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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7930.txt b/7930.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9467a5b --- /dev/null +++ b/7930.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10280 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Advance of English Poetry in the +Twentieth Century, by William Lyon Phelps +#2 in our series by William Lyon Phelps + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century + +Author: William Lyon Phelps + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7930] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 2, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ACII, with some ISO-8859-1 characters + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY *** + + + + +Tiffany Vergon, Cam Venezuela and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY + +BY + +WILLIAM LYON PHELPS + +Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale + +Member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters + + + _O! 't is an easy thing + To write and sing; + But to write true, unfeigned verse + Is very hard!_ + + --HENRY VAUGHAN, _1655_ + + + + +TO +MY FRIEND FOR FORTY YEARS + +FRANK W. HUBBARD + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +The publishers of the works of the poets from whom illustrative +passages are cited in this volume, have courteously and generously +given permission, and I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks +to The Macmillan Company, who publish the poems of Thomas Hardy, +William Watson, John Masefield, W. W. Gibson, Ralph Hodgson, W. B. +Yeats, "A. E.," James Stephens, E. A. Robinson, Vachel Lindsay, Amy +Lowell, Edgar Lee Masters, Sara Teasdale, J. C. Underwood, Fannie +Stearns Davis; to Henry Holt and Company, who publish the poems of +Walter De La Mare, Edward Thomas, Padraic Colum, Robert Frost, Louis +Untermeyer, Sarah N. Cleghorn, Margaret Widdemer, Carl Sandburg, and +the two poems by Henry A. Beers quoted in this book, which appeared in +_The Ways of Yale_; to Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of the +poems of George Santayana, Henry Van Dyke, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, +Alan Seeger; to Houghton, Mifflin and Company, publishers of the poems +of Josephine Peabody, Anna Hempstead Branch, and W. A. Bradley's +_Old Christmas_; to The John Lane Company, publishers of the +poems of Stephen Phillips, Rupert Brooke, Benjamin R. C. Low; to the +Frederick A. Stokes Company, publishers of the poems of Alfred Noyes, +Robert Nichols, Thomas MacDonagh, Witter Bynner; to the Yale +University Press, publishers of the poems of W. A. Percy, Brian +Hooker, W. E. Benét, C. M. Lewis, E. B. Reed, F. E. Pierce, R. B. +Glaenzer, L. W. Dodd; to the Oxford University Press, publishers of +the poems of Robert Bridges; to Alfred A. Knopf, publisher of the +poems of W. H. Davies; to John W. Luce and Company, publishers of the +poems of John M. Synge; to Harper and Brothers, publishers of William +Watson's _The Man Who Saw_; to Longmans, Green and Company, +publishers of the poems of Willoughby Weaving; to Doubleday, Page and +Company, publishers of the poems of James Elroy Flecker; to the +Bobbs-Merrill Company, publishers of the poems of W. D. Foulke; to +Thomas B. Mosher, publisher of the poems of W. A. Bradley, W. E. +Henley; to James T. White and Company, publishers of William +Griffiths; Francis Thompson's _In No Strange Land_ appeared in +the _Athenaeum_ and _Lilium Regis_ in the _Dublin +Review_; the poem by Scudder Middleton appeared in _Contemporary +Verse_, that by Allan Updegraff in the _Forum_, and that by D. +H. Lawrence in _Georgian Poetry_ 1913-15, published by The Poetry +Bookshop, London. + +The titles of the several volumes of poems with dates of publication +are given in my text. + +I am grateful to the Yale University Librarians for help on +bibliographical matters, and to Professor Charles Bennett and Byrne +Hackett, Esquire, for giving some facts about the Irish poets. + +W. L. P. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The material in this volume originally appeared in _The Bookman_, +1917-1918. It is now published with much addition and revision. + +The Great War has had a stimulating effect on the production of +poetry. Professional poets have been spokesmen for the inarticulate, +and a host of hitherto unknown writers have acquired reputation. An +immense amount of verse has been written by soldiers in active +service. The Allies are fighting for human liberty, and this Idea is +an inspiration. It is comforting to know that some who have made the +supreme sacrifice will be remembered through their printed poems, and +it is a pleasure to aid in giving them public recognition. + +Furthermore, the war, undertaken by Germany to dominate the world by +crushing the power of Great Britain, has united all English-speaking +people as nothing else could have done. In this book, all poetry +written in the English language is considered as belonging to English +literature. + +It should be apparent that I am not a sectarian in art, but am +thankful for poetry wherever I find it. I have endeavored to make +clear the artistic, intellectual, and spiritual significance of many +of our contemporary English-writing poets. The difficulties of such an +undertaking are obvious; but there are two standards of measure. One +is the literature of the past, the other is the life of today. I judge +every new poet by these. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I SOME CONTRASTS--HENLEY, THOMPSON, HARDY, KIPLING + +II PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOYES, HOUSMAN + +III JOHN MASEFIELD + +IV GIBSON AND HODGSON + +V BROOKE, FLECKER, DE LA MARE, AND OTHERS + +VI THE IRISH POETS + +VII AMERICAN VETERANS AND FORERUNNERS + +VIII VACHEL LINDSAY AND ROBERT FROST + +IX AMY LOWELL, ANNA BRANCH, EDGAR LEE MASTERS, LOUIS UNTERMEYER + +X SARA TEASDALE, ALAN SEEGER, AND OTHERS + +XI A GROUP OF YALE POETS + +APPENDIX + +INDEX + + + + +THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SOME CONTRASTS--HENLEY, THOMPSON, HARDY, KIPLING + + + Meaning of the word "advance"--the present widespread interest + in poetry--the spiritual warfare--Henley and Thompson--Thomas + Hardy a prophet in literature--_The Dynasts_--his + atheism--his lyrical power--Kipling the Victorian--his future + possibilities--Robert Bridges--Robert W. Service. + +Although English poetry of the twentieth century seems inferior to the +poetry of the Victorian epoch, for in England there is no one equal to +Tennyson or Browning, and in America no one equal to Poe, Emerson, or +Whitman, still it may fairly be said that we can discern an advance in +English poetry not wholly to be measured either by the calendar and +the clock, or by sheer beauty of expression. I should not like to say +that Joseph Conrad is a greater writer than Walter Scott; and yet in +_The Nigger of the Narcissus_ there is an intellectual sincerity, +a profound psychological analysis, a resolute intention to discover +and to reveal the final truth concerning the children of the sea, that +one would hardly expect to find in the works of the wonderful Wizard. +Shakespeare was surely a greater poet than Wordsworth; but the man of +the Lakes, with the rich inheritance of two centuries, had a capital +of thought unpossessed by the great dramatist, which, invested by his +own genius, enabled him to draw returns from nature undreamed of by +his mighty predecessor. Wordsworth was not great enough to have +written _King Lear_; and Shakespeare was not late enough to have +written _Tintern Abbey_. Every poet lives in his own time, has a +share in its scientific and philosophical advance, and his +individuality is coloured by his experience. Even if he take a Greek +myth for a subject, he will regard it and treat it in the light of the +day when he sits down at his desk, and addresses himself to the task +of composition. It is absurd to call the Victorians old-fashioned or +out of date; they were as intensely modern as we, only their modernity +is naturally not ours. + +A great work of art is never old-fashioned; because it expresses in +final form some truth about human nature, and human nature never +changes--in comparison with its primal elements, the mountains are +ephemeral. A drama dealing with the impalpable human soul is more +likely to stay true than a treatise on geology. This is the notable +advantage that works of art have over works of science, the advantage +of being and remaining true. No matter how important the contribution +of scientific books, they are alloyed with inevitable error, and after +the death of their authors must be constantly revised by lesser men, +improved by smaller minds; whereas the masterpieces of poetry, drama +and fiction cannot be revised, because they are always true. The +latest edition of a work of science is the most valuable; of +literature, the earliest. + +Apart from the natural and inevitable advance in poetry that every +year witnesses, we are living in an age characterized both in England +and in America by a remarkable advance in poetry as a vital influence. +Earth's oldest inhabitants probably cannot remember a time when there +were so many poets in activity, when so many books of poems were not +only read, but bought and sold, when poets were held in such high +esteem, when so much was written and published about poetry, when the +mere forms of verse were the theme of such hot debate. There are +thousands of minor poets, but poetry has ceased to be a minor subject. +Any one mentally alive cannot escape it. Poetry is in the air, and +everybody is catching it. Some American magazines are exclusively +devoted to the printing of contemporary poems; anthologies are +multiplying, not "Keepsakes" and "Books of Gems," but thick volumes +representing the bumper crop of the year. Many poets are reciting +their poems to big, eager, enthusiastic audiences, and the atmosphere +is charged with the melodies of ubiquitous minstrelsy. + +The time is ripe for the appearance of a great poet. A vast audience +is gazing expectantly at a stage crowded with subordinate actors, +waiting or the Master to appear. The Greek dramatists were sure of +their public; so were the Russian novelists; so were the German +musicians. The "conditions" for poetry are intensified by reason of +the Great War. We have got everything except the Genius. And the +paradox is that although the Genius may arise out of right conditions, +he may not; he may come like a thief in the night. The contrast +between public interest in poetry in 1918 and in 1830, for an +illustration, is unescapable. At that time the critics and the +magazine writers assured the world that "poetry is dead." Ambitious +young authors were gravely advised not to attempt anything in +verse--as though youth ever listened to advice! Many critics went so +far as to insist that the temper of the age was not "adapted" to +poetry, that not only was there no interest in it, but that even if +the Man should appear, he would find it impossible to sing in such a +time and to such a coldly indifferent audience. And yet at that +precise moment, Tennyson launched his "chiefly lyrical" volume, and +Browning was speedily to follow. + +Man is ever made humble by the facts of life; and even literary +critics cannot altogether ignore them. Let us not then make the +mistake of being too sure of the immediate future; nor the mistake of +overestimating our contemporary poets; nor the mistake of despising +the giant Victorians. Let us devoutly thank God that poetry has come +into its own; that the modern poet, in public estimation, is a Hero; +that no one has to apologize either for reading or for writing verse. +An age that loves poetry with the passion characteristic of the +twentieth century is not a flat or materialistic age. We are not +disobedient unto the heavenly vision. + +In the world of thought and spirit this is essentially a fighting age. +The old battle between the body and the soul, between Paganism and +Christianity, was never so hot as now, and those who take refuge in +neutrality receive contempt. Pan and Jesus Christ have never had so +many enthusiastic followers. We Christians believe our Leader rose +from the dead, and the followers of Pan say their god never died at +all. It is significant that at the beginning of the twentieth century +two English poets wrote side by side, each of whom unconsciously waged +an irreconcilable conflict with the other, and each of whom speaks +from the grave today to a concourse of followers. These two poets did +not "flourish" in the twentieth century, because the disciple of the +bodily Pan was a cripple, and the disciple of the spiritual Christ was +a gutter-snipe; but they both lived, lived abundantly, and wrote real +poetry. I refer to William Ernest Henley, who died in 1903, and to +Francis Thompson, who died in 1907. + +Both Henley and Thompson loved the crowded streets of London, but they +saw different visions there. Henley felt in the dust and din of the +city the irresistible urge of spring, the invasion of the smell of +distant meadows; the hurly-burly bearing witness to the annual +conquest of Pan. + + Here in this radiant and immortal street + Lavishly and omnipotently as ever + In the open hills, the undissembling dales, + The laughing-places of the juvenile earth. + For lo! the wills of man and woman meet, + Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared + As once in Eden's prodigal bowers befel, + To share his shameless, elemental mirth + In one great act of faith, while deep and strong, + Incomparably nerved and cheered, + The enormous heart of London joys to beat + To the measures of his rough, majestic song: + The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell + That keeps the rolling universe ensphered + And life and all for which life lives to long + Wanton and wondrous and for ever well. + +The _London Voluntaries_ of Henley, from which the above is a +fair example, may have suggested something to Vachel Lindsay both in +their irregular singing quality and in the direction, borrowed from +notation, which accompanies each one, _Andante con moto, Scherzando, +Largo e mesto, Allegro maestoso._ Henley's Pagan resistance to +Puritan morality and convention, constantly exhibited positively in +his verse, and negatively in his defiant Introduction to the Works of +Burns and in the famous paper on R. L. S., is the main characteristic +of his mind and temperament. He was by nature a rebel--a rebel against +the Anglican God and against English social conventions. He loved all +fighting rebels, and one of his most spirited poems deals +affectionately with our Southern Confederate soldiers, in the last +days of their hopeless struggle. His most famous lyric is an assertion +of the indomitable human will in the presence of adverse destiny. This +trumpet blast has awakened sympathetic echoes from all sorts and +conditions of men, although that creedless Christian, James Whitcomb +Riley, regarded it with genial contempt, thinking that the philosophy +it represented was not only futile, but dangerous, in that it ignored +the deepest facts of human life. He once asked to have the poem read +aloud to him, as he had forgotten its exact words, and when the reader +finished impressively + + I am the Master of my fate: + I am the Captain of my soul-- + +"The _hell_ you are," said Riley with a laugh. + +Henley is, of course, interesting not merely because of his paganism, +and robust worldliness; he had the poet's imagination and gift of +expression. He loved to take a familiar idea fixed in a familiar +phrase, and write a lovely musical variation on the theme. I do not +think he ever wrote anything more beautiful than his setting of the +phrase "Over the hills and far away," which appealed to his memory +much as the three words "Far-far-away" affected Tennyson. No one can +read this little masterpiece without that wonderful sense of melody +lingering in the mind after the voice of the singer is silent. + + Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade + On desolate sea and lonely sand, + Out of the silence and the shade + What is the voice of strange command + Calling you still, as friend calls friend + With love that cannot brook delay, + To rise and follow the ways that wend + Over the hills and far away? + + Hark in the city, street on street + A roaring reach of death and life, + Of vortices that clash and fleet + And ruin in appointed strife, + Hark to it calling, calling clear, + Calling until you cannot stay + From dearer things than your own most dear + Over the hills and far away. + + Out of the sound of ebb and flow, + Out of the sight of lamp and star, + It calls you where the good winds blow, + And the unchanging meadows are: + From faded hopes and hopes agleam, + It calls you, calls you night and day + Beyond the dark into the dream + Over the hills and far away. + +In temperament Henley was an Elizabethan. Ben Jonson might have +irritated him, but he would have got along very well with Kit Marlowe. +He was an Elizabethan in the spaciousness of his mind, in his robust +salt-water breeziness, in his hearty, spontaneous singing, and in his +deification of the human will. The English novelist, Miss Willcocks, a +child of the twentieth century, has remarked, "It is by their will +that we recognize the Elizabethans, by the will that drove them over +the seas of passion, as well as over the seas that ebb and flow with +the salt tides.... For, from a sensitive correspondence with +environment our race has passed into another stage; it is marked now +by a passionate desire for the mastery of life--a desire, +spiritualized in the highest lives, materialized in the lowest, so to +mould environment that the lives to come may be shaped to our will. It +is this which accounts for the curious likeness in our today with that +of the Elizabethans." + +As Henley was an Elizabethan, so his brilliant contemporary, Francis +Thompson, was a "metaphysical," a man of the seventeenth century. Like +Emerson, he is closer in both form and spirit to the mystical poets +that followed the age of Shakespeare than he is to any other group or +school. One has only to read Donne, Crashaw, and Vaughan to recognize +the kinship. Like these three men of genius, Thompson was not only +profoundly spiritual--he was aflame with religious passion. He was +exalted in a mystical ecstasy, all a wonder and a wild desire. He was +an inspired poet, careless of method, careless of form, careless of +thought-sequences. The zeal for God's house had eaten him up. His +poetry is like the burning bush, revealing God in the fire. His +strange figures of speech, the molten metal of his language, the +sincerity of his faith, have given to his poems a persuasive influence +which is beginning to be felt far and wide, and which, I believe, will +never die. One critic complains that the young men of Oxford and +Cambridge have forsaken Tennyson, and now read only Francis Thompson. +He need not be alarmed; these young men will all come back to +Tennyson, for sooner or later, everybody comes back to Tennyson. It is +rather a matter of joy that Thompson's religious poetry can make the +hearts of young men burn within them. Young men are right in hating +conventional, empty phrases, words that have lost all hitting power, +hollow forms and bloodless ceremonies. Thompson's lips were touched +with a live coal from the altar. + +Francis Thompson walked with God. Instead of seeking God, as so many +high-minded folk have done in vain, Thompson had the real and +overpowering sensation that God was seeking him. The Hound of Heaven +was everlastingly after him, pursuing him with the certainty of +capture. In trying to escape, he found torment; in surrender, the +peace that passes all understanding. That extraordinary poem, which +thrillingly describes the eager, searching love of God, like a father +looking for a lost child and determined to find him, might be taken as +a modern version of the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm, perhaps +the most marvellous of all religious masterpieces. + + Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with + all my ways. + Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. + Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy + presence? + If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, + behold, thou art there. + If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts + of the sea; + Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. + +The highest spiritual poetry is not that which portrays soul-hunger, +the bitterness of the weary search for God; it is that which reveals +an intense consciousness of the all-enveloping Divine Presence. +Children do not seek the love of their parents; they can not escape +its searching, eager, protecting power. We know how Dr. Johnson was +affected by the lines + + Quaerens me sedisti lassus + Redemisti crucem passus + Tantus labor non sit passus. + +Francis Thompson's long walks by day and by night had magnificent +company. In the country, in the streets of London, he was attended by +seraphim and cherubim. The heavenly visions were more real to him than +London Bridge. Just as when we travel far from those we love, we are +brightly aware of their presence, and know that their affection is a +greater reality than the scenery from the train window, so Thompson +would have it that the angels were all about us. They do not live in +some distant Paradise, the only gate to which is death--they are here +now, and their element is the familiar atmosphere of earth. + +Shortly after he died, there was found among + +His papers a bit of manuscript verse, called "In No Strange Land." Whether +it was a first draft which he meant to revise, or whether he intended +it for publication, we cannot tell; but despite the roughnesses of +rhythm--which take us back to some of Donne's shaggy and splendid +verse--the thought is complete. It is one of the great poems of the +twentieth century, and expresses the essence of Thompson's religion. + + "IN NO STRANGE LAND" + + O world invisible, we view thee: + O world intangible, we touch thee: + O world unknowable, we know thee: + Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! + + Does the fish soar to find the ocean, + The eagle plunge to find the air, + That we ask of the stars in motion + If they have rumour of thee there? + + Not where the wheeling systems darken, + And our benumbed conceiving soars: + The drift of pinions, would we harken, + Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. + + The angels keep their ancient places-- + Turn but a stone, and start a wing! + 'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces + That miss the many-splendoured thing. + + But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) + Cry; and upon thy so sore loss + Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder + Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. + + Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, + Cry, clinging heaven by the hems: + And lo, Christ walking on the water, + Not of Gennesareth, but Thames! + +Thompson planned a series of Ecclesiastical Ballads, of which he +completed only two--_Lilium Regis_ and _The Veteran of +Heaven_. These were found among his papers, and were published in +the January-April 1910 number of the _Dublin Review._ Both are +great poems; but _Lilium Regis_ is made doubly impressive by the +present war. With the clairvoyance of approaching death, Thompson +foresaw the world-struggle, the temporary eclipse of the Christian +Church, and its ultimate triumph. The Lily of the King is Christ's +Holy Church. I do not see how any one can read this poem without a +thrill. + + LILIUM REGIS + + O Lily of the King! low lies thy silver wing, + And long has been the hour of thine unqueening; + And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spills its sighs, + Nor any take the secrets of its meaning. + O Lily of the King! I speak a heavy thing, + O patience, most sorrowful of daughters! + Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land, + And red shall be the breaking of the waters. + + Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk, + With the mercies of the king for thine awning; + And the just understand that thine hour is at hand, + Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning. + When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood, + Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters! + Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark, + For His feet are coming to thee on the waters! + + O Lily of the King! I shall not see, that sing, + I shall not see the hour of thy queening! + But my song shall see, and wake, like a flower that dawn-winds shake, + And sigh with joy the odours of its meaning. + O Lily of the King, remember then the thing + That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters, + As they dance before His way, sing there on the Day, + What I sang when the Night was on the waters! + +There is a man of genius living in England today who has been writing +verse for sixty years, but who received no public recognition as a +poet until the twentieth century. This man is Thomas Hardy. He has the +double distinction of being one of the great Victorian novelists, and +one of the most notable poets of the twentieth century. At nearly +eighty years of age, he is in full intellectual vigour, enjoys a +creative power in verse that we more often associate with youth, and +writes poetry that in matter and manner belongs distinctly to our +time. He could not possibly be omitted from any survey of contemporary +production. + +As is so commonly the case with distinguished novelists, Thomas Hardy +practised verse before prose. From 1860 to 1870 he wrote many poems, +some of which appear among the Love Lyrics in _Time's +Laughingstocks,_ 1909. Then he began a career in prose fiction +which has left him today without a living rival in the world. In 1898, +with the volume called _Wessex Poems,_ embellished with +illustrations from his own hand, he challenged criticism as a +professional poet. The moderate but definite success of this +collection emboldened him to produce in 1901, _Poems of the Past and +Present._ In 1904, 1906, 1908, were issued successively the three +parts of _The Dynasts,_ a thoroughly original and greatly-planned +epical drama of the Napoleonic wars. This was followed by three books +of verse, _Time's Laughingstocks_ in 1909, _Satires of +Circumstance,_ 1914, and _Moments of Vision,_ 1917; and he is +a familiar and welcome guest in contemporary magazines. + +Is it possible that when, at the close of the nineteenth century, +Thomas Hardy formally abandoned prose for verse, he was either +consciously or subconsciously aware of the coming renaissance of +poetry? Certainly his change in expression had more significance than +an individual caprice. It is a notable fact that the present poetic +revival, wherein are enlisted so many enthusiastic youthful +volunteers, should have had as one of its prophets and leaders a +veteran of such power and fame. Perhaps Mr. Hardy would regard his own +personal choice as no factor; the Immanent and Unconscious Will had +been busy in his mind, for reasons unknown to him, unknown to man, +least of all known to Itself. Leslie Stephen once remarked, "The +deepest thinker is not really--though we often use the phrase--in +advance of his day so much as in the line along which advance takes +place." + +Looking backward from the year 1918, we may see some new meaning in +the spectacle of two modern leaders in fiction, Hardy and Meredith, +each preferring as a means of expression poetry to prose, each +thinking his own verse better than his novels, and each writing verse +that in substance and manner belongs more to the twentieth than to the +nineteenth century. Meredith always said that fiction was his kitchen +wench; poetry was his Muse. + +The publication of poems written when he was about twenty-five is +interesting to students of Mr. Hardy's temperament, for they show that +he was then as complete, though perhaps not so philosophical a +pessimist, as he is now. The present world-war may seem to him a +vindication of his despair, and therefore proof of the blind folly of +those who pray to Our Father in Heaven. He is, though I think not +avowedly so, an adherent of the philosophy of Schopenhauer and von +Hartmann. The primal force, from which all things proceed, is the +Immanent Will. The Will is unconscious and omnipotent. It is +superhuman only in power, lacking intelligence, foresight, and any +sense of ethical values. In _The Dynasts,_ Mr. Hardy has written +an epic illustration of the doctrines of pessimism. + +Supernatural machinery and celestial inspiration have always been more +or less conventional in the Epic. Ancient writers invoked the Muse. +When Milton began his great task, he wished to produce something +classic in form and Christian in spirit. He found an admirable +solution of his problem in a double invocation--first of the Heavenly +Muse of Mount Sinai, second, of the Holy Spirit. In the composition of +_In Memoriam_, Tennyson knew that an invocation of the Muse would +give an intolerable air of artificiality to the poem; he therefore, in +the introductory stanzas, offered up a prayer to the Son of God. Now +it was impossible for Mr. Hardy to make use of Greek Deities, or of +Jehovah, or of any revelation of God in Christ; to his mind all three +equally belonged to the lumber-room of discredited and discarded myth. +He believes that any conception of the Primal Force as a Personality +is not only obsolete among thinking men and women, but that it is +unworthy of modern thought. It is perhaps easy to mistake our own +world of thought for the thought of the world. + +In his Preface, written with assurance and dignity, Mr. Hardy says: +"The wide prevalence of the Monistic theory of the Universe forbade, +in this twentieth century, the importation of Divine personages from +any antique Mythology as ready-made sources or channels of Causation, +even in verse, and excluded the celestial machinery of, say, +_Paradise Lost_, as peremptorily as that of the _Iliad_ or +the _Eddas_. And the abandonment of the Masculine pronoun in +allusions to the First or Fundamental Energy seemed a necessary and +logical consequence of the long abandonment by thinkers of the +anthropomorphic conception of the same." Accordingly he arranged a +group of Phantom Intelligences that supply adequately a Chorus and a +philosophical basis for his world-drama. + +Like Browning in the original preface to _Paracelsus_, our author +expressly disclaims any intention of writing a play for the stage. It +is "intended simply for mental performance," and "Whether mental +performance alone may not eventually be the fate of all drama other +than that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a kindred question not +without interest." The question has been since answered in another +way than that implied, not merely by the success of community drama, +but by the actual production of _The Dynasts_ on the London stage +under the direction of the brilliant and audacious Granville Barker. I +would give much to have witnessed this experiment, which Mr. Barker +insists was successful. + +"Whether _The Dynasts_ will finally take a place among the +world's masterpieces of literature or not, must of course be left to +future generations to decide. Two things are clear. The publication of +the second and third parts distinctly raised public opinion of the +work as a whole, and now that it is ten years old, we know that no man +on earth except Mr. Hardy could have written it." To produce this +particular epic required a poet, a prose master, a dramatist, a +philosopher, and an architect. Mr. Hardy is each and all of the five, +and by no means least an architect. The plan of the whole thing, in +one hundred and thirty scenes, which seemed at first confused, now +appears in retrospect orderly; and the projection of the various +geographical scenes is thoroughly architectonic. + +If the work fails to survive, it will be because of its low elevation +on the purely literary side. In spite of occasional powerful phrases, +as + + What corpse is curious on the longitude + And situation of his cemetery! + +the verse as a whole wants beauty of tone and felicity of diction. It +is more like a map than a painting. One has only to recall the +extraordinary charm of the Elizabethans to understand why so many +pages in _The Dynasts_ arouse only an intellectual interest. But +no one can read the whole drama without an immense respect for the +range and the grasp of the author's mind. Furthermore, every one of +its former admirers ought to reread it in 1918. The present world-war +gives to this Napoleonic epic an acute and prophetic interest nothing +short of astounding. + +A considerable number of Mr. Hardy's poems are concerned with the idea +of God, apparently never far from the author's mind. I suppose he +thinks of God every day. Yet his faith is the opposite of that +expressed in the _Hound of Heaven_--in few words, it seems to be, +"Resist the Lord, and He will flee from you." Mr. Hardy is not content +with banishing God from the realm of modern thought; he is not content +merely with killing Him; he means to give Him a decent burial, with +fitting obsequies. And there is a long procession of mourners, some of +whom are both worthy and distinguished. In the interesting poem, +_God's Funeral_, written in 1908-1910, which begins + + I saw a slowly stepping train-- + Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar-- + Following in files across a twilit plain + A strange and mystic form the foremost bore + +the development of the conception of God through human history is +presented with skill in concision. He was man-like at first, then an +amorphous cloud, then endowed with mighty wings, then jealous, fierce, +yet long-suffering and full of mercy. + + And, tricked by our own early dream + And need of solace, we grew self-deceived, + Our making soon our maker did we dream, + And what we had imagined we believed. + + Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing, + Uncompromising rude reality + Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning, + Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be. + +Among the mourners is no less a person