REMINISCENCES OF WILLIAM MORRIS

THE IDLE SINGER OF AN EMPTY DAY.

(BY ONE WHO KNOWS HIM)

" Of heaven nor hell I have no power to sing.
 I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
 Nor make quick coming death a little thing,
 Nor bring again the pleasure of past years,
 Nor for my song shall ye forget your tears,
 Nor hope again for all that I can say,
 The idle singer of an empty day.

" The heavy trouble, the bewildering care,
 That weigh us down who earn our daily bread,
 These idle verses have no power to share,
 I can but sing of names remembered,
 That dying, yet can ne'er be dead,
 Nor long time take their memory quite away,
 From us, the singers of an empty day.

" But rather when aweary of your mirth
 From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
 And feeling kindly unto all the earth,
 Grudge every minute as it passes by ;
 Made the more mindful that the sweet days die ;
 Remember me a little then, I pray,
 The idle singer of an empty day.

 (There has been a great deal of paragraphing about the "idle singer of an empty day" just lately. There have been speculations as to whether the Laureateship rendered vacant by the death of Tennyson would be offered to him, and comparisons between his work and that of his contemporaries, with the result that there has been a demand for his works at the booksellers, and a quantity of floating gossip and criticism about the man and his views. Professor Morris—the erudite occupant of the Chair of Modern Literature at the University of Melbourne (no relative of William Morris, by-the-bye, despite the identity of name)—has, in a careful study of the leading living English bards in the columns of the Argus, expressed the opinion that he is the "most flawless" of contemporary poets. In a weekly Melbourne journal of last week, too, I find an able sketch of Morris from the pen of Katherine Tynan. As this interest in him appears to be so general in Australia at the present time I thought it might probably interest many people if I jotted down a few of the things I remember about William Morris, whom it is my pride and pleasure to know and for whom as man and poet I profess an almost unbounded admiration and affection. One or two of the stories I shall tell of him I heard from him personally; others were told me by my good friend, Mr H. Halliday Sparling, who married Miss May Morris, and who has at various times told me a stock of delightful incidents about his father-in-law. Many of these I have forgotten, and others it would be an abuse of friendship to relate ; but there are some which have never been told in print before, and which I imagine will interest the admirers of the poet.
 There is one, for instance, which Sparling told me at his own expense. William Morris has a peculiar and distinctive style of dress. He always wears a very much faded blue serge suit, a bright blue shirt and collar (of the color the French peasants wear) and a gleaming scarlet necktie. His hat is a wide-brimmed soft sloucher ; and in this costume, with his magnificent noble head and his fine classic features, he looks a picturesque and striking figure. When Harry Sparling married May Morris he took to wearing a similar costume. But Morris is short and stout—indeed, as he makes one of his characters say of himself in his beautiful Dream of John Ball, "Thout art tall across thy belly, old man, but not otherwise." Sparling however, is tall and thin. The strange costume, when they are seen together, makes them look two very ill-matched and eccentric figures. On one occasion they were walking together to a socialist demonstration in Hyde Park. They attracted a great deal of attention, with their slouch hats, blue shirts and red ties. A party of East End costers were on the way, too, in a little donkey chaise. One of them was a bit of a humorist, and as he saw the poet and his son-in-law the garb attracted him, and, leaning over the side of the cart, he yelled : "Hullo there ! Wot cher, fat and lean?" Morris was delighted, and told the story to everyone he met as one having a distinctly mediæval flavor."

