James Stephens's Personal Selection from Collected Poems 1926
Up to and during 1926, James Stephens published seven books of verse – but only one in later years. A dedicated copy exists of the 1926 Collected Poems, which has autograph markings of poems considered significant by the author: “By placing a cross against the poems that I particularly like, I have made an Anthology of my best poems”.
His preferences anfmaherd exclusions are of interest to scholars and others, as they present a coherent account of his poetry.
“The Pit of Bliss”, coming last in the Collected Poems, carries that hand-inscribed preferential marking. It ends by detailing the way in which the thematic blocks of the collection describe Stephens’s spirituality and mysticism: “What is Knowing? / ’Tis to see! / What is Feeling? / ’Tis to be / What is Love? But, more and more, / To See and Be!”. Book I of the Collected Poems deals with seeing, with Nature and feelings about Nature. Book II deals with Love: then one becomes “a Pour / and Avalanche of Being, till / Being ceases, and is still / For very motion”. Books IV and V represent an “Avalanche of Being” – an account of conflicting states and emotions. By the final Book VI, “stillness” is indeed reached – through “motion”: then one finds “Joy” which is “Being, past all earthly cloy / And intermixture”.
In Book III (“In the Two Lights”), the mood moves back and forth between contentment and despair. Book IV (“Heels and Head”) consists of visionary poems showing human experience relative to the divine – poems often rebellious and defiant in tone. Book V (“Less Than Daintily”) has the laments of the Gaelic poets for the loss of their chiefs, for their poverty and hardship. Noteworthy, however, in the poet’s hand-inscribed indications of preference within Books III, IV and V, is a predilection for pieces which are less harsh, dark or despairing.
Another pointer from the hand-written markings is the poet’s conviction that his final poems are the culmination of his work – more titles, proportionately, have his ‘cross’ opposite them in Book VI than in any earlier Book : everything going before would seem to have been but the inevitable lead-up to the mystical lessons found here. Indeed, even among earlier poems throughout the collection singled out by the author’s mark, ones having a ‘spiritual’ theme tend to predominate.
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