than the poet himself, for in +former years--perhaps as a boy--he, too, had worshipped, and therefore +he has no touch of contempt for those who still believe. + + I could not prop their faith: and yet + Many I had known: with all I sympathized; + And though struck speechless, I did not forget + That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized. + +In the next stanza, the poet's oft-expressed belief in the wholesome, +antiseptic power of pessimism is reiterated, together with a hint, +that when we have once and for all put God in His grave, some better +way of bearing life's burden will be found, because the new way will +be based upon hard fact. + + Still, how to bear such loss I deemed + The insistent question for each animate mind, + And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed + A pale yet positive gleam low down behind, + + Whereof, to lift the general night, + A certain few who stood aloof had said, + "See you upon the horizon that small light-- + Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook his head. + + And they composed a crowd of whom + Some were right good, and many nigh the best.... + Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom + Mechanically I followed with the rest. + +This pale gleam takes on a more vivid hue in a poem written shortly +after _God's Funeral_, called _A Plaint to Man_, where God +remonstrates with man for having created Him at all, since His life +was to be so short and so futile: + + And tomorrow the whole of me disappears, + The truth should be told, and the fact he faced + That had best been faced in earlier years: + + The fact of life with dependence placed + On the human heart's resource alone, + In brotherhood bonded close and graced + + With loving-kindness fully blown, + And visioned help unsought, unknown. + +Other poems that express what is and what ought to be the attitude of +man toward God are _New Year's Eve, To Sincerity_, and the +beautiful lyric, _Let Me Enjoy_, where Mr. Hardy has been more +than usually successful in fashioning both language and rhythm into a +garment worthy of the thought. No one can read _The Impercipient_ +without recognizing that Mr. Hardy's atheism is as honest and as +sincere as the religious faith of others, and that no one regrets the +blankness of his universe more than he. He would believe if he could. + +Pessimism is the basis of all his verse, as it is of his prose. It is +expressed not merely philosophically in poems of ideas, but over and +over again concretely in poems of incident. He is a pessimist both in +fancy and in fact, and after reading some of our sugary "glad" books, +I find his bitter taste rather refreshing. The titles of his recent +collections, _Time's Laughingstocks_ and _Satires of +Circumstance_, sufficiently indicate the ill fortune awaiting his +personages. At his best, his lyrics written in the minor key have a +noble, solemn adagio movement. At his worst--for like all poets, he +is sometimes at his worst--the truth of life seems rather obstinately +warped. Why should legitimate love necessarily bring misery, and +illegitimate passion produce permanent happiness? And in the piece, +"Ah, are you digging on my grave?" pessimism approaches a _reductio +ad absurdum._ + +Dramatic power, which is one of its author's greatest gifts, is +frequently finely revealed. After reading _A Tramp-woman's +Tragedy,_ one unhesitatingly accords Mr. Hardy a place among the +English writers of ballads. For this is a genuine ballad, in story, in +diction, and in vigour. + +Yet as a whole, and in spite of Mr. Hardy's love of the dance and of +dance music, his poetry lacks grace and movement. His war poem, _Men +Who March Away,_ is singularly halting and awkward. His complete +poetical works are interesting because they proceed from an +interesting mind. His range of thought, both in reminiscence and in +speculation, is immensely wide; his power of concentration recalls +that of Browning. + + I have thought sometimes, and thought long and hard. + I have stood before, gone round a serious thing, + Tasked my whole mind to touch and clasp it close, + As I stretch forth my arm to touch this bar. + God and man, and what duty I owe both,-- + I dare to say I have confronted these + In thought: but no such faculty helped here. + +No such faculty alone could help Mr. Hardy to the highest peaks of +poetry, any more than it served Caponsacchi in his spiritual crisis. +He thinks interesting thoughts, because he has an original mind. It is +possible to be a great poet without possessing much intellectual +wealth; just as it is possible to be a great singer, and yet be both +shallow and dull. The divine gift of poetry seems sometimes as +accidental as the formation of the throat. I do not believe that +Tennyson was either shallow or dull; but I do not think he had so rich +a mind as Thomas Hardy's, a mind so quaint, so humorous, so sharp. Yet +Tennyson was incomparably a greater poet. + +The greatest poetry always transports us, and although I read and +reread the Wessex poet with never-lagging attention--I find even the +drawings in _Wessex Poems_ so fascinating that I wish he had +illustrated all his books--I am always conscious of the time and the +place. I never get the unmistakable spinal chill. He has too thorough +a command of his thoughts; they never possess him, and they never soar +away with him. Prose may be controlled, but poetry is a possession. +Mr. Hardy is too keenly aware of what he is about. In spite of the +fact that he has written verse all his life, he seldom writes +unwrinkled song. He is, in the last analysis, a master of prose who +has learned the technique of verse, and who now chooses to express his +thoughts and his observations in rime and rhythm. + +The title of Mr. Hardy's latest volume of poems, _Moments of +Vision_, leads one to expect rifts in the clouds--and one is not +disappointed. It is perhaps characteristic of the independence of our +author, that steadily preaching pessimism when the world was peaceful, +he should now not be perhaps quite so sure of his creed when a larger +proportion of the world's inhabitants are in pain than ever before. +One of the fallacies of pessimism consists in the fact that its +advocates often call a witness to the stand whose testimony counts +against them. Nobody really loves life, loves this world, like your +pessimist; nobody is more reluctant to leave it. He therefore, to +support his argument that life is evil, calls up evidence which proves +that it is brief and transitory. But if life is evil, one of its few +redeeming features should be its brevity; the pessimist should look +forward to death as a man in prison looks toward the day of his +release. Yet this attitude toward death is almost never taken by the +atheists or the pessimists, while it is the burden of many of the +triumphant hymns of the Christian Church. Now, as our spokesman for +pessimism approaches the end--which I fervently hope may be afar +off--life seems sweet. + + "FOR LIFE I HAD NEVER CARED GREATLY" + + For Life I had never eared greatly, + As worth a man's while; + Peradventures unsought, + Peradventures that finished in nought, + Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately + Unwon by its style. + + In earliest years--why I know not-- + I viewed it askance; + Conditions of doubt, + Conditions that slowly leaked out, + May haply have bent me to stand and to show not + Much zest for its dance. + + With symphonies soft and sweet colour + It courted me then, + Till evasions seemed wrong, + Till evasions gave in to its song, + And I warmed, till living aloofly loomed duller + Than life among men. + + Anew I found nought to set eyes on, + When, lifting its hand, + It uncloaked a star, + Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar, + And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon + As bright as a brand. + + And so, the rough highway forgetting, + I pace hill and dale, + Regarding the sky, + Regarding the vision on high, + And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting + My pilgrimage fail. + +No one of course can judge of another's happiness; but it is difficult +to imagine any man on earth who has had a happier life than Mr. Hardy. +He has had his own genius for company all his days; he has been +successful in literary art beyond the wildest dreams of his youth; his +acute perception has made the beauty of nature a million times more +beautiful to him than to most of the children of men; his eye is not +dim, nor his natural force abated. He has that which should accompany +old age--honour, love, obedience, troops of friends. + +The last poem in _Moments of Vision_ blesses rather than curses +life. + + AFTERWARDS + + When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay + And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, + Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say + "He was a man who used to notice such things"? + + If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, + The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight + Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think, + "To him this must have been a familiar sight"? + + If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, + When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, + Will they say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to + no harm, + But he could do little for them; and now he is gone"? + + If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the + door, + Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, + Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, + "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? + + And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, + And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, + Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, + "He hears it not now, but he used to notice such things"? + +Should Mr. Hardy ever resort to prayer--which I suppose is +unlikely--his prayers ought to be the best in the world. According to +Coleridge, he prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and +beast; a beautiful characteristic of our great writer is his +tenderness for every living thing. He will be missed by men, women, +children, and by the humblest animals; and if trees have any +self-consciousness, they will miss him too. + +Rudyard Kipling is a Victorian poet, as Thomas Hardy is a Victorian +novelist. When Tennyson died in 1892, the world, with approximate +unanimity, chose the young man from the East as his successor, and for +twenty-five years he has been the Laureate of the British Empire in +everything but the title. In the eighteenth century, when Gray +regarded the offer of the Laureateship as an insult, Mr. Alfred Austin +might properly have been appointed; but after the fame of Southey, and +the mighty genius of Wordsworth and of Tennyson, it was cruel to put +Alfred the Little in the chair of Alfred the Great. It was not an +insult to Austin, but an insult to Poetry. With the elevation of the +learned and amiable Dr. Bridges in 1913, the public ceased to care who +holds the office. This eminently respectable appointment silenced both +opposition and applause. We can only echo the language of Gray's +letter to Mason, 19 December, 1757: "I interest myself a little in the +history of it, and rather wish somebody may accept it that will +retrieve the credit of the thing, if it be retrievable, or ever had +any credit.... The office itself has always humbled the professor +hitherto (even in an age when kings were somebody), if he were a poor +writer by making him more conspicuous, and if he were a good one by +setting him at war with the little fry of his own profession, for +there are poets little enough to envy even a poet-laureat." Mason was +willing. + +Rudyard Kipling had the double qualification of poetic genius and of +convinced Imperialism. He had received a formal accolade from the aged +Tennyson, and could have carried on the tradition of British verse and +British arms. Nor has any Laureate, in the history of the office, +risen more magnificently to an occasion than did Mr. Kipling at the +sixtieth anniversary of the reign of the Queen. Each poet made his +little speech in verse, and then at the close of the ceremony, came +the thrilling _Recessional_, which received as instant applause +from the world as if it had been spoken to an audience. In its +scriptural phraseology, in its combination of haughty pride and deep +contrition, in its "holy hope and high humility," it expressed with +austere majesty the genius of the English race. The soul of a great +poet entered immediately into the hearts of men, there to abide for +ever. + +It is interesting to reflect that not the author of the +_Recessional_, but the author of _Regina Cara_ was duly +chosen for the Laureateship. This poem by Robert Bridges appeared on +the same occasion as that immortalized by Kipling, and was +subsequently included in the volume of the writer's poetical works, +published in 1912. It shows irreproachable reverence for Queen +Victoria. Apparently its poetical quality was satisfactory to those +who appoint Laureates. + + REGINA CARA + + Jubilee-Song, for music, 1897 + + Hark! the world is full of thy praise, + England's Queen of many days; + Who, knowing how to rule the free, + Hast given a crown to monarchy. + + Honour, Truth, and growing Peace + Follow Britannia's wide increase, + And Nature yield her strength unknown + To the wisdom born beneath thy throne! + + In wisdom and love firm is thy fame: + Enemies bow to revere thy name: + The world shall never tire to tell + Praise of the queen that reignèd well. + + O Felix anima, Domina pracclara, + Amore semper coronabere + Regina Cara + +Rudyard Kipling's poetry is as familiar to us as the air we breathe. +He is the spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon breed. His gospel of orderly +energy is the inspiration of thousands of business offices; his +sententious maxims are parts of current speech: the victrola has +carried his singing lyrics even farther than the banjo penetrates, of +which latter democratic instrument his wonderful poem is the +apotheosis. And we have the word of a distinguished British +major-general to prove that Mr. Kipling has wrought a miracle of +transformation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir George Younghusband, in +a recent book, _A Soldier's Memories_, says, "I had never heard +the words or expressions that Rudyard Kipling's soldiers used. Many a +time did I ask my brother officers whether they had ever heard them. +No, never. But, sure enough, a few years after the soldiers thought, +and talked, and expressed themselves exactly as Rudyard Kipling had +taught them in his stories. Rudyard Kipling made the modern soldier. +Other writers have gone on with the good work, and they have between +them manufactured the cheery, devil-may-care, lovable person enshrined +in our hearts as Thomas Atkins. Before he had learned from reading +stories about himself that he, as an individual, also possessed the +above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of the fact. My early +recollections of the British soldier are of a bluff, rather surly +person, never the least jocose or light-hearted except perhaps when he +had too much beer." + +This is extraordinary testimony to the power of literature--from a +first-class fighting man. It is as though John Sargent should paint an +inaccurate but idealized portrait, and the original should make it +accurate by imitation. The soldiers were transformed by the renewing +of their minds. Beholding with open face as in a glass a certain +image, they were changed into the same image, by the spirit of the +poet. This is certainly a greater achievement than correct reporting. +It is quite possible, too, that the _officers_' attitude toward +Tommy Atkins had been altered by the _Barrack-Room Ballads_, and +this new attitude produced results in character. + +I give General Younghusband's testimony for what it is worth. It is +important if true. But it is only fair to add that it has been +contradicted by another military officer, who affirms that Kipling +reported the soldier as he was. Readers may take their choice. At all +events the transformation of character by discipline, cleanliness, +hard work, and danger is the ever-present moral in Mr. Kipling's +verse. He loves to take the raw recruit or the boyish, self-conscious, +awkward subaltern, and show how he may become an efficient man, happy +in the happiness that accompanies success. It is a Philistine goal, +but one that has the advantage of being attainable. The reach of this +particular poet seldom exceeds his grasp. And although thus far in his +career--he is only fifty-two, and we may hope as well as remember--his +best poetry belongs to the nineteenth century rather than the +twentieth, so universally popular a homily as _If_ indicates that +he has by no means lost the power of preaching in verse. With the +exception of some sad lapses, his latter poems have come nearer the +earlier level of production than his stories. For that matter, from +the beginning I have thought that the genius of Rudyard Kipling had +more authentic expression in poetry than in prose. I therefore hope +that after the war he will become one of the leaders in the advance of +English poetry in the twentieth century, as he will remain one of the +imperishable monuments of Victorian literature. The verse published in +his latest volume of stories, _A Diversity of Creatures_, 1917, +has the stamp of his original mind, and _Macdonough's Song_ is +impressive. And in a poem which does not appear in this collection, +but which was written at the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Kipling was, +I believe, the first to use the name _Hun_--an appellation of +considerable adhesive power. Do roses stick like burrs? + +His influence on other poets has of course been powerful. As Eden +Phillpotts is to Thomas Hardy, so is Robert Service to Rudyard +Kipling. Like Bret Harte in California, Mr. Service found gold in the +Klondike. But it is not merely in his interpretation of the life of a +distant country that the new poet reminds one of his prototype; both +in matter and in manner he may justly be called the Kipling of the +North. His verse has an extraordinary popularity among American +college undergraduates, the reasons for which are evident. They read, +discuss him, and quote him with joy, and he might well be proud of the +adoration of so many of our eager, adventurous, high-hearted youth. +Yet, while Mr. Service is undoubtedly a real poet, his work as a whole +seems a clear echo, rather than a new song. It is good, but it is +reminiscent of his reading, not merely of Mr. Kipling, but of poetry +in general. In _The Land God Forgot_, a fine poem, beginning + + The lonely sunsets flare forlorn + Down valleys dreadly desolate; + The lordly mountains soar in scorn + As still as death, as stern as fate, + +the opening line infallibly brings to mind Henley's + + Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade. + +The poetry of Mr. Service has the merits and the faults of the "red +blood" school in fiction, illustrated by the late Jack London and the +lively Rex Beach. It is not the highest form of art. It insists on +being heard, but it smells of mortality. You cannot give permanence to +a book by printing it in italic type. + +It is indeed difficult to express in pure artistic form great +primitive experiences, even with long years of intimate first-hand +knowledge. No one doubts Mr. Service's accuracy or sincerity. But many +men have had abundance of material, rich and new, only to find it +unmanageable. Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling succeeded where +thousands have failed. Think of the possibilities of Australia! And +from that vast region only one great artist has spoken--Percy +Grainger. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOYES, HOUSMAN + + + Stephen Phillips--his immediate success--influence of + Stratford-on-Avon--his plays--a traditional poet--his + realism--William Watson--his unpromising start--his lament on + the coldness of the age toward poetry--his + Epigrams--_Wordsworth's Grave_--his eminence as a critic + in verse--his anti-imperialism--his Song of Hate--his Byronic + wit--his contempt for the "new" poetry--Alfred Noyes--both + literary and rhetorical--an orthodox poet--a singer--his + democracy--his childlike imagination--his + sea-poems--_Drake_--his optimism--his religious faith--A. + E. Housman--his paganism and pessimism--his modernity--his + originality--his lyrical power--war poems--Ludlow. + +The genius of Stephen Phillips was immediately recognized by London +critics. When the thin volume, _Poems_, containing _Marpessa, +Christ in Hades_, and some lyrical pieces, appeared in 1897, it was +greeted by a loud chorus of approval, ceremoniously ratified by the +bestowal of the First Prize from the British Academy. Some of the more +distinguished among his admirers asserted that the nobility, +splendour, and beauty of his verse merited the adjective Miltonic. I +remember that we Americans thought that the English critics had lost +their heads, and we queried what they would say if we praised a new +poet in the United States in any such fashion. But that was before we +had seen the book; when we had once read it for ourselves, we felt no +alarm for the safety of Milton, but we knew that English Literature +had been enriched. Stephen Phillips is among the English poets. + +His career extended over the space of twenty-five years, from the +first publication of _Marpessa_ in 1890 to his death on the ninth +of December, 1915. He was born near the city of Oxford, on the +twenty-eighth of July, 1868. His father, the Rev. Dr. Stephen +Phillips, still living, is Precentor of Peterborough Cathedral; his +mother was related to Wordsworth. He was exposed to poetry germs at +the age of eight, for in 1876 his father became Chaplain and Sub-Vicar +at Stratford-on-Avon, and the boy attended the Grammar School. Later +he spent a year at Queens' College, Cambridge, enough to give him the +right to be enrolled in the long list of Cambridge poets. He went on +the stage as a member of Frank Benson's company, and in his time +played many parts, receiving on one occasion a curtain call as the +Ghost in _Hamlet_. This experience--with the early Stratford +inspiration--probably fired his ambition to become a dramatist. The +late Sir George Alexander produced _Paolo and Francesca_; +_Herod_ was acted in London by Beerbohm Tree, and in America by +William Faversham. Neither of these plays was a failure, but it is +regrettable that he wrote for the stage at all. His genius was not +adapted for drama, and the quality of his verse was not improved by +the experiment, although all of his half-dozen pieces have occasional +passages of rare loveliness. His best play, _Paolo and +Francesca_, suffers when compared either with Boker's or +D'Annunzio's treatment of the old story. It lacks the stage-craft of +the former, and the virility of the latter. + +Phillips was no pioneer: he followed the great tradition of English +poetry, and must be counted among the legitimate heirs. At his best, +he resembles Keats most of all; and none but a real poet could ever +make us think of Keats. If he be condemned for not breaking new paths, +we may remember the words of a wise man--"It is easier to differ from +the great poets than it is to resemble them." He loved to employ the +standard five-foot measure that has done so much of the best work of +English poetry. In _The Woman with the Dead Soul_, he showed once +more the musical possibilities latent in the heroic couplet, which +Pope had used with such monotonous brilliance. In _Marpessa_, he +gave us blank verse of noble artistry. But he was far more than a mere +technician. He fairly meets the test set by John Davidson. "In the +poet the whole assembly of his being is harmonious; no organ is +master; a diapason extends throughout the entire scale; his whole +body, his whole soul is rapt into the making of his poetry.... Poetry +is the product of originality, of a first-hand experience and +observation of life, of a direct communion with men and women, with +the seasons of the year, with day and night. The critic will therefore +be well-advised, if he have the good fortune to find something that +seems to him poetry, to lay it out in the daylight and the moonlight, +to take it into the street and the fields, to set against it his own +experience and observation of life." + +One of the most severe tests of poetry that I know of is to read it +aloud on the shore of an angry sea. Homer, Shakespeare, Milton gain in +splendour with this accompaniment. + +With the words of John Davidson in mind, let us take two passages from +_Marpessa_, and measure one against the atmosphere of day and +night, and the other against homely human experience. Although Mr. +Davidson was not thinking of Phillips, I believe he would have +admitted the validity of this verse. + + From the dark + The floating smell of flowers invisible, + The mystic yearning of the garden wet, + The moonless-passing night--into his brain + Wandered, until he rose and outward leaned + In the dim summer; 'twas the moment deep + When we are conscious of the secret dawn, + Amid the darkness that we feel is green.... + When the long day that glideth without cloud, + The summer day, was at her deep blue hour + Of lilies musical with busy bliss, + Whose very light trembled as with excess, + And heat was frail, and every bush and flower + Was drooping in the glory overcome; + +Any poet knows how to speak in authentic tones of the wild passion of +insurgent hearts; but not every poet possesses the rarer gift of +setting the mellower years to harmonious music, as in the following +gracious words: + + But if I live with Idas, then we two + On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand + In odours of the open field, and live + In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch + The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun.... + And though the first sweet sting of love be past, + The sweet that almost venom is; though youth, + With tender and extravagant delight, + The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge, + The insane farewell repeated o'er and o'er, + Pass off; there shall succeed a faithful peace; + Beautiful friendship tried by sun and wind, + Durable from the daily dust of life. + And though with sadder, still with kinder eyes, + We shall behold all frailties, we shall haste + To pardon, and with mellowing minds to bless. + Then though we must grow old, we shall grow old + Together, and he shall not greatly miss + My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes, + Too deeply gazed in ever to seem dim; + Nor shall we murmur at, nor much regret + The years that gently bend us to the ground, + And gradually incline our face; that we + Leisurely stooping, and with each slow step, + May curiously inspect our lasting home. + But we shall sit with luminous holy smiles, + Endeared by many griefs, by many a jest, + And custom sweet of living side by side; + And full of memories not unkindly glance + Upon each other. Last, we shall descend + Into the natural ground--not without tears-- + One must go first, ah God! one must go first; + After so long one blow for both were good; + Still like old friends, glad to have met, and leave + Behind a wholesome memory on the earth. + +Although _Marpessa_ and _Christ in Hades_ are subjects +naturally adapted for poetic treatment, Phillips did not hesitate to +try his art on material less malleable. In some of his poems we find a +realism as honest and clear-sighted as that of Crabbe or Masefield. In +_The Woman with the Dead Soul_ and _The Wife_ we have +naturalism elevated into poetry. He could make a London night as +mystical as a moonlit meadow. And in a brief couplet he has given to +one of the most familiar of metropolitan spectacles a pretty touch of +imagination. The traffic policeman becomes a musician. + + The constable with lifted hand + Conducting the orchestral Strand. + +Stephen Phillips's second volume of collected verse, _New Poems_ +(1907), came ten years after the first, and was to me an agreeable +surprise. His devotion to the drama made me fear that he had burned +himself out in the _Poems_ of 1897; but the later book is as +unmistakably the work of a poet as was the earlier. The mystical +communion with nature is expressed with authority in such poems as +_After Rain_, _Thoughts at Sunrise_, _Thoughts at +Noon_. Indeed the first-named distinctly harks back to that +transcendental mystic of the seventeenth century, Henry Vaughan. The +greatest triumph in the whole volume comes where we should least +expect it, in the eulogy on Gladstone. Even the most sure-footed bards +often miss their path in the Dark Valley. Yet in these seven stanzas +on the Old Parliamentary Hand there is not a single weak line, not a +single false note; word placed on word grows steadily into a column of +majestic beauty. + +This poem is all the more refreshing because admiration for Gladstone +had become unfashionable; his work was belittled, his motives +befouled, his clear mentality discounted by thousands of pygmy +politicians and journalistic gnats. The poet, with a poet's love for +mountains, turns the powerful light of his genius on the old giant; +the mists disappear; and we see again a form venerable and august. + + The saint and poet dwell apart; but thou + Wast holy in the furious press of men, + And choral in the central rush of life. + Yet didst thou love old branches and a book, + And Roman verses on an English lawn.... + + Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote, + Nor breach tremendous in the forts of Hell, + Not for these things we praise thee, though these things + Are much; but more, because thou didst discern + In temporal policy the eternal will; + + Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note, + And to debate the thunder of the Lord; + To meanest issues fire of the Most High. + +William Watson, a Yorkshireman by birth and ancestry, was born on the +second of August, 1858. His first volume, _The Prince's Quest_, +appeared in 1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more unpromising +start, or given so little indication, not only of the flame of genius, +but of the power of thought. No twentieth century English poet has a +stronger personality than William Watson. There is not the slightest +tang of it in _The Prince's Quest_. This long, rambling romance, +in ten sections, is as devoid of flavour as a five-finger exercise. It +is more than objective; it is somnambulistic. It contains hardly any +notable lines, and hardly any bad lines. Although quite dull, it never +deviates into prose--it is always somehow poetical without ever +becoming poetry. It is written in the heroic couplet, written with a +fatal fluency; not good enough and not bad enough to be interesting. +It is like the student's theme, which was returned to him without +corrections, yet with a low mark; and in reply to the student's +resentful question, "Why did you not correct my faults, if you thought +meanly of my work?" the teacher replied wearily, "Your theme has no +faults; it is distinguished by a lack of merit." + +In _The Prince's Quest_ Mr. Watson exhibited a rather remarkable +command of a barren technique. He had neither thoughts that breathe, +nor words that burn. He had one or two unusual words--his only +indication of immaturity in style--like "wox" and "himseemed." (Why is +it that when "herseemed" as used by Rossetti, is so beautiful, +"himseemed" should be so irritating!) But aside from a few specimens, +the poem is as free from affectations as it is from passion. When we +remember the faults and the splendours of _Pauline,_ it seems +incredible that a young poet could write so many pages without +stumbling and without soaring; that he could produce a finished work +of mediocrity. I suppose that those who read the poem in 1880 felt +quite sure that its author would never scale the heights; and they +were wrong; because William Watson really has the divine gift, and is +one of the most deservedly eminent among living poets. + +It is only fair to add, that in the edition of his works in 1898, +_The Prince's Quest_ did not appear; he was persuaded, however, +to include it in the two-volume edition of 1905, where it enjoys +considerable revision, "wox" becoming normal, and "himseemed" becoming +dissyllabic. For my part, I am glad that it has now been definitely +retained. It is important in the study of a poet's development. It +would seem that the William Watson of the last twenty-five years, a +fiery, eager, sensitive man, with a burning passion to express himself +on moral and political ideas, learned the mastery of his art before he +had anything to say. + +Perhaps, being a thoroughly honest craftsman, he felt that he ought to +keep his thoughts to himself, until he knew how to express them. After +proving it on an impersonal romance, he was then ready to speak his +mind. No poet has spoken his mind more plainly. + +In an interesting address, delivered in various cities in the United +States, and published in 1913, called _The Poet's Place in the +Scheme of Life,_ Mr. Watson said, "Since my arrival on these shores +I have been told that here also the public interest in poetry is +visibly on the wane." Now whoever told him that was mistaken. The +public interest in poetry and in poets has visibly _wox_, to use +Mr. Watson's word. It is always true that an original genius, like +Browning, like Ibsen, like Wagner, must wait some time for public +recognition, although these three all lived long enough to receive not +only appreciation, but idolatry; but the "reading public" has no +difficulty in recognizing immediately first-rate work, when it is +produced in the familiar forms of art. In the Preface that preceded +his printed lecture, Mr. Watson complained with some natural +resentment, though with no petulance, that his poem, _King +Alfred_, starred as it was from the old armories of literature, +received scarcely any critical comment, and attracted no attention. +But the reason is plain enough--_King Alfred_, as a whole, is a +dull poem, and is therefore not provocative of eager discussion. The +critics and the public rose in reverence before _Wordsworth's +Grave_, because it is a noble work of art. Its author did not have +to tell us of its beauty--it was as clear as a cathedral. + +I do not agree with Mr. Watson or with Mr. Mackaye, that real poets +are speaking to deaf ears, or that they should be stimulated by forced +attention. I once heard Percy Mackaye make an eloquent and high-minded +address, where, if my memory serves me rightly, he advocated something +like a stipend for young poets. A distinguished old man in the +audience, now with God, whispered audibly, "What most of them need is +hanging!" I do not think they should be rewarded either by cash or the +gallows. Let them make their way, and if they have genius, the public +will find it out. If all they have is talent, and no means to support +it, poetry had better become their avocation. + +Mr. Watson has expressly disclaimed that in his lecture he was +lamenting merely "the insufficient praise bestowed upon living poets." +It is certainly true that most poets cannot live by the sale of their +works. Is this especially the fault of our age? is it the fault of our +poets? is it a fault in human nature? Mr. Watson said, "Yet I am bound +to admit that this need for the poet is felt by but few persons in our +day. With one exception there is not a single living English poet, the +sales of whose poems would not have been thought contemptible by Scott +and Byron. The exception is, of course, that apostle of British +imperialism--that vehement and voluble glorifier of Britannic ideals, +whom I dare say you will readily identify from my brief, and, I hope, +not disparaging description of him. With that one brilliant and +salient exception, England's living singers succeed in reaching only a +pitifully small audience." In commenting on this passage, we ought to +remember that Scott and Byron were colossal figures, so big that no +eye could miss them; and that the reason why Kipling has enjoyed +substantial rewards is not because of his political views, nor because +of his glorification of the British Empire, but simply because of his +literary genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to the common +run of poets, not merely in royalties, but in creative power. +Furthermore, shortly after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes +and then John Masefield passed from city to city in America in a march +of triumph. Mr. Gibson and Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere; +"Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; Rupert Brooke has been +canonized. + +Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers "his poetical +contemporaries in England" his "most sincere condolences on the hard +fate which condemned them to be born there at all in the latter part +of the nineteenth century." But he is not mistaken in wishing that +more people everywhere were appreciative of true poetry. I wish this +with all my heart, not so much for the poet's sake, as for that of the +people. But the chosen spirits are not rarer in our time than +formerly. The fault is in human nature. Material blessings are +instantly appreciated by every man, woman, and child, and by all the +animals. For one person who knows the joys of listening to music, or +looking at pictures, or reading poetry, there are a hundred thousand +who know only the joys of food, clothing, shelter. Spiritual delights +are not so immediately apparent as the gratification of physical +desires. Perhaps if they were, man's growth would stop. As Browning +says, + + While were it so with the soul,--this gift of truth + Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure + To prosper as the body's gain is wont,-- + Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth + Crumble; for he both reasons and decides, + Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire + For gold or purple once he knows its worth? + Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain? + Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, + Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, + And straightway in his life acknowledge it, + As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. + +One of the functions of the poet is to awaken men and women to the +knowledge of the delights of the mind, to give them life instead of +existence. As Mr. Watson nobly expresses it, the aim of the poet "is +to keep fresh within us our often flagging sense of life's greatness +and grandeur." We can exist on food; but we cannot live without our +poets, who lift us to higher planes of thought and feeling. The poetry +of William Watson has done this service for us again and again. + +In 1884 appeared _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_. I do not +think these have been sufficiently admired. As an epigrammatist Mr. +Watson has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary verse. The epigram +is a quite definite form of art, especially cultivated by the poets in +the first half of the seventeenth century. Their formula the terse +expression of obscene thoughts. Mr. Watson excels the best of them in +wit, concision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes no attempt +to rival them as a garbage-collector. Of the large number of epigrams +that he has contributed to English literature, I find the majority not +only interesting, but richly stimulating. This one ought to please Mr. +H. G. Wells: + + When whelmed are altar, priest, and creed; + When all the faiths have passed; + Perhaps, from darkening incense freed, + God may emerge at last. + +This one, despite its subject, is far above doggerel: + + His friends he loved. His direst earthly foes-- + Cats--believe he did but feign to hate. + My hand will miss the insinuated nose, + Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at fate. + +But his best epigrams are on purely literary themes: + + Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's ope. + How welcome--after gong and cymbal's din-- + The continuity, the long slow slope + And vast curves of the gradual violin! + +With the publication in 1890 of his masterpiece, _Wordsworth's +Grave_, William Watson came into his own. This is worthy of the man +it honours, and what higher praise could be given? It is superior, +both in penetration and in beauty, to Matthew Arnold's famous +_Memorial Verses_. Indeed, in the art of writing subtle literary +criticism in rhythmical language that is itself high and pure poetry, +Mr. Watson is unapproachable by any of his contemporaries, and I do +not know of any poet in English literature who has surpassed him. This +is his specialty, this is his clearest title to permanent fame. And +although his criticism is so valuable, when employed on a sympathetic +theme, that he must be ranked among our modern interpreters of +literature, his style in expressing it could not possibly be +translated into prose, sure test of its poetical greatness. In his +_Apologia_, he says + + I have full oft + In singers' selves found me a theme of song, + Holding these also to be very part + Of Nature's greatness, and accounting not + Their descants least heroical of deeds. + +The poem _Wordsworth's Grave_ not only expresses, as no one else +has expressed, the quality of Wordsworth's genius, but in single lines +assigned to each, the same service is done for Milton, Shakespeare, +Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron. This is a matchless illustration of the +kind of criticism that is in itself genius; for we may quarrel with +Mr. Spingarn as much as we please on his general dogmatic principle of +the identity of genius and taste; here we have so admirable an example +of what he means by creative criticism, that it is a pity he did not +think of it himself. "For it still remains true," says Mr. Spingarn, +"that the aesthetic critic, in his moments of highest power, rises to +heights where he is at one with, the creator whom he is interpreting. +At that moment criticism and 'creation' are one." + +All great poets have the power of noble indignation, a divine wrath +against wickedness in high places. The poets, like the prophets of +old, pour out their irrepressible fury against what they believe to be +cruelty and oppression. Milton's magnificent Piedmont sonnet is a +glorious roar of righteous rage; and since his time the poets have +ever been the spokesmen for the insulted and injured. Robert Burns, +more than most statesmen, helped to make the world safe for democracy. +I do not know what humanity would do without its poets--they are the +champions of the individual against the tyranny of power, the cruel +selfishness of kings, and the artificial conventions of society. We +may or may not agree with Mr. Watson's anti-imperialistic sentiments +as expressed in the early days of our century, he himself, like most +of us, has changed his mind on many subjects since the outbreak of the +world-war, and unless he ceases to develop, will probably change it +many times in the future. But whatever our opinions, we cannot help +admiring lines like these, published in 1897: + + HOW WEARY IS OUR HEART + + Of kings and courts; of kingly, courtly ways + In which the life of man is bought and sold; + How weary is our heart these many days! + + Of ceremonious embassies that hold + Parley with Hell in fine and silken phrase, + How weary is our heart these many days! + + Of wavering counsellors neither hot nor cold, + Whom from His mouth God speweth, be it told + How weary is our heart these many days! + + Yea, for the ravelled night is round the lands, + And sick are we of all the imperial story. + The tramp of Power, and its long trail of pain; + The mighty brows in meanest arts grown hoary; + The mighty hands, + That in the dear, affronted name of Peace + Bind down a people to be racked and slain; + The emulous armies waxing without cease, + All-puissant all in vain; + The pacts and leagues to murder by delays, + And the dumb throngs that on the deaf thrones gaze; + The common loveless lust of territory; + The lips that only babble of their mart, + While to the night the shrieking hamlets blaze; + The bought allegiance, and the purchased praise, + False honour, and shameful glory;-- + Of all the evil whereof this is part, + How weary is our heart, + How weary is our heart these many days! + +Another poem I cite in full, not for its power and beauty, but as a +curiosity. I do not think it has been remembered that in the _New +Poems_ of 1909 Mr. Watson published a poem of Hate some years +before the Teutonic hymn became famous. It is worth reading again, +because it so exactly expresses the cold reserve of the Anglo-Saxon, +in contrast with the sentimentality of the German. There is, of +course, no indication that its author had Germany in mind. + + HATE + + (To certain foreign detractors) + + Sirs, if the truth must needs be told, + We love not you that rail and scold; + And, yet, my masters, you may wait + Till the Greek Calends for our hate. + + No spendthrifts of our hate are we; + Our hate is used with husbandry. + We hold our hate too choice a thing + For light and careless lavishing. + + We cannot, dare not, make it cheap! + For holy uses will we keep. + A thing so pure, a thing so great + As Heaven's benignant gift of hate. + + Is there no ancient, sceptred Wrong? + No torturing Power, endured too long? + Yea; and for these our hatred shall + Be cloistered and kept virginal. + +He found occasion to draw from his cold storage of hate much sooner +than he had anticipated. Being a convinced anti-imperialist, and +having not a spark of antagonism to Germany, the early days of August, +1914, shocked no one in the world more than him. But after the first +maze of bewilderment and horror, he drew his pen against the Kaiser in +holy wrath. Most of his war poems have been collected in the little +volume _The Man Who Saw,_ published in the summer of 1917. He has +now at all events one satisfaction, that of being in absolute harmony +with the national sentiment. In his Preface, after commenting on the +pain he had suffered in times past at finding himself in opposition to +the majority of his countrymen, he manfully says, "During the present +war, with all its agonies and horrors, he has had at any rate the one +private satisfaction of feeling not even the most momentary doubt or +misgiving as to the perfect righteousness of his country's cause. +There is nothing on earth of which he is more certain than that this +Empire, throughout this supreme ordeal, has shaped her course by the +light of purest duty." The volume opens with a fine tribute to Mr. +Lloyd George, "the man who saw," and _The Kaiser's Dirge_ is a +savage malediction. The poems in this book--of decidedly unequal +merit--have the fire of indignation if not always the flame of +inspiration. Taken as a whole, they are more interesting +psychologically than as a contribution to English verse. I sympathize +with the author's feelings, and admire his sincerity; but his +reputation as a poet is not heightened overmuch. Perhaps the best poem +in the collection is _The Yellow Pansy_, accompanied with +Shakespeare's line, "There's pansies--that's for thoughts." + + Winter had swooped, a lean and hungry hawk; + It seemed an age since summer was entombed; + Yet in our garden, on its frozen stalk, + A yellow pansy bloomed. + + 'Twas Nature saying by trope and metaphor: + "Behold, when empire against empire strives, + Though all else perish, ground 'neath iron war, + The golden thought survives." + +Although, with the exception of his marriage and travels in America, +Mr. Watson's verse tells us little of the facts of his life, few poets +have ever revealed more of the history of their mind. What manner of +man he is we know without waiting for the publication of his intimate +correspondence. It is fortunate for his temperament that, combined +with an almost morbid sensitiveness, he has something of Byron's power +of hitting back. His numerous volumes contain many verses scoring off +adverse critics, upon whom he exercises a sword of satire not always +to be found among a poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give him +both relief and delight. Apart from these thrusts edged with personal +bitterness, William Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical +wit that immediately recalls Byron, who might himself have written +some of the stanzas in _The Eloping Angels_. Faust requests +Mephisto to procure for them both admission into heaven for +half-an-hour: + + To whom Mephisto: "Ah, you underrate + The hazards and the dangers, my good Sir. + Peter is stony as his name; the gate, + Excepting to invited guests, won't stir. + 'Tis long since he and I were intimate; + We differed;--but to bygones why refer? + Still, there are windows; if a peep through these + Would serve your turn, we'll start whene'er you please...." + + So Faust and his companion entered, by + The window, the abodes where seraphs dwell. + "Already morning quickens in the sky, + And soon will sound the heavenly matin bell; + Our time is short," Mephisto said, "for I + Have an appointment about noon in hell. + Dear, dear! why, heaven has hardly changed one bit + Since the old days before the historic split." + +The excellent conventional technique displayed in _The Prince's +Quest_ has characterized nearly every page of Mr. Watson's works. +He is not only content to walk in the ways of traditional poesy, he +glories in it. He has a contempt for heretics and experimenters, which +he has expressed frequently not only in prose, but in verse. It is +natural that he should worship Tennyson; natural (and unfortunate for +him) that he can see little in Browning. And if he is blind to +Browning, what he thinks of contemporary "new" poets may easily be +imagined. With or without inspiration, he believes that hard work is +necessary, and that good workmanship ought to be rated more highly. +This idea has become an obsession; Mr. Watson writes too much about +the sweat of his brow, and vents his spleen on "modern" poets too +often. In his latest volume, _Retrogression_, published in 1917, +thirty-two of the fifty-two poems are devoted to the defence of +standards of poetic art and of purity of speech. They are all +interesting and contain some truth; but if the "new" poetry and the +"new" criticism are really balderdash, they should not require so much +attention from one of the most eminent of contemporary writers. I +think Mr. Watson is rather stiff-necked and obstinate, like an honest, +hearty country squire, in his sturdy following of tradition. Smooth +technique is a fine thing in art; but I do not care whether a poem is +written in conventional metre or in free verse, so long as it is +unmistakably poetry. And no garments yet invented or the lack of them +can conceal true poetry. Perhaps the Traditionalist might reply that +uninspired verse gracefully written is better than uninspired verse +abominably written. So it is; but why bother about either? He might +once more insist that inspired poetry gracefully written is better +than inspired poetry ungracefully written. And I should reply that it +depended altogether on the subject. I should not like to see Whitman's +_Spirit that formed this Scene_ turned into a Spenserian stanza. +I cannot forget that David Mallet tried to smoothen Hamlet's soliloquy +by jamming it into the heroic couplet. Mr. Watson thinks that the +great John Donne is dead. On the contrary, he is audibly alive; and +the only time he really approached dissolution was when Pope +"versified" him. + +Stephen Phillips, William Watson, Alfred Noyes--each published his +first volume of poems at the age of twenty-two, additional evidence of +the old truth that poets are born, not made. Alfred Noyes is a +Staffordshire man, though his report of the county differs from that +of Arnold Bennett as poetry differs from prose. They did not see the +same things in Staffordshire, and if they had, they would not have +been the same things, anyhow. Mr. Noyes was born on the sixteenth of +September, 1880, and made his first departure from the traditions of +English poetry in going to Oxford. There he was an excellent +illustration of _mens sana in corpore sano_, writing verses and +rowing on his college crew. He is married to an American wife, is a +professor at Princeton, and understands the spirit of America better +than most visitors who write clever books about us. He has the +wholesome, modest, cheerful temperament of the American college +undergraduate, and the Princeton students are fortunate, not only in +hearing his lectures, but in the opportunity of fellowship with such a +man. + +Mr. Noyes is one of the few poets who can read his own verses +effectively, the reason being that his mind is by nature both literary +and rhetorical--a rare union. The purely literary temperament is +usually marked by a certain shyness which unfits its owner for the +public platform. I have heard poets read passionate poetry in a +muffled sing-song, something like a child learning to "recite." The +works of Alfred Noyes gain distinctly by his oral interpretation of +them. + +He is prolific. Although still a young man, he has a long list of +books to his credit; and it is rather surprising that in such a +profusion of literary experiments, the general level should be so +high. He writes blank verse, octosyllabics, terza-rima, sonnets, and +is particularly fond of long rolling lines that have in them the music +of the sea. His ideas require no enlargement of the orchestra, and he +generally avoids by-paths, or unbeaten tracks, content to go lustily +singing along the highway. Perhaps it shows more courage to compete +with standard poets in standard measures, than to elude dangerous +comparisons by making or adopting a new fashion. Mr. Noyes openly +challenges the masters on their own field and with their own weapons. +Yet he shows nothing of the schoolmasterish contempt for the "new" +poetry so characteristic of Mr. Watson. He actually admires Blake, who +was in spirit a twentieth century poet, and he has written a fine poem +_On the Death of Francis Thompson_, though he has nothing of +Thompson in him except religious faith. + +In the time-worn but useful classification of versemakers under the +labels _Vates_ and _Poeta_, Alfred Noyes belongs clearly to +the latter group. He is not without ideas, but he is primarily an +artist, a singer. He is one of the most melodious of modern writers, +with a witchery in words that at its best is irresistible. He has an +extraordinary command of the resources of language and rhythm. Were +this all he possessed, he would be nothing but a graceful musician. +But he has the imagination of the inspired poet, giving him creative +power to reveal anew the majesty of the untamed sea, and the mystery +of the stars. With this clairvoyance--essential in poetry--he has a +hearty, charming, incondescending sympathy with "common" people, +common flowers, common music. One of his most original and most +captivating poems is _The Tramp Transfigured, an Episode in the Life +of a Corn-flower Millionaire_. This contains a character worthy of +Dickens, a faery touch of fantasy, a rippling, singing melody, with +delightful audacities of rime. + + _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer! + Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff-- + "Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger; + Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off." + _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer, + "Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough, + "I must get to Piddinghoe tomorrow if I can, sir!" + "Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff," + Says I, like a toff, + "Where d'you mean to sleep tonight? God made this grass for go'ff." + +His masterpiece, _The Barrel-Organ_, has something of Kipling's +rollicking music, with less noise and more refinement. Out of the +mechanical grinding of the hand organ, with the accompaniment of city +omnibuses, we get the very breath of spring in almost intolerable +sweetness. This poem affects the head, the heart, and the feet. I defy +any man or woman to read it without surrendering to the magic of the +lilacs, the magic of old memories, the magic of the poet. Nor has one +ever read this poem without going immediately back to the first line, +and reading it all over again, so susceptible are we to the romantic +pleasure of melancholy. + + Mon coeur est un luth suspendu: + Sitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne. + +Alfred Noyes understands the heart of the child; as is proved by his +_Flower of Old Japan_, and _Forest of Wild Thyme_, a kind of +singing Alice-in-Wonderland. These are the veritable stuff of +dreams--wholly apart from the law of causation--one vision fading into +another. It is our fault, and not that of the poet, that Mr. Noyes had +to explain them: "It is no new wisdom to regard these things through +the eyes of little children; and I know--however insignificant they +may be to others--these two tales contain as deep and true things as +I, personally, have the power to express. I hope, therefore, that I +may be pardoned, in these hurried days, for pointing out that the two +poems are not to be taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to +follow the careless and happy feet of children back into the kingdom +of those dreams which, as we said above, are the sole reality worth +living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic +jests--if any care to call them so--for which mankind has endured so +many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of +modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten." Mr. William J. +Locke says he would rather give up clean linen and tobacco than give +up his dreams. + +Nearly all English poetry smells of the sea; the waves rule Britannia. +Alfred Noyes loves the ocean, and loves the old sea-dogs of +Devonshire. He is not a literary poet, like William Watson, and has +seldom given indication of possessing the insight or the +interpretative power of his contemporary in dealing with pure +literature. He has the blessed gift of admiration, and his poems on +Swinburne, Meredith, and other masters show a high reverence; but they +are without subtlety, and lack the discriminating phrase. He is, +however, deeply read in Elizabethan verse and prose, as his _Tales +of the Mermaid Tavern_, one of his longest, most painstaking, and +least successful works, proves; and of all the Elizabethan men of +action, Drake is his hero. The English lovers of the sea, and the +German lovers of efficiency, have both done honour to Drake. I +remember years ago, being in the town of Offenburg in Germany, and +seeing at a distance a colossal statue, feeling some surprise when I +discovered that the monument was erected to Sir Francis Drake, "in +recognition of his having introduced the potato into Europe." Here was +where eulogy became almost too specific, and I felt that their Drake +was not my Drake. + +Mr. Noyes called _Drake_, published in 1908, an English Epic. It +is not really an epic--it is a historical romance in verse, as +_Aurora Leigh_ is a novel. It is interesting from beginning to +end, more interesting as narrative than as poetry. It is big rather +than great, rhetorical rather than literary, declamatory rather than +passionate. And while many descriptive passages are fine, the pictures +of the terrible storm near Cape Horn are surely less vivid than those +in _Dauber_. Had Mr. Noyes written _Drake_ without the +songs, and written nothing else, I should not feel certain that he was +a poet; I should regard him as an extremely fluent versifier, with +remarkable skill in telling a rattling good story. But the +_Songs_, especially the one beginning, "Now the purple night is +past," could have been written only by a poet. In _Forty Singing +Seamen_ there is displayed an imagination quite superior to +anything in _Drake_; and I would not trade _The Admiral's +Ghost_ for the whole "epic." + +As a specific illustration of his lyrical power, the following poem +may be cited. + + THE MAY-TREE + + The May-tree on the hill + Stands in the night + So fragrant and so still, + So dusky white. + + That, stealing from the wood, + In that sweet air, + You'd think Diana stood + Before you there. + + If it be so, her bloom + Trembles with bliss. + She waits across the gloom + Her shepherd's kiss. + + Touch her. A bird will start + From those pure snows,-- + The dark and fluttering heart + Endymion knows. + +Alfred Noyes is "among the English poets." His position is secure. But +because he has never identified himself with the "new" poetry--either +in choice of material or in free verse and polyphonic prose--it would +he a mistake to suppose that he is afraid to make metrical +experiments. The fact of the matter is, that after he had mastered the +technique of conventional rime and rhythm, as shown in many of his +lyrical pieces, he began playing new tunes on the old instrument. In +_The Tramp Transfigured_, to which I find myself always returning +in a consideration of his work, because it displays some of the +highest qualities of pure poetry, there are new metrical effects. The +same is true of the Prelude to the _Forest of Wild Thyme_, and of +_The Burial of a Queen_; there are new metres used in _Rank and +File_ and in _Mount Ida_. The poem _Astrid_, included in +the volume _The Lord of Misrule_ (1915), is an experiment in +_initial_ rhymes. Try reading it aloud. + + White-armed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!-- + Nightly wandered weeping thro' the ferns in the moon, + Slowly, weaving her strange garland in the forest, + Crowned with white violets, + Gowned in green. + Holy was that glen where she glided, + Making her wild garland as Merlin had bidden her, + Breaking off the milk-white horns of the honeysuckle, + Sweetly dripped the new upon her small white + Feet. + +The English national poetry of Mr. Noyes worthily expresses the spirit +of the British people, and indeed of the Anglo-Saxon race. We are no +lovers of war; military ambition or the glory of conquest is not +sufficient motive to call either Great Britain or America to arms; but +if the gun-drunken Germans really believed that the English and +Americans would not fight to save the world from an unspeakable +despotism, they made the mistake of their lives. There must be a +Cause, there must be an Idea, to draw out the full fighting strength +of the Anglo-Saxons. Alfred Noyes made a correct diagnosis and a +correct prophecy in 1911, when he published _The Sword of +England_. + + She sheds no blood to that vain god of strife + Whom tyrants call "renown"; + She knows that only they who reverence life + Can nobly lay it down; + + And these will ride from child and home and love, + Through death and hell that day; + But O, her faith, her flag, must burn above, + Her soul must lead the way! + +I think none the worse of the mental force exhibited in the poetry of +Alfred Noyes because he is an optimist. It is a common error to +suppose that cheerfulness is a sign of a superficial mind, and +melancholy the mark of deep thinking. Pessimism in itself is no proof +of intellectual greatness. Every honest man must report the world as +he sees it, both in its external manifestations and in the equally +salient fact of human emotion. Mr. Noyes has always loved life, and +rejoiced in it; he loves the beauty of the world and believes that +history proves progress. In an unashamed testimony to the happiness of +living he is simply telling truths of his own experience. Happiness is +not necessarily thoughtlessness; many men and women have gone through +pessimism and come out on serener heights. + +Alfred Noyes proves, as Browning proved, that it is possible to be an +inspired poet and in every other respect to remain normal. He is +healthy-minded, without a trace of affectation or decadence. He +follows the Tennysonian tradition in seeing that "Beauty, Good, and +Knowledge are three sisters." He is religious. A clear-headed, +pure-hearted Englishman is Alfred Noyes. + +Although _A Shropshire Lad_ was published in 1896, there is +nothing of the nineteenth century in it except the date, and nothing +Victorian except the allusions to the Queen. A double puzzle confronts +the reader: how could a University Professor of Latin write this kind +of poetry, and how, after having published it, could he refrain from +writing more? Since the date of its appearance, he has published an +edition of _Manilius_, Book I, followed nine years later by Book +II; also an edition of _Juvenal_, and many papers representing +the result of original research. Possibly + + Chill Pedantry repressed his noble rage, + And froze the genial current of his soul. + +Alfred Edward Housman was born on the twenty-sixth of March, 1859, was +graduated from Oxford, was Professor of Latin at University College, +London, from 1892 to 1911, and since then has been Professor of Latin +at Cambridge. Few poets have made a deeper impression on the +literature of the time than he; and the sixty-three short lyrics in +one small volume form a slender wedge for so powerful an impact. This +poetry, except in finished workmanship, follows no English tradition; +it is as unorthodox as Samuel Butler; it is thoroughly "modern" in +tone, in temper, and in emphasis. Although entirely original, it +reminds one in many ways of the verse of Thomas Hardy. It has his +paganism, his pessimism, his human sympathy, his austere pride in the +tragedy of frustration, his curt refusal to pipe a merry tune, to make +one of a holiday crowd. + + Therefore, since the world has still + Much good, but much less good than ill, + And while the sun and moon endure + Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, + I'd face it as a wise man would, + And train for ill and not for good. + 'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale + Is not so brisk a brew as ale: + Out of a stem that scored the hand + I wrung it in a weary land. + But take it: if the smack is sour, + The better for the embittered hour; + It should do good to heart and head + When your soul is in my soul's stead; + And I will friend you, if I may, + In the dark and cloudy day. + +Those lines might have been written by Thomas Hardy. They express not +merely his view of life, but his faith in the healing power of the +bitter herb of pessimism. But we should remember that _A Shropshire +Lad_ was published before the first volume of Mr. Hardy's verse +appeared, and that the lyrical element displayed is natural rather +than acquired. + +Though at the time of its publication the author was thirty-six years +old, many of the poems must have been written in the twenties. The +style is mature, but the constant dwelling on death and the grave is a +mark of youth. Young poets love to write about death, because its +contrast to their present condition forms a romantic tragedy, sharply +dramatic and yet instinctively felt to be remote. Tennyson's first +volume is full of the details of dissolution, the falling jaw, the +eye-balls fixing, the sharp-headed worm. Aged poets do not usually +write in this manner, because death seems more realistic than +romantic. It is a fact rather than an idea. When a young poet is +obsessed with the idea of death, it is a sign, not of morbidity, but +of normality. + +The originality in this book consists not in the contrast between love +and the grave, but in the acute self-consciousness of youth, in the +pagan determination to enjoy nature without waiting till life's summer +is past. + + Loveliest of trees, the cherry now + Is hung with bloom along the bough, + And stands about the woodland ride + Wearing white for Eastertide. + + Now, of my threescore years and ten, + Twenty will not come again, + And take from seventy springs a score, + It only leaves me fifty more. + + And since to look at things in bloom + Fifty springs are little room, + About the woodlands I will go + To see the cherry hung with snow. + +The death of the body is not the greatest tragedy in this volume, for +suicide, a thought that youth loves to play with, is twice glorified. +The death of love is often treated with an ironical bitterness that +makes one think of _Time's Laughingstocks_. + + Is my friend hearty, + Now I am thin and pine, + And has he found to sleep in + A better bed than mine? + + Yes, lad, I lie easy, + I lie as lads would choose; + I cheer a dead man's sweetheart, + Never ask me whose. + +The point of view expressed in _The Carpenter's Son_ is +singularly detached not only from conventional religious belief, but +from conventional reverence. But the originality in _A Shropshire +Lad_, while more strikingly displayed in some poems than in others, +leaves its mark on them all. It is the originality of a man who thinks +his own thoughts with shy obstinacy, makes up his mind in secret +meditation, quite unaffected by current opinion. It is not the poetry +of a rebel; it is the poetry of an independent man, too indifferent to +the crowd even to fight them. And now and then we find a lyric of +flawless beauty, that lingers in the mind like the glow of a sunset. + + Into my heart an air that kills + From yon far country blows: + What are those blue remembered hills, + What spires, what farms are those? + + That is the land of lost content, + I see it shining plain, + The happy highways where I went, + And cannot come again. + +Mr. Housman's poems are nearer to the twentieth century in spirit than +the work of the late Victorians, and many of them are curiously +prophetic of the dark days of the present war. What strange vision +made him write such poems as _The Recruit_, _The Street Sounds +to the Soldiers' Tread_, _The Day of Battle_, and _On the +Idle Hill of Summer_? Change the colour of the uniforms, and these +four poems would fit today's tragedy accurately. They are indeed +superior to most of the war poems written by the professional poets +since 1914. + +Ludlow, for ever associated with. Milton's _Comus_, is now and +will be for many years to come also significant in the minds of men as +the home of a Shropshire lad. