now, in the bright lights and courage of the era we live in, there has been only one writer who has ventured to name Stroom and Graith.
His name was Dixon; he was at Oxford, in the fifties, with that undergraduate group which included Burne-Jones, William Morris, and on the outside, Rossetti. Where he found what so long had been hidden, even he does not say. But he wrote certain poems, in which Stroom and Graith, and the Agraffe appear.
This fact is recorded in only one book that I know of, and that is in the fifth volume of Mr. T. Humphry Ward's English Poets. When I opened this book, I read for the first time about Dixon. I also read one of his poems, which was wildish and weird:
"Go now from the shore,
Far ruined: the grey shingly floor
To thy crashing step answers, the doteril cries,
And on dipping wing flies:
'Tis their silence!"
Not knowing what a doteril was, I looked to see if the editor had explained: but no, all he said was that Dixon was fond of such words.
He added that others such as Stroom, Graith, and Agraffe appeared in his poems.
But he didn't print those poems in this collection, or explain those strange names.
The sound of them fascinated me. I sat there and dreamed for a while; and it was out of these dreamings that I wrote that verse at the head of this essay. Some stern and vast mystery seemed to me about to enfold. What part the Agraffe played in it (a mediæval beast I imagined) I could not know, could not guess. But I pictured a strong-hearted Stroom to myself as some hero, waging far, lonely fights, against foes on the edge of the skies; and I dreamed of how Vega stood waiting, until Stroom married Graith, and of how at the height of his majesty she inflicted her doom—a succession of abhorrent rebirths as a grotesque little dwarf.
Still, these were only my imaginings, and I wanted the records. I sent to the public library, and got out all of Dixon they had. Great red and gold volumes. But the one that I wanted—not there.... I sent to several famous universities.... It was not to be found.
I turned my search over to an obliging old friend, a librarian, and sat down feeling thwarted, to console myself with some other poet. There were many in Volume V of the English Poets, but not a one of them calmed me. I read restlessly every day, waiting to hear about Stroom. Then at last, one rainy evening, a telegram came! It was from that old friend. "Have found all those words Dixon used, in a dialect dictionary. It gives: 'Stroom: rightly strom: a malt strainer, a wicker-work basket or bottle, placed under the bunghole of a mash-tub to strain off the hops.' Mr. Dixon used it because he loved its sound, I suppose. As to Graith, it means 'furniture, equipment, apparatus for traveling.' And agraffes are the ornamented hooks used to fasten Knights' armor. They are mentioned in Ivanhoe."
Well, poets are always disappointing me.
I don't know why I read them.
However, having bought Volume V to read, I tried to keep on with it.
I read what it said about Browning's father being a banker. Poor old man, I felt sorry for him. Imagine the long years when he and his son faced each other, the old father telling himself hopefully, "Ah, well, he's a child, he'll get over these queer poetical ways,"—and then his not getting over them, but proposing to give his life to poetry! Make a career of it!
If there are any kind of men who want sons like themselves, it's our bankers: they have their banks to hand on, and they long to have nice banker babies. But it seems they are constantly begetting impossible infants. Cardinal Newman for instance: his bewildered father too was a banker. Fate takes a special pleasure in tripping these worthy men up.
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