doyle has not the amazing virtuosity Mr Kipling, but he is more straight-forward in his narrative style, less recondite and technical in his vocabulary, and therefore, we conceive, better fitted for platform purposes. "Cremona," "Corporal Dick's Promotion," and several of the hunting pieces will no doubt before long be familiar in the recitation room. Of Dr. Doyle's patriotic songs, the best to our thinking of "A Ballad of the Ranks." We quote the sixth and seventh stanzas and the refrain:—
- Who carries the gun?
- A lad from London town.
- Then let him go, for well we know
- The stuff that never backs down.
- He has learned to joke at the powder smoke,
- For he is the fog-smoke's son,
- And his heart is light and his pluck is right—
- The man who carries the gun.
- Who carries the gun?
- A lad from the Emerald Isle.
- Then let him go, for well we know,
- We've tried him many a while.
- We've tried him east, we've tried him west,
- We've tried him sea and land,
- But the man to beat old Erin's best
- Has never yet been planned.
- For the Colonel rides before,
- The Major's on the flank;
- The Captains and the Adjutant
- Are in the foremost rank.
- And when it's 'Action front!'
- And there's fighting to be done,
- Come one, come all, you stand or fall
- By the man who holds the gun.
This is neat and workmanlike rhyming, and set to a taking air might advantageously compete with many of the lyrics which have been popular of late. "The Frontier Line" is better in idea, but is marred, in our judgment, by its curiously lame refrain, which might, however, prove apt enough for musical treatment. But racing and fox-hunting, even more than war, call forth the best of Dr. Doyle's talent. If there is anywhere in rhyme a more spirited description of a steeplechase than "The Farnshire Cup," it is not known to us. Here are three of its stanzas:—
- Chestnut and bay, and sorrel and gray,
- See how they glimmer and gleam!
- Bending and straining, and losing and gaining,
- Silk jackets flutter and stream;
- They are over the grass as the cloud shadows pass,
- They are up to the fence at the top;
- It's 'hey then!' and over, and into the clover,
- There wasn't one slip at the drop.
- They are all going still; they are round by the mill,
- They are down by the Whittlesea gate;
- Leah's complaining, and Mavis is gaining,
- And Flo's catching up in the straight.
- Robin's gone wrong, but the Spider runs strong,
- He sticks to the leader like wax;
- An utter outsider, but look at his rider—
- Jo Chauncy, the pick of the cracks!
- Robin was tailing and pecked at a paling,
- Leah's gone weak in her feet;
- Boadicea came down at the railing,
- Son of the Sea is dead beat.
- Leather to leather, they're pounding together,
- Three of them all in a row;
- And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten,
- Is level with Spider and Flo.
The plot of this piece (for a plot there is) will no doubt be appreciated by racing men; the present writer — a rank outsider — catches but a glimmer of its meaning. On to other hand, there is no plot whatever to "The Old Gray Fox": it is simply a vigorous gallop of rhymes:—
- The Member rode his thoroughbred,
- Doctor had the gray,
- The Soldier led on a roan red,
- The Sailor rode the bay.
- Squire was there on his Irish mare,
- And Parson on the brown;
- And so we chased the old gray fox,
- The same old fox,
- The game old fox,
- And so we chased the old gray fox
- Across the Hankley Down.
- The Doctor's gray was going strong
- Until she slipped and fell;
- He had to keep his bed so long
- His patients all got well.
- The Member he had lost his seat,
- 'Twas carried by his horse;
- And so we chased the old gray fox,
- The same old fox,
- The game old fox;
- And so we chased the old gray fox
- That earthed in Hankley Gorse.
Towards the end of Dr. Doyle's book there are some verses of a more serious strain, which show real poetic feeling. "The Inner Room" is an ingenious parable of heredity, "The Old Huntsman" a powerful personification of death. "The Passing" is a genuine poem, terse and strong, with suicide for its subject; but we own it strikes us as s barely defensible playing with edge-tools. If Dr. Doyle really believes that the solution of things is so very simple, we wish he would produce his evidence; if he does not believe it, ought he to suggest that he does even "in a poetical lie-sense"? Here, to conclude, is "A Parable" of somewhat enigmatic bent:—
- The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there,
- And warmly debated the matter;
- The Orthodox said that it came from the air,
- And the Heretics said from the platter.
- They argued it long and they argued it strong,
- And I hear they are arguing now;
- But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese,
- Not one of them thought of a cow.
Quite so; but what does the cow stand for?
