Leeds Mercury, 21 August 1906, p. 2

Sonnets While You Wait. There is something appalling about Canon Rawnsley’s prolific output of sonnets. It would be no exaggeration to say that he could—we do not know if he would—supply a sonnet at a moment’s notice on any subject, whether of things that are in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. His printed sonnets in book form, include “Sonnets at the English Lakes,” “Sonnets Round the Coast,” “Valete and other Sonnets,” and “Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy.

His addition to this extensive collection is now given to the public under the title “A Sonnet Chronicle, 1900-1906.” The Canon explains—was it was scarcely necessary, perhaps, to mention—that it had been his custom for some years past to keep in sonnet form a calendar of events “that stirred one or seemed of interest to others; and I have ventured to publish a selection of these, in the hope that readers—if there be any found (the words are Canon Rawnsley’s)—may care to have their minds recalled to the events they commemorate.”

The subjects [of his new book] are of all kinds. To each is given its sonnet of monotonous mediocrity. There is no reason, of course, why Canon Rawnsley should not do this thing, but, in the interests of peace and good-will among men, it is to be hoped that he will endeavour to subject himself to a self-denying ordinance in the matter of sonnets in the future—that, in a word, he will recognise the necessity for what sportsmen call a close time.

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Globe, 18 December 1899, p. 6

The author has had very considerable practice in sonnet-writing, and is a master of the form. Facility like his is, however, usually fatal to the production of much perfect and lasting work. These 163 sonnets (to which have to be added two sonnets “dedicatory” and “prefatory” to Mr. Ruskin) are pleasant reading, but make no permanent impression on the mind.

Dundee Advertiser, 19 December 1899, p. 8

Canon Rawnsley’s “Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy” contain very much that is verbally musical and that appears picturesque. It is a book full of delicious colours, and sounds unfamiliar to British ears, save to those that have hearkened to the aerial melodies of the Alps and the tinkle of cow bells from distant slopes. Therefore these sonnets are charming, and reading them one becomes wishful that winter were over, and that it were possible to rush off to the Col de Jaman and behold what the author saw—what seemed to be the result of a hailstorm whitening all the slopes, but was actually innumerable narcissi. There, too, at the season it is possible to mistake a belt of gentians for a zone of blue sky. Such wonders of colour and scent have inspired some of these sonnets, while the Italian ones glow with sunlight and sunset, or are dim and mystical with the gloom of churches and old world towns. In the Italian subjects it is easy to see how Canon Rawnsley is touched by the historical glamour and the artistic beauties of the country, and his poetry becomes the medium of what may be called a warm academic appreciation of them. But to Switzerland he comes as the jaded traveller, eager to be refreshed by her choice airs and the subtle ministrations of grass and flower and snow-clad peak. He bids the white-blossoming valleys “close me round,” and asks to share “the solace of your mountain solitudes,” drinking “the wine of welcoming.” The scholar’s touch is on every thing in the book, from the dedicatory sonnet to John Ruskin to the few careful little notes at the close.

Glasgow Herald, 20 December 1899, p. 4

Canon Rawnsley has ere this published many sonnets and his present volume contains 163 new ones. He is amongst the best of our living sonneteers. The sonnet is, perhaps, the most difficult form of poetic composition, and uncommonly few have mastered its secret. Milton, Wordsworth, and Keats are masters in the art. If, as a poet, Mr Rawnsley cannot be compared with these, yet—in sonnet-making he never altogether makes a failure. His present examples may be described as of the combined scenic and historic order like his “Sonnets of the English Lakes” and “Round the Coast.” These latter have been rightly admired, and we should be, indeed, surprised if the sonnets referring especially to Switzerland do not take even a higher place in the estimation of sonnet-lovers. Here is an example that should appeal keenly to the historic memory. It is entitled “From the Rigi-Kulm” at sunrise—

His heart was never for a patriot made
        Who—gazing here, when sunrise with a wand
        Smiting the silver peaks of Oberland
Flings on Pilatus Rigi’s purple shade—
Could watch unmoved, to think of those whose aid
        Bequeathed their country faith in Heaven’s com-
            mand,
        Dared face to face with fearful odds to stand,
And struck for freedom with undaunted blade!

