Two Soldier Poets—Lord Byron and Rupert Brooke

Brooke's Death in Greece was Strangely Paralleled by That of Byron, One Hundred Years Ago

LORNA R. F. BIRTWELL

THE year 1924 brings the one hundredth anniversary of the death of a poet whose name and fame have undergone many odd fluctuations. George Gordon, Lord Byron, first dazzled his world by his personal beauty and charm, as well as by his early virtuosity in poetry; then shocked it by his over-indulgences, his unsuccessful marriage, his subsequent divorce, and his rather cynical cede about both of these; and finally, when his literary reputation was yielding somewhat to that of greater contemporary poets than he, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, he again astounded it by his heroic death in the Greek War of Liberation.

Not long after Byron's death, he became, in the minds of English critics —although his cult in Europe was wide—a minor poet who had managed to invest himself with a sentimental and storm ful glamour. In this, they did him far less than justice, for in Byron's Don Juan, his supreme work, he stands revealed as a poet of power and a satirist of the first order.

Byron's death, in Greece, at the age of thirty-six in the Greek War of Liberation, has a strangely interesting parallel in that of Rupert Brooke, almost a century later. For it was in Greece, in can expedition to rescue Constantinople from the Turks, that Brooke died, on April 23—the same month as Byron—in his twenty-eighth year, of fever and blood poisoning resulting from sun-stroke in one of those

"sprinkled isles,

Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea

And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps Greece".

Nor does the parallel stop there. For there are striking similarities in their lives and circumstances, and especially in their reaction to

war.

Poets in War

NOTHING is more certain than that the reaction of men in war is so varied as to make the experiences of any man, or group of men, flatly false to the experience of others under the same stress. If proof of this were needed, one has only to read the reviews, passionately partisan, of novels that have been' bold enough to attempt to portray the emotions and behaviour of soldiers in the Great War.

Particularly interesting, of course, was the response of men of sensitive artistic temperament; and here we find the same implacable differences: for they range from the golden, lyric cry of Rupert Brooke and the romantic gallantry of Aldan Seeger all through the chromatic scale of emotions—from the brave, grim laughter of Robert Graves to the tormented shriek of Siegfried Sassoon.

It is significant of these two young men of genius, Brooke and Byron, that both found in war release and cleansing flame, and died before the long nerve torture of the struggle could quench their ardour.

Both of these young Englishmen had been favoured by fortune and were in sufficiently easv circumstances to live for the cultivation

of their human and artistic sensibilities—they did not eat "the porridge of John Keats". Both of them received the education of the English gentleman, Brooke's, however, much less eccentric and more complete than Byron's. Both of them claimed Cambridge as their University. There is, indeed, in Brooke's poem celebrating "the lovely hamlet, Grantchester", where he lived during many months of his university life, a charming reference to "Byron's Pool", a little widening in the River Cam just above Cambridge where Byron used to swim, as well as to a difficult feat of his in swimming a channel of the Hellspont, in the lines:

"Here in the dawn-lit waters cool

His ghostly lordship swims the pool,

And tries the strokes, essays the tricks

Long learned on Hellespont or Styx."

Furthermore, both of these young poets were handsome and popular, and each had achieved an immediate and startling success in poetry. Above all, both had the young artist's passionate willingness to live and suffer, if thus one might sound every note on the key-board. And both found in the quest a bitter satiety and disillusionment, "a deep disgust of life, love, all things." The experience is, of course, as old as youth and art, with their eternal, sharp demand that life shall be more than it ever is or can be.

It may be disputed that this was the case with Brooke, for his friends remember him as an ardent, joyous young man, much in love with life; a good football player and cricketer, as well as poet, whose decadence was nothing more than a passing pose. This, of course, is to a certain extent true; and we find Brooke writing to a friend, "I suppose my occupation is being in love with the universe, or (for it's an important difference) with certain bits, or moments, or points, of it." On the other hand, he writes on the day after his twentieth birthday, "I am now in the depths of despondency because of my age. I'm filled with an hysterical despair to think of fifty dull years more"; and certainly, if the internal evidence of that extraordinarily sincere volume of his verse may be believed, Brooke had moments, many of them, when he scraped the very bottom of ennui and self-disgust.

