The Druids by Kenneth Morris

A poem, from the April 1926 issue of The Theosophical Path.

The Druids

Iolo told me there were men of old
Who fashioned harps of flowers and faery gold.
The hills of eve, the dew-cool vales of morn,
He said they wandered singing, gathering bloom—
­Pale cuckoo-flowers, wood-sorrel, elfin-thorn,
Dewed mountain-field cowslips, and yellow broom,
The raggedrobin bloom, the daffodil—
And would with song distil
All the virtues of these mountain-flowers
To gold, and fashion harps of such strange powers,
In them would be tunes wherewith at will
They could cure every ill.

Iolo told me, too, they were so wise
Little escaped them in the night-blue skies:
They could interpret all Ophiuchus’ moods
Ever and ever round the Pole who swings
His solemn stars. The oaks’ imaginings,
And what the wild bee, clover-drunken, broods,
And what the morning dew,
Iolo said, the gentle Druids knew,
Because they were still-hearted as deep noon
In a green, bee-loved glade where ringdoves croon—­
Still as the mirrored sudden jewel gleam
Of kingfisher wings on a dark-pooled forest stream. . . .

New Issues with Following Blogs by email

The short version:  Most blogs I'm involved with have a "Follow by email" option. The "Follow by email" function worked (fine) via Google's Feedburner since I started using it.  Google is eliminating Feedburner in July, which means I have had to find an alternate source. I have transferred this following-by-email function to follow.it. I already have seen anomalies, and hope they won't be numerous. This blog has a new "Follow by email" widget that goes directly to follow.it. I have migrated the subscription list there too, but I suspect there will be issues. I'll try to fix errors if they are reported to me.

The Blackbird by Kenneth Morris

Here is a recently discovered poem, "The Blackbird" signed as by Cenydd Morus. It appeared in The Nationalist: A Non-Political Magazine for Wales, October 1912:

The New York Times Book Review on Fates

A recently discovery is a short review of Kenneth Morris's first novel, The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed (as by Cenydd Morus), on its original publication in 1914. This appeared in The New York Times Book Review, November 29, 1914, in unsigned column “Books for Christmas Gifts”. 

Before she felt the charm of those legends of Ireland which she has so gracefully retold, Lady Gregory was an eager student of Welsh folklore. Now, through the enlightened scholarship of Cenydd Morus, some specimens of this most interesting mythology are made accessible to readers ignorant of Cymric. “The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed” (Point Loma, California. Aryan Theosophical Press.) is an elaborate reconstruction of ancient Welsh mythology. The framework of the plot is taken from “The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.”  But the author has been more interested in recreating the spirit and the atmosphere of the bygone days than in keeping close to the letter of the text that has come down to us. His thought is Theosopphical, but the book is not a piece of propaganda, it is a work of art. And R. Machell’s sympathetic illustrations in black and white greatly increase this singular book’s value.

Red-Peach-Blossom Inlet

Illustration by K. Romney Towndrow

I have previously written about Morris's reworking of a short Welsh folk tale into the story "Sion ap Siencyn", in not one but two blog posts at one of my other blogs, A Shiver in the Archives, in a time before I started this Kenneth Morris blog.  The two posts are accessible here and here. 

Now I'd like to post the original inspiration for Morris's excellent tale "Red-Peach-Blossom Inlet", which first appeared in  The Theosophical Path for October 1916, and was collected in The Secret Mountain and Other Tales (1926), where it was accompanied by a wonderful illustration by K. Romney Towndrow (reproduced at right).

The first survey of Chinese literature to be published in English was A History of Chinese Literature (1901), by Herbert A. Giles. Morris may have had another source, but I copy here a few paragraphs from Giles's book giving the germ of the story which Morris elaborated upon in his tale.

We now reach a name which is still familiar to all students of poetry in the Middle Kingdom. T’ao Ch’ien (A.D. 365-427), or T’ao Yüan-ming as he was called in early life, after a youth of poverty obtained an appointment as magistrate. But he was unfitted by nature for official life; all he wanted, to quote his own prayer, was “length of years and depth of wine.” He only held the post for eighty-three days, objecting to receive a superior officer with the usual ceremonial on the ground that “he could not crook the hinges of his back for five pecks of rice a day,” such being the regulation pay of a magistrate. He then retired into private life and occupied himself with poetry, music, and the culture of flowers, especially chrysanthemums, which are inseparably associated with his name. In the latter pursuit he was seconded by his wife, who worked in the back garden while he worked in the front. . . .

The “Peach-blossom Fountain” of Tao Ch’ien is a well-known and charming allegory, a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers. It tells how a fisherman lost his way among the creeks of a river, and came upon a dense and lovely grove of peach-trees in full bloom, through which he pushed his boat, anxious to see how far the grove extended.

“He found that the peach-trees ended where the water began, at the foot of a hill; and there he espied what seemed to be a cave with light issuing from it. So he made fast his boat, and crept in through a narrow entrance, which shortly ushered him into a new world of level country, of fine houses, of rich fields, of fine pools, and of luxuriance of mulberry and bamboo. Highways of traffic ran north and south; sounds of crowing cocks and barking dogs were heard around; the dress of the people who passed along or were at work in the fields was of a strange cut; while young and old alike appeared to be contented and happy.”

He is told that the ancestors of these people had taken refuge there some five centuries before to escape the troublous days of the “First Emperor,” and that there they had remained, cut off completely from the rest of the human race. On his returning home the story is noised abroad, and the Governor sends out men to find this strange region, but the fisherman is never able to find it again. The gods had permitted the poet to go back for a brief span to the peach-blossom days of his youth. (From pages 128-131)