There shines the vale where Winkelried was born,
    There Sempach gleams; here fatefully shot Tell,
        Here at Morgarten stood the Swiss at bay,
    Here by the church ‘Kappel’ Zwingli fell;
        And, as the mists rise up and float away,
The land of heroes brightens to the morn.

Canon Rawnsley dedicated his volume to John Ruskin with a couple of fine sonnets, and in a prefatory note he says that his volume is published “with the hope of inducing a few readers to take their pleasure abroad at the time when the gentian flowers,” adding this hint from Ruskin’s teaching—“That nature has nothing fairer to offer to mind or eye than blossom-tide in Switzerland.” Mr. Rawnsley’s sonnets should have considerable effect in the line of his expressed hope.

Pall Mall Gazette, 18 January 1900, p. 4

A Parodist, a Victim and Two Others.—“The Victim”, of whom we spoke in our title, is Canon Rawnsley. Not that Mr Seaman parodies this impeccable maker of verses. There is nothing to object to in any of the 150 sonnets inspired by one or more Continental tours; all are equally accomplished. But Mr Seaman exactly . . . off our feeling when he makes the Poet Laureate observe:

But Canon Rawnsley, too, shall get
    Full credit for his work upon it
(I never knew a subject yet
    On which he didn’t do a sonnet).

A man who would do a sonnet on Chillon at this time of day would do one on anything; and sure enough here it is—a perfect example of competent mediocrity. If only there were not so many of them—but there are, and that is an end of it.

Western Daily Press, 8 February 1900, p. 3

Canon Rawnsley, after dedicating this book of sonnets “To John Ruskin on his Eighty-first Birthday,” added in his prefatory note—“I have ventured to dedicate the volume to him who taught me, amongst other things, that Nature has nothing fairer to offer to mind or eye than blossom-tide in Switzerland.” The value which appertains to these poems for their own sake is much further enhanced by two sonnets—dedicatory and prefatory—to John Ruskin, the sonnet prefatory being in honour of the completion by Ruskin, in February of last year, of eighty years of life. The “Sonnet Dedicatory,” which was accompanied by “a wreath of gentianella and other Alpine flowers from St. Beatenberg,” will now be read with an interest mingled with sadness:--

You give me much, I little, but I know
        That for poor deed you take the generous will,
        And so I send from off this ‘Blessèd Hill’
The sweetest flowers in Switzerland that grow.
Take them, and let them tell you what I owe,—
        For you it was who taught mine eyes to thrill
        At sight of ‘gentian’ glory, and to fill
My soul with wonders of the Alpine snow.

Still do these lowly stars of azure blue
    Unto that star in Heaven, the great Sun, turn,
        And in his joy their secret selves unfold;
And still your fond disciples turn to you,
    Open their hearts that for your sunshine yearn,
        And seek the smile they learned to love of old.

The restful, refreshing verse in which Canon Rawnsley clothes his interpretation of the beauties of Switzerland will find many delighted readers. They breathe the atmosphere in which the poet himself has revelled, at the same time that he has not failed—as in “The Guide’s Farewell” and “To R. L. Nettleship”—to catch, in the midst of so much natural beauty, the tones that sing of human heroism and human sadness. There are to be gathered in this book some of the finest fruits of a holiday spent with eyes and ears and yet more subtle senses awake to the influences of the sweetest charms this earth has to offer for the highest pleasure of the human family; and at the same time the writer has manifestly sought to consult even a fastidious taste in the matter of verbal form and rhythmic requirement. Those who have been privileged to see Switzerland will enjoy these sonnets for the memories they stir, and all who have not yet had the opportunity to travel so far from Albion’s shores will discover pleasant pictures here photographed for them in words, and, it may be, lay plans for visiting themselves the spots where so much beauty is enshrined. A few special incidents are made the subject of brief reference in an appendix illuminating several of the sonnets.