There the parallel between Brooke and Byron must cease; for the brilliant and spoiled young lordling took refuge, for a time at least, in the sentimental pose of the misunderstood Childe Harold, while Brooke's saner cynicism turned its merciless light upon himself in a way that we must believe would have brought healing for the disease of too much youth. It is to be doubted, however, whether anything except the mad, generous adventure of the Greek War of Liberation would have released Byron from the flatness of jaded sophistication into which he had fallen, or given back to him in death the glory with which he had flamed upon the world in his early years.

The story is still fresh with us of that beautiful and gifted young man, Rupert Brooke—the first of the soldier poets to fall in the Great War; the firs; to remind us that war was to take its toll, not only of flesh and blood and human hearts, but of the sustaining genius of nations, who turned in his own words:

"From half-men and their dirty songs and dreary,

And all the little emptiness-of love" to find on foreign soil, in the little island of Slcyros, "the laughing-heart's long peace". It may not be amiss to go back a century and review the last chapter in the life of that other English poet, whose fate Brooke was all unconsciously to share.

Byron in the Greek War

A RECENT book La Vie de Byron, from the pen of that distinguished French writer, Roger Boutet de Monvel,* gives us a vivid account of Byron's travels in Europe, and relates with sympathetic fidelity the story of his last days and death at Missolonghi. From the narrative of M. de Monvel, this account of Byron's activities in the Greek War of Liberation will largely be drawn.

It will be remembered by students of Byron's life that, far from sympathizing with the Greeks on his first visit to Greece in 1809, he regarded them as a slavish people, quite inferior to the Turks. It was not until 1821, when little bands of Greek patriots, finding their cause deserted by their European allies, launched a desperate revolt against the Turks, that Byron, ever a champion of the underdog, began to be warmly interested ia the Greeks, and this interest grew until finally he devoted his life to their cause. To many his hellenism seemed nothing more than a pose. But while it is true that his credit as a man had suffered severely and that he did hope to regain at least some part of the esteem that he had lost, it is even more true that he longed to prove himself capable of practical and devoted service to a great cause; that he wished to sink the poet in the soldier and statesman, the man of luxurious tastes in the stoic; and that he did, indeed, prove his coolness and his wisdom, as well as his gallantry in that cause in which he increasingly forgot himself, until it became his destiny "to render all, no less".

* Roger Boutet de Monvel is a son of the a-tist, Maurice Boutet de Monvel, whose paintings for the life of Jeanne d'Arc are justly famous, and the brother of Bernard de Vlonvel, who has done some amusing sketches for Vanity Fair.

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Byron set sail from Italy for Cephalonia, in Greece, in July, 1823. He remained in Cephalonia until the end of December, in order to hold himself outside of the factions of Greek patriots. It was the darkest period of the war. In the words of the historian, Sir Richard Jebb, "It was the hour of discord, of intrigue, of rampant selfishness, of fatal blindness or indifference to the urgent needs of the common weal. The years 1821 and 1822 had the lustre of success. The years from 1825 to 1827 had the lustre of heroic constancy under terrible suffering. But the space between, in which Byron's part was played, had neither one nor the other. The events which they comprise are the only blots on the record of a glorious and ultimately triumphant enterprise."

The two most hopeless elements in this struggle were, as Byron clearly saw, the continual dissensions of the Greeks and their lack of funds.

Byron's Arrival in Missolonghi

ON January 5, 1824, he arrived at Missolonghi, the Greek stronghold of the western coast. For the account of the next three months, the last of Byron's life, I shall translate largely from the narrative of M. de Monvel.

"His arrival was an apotheosis. They had waited for him so long! They placed such magnificent hopes in him! Passed from mouth to mouth, the name of the great Englishman had finally taken on a marvelous aura; and in popular imagination Byron was transformed into a sort of fabulous genius whose mere presence would remedy all evils. Apprised of his arrival, a feverish mob of men and women and children, armed soldiers, and shepherds from far-away provinces crowded the shore. And then he came, glorious, dominating. That was he in the red coat—for he had resumed the British uniform. One could recognize him in the gallant bearing, in the brilliant glance, in that air of being willing to dare everything. Wild cries of enthusiasm, mingling with the noise of cannon, with barbaric music and the jangling of bells, filled the air with their clamour. Followed by the crowd, he went to the house that had been prepared for him. On the threshold waited Mavrocordatos (the president of the Greek cabinet), surrounded by officers of all the armies and of all ranks, from great officials to chieftains of little bands of veterans who had hastened to put their swords at his service.

