WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (mobi ebook reader txt) 📕

dream, as its author described it; and in a note to one of the verses

he wrote: “I hold to the rest of the poem, for there _are_ spirits

everywhere. We are never alone, though we are rarely conscious of other

presences.”

The poem is too long and too immature to quote from. It was one of a

series, never of course published, that he wrote about this time; all

very serious, for his mind was absorbed in psychic and metaphysical

speculation.

And the reason why he chose such serious types of poems to dedicate

to the girl to whom he was engaged was that she was the first friend

he had found who to some extent understood him, understood the inner

hidden side of his nature, sympathised with and believed in his

visions, dreams, and aims.

Immediately on my return to London he sent me three long poems written

in 1873 under the influence of Shelley—then to him the poet of poets.

Very faulty in their handling, they are to me significant, inasmuch as

they strike the keynote of all his subsequent intimate writings. “To

the Pine Belt” begins with these lines:

  To-day amid the pines I went

  In a wonderment,

  For the ceaseless song

  Of lichened branches long

  In measures free

  Said to me

  Strange things of another life

  Than woodland strife.

In _The Blue Peaks_ he sings of the Quest of the beckoning dim blue

hills, of which he wrote again many years later in _The Divine

Adventure_. And the third, “The River το καλυγ,” is an ecstatic chant

to Beauty:

  O Spirit fair

  Who dwelleth where

  The heart of Beauty is enshrined.

Wherewith he invokes “Nature, or Beauty, or God” to help him to realise

the poignant dream of beauty, which haunted him in diverse ways

throughout his life. When he sent them to me he realised how youthful

and faulty was the presentment, and he wrote: “If I had not promised to

send these poems I should certainly not do so now. They are very poor

every way, and the only interest they may have for you is to show you

the former current of my thoughts—I did indeed put Beauty in the place

of God, and Nature in that of his Laws. Now that I see more clearly

(and that is not saying much), these appear trash. Still there is some

good here and there. I am glad I have written them, for they helped me

to arrive at clearer convictions. The verse and rhythm are purposely

uneven and irregular—it admitted of easier composition to write so.”

While at the University he had made an eager study of comparative

religions, their ethics and metaphysics, being then in active revolt

against the religious teachings in which he had been brought up.

This mental conflict, this weighing of metaphysical problems, found

expression in the first Book of a projected Epic on Man, to be called

_Upland, Woodland, Cloudland_. “Amid the Uplands” only was finished,

and consists of two thousand lines in blank verse; the leading idea is

fairly suggested in these lines from the Proem:

  “And I have written in the love of God

  And in a sense of man’s proud destiny.

         *       *       *       *       *

  And I have striven to point out harmony,

  An inner harmony in all things fair,

  Flow’rs, tree, and cloudlet, wind, and ocean wave,

  Wold, hill, and forest, with the heart of man,

  And with the firmament and universe,

  And thence with God. All things are part of Him.”

Scattered through the many pages of philosophic exhortation and

speculation, of descriptions of nature, of psychical visions, are lines

that are suggestive of later development, of later trend of thought,

and from them the following are selected:

  “There is in everything an undertone ...

  Those clear in soul are also clear in sight,

  And recognise in a white cascade’s flash,

  The roar of mountain torrents, and the wail

  Of multitudinous waves on barren sands,

  The song of skylark at the flush of dawn,

  A mayfield all ablaze with king-cups gold,

  The clamour musical of culver wings

  Beating the soft air of a dewy dusk,

  The crescent moon far voyaging thro’ dark skies,

  And Sirius throbbing in the distant south,

  A something deeper than mere audible

  And visible sensations; for they see

  Not only pulsings of the Master’s breath,

  The workings of inevitable Law,

  But also the influences subordinate

  And spirit actors in life’s unseen side.

  One glint of nature may unlock a soul.”

         *       *       *       *       *

  “Our Evil is too finite to disturb

  The infinite of good.”

         *       *       *       *       *

  “We all are wind-harps casemented on Earth,

  And every breath of God that falls may fetch

  Some dimmest echo of a faint refrain

  From even the worst strung of all of us.”

         *       *       *       *       *

  “Oh, I have lain upon a river’s brink

  And drank deep, deep of all the glory near,

  Until my soul in unison did beat

  With all things round me: I was at the root,

  The common root of life from which all flow,

  And when thus far could enter unto all;

  I look’d upon a rose and seemed to grow

  A bud into a bloom, I watched a tree

  And was the life that quicken’d the green leaves,

  I saw the waters swirling and became

  The law of their wild course, and in the clouds

  I felt my spirit wand’ring over heaven.

  I did identify myself with aught

  That rose before me, and communion held.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Death is not only change, or sleep; it is

  God’s seal to sanctify the soul’s advance.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In the beginning of 1875 he made various experiments in rhymed metre,

all equally serious in subject and stiff in handling; but in the latter

part of the year he wrote several little songs in a lighter vein and

happier manner.

