I always think I would have liked to have been alive in the early 1820s. It was essentially the end of the Romantic era, for the classic English poet. John Keats died in Rome on Feb. 23, 1821, while Shelley was either murdered or drowned in 1822. Lord Byron (George Gordon) expired in 1824 while spending his money refitting the Greek navy in that country’s fight to free itself from Turkey. He died from being bled by doctors, which caused a fatal infection. As a matter of interest Napoleon died a few months after Keats, on his island prison of Saint Helena.
I would give anything to be a Byron, club foot and all, called “mad, bad and dangerous to know” by Lady Caroline Lamb. Yes, even looking twice his age because of his debauchery when he died at 36. Don Juan might be his greatest poem, but I always loved The Destruction of Sennacherib, from which I can still remember the opening verse:
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
I wish I could remember more, but where are poets like that now?
The other day I was examining The Life of Kipling, a book my late father left me decades ago. While thumbing through its yellowing pages I came across a verse used as a bookmark that I had written whilst still a jammy-faced boy at boarding school. I must have been all of10 years old at the time. It read:
I love it when I buy a popsicle,
It feels so good against a testicle.
Hardly Blake, I know, and I recall I was sent home for gross rudeness after being summarily strapped. I think now that Father was highly amused although at the time I was in the doghouse.
Still I think my effort shows I had an interest in the arts, and that is all to the good for any child, now or then.
It is very probable we would be shocked by going back in time to the early 19th century and meeting our poetic heroes. Most had bad teeth and several were pockmarked horribly. They also suffered from consumption and serious stomach diseases plus smelled funny. They spent a goodly amount of time worrying about finances while lying about on filthy bed covers. To top it off, everyone appeared to have a touch of syphilis, something that was almost fashionable: True physical wrecks. But they live on as the Romantics.
For a long time I tried to pretend I was one of those put-upon and suffering writers, but it was hard to pull off while marching around parade grounds in a well-ironed uniform of Her Majesty’s Queen’s Own Rifles. I was thought odd by our colonel and I became someone who should have a sharp eye kept on him.
Still in my off hours I tried to behave in a bohemian manner, carrying around unfinished verses and weeping over lost loves that were semi-imaginary. I even tried what Dostoevsky did, I threw my arms around a cart horse (milk wagon) and wept at his predicament. The hearty animal seemed outraged because I had interrupted him while he had his nose-bag on.
However it became embarrassing for me to report back to barracks dressed in a cravat of toilet paper and paper shoes. One bloody minded sergeant kept arresting me on principle and the WO called me a damned Bolshie. I eventually saw the light and settled down to being an officer and a gentleman. But what might have been, eh?
I have never wanted to be Dylan Thomas from the 20th century, although I absolutely adore his poems. He died in New York in 1953 at the age of 39 after drinking 18 scotches at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. I mean “and Death has no Dominion” and “Do not go gentle into the good night” are spectacular efforts in anyone’s book, but he was a fool and would not grow up.
If I am fair none of the Romantics were grown up either, but they looked so much more handsome in their portraits than photos of the pop-eyed Thomas. Although his wife Caitlin was a real ripper.
Copyright Christopher Dalton 2015
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