Birmingham Daily Post, 13 February 1900, p. 8

Canon Rawnsley dedicates his new book of verse to “John Ruskin on his eighty-first birthday.” The book ahs therefore the interest of being probably the last literary tribute laid at Ruskin’s feet by a disciple. Canon Rawnsley has habitually acted on Ruskin’s hint that the proper time to enjoy Switzerland is the season of spring flowers. Long practice has given him a complete mastery of the sonnet form—a form which has the advantage of checking exuberance and compelling condensation. He also exhibits a great command of poetical language; and te 163 sonnets here collected express, always gracefully, and often with much felicity, the sentiments of an eager and cultivated mind, capable of appreciating, not only Swiss flowers and Swiss scenery, but the character, history, and traditions of the Swiss people.

Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 21 March 1900, p. 3

The mantle of Wordsworth, when it fell, fell to the ground, but Canon Rawnsley has been permitted to touch the hem of it. He of all people, claiming Wordsworth for his master, would desire to be compared with him; yet it is certain—and we hope not to scandalise the disciple in avowing it—that these sonnets have something of the grand sonnet-tone of Wordsworth, and show no little of his passion for the beautiful world of mountain and stream and flower,, and his power to express the passion. There is praise in the admission that of these more than one hundred and sixty sonnets not one is dull, not one but shows good workmanship, and, be it known, a workmanship which reveals love for its calling, and a never-failing regard for its own high purpose. If a sonnet here and there be a mere mechanism, it must be admitted that the most of them claim judgment from the standpoint of poetry. In form Canon Rawnsley adheres to the Italian form throughout, and so closely that the purist will find nothing to offend, unless, indeed, he cling to the stricter variety of a two-rhymed sestet in preference to one of three rhymes. The volume takes us through the glorious scenes of Switzerland and Northern Italy, and Canon Rawnsley sees and hears all the teeming beauty they possess—feels them, too, and speaks them forth again in fitting language, which is the poet’s privilege. There are striking lines everywhere, fine in form and high in thought; not the sensuous, rich lines of Rossetti, rich like sunlight at eventide through coloured flame, but simple and restrained, matching their lofty message with simpler measure. The last line of the sonnet calls for special strength, it is as the tower crowning the church, the outward glory to which all else leads up. Canon Rawnsley knows this, and is specially blest in achieving it almost without exception. We choose the sestet of the sonnet, “At the Trub-See,” almost at random, as an example of the many beautiful things in the volume:--

Then o’er that seething cauldron of the cloud
    High Titlis shone; the hand that guards the pass
        Stood forth like silver, and we clomb up higher:
    Thence gazing, the disconsolate morass
Became a sea of glory, and a crowd
        Of angels moving on soft waves of fire.

London Evening Standard, 2 June 1900, p. 4

The writing of sonnets seems to come as easily to him [HDR] as it came to the men of Shakespeare’s time, who produced sonnet-cycles, three hundred strong, for the amusement of fashionable literary society. Some people convey their passing impressions in letters to their friends—or, less wisely, to Editors of newspapers—and relieve their feelings by lyrics or articles in the magazines. Mr Rawnsley, in such exigencies, composes, and usually, publishes a sonnet. He comments on news of the day in poems of fourteen lines, with five rhymes; he makes passing notes of his holiday tours in the same form. It is a practice which we can only encourage him to continue, for his sonnets are praiseworthy of their kind. Though he can scarcely be placed among the poets in virtue of any imaginative power or passion, or any magic of expression, he is a cultivated writer, with a delicate ear and a graceful sense of beauty. He has just that feeling for the past, and that sympathy with Nature, with Art, and with tradition, that are best conveyed in the metrical form he has adopted. Here is a good expression of his manner:--

 At Como Cathedral

    Pliny’s Statue

Here sits in marble, with his scroll in hand,
        The student-lover of the Larian lake,
        Whom Trajan trusted for his wisdom’s sake;
Who, going governor to the Asian land,
Waited his Lord’s imperial command,
        What steps to stay that heresy he should take,
        Which, in the name of Christ, had dared forsake
The temple courts, and all Jove’s altars banned.

He saw Vesuvius’ ashes blur the sky
    And bury Herculaneum; dreamed not Rome
        Would sink in fiercer fires; nor ever knew
That ‘harmless superstition, doomed to die
    A natural death,’ would to his honouring come,
        With sweet forgiveness for the hand that slew.