No man has a keener taste for a good story than William Morris. His best known book. The Earthly Paradise, is a collection of splendid classic tales, called by him from the legendary literature of Greece, Rome, Italy, Scandinavia and Britain. No man living has done so much for making the rich store of Saga lore familiar to English readers as he has; and I certainly think Mr Andrew Lang is right when he recommends that these rare old Norse tales of conflict and adventure are some of the finest reading in the whole of literature. Sparling edited a volume of the great Volsunga Saga for Mr Walter Scott's Camelot series of shilling classics, and I can recommend it as an excellent book. Morris is, however, issuing a whole series of Sagas in handsome and somewhat expensive volumes. The tales have been translated from the Icelandic language under his own personal supervision. This fondness for old stories has made Morris become acquainted with pretty well every fine old tale to be found in ancient books. Some of these are not of the strictly " proper" type which Mrs Grundy might retail to her daughters. I remember hearing of a funny incident of an occasion when Morris told some of these fine old crusted tales to a parson, who was frightfully shocked thereby. He was an American parson, who was paying a visit to England, and having literary tastes he tried very hard to procure interviews with some leading English men of letters. After some difficulty he got an evening with Morris. Swinburne and Theodore Watts were also there —kindred souls—and while the tobacco smoke curled to the ceiling, the little party began "yarning." At first the stories were very nice and "good," such as might have been told to any well conducted " young person" of seventeen. But as one after another was told, Morris's contributions to the conversation became more and more "mediaeval," until finally he came out with some choice full-flavored exotics of anecdote. The poor parson laughed feebly, and fervently he exclaimed, turning up his eyes to the ceiling: "Great heavens ! to think that I should have lived to hear one of four great poets of this era telling blue stories!" And the perspiration poured from his brow.
 William Morris is the most prolific of modern poets, notwithstanding his flawless art and the delicate polish he gives to every line he writes. Sparling told me that on one occasion his father-in-law wrote 500 lines of his translation of Homer's Odyssey at one sitting. This would have been a feat worth mentioning if it had been ordinary prose ; but as a performance in rhymed verse it is, I should think, well nigh unprecedented. His family always know when he is at work writing poetry. A buzzing like the humming of bees is heard from his study ; and to enter the room then would be an almost unforgiveable offence. As he writes he reads over aloud the words that fly from the tip of his pen. His pen is scarcely ever idle, even when he is in conversation with anybody. I possess a beautiful example of his pen and ink drawing, on a piece of foolscap, which he did while listening to some remarks at a lecture one evening. Morris himself had been lecturing, and after his address a gentleman in the meeting rose to make some observations. Morris made one or two notes in the corner of the paper, but all the while his pen was drawing beautiful designs in floral work. He seemed to be doing it unconsciously. I asked for the paper afterwards and have kept it ever since. He is an expert draughtsman, and draws all the designs for the Morris wall paper himself.
 As I write, another story of an American occurs to me. The poet is very fond of the Thames, and delights in sitting in a boat fishing, reading, writing or drawing, as the moods occur to him. On one occasion, while he was fishing from a boat on the Thames, an American, knowing who he was, did his best to draw him into conversation. Morris, however, to the annoyance of the Yankee, took no notice of him; he wished to be alone. At last he hooked a fish, it was a very small roach, not more than a few inches long. Then the American had his revenge. Leaning over the side of the boat, he said, "Say boss, what'll you take for the blubber ?"
 His democratic tastes have revealed themselves very strongly in his recent literary work. In his last volume. "Poems by the way," for instance, there is a beautiful embodiment of his social views. It is called the "Message of the March Wind." The most casual reader cannot fail to notice the delicacy of the tinting in the opening lines :—

"Fair now is the spring tide, now earth lies beholding
 With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;
 Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding
 The green growing acres with increases begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying
 'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field ;
 Love mingles with love and no evil is weighing
 On my heart or thine where all sorrow is healed.

 From township to township, o'er down and by tillage,
 Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day,
 But now cometh eve at the end of the village,
 Where over the low wall the church riseth grey.

 There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us
 The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;
 The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us.
 And the vane on the spire top is swinging in doubt.

 And then the poet tells of the sadness of the city whose lights they can see in the distance—

Hark ! the message again of a people is telling ;
 Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim,

That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling
 My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim.

The singers have song and the builders have builded,
 The painters have fashioned their tales of delight ;

For what and for whom hath the world's book been gilded,
 When all is for these but the blackness of night?

How long and for what is their patience abiding ?
 How oft and how oft shall their story be told

While the hope, that none seeketh in darkness is hiding,
 And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old.

 Many people who are victims of the autograph-collecting craze write to William Morris for his autograph. Some of them enclose a stamp for the reply. They never get one. " What do you do with the stamps I asked him once. " They are useful for Socialistic propaganda" he replied. Conservatives, therefore, had better not write to Morris for his autograph. They will be spreading Socialism quite unintentionally.

Gippsland Farmers' Journal and Traralgon, Heyfield and Rosedale News (Vic. : 1887 - 1893), Friday 17 March 1893, page 5