The following year brought a fresh change in his circumstances, and

placed him face to face with the serious questions of practical means

of living. His father had been in bad health for some months, and he

himself developed disquieting symptoms of chest trouble. I had been in

Italy during the three spring months, and was overjoyed on my return to

hear that we and my uncle’s family were to spend August at Dunoon in

neighbouring houses. On arriving there we found my uncle in an alarming

condition and his son looking extremely delicate. Nevertheless there

were many happy days spent there—and rambling over the hills, boating

and sailing on the lochs, in talking over our very vague prospects, in

reading and discussing his poems. Of these he had several more to show

me, chief among them being an idyll “Beatrice,” dedicated to me, and

a lyrical drama “Ariadne in Naxos” which excited in me the greatest

admiration and pride. Toward the middle of the month my uncle’s

condition grew hopeless, and on the 20th he died. His death was a great

shock to his son, whose health gave way: consumption was feared (as

it proved, causelessly) and in the autumn he was ordered a voyage to

Australia.

In September I was taken by my mother to Aberdeenshire, and thus I had

no opportunity of seeing William again, and the last thing I heard

of him, when he had left Scotland in a sailing ship, was a gloomy

prediction made by an old relative to my mother: “Ah, that poor nephew

of yours, Willie Sharp, he’ll never live to reach Australia.”

To quote his own words:

“So to Australia I went by sailing ship, relinquishing my idea of

becoming a formidable rival to Swinburne (whose _Atalanta in Calydon_

had inspired me to a lyrical drama named _Ariadne in Naxos_), to

Tennyson (whose example I had deigned to accept for an idyll called

‘Beatrice’), and to the author of _Festus_, whose example was

responsible for a meditative epic named ‘Amid the Uplands.’ Alas!

‘subsequent events’ make it unlikely that these masterpieces will ever

see the light.

“In Australia I had friends with whom I stayed, and from them I joined

an eminent colonist whose tragic end cast a cloud over a notable

career as an explorer. With him I saw much of the then wild country in

Gippsland, beyond the Buffalo and Bogong Mountains, across the Murray

River into the desert region of lower New South Wales.”

So to Australia he sailed, not only in search of health but to look

about and see if he would care to settle there, supposing that he

should find work that he could do, as it was now imperative he should

provide for his future. In _The Sport of Chance_, and in an article

“Through Bush and Fern,” he has given graphic descriptions of the

memorable ride which afforded the newcomer a unique opportunity of

seeing something of the interior of the colony; and from these the

following selections are taken:

“It was the full tide of summer when my friend and I started one

morning in continuance of our ride south through the ranges that rise

and swell and slope away in mighty hollows, sweeping like immense green

waves around the bases of those lofty Australian Alps, of which Mounts

Hotham, Kosciusko, and Feathertop are the chief glories. Although

early, the heat of the sun was already very powerful; but its effect

was more bracing than enervating, owing to the clearness and dryness of

the atmosphere.... Across the rugged mountains we rode, by difficult

passes over desolate plains, along sweeping watercourses marked by

the long funeral procession of lofty blue-gums, and mournful, stringy

bark. Day by day we saw the sun rise above the hills. We slept, while

our horses stood by panting with heat, under what shade we could get,

and arose when the sky had lost its look of molten copper and had

taken on once more its intense ultramarine. At night as we rode across

the plains we heard the howling of the wild dogs as they scoured

afar off, or sent flying in all directions startled kangaroos, which

leaped across the moonlit wastes like ghosts of strange creatures in

pre-Adamite times.... At last we had come to Albury to join a friend

who promised us some swan shooting, and it thus came about that early

one morning, about an hour before dawn, we found ourselves crouching

under the shelter of some wattles growing close to the Murray lagoons.

Not a sound was to be heard save the monotonous swish of the river as

it swept slowly onward, except when at rare intervals some restless

parrot or cockatoo made a transient disturbance somewhere in the

forest. The stillness, the semi-darkness, the sound of the rushing

water, our expectancy, all rendered the hour one of mingled solemnity

and excited tension; and it was with difficulty that at least one

of our small party repressed some sound when within a few feet a

venomous-looking snake wriggled away with a faint hiss from a bunch of

knotted grass.”

At this juncture, unfortunately the writer was carried away by his

interest in snakes ... in rare water birds and “Murray-cod,” and quite

forgot to finish his account of the swan shooting. It is obviously

unnecessary to explain that shooting, as a sport, had no attraction

for him; whereas observing birds and bats, fish, etc., was always a

preoccupying interest.

“What a day of intense heat followed that morning! When at last we

reached our previous night’s shelter, a shepherd station known as

Bidgee Bend, we were nearly exhausted.

“While resting on a rough shake-down and lazily smoking, my eye

happened to glance at my saddle, which was lying close at hand, and

right in the midst thereof I saw a large scorpion with its tail raised

in that way which is known to signify a vicious state of mind. Hearing

my exclamation, the stockman looked round, and without a word reached

for a long-lashed whip, and with a blow of the shaft put an end to the

possibly dangerous intentions of our unwelcome visitor. Of an extremely

laconic nature, our shepherd friend never uttered a word he felt to

be unnecessary, and when, after having asked him if he saw scorpions

frequently hereabouts, and received a monosyllabic reply in the

affirmative, I added, ‘Any other kind of vermin?’ he muttered sleepily,

with his pipe in his mouth, ‘Bull-dog ants, hairy spiders, centipedes,

bugs.’”

On his return to Melbourne the traveller realised that there was no

immediate prospect of finding work. He had made inquiries in every

available direction, but he did not make any great effort. He realised

that life in the New World, under such conditions as would be open

to him, would be very distasteful; and greatly as he had enjoyed

the few months’ sojourn in Australia,