"Astounding and unforgettable moment when he tasted, deliciously, applause and ovation!

"But this dream lasted only a little while; and this occasion was the last of the sort that lie would experience. The day after his arrival began the confusion and the deceptions that were to go on during the three months he had left to live. Contests with his entourage and with his soldiers, forced inaction, torments of body and soul; nothing of all these was spared him."

Byron found himself, not only at the head of ragged, starving, undisciplined troops and involved in all sorts of factious intrigues, but also beset by the pestilential fevers of the locality. Long days of rain flooded the roads and necessitated a tedious and, indeed, dangerous inactivity.

"The engineer, William Parry, who came from London to offer his services, wrote back: Tie (Byron) seemed like a man destitute of hope, but holding out until the end. I got the impression that his fate had been written before I arrived and that, already, so to speak, he was on his death-bed. He seemed feverish, tired of himself and of others. From the very beginning it seemed to me that he was deceived, abandoned—almost, I might say, betrayed. Before witnesses, he kept up an appearance; he could even as, in fact, he did many times, laugh at his misfortunes. But in his heart he felt that he was being deserted, that he was being forgotten.'

"On the fifteenth of February, he felt less well than usual. In the evening, he threw off his langour and talked at length with Parry, Colonel Stanhope (agent of the Greek Committee in London), and Conte Gamba (Father of the Contessa Guiccioli, with whom Byron lived in Italy). The last two having left the room, Parry found himself alone in the crisis which they had all felt was coming. 'Lord Byron', he wrote, 'had been twitting Colonel Stanhope on the soldier's profession. Evidently something was bothering him; and as he was thirsty, he sent his valet to get some cider. I begged him not to drink it in the state he was in. His face was congested and showed a peculiar agitation. Scarcely had he drunk it than he complained of strange sensations. He rose, but could not walk; staggered, and fell into my arms. _ He lost consciousness and writhed in convulsions. I laid him on the couch and succeeded in restoring him with the aid of the valet. When I took him in my arms, his face was distorted, with the mouth pulled awry.'

"He was carried to bed. He asked what had happened, whether it was fatal or not, and demanded the truth. Haggard, exhausted, he regained possession of himself little by little, when the news came that the Suliots had again revolted and were marching on the munition depot. (The Suliots were a particularly fierce tribe of Greek and Albanian origin, who had taken their name from their stronghold, the Suli mountain range.) All flew to arms and prepared to bar their way. But while they were, guarding one side, the Suliots came from the other. They surrounded Byron's house and burst into the chamber of the sick man. A sea of these marauders crowded afound his bedside, parading their tattered clothes, brandishing their daggers, hurling furious threats at him.

"Byron leaped out of bed. His strength returned. Face to face with that unbridled mob, he maintained his ascendancy over the desperadoes, and showed them his disgust, until they were silent and withdrew, overcome by the lightning of his glance, his imperious gesture!

". 'It was really,' Stanhope declares, 'a sublime sight!' "

Byron continued very ill. His doctors, both bewildered and alarmed, had recourse to frequent bleeding, which reduced him almost to a coma. Finally he refused further blood-letting, saying that "more people perished by the lancet than by the lance!" He longed for action, to fall in the heat of battle. "My God!" he cried, "may the day come when, throwing myself against the Turks and fighting like one surfeited with life, I may find death, a quick death, without suffering. It is the thing I pray for!"

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In spite of his own suffering and the complete demoralization of affairs, Byron showed heroism, endurance, and gaiety, seeking to give heart to everyone. "Furthermore"—I again translate from M. de Monvel—"in so far as he could, he sought to soften the ferocity of his troops. Pistol in hand, he rescued a Turkish prisoner from the vengeance of the Suliots. Later he demanded the liberty of thirty-four Turkish women and children who were being used as slaves by the inhabitants of the city. One of these implored the pity of Byron. The Greeks had massacred her family. She, herself, had seen the brains of her first-born dashed out against the walls of the prison. There was only one child left, a little girl, nine years old, Hatadje. Byron was touched by this poor little captive, and decided to adopt her. He intended to send her first to Dr. Kennedy, at Cephalonia, then to England to Lady Byron, if she would consent, in any case, to receive her as companion for Ada." (Ada was Byron's daughter, an infant at the time of his separation from his wife.)