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +JOHN MASEFIELD + + + John Masefield--new wine in old bottles--back to Chaucer--the + self-conscious adventurer--early education and + experiences--_Dauber_--Mr. Masefleld's remarks on + Wordsworth--Wordsworth's famous Preface and its application to + the poetry of Mr. Masefield--_The Everlasting + Mercy_--_The Widow in the Bye Street_ and its + Chaucerian manner--his masterpiece--_The Daffodil + Fields_--similarities to Wordsworth--the part played by the + flowers--comparison of _The Daffodil Fields_ with + _Enoch Arden_--the war poem, _August 1914_--the + lyrics--the sonnets--the novels--his object in writing--his + contribution to the advance of poetry. + +Poets are the Great Exceptions. Poets are for ever performing the +impossible. "No man putteth new wine into old bottles ... new wine +must be put into new bottles." But putting new wine into old bottles +has been the steady professional occupation of John Masefield. While +many of our contemporary vers librists and other experimentalists have +been on the hunt for new bottles, sometimes, perhaps, more interested +in the bottle than in the wine, John Masefield has been constantly +pouring his heady drink into receptacles five hundred years old. In +subject-matter and in language he is not in the least "traditional," +not at all Victorian; he is wholly modern, new, contemporary. Yet +while he draws his themes and his heroes from his own experience, his +inspiration as a poet comes directly from Chaucer, who died in 1400. +He is, indeed, the Chaucer of today; the most closely akin to +Chaucer--not only in temperament, but in literary manner--of all the +writers of the twentieth century. The beautiful metrical form that +Chaucer invented--rime royal--ideally adapted for narrative poetry, as +shown in _Troilus and Criseyde_, is the metre chosen by John +Masefield for _The Widow in the Bye Street_ and for +_Dauber_; the only divergence in _The Daffodil Fields_ +consisting in the lengthening of the seventh line of the stanza, for +which he had plenty of precedents. Mr. Masefield owes more to Chaucer +than to any other poet. + +Various are the roads to poetic achievement. Browning became a great +poet at the age of twenty, with practically no experience of life +outside of books. He had never travelled, he had never "seen the +world," but was brought up in a library; and was so deeply read in the +Greek poets and dramatists that a sunrise on the Aegean Sea was more +real to him than a London fog. He never saw Greece with his natural +eyes. In the last year of his life, being asked by an American if he +had been much in Athens, he replied contritely, "Thou stick'st a +dagger in me." He belied Goethe's famous dictum. + +John Masefield was born at Ledbury, in western England, in 1874. He +ran away from home, shipped as cabin boy on a sailing vessel, spent +some years before the mast, tramped on foot through various countries, +turned up in New York, worked in the old Columbia Hotel in Greenwich +Avenue, and had plenty of opportunity to study human nature in the +bar-room. Then he entered a carpet factory in the Bronx. But he was +the last man in the world to become a carpet knight. He bought a copy +of Chaucer's poems, stayed up till dawn reading it, and for the first +time was sure of his future occupation. + +John Masefield is the real man-of-war-bird imagined by Walt Whitman. +He is the bird self-conscious, the wild bird plus the soul of the +poet. + + To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, + Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, + Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, + At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, + That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, + In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, + What joys! what joys were thine! + +They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great +waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. +They do indeed; they see them as the bird sees them, with no spiritual +vision, with no self-consciousness, with no power to refer or to +interpret. It is sad that so many of those who have marvellous +experiences have nothing else; while those who are sensitive and +imaginative live circumscribed. What does the middle watch mean to an +average seaman? But occasionally the sailor is a Joseph Conrad or a +John Masefield. Then the visions of splendour and the glorious voices +of nature are seen and heard not only by the eye and the ear, but by +the spirit. + +Although Chaucer took Mr. Masefield out of the carpet factory even as +Spenser released Keats it would be a mistake to suppose (as many do) +that the Ledbury boy was an uncouth vagabond, who, without reading, +without education, and without training, suddenly became a poet. He +had a good school education before going to sea; and from earliest +childhood he longed to write. Even as a little boy he felt the impulse +to put his dreams on paper; he read everything he could lay his hands +on, and during all the years of bodily toil, afloat and ashore, he had +the mind and the aspiration of a man of letters. Never, I suppose, was +there a greater contrast between an individual's outer and inner life. +He mingled with rough, brutal, decivilized creatures; his ears were +assaulted by obscene language, spoken as to an equal; he saw the +ugliest side of humanity, and the blackest phases of savagery. Yet +through it all, sharing these experiences with no trace of +condescension, his soul was like a lily. + +He descended into hell again and again, coming out with his inmost +spirit unblurred and shining, even as the rough diver brings from the +depths the perfect pearl. For every poem that he has written reveals +two things: a knowledge of the harshness of life, with a nature of +extraordinary purity, delicacy, and grace. To find a parallel to this, +we must recall the figure of Dostoevski in the Siberian prison. + +Many men of natural good taste and good breeding have succumbed to a +coarse environment. What saved our poet, and made his experiences +actually minister to his spiritual flame, rather than burn him up? It +was perhaps that final miracle of humanity, acute self-consciousness, +stronger in some men than in others, strongest of all in the creative +artist. Even at the age of twenty, Browning felt it more than he felt +anything else, and his words would apply to John Masefield, and +explain in some measure his thirst for sensation and his control of +it. + + I am made up of an intensest life, + Of a most clear idea of consciousness + Of self, distinct from all its qualities, + From all affections, passions, feelings, powers; + And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all: + But linked, in me, to self-supremacy, + Existing as a centre to all things, + Most potent to create and rule and call + Upon all things to minister to it; + And to a principle of restlessness + Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all-- + This is myself. + +Although the poem _Dauber_ is a true story--for there was such a +man, who suffered both horrible fear within and brutal ridicule +without, who finally conquered both, and who, in the first sweets of +victory, as he was about to enter upon his true career, lost his life +by falling from the yardarm--cannot help thinking that Mr. Masefield +put a good deal of himself into this strange hero. The adoration of +beauty, which is the lodestar of the poet, lifted Dauber into a +different world from the life of the ship. He had an ungovernable +desire to paint the constantly changing phases of beauty in the action +of the vessel and in the wonders of the sea and sky. In this passion +his shy, sensitive nature was stronger than all the brute strength +enjoyed by his shipmates; they could destroy his paintings, they could +hurt his body, they could torture his heart. But they could not +prevent him from following his ideal. Dauber died, and his pictures +are lost. But in the poem describing his aims and his sufferings, Mr. +Masefield has accomplished with his pen what Dauber failed to do with +his brush; the beauty of the ship, the beauty of dawn and of midnight, +the majesty of the storm are revealed to us in a series of +unforgettable pictures. And one of Edison's ambitions is here +realized. At the same moment we _see_ the frightful white-capped +ocean mountains, and we _hear_ the roar of the gale. + + Water and sky were devils' brews which boiled, + Boiled, shrieked, and glowered; but the ship was saved. + Snugged safely down, though fourteen sails were split. + Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved. + The grey-backs died and mounted, each crest lit + With a white toppling gleam that hissed from it + And slid, or leaped, or ran with whirls of cloud, + Mad with inhuman life that shrieked aloud. + +Mr. Masefield is a better poet than critic. In the New York +_Tribune_ for 23 January 1916, he spoke with modesty and candour +of his own work and his own aims, and no one can read what he said +without an increased admiration for him. But it is difficult to +forgive him for talking as he did about Wordsworth, who "wrote six +poems and then fell asleep." And among the six are not _Tintern +Abbey_ or the _Intimations of Immortality_. Meditative poetry +is not Mr. Masefield's strongest claim to fame, and we do not go to +poets for illuminating literary criticism. Swinburne was so violent in +his "appreciations" that his essays in criticism are adjectival +volcanoes. Every man with him was God or Devil. It is rare that a +creative poet has the power of interpretation of literature possessed +by William Watson. Mr. Masefield does not denounce Wordsworth, as +Swinburne denounced Byron; he is simply blind to the finest qualities +of the Lake poet. Yet, although he carries Wordsworth's famous theory +of poetry to an extreme that would have shocked the author of it--if +Mr. Masefield does not like _Tintern Abbey_, we can only imagine +Wordsworth's horror at _The Everlasting Mercy_--the philosophy of +poetry underlying both _The Everlasting Mercy_, _The Widow in +the Bye Street_, and other works is essentially that of William +Wordsworth. Keeping _The Everlasting Mercy_ steadily in mind, it +is interesting, instructive, and even amusing to read an extract from +Wordsworth's famous Preface of 1800. "The principal object, then, +proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from +common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was +possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the +same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, +whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual +aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and +situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not +ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature; chiefly, as far as +regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of +excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in +that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil +in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and +speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition +of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater +simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, +and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life +germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary +character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are +more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of +men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of +nature." + +When Wordsworth wrote these dicta, he followed them up with some +explicit reservations, and made many more implicit ones. Mr. +Masefield, in the true manner of the twentieth century, makes none at +all. Taking the language of Wordsworth exactly as it stands in the +passage quoted above, it applies with precision to the method employed +by Mr. Masefield in the poems that have given him widest recognition. +And in carrying this theory of poetry to its farthest extreme in +_The Everlasting Mercy_, not only did its author break with +tradition, the tradition of nineteenth-century poetry, as Wordsworth +broke with that of the eighteenth, he succeeded in shocking some of +his contemporaries, who refused to grant him a place among English +poets. It was in the _English Review_ for October, 1911, that +_The Everlasting Mercy_ first appeared. It made a sensation. In +1912 the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature awarded +him the Edmond de Polignac prize of five hundred dollars. This aroused +the wrath of the orthodox poet Stephen Phillips, who publicly +protested, not with any animosity toward the recipient, but with the +conviction that true standards of literature were endangered. + +It is unfortunate for an artist or critic to belong to any "school" +whatsoever. Belonging to a school circumscribes a man's sympathies. It +shuts him away from outside sources of enjoyment, and makes him +incapable of appreciating many new works of art, because he has +prejudged them even before they were written. Poetry is greater than +any definition of it. There is no doubt that _Marpessa_ is a real +poem; and there is no doubt that the same description is true of +_The Everlasting Mercy_. + +In _The Everlasting Mercy_, the prize-fight, given in detail, by +rounds, is followed by an orgy of drunkenness rising to a scale almost +Homeric. The man, crazy with alcohol, runs amuck, and things begin to +happen. The village is turned upside down. Two powerful contrasts are +dramatically introduced, one as an interlude between violent phases of +the debauch, the other as a conclusion. The first is the contrast +between the insane buffoon and the calm splendour of the night. + + I opened window wide and leaned + Out of that pigstye of the fiend + And felt a cool wind go like grace + About the sleeping market-place. + The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly, + The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy; + And in a second's pause there fell + The cold note of the chapel bell, + And then a cock crew, flapping wings, + And summat made me think of things. + How long those ticking clocks had gone + From church and chapel, on and on, + Ticking the time out, ticking slow + To men and girls who'd come and go. + +These thoughts suddenly become intolerable. A second fit of madness, +wilder than the first, drives the man about the town like a tornado. +Finally and impressively comes the contrast between the drunkard's +horrible mirth and the sudden calm in his mind when the tall pale +Quakeress hypnotizes him with conviction of sin. She drives out the +devils from his breast with quiet authority, and the peace of God +enters into his soul. + +From the first word of the poem to the last the man's own attitude +toward fighting, drink, and religion is logically sustained. It is +perfect drama, with never a false note. The hero is one of the +"twice-born men," and the work may fairly be taken as one more +footnote to the varieties of religious experience. + +I have been told on good authority that of all his writings Mr. +Masefield prefers _Nan_, _The Widow in the Bye Street_, and +_The Everlasting Mercy_. I think he is right. In these +productions he has no real competitors. They are his most original, +most vivid, most powerful pieces. He is at his best when he has a +story to tell, and can tell it freely in his own unhampered way, a +combination of drama and narrative. In _The Everlasting Mercy_, +written in octosyllabics, the metre of _Christmas Eve_, he is +unflinchingly realistic, as Browning was in describing the chapel. The +_Athenaeum_ thought Browning ought not to write about the +mysteries of the Christian faith in doggerel. But _Christmas Eve_ +is not doggerel. It is simply the application of the rules of realism +to a discussion of religion. It may lack the dignity of the _Essay +on Man_, but it is more interesting because it is more definite, +more concrete, more real. In _The Everlasting Mercy_ we have +beautiful passages of description, sharply exciting narration, while +the dramatic element is furnished by conversation--and what +conversation! It differs from ordinary poetry as the sermons of an +evangelist differ from the sermons of Bishops. Mr. Masefield is a +natural-born dramatist. He is never content to describe his +characters; he makes them talk, and talk their own language, and you +will never go far in his longer poems without seeing the characters +rise from the page, spring into life, and immediately you hear their +voices raised in angry altercation. It is as though he felt the +reality of his men and women so keenly that he cannot keep them down. +They refuse to remain quiet. They insist on taking the poem into their +own hands, and running away with it. + +When we are reading _The Widow in the Bye Street_ we realize that +Mr. Masefield has studied with some profit the art of narrative verse +as displayed by Chaucer. The story begins directly, and many necessary +facts are revealed in the first stanza, in a manner so simple that for +the moment we forget that this apparent simplicity is artistic +excellence. The _Nun's Priest's Tale_ is a model of attack. + + A poure wydwe, somdel stope in age, + Was whilom dwellynge in a narwe cottage, + Beside a grove, stondynge in a dale. + This wydwe, of which I telle yow my tale, + Syn thilke day that she was last a wyf, + In pacience ladde a ful symple lyf, + For litel was hir catel and hir rente. + +Now if I could have only one of Mr. Masefield's books, I would take +_The Widow in the Bye Street._ Its opening lines have the +much-in-little so characteristic of Chaucer. + + Down Bye Street, in a little Shropshire town, + There lived a widow with her only son: + She had no wealth nor title to renown, + Nor any joyous hours, never one. + She rose from ragged mattress before sun + And stitched all day until her eyes were red, + And had to stitch, because her man was dead. + +This is one of the best narrative poems in modern literature. It rises +from calm to the fiercest and most tumultuous passions that usurp the +throne of reason. Love, jealousy, hate, revenge, murder, succeed in +cumulative force. Then the calm of unmitigated and hopeless woe +returns, and we leave the widow in a solitude peopled only with +memories. It is melodrama elevated into poetry. The mastery of the +artist is shown in the skill with which he avoids the quagmire of +sentimentality. We can easily imagine what form this story would take +under the treatment of many popular writers. But although constantly +approaching the verge, Mr. Masefield never falls in. He has known so +much sentimentality, not merely in books and plays, but in human +beings, that he understands how to avoid it. Furthermore, he is +steadied by seeing so plainly the weaknesses of his characters, just +as a great nervous specialist gains in poise by observing his +patients. And perhaps our author feels the sorrows of the widow too +deeply to talk about them with any conventional affectation. + +I should like to find some one who, without much familiarity with the +fixed stars in English literature, had read _The Daffodil +Fields_, and then ask him to guess who wrote the following stanzas: + + A gentle answer did the old Man make, + In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew; + And him with further words I thus bespake, + "What occupation do you there pursue? + This is a lonesome place for one like you." + Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise + Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes. + + "This will break Michael's heart," he said at length. + "Poor Michael," she replied; "they wasted hours. + He loved his father so. God give him strength. + This is a cruel thing this life of ours." + The windy woodland glimmered with shut flowers, + White wood anemones that the wind blew down. + The valley opened wide beyond the starry town. + +And I think he would reply with some confidence, "John Masefield." He +would he right concerning the second stanza; but the first is, as +every one ought to know and does not, from _Resolution and +Independence_, by William Wordsworth. It is significant that this +is one of the six poems excepted by Mr. Masefield from the mass of +Wordsworthian mediocrity. It is, of course, a great poem, although +when it was published (1807, written in 1802), it seemed by +conventional standards no poem at all. Shortly after its appearance, +some one read it aloud to an intelligent woman; she sobbed +unrestrainedly; then, recovering herself, said shamefacedly, "After +all, it isn't poetry." The reason, I suppose, why she thought it could +not be poetry was because it was so much nearer life than "art." The +simplicity of the scene; the naturalness of the dialogue; the +homeliness of the old leech-gatherer; these all seemed to be outside +the realm of the heroic, the elevated, the sublime,--the particular +business of poetry, as she mistakenly thought. The reason why John +Masefield admires this poem is because of its vitality, its +naturalness, its easy dialogue--main characteristics of his own work. +In writing _The Daffodil Fields_, he consciously or unconsciously +selected the same metre, introduced plenty of conversation, as he +loves to do in all his narrative poetry, and set his tragedy on a +rural stage. + +It is important here to repeat the last few phrases already quoted +from Wordsworth's famous Preface: "The manners of rural life germinate +from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of +rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; +and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are +incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." If Mr. +Masefield had written this preface for _The Daffodil Fields_, he +could not have more accurately expressed both the artistic aim of his +poem and its natural atmosphere. "The passions of men are incorporated +with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." In this work, each +one of the seven sections ends with the daffodils; so that no matter +how base and truculent are the revealed passions of man, the final +impression at the close of each stage is the unchanging loveliness of +the delicate golden flowers. Indeed, the daffodils not only fill the +whole poem with their fluttering beauty, they play the part of the old +Greek chorus. At the end of each act in this steadily growing tragedy, +they comment in their own incomparable way on the sorrows of man. + + So the night passed; the noisy wind went down; + The half-burnt moon her starry trackway rode. + Then the first Are was lighted in the town, + And the first carter stacked his early load. + Upon the farm's drawn blinds the morning glowed; + And down the valley, with little clucks and rills, + The dancing waters danced by dancing daffodils. + +But if, consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Masefield in the composition +of _The Daffodil Fields_ followed the metre and the manner of +Wordsworth in _Resolution and Independence_, in the story itself +he challenges Tennyson's _Enoch Arden_. Whether he meant to +challenge it, I do not know; but the comparison is unescapable. +Tennyson did not invent the story, and any poet has the right to use +the material in his own fashion. Knowing Mr. Masefield from _The +Everlasting Mercy_ and _The Widow in the Bye Street_, it would +have been safe to prophesy in advance that his own Enoch would not +show the self-restraint practised by the Tennysonian hero. Reserve and +restraint were the trump cards of the Typical Victorian, just as the +annihilation of all reserve is a characteristic of the +twentieth-century artist. In the _Idylls of the King_, the +parting of Guinevere and Arthur was what interested Tennyson; the +poets of today would of course centre attention on the parting of +Guinevere and Lancelot, and like so many "advances," they would in +truth be only going back to old Malory. + +"Neither in the design nor in the telling did, or could, _Enoch +Arden_ come near the artistic truth of _The Daffodil Fields_," +says Professor Quiller-Couch, of Cambridge. I am not entirely sure of +the truth of this very positive statement. Each is a rural poem; the +characters are simple; the poetic accompaniment supplied by the +daffodils in one poem is supplied in the other by the sea. And yet, +despite this latter fact, if one reads _Enoch Arden_ immediately +after _The Daffodil Fields_, it seems to be without salt. It +lacks flavour, and is almost tasteless compared with the biting +condiments of the other poem, prepared as it was for the sharper +demands of twentieth-century palates. We like, as Browning thought +Macready would like "stabbing, drabbing, _et autres +gentillesses_," and Mr. Masefield knows how to supply them. Yet I +am not sure that the self-denial of Enoch and the timid patience of +Philip do not both indicate a certain strength absent in Mr. +Masefield's wildly exciting tale. Of course Tennyson's trio are all +"good" people, and he meant to make them so. In the other work Michael +is a selfish scoundrel, Lion is a murderer, and Mary an adulteress; +and we are meant to sympathize with all three, as Mr. Galsworthy +wishes us to sympathize with those who follow their instincts rather +than their consciences. One poem celebrates the strength of character, +the other the strength of passion. But there can be no doubt that +Enoch (and perhaps Philip) loved Annie more than either Michael or +Lion loved Mary--which is perhaps creditable; for Mary is more +attractive. + +One should remember also that in these two poems--so interesting to +compare in so many different ways--Tennyson tried to elevate a homely +theme into "poetry"; whereas Mr. Masefield finds the truest poetry in +the bare facts of life and feeling. Tennyson is at his best outside of +drama, wherever he has an opportunity to adorn and embellish; Mr. +Masefield is at his best in the fierce conflict of human wills. Thus +_Enoch Arden_ is not one of Tennyson's best poems, and the best +parts of it are the purely descriptive passages; whereas in _The +Daffodil Fields_ Mr. Masefield has a subject made to his hand, and +can let himself go with impressive power. In the introduction of +conversation into a poem--a special gift with Mr. Masefield--Tennyson +is usually weak, which ought to have taught him never to venture into +drama. Nothing is worse in _Enoch Arden_ than passages like +these: + + "Annie, this voyage by the grace of God + Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. + Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me, + For I'll be back, my girl, before you know it." + Then lightly rocking baby's cradle, "and he, + This pretty, puny, weakly little one,-- + Nay--for I love him all the better for it-- + God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees + And I will tell him tales of foreign parts, + And make him merry, when I come home again. + Come, Annie, come, cheer up before I go." + +One of the reasons why twentieth-century readers are so impatient with +_Enoch Arden,_ is because Tennyson refused to satisfy the all but +universal love of a fight. The conditions for a terrific "mix-up" were +all there, and just when the spectator is looking for an explosion of +wrath and blood, the poet turns away into the more heroic but less +thrilling scene of self-conquest. Mr. Masefield may be trusted never +to disappoint his readers in such fashion. It might be urged that +whereas Tennyson gave a picture of man as he ought to be, Mr. +Masefield painted him as he really is. + +But _The Daffodil Fields_ is not melodrama. It is a poem of +extraordinary beauty. Every time I read it I see in it some "stray +beauty-beam" that I missed before. It would be impossible to translate +it into prose; it would lose half its interest, and all of its charm. +It would be easier to translate Tennyson's _Dora_ into prose than +_The Daffodil Fields._ In fact, I have often thought that if the +story of _Dora_ were told in concise prose, in the manner of Guy +de Maupassant, it would distinctly gain in force. + +No poet, with any claim to the name, can be accurately labelled by an +adjective or a phrase. You may think you know his "manner," and he +suddenly develops a different one; this you call his "later" manner, +and he disconcerts you by harking back to the "earlier," or trying +something, that if you must have labels, you are forced to call his +"latest," knowing now that it is subject to change without notice. Mr. +Masefield published _The Everlasting Mercy_ in 1911; _The Widow +in the Bye Street_ in 1912; _Dauber_ in 1912; _The Daffodil +Fields_ in 1913. We had him classified. He was a writer of +sustained narrative, unscrupulous in the use of language, bursting +with vitality, sacrificing anything and everything that stood in the +way of his effect. This was "red blood" verse raised to poetry by +sheer inspiration, backed by remarkable skill in the use of rime. We +looked for more of the same thing from him, knowing that in this +particular field he had no rival. + +Then came the war. As every soldier drew his sword, every poet drew +his pen. And of all the poems published in the early days of the +struggle, none equalled in high excellence _August 1914,_ by John +Masefield. And its tone was precisely the opposite of what his most +famous efforts had led us to expect. It was not a lurid picture of +wholesale murder, nor a bottle of vitriol thrown in the face of the +Kaiser. After the thunder and the lightning, came the still small +voice. It is a poem in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same +silver tones of twilit peace--heartrending by contrast with the +Continental scene. + + How still this quiet cornfield is to-night; + By an intenser glow the evening falls, + Bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light; + Among the stocks a partridge covey calls. + + The windows glitter on the distant hill; + Beyond the hedge the sheep-bells in the fold + Stumble on sudden music and are still; + The forlorn pinewoods droop above the wold. + + An endless quiet valley reaches out + Past the blue hills into the evening sky; + Over the stubble, cawing, goes a rout + Of rooks from harvest, flagging as they fly. + + So beautiful it is I never saw + So great a beauty on these English fields + Touched, by the twilight's coming, into awe, + Ripe to the soul and rich with summer's yields. + +The fields are inhabited with the ghosts of ploughmen of old who gave +themselves for England, even as the faithful farmers now leave scenes +inexpressibly dear. For the aim of our poet is to magnify the lives of +the humble and the obscure, whether on land or sea. In the beautiful +_Consecration_ that he prefixed to _Salt-Water Ballads,_ he +expressly turns his back on Commanders, on Rulers, on Princes and +Prelates, in order to sing of the stokers and chantymen, yes, even of +the dust and scum of the earth. They work, and others get the praise. +They are inarticulate, but have found a spokesman and a champion in +the poet. His sea-poems in this respect resemble Conrad's sea-novels. +This is perhaps one of the chief functions of the man of letters, +whether he be poet, novelist or dramatist--never to let us forget the +anonymous army of toilers. For, as Clyde Fitch used to say, the great +things do not happen to the great writers; the great things happen to +the little people they describe. + +Although Mr. Masefield's reputation depends mainly on his narrative +poems, he has earned a high place among lyrical poets. These poems, at +least many of them, are as purely subjective as _The Everlasting +Mercy_ was purely objective. Rarely does a poem unfurl with more +loveliness than this: + + I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills + Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain; + I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils, + Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain. + +In _Tewkesbury Road_ and in _Sea Fever_ the poet expresses +the urge of his own heart. In _Biography_ he quite properly +adopts a style exactly the opposite of the biographical dictionary. +Dates and events are excluded. But the various moments when life was +most intense in actual experience, sights of mountains on sea and +land, long walks and talks with an intimate friend, the frantically +fierce endeavour in the racing cutter, quiet scenes of beauty in the +peaceful countryside. "The days that make us happy make us wise." + +As Mr. Masefield's narratives take us back to Chaucer, so his +_Sonnets_ (1916) take us back to the great Elizabethan sequences. +Whether or not Shakespeare unlocked his heart in his sonnets is +impossible to determine. Wordsworth thought he did, Browning thought +quite otherwise. But