The closing lines, it will be seen, are a little weak; and this is often the case with Mr. Rawnsley. It is in the way they end their sonnets that the great poets show themselves.

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Glasgow Herald, 12 April 1900 p. 10

It is perhaps too soon to put a fair valuation upon Can Rawnsley’s war-ballads, partly because they lack the halo of romance which memory confers upon the most commonplace incidents of the national and even the local life of the past. The incidents in the South African War which have caught the fancy and touched the heart of the Keswick poet are treated with spirit and sympathy, but it was, we suppose, inevitable that they should have to some extent the effect of newspaper paragraphs about things of yesterday. As a matter of fact, some of the newspaper descriptions of the battles and their peculiar details have been far more effective than much of the verse which they have inspired. The ancient poets and rhymers, no doubt, often wrote their songs and ballads in the heat of the events which they celebrate. But much of the early minstrelsy has an air of having been written on events remembered long after their occurrence or heard in the form of oral tradition. It is probable, for instance, there existed old songs lamenting the disaster of Flodden; but the two songs on the same theme—those by Miss Jane Elliot and Mrs Cockburn—which are so well known, were written some 200 years after the battle in which the Flowers of the Forest suffered so dreadfully, and afflicted all Scotland with centuries of sadness. The blow was perhaps too stunning to allow of immediate and pure poetic effort; and it was not until the historic calamity had, in a sense, become a romantic memory, and ceased to be an intolerable mental burden, that it became possible to transmute the nation’s lingering sorrow into pathetic and durable song. Bannockburn had much longer to wait for its predestined poet. There had no doubt been poetic references to the great fight of liberation in June, 1314, as, for instance, in Barbour’s Bruce. But no less than 479 years had to elapse before Burns flashed out his immortal ode in September, 1793. It was worthwhile for Bannockburn to wait all that time for such a splendid glorification. In modern days great or sensational events find ready poets, who too often treat them in rhymes that fit the hour and perish with it. Wh have, however, had poets who made great deeds live again in great verse; and of this high breed of singer, the late laureate was our noblest example. The present war has called forth much verse and some good poetry, but none really great. Poets who rush and gush on this subject are not likely to produce good work, especially on vital points that are scarcely ripe for treatment—which may be ripe perhaps twenty, fifty, or a hundred years hence, when South Africa has found its permanent position in the British Empire, and when the historic and poetic facts and ideas can be seen in proper perspective. But, of course, the living ? when strongly moved by passing events, must sing or choke. There were poets before Homer, but Homer’s theme was at least 700 years old when he wrote the Ilian and the Odyssey. We have many living poets, but no Homer has yet risen to sing in adequate numbers the great war which ended with Waterloo, and of which Napoleon and Wellington were the heroes. The comment on that is that the epic, as a poetic form, is dead beyond the possibility of revival. Perhaps—but after all who knows? Certainly not we of the present generation. Many poets are embodying in verse some of the incidents of the present war; but a time may come, many years hence, when the subject will be treated in a manner worthy of its far-reaching greatness. In the meantime we must be content with the well-meant lyrical utterances of the hour, while yet the wonderful and picturesque events of the new Iliad are being enacted. Of Canon Rawnsley’s book of ballads it may be said that they present some of the incidents of the war with much spirit and pathos; and it is certain that some of them will find a permanent place in military anthologies. The best example of the poet’s work is, to our liking, the piece which describes “The Burial of General Wauchope” at Modder River, December 13, 1899. It is only truth to say that the unmerited fate of this noble leader of the Highland Brigade has thrilled the heart, not only of the Queen’s Highland soldiers, but of the whole nation.

There is one special merit in Canon Rawnsley’s book. His ballads are not fanciful, but are based upon facts, properly authenticated by the war correspondents, from whose writings relative passages are quoted. Some of these prose paragraphs have all the effect of real poetry.