It is significant that the little girl was never sent to England, but returned, after the death of her patron, to her mother in Patras. Of that estranged and unforgiving wife, and even more of his daughter, Ada, Byron thought much in these days when he had a sure presentiment of his death. On one occasion, he said: "Leaving Italy on the brig, I had a good deal of time to think. I believe sincerely that there is no other happiness in life except that to be found in family life. No one on earth reverences more than I do the virtuous wife; and the thought of going back to England to my wife and child opens up to me a prospect of happiness such as I have never known. From this time on, I shall seek a refuge; for my existence has been like an ocean on a stormy day."

A Renascence of Hope

"TN March, the national assembly offered Byron the title of Governor of Greece; or rather, to be more exact, of that part of it which the Turks had abandoned. Byron replied that he was first going to the Congress at Salone, and would then put himself at the disposal of the country. The object of this conference was to put an end to quarrels among Greek chieftains and, it possible, establish good faith. But torrents of rain and the news that the Turks were returning to blockade Missolonghi deterred them. Meanwhile, they heard that the Greek envoy had negotiated a loan of 800,000 pounds at London. It was the first good news that Byron had had since his arrival.

On the ninth of April, Byron took advantage of a clearing in the weather to go out on horseback. Another storm burst, and he was drenched to the bone. From that time on, he could not leave his bed. Most of the time he was delirious. The doctors were helpless. "A spectacle", says Parry, "such as I have seldom seen and that I hope never to see again: two physicians who have lost their heads—+ Bruno (the Italian doctor) in such agitation that he has lost his bit of science; Millingen (an English physician) unable to control his tears; no method, no remedy, no quiet; every one talking at once, each in his own language."

"At four o'clock, they thought he was going to die. He took the hand of the gondolier (Tita) and murmured in Italian: "O! questa e una bella scena!' He asked for Parry, but his mind continued to wander. He thought himself on the rampart, and cried to his men: 'Forward! Forward! Follow me! Don't be afraid!'

The Death of Byroft

WHEN he regained consciousness, Fletcher, his valet, was at his pillow. He wished to assure the future of his servants. Fletcher protested, 'By God, Sir, don't think of that now! Think of more important things.' Byron's face clouded. 'It is the end.

I must tell you everything—.' Fletcher wanted to get a pen. 'No, no, there isn't time. Try to do what I say,' he continued. 'My poor child—my poor Ada—My God, if I could have seen her again! Give her my blessing. My dear sister, her children. You will go to see Lady Byron, and you will say— tell her everything—you know.' Fletcher heard only a vague murmur in which were the names, 'Augusta, Ada, Hobhouse, Kinnaird.' From time to time Byron raised his voice and looked at his servant. 'Fletcher, if you don't carry out my orders, I shall come back to earth and haunt you!'

"On Easter Monday, April 19, 1824, at quarter-past-six in the morning, just as a terrific storm again broke outside, Byron suddenly opened his eyes and shut them again, this time forever. "He was in his thirty-seventh year. "The news of his death spread instantaneously through the streets and shops of Missolonghi, stunning everybody. That evening, there was a proclamation ordering that at sunrise the batteries of the forts fire thirtyseven salutes; that all public offices, even the tribunals, should stop functioning; that all merchants close their doors; that all Easter festivities be discontinued; and that a twenty-one day period of mourning be instituted.

"Delayed by the constant rains, the funeral services took place on April 22, in the church in which already reposed the mortal hosts of Marco Bozzaris (an adored leader of the Suliots). 'The coffin', says Gamba, 'was of rough wood; a black coat served as the funeral pall; upon it were placed a casque, a sabre, and a wreath of laurels. All funeral honours could scarcely have produced the effect of that simple ceremony. The poverty, indeed the desolation, of the spot; the fierce, half-barbaric, warriors; their deep, sincere grief; the anguish and foreboding written on their faces—all contributed to make the scene more moving than any other could have been before the tomb of a great man."

In conclusion, I turn once more from Byron to Brooke to quote from a letter written home by the latter while on the Dardanelles expedition: "I can well see that life might be great fun; and I can well see that death might be an admirable solution." For both of these high-spirited, adventuring young poets, this might serve as an epitaph, indeed in a larger sense, in which death, whether it come early 01 late, loses its overwhelming stgnificance, for all humanity.