University of Virginia Library

Padraic Colum in The Dublin Magazine
by
Arthur Sherbo

Alan Denson's "Padraic Colum: An Appreciation with a Check-list of his Publications," published in the new Dublin Magazine (6:1 [1967], 50 — 67), includes a list of the periodicals to which Colum contributed and the years in which those writings appeared. Denson cites 1965 and 1966 for Colum's contributions to The Dublin Magazine, not distinguishing between the original title by that name (1923 — 58) and The Dublin Magazine, formerly The Dubliner (1965 — 74, after 1961 — 64). I wish to serve future students of Colum's work not only by identifying the actual contributions but also by showing that they extended over a much longer period, throughout both the early and late incarnations of the periodical, than has been acknowledged.

A number of Colum's writings appeared in the later magazine, under both of its titles. This group began in 1962 (pace Denson, who lists only 1963 for The Dubliner) with the essay "Encounters with George Moore" (1:2) [1962], 49 — 55). Colum contributed three poems in 1963 under the title Pictures of Travel: "Indian Chief (Portrait in the University of Kansas City)," "Hula Master (Pacific Island)," and "Young Girl (Indonesia)" (1:6, 44 — 46). The first has not been reprinted; the other two had been published earlier in the Collected Poems of 1953 (hereafter CP). In 1963 he also provided a short essay, "John O'Leary" (2:2 [1963], 85 — 87). He contributed another article, "Francis Ledwige," in 1964 (3:2, 21 — 24) and a short piece on the poet Thomas Dermody in 1965 (4:3 — 4, 38 — 42). The 1966 publication was the essay "Thomas MacDonagh and His Poetry" (3:1, 39 — 45). He furnished a new poem, "Near Legend," in 1967 (6:2, 64 — 65), too late for Denson's checklist.

His contributions to the original Dublin Magazine are far more extensive: they occur in twenty-three of the thirty-six volumes and are fifty-three in number. I list them seriatim, giving volume, issue, year, and page(s); all volume references are to the New Series (which began in 1926), except for the items marked "O. S."

O. S. 1:2 (1923), 106. Hawaiian Folk Song. The poem is headed by an explanatory note: "The refrain means 'From the cold,' and it is pronounced 'ee kay annoo, ay.' The title of the poem in the original is 'Poli anu-anu,' 'Breast cold-cold.'" In Poems (1932) Colum adds a footnote in his appended "Notes," describing the translation as of "a little popular song evidently made under European influence — the refrain means 'from the cold'" (p. 214). In 1932 this translation is part II of Hawaii and even here there are

revisions (the periodical's readings are listed first): l. 3, O so cold am I / Oh, so cold, I have to say; l. 5, rain / wind; l. 7, Body / Bodies. The last stanza reads, in 1932, "What if this we do / Against wind, cold, and dew — / Arms put around each other? / Just so that we need not say / I ku anu e!" for which the earlier version had, "How if we two put — / Just to fend the cold — / Arms around each other? / I ku anu e." It must be noted that the refrain line was changed, in its three appearances, from ke to ku and that the revised version, whatever its virtues or shortcomings as translation, ends with an exclamation.

O. S. 1:3 (1923), 181 — 190. Translation of Two Hawaiian Romances, i.e. The Arrow and the Swing (pp. 181 — 184) and The Story of Ha-Le-Ma-No and the Princess Karma (pp. 184 — 190).

O. S. 1:5 (1923), 392 — 395. The Sad Sequel to Puss-in-Boots.

O. S. 1:6 (1924), 471 — 476. A Polynesian Night's Entertainment, continued in 1:7, 583 — 589.

O. S. 1:7 (1924), 659. In Memory of John Butler Yeats. When the poem appeared years later in Colum's Irish Elegies it bore the title The Painter John Butler Yeats 1839 — 1922 and contained some important variants: l. 6, Now your breath's gone and all your words / Your words, your breath. Lines 9 and 10 in 1924 read, "Though they indeed have greyness to fly through / That you had not — the curlews of our land." In Irish Elegies they read, "Adorn the Shannon's reach, or crying through / The mist between Clew Bay and Dublin Bay!" The last stanza in Irish Elegies was added to the 1924 version:

One would not know from the early version what is clear from the added stanza, i.e. that Butler was not only a painter but also a portrait painter.

O. S. 1:7 (1924), 665. Cretan Picture, retitled and revised as Minoan in the Poems of 1932 (p. 73), but omitted in CP. The revisions, with the periodical text first, are: l. 1, hold / has; l. 3, Or / And; l. 9, It / He; l. 10, in / on; l. 12, Will / Still. "He," the "hound" of line 9, is preferable to "It"; "on his master's mind" of line 10 is preferable to "in its master's mind." Here the revisions are clearly improvements.

