“Good-Night!” by Poet Laureate Alfred Austin
How to read poetry one doesn’t really like
GOOD-NIGHT!
I
Good-night! Now dwindle wan and low
The embers of the afterglow,
And slowly over leaf and lawn
Is twilight’s dewy curtain drawn.
The slouching vixen leaves her lair,
And, prowling, sniffs the tell-tale air.
The frogs croak louder in the dyke,
And all the trees seem dark alike:
The bee is drowsing in the comb,
The sharded beetle hath gone home:
Good-night!
II
Good-night! The hawk is in his nest,
And the last rook hath dropped to rest.
There is no hum, no chirp, no bleat,
No rustle in the meadow-sweet.
The woodbine, somewhere out of sight,
Sweetens the loneliness of night.
The Sister Stars, that once were seven,
Mourn for their missing mate in Heaven.
The poppy’s fair frail petals close,
The lily yet more languid grows,
And dewy-dreamy droops the rose:
Good-night!III
Good-night! Caressing and caressed,
The moist babe warms its mother’s breast.
Silent are rustic loom and lathe;
The scythe lies quiet as the swathe;
The woodreeve blinks in covert shed,
The weary yokel is abed,
The covey warm beneath the wing,
And sleep enfoldeth everything.
Forsaken love, its last tear shed,
On the lone pillow lays its head,
And all our woes are respited:
Good-night!— Alfred Austin, from “Lamia’s Winter-Quarters,” 1907 via Project Gutenberg
This poem might work as a children’s book — think “Goodnight Moon.” Add some cute illustrations (modernized from the source material, of course). Having tested it once, my toddlers fell asleep by section II. We skipped the ‘woodreeves,’ ‘yokel,’ and ‘forsaken love’ stuff.
One might parody this erotically — afterglow? vixen? — but really, why bother? It’s a yawn fest. Let it do the job for which it was intended.
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) served as the 13th Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from January 1, 1896 until his death.
In Benjamin McEvoy’s cheeky ranking of all British poets laureate, he (charitably) lumps Austin in the trash bin along with several other “less said the better” caliber poets.
McEvoy generously gave Nahum Tate one step up from the “F-tier” poets laureate, given the commercial success of Tate’s “Comedy of King Lear.” I regard that work as literary vandalism, and would drop him a notch lower than F-tier laureates, but I’m not as conversant as he on classics, not so generous, and I’m certainly hypocritical as I’ve vandalized quite a few great poets.
After Tennyson’s death in 1892, identifying an appropriate Poet Laureate successor posed a challenge.
George Saintsbury, shortly to become Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh, wrote to Gladstone, then Prime Minister, in 1892 suggesting that a ‘dummy’ might be offered the Laureateship to ‘[k]eep the seat ready’ for someone better. Gladstone, who did not follow this advice, simply made no appointment; neither did his successor, Lord Rosebery
Francis O’Gorman, “Queen Victoria’s Last Laureate — and After?” 1
George Bernard Shaw referred to the quality of poets of that era with disparaging wit, suggesting other critics anyone as a poet who could
write rhymes…no distinction [is currently] being made between Homer or Shelley and the gentlemen who write commercial odes to tooth-powders and pens’…a person of infinitely greater dignity than a king; or he may be the sort of middle-class snob who is moved to sincere emotion, and consequently to poetic utterance, by pictures of royal weddings in the Illustrated London News, and photographs of princesses bending over the cradles of their babies; or he may be a mere handy rhymester, who will do anything he is paid for, from a penny valentine to a five-act drama.
I’ve mangled that lengthy quote, eliding different paragraphs without referring to the original. O’Gorman’s footnotes indicate that came from The Idler, but unfortunately, our friends at Project Gutenberg have only transcribed one year’s worth of that magazine. Hopefully, people will download those volumes repeatedly…the world would be better enriched by access to such works than algorithmically concocted clickbait!
I’d rather respond to George Bernard Shaw (whom I admire) than to Austin (jury still out) —
Many creators look askance
At folks like Shaw who mock our rhymes.
We take each paycheck, craft or chance
And pray for paying penny valentines.
And that is how I read Alfred Austin. Great stuff for kids! Otherwise…moving on to more interesting poets, critics, and digital archivists of the world!
Footnotes
1 - Francis O’Gorman, “Queen Victoria’s Last Laureate — and After?”, The Review of English Studies, Volume 73, Issue 309, April 2022, Pages 361–381, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgab050. It’s a freaking awesome article. Apologies for restructuring that Shaw quote without looking at the original text to verify that I didn’t mangle it into a travesty…if I can find a copy of the relevant issue of The Idler online, I’ll link there instead!