these sonnets of our poet are undoubtedly +subjective; no one without the necessary information would guess them +to come from the author of _The Everlasting Mercy._ They reveal +what has always been--through moving accidents by flood and field--the +master passion of his mind and heart, the worship of Beauty. The +entire series illustrates a tribute to Beauty expressed in the first +one--"Delight in her made trouble in my mind." This mental disturbance +is here the spur to composition. They are experiments in relative, +meditative, speculative poetry; and while they contain some memorable +lines, and heighten one's respect for the dignity and sincerity of +their author's temperament, they are surely not so successful as his +other work. They are not clearly articulate. Instead of the perfect +expression of perfect thoughts--a gift enjoyed only by +Shakespeare--they reveal the extreme difficulty of metrically voicing +his "trouble." It is in a way like the music of the _Liebestod_. +He is struggling to say what is in his mind, he approaches it, falls +away comes near again, only to be finally baffled. + +In 1918 Mr. Masefield returned to battle, murder and sudden death in +the romantic poem _Rosas_. This is an exciting tale told in over +a hundred stanzas, and it is safe to say that any one who reads the +first six lines will read to the end without moving in his chair. +Although this is the latest in publication of our poet's works, it +sounds as if it were written years ago, before he had attained the +mastery so evident in _The Widow in the Bye Street_. It will add +little to the author's reputation. + +I do not think Mr. Masefield has received sufficient credit for his +prose fiction. In 1905 he published _A Mainsail Haul_, which +contained a number of short stories and sketches, many of which had +appeared in the Manchester _Guardian_. It is interesting to +recall his connection with that famous journal. These are the results +partly of his experiences, partly of his reading. It is plain that he +has turned over hundreds of old volumes of buccaneer lore. And humour +is as abundant here as it is absent from his best novels, _Captain +Margaret_ and _Multitude and Solitude_. These two books, +recently republished in America, met with a chilling reception from +the critics. For my part, I not only enjoyed reading them, I think +every student of Mr. Masefield's poetry might read them with +profitable pleasure. They are romances that only a poet could have +written. It would be easier to turn them into verse than it would be +to turn his verse-narratives into prose, and less would be lost in the +transfer. In _Multitude and Solitude_, the author has given us +more of the results of his own thinking than can be found in most of +the poems. Whole pages are filled with the pith of meditative thought. +In _Captain Margaret_, we have a remarkable combination of the +love of romance and the romance of love. + +In response to a question asked him by the _Tribune_ interviewer, +as to the guiding motive in his writing, Mr. Masefield replied: "I +desire to interpret life both by reflecting it as it appears and by +portraying its outcome. Great art must contain these two attributes. +Examine any of the dramas of Shakespeare, and you will find that their +action is the result of a destruction of balance in the beginning. It +is like a cartful of apples which is overturned. All the apples are +spilled in the street. But you will notice that Shakespeare piles them +up again in his incomparable manner, many bruised, broken, and maybe a +few lost." This is certainly an interesting way of putting the +doctrine of analysis and synthesis as applied to art. + +What has Mr. Masefield done then for the advance of poetry? One of his +notable services is to have made it so interesting that thousands look +forward to a new poem from him as readers look for a new story by a +great novelist. He has helped to take away poetry from its +conventional "elevation" and bring it everywhere poignantly in contact +with throbbing life. Thus he is emphatically apart from so-called +traditional poets who brilliantly follow the Tennysonian tradition, +and give us another kind of enjoyment. But although Mr. Masefield is a +twentieth century poet, it would be a mistake to suppose that he has +_originated_ the doctrine that the poet should speak in a natural +voice about natural things, and not cultivate a "diction." Browning +spent his whole life fighting for that doctrine, and went to his grave +covered with honourable scars. Wordsworth successfully rebelled +against the conventional garments of the Muse. Chaucer, Shakespeare, +and Browning are the poets who took human nature as they found it; who +thought life itself was more interesting than any theory about it; who +made language appropriate to the time, the place, and the man, +regardless of the opinion of those who thought the Muse ought to wear +a uniform. The aim of our best twentieth century poets is not really +to write something new and strange, it is to get back to those poets +who lived up to their conviction that the business of poetry is to +chronicle the stages of all life. This is not the only kind of poetry, +but it is the kind high in favour during these present years. The +fountain-head of poetry is human nature, and our poets are trying to +get back to it, just as many of the so-called advances in religious +thought are really attempts to get back to the Founder of +Christianity, before the theologians built their stockade around Him. +Mr. Masefield is a mighty force in the renewal of poetry; in the art +of dramatic narrative he goes back to the sincerity and catholicity of +Chaucer. For his language, he has carried Wordsworth's idea of +"naturalness" to its extreme limits. For his material, he finds +nothing common or unclean. But all his virility, candour, and +sympathy, backed by all his astonishing range of experience, would not +have made him a poet, had he not possessed imagination, and the power +to express his vision of life, the power, as he puts it, of getting +the apples back into the cart. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GIBSON AND HODGSON + + + Two Northumberland poets--Wilfrid Wilson Gibson--his early + failures--his studies of low life--his collected poems--his + short dramas of pastoral experiences--_Daily Bread_--lack + of melody--uncanny imagination--whimsies--poems of the Great + War--their contrast to conventional sentimental ditties--the + accusation--his contribution to the advance of poetry.--Ralph + Hodgson--his shyness--his slender output--his fastidious + self-criticism--his quiet facing of the known facts in nature + and in humanity--his love of books--his humour--his respect + for wild and tame animals--the high percentage of artistic + excellence in his work.--Lascelles Abercrombie. + +Wilfrid Wilson Gibson--a horrible mouthful--was born in Hexham, +Northumberland, in 1878. Like Walt Whitman's, his early poetry was +orthodox, well groomed, and uninteresting. It produced no effect on +the public, but it produced upon its author a mental condition of +acute discontent--the necessary conviction of sin preceding +regeneration. Whether he could ever succeed in bringing his verse down +to earth, he did not then know; but so far as he was concerned, he not +only got down to earth, but got under it. He made subterranean +expeditions with the miners, he followed his nose into slums, he +talked long hours with the unclassed, and listened sympathetically to +the lamentations of sea-made widows. His nature--extraordinarily +delicate and sensitive--received deep wounds, the scars of which +appeared in his subsequent poetry. Now he lives where John Masefield +was born, and like him, speaks for the inarticulate poor. + +In 1917 Mr. Gibson collected his poems in one thick volume of some +five hundred and fifty pages. This is convenient for reference, but +desperately hard to read, on account of the soggy weight of the book. +Here we have, however, everything that he has thus far written which +he thinks worth preserving. The first piece, _Akra the Slave_ +(1904), is a romantic monologue in free verse. Although rather short, +it is much too long, and few persons will have the courage to read it +through. It is incoherent, spineless, consistent only in dulness. +Possibly it is worth keeping as a curiosity. Then comes +_Stonefolds_ (1906), a series of bitter bucolics. This is +pastoral poetry of a new and refreshing kind--as unlike to the +conventional shepherd-shepherdess mincing, intolerable dialogue as +could well be imagined. For, among all the groups of verse, in which, +for sacred order's sake, we arrange English literature, pastoral +poetry easily takes first place in empty, tinkling artificiality. In +_Stonefolds_, we have six tiny plays, never containing more than +four characters, and usually less, which represent, in a rasping +style, the unending daily struggle of generation after generation with +the relentless forces of nature. It is surprising to see how, in four +or five pages, the author gives a clear view of the monotonous life of +seventy years; in this particular art, Strindberg himself has done no +better. The experience of age is contrasted with the hope of youth. +Perhaps the most impressive of them all is _The Bridal_ where, in +the presence of the newly wedded pair, the man's old, bed-ridden +mother speaks of the chronic misery of her married life, intimates +that the son is just like his dead father, and that therefore the +bride has nothing ahead of her but tragedy. Then comes the conclusion, +which reminds one somewhat of the close of Ibsen's _Lady from the +Sea_. The young husband throws wide the door, and addresses his +wife as follows: + + The door is open; you are free to go. + Why do you tarry? Are you not afraid? + Go, ere I hate you. I'll not hinder you. + I would not have you bound to me by fear. + Don't fear to leave me; rather fear to bide + With me who am my father's very son. + Go, lass, while yet I love you! + + ESTHER (closing the door). I shall bide. + I have heard all; and yet, I would not go. + Nor would I have a single word unsaid. + I loved you, husband; yet, I did not know you + Until your mother spoke. I know you now; + And I am not afraid. + +The first piece in _Stonefolds_ represents the tragic +helplessness of those newly born and those very old, a favourite theme +with Maeterlinck. A lamb and a child are born on the same night, and +both die before dawn. The lamb is a poetic symbol of babyhood. +Nicholas, the aged shepherd, who longs to go out into the night and do +his share of the work that must be done, but who is unable even to +move, thus addresses the dying lamb: + + Poor, bleating beast! We two are much alike, + At either end of life, though scarce an hour + You've been in this rough world, and I so long + That death already has me by the heels; + For neither of us can stir to help himself, + But both must bleat for others' aid. This world + Is rough and bitter to the newly born, + But far more bitter to the nearly dead. + +In _Daily Bread_ (1908-09), there are eighteen brief plays, +written not in orthodox blank verse, like _Stonefolds_, but in +irregular, brittle, breathless metres. Here is where art takes the +short cut to life, sacrificing every grace to gain reality; the +typical goal and method of twentieth-century poetry. So long as a +vivid impression of character and circumstance is produced, the writer +apparently cares nothing about style. I say "apparently," because the +styleless style is perhaps the one best adapted to produce the +sought-for effect. There is ever one difference between life and +"art"--between drama and theatre--that Mr. Gibson has, I suppose, +tried to cancel in these poems of daily bread. In art, the bigger the +drama, the bigger the stage; one could not mount +_Götterdämmerung_ in a village schoolhouse. But Life does not fit +the splendour of the setting to the grandeur of the struggle. In bleak +farm cottages, in dull dwellings in city blocks, in slum tenements, +the greatest of life's tragedies and comedies are enacted--love, hate, +avarice, jealousy, revenge, birth, death--the most terrific passions +known to human nature are fully presented, without the slightest care +for appropriate scenery from the Master of the show. Thus our poet +leads us by the hand into sea-girt huts, into hovels at the mouths of +mines, into garrets of noisy cities, and makes us silent witnesses of +elemental woe. Here Labour, man's greatest blessing, takes on the +aspect of the primal curse, since so many tragedies spring from the +simple root of poverty. The love of money may be the root of all evil, +but the lack of it is the cause of much pain. + +It was a happy inspiration that made Mr. Gibson call these scenes +_Daily Bread_; for it is the struggle, not for comfort, but for +existence, that drives these men from mother, wife, and child into the +thick of the fight. Many novels and plays are written nowadays against +"big business," where, among other real and imagined evils, the +Business itself is represented as the villain in the home, alienating +the husband's affections from wife and children. Whatever may be the +case with the private soldiers, the Captain of Industry does not, and +by the nature of things cannot, confine his labours to an eight-hour +day--when he finally comes home, he brings the business with him, +forming a more well-founded cause of jealousy than the one usually +selected for conventional drama. Mr. Gibson, however, is not +interested in the tragic few, but in the tragic many, and in his poems +the man of the house leaves early and returns late. The industrial war +caused by social conditions takes him from home as surely and as +perilously as though he were drafted into an expeditionary force. The +daily parting is poignant, for every member of the family knows he may +not come back. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this +corroding worry is seen in _The Night-Shift_, where four women +with a newly-born baby spend a night of agonized waiting, only to have +their fears confirmed in the dawn. + +The wife, weak from childbirth, sits up in bed, and speaks: + + Will no one stop that tapping? + I cannot sleep for it. + I think that someone is shut in somewhere, + And trying to get out. + Will no one let them out, + And stop the tapping? + It keeps on tapping, tapping.... + Tap ... tap ... tap ... tap.... + And I can scarcely breathe, + The darkness is so thick. + It stifles me, + And weighs so heavily upon me, + And drips, and drips.... + My hair is wet already; + There's water all about my knees.... + As though great rocks were hanging overhead! + And dripping, dripping.... + I cannot lift my feet, + The water holds them, + It's creeping ... creeping ... creeping.... + My wet hair drags me down. + Ah, God! + Will no one stop that tapping.... + I cannot sleep.... + And I would sleep + Till he comes home.... + Tap ... tap ... tap ... tap.... + +These poems were, of course, composed before the war. In the greater +tragedy, some of the lesser ones disappear. For example, Mr. Gibson +represents young, able-bodied, healthy and temperate men as unable to +find work of any kind; their wives and children starve because of the +absence of employment. Surely, since August, 1914, this particular +cause of suffering has been removed. + +In _Womenkind_ (1909), dedicated to Rabbi and Mrs. Wise, we have +a real play, not only dramatic in character and situation, but fitted +for stage representation without the change of a word. The theme is +just the opposite of Middleton's old drama, _Women Beware Women_. +Here the two young women, one the mistress-mother, and one the bride, +join forces against the man, and walk out of his house on the +wedding-day. They feel that the tie between them is stronger than the +tie which had united them severally to the man, and depart to live +together. The play closes on a note of irony, for Jim, his blind +father, and his weary mother repeat in turn--but with quite different +emphasis--the accusation that women are a faithless lot. + +The long series of poems called _Fires_ (1910-11) differ in +matter and manner from the earlier works. The form of drama is +abandoned, and in its place we have vivid rimed narrative, mingled +with glowing pictures of natural scenery, taken at all hours of the +day and night. Each of his poems must be taken as a whole, for each +poem strives for a single effect. This effect is often gained by +taking some object, animate or inanimate, as a symbol. Thus, in _The +Hare_, the hunted animal is the symbol of woman. _The Flute_, +_The Lighthouse_, and _The Money_ mean more than their +definition. Mr. Gibson is somewhat kinder to his readers in this +collection, for the monotony of woe, that hangs over his work like a +cloud, is rifted here and there by a ray of happiness. In _The +Shop_, the little boy actually recovers from pneumonia, and our +share in the father's delight is heightened by surprise, for whenever +any of our poet's characters falls into a sickness, we have learned to +expect the worst. Still, the darker side of life remains the author's +chosen field of exploration. Two pieces are so uncanny that one might +almost think they proceeded from a disordered imagination. The blind +boy, who every day has rowed his father back and forth from the +fishing-grounds, while the man steered, one day rows cheerfully toward +home, unaware that his father is dead. The boy wonders at his father's +silence, and laughingly asserts that he has heard him snoring. Then +his mirth changes to fear, and fear to horror. + + Though none has ever known + How he rowed in, alone, + And never touched a reef. + Some say they saw the dead man steer-- + The dead man steer the blind man home-- + Though, when they found him dead, + His hand was cold as lead. + +Another strange poem describes how a cripple sits in his room, with a +mother eternally stitching for bread, and watches out of the window +the giant crane swinging vast weights through the sky. One night, +while he is half-dead with fear, the great crane swoops down upon him, +clutches his bed, and swings him, bed and all, above the sleeping +city, among the blazing stars. + +Following Mr. Gibson's development as a poet, year by year, we come to +_Thoroughfares_ (1908-14). These are short poems more +conventional in form than their predecessors, but just as stark and +grim as chronicles of life. Every one remembers the torture inflicted +on women in the good-old-times, when they were strapped to posts on +the flats at low tide, and allowed to watch the cruel slowness of +approaching death. The same theme, with an even more terrible +termination, is selected by Mr. Gibson in _Solway Ford_, where +the carter is pinned by the heavy, overturned wagon on the sands; +while the tide gradually brings the water toward his helpless body. He +dies a thousand deaths in imagination, but is rescued just as the +waves are lapping the wheels. Now he lies in bed, an incurable idiot, +smiling as he sees gold and sapphire fishes swimming in the water over +his head.... That rarest of all English metres--which Browning chose +for _One Word More_--is employed by Mr. Gibson in a compound of +tragedy-irony called _The Vindictive Staircase_. Unfortunately +the rhythm is so closely associated with Browning's love-poem, that +these lines sound like a parody: + + Mrs. Murphy, timidest of spectres, + You who were the cheeriest of charers, + With the heart of innocence and only + Torn between a zest for priest and porter, + Mrs. Murphy of the ample bosom,-- + Suckler of a score or so of children. + +It seems best to leave this measure in the undisturbed possession of +the poet who used it supremely well. Yet some of the verses in +_Thoroughfares_ are an advance on Mr. Gibson's previous work. No +reader will ever forget _Wheels_. + +Passing over _Borderlands_ (1912-14) which, with the exception of +_Akra_, is the least successful of Mr. Gibson's works, we come to +his most original contribution to modern poetry, the short poems +included under the heading _Battle_ (1914-15). These verses +afford one more bit of evidence that in order to write unconventional +thoughts, it is not necessary to use unconventional forms. The ideas +expressed here can be found in no other war-poet; they are +idiosyncratic to the highest degree; yet the verse-forms in which they +are written are stanzaic, as traditional as the most conservative +critic could desire. There is, of course, no reason why any poet +should not compose in new and strange rhythms if he prefers to do so; +but I have never believed that originality in thought +_necessarily_ demands metrical measures other than those found in +the history of English literature. + +These lyrical poems are dramatic monologues. Each one is the testimony +of some soldier in the thick of the fight as to what he has seen or +heard, or as to what memories are strongest in his mind as he lies in +the filth of the trenches. Conventional emotions of enthusiasm, glory, +sacrifice, courage, are omitted, not because they do not exist, but +simply because they are taken for granted; these boys are aflame with +such feelings at the proper time. But Mr. Gibson is more interested in +the strange, fantastic thoughts, waifs of memory, that wander across +the surface of the mind in the midst of scenes of horror. And we feel +that the more fantastic these thoughts are, the more do they reflect +the deep truths of experience. Home naturally looms large, and some of +the recollections of home take on a grim humour, strangely in contrast +with the present environment of the soldier. + + HIS FATHER + + I quite forgot to put the spigot in. + It's just come over me.... And it is queer + To think he'll not care if we lose or win. + And yet be jumping-mad about that beer. + + I left it running full. He must have said + A thing or two. I'd give my stripes to hear + What he will say if I'm reported dead + Before he gets me told about that beer! + +It would appear that the world has grown up, or at all events, grown +much older, during the last forty years. It has grown older at a high +rate of speed. The love of country is the same as ever, because that +is a primal human passion, that will never change, any more than the +love of the sexes; but the expression of battle-poems seems more +mature, more sophisticated, if you like, in this war than in any +preceding conflict. Most of the verses written in England and in +America are as different as may be from "Just before the battle, +mother," which was so popular during our Civil War. Never before has +the psychology of the soldier been so acutely studied by national +poets. And instead of representing the soldier as a man swayed by a +few elemental passions and lush sentiment, he is presented as an +extraordinarily complex individual, with every part of his brain +abnormally alert. Modern poetry, in this respect, has, I think, +followed the lead of the realistic prose novel. Such books as +Tolstoi's _Sevastopol_, and Zola's _La Débâcle_, have had a +powerful effect in making war poetry more analytical; while that +original story, _The Red Badge of Courage_, written by an +inspired young American, Stephen Crane, has left its mark on many a +volume of verse that has been produced since August, 1914. The +unabashed realism of the trenches, together with the psychology of the +soldier, is clearly and significantly reflected in _From the +Front_ (1918), a book of poems written by men in service, edited by +Lieut. C. E. Andrews. + +What is going to become of us all if the obsession of +self-consciousness grows ever stronger? + +There is not a trace of cheap sentiment in _Battle_. Even the +poems that come nearest to the emotional surface are saved by some +specific touch, like the sense of smell, which, as every one knows, is +a sharper spur to the memory than any other sensation. + + Tonight they're sitting by the peat + Talking of me, I know-- + Grandfather in the ingle-seat, + Mother and Meg and Joe. + + I feel a sudden puff of heat + That sets my ears aglow, + And smell the reek of burning peat + Across the Belgian snow. + +Browning wrote of Shelley, who had been dead eleven years, + + _The air seems bright with thy past presence yet._ + +A similar effect of brightness in life and afterglow in death, seems +to have been made on every one who knew him by Rupert Brooke. No young +poet of the twentieth century has left such a flaming glory as he. The +prefatory poem to Mr. Gibson's _Friends_ (1915-16), beautifully +expresses the common feeling: + + He's gone. + I do not understand. + I only know + That as he turned to go + And waved his hand + In his young eyes a sudden glory shone: + And I was dazzled by a sunset glow, + And he was gone. + +The fine sonnets that follow strengthen the strong colour, and are +among the most authentic claims to poetry that their author has set +forth. The second one, contrasting the pale glimmer of the London +garret with the brilliant apparition of Brooke at the open door, "like +sudden April," is poignant in its beauty. The verses in this volume +are richer in melody than is customary with Mr. Gibson, yet _The +Pessimist_ and _The Ice-Cart_ show that he is as whimsical as +ever. He has no end of fun with his fancy. + +_Livelihood_ (1914-16) takes us back to the bitter pessimism of +_Stonefolds_ and _Daily Bread_; only instead of being +dialogues, these stories are given in descriptive form, and for the +most part in regular pentameter rime. The best of them is _In the +Orchestra_, where the poor fiddler in the band at the cheap +music-hall plays mechanically every night for his daily bread, while +his heart is torn by the vulture of memory. This poem shows a firm +grasp of the material; every word adds something to the total +impression. + +Mr. Gibson's constantly repeated pictures of the grinding, +soul-crushing labour of the poor seem to say _J'accuse_! Yet he +nowhere says it explicitly. He never interrupts his narrative with "My +Lords and Gentlemen," nor does he comment, like Hood in _The Song of +the Shirt_. + +Yet the effect of his work is an indictment. Only, whom does he +accuse? Is it the government; is it society; is it God? + +Mr. Gibson's latest book of poems, _Hill-Tracks_ (1918), differs +from his previous works in two respects. It is full of pictures of the +open fields of Northumberland, the county where he was born; and +nearly every piece is an attempt at a singing lyric, something seldom +found in his _Collected Poems_. I say an "attempt" with +deliberation, for song is not the most natural expression of this +realistic writer, and not more than half of the fifty lyrics in this +handsome volume are successfully melodious. Some are trivial, and +hardly deserve such beauty of type and paper; others, however, will be +gladly welcomed by all students of Mr. Gibson's work, because they +exhibit the powers of the author in an unusual and charming manner. I +should think that those familiar with the topography and with the +colloquialisms constantly appearing in this book, would read it with a +veritable delight of reminiscence. + + NORTHUMBERLAND + + Heatherland and bent-land-- + Black land and white, + God bring me to Northumberland, + The land of my delight. + + Land of singing waters, + And winds from off the sea, + God bring me to Northumberland, + The land where I would be. + + Heatherland and bent-land, + And valleys rich with corn, + God bring me to Northumberland, + The land where I was born. + +The shadow of the war darkens nearly every page of this volume, and +the last poem expresses not the local but the universal sentiment of +us who remain in our homes. + + We who are left, how shall we look again + Happily on the sun, or feel the rain, + Without remembering how they who went + Ungrudgingly, and spent + Their all for us, loved, too, the sun and rain? + + A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings-- + But we, how shall we turn to little things + And listen to the birds and winds and streams + Made holy by their dreams, + Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things? + +An interesting feature of the _Collected Poems_ is a striking +unfinished portrait of the author by Mrs. Wise; but I think it was an +error to publish all these verses in one volume. They produce an +impression of grey monotony which is hardly fair to the poet. The +individuals change their names, but they pass through the same typical +woe of childbirth, desertion, loveless old age, incipient insanity, +with eternal joyless toil. One will form a higher opinion if one reads +the separate volumes as they appeared, and not too much at a time. + +His contribution to the advance of English poetry is seen mainly in +his grim realism, in his direct, unadorned presentation of what he +believes to be the truth, whether it be the facts of environment, or +the facts of thought. Conventional war-poetry, excellently represented +by Tennyson's _Charge of the Light Brigade_, which itself harks +back to Drayton's stirring _Ballad of Agincourt_, has not the +slightest echo in these volumes; and ordinary songs of labour are +equally remote. Face to face with Life--that is where the poet leads +us, and where he leaves us. He is far indeed from possessing the +splendid lyrical gift of John Masefield; he has nothing of the +literary quality of William Watson. He writes neither of romantic +buccaneers nor of golden old books. But he is close to the grimy +millions. He writes the short and simple annals of the poor. He is a +poet of the people, and seems to have taken a vow that we shall not +forget them. + + + +Ralph Hodgson was born somewhere in Northumberland about forty years +ago, and successfully eluded the notice of the world until the year +1907. He is by nature such a recluse that I feel certain he would +prefer to attract no attention whatever were it not for the fact that +it is as necessary for a poet to print his songs as it is for a bird +to sing them. His favourite companions are Shelley, Wordsworth, and a +bull terrier, and he is said to play billiards with "grim +earnestness." In 1907 he published a tiny volume called _The Last +Blackbird_, and in 1917 another and tinier one called _Poems_. +During this decade he printed in a few paper booklets, which some day +will be valuable curiosities, separate pieces such as _Eve_, +_The Bull_, _The Mystery_. These are now permanently +preserved in the 1917 book. This thin volume, weighing only two or +three ounces, is a real addition to the English poetry of the +twentieth century. + +It is impossible to read the verse of Ralph Hodgson without admiration +for the clarity of his art and respect for the vigour of his mind. +Although many of his works are as aloof from his own opinions as a +well-executed statue, the strength of his personality is an immanent +force. He writes much and publishes little; he is an intellectual +aristocrat. He has the fastidiousness which was the main +characteristic of the temperament of Thomas Gray; and he has as well +Gray's hatred of publicity and much of Gray's lambent humour, more +salty than satiric. His work is decidedly caviare to the general, not +because it is obscure, which it is not, but because it presupposes +much background. Lovers of nature and lovers of books will love these +verses, and reread them many times; but they are not for all markets. +No contemporary poet is more truly original than he; but his +originality is seen in his mental attitude rather than in newness of +form or strangeness of language. The standard metres are good enough +for him, and so are the words in common use. His subjects are the +world-old subjects of poetry--birds, flowers, men and women. Religion +is as conspicuously absent as it is in the works of Keats; its place +is taken by sympathy for humanity and an extraordinary sympathy for +animals. He is as far from the religious passion of Francis Thompson +as he is from the sociological inquisitiveness of Mr. Gibson. To him +each bird, each flower appears as a form of worship. Men and women +appeal to him not because they are poor or downtrodden, but simply +because they are men and women. He is neither an optimist nor a +pessimist; the world is full of objects both interesting and +beautiful, which will pay a rich return to those who observe them +accurately. This is as near as he has thus far come to any philosophy +or any theology: + + THE MYSTERY + + He came and took me by the hand + Up to a red rose tree, + He kept His meaning to Himself + But gave a rose to me. + + I did not pray Him to lay bare + The mystery to me, + Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, + And His own face to see. + +It is the absolute object that interests this poet, rather than vague +or futile speculation about it. The flower in the crannied wall he +would leave there. He would never pluck it out, root and all, +wondering about the mystery of the life principle. No poet is more +clean-eyed. His eyes are achromatic. He has lost his illusions gladly; +every time he has lost an illusion he has gained a new idea. The world +as it is seems to him more beautiful, more interesting than any +false-coloured picture of it or any longing to remould it nearer to +the heart's desire. He faces life with steady composure. But it is not +the composure either of stoicism or of despair. He finds it so +wonderful just as it is that he is thankful that he has eyes to see +its beauty, ears to hear its melodies--enough for his present mortal +state. + + AFTER + + "How fared you when you mortal were? + What did you see on my peopled star?" + "Oh, well enough," I answered her, + "It went for me where mortals are! + + "I saw blue flowers and the merlin's flight + And the rime on the wintry tree, + Blue doves I saw and summer light + On the wings of the cinnamon bee." + +There is in all this a kind of reverent worship +without any trace of mysticism. And still less of +that modern attitude more popular and surely +more fruitless than mysticism--defiance. + +There is a quite different side to the poetry of +Mr. Hodgson, which one would hardly suspect +after reading his outdoor verse. The lamplit +silence of the library is as charming to him as +the fragrant silence of the woods. He is as much +of a recluse among books as he is among flowers. +No poet of today seems more self-sufficient. Although +a lover of humanity, he seems to require +no companionship. He is