O. S. 1:9 (1924), 822 — 826. A Note on Hawaiian Poetry, including three poems, Pigeons on the Beach, The Surf Rider, and Hawaiian Evening Song. The first reappears in CP, as part II of Pigeons, so much revised as to be a new poem. The second is the third poem in Hawaii (CP, pp. 146 — 147); the third is the fifth poem in Hawaii (CP, pp. 148 — 149).

O. S. 1:10 (1924), 906 — 907. The Apple (prose).

O. S. 1:11 (1924), 929 — 937. The Show Booth, by Alexander Blok. Translated by Padraic Colum and Vadim Uraneff.

O. S. 2:3 (1924), 191 — 192. A Marriage in Manhattan (prose).

O. S. 2:3 (1924), 207. The Resplendent Quetzal Bird (South America). There is one variant in CP, line 10 of which reads "To Quetzalcoatl who makes verdure through rain-flow" for which the 1924 text has "To Quetzalcoatl, the god who went westward."

O. S. 2:5 (1924), 300. Fuchsias in Connacht. Revised title, Fuchsia Hedges in Connacht (CP, p. 190), with five minor revisions in the text, including the omission of line 18, "You stand beside the furzes in our fields." And l. 2, drew / bought; l. 4, I'll / I; l. 6, children / daughters; l. 10, you've / You have; l. 12, before / beside. The poem had appeared in the first number of Commonweal (Nov. 12, 1924, p. 21) in the month preceding the publication in The Dublin Magazine. The texts are the same except that the earlier has "before" in the line omitted in CP, where the later has "beside."

2:11 (1925), 773 — 775. Remy De Gourmont. A monk of Theleme. A review of De Gourmont's Decadence and other Essays on the Culture of Ideas, translation by William Aspenwall Bradley. De Gourmont's method in these essays "is to divide the 'commonplace,' as the translator calls it, or the truism into its two parts — the fact and the abstraction that has been tied to it." And, in explanation of his title, Colum suggests that De Gourmont "belongs to a monastery but it should be the monastery that Rabelais projected — the Abbey of Theleme."

2:12 (1925), 774 — 787. The Betrayal — A Play in One Act. "The action of the Play takes place in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," with the Scene "an Inn-room in a country town," the actors four in number.

5:2 (1930), 65 — 67. A Note on Austin Clarke. According to Rudi Holzapfel, Clarke contributed seventy-three items to the periodical.[1] The Note is actually a review of Clarke's Pilgrimage and Other Poems, Colum concluding by declaring that he had "a feeling in reading this last book of one who is still the youngest of the Irish poets that the purely Gaelic spirit that delights in pattern for its own sake, and delights in what is esoteric, has reached a limit in these memorable poems."

5:2 (1930), 76 — 78. A review of Ella Young's The Tangled-Coated Horse, the saga of Fionn the Son of Vail, a work Colum praised whole-heartedly, singling out the prose style especially.

5:4 (1930), 2 — 4. Three poems, Lilac Blossoms, Woodbine, and Scanderberg. The first line of Lilac Blossoms, "We mark the playing time of rain and sun," appears as "We mark the playing time of sun and rain" in CP. Woodbine is not in CP, but is reprinted in Colum's The Vegetable Kingdom (1954) with these variants: l. 14, In window-sills / On window-sill; l. 16, As / As the; l. 18, or / on; l. 20, to the house / so long; l. 21, So long, so close / so close to the house. Line 24 of The Vegetable Kingdom, "From where he has lain" is added. Further, l. 26, sudden / l. 27 a sudden; l. 28, meadow-slope / l. 29, meadow-slopes. Lines 31 — 36 of the earlier text are omitted:

Further variants: l. 40, that brings / l. 35, to bring; l. 41, in the / l. 36, the; l. 42, Her hand has lifted / om.; l. 49, thing / l. 43, bloom.

6:4 (1931), 20 — 35. A review-essay on Dennis Gwynne, Traitor and Patriot: the Life and Death of Roger Casement. Colum knew Casement and when Colum was editor of the Irish Review he published some pieces of Casement's. Colum tells some anecdotes about him, corrects some errors ("reconstructions" he terms them), and concludes that his name "will remain in the canon of martyrs."

7:1 (1932), 67 — 69. A review of Italo Svevo, Senilità, much of which is plot summary, but which concludes that the book "has the freshness of a first novel, and the sort of actuality that belongs to a recall of part of a man's life."

8:2 (1933), 32 — 40. A critical essay on the poetry of "James Clarence Mangan," with generous quotation and the statement that of the 180 "pieces" in "the definitive edition produced by D. J. O'Donoghue" he would "not have Mangan represented by more than fifteen poems."

[8:3 (1933), 71 — 73. Padraic Fallon reviews Colum's A Half-Day's Ride, stating that in this collection of prose pieces "we do not find the full colour of Mr. Colum's mind; for that we must go to his verse."]

