George Wyndham on the Ballad of the White Horse
Posted by Nick Milne on July 7, 2008
The Hon. George Wyndham (1863-1913) was the Member of Parliament for Dover from 1889 until his death. He came of sturdy political stock, stretching back for several generations, and he was himself heavily involved in the political affairs of Ireland in the latter years of his life, especially (naturally) from 1900 to 1905, when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland.
In a letter to G.K. Chesterton written shortly before Wyndham’s death, he spoke unreservedly of the endless pleasure he derived from readings of the Ballad of the White Horse, finding in it the sort of satisfaction that would make a modern poet, similarly addressed, feel faintly suspicious:
I must thank you for the White Horse. I cannot go on reading it to myself (4 times) and reading it aloud at the top of my voice (5 times) and refrain any longer from thanking you. It is your due to be told that many eyes shine with delight at its strength, and that knots climb up the throats of men and women at its beauty. It is wisdom we shall patiently learn. ‘At last,’ and ‘Thank God,’ are what people say when they read it or hear it read. I thank you in addition to thanking God and my stars for having given what I most needed in largest measure. I am not selfish over it. I do not hoard it for my own satisfaction. On the contrary I read it aloud to all my friends and have a huge joy in watching it working in them. This I can easily do over the top of the book, as I know most of the plums by the heart. Like all great gifts, it goes around, it can be shared. It is not like a diamond or a sonnet in a language which few people know. To read the White Horse aloud is like bathing in the sea or riding over the downs in a company that becomes good company because of the exhilaration.”
Such sentiments seem alien to us now, for the most part, because we no longer produce poetry of a scope and caliber sufficient to inspire such feelings. Well, that may not be entirely accurate; I vaguely suspect that we do, in fact, still produce such poetry, but that it languishes in the near-complete obscurity that afflicts all poetry that has not been set to three chords and subjected to electricity.