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 27 June 1900, p. 7

Ballads of the War.—Canon Rawnsley has a nice skill in ballad-making; and he has been busy since the war began. His “Ballads of the War” deserve a general welcome. He gives us ample variety. There are stirring ballads dealing with such incidents as that of the “Wounded Piper of Elandslaagte” and “How the Naval Guns Came to Ladysmith.” There are sonnets dealing rather with the conscience and thoughts of the nation at home than with incidents of the field. There are shorter poems concerned with persons and incidents in the strife. Canon Rawnsley knows how to write a ballad with swing and fire as well as pathos in it; how to touch the chords that lie deeper within us; and how happily to hit off the national feeling towards a hero or a sufferer. If sometimes it looks as though he had lent momentary attention to the cunning lie which writes this struggle down as a “capitalists’ war,” the Imperial spirit is always strong within him. A sonnet on the Queen’s visit to Netley, suggested by a Highlander’s words, will serve as a specimen of the contents of this volume:--

They spake not, but their wounds were eloquent
    As there they stood in hospital array,
    The pain of sword and bullet passed away
While on from ward to ward Victoria went;
And here she thanked them for their brave intent,
    There for some tender question would she stay;
    Here speak with sorrow of the battle day,
There smile such smile as more than praises
        meant.

Lady revered, for whom all men endure
    The heat of onset gladly, and the cold
        Of loss and failure, love is ever green
    To crown your royal head with more than gold;
When all the thrones are shaken yours is sure,
        Seeming so much more mother than a Queen.

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Sheffield Independent, 16 December, 1896, p. 2

Canon Rawnsley, whose facility in rhyming melodiously, aptly, and at times powerfully, on any theme that appeals to his faith or sentiment, must surely be known to nearly all newspaper readers, has here brought together a large number of poems which he has been moved to write when he has read records of brave deeds in the current issues of the newspapers. The book, in short, is a record in verse of all these modern instances of heroism of which we feel proud from time to time, but which we quickly forget. The scenes of the stirring incidents which Canon Rawnsley so felicitously recalls are dispersed over the whole world – wide as the spread of the race. We are taken from the Crimea to Zululand, from Chitral to the Samoan Islands. It is not only in war and on the sea that brave deeds worthy of the poet’s commendation are found, but on the railway, in mines, at fires, and wherever death threatens and stout-hearted men do not fear it, but risk their lives for honour that is better than life. Very stirring are Canon Rawnsley’s verses, for his heart is a-glow whenever he hears of heroism. We hope the book will remind other writers who can “build the lofty volume,” that there are neglected themes awaiting them far more suitable than the airy nothings on which they so often squander their ingenuity with unmoved hearts.

Carlisle Patriot, 22 January, 1897, p. 6

In some respects we live in a prosaic age, and we live (most of us) prosaic lives. But occasionally our attention is arrested, it may be by a thrilling narrative, more often by a newspaper paragraph, which tells of some act of more than usual daring, told often in very simple language and as little more than an ordinary occurrence, yet possessing in itself so much of the heroic, and so imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, that for a moment at least we are fired with a generous flush, and we are proud to think that we also are of the same kindred or same race. If the act is accomplished “at the battle’s front” mid “the pride, pomp, and circumstances of glorious war,” its is duly recorded and rewarded with the Victoria Cross, but too often when the deed is done under less brilliant conditions and surroundings, its record is scanty, its recognition brief and sadly inadequate; too often it passes unknown except to a very limited circle, and in a short time it fades into the limbo of the past.

In this little volume, Canon Rawnsley has been prompted to use his facile and graceful poetic pen to give some of the brave deeds done in humble life, as well as some of those which have already attracted a large share of public attention, a wider sphere of influence and a more enduring honour. The author has selected no less than thirty-five incidents as subjects for his muse. They cover a wide field, showing active sympathy and recognition of heroism in all classes, from the battlefields of the Crimea, Chitral, and Ulundi to the brave rescuer of the entombed miners, the gallant railway platelayers who saved the train at the cost of their own lives, gallant heroes of our glorious Navy, others whose record may be found in annals of the devoted fire brigade or the industrial ranks of the crowded and often unlovely streets and lanes of our large towns. The chronicles are infectious in their glow of enthusiasm, and, if widely read, ought to do something as a training in heroism. The author might have taken for his motto Longfellow’s lines—

Where’er a noble deed is wrought,
Where’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.

The greatest of our artistic idealists, Mr. Watts, furnishes a beautiful frontispiece.

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