8:4 (1933), 24 — 29. It is Not wisdom to be Only Wise, a narrative of the trial for treason of Robert Emmet, arraigned on behalf of the crown by, among others, William Conyngham Plunket.

9:3 (1934), 25 — 31. Pilgrimage, 1932, consisting of "Tours" and "Les Iles de Lerins."

10:2 (1935), 1 — 2. Flower Pieces, i.e. Morning Glories, Lilies, Wallflowers, and Marigolds. None is in CP. These are reprinted in Flower Pieces (1938), with revisions in Wallflowers and in Marigolds. Wallflowers: l. 1, mount / climb; l. 2, set / plant; l. 14, The . . . well-washed / That . . . new-washed; l. 18, none's as / none so. Marigolds: lines 5 — 6 read "Rondures enkindled and as deeply glowing, / As any growing on Hesperides." for which 1938 has, "As rich as simples sought-for and ungarnered, / Whose rondures brighten on Hesperides." All four poems are printed in The Vegetable Kingdom (1954), Morning Glories unchanged. Line 11 of Lilies in the periodical has "the" for which Flower Pieces and The Vegetable Kingdom have "that." Line 4 of Wild Flowers in the periodical has "that the" for which the later two texts have "that" only. Marigolds is much revised in The Vegetable Kingdom, with three four-line stanzas where the earlier versions have two. The first two stanzas are reversed. The first line in stanza two of The Vegetable Kingdom reads, "Take Marigolds — I bring them from the garden," revised from "Bring Marigolds to me out of your garden." The first two lines of the first

stanza in The Vegetable Kingdom read, "Take Marigolds — as golden as the posies / The sunset beacons of Hesperides," revised from lines 5 — 6 of the earlier versions. The third is the added stanza:

10:2 (1935), 50 — 51. A review of Sir James Jeans's Through Space and Time. "Sir James Jeans is an instance of a first-rate mind that is limber enough to do a good job of popularization. . . . he helps us to understand the background which scientists of to-day take for granted. . . . he never slips down from the dignity that is inherent in his subject."

11:1 (1936), 5 — 12. Re-valuing Richard Brinsley Sheridan is partially biographical, partially critical, Colum preferring The Rivals over The School for Scandal, the latter being "so loose in structure, so thin in content." The Rivals "is an Irish comedy," while "The School for Scandal is an English comedy written by an Irishman."

11:2 (1936), 10 — 23. A Poet's Progress in the Theatre, an essay-review of The Collected Plays of W. B. Yeats. Colum, in conclusion, invokes Greek tragedy and states that the "ancient poetry was steeped in religion, was constantly referring to pieties; in the plays in this collection there is no religion, there are no pieties. The contrast makes us see how much significance is left out of even the finest of modern dramatic productions."

[13.3 (1938), 83 — 85. Austin Clarke reviews Colum's The Story of Lowry Maen, finding, among other shortcomings, that Colum keeps "his blank verse in a hard narrow mould as if he felt that the Iron Age could best be symbolised by cast-iron lines." He terms the poem "courageous."]

14:2 (1939), 22 — 31. Darrell Figgis: A Portrait. A portrait by one who knew Figgis and the political scene in Ireland from 1914 to 1916 very well, the dates being those of Figgis's posthumously published Recollections of the Irish War, 1914 — 1916. The portrait ends with quotation of one of Figgis's Songs of Acaill, beginning "There is no peace now however things go."

[14:1 (1939), 79 — 81. Mona Gooden reviews Colum's Flower Pieces: New Poems with two other collections of poetry. "A simple yet imaginative acceptance of the beauty of the visible world has always been a characteristic of the poetry of Padraic Colum, and this being so, it is not surprising that the freshness and wonder in his vision, which has never deserted him through years of American journalism, should be particularly stimulated by the varied and individual qualities of flowers."]

19:3 (1944), 10 — 14. Arthur Lynch: A Portrait. "He liked me, I know, and I find I had a deep affection for Arthur Lynch." Largely biographical.

21:2 (1945), 19 — 24. The Poet's Babylon. A meditation on the literature of and on the Babylonians with reference to the writings of "Sayce, Renouf, Budge, George Smith, and . . . Stephen Herbert Langdon."

23:1 (1948), 1 — 2. Two poems, i.e. Pomegranate Trees With Fruit and Copper

Beeches. Not in CP; both revised in The Vegetable Kingdom. Pomegranate Tree With Fruit: l. 4, The distance and the sparkling seas / An aeon of the shining seas; l. 9, unsaturated . . . beside / their unsized . . . amid; l. 10, Their pointed / Bright lance-like; l. 12, in all their elements / to all extremities. Copper Beeches has two added lines (15 — 16): "The Copper Beeches spread beside / The Willow, Ash, and Sycamore," and there is one variant, in the penultimate line of the poem, Beside / Against.