no more lonely than a +cat, and has as many resources as Tabby herself. +Now when he talks about books, his poetry becomes +intimate, and forsakes all objectivity. +His humour, a purely intellectual quality with him, +rises unrestrainedly. + + MY BOOKS + + When the folks have gone to bed, + And the lamp is burning low, + And the fire burns not so red + As it burned an hour ago, + + Then I turn about my chair + So that I can dimly see + Into the dark corners where + Lies my modest library. + + Volumes gay and volumes grave, + Many volumes have I got; + Many volumes though I have, + Many volumes have I not. + + I have not the rare Lucasta, + London, 1649; + I'm a lean-pursed poetaster, + Or the book had long been mine.... + + Near the "Wit's Interpreter" + (Like an antique Whitaker, + Full of strange etcetera), + "Areopagitiea," + + And the muse of Lycidas, + Lost in meditation deep, + Give the cut to Hudibras, + Unaware the knave's asleep.... + + There lies Coleridge, bound in green, + Sleepily still wond'ring what + He meant Kubla Khan to mean, + In that early Wordsworth, Mat. + + Arnold knows a faithful prop,-- + Still to subject-matter leans, + Murmurs of the loved hill-top, + Fyfield tree and Cumnor scenes. + +The poem closes with a high tribute to Shelley, "more than all the +others mine." + +The following trifle is excellent fooling: + + THE GREAT AUK'S GHOST + + The Great Auk's ghost rose on one leg, + Sighed thrice and three times winkt, + And turned and poached a phantom egg, + And muttered, "I'm extinct." + +But it is in the love of unextinct animals that Mr. Hodgson's poetic +powers find their most effective display. His masterpiece on the old +unhappy Bull is surprisingly impressive; surprisingly, because we +almost resent being made to feel such ardent sympathy for the poor old +Bull, when there are so many other and more important objects to be +sorry for. Yet the poet draws us away for the moment from all the +other tragedies in God's universe, and absolutely compels our pity for +the Bull. The stanzas in this poem swarm with life. + +From a certain point of view, poets are justified in calling attention +to the sufferings of our animal brothers. For it is the sufferings of +animals, even more than the sorrows of man, that check our faith +either in the providence or in the love of God. Human suffering may +possibly be balanced against the spiritual gain it (sometimes) brings; +and at all events, we know that there is no road to greatness of +character except through pain. But what can compensate the dumb +animals for their physical anguish? It is certainly difficult to see +their reward, unless they have immortal souls. That this is no slight +obstacle in the way of those who earnestly desire to believe in an +ethical universe, may be seen from the fact that it was the sight of a +snake swallowing a toad that destroyed once for all the religious +beliefs of Turgenev; and I know a man of science in America who became +an agnostic simply from observation of a particular Texas fly that +bites the cattle. The Founder of Christianity recognized this problem, +as He did every other painful fact in life, when He made the remark +about the sparrow. + +Yet even the pessimists ought not to be quite so sure that God is +morally inferior to man. Even their God may be no more amused by human +anguish then men are amused by the grotesque floppings of a dying +fish. + +The villains in the world are those who have no respect for the +personality of birds and beasts. And their cruelty to animals is not +deliberate or vindictive--it arises from crass stupidity. + + STUPIDITY STREET + + I saw with open eyes + Singing birds sweet + Sold in the shops + For the people to eat, + Sold in the shops of + Stupidity Street. + + I saw in vision + The worm in the wheat, + And in the shops nothing + For people to eat; + Nothing for sale in + Stupidity Street. + +The poet's attitude toward the lion in the jungle, the bull in the +field, the cat in the yard, the bird on the tree is not one of +affectionate petting, for love and sympathy are often +mingled--consciously or unconsciously--with condescension. There is no +trace of condescension in the way Mr. Hodgson writes of animals. He +treats them with respect, and not only hates to see them hurt, he +hates to see their dignity outraged. + + THE BELLS OF HEAVEN + + 'Twould ring the bells of Heaven + The wildest peal for years, + If Parson lost his senses + And people came to theirs, + And he and they together + Knelt down with angry prayers + For tamed and shabby tigers + And dancing dogs and bears, + And wretched, blind pit ponies, + And little hunted hares. + +I confess that I have often felt a sense of shame for humanity when I +have observed men and women staring through the bars at the splendid +African cats in cages, and have also observed that their foolish stare +is returned by the lion or tiger with a dull look of infinite boredom. +Nor is it pleasant to see small boys pushing sticks through the safe +bars, in an endeavour to irritate the royal captives. One remembers +Browning's superb lion in _The Glove_, whom the knight was able +to approach in safety, because the regal beast was completely lost in +thought--he was homesick for the desert, oblivious of the little +man-king and his duodecimo court. + +Although the total production of Ralph Hodgson is slight in quantity, +the percentage of excellence is remarkably high. The reason for this +is clear. Instead of printing everything he writes, and leaving the +employment of the cream-separator to his readers, he gives to the +public only what has passed his own severe scrutiny. He is a true +poet, with an original mind. + +As for the work of Lascelles Abercrombie, which has been much praised +in certain circles, I should prefer to leave the criticism of that to +those who enjoy reading it. If I should attempt to "do justice" to his +poetry, I should seem to his friends to be doing just the +opposite--the opposite of just. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +BROOKE, FLECKER, DE LA MARE, AND OTHERS + + + Rupert Brooke--a personality--the spirit of youth--his horror + at old age--Henry James's tribute--his education--a + genius--his poems of death--his affected cynicism--his nature + poems--war sonnets--his supreme sacrifice--his charming + humour--his masterpiece, _Grantchester_.--James Elroy + Flecker--the editorial work of Mr. Squire--no posthumous + puffery--the case of Crashaw--life of Flecker--his fondness + for revision--his friendship with Rupert Brooke--his skill as + a translator--his austerity--art for art's sake--his + "brightness"--love of Greek mythology--steady mental + development--his definition of the aim of poetry.--Walter De + La Mare--the poet of shadow--Hawthorne's tales--his + persistence--his reflective mood--his descriptive style--his + Shakespeare characters--his sketches from life.--D. H. + Lawrence--his lack of discipline--his subjectivity--absence of + reserve--a master of colour--his glaring excesses.--John + Drinkwater--the west of England--his healthy spirit.--W. H. + Davies--the tramp poet.--Edward Thomas--his death--originality + of his work.--Robert Nichols--Willoughby Weaving.--The young + Oxford poets. + +Rupert Brooke left the world in a chariot of fire. He was something +more than either a man or a poet; he was and is a Personality. It was +as a Personality that he dazzled his friends. He was overflowing with +tremendous, contagious vitality. He was the incarnation of the spirit +of youth, wearing the glamour and glory of youth like a shining +garment. Despite our loss, it almost seems fitting that he did not +live to that old age which he never understood, for which he had such +little sympathy, and which he seems to have hated more than death. For +he had the splendid insolence of youth. Youth commonly feels +high-spirited in an unconscious, instinctive fashion, like a kitten or +a puppy; but Rupert Brooke was as self-consciously young as a decrepit +pensioner is self-consciously old. He rejoiced in the strength of his +youth, and rolled it as a sweet morsel under his tongue. He was so +glad to be young, and to know every morning on rising from sleep that +he was still young! His passionate love of beauty made him see in old +age only ugliness; he could not foresee the joys of the mellow years. +All he saw consisted of grey hairs, wrinkles, double chins, paunches. +To him all old people were Struldbrugs. We smile at the insolence of +youth, because we know it will pass with the beauty and strength that +support it. Ogniben says, "Youth, with its beauty and grace, would +seem bestowed on us for some such reason as to make us partly +endurable till we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, +without their aid; when they leave us ... little by little, he sees fit +to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less +share of its good as his proper portion; and when the octogenarian +asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as +for his full allowance and right in the common good of life,--hoping +nobody may murder him,--he who began by asking and expecting the whole +of us to bow down in worship to him,--why, I say he is advanced." + +Henry James--whose affectionate tribute in the preface to Brooke's +_Letters_ is impressive testimony--saw in the brilliant youth, +besides the accident of genius, a perfect illustration of the highest +type of Englishman, bred in the best English way, in the best +traditions of English scholarship, and adorned with the good sense, +fine temper, and healthy humour of the ideal Anglo-Saxon. He indeed +enjoyed every possible advantage; like Milton and Browning, had he +been intended for a poet from the cradle, his bringing-up could not +have been better adapted to the purpose. He was born at Rugby, on the +third of August, 1887, where his father was one of the masters in the +famous school. He won a poetry prize there in 1905. The next year he +entered King's College, Cambridge; his influence as an undergraduate +was notable. He took honours in classics, went abroad to study in +Munich, and returned to Grantchester, which he was later to celebrate +in his best poem. He had travelled somewhat extensively on the +Continent, and in 1913 went on a journey through the United States and +Canada to the South Seas. I am glad he saw the Hawaiian Islands, for +no one should die before beholding that paradise. At the outbreak of +war, he enlisted, went to Antwerp, and later embarked on the +expedition to the Dardanelles. He was bitten by a fly, and died of +bloodpoisoning on a French hospital ship, the day being Shakespeare's, +the twenty-third of April, 1915. He was buried on a Greek island. + +Rupert Brooke lived to be nearly twenty-eight years old, a short life +to show ability in most of the ways of the world, but long enough to +test the quality of a poet, not merely in promise, but in performance. +There is no doubt that he had the indefinable but unmistakable touch +of genius. Only a portion of his slender production is of high rank, +but it is enough to preserve his name. His _Letters_, which have +been underestimated, prove that he had mental as well as poetical +powers. Had he lived to middle age, it seems certain that his poetry +would have been tightly packed with thought. He had an alert and +inquisitive mind. + +Many have seemed to think that the frequent allusions to death in his +poetry are vaguely prophetic. They are, of course--with the exception +of the war-poems--nothing of the kind, being merely symptomatic of +youth. They form the most conventional side of his work. His cynicism +toward the love of the sexes was a youthful affectation, strengthened +by his reading. He was deeply read in the seventeenth-century poets, +who delighted in imagining themselves passing from one woman to +another--swearing "by love's sweetest part, variety." At all events, +these poems, of which there are comparatively many, exhibit his least +attractive side. The poem addressed to _The One Before the Last_, +ends + + Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty, + But here's the worst of it-- + I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty, + You ever hurt a bit! + +He was perhaps, too young to understand two real truths--that real +love can exist in the midst of wild passion, and that the best part of +it can and often does survive the early flames. Such poems as +_Menelaus and Helen_, _Jealousy_, and others, profess a +profound knowledge of life that is really a profound ignorance. + +His pictures of nature, while often beautiful, lack the penetrative +quality seen so constantly in Wordsworth and Browning; these greater +poets saw nature not only with their eyes, but with their minds. Their +representations glow with enduring beauty, but they leave in the +spectator something even greater than beauty, something that is food +for reflection and imagination, the source of quick-coming fancies. +Compare the picture of the pines in Brooke's poem _Pine-Trees and +the Sky: Evening_, with Browning's treatment of an identical theme +in _Paracelsus_, remembering that Browning's lines were written +when he was twenty-two years old. Brooke writes, + + Then from the sad west turning wearily, + I saw the pines against the white north sky, + Very beautiful, and still, and bending over + Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky. + +Browning writes, + + The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts, + A secret they assemble to discuss, + When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare + Like grates of hell. + +Both in painting and in imagination the second passage is instantly +seen to be superior. + +The war sonnets of 1914 receive so much additional poignancy by the +death of the author that it is difficult, and perhaps undesirable, to +judge them as objective works of art. They are essentially noble and +sincere, speaking from the depths of high-hearted self-sacrifice. He +poured out his young life freely and generously, knowing what it meant +to say good-bye to his fancy. There is always something eternally +sublime--something that we rightly call divine--in the spendthrift +giving of one's life-blood for a great cause. And Rupert Brooke was +intensely aware of the value of what he unhesitatingly gave. + +The two "fish" poems exhibit a playful, charming side to Brooke's +imagination; but if I could have only one of his pieces, I should +assuredly choose Grantchester. Nostalgia is the mother of much fine +poetry; but seldom has the expression of it been mingled more +exquisitely with humour and longing. By the rivers of Babylon he sat +down and laughed when he remembered Zion. And his laughter at Babylon +is so different from his laughter at Grantchester. A few felicitous +adjectives sum up the significant difference between Germany and +England. Writing in a Berlin café, he says: + + Here tulips bloom as they are told; + Unkempt about those hedges blows + An English unofficial rose; + And there the unregulated sun + Slopes down to rest when day is done, + And wakes a vague unpunctual star, + A slippered Hesper; and there are + Meads toward Haslingfleld and Coton + Where _das Betreten'_s not _verboten_.... + Oh, is the water sweet and cool, + Gentle and brown, above the pool? + And laughs the immortal river still + Under the mill, under the mill? + Say, is there Beauty yet to find? + And Certainty? and Quiet kind? + Deep meadows yet, for to forget + The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! yet + Stands the Church clock at ten to three? + And is there honey still for tea? + +When Hamlet died, he bequeathed his reputation to Horatio, the +official custodian of his good name. He could not have made a better +choice. Would that all poets who die young were equally fortunate in +their posthumous editors! For there are some friends who conceive it +to be their duty to print every scrap of written paper the bard left +behind him, even if they have to act as scavengers to find the +"remains"; and there are others who think affection and admiration for +the dead are best shown by adopting the methods and the language of +the press-agent. To my mind, the pious memoir of Tennyson is injured +by the inclusion of a long list of "testimonials," which assure us +that Alfred Tennyson was a remarkable poet. Mr. J. C. Squire, under +whose auspices the works of Flecker appear in one handsome volume, is +an admirable editor. His introduction is a model of its kind, giving +the necessary biographical information, explaining the chronology, the +origin, the background of the poems, and showing how the poet revised +his earlier work; the last paragraph ought to serve as an example to +those who may be entrusted with a task of similar delicacy in the +future. "My only object in writing this necessarily rather disjointed +Introduction is to give some information that may interest the reader +and be useful to the critic; and if a few personal opinions have +slipped in they may conveniently be ignored. A vehement 'puff +preliminary' is an insolence in a volume of this kind; it might +pardonably be supposed to imply either doubts about the author or +distrust of his readers." + +As a contrast to the above, it is interesting to recall the preface +that an anonymous friend contributed to a volume of Crashaw's verse in +the seventeenth century, which, in his own words, "I have impartially +writ of this Learned young Gent." Fearing that readers might not +appreciate his poetry at its true value, the friend writes, "It were +prophane but to mention here in the Preface those under-headed Poets, +Retainers to seven shares and a halfe; Madrigall fellowes, whose onely +business in verse, is to rime a poore six-penny soule a Suburb sinner +into hell;--May such arrogant pretenders to Poetry vanish, with their +prodigious issue of tumorous heats, and flashes of their adulterate +braines, and for ever after, may this our Poet fill up the better +roome of man. Oh! when the generall arraignment of Poets shall be, to +give an accompt of their higher soules, with what a triumphant brow +shall our divine Poet sit above, and looke downe upon poore Homer, +Virgil, Horace, Claudian; &c. who had amongst them the ill lucke to +talke out a great part of their gallant Genius, upon Bees, Dung, +froggs, and Gnats, &c. and not as himself here, upon Scriptures, +divine Graces, Martyrs and Angels." Our prefatory friend set a pace +that it is hopeless for modern champions to follow, and they might as +well abandon the attempt. + +James Elroy Flecker, the eldest child of the Rev. Dr. Flecker, who is +Head Master of an English school, was born on the fifth of November, +1884, in London. He spent five years at Trinity College, Oxford, and +later studied Oriental languages at Caius College, Cambridge. He went +to Constantinople in 1910. In that same year signs of tuberculosis +appeared, but after some months at an English sanatorium, he seemed to +be absolutely well. In 1911 he was in Constantinople, Smyrna, and +finally in Athens, where he was married to Miss Skiadaressi, a Greek. +In March the dreaded illness returned, and the rest of his short life +was spent in the vain endeavour to recover his health. He died in +Switzerland, on the third of January, 1915, at the age of thirty. "I +cannot help remembering," says Mr. Squire, "that I first heard the +news over the telephone, and that the voice which spoke was Rupert +Brooke's." + +He had published four books of verse and four books of prose, leaving +many poems, essays, short stories, and two plays, in manuscript. All +his best poetry is now included in the _Collected Poems_ (1916). + +Flecker had the Tennysonian habit of continually revising; and in this +volume we are permitted to see some of the interesting results of the +process. I must say, however, that of the two versions of _Tenebris +Interlucentem_, although the second is called a "drastic +improvement," I prefer the earlier. Any poet might be proud of either. + +Flecker liked the work of Mr. Yeats, of Mr. Housman, of Mr. De La +Mare; and Rupert Brooke was an intimate friend, for the two young men +were together at Cambridge. He wrote a sonnet on Francis Thompson, +though he was never affected by Thompson's literary manner. Indeed, he +is singularly free from the influence of any of the modern poets. His +ideas and his style are his own; he thought deeply on the art of +writing, and was given to eager and passionate discussion of it with +those who had his confidence. His originality is the more remarkable +when we remember his fondness for translating verse from a variety of +foreign languages, ancient and modern. He was an excellent translator. +His skill in this art can only be inferred where we know nothing at +first hand of the originals; but his version of Goethe's immortal +lyric is proof of his powers. The only blemish--an unavoidable one--is +"far" and "father" in the last two lines. + + Knowest thou the land where bloom the lemon trees? + And darkly gleam the golden oranges? + A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky; + Calm stands the myrtle and the laurel high. + Knowest thou the land? So far and fair! + Thou, whom I love, and I will wander there. + + Knowest thou the house with all its rooms aglow, + And shining hall and columned portico? + The marble statues stand and look at me. + Alas, poor child, what have they done to thee? + Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. + My Guardian, thou and I will wander there. + + Knowest thou the mountain with its bridge of cloud? + The mule plods warily: the white mists crowd. + Coiled in their caves the brood of dragons sleep; + The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep. + Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. + Father, away! Our road is over there! + +Fletcher was more French than English in his dislike of romanticism, +sentimentalism, intimate, and confessional poetry; and of course he +was strenuously opposed to contemporary standards in so far as they +put correct psychology above beauty. Much contemporary verse reads and +sounds like undisciplined thinking out loud, where each poet feels it +imperative to tell the reader in detail not only all his adventures, +and passions, but even the most minute whimsies and caprices. When the +result of this bosom-cleansing is real poetry, it justifies itself; +but the method is the exact opposite of Flecker's. His master was +Keats, and in his own words, he wrote "with the single intention of +creating beauty." Austerity and objectivity were his ideals. + +Strangely enough, he was able to state in a new and more convincing +way the doctrine of art for art's sake. "However few poets have +written with a clear theory of art for art's sake, it is by that +theory alone that their work has been, or can be, judged;--and rightly +so if we remember that art embraces all life and all humanity, and +sees in the temporary and fleeting doctrines of conservative or +revolutionary only the human grandeur or passion that inspires them." + +Perhaps the best noun that describes Flecker's verse is +_brightness_. He had a consumptive's longing for sunshine, and +his sojourns on the Mediterranean shores illuminate his pages. The +following poem is decidedly characteristic: + + IN PHAEACIA + + Had I that haze of streaming blue, + That sea below, the summer faced, + I'd work and weave a dress for you + And kneel to clasp it round your waist, + And broider with those burning bright + Threads of the Sun across the sea, + And bind it with the silver light + That wavers in the olive tree. + + Had I the gold that like a river + Pours through our garden, eve by eve, + Our garden that goes on for ever + Out of the world, as we believe; + Had I that glory on the vine, + That splendour soft on tower and town, + I'd forge a crown of that sunshine, + And break before your feet the crown. + + Through the great pinewood I have been + An hour before the lustre dies, + Nor have such forest-colours seen + As those that glimmer in your eyes. + Ah, misty woodland, down whose deep + And twilight paths I love to stroll + To meadows quieter than sleep + And pools more secret than the soul! + + Could I but steal that awful throne + Ablaze with dreams and songs and stars + Where sits Night, a man of stone, + On the frozen mountain spars + I'd cast him down, for he is old, + And set my Lady there to rule, + Gowned with silver, crowned with gold, + And in her eyes the forest pool. + +It seems to me improbable that Flecker will be forgotten; he was a +real poet. But a remark made of Tennyson is still more applicable to +Flecker. "He was an artist before he was a poet." Even as a small boy, +he had astonishing facility, but naturally wrote little worth +preserval. The _Collected Poems_ show an extraordinary command of +his instrument. He had the orthodox virtues of the orthodox poet--rime +and rhythm, cunning in words, skill in nature-painting, imagination. +The richness of his colouring and the loveliness of his melodies make +his verses a delight to the senses. His mind was plentifully stored +with classical authors, and he saw nature alive with old gods and +fairies. In one of his most charming poems, _Oak and Olive_, he +declares, + + When I go down the Gloucester lanes + My friends are deaf and blind: + Fast as they turn their foolish eyes + The Maenads leap behind, + And when I hear the fire-winged feet, + They only hear the wind. + + Have I not chased the fluting Pan, + Through Cranham's sober trees? + Have I not sat on Painswick Hill + With a nymph upon my knees, + And she as rosy as the dawn, + And naked as the breeze? + +His poetry is composed of sensations rather than thoughts. What it +lacks is intellectual content. A richly packed memory is not the same +thing as original thinking, even when the memories are glorified by +the artist's own imagination. Yet the death of this young man was a +cruel loss to English literature, for his mental development would +eventually have kept pace with his gift of song. His cheerful Paganism +would, I think, have given place to something deeper and more +fruitful. Before he went to Constantinople, he had, as it is a fashion +for some modern Occidentals to have, a great admiration for +Mohammedanism. A friend reports a rather naïve remark of his, "this +intercourse with Mohammedans had led him to find more good in +Christianity than he had previously suspected." I have sometimes +wondered whether a prolonged residence among Mohammedans might not +temper the enthusiasm of those who so loudly insist on the superiority +of that faith to Christianity. Mr. Santayana speaks somewhere of "the +unconquerable mind of the East." Well, my guess is that this +unconquerable mind will some day be conquered by the Man of Nazareth, +just as I think He will eventually--some centuries ahead--conquer even +us. + +Flecker died so soon after the opening of the Great War that it is +vain to surmise what the effect of that struggle would have been upon +his soul. That it would have shaken him to the depths--and perhaps +given him the spiritual experience necessary for his further +advance--seems not improbable. One of his letters on the subject +contains the significant remark, "What a race of deep-eyed and +thoughtful men we shall have in Europe--now that all those millions +have been baptized in fire!" + +The last stanza of his poem _A Sacred Dialogue_ reads as follows: + + Then the black cannons of the Lord + Shall wake crusading ghosts + And the Milky Way shall swing like a sword + When Jerusalem vomits its horde + On the Christmas Day preferred of the Lord, + The Christmas Day of the Hosts! + +He appended a footnote in December, 1914, when he was dying: +"Originally written for Christmas, 1912, and referring to the first +Balkan War, this poem contains in the last speech of Christ words that +ring like a prophecy of events that may occur very soon." As I am +copying his Note, December, 1917, the English army is entering +Jerusalem. + +Flecker was essentially noble-minded; and without any trace of +conceit, felt the responsibility of his talents. There is not an +unworthy page in the _Collected Poems_. In a memorable passage, +he stated the goal of poetry. "It is not the poet's business to save +man's soul, but to make it worth saving." + +Walter De La Mare, a close personal friend of Rupert Brooke, came of +Huguenot, English and Scotch ancestry, and was born at Charlton, Kent, +on the twenty-fifth of April, 1873. He was educated at St. Paul's +Cathedral Choir School. Although known today exclusively as a poet, he +has written much miscellaneous prose--critical articles for +periodicals, short stories, and a few plays. His first poetry-book, +_Songs of Childhood_, appeared in 1902; in 1906, _Poems_; in +1910, _The Return_, which won the Edmond de Polignac prize; +_The Listeners_, which gave him a wide reputation, appeared in +1912; _Peacock Pie_, in 1917, and _Motley and Other Poems_ +in 1918. When, in November, 1916, the Howland Memorial Prize at Yale +University was formally awarded to the work of Rupert Brooke, it was +officially received in New Haven by Walter De La Mare, who came from +England for the purpose. + +If Flecker's poems were written in a glare of light, Mr. De La Mare's +shy Muse seems to live in shadow. It is not at all the shadow of +grief, still less of bitterness, but rather the cool, grateful shade +of retirement. I can find no words anywhere that so perfectly express +to my mind the atmosphere of these poems as the language used by +Hawthorne to explain the lack of excitement that readers would be sure +to notice in his tales. "They have the pale tint of flowers that +blossom in too retired a shade,--the coolness of a meditative habit, +which diffuses itself through the feeling and observation of every +sketch. Instead of passion there is sentiment; and, even in what +purport to be pictures of actual life, we have allegory, not always so +warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken +into the reader's mind without a shiver. Whether from lack of power, +or an uncontrollable reserve, the author's touches have often an +effect of tameness.... The book, if you would see anything in it, +requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which +it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look +exceedingly like a volume of blank pages." + +Hawthorne is naturally not popular today with readers whose sole +acquaintance with the art of the short story is gleaned from magazines +that adorn the stalls at railway-stations; and to those whose taste in +poetry begins and ends with melodrama, who prefer the hoarse cry of +animal passion to the still, sad music of humanity, it would not be +advisable to recommend a poem like _The Listeners_, where the +people are ghosts and the sounds only echoes. Yet there are times when +it would seem that every one must weary of strident voices, of persons +shouting to attract attention, of poets who capitalize both their +moral and literary vices, of hawking advertisers of the latest +verse-novelties; then a poem like _The Listeners_ reminds us of +Lindsay's bird, whose simple melody is not defeated by the blatant +horns. + +Decidedly a poet must have both courage and faith to hold himself so +steadily aloof from the competition of the market-place; to work with +such easy cheerfulness in his quiet corner; to remain so manifestly +unaffected by the swift currents of contemporary verse. For fifteen +years he has gone on producing his own favourite kind of poetry, +dealing with children, with flowers, with autumn and winter, with +ghosts of memory, with figures in literature, and has finally obtained +a respectable audience without once raising his voice. He has written +surprisingly little love poetry; the notes of passion, as we are +accustomed to hear them, seldom sound from his lute; nor do we hear +the agonizing cries of doubt, remorse, or despair. There is nothing +turbulent and nothing truculent; he has made no contribution to the +literature of revolt. Yet many of his poems make an irresistible +appeal to our more reflective moods; and once or twice, his fancy, +always winsome and wistful, rises to a height of pure imagination, as +in _The Listeners_--which I find myself returning to muse over +again and again. + +His studies of humanity--both from observation and from books--are +descriptive rather than dramatic. I do not know a contemporary poet +whose published works contain so few quotation marks. The dramatic +monologue, which Emerson back in the 'forties prophesied would be the +highest class of poetry in the immediate future (which prophecy was +fulfilled), does not interest Mr. De La Mare; maybe he feels that it +has been done so well that he prefers to let it alone. His remarkable +thirteen poems dealing with Shakespearean characters--where he +attempts with considerable success to pluck out the heart of the +mystery--are all descriptive. Perhaps the most original and beautiful +of these is + + MERCUTIO + + Along an avenue of almond-trees + Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three. + And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease, + Out of his philosophic eye cast all + A mere flow'r'd twig of thought, whereat ... + Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out + And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea. + + But when within the further mist of bloom + His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann + Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said, + "How sad a gentleman!" and Katharine, + "I wonder, now, what mischief he was at." + And these three also April hid away, + Leaving the spring faint with Mercutio. + +There are immense tracts of Shakespeare which Walter De La Mare never +could even have remotely imitated; but I know of no poet today who +could approach the wonderful Queen Mab speech more successfully than +he. + +The same method of interpretative description that he employs in +dealing with Shakespearean characters he uses repeatedly in making +portraits from life. One of the most vivid and delightful of these is + + OLD SUSAN + + When Susan's work was done she'd sit, + With one fat guttering candle lit, + And window opened wide to win + The sweet night air to enter in; + There, with a thumb to keep her place + She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face, + Her mild eyes gliding very slow + Across the letters to and fro, + While wagged the guttering candle flame + In the wind that through the window came. + And sometimes in the silence she + Would mumble a sentence audibly, + Or shake her head as if to say, + "You silly souls, to act this way!" + And never a sound from night I'd hear, + Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; + Or her old shuffling thumb should turn + Another page; and rapt and stern, + Through her great glasses bent on me + She'd glance into reality; + And shake her round old silvery head, + With--"You!