24:1 (1949), 1, 19. Stocks or Pinks or Gillyflowers and Irises. Not in CP; both revised in The Vegetable Garden. Stocks or Pinks or Gillyflowers: l. 2, Those / These; l. 4, Pale / White; l. 6, These / The. Irises: l. 5, colors, depths / colors' depths; l. 6, azure, purple / purple, azure; l. 7, color / colors.

24:3 (1949), 28 — 39. Tom Kettle: A Memory. Biographical-autobiographical. "He was an Irish nationalist who knew that Ireland's place was with Europe."

24:4 (1949), 11 — 17. Early Days of the Irish Theatre, I. Autobiographical-critical (continued in 25:1 [1950], 18 — 25). No one man "created a national theatre for Ireland. . . . behind the writers and players was a national feeling that manifested itself through the young men and women belonging to the politico-cultural clubs in the Dublin of the time; it was they who gave the project spirit and breath of life."

25:2 [1950], 1. Old Song Resung.

25:4 (1950), 1. The Charm. Much revised in The Poet's Circuits. Collected Poems of Ireland (1960) with the title changed to Man Who Gains a Charm.

[26:2 (1951), 47. Review of Colum's Wild Earth with three other collections of poetry (pp. 47 — 49) by W. P. M. The "old naturalness of attitude in which Wild Earth [published first in 1907] was shaped has become more self-conscious, and the best of that book has never since been surpassed."]

26:3 (1951), 38 — 46. James Stephens as a Prose Artist. "He brought into Irish literature (it was then at the stage of being a movement) a naturalism that was as fresh as it was engaging." Colum discusses a number of Stephens's prose pieces, declaring his great fondness for the stories "Morgan's Frenzy" and "The Wooing of Becfola" in Irish Fairy Tales.

28:3 (1953), 1. The Dead Player (In Memory of Dudley Digges). In Irish Elegies the title becomes "The Player. Dudley digges, d. 1933, who played opposite Maud Gonne in the first production of Kathleen ni Houlihan." The version in the periodical has eight lines divided 4, 1, 3; that in Irish Elegies, fourteen, divided 4, 1, 4, 1, 4. The first four lines in both versions are the same, as are lines 7 in the periodical and line 12 in Irish Elegies.

28:4 (1953), 14 — 20. George Santayana. Santayana had died recently, and Colum's was a critical evaluation of his poems, his philosophy, and his religious beliefs. He quotes a number of lines from Santayana's "little known early dramatic poem Lucifer," praises Santayana's sonnets, and concludes by quoting two stanzas from Santayana's The Poet's Testament.

29:2 (1954), 10. Aislinn (from the Irish of Egan O'Rahilly), beginning

"Ere Titan his limbs from the clouds had divested" and continuing for nineteen more lines.

[29:2 (1954), 41 — 42. W. P. M. reviews Colum's Collected Poems, singles out the poems from the earlier collections, Wild Earth and Old Pastures, for special praise, and concludes: "Besides these poems there is much fine work of another kind in the book, scrupulously observed and recorded aspects of natural life, and if some of these have the air of being conscious exercises of a jealously guarded talent rather than the inevitable expression of the stirred soul, it may be because one is further removed from their subjects or it may be because a wind that was blowing in Ireland blew upon the others but not on them."]

29:4 (1954), 40 — 49. "The Opening of 'The Flying Swans.'" Prose.

30:3 (1955), 1 — 3. The Hearthstone and the Loom, a verse dialogue between Maurice and Terence. Reprinted in The Poet's Circuits (1960) with these revisions, with periodical readings first, unless otherwise noted: l. 5, And I see / om. 1960; l. 7, Yes, where the window was / om. 1955; l. 10, cool Lismore / Cullismore.[2] Line 16 of 1960, "Clack of the loom was all the outer sound" was line 18 in 1955. Line 17, shuttles / l. 18, shuttle; l. 19, made / framed; l. 23, and / or; l. 31, the / that. The text in the periodical ends with line 63, "Now that we only speak in prophecies," but in 1960 Colum adds "Terence (as they go on)" and the poem goes on for another 23 lines, with the verse (ll. 5 — 12) bearing a footnote, "This verse was translated by Kuno Meyer."

31:3 (1956), 7 — 13. Joseph, or the Search for the Brother. Story.

32:4 (1957), 8 — 16. My Memories of John Butler Yeats. Yeats died in 1957, an obituary notice of whom by Brian O'Doherty was published in the previous number, pp. 55 — 57. Colum began by saying, "The death of Jack Yeats, a national loss, is one that marks the end of an epoch"; he devoted the rest of the memoir to his relations with the painter.

Here, then, is a forgotten body of material for the critic, the editor, the bibliographer, and the biographer to study and about which to form conclusions.

Notes