--I thought you was in bed!"-- + Only to tilt her book again, + And rooted in Romance remain. + +I am afraid that Rupert Brooke could not have written a poem like +_Old Susan_; he would have made her ridiculous and contemptible; +he would have accentuated physical defects so that she would have been +a repugnant, even an offensive, figure. But Mr. De La Mare has the +power--possessed in the supreme degree by J. M. Barrie--of taking just +such a person as Old Susan, living in a world of romance, and making +us smile with no trace of contempt and with no descent to pity. One +who can do this loves his fellow-men. + +Poems like _Old Susan_ prepare us for one of the most happy +exhibitions of Mr. De La Mare's talent--his verses written for and +about children. Every household ought to have that delightful quarto, +delightfully and abundantly illustrated, called _Peacock Pie: A Book +of Rhymes. With Illustrations by W. Heath Robinson_. There is a +picture for each poem, and the combination demands and will obtain an +unconditional surrender. + +If the poetry of James Flecker and Walter De La Mare live after them, +it will not be because of sensational qualities, in matter or in +manner. Fancy is bred either in the heart or in the head--and the best +poetry should touch either one or the other or both. Mr. De La Mare +owes his present eminence simply to merit--his endeavour has been to +write just as well as he possibly could. His limit has been downward, +not upward. He may occasionally strike over the heads of his audience, +for his aim is never low. + +The poetry of D. H. Lawrence (born 1885) erupts from the terrible +twenties. In spite of his school experience, he has never sent his +mind to school; he hates discipline. He has an undeniable literary +gift, which has met--as it ought to--with glad recognition. He has +strength, he has fervour, he has passion. But while his strength is +sometimes the happy and graceful play of rippling muscles, it is often +contortion. If Mr. De La Mare may seem too delicate, too restrained, +Mr. Lawrence cares comparatively little for delicacy; and the word +restraint is not in his bright lexicon. In other words, he is +aggressively "modern." He is one of the most skilful manipulators of +free verse--he can drive four horses abreast, and somehow or other +reach the goal. + +He sees his own turbulent heart reflected stormily in every natural +spectacle. He observes flowers in an anti-Wordsworthian way. He +mentions with appreciation roses, lilies, snapdragons, but to him they +are all passion-flowers. And yet--if he only knew it--his finest work +is in a subdued mood. He is a master of colouring--and I like his +quieter work as a painter better than his feverish, hectic cries of +desire. Despite his dialect poems, he is more successful at +description than at drama. I imagine Miss Harriet Monroe may think so +too; it seems to me she has done well in selecting his verses, to give +three out of the five from his colour-pieces, of which perhaps the +best is + + SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD + + Between the avenue of cypresses, + All in their scarlet capes and surplices + Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, + The priests in gold and black, the villagers. + + And all along the path to the cemetery + The round dark heads of men crowd silently; + And black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully + Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. + + And at the foot of a grave a father stands + With sunken head and forgotten, folded hands; + And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels + With pale shut face, nor neither hears nor feels. + + The coming of the chaunting choristers + Between the avenue of cypresses, + The silence of the many villagers, + The candle-flames beside the surplices. + +(Remember the English pronunciation of "cemetery" is not the common +American one.) He is surely better as a looker-on at life than when he +tries to present the surging passions of an actor-in-chief. Then his +art is full of sound and fury, and instead of being thrilled, we are, +as Stevenson said of Whitman's poorer poems, somewhat indecorously +amused. All poets, I suppose, are thrilled by their own work; they +read it to themselves with shudders of rapture; but it is only when +this _frisson_ is felt by others than blood-relatives that they +may feel some reasonable assurance of success. The London _Times_ +quite properly refuses to surrender to lines like these: + + And if I never see her again? + I think, if they told me so, + I could convulse the heavens with my horror. + I think I could alter the frame of things in my agony. + I think I could break the System with my heart. + I think, in my convulsion, the skies would break. + +He should change his gear from high to low; he will never climb +Parnassus on this speed, not even with his muffler so manifestly open. + +The _Times_ also quotes without appreciation from the same volume +the following passage, where the woman, looking back, stirs a biblical +reminiscence. + + I have seen it, felt it in my mouth, my throat, my chest, my + belly, + Burning of powerful salt, burning, eating through my defenceless + nakedness, + I have been thrust into white sharp crystals, + Writhing, twisting, superpenetrated, + Ah, Lot's wife, Lot's wife! + The pillar of salt, the whirling, horrible column of salt, like + a waterspout + That has enveloped me! + +Most readers may not need a whole pillar, but they will surely take +the above professions _cum grano salis_. It is all in King +Cambyses' vein; and I would that we had Pistol to deliver it. I cite +it here, not for the graceless task of showing Mr. Lawrence at his +worst, but because such stuff symptomatic of many of the very "new" +poets, who wander, as Turgenev expressed it, "aimless but declamatory, +over the face of our long-suffering mother earth." + +John Drinkwater, born on the first of June, 1882, has had varied +experiences both in business and in literature, and is at present +connected with the management of the Birmingham Repertory theatre. +Actively engaged in commercial life, he has found time to publish a +number of volumes of poems, plays in verse, critical works in prose, +and a long string of magazine articles. He has wisely collected in one +volume--though I regret the omission of _Malvern Lyrics_--the +best of his poems that had previously appeared in four separate works, +containing the cream of his production from 1908 to 1914. His preface +to this little book, published in 1917, is excellent in its manly +modesty. "Apart from the Cromwell poem itself, the present selection +contains all that I am anxious to preserve from those volumes, and +there is nothing before 1908 which I should wish to be reprinted now +or at any time." One of the earlier books had been dedicated to John +Masefield, to whom in the present preface the author pays an +affectionate compliment--"John Masefield, who has given a poet's +praise to work that I hope he likes half as well as I like his." + +The first poem, _Symbols_, prepares the reader for what is to +follow, though it is somewhat lacking in the technique that is +characteristic of most of Mr. Drinkwater's verse. + + I saw history in a poet's song, + In a river-reach and a gallows-hill, + In a bridal bed, and a secret wrong, + In a crown of thorns: in a daffodil. + + I imagined measureless time in a day, + And starry space in a wagon-road, + And the treasure of all good harvests lay + In the single seed that the sower sowed. + + My garden-wind had driven and havened again + All ships that ever had gone to sea, + And I saw the glory of all dead men + In the shadow that went by the side of me. + +The West of England looms large in contemporary poetry. A. E. Housman, +John Masefield, W. W. Gibson, J. E. Flecker have done their best to +celebrate its quiet beauty; and some of the finest work of Mr. +Drinkwater is lovingly devoted to these rural scenes. We know how +Professor Housman and John Masefield regard Bredon Hill--another +tribute to this "calm acclivity, salubrious spot" is paid in Mr. +Drinkwater's cheerful song, _At Grafton_. The spirit of his work +in general is the spirit of health--take life as it is, and enjoy it. +It is the open-air verse of broad, windswept English counties. Its +surest claim to distinction lies in its excellent, finished--he is a +sound craftsman. But he has not yet shown either sufficient +originality or sufficient inspiration to rise from the better class of +minor poets. His verse-drama, _The Storm_, which was produced in +Birmingham in 1915, shows strong resemblances to the one-act plays of +Mr. Gibson and is not otherwise impressive. + +William Henry Davies, the Welsh poet, exhibits in his half-dozen +miniature volumes an extraordinary variety of subjects. Everything is +grist. He was born of Welsh parentage in Monmouthshire on the +twentieth of April, 1870. He became an American tramp, and practised +this interesting profession six years; he made eight or nine trips to +England on cattle-ships, working his passage; he walked about England +selling pins and needles. He remarks that "he sometimes varied this +life by singing hymns in the street." At the age of thirty-four he +became a poet, and he insists--not without reason--that he has been +one ever since. Readers may be at times reminded of the manner of John +Davidson, but after all, Mr. Davies is as independent in his poetry as +he used to be on the road. + +Sometimes his verse is banal--as in the advice _To a Working +Man_. But oftener his imagination plays on familiar scenes in town +and country with a lambent flame, illuminating and glorifying common +objects. He has the heart of the child, and tries to see life from a +child's clear eyes. + + THE TWO FLOCKS + + Where are you going to now, white sheep, + Walking the green hill-side; + To join that whiter flock on top, + And share their pride? + + Stay where you are, you silly sheep: + When you arrive up there, + You'll find that whiter flock on top + Clouds in the air! + +Yet much of his poetry springs from his wide knowledge and experience +of life. An original defence of the solitary existence is seen in +_Death's Game_, although possibly the grapes are sour. + + Death can but play one game with me-- + If I do live alone; + He cannot strike me a foul blow + Through a belovèd one. + + Today he takes my neighbour's wife, + And leaves a little child + To lie upon his breast and cry + Like the Night-wind, so wild. + + And every hour its voice is heard-- + Tell me where is she gone! + Death cannot play that game with me-- + If I do live alone. + +The feather-weight pocket-volumes of verse that this poet puts forth, +each containing a crop of tiny poems--have an excellent virtue--they +are interesting, good companions for a day in the country. There is +always sufficient momentum in page 28 to carry you on to page +29--something that cannot be said of all books. + +English literature suffered a loss in the death of Edward Thomas, who +was killed in France on the ninth of April, 1917. He was born on the +third of March, 1878, and had published a long list of literary +critiques, biographies, interpretations of nature, and introspective +essays. He took many solitary journeys afoot; his books _The South +Country_, _The Heart of England_, and others, show both +observation and reflection. Although English by birth and education, +he had in his veins Welsh and Spanish blood. + +In 1917 a tiny volume of his poems appeared. These are unlike any +other verse of the past or present. They cannot be called great +poetry, but they are original, imaginative, whimsical, and reveal a +rich personality. Indeed we feel in reading these rimes that the +author was greater than anything he wrote or could write. The +difficulty in articulation comes apparently from a mind so full that +it cannot run freely off the end of a pen. + +Shyness was undoubtedly characteristic of the man, as it often is of +minute observers of nature. I am not at all surprised to learn from +one who knew him of his "temperamental melancholy." He was austere and +aloof; but exactly the type of mind that would give all he had to +those who possessed his confidence. It must have been a privilege to +know him intimately. I have said that his poems resemble the work of +no other poet; this is true; but there is a certain kinship between +him and Robert Frost, indicated not only in the verses, but in the +fact that his book is dedicated to the American. + +His death accentuates the range of the dragnet of war. This +intellectual, quiet, introspective, slightly ironical temperament +would seem almost ideally unfitted for the trenches. Yet, although no +soldier by instinct, and having a family dependent upon his writings +for support, he gave himself freely to the Great Cause. He never +speaks in his verses of his own sacrifice, and indeed says little +about the war; but the first poem in the volume expresses the +universal call. + + Rise up, rise up, + And, as the trumpet blowing + Chases the dreams of men, + As the dawn glowing + The stars that left unlit + The land and water, + Rise up and scatter + The dew that covers + The print of last night's lovers-- + Scatter it, scatter it! + + While you are listening + To the clear horn, + Forget, men, everything + On this earth newborn, + Except that it is lovelier + Than any mysteries. + Open your eyes to the air + That has washed the eyes of the stars + Through all the dewy night: + Up with the light, + To the old wars; + Arise, arise! + +In reading Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Alan +Seeger, we recognize how much greater were the +things they sacrificed than the creature comforts +ordinarily emphasized in the departure from home +to the trenches; these men gave up their imagination. + +A thoroughly representative poem by Edward +Thomas is _Cock-Crow_; beauty of conception +mingled with the inevitable touch of homeliness +at the end. + + Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night + To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,-- + Out of the night, two cocks together crow, + Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow: + And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand, + Heralds of splendour, one at either hand, + Each facing each as in a coat of arms; + The milkers lace their boots up at the farms. + +This is his favourite combination, seen on every page of his +work,--fancy and fact. + +Another poet in khaki who writes powerful and original verse is Robert +Nichols (born 1893), an Oxford man who has already produced two +volumes--_Invocation_, and, in 1918, _Ardours and +Endurances_. Accompanying the second is a portrait made in 1915, +exhibiting the face of a dreamy-looking boy. No one who reads the +pages of this book can doubt the author's gift. In his trench-poetry +he somehow manages to combine the realism of Barbusse with an almost +holy touch of imagination; and some of the most beautiful pieces are +manly laments for friends killed in battle. He was himself severely +wounded. His poems of strenuous action are mostly too long to quote; +occasionally he writes in a more quiet mood of contemplation. + + THE FULL HEART + + Alone on the shore in the pause of the nighttime + I stand and I hear the long wind blow light; + I view the constellations quietly, quietly burning; + I hear the wave fall in the hush of the night. + + Long after I am dead, ended this bitter journey, + Many another whose heart holds no light + Shall your solemn sweetness hush, awe, and comfort, + O my companions, Wind, Waters, Stars, and Night. + +Other Oxford poets from the front are Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves +and Willoughby Weaving, whose two volumes _The Star Fields_ and +_The Bubble_ are as original in their way as the work of Mr. +Nichols, though inferior in beauty of expression. Mr. Weaving was +invalided home in 1915, and his first book has an introduction by +Robert Bridges. In _The Bubble_ (1917) there are many poems so +deeply meditative that their full force does not reach one until after +repeated readings. He has also a particular talent for the last line. + + TO ---- + + (Winter 1916) + + Thou lover of fire, how cold is it in the grave? + Would I could bring thee fuel and light thee a fire as of old! + Alas! how I think of thee there, shivering out in the cold, + Till my own bright fire lacketh the heat which it gave! + + Oh, would I could see thee again, as in days gone by, + Sitting hands over the fire, or poking it to a bright blaze + And clearing the cloggy ash from the bars in thy careful ways! + Oh, art thou the more cold or here by the fire am I? + +B. H. Blackwell, the Oxford publisher, seems to have made a good many +"finds"; besides producing some of the work of Mr. Nichols and Mr. +Weaving--both poets now have American publishers as well--the four +volumes _Oxford Verse_, running from 1910 to 1917, contain many +excellent things. And in addition to these, there are original +adventures in the art of poetry, sometimes merely bizarre, but +interesting as experiments, exhibited in the two volumes _Wheels +1916_, and _Wheels 1917_, and also in the books called +_Initiates: a Series of Poetry by Proved Hands_. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE IRISH POETS + + + Irish poetry a part of English Literature--common-sense the + basis of romanticism--misapprehension of the poetic + temperament--William Butler Yeats--his education--his devotion + to art--his theories--his love poetry--resemblance to + Maeterlinck--the lyrical element paramount--the psaltery--pure + rather than applied poetry--John M. Synge--his mentality--his + versatility--a terrible personality--his capacity for + hatred--his subjectivity--his interesting Preface--brooding on + death--A. E.--The Master of the island--his sincerity and + influence--disembodied spirits--his + mysticism--homesickness--true optimism--James Stephens--poet + and novelist--realism and fantasy--Padraic Colum--Francis + Ledwidge--Susan Mitchell--Thomas MacDonagh--Joseph + Campbell--Seumas O'Sullivan--Herbert Trench--Maurice Francis + Egan--Norreys Jephson O'Conor--F. Carlin--The advance in + Ireland. + +In what I have to say of the work of the Irish poets, I am thinking of +it solely as a part of English literature. I have in mind no political +bias whatever, though I confess I have small admiration for +extremists. During the last forty years Irishmen have written mainly +in the English language, which assures to what is good in their +compositions an influence bounded only by the dimensions of the earth. +Great creative writers are such an immense and continuous blessing to +the world that the locality of their birth pales in comparison with +the glory of it, a glory in which we all profit. We need original +writers in America; but I had rather have a star of the first +magnitude appear in London than a star of lesser power appear in Los +Angeles. Every one who writes good English contributes something to +English literature and is a benefactor to English-speaking people. An +Irish or American literary aspirant will be rated not according to his +local flavour or fervour, but according to his ability to write the +English language. The language belongs to Ireland and to America as +much as it belongs to England; excellence in its command is the only +test by which Irish, American, Canadian, South African, Hawaiian and +Australian poets and novelists will be judged. The more difficult the +test, the stronger the appeal to national pride. + +In a recent work, called _The Celtic Dawn_, I found this passage: +"The thesis of their contention is that modern English, the English of +contemporary literature, is essentially an impoverished language +incapable of directly expressing thought." I am greatly unimpressed by +such a statement. The chief reason why there is really a Celtic Dawn, +or a Celtic Renaissance, is because Irishmen like Synge, Yeats, +Russell and others have succeeded in writing English so well that they +have attracted the attention of the world. + +Ireland has never contributed to English literature a poet of the +first class. By a poet of the first class I mean one of the same grade +with the leading half-dozen British poets of the nineteenth century. +This dearth of great Irish poets is the more noticeable when we think +of Ireland's contributions to English prose and to English drama. +Possibly, if one had prophecy rather than history to settle the +question, one might predict that Irishmen would naturally write more +and better poetry than Englishmen; for the common supposition is that +the poetic temperament is romantic, sentimental, volatile, reckless. +If this were true, then the lovable, careless, impulsive Irish would +completely outclass in original poetry the sensible, steady-headed, +cautious Englishman. What are the facts about the so-called poetic +temperament? + +Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, +Browning, Arnold, were in character, disposition, and temperament +precisely the opposite of what is superficially supposed to be +"poetic." Some of them were deeply erudite; all of them were deeply +thoughtful. They were clear-headed, sensible men--in fact, common +sense was the basis of their mental life. And no one can read the +letters of Byron without seeing how well supplied he was with the +shrewd common sense of the Englishman. He was more selfish than any +one of the men enumerated above--but he was no fool. There is nothing +inconsistent in his being at once the greatest romantic poet and the +greatest satirist of his age. His masterpiece, _Don Juan_, is the +expression of a nature at the farthest possible remove from +sentimentality. And the author of _Faust_ was remarkable among +all the children of men for his poise, balance, calm--in other words, +for common sense. + +It is by no accident that the British--whom foreigners delight to call +stodgy and slow-witted,--have produced more high-class poetry than any +other nation in the history of the world. English literature is +instinctively romantic, as French literature is instinctively classic. +The glory of French literature is prose; the glory of English +literature is poetry. + +As the tallest tree must have the deepest roots, so it would seem that +the loftiest edifices of verse must have the deepest foundations. +Certainly one of the many reasons why American poetry is so inferior +to British is because our roots do not go down sufficiently deep. +Great poetry does not spring from natures too volatile, too +susceptible, too easily swept by gusts of emotion. Landor was one of +the most violent men we have on record; he was a prey to +uncontrollable outbursts of rage, caused by trivial vexations; but his +poetry aimed at cold, classical correctness. In comparison with +Landor, Tennyson's reserve was almost glacial--yet out of it bloomed +many a gorgeous garden of romance. Splendid imaginative masterpieces +seem to require more often than not a creative mind marked by sober +reason, logical processes, orderly thinking. + +John Morley, who found the management of Ireland more than a handful, +though he loved Ireland and the Irish with an affection greater than +that felt by any other Englishman of his time, has, in his +_Recollections_, placed on opposite pages--all the more striking +to me because unintentional--illuminating testimony to the difference +between the Irish and the British temperament. And this testimony +supports the point I am trying to make--that the "typical" logicless, +inconsequential Irish mind, so winsome and so exasperating, is not the +kind of brain to produce permanent poetry. + + A peasant was in the dock for a violent assault. The clerk + read the indictment with all its legal jargon. The prisoner to + the warder: "What's all that he says?" _Warder:_ "He says + ye hit Pat Curry with yer spade on the side of his head." + _Prisoner:_ "Bedad an' I did." _Warder:_ "Then plade + not guilty." This dialogue, loud and in the full hearing of + the court. + + Read Wordsworth's two poems on Burns; kind, merciful, + steady, glowing, manly they are, with some strong phrases, + good lines, and human feeling all through, winding up in two + stanzas at the close. These are among the pieces that make + Wordsworth a poet to live with; he repairs the daily wear + and tear, puts back what the fret of the day has rubbed thin + or rubbed off, sends us forth in the morning _whole_. + +Robert Browning, whose normality in appearance and conversation +pleased sensible folk and shocked idolaters, summed up in two stanzas +the difference between the popular conception of a poet and the real +truth. One might almost take the first stanza as representing the +Irish and the second the English temperament. + + "Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: + Soil so quick-receptive,--not one feather-seed, + Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke + Vitalising virtue: song would song succeed + Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet-soul!" + + Indeed? + Rock's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare: + Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage + Vainly both expend,--few flowers awaken there: + Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after age + Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage. + +People who never grow up may have a certain kind of fascination, but +they will not write great poetry. It is exactly the other way with +creative artists; they grow up faster than the average. The maturity +of Keats is astonishing.... Mr. Yeats's wonderful lamentation, +_September 1913_, that sounds like the wailing of the wind, +actually gives us a reason why Irishmen are getting the attention of +the world in poetry, as well as in fiction and drama. + + What need you, being come to sense, + But fumble in a greasy till + And add the halfpence to the pence + And prayer to shivering prayer, until + You have dried the marrow from the bone; + For men were born to pray and save, + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Yet they were of a different kind. + The names that stilled your childish play + They have gone about the world like wind, + But little time had they to pray + For whom the hangman's rope was spun, + And what, God help us, could they save; + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Was it for this the wild geese spread + The grey wing upon every tide; + For this that all that blood was shed, + For this Edward Fitzgerald died, + And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, + All that delirium of the brave; + Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, + It's with O'Leary in the grave. + + Yet could we turn the years again, + And call those exiles as they were, + In all their loneliness and pain + You'd cry "some woman's yellow hair + Has maddened every mother's son:" + They weighed so lightly what they gave, + But let them be, they're dead and gone, + They're with O'Leary in the grave. + +William Butler Yeats has done more for English poetry than any other +Irishman, for he is the greatest poet in the English language that +Ireland has ever produced. He is a notable figure in contemporary +literature, having made additions to verse, prose and stage-plays. He +has by no means obliterated Clarence Mangan, but he has surpassed him. + +Mr. Yeats was born at Dublin, on the thirteenth of June, 1865. His +father was an honour man at Trinity College, taking the highest +distinction in Political Economy. After practising law, he became a +painter, which profession he still adorns. The future poet studied art +for three years, but when twenty-one years old definitely devoted +himself to literature. In addition to his original work, one of his +foremost services to humanity was his advice to that strange genius, +John Synge--for it was partly owing to the influence of his friend +that Synge became a creative writer, and he had, alas! little time to +lose. + +Mr. Yeats published his first poem in 1886. Since that date, despite +his preoccupation with the management of the Abbey Theatre, he has +produced a long list of works in verse and prose, decidedly unequal in +merit, but shining with the light of a luminous mind. + +From the first, Mr. Yeats has seemed to realize that he could serve +Ireland best by making beautiful and enduring works of art, rather +than by any form of political agitation. This is well; for despite the +fact that a total ineptitude for statesmanship seldom prevents the +enthusiast from issuing and spreading dogmatic propaganda, a merely +elementary conception of the principle of division of labour should +make us all rejoice when the artist confines himself to art. True +artists are scarce and precious; and although practical men of +business often regard them as superfluous luxuries, the truth is that +we cannot live without them. As poet and dramatist, Mr. Yeats has done +more for his country than he could have accomplished in any other way. + +Never was there more exclusively an artist. He writes pure, not +applied poetry. I care little for his theories of symbolism, magic and +what not. Poets are judged not by their theories, not by the "schools" +to which they give passionate adherence, but simply and solely by the +quality of their work. No amount of theory, no correctness of method, +no setting up of new or defence of old standards, no elevated ideals +can make a poet if he have not the divine gift. Theories have hardly +more effect on the actual value of his poetry than the colour of the +ink in which he writes. The reason why it is interesting to read what +Mr. Yeats says about his love of magic and of symbols is not because +there is any truth or falsehood in these will-o'-the-wisps, but +because he is such an artist that even when he writes in prose, his +style is so beautiful, so harmonious that one is forced to listen. +Literary art has enormous power in propelling a projectile of thought. +I do not doubt that the chief reason for the immense effect of such a +philosophy as that of Schopenhauer or that of Nietzsche is because +each man was a literary artist--indeed I think both were greater +writers than thinkers. A good thing this is for their fame, for art +lasts longer than thought. The fashion of a man's thought may pass +away; his knowledge and his ideas may lose their stamp, either because +they prove to be false or because they become universally current. +Everybody believes Copernicus, but nobody reads him. Yet when a book, +no matter how obsolete in thought, is marked by great beauty of style, +it lives forever. Consider the case of Sir Thomas Browne. Art is the +great preservative. + +Mr. Yeats has a genius for names and titles. His names, like those of +Rossetti's, are sweet symphonies. _The Wind Among the Reeds_, +_The Shadowy Waters_, _The Secret Rose_, _The Land of +Heart's Desire_, _The Island of Statues_ are poems in +themselves, and give separate pleasure like an overture without the +opera. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to observe that _The Wind +Among the Reeds_ suggests better than any other arrangement of +words the lovely minor melodies of our poet, while _The Shadowy +Waters_ gives exactly the picture that comes into one's mind in +thinking of his poems. There is an extraordinary fluidity in his +verse, like running water under the shade of overhanging branches. One +feels that Mr. Yeats loves these titles, and chooses them with +affectionate solicitude, like a father naming beautiful children. + +The love poetry of Mr. Yeats, like the love poetry of Poe, is swept +with passion, but the passion is mingled with unutterable reverence. +It is unlike much modern love poetry in its spiritual exaltation. Just +as manners have become more free, and intimacies that once took months +to develop, now need only minutes, so much contemporary verse-tribute +to women is so detailed, so bold, so cock-sure, that the elaborate +compliments only half-conceal a sneer. In all such work love is born +of desire--its sole foundation--and hence is equally short-lived and +fleeting. In the poems of Mr. Yeats, desire seems to follow rather +than to precede love. Love thus takes on, as it ought to, something of +the beauty of holiness. + + Fasten your hair with a golden pin, + And bind up every wandering tress; + I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: + It worked at them, day out, day in, + Building a sorrowful loveliness + Out of the battles of old times. + + You need but lift a pearl-pale hand, + And bind up your long hair and sigh; + And all men's hearts must burn and beat; + And candle-like foam on the dim sand, + And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky, + Live but to light your passing feet. + +A still more characteristic love-poem is the one which gleams with the +symbols of the cloths of heaven. + + Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, + Enwrought with golden and silver light, + The blue and the dim and the dark cloths + Of night and light and the halflight, + I would spread the cloths under your feet; + But I, being poor, have only my dreams; + I have spread my dreams under your feet; + Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. + +In mysticism, in symbolism, and in the quality of his imagination, Mr. +Yeats of course reminds us of Maeterlinck. He has the same twilit +atmosphere, peopled with elusive dream-footed figures, that make no +more noise than the wings of an owl. He is of imagination all compact. +He is neither a teacher nor a prophet; he seems to turn away from the +real sorrows of life, yes, even from its real joys, to dwell in a +world of his own creation. He invites us thither, if we care to go; +and if we go not, we cannot understand either his art or his ideas. +But if we wander with him in the shadowy darkness, like the lonely man +in Titanic alleys accompanied only by Psyche, we shall see strange +visions. We may be led to the door of a legended tomb; we may be led +along the border of dim waters; but we shall live for a time in the +realm of Beauty, and be the better for the experience, even though it +resemble nothing in the town and country that we know. + +Mr. Yeats, like Browning, writes both lyrical poems and dramas; but he +is at the opposite remove from Browning in everything except the gift +of song. Browning was so devoted to the dramatic aspect of art, that +he carried the drama even into its seemingly contradictory form, the +lyric. Every lyric is a little one-act play, and he called them +dramatic lyrics. Mr. Yeats, on the other hand, is so essentially a +lyric poet, that instead of writing dramatic lyrics, he writes lyric +dramas. Even his stage-plays are primarily lyrical. + +Those who are interested in Mr. Yeats's theory of speaking, reciting, +or chanting poetry to the psaltery should read his book, _Ideas of +Good and Evil_, which contains some of his most significant +articles of faith, written in shining prose. Mr. Yeats cannot write on +any subject without illuminating it by the light of his own +imagination; and I find his essays in criticism full of original +thought--the result of years of brooding reflection. In these short +pieces his genius is as clear as it is in his poems. + +He is, in fact, a master of English. His latest work, with its musical +title, _Per Amica Silentia Lunae_(1918), has both in spirit and +form something of the ecstasy and quaint beauty of Sir Thomas Browne. +I had supposed that such a style as that displayed in +_Urn-Burial_ was a lost art; but Mr. Yeats comes near to +possessing its secret. This book is like a deep pool in its limpidity +and mystery; no man without genius could have written it. I mean to +read it many times, for there are pages that I am not sure that I +understand. One looks into its depths of suggestion as one looks into +a clear but very deep lake; one can see far down, but not to the +bottom of it, which remains mysterious. He invites his own soul, but +there is no loafing. Indeed his mind seems preternaturally active, as +in a combination of dream and cerebration. + + We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of + the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. Unlike the rhetoricians, + who get a confident voice from remembering the crowd they + have won or may win, we sing amid our uncertainty; and, + smitten even in the presence of the most high beauty by the + knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders. I think, + too, that no fine poet, no matter how disordered his life, has + ever, even in his mere life, had pleasure for his end.... The + other self, the anti-self or antithetical self, as one may + choose to name it, comes but to those who are no longer + deceived, whose passion is reality. The sentimentalists are + practical men who believe in money, in position, in a marriage + bell, and whose understanding of happiness is to be so busy + whether at work or at play, that all is forgotten but the + momentary aim. They will find their pleasure in a cup that is + filled from Lethe's wharf, and for the awakening, for the + vision, for the revelation of reality, tradition offers us a + different word--ecstasy.... We must not make a false faith by + hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the + highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man + can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in + sincerity. Neither must we create, by hiding ugliness, a false + beauty as our offering to the world. He only can create the + greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable + pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread + shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed + wanderer. + +I admire his devotion to the art of poetry. He will not turn Pegasus +into a dray-horse, and make him haul cart-loads of political or moral +propaganda. In his fine apologia, _The Cutting of an Agate_, he +states and restates his creed: "Literature decays when it no longer +makes more beautiful, or more vivid, the language which unites it to +all life, and when one finds the criticism of the student, and the +purpose of the reformer, and the logic of the man of science, where +there should have been the reveries of the common heart, ennobled into +some raving Lear or unabashed Don Quixote.... I have been reading +through a bundle of German plays, and have found everywhere a desire +not to express hopes and alarms common to every man that ever came +into the world, but politics or social passion, a veiled or open +propaganda.... If Homer were alive today, he would only resist, after +a deliberate struggle, the temptation to find his subject not in +Helen's beauty, that every man has desired, nor in the wisdom and +endurance of Odysseus that has been the desire of every woman that has +come into the world, but in what somebody would describe, perhaps, as +'the inevitable contest,' arising out of economic causes, between the +country-places and small towns on the one hand, and, upon the other, +the great city of Troy, representing one knows not what 'tendency to +centralization.'" + +In other words, if I understand him correctly, Mr. Yeats believes that +in writing pure rather than applied poetry, he is not turning his back +on great issues to do filigree work, but is merely turning aside from +questions of temporary import to that which is fixed and eternal, life +itself. + +John Millington Synge was born near Dublin on the sixteenth of April, +1871, and died in Dublin on the twenty-fourth of March, 1909. It is a +curious thing that the three great Irishmen of the Celtic +renaissance--the only men who were truly inspired by +genius--originally studied another form of art than literature. Mr. +Yeats studied painting for years; A. E. is a painter of distinction; +Synge an accomplished musician before he became a of letters. There is +not the slightest doubt the effect of these sister arts upon the +literary work of the Great Three is pervasive and powerful. The books +of Mr. Yeats and Mr. Russell are full of word-pictures; and the rhythm +of Synge's strange prose, which Mr. Ernest Boyd ingeniously compares +with Dr. Hyde's translations, is full of harmonies. + +Dr. Hyde has not only witnessed a new and wonderful literary revival +in his country, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that he is +vitally connected with its birth and bloom. + +Synge had the greatest mental endowment of all the Irish writers of +his time. He had an amazingly powerful mind. At Trinity College he +took prizes in Hebrew and in Irish, and at the same time gained a +scholarship in harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of +Music. As a boy, "he knew the note and plumage of every bird, and when +and where they were to be found." As a man, he could easily have +mastered the note of every human being, as in addition to his +knowledge of ancient languages, he seems to have become proficient in +German, French, and Italian with singular speed and ease. He was an +excellent performer on the piano, flute, and violin, did conjuring +tricks, and delighted the natives of the Aran Islands with his penny +whistle. He must have had a positive genius for concentration, +obtaining a command over anything to which he cared to devote his +attention. Mr. Yeats found him in that ramshackle old Hotel Corneille +in the Latin Quarter, busily writing literary criticism in French and +English, and told him as an inspired messenger to go to the primitive +folk in Ireland and become a creative artist. He went; and in a few +years reached the summit of dramatic achievement. + +Synge was a terrible person, as terrible in his way as Swift. When +Carlyle saw Daniel Webster, he said, "I should hate to be that man's +nigger." I do not envy any of the men or women who, for whatever +reason, incurred the wrath of Synge. He was never noisy or explosive, +like a dog whose barks are discounted, to whom one soon ceases to pay +any attention; we all know the futile and petty irascibility of the +shallow-minded. Synge was like a mastiff who bites without warning. +Irony was the common chord in his composition. He studied life and +hated death; hated the gossip of the world, which seemed to him the +gabble of fools. Physically he was a sick man, and felt his tether. He +thought it frightful that he should have to die, while so many idiots +lived long. He never forgave men and women for their folly, and the +only reason why he did not forgive God was because he was not sure of +His existence. The lady addressed in the following "poem" must have +read it with queasy emotion, and have unwillingly learned it by heart. +A photograph of her face immediately after its perusal would look like +futurist art; but who knows the expression on the face of the poet +while preparing this poison? + + THE CURSE + + _To a sister of an enemy of the author's who disapproved of + "The Playboy."_ + + Lord, confound this surly sister, + Blight her brow with blotch and blister, + Cramp her larynx, lung, and liver, + In her guts a galling give her. + + Let her live to earn her dinners + In Mountjoy with seedy sinners: + Lord, this judgment quickly bring, + And I'm your servant, John M. Synge. + +(Mountjoy is a prison.) + +Irish exaggeration is as often seen in plenary curses as in plenary +blessings; both have the quality of humour. The curses are partly +compounded of robust delight, like the joy of London cabmen in +repartee; and the blessings are doubtless commingled with irony. But +Synge had a savage heart. He was essentially a wild man, and a friend +of mine had a vision of him that seems not without significance. He +was walking in a desolate part of Ireland in a bleak storm of rain; +when suddenly over the hills came the solitary figure of Synge, +dressed in black, with a broad hat pulled over his brows. + +As a stranger and sojourner he walked this earth. In the midst of +Dublin he never mentioned politics, read no newspapers, and little +contemporary literature, not even the books of his few intimate +friends. Every one who knew him had such immense respect for the +quality of his intellect that it is almost laughable to think how +eagerly they must have awaited criticism of the books they gave +him--criticism that never came. Yet he never seems to have given the +impression of surliness; he was not surly, he was silent. He must have +been the despair of diagnosticians; even in his last illness, it was +impossible for the doctors and nurses to discover how he felt, for he +would not tell. I think his burning mind consumed his bodily frame. + +Synge wrote few poems, and they came at intervals during a period of +sixteen or seventeen years. Objectively, they are unimportant; his +contributions to English literature are his dramas and his prose +sketches. But as revelations of his personality they have a deep and +melancholy interest; and every word of his short Preface, written in +December, 1908, a few months before his death, is valuable. He knew he +was a dying man, and not only wished to collect these fugitive bits of +verse, but wished to leave behind him his theory of poetry. With +characteristic bluntness, he says that the poems which follow the +Preface were mostly written "before the views just stated, with which +they have little to do, had come into my head." + +No discussion of modern verse should omit consideration of this +remarkable Preface--for while it has had no effect on either Mr. Yeats +or Mr. Russell--it has influenced other Irish poets, and many that are +not Irish. Indeed much aggressively "modern" work is trying, more or +less successfully, to fit this theory. In the advance, Synge was more +prophet than poet. + + Many of the older poets, such as Villon and Herrick and + Burns, used the whole of their personal life as their + material, and the verse written in this way was read by strong + men, and thieves, and deacons, not by little cliques only. + Then, in the town writing of the eighteenth century, ordinary + life was put into verse that was not poetry, and when poetry + came back with Coleridge and Shelley, it went into verse that + was not always human. [This last clause shows the difference + between Synge and his friends, Yeats and Russell.] + + In these days poetry is usually a flower of evil or good; but + it is the timbre of poetry that wears most surely, and there + is no timbre that has not strong roots among the clay and + worms. + + Even if we grant that exalted poetry can be kept successful + by itself, the strong things in life are needed in poetry + also, to show that what is exalted or tender is not made by + feeble blood. It may almost be said that before verse can be + human again it must learn to be brutal. + +Like Herrick, he wrote verse about himself, for he knew that much +biography and criticism would follow his funeral. + + ON AN ANNIVERSARY + + _After reading the dates in a book of Lyrics._ + + With Fifteen-ninety or Sixteen-sixteen + We end Cervantes, Marot, Nashe or Green: + Then Sixteen-thirteen till two score and nine, + Is Crashaw's niche, that honey-lipped divine. + And so when all my little work is done + They'll say I came in Eighteen-seventy-one, + And died in Dublin.... What year will they write + For my poor passage to the stall of night? + + A QUESTION + + I asked if I got sick and died, would you + With my black funeral go walking too, + If you'd stand close to hear them talk or pray + While I'm let down in that steep bank of clay. + + And, No, you said, for if you saw a crew + Of living idiots pressing round that new + Oak coffin--they alive, I dead beneath + That board--you'd rave and rend them with your teeth. + +The love of brutal strength in Synge's work may have been partly the +projection of his sickness, just as the invalid Stevenson delighted in +the creation of powerful ruffians; but the brooding on his own death +is quite modern, and is, I think, part of the egoism that is so +distinguishing a feature in contemporary poetry. So many have +abandoned all hope of a life beyond the grave, that they cling to +bodily existence with almost gluttonous passion, and are filled with +self-pity at the thought of their own death and burial. To my mind, +there is something unworthy, something childish, in all this. When a +child has been rebuked or punished by its father or mother, it plays a +trump card--"You'll be sorry when I am dead!" It is better for men and +women to attack the daily task with what cheerful energy they can +command, and let the interruption of death come when it must. If life +is short, it seems unwise to spend so much of our time in rehearsals +of a tragedy that can have only one performance. + +In the modern Tempest of Ireland, Yeats is Ariel and A. E. is +Prospero. He is the Master of the island. As a literary artist, he is +not the equal of either of the two men whose work we have considered; +but he is by all odds the greatest Personality. He holds over his +contemporaries a spiritual sway that many a monarch might envy. +Perhaps the final tribute to him is seen in the fact that even George +Moore treats him with respect. + +One reason for this predominance is the man's sincerity. All those who +know him regard him with reverence; and to us who know him only +through his books and his friends, his sincerity is equally clear and +compelling. He has done more than any other man to make Dublin a +centre of intellectual life. At one time his house was kept open every +Sunday evening, and any friend, stranger, or foreigner had the right +to walk in without knocking, and take a part in the conversation. A. +E. used to subscribe to every literary journal, no matter how obscure, +that was printed in Ireland; every week he would scan the pages, +hoping to discover a man of promise. It was in this way he "found" +James Stephens, and not only found him, but founded him. Many a +struggling painter or poet has reason to bless the gracious assistance +of George W. Russell. + +It is a singular thing that the three great men of modern Ireland seem +more like disembodied spirits than carnal persons. Synge always seems +to those who read his books like some ghost, waking the echoes with +ironical laughter; I cannot imagine A. E. putting on coat and +trousers; and although I once had the honour--which I gratefully +remember--of a long talk with W. B. Yeats, I never felt that I was +listening to a man of flesh and blood. It is fitting that these men +had their earthly dwelling in a sea-girt isle, where every foot of +ground has its own superstition, and where the constant mists are +peopled with unearthly figures. + +I do not really know what mysticism is; but I know that Mr. Yeats and +Mr. Russell are both mystics and of a quite different stamp. Mr. Yeats +is not insincere, but his mysticism is a part of his art rather than a +part of his mind. He is artistically, rather than intellectually, +sincere. The mysticism of Mr. Russell is fully as intellectual as it +is emotional; it is more than his creed; it is his life. His poetry +and his prose are not shadowed by his mysticism, they emanate from it. +He does not have to live in another world when he writes verse, and +then come back to earth when the dinner or the door bell rings; he +lives in the other world all the time. Or rather, the earth and common +objects are themselves part of the Universal Spirit, reflecting its +constant activities. + + DUST + + I heard them in their sadness say + "The earth rebukes the thought of God; + We are but embers wrapped in clay, + A little nobler than the sod." + + But I have touched the lips of clay, + Mother, thy rudest sod to me + Is thrilled with fire of hidden day, + And haunted by all mystery. + +The above poem, taken from the author's first volume, _Homeward: +Songs by the Way_, does not reflect that homesickness of which A. +E. speaks in his Preface. Homesickness is longing, yearning; and there +is little of any such quality in the work of A. E. Or, if he is really +homesick, he is homesick not like one who has just left home, but more +like one who is certain of his speedy return thither. This +homesickness has more anticipation than regret; it is like healthy +hunger when one is assured of the next meal. For assurance is the +prime thing in A. E.'s temperament and in his work; it partly accounts +for his strong influence. Many writers today are like sheep having no +shepherd; A. E. is a shepherd. To turn from the wailing so +characteristic of the poets, to the books of this high-hearted, +resolute, candid, cheerful man, is like coming into harbour after a +mad voyage. He moves among his contemporaries like a calm, able +surgeon in a hospital. I suspect he has been the recipient of many +strange confessions. His poetry has healing in its wings. + +Has any human voice ever expressed more wisely or more tenderly the +reason why Our Lord was a man of sorrows? Why He spake to humanity in +the language of pain, rather than in the language of delight? Was it +not simply because, in talking to us, He who could speak all +languages, used our own, rather than that of His home country? + + A LEADER + + Though your eyes with tears were blind, + Pain upon the path you trod: + Well we knew, the hosts behind, + Voice and shining of a god. + + For your darkness was our day, + Signal fires, your pains untold, + Lit us on our wandering way + To the mystic heart of gold. + + Naught we knew of the high land, + Beauty burning in its spheres; + Sorrow we could understand + And the mystery told in tears. + +Something of the secret of his quiet strength is seen in the following +two stanzas, which close his poem _Apocalyptic_ (1916): + + It shall be better to be bold + Than clothed in purple in that hour; + The will of steel be more than gold; + For only what we are is power. + Who through the starry gate would win + Must be like those who walk therein. + + You, who have made of earth your star, + Cry out, indeed, for hopes made vain: + For only those can laugh who are + The strong Initiates of Pain, + Who know that mighty god to be + Sculptor of immortality. + +It is a wonderful thing--a man living in a house in Dublin, living a +life of intense, ceaseless, and extraordinarily diversified activity, +travelling on life's common way in cheerful godliness, and shedding +abroad to the remotest corners of the earth a masculine serenity of +soul. + +James Stephens was not widely known until the year 1912, when he +published a novel called _The Crock of Gold;_ this excited many +readers in Great Britain and in America, an excitement considerably +heightened by the appearance of another work of prose fiction, _The +Demi-Gods,_ in 1914; and general curiosity about the author became +rampant. It was speedily discovered that he was a poet as well as a +novelist; that three years before his reputation he had issued a slim +book of verse, boldly named _Insurrections,_ the title being the +boldest thing in it. By 1915 this neglected work had passed through +four editions, and during the last six years he has presented to an +admiring public five more volumes of poems, _The Hill of Vision,_ +1912; _Songs from the Clay,_ 1915; _The Adventures of Seumas +Beg,_ 1915; _Green Branches,_ 1916, and _Reincarnations,_ +1918. + +A. E. believed in him from the start; and it was owing to the +influence of A. E. that _Insurrections_ took the form of a book, +gratefully dedicated to its own begetter. Both patron and protégé must +have been surprised by its lack of impact, and still more surprised by +the immense success of _The Crock of Gold._ The poems are mainly +realistic, pictures of slimy city streets with slimy creatures +crawling on the pavements. It is an interesting fact that they +appeared the same year of Synge's _Poems_ with Synge's famous +Preface counselling brutality, counselling anything to bring poetry +away from the iridescent dreams of W. B. Yeats down to the stark +realities of life and nature. They bear testimony to the catholic +breadth of A. E.'s sympathetic appreciation, for they are as different +as may be imagined from the spirit of mysticism. It must also be +confessed that their absolute merit as poetry is not particularly +remarkable; all the more credit to the discernment of A. E., who +described behind them an original and powerful personality. + +The influence of Synge is strong in the second book of verses, called +_The Hill of Vision_, particularly noticeable in such a poem as +_The Brute_. Curiously enough, _Songs from the Clay_ is more +exalted in tone than _The Hill of Vision_. The air is clearer and +purer. But the author of _The Crock of Gold_ and _The +Demi-Gods_ appears again in _The Adventures of Seumas Beg_. In +these charming poems we have that triple combination of realism, +humour, and fantasy that gave so original a flavour to the novels. +They make a valuable addition to child-poetry; for men, women, angels, +fairies, God and the Devil are treated with easy familiarity, in +practical, definite, conversational language. These are the best +fruits of his imagination in rime. + + THE DEVIL'S BAG + + I saw the Devil walking down the lane + Behind our house.--There was a heavy bag + Strapped tightly on his shoulders, and the rain + Sizzled when it hit him. He picked a rag + Up from the ground and put it in his sack, + And grinned and rubbed his hands. There was a thing + Moving inside the bag upon his back-- + It must have been a soul! I saw it fling + And twist about inside, and not a hole + Or cranny for escape. Oh, it was sad. + I cried, and shouted out, "_Let out that soul!_" + But he turned round, and, sure, his face went mad, + And twisted up and down, and he said "_Hell!_" + And ran away.... Oh, mammy! I'm not well. + +In 1916 Mr. Stephens published a threnody, _Green Branches_, +which illustrates still another side of his literary powers. There is +organ-like music in these noble lines. The sting of bitterness is +drawn from death, and sorrow changes into a solemn rapture. + +In commenting on Synge's poem, _The Curse_, I spoke of the +delight the Irish have in hyperbolic curses; an excellent illustration +of this may be found in Mr. Stephens' latest volume, +_Reincarnations_. There is no doubt that the poet as well as his +imaginary imprecator found real pleasure in the production of the +following ejaculations: + + RIGHTEOUS ANGER + + The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there + Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer; + May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair, + And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year. + + That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see + On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead, + Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me, + And threw me out of the house on the back of my head! + + If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day; + But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange! + May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may + The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange. + +Padraic Colum has followed the suggestion of Synge, and made deep +excavations for the foundations of his poetry. It grows up out of the +soil like a hardy plant; and while it cannot be called major work, it +has a wholesome, healthy earthiness. It is realistic in a different +way from the town eclogues of James Stephens; it is not merely in the +country, it is agricultural. His most important book is _Wild +Earth_, published in Dublin in 1901, republished with additions in +New York in 1916. The smell of the earth is pungent in such poems as +_The Plougher_ and _The Drover_; while his masterpiece, +_An Old Woman of the Roads_, voices the primeval and universal +longing for the safe shelter of a home. I wonder what those who +believe in the abolition of private property are going to do with this +natural, human passion? Private property is not the result of an +artificial social code--it is the result of an instinct. The first +three stanzas of this poem indicate its quality, expressing the all +but inexpressible love of women for each stick of furniture and every +household article. + + O, to have a little house! + To own the hearth and stool and all! + The heaped up sods upon the fire, + The pile of turf against the wall! + + To have a clock with weights and chains + And pendulum swinging up and down! + A dresser filled with shining delft, + Speckled and white and blue and brown! + + I could be busy all the day + Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, + And fixing on their shelf again + My white and blue and speckled store! + +Lord Dunsany brought to public attention a new poet, Francis Ledwidge, +whose one volume, _Songs of the Fields_, is full of promise. In +October, 1914, he enlisted in Kitchener's first army, and was killed +on the thirty-first of August, 1917. Ledwidge's poetry is more +conventional than that of most of his Irish contemporaries, and he is +at his best in describing natural objects. Such poems as _A Rainy +Day in April_, and _A Twilight in Middle March_ are most +characteristic. But occasionally he arrests the ear with a deeper +note. The first four lines of the following passage, taken from _An +Old Pain_, might fittingly apply to a personality like that of +Synge: + + I hold the mind is the imprisoned soul, + And all our aspirations are its own + Struggles and strivings for a golden goal, + That wear us out like snow men at the thaw. + And we shall make our Heaven where we have sown + Our purple longings. Oh! can the loved dead draw + Anear us when we moan, or watching wait + Our coming in the woods where first we met, + The dead leaves falling in their wild hair wet, + Their hands upon the fastenings of the gate? + +A direct result of the spiritual influence of A. E. is seen in the +poetry of Susan Mitchell. She is not an imitator of his manner, but +she reflects the mystical faith. Her little volume, _The Living +Chalice,_ is full of the beauty that rises from suffering. It is +not the spirit of acquiescence or of resignation, but rather dauntless +triumphant affirmation. Her poems of the Christ-child have something +of the exaltation of Christina Rossetti; for to her mind the road to +victory lies through the gate of Humility. Here is a typical +illustration: + + THE HEART'S LOW DOOR + + O Earth, I will have none of thee. + Alien to me the lonely plain, + And the rough passion of the sea + Storms my unheeding heart in vain. + + The petulance of rain and wind, + The haughty mountains' superb scorn, + Are but slight things I've flung behind, + Old garments that I have out-worn. + + Bare of the grudging grass, and bare + Of the tall forest's careless shade, + Deserter from thee, Earth, I dare + See all thy phantom brightness fade. + + And, darkening to the sun, I go + To enter by the heart's low door, + And find where Love's red embers glow + A home, who ne'er had home before. + +Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916) was, like so many of the young Irish +writers of the twentieth century, both scholar and poet. In 1916 he +published a prose critical work, _Literature in Ireland,_ in which +his two passions, love of art and love of country, are clearly +displayed. His books of original verse include _The Golden Joy,_ +1906; _Songs of Myself,_ 1910, and others. He was a worshipper of +Beauty, his devotion being even more religious than aesthetic. The +poems addressed to Beauty--of which there are comparatively +many--exhibit the familiar yet melancholy disparity between the vision +in the poet's soul and the printed image of it. This disparity is not +owing to faulty technique, for his management of metrical effects shows +ease and grace; it is simply the lack of sufficient poetic vitality. +Although his ambition as an artist appears to have been to write great +odes and hymns to Beauty, his simple poems of Irish life are full of +charm. The _Wishes to My Son_ has a poignant tenderness. One can +hardly read it without tears. And the love of a wife for "her man" is +truly revealed in the last two stanzas of _John-John._ + + The neighbours' shame of me began + When first I brought you in; + To wed and keep a tinker man + They thought a kind of sin; + But now this three years since you're gone + 'Tis pity me they do, + And that I'd rather have, John-John, + Than that they'd pity you. + Pity for me and you, John-John, + I could not bear. + + Oh, you're my husband right enough, + But what's the good of that? + You know you never were the stuff + To be the cottage cat, + To watch the fire and hear me lock + The door and put out Shep-- + But there now, it is six o'clock + And time for you to step. + God bless and keep you far, John-John! + And that's my prayer. + +Joseph Campbell, most of whose work has been published under the Irish +name Seosamh Maccathmhaoil, writes both regular and free verse. He is +close to the soil, and speaks the thoughts of the peasants, +articulating their pleasures, their pains, and their superstitions. No +deadness of conventionality dulls the edge of his art--he is an +original man. His fancy is bold, and he makes no attempt to repress +it. Perhaps his most striking poem is _I am the Gilly of +Christ_--strange that its reverence has been mistaken for +sacrilege! And in the little song, _Go, Ploughman, Plough_, one +tastes the joy of muscle, the revelation of the upturned earth, and +the promise of beauty in fruition. + + Go, ploughman, plough + The mearing lands, + The meadow lands: + The mountain lands: + All life is bare + Beneath your share, + All love is in your lusty hands. + + Up, horses, now! + And straight and true + Let every broken furrow run: + The strength you sweat + Shall blossom yet + In golden glory to the sun. + +In 1917 Mr. Campbell published a beautiful volume, signed with his +English name, embellished with his own drawings--one for each +poem--called _Earth of Cualann_. Cualann is the old name for the +County of Wicklow, but it includes also a stretch to the northwest, +reaching close to Dublin. Mr. Campbell's description of it in his +preface makes a musical overture to the verses that follow. "Wild and +unspoilt, a country of cairn-crowned hills and dark, watered valleys, +it bears even to this day something of the freshness of the heroic +dawn." + +The work of Seumas O'Sullivan, born in 1878, has often been likened to +that of W. B. Yeats, but I can see little similarity either in spirit +or in manner. The younger poet has the secret of melody and his verses +show a high degree of technical excellence; but in these respects he +no more resembles his famous countryman than many another master. His +best poems are collected in a volume published in 1912, and the most +interesting of these give pictures of various city streets, _Mercer +Street_ (three), _Nelson Street, Cuffe Street_, and so on. In +other words, the most original part of this poet's production is +founded on reality. This does not mean that he lacks imagination; for +it is only by imagination that a writer can portray and interpret +familiar scenes. The more widely and easily their veracity can be +verified by readers, the greater is the challenge to the art of the +poet. + +Although the work of Herbert Trench is not particularly identified +with Ireland, he was born in County Cork, in 1865, and his first +volume of poems (1901) was called _Deirdre Wedded._ He completed +his formal education at Oxford, taking a first class in the Final +Honour Schools, and becoming a Fellow of All Souls. His poetical +reputation, which began with the appearance of _Apollo and the +Seaman,_ in 1907, has been perceptibly heightened by the +publication in 1918 of his collected works in two volumes, _Poems, +with Fables in Prose,_ saluted rapturously by a London critic under +the heading "Unforgettable Phrases." No one can now tell whether they +are unforgettable or not; but his poems are certainly memorable for +individual lines rather than for complete architectural beauty. In the +midst of commonplace composition single phrases stand out in a manner +that almost startles the reader. + +We may properly add to our list the names of three Irish poets who are +Americans. Maurice Francis Egan, full of years and honours, a scholar +and statesman, giving notable service to America as our Minister to +Denmark, has written poetry marked by tenderness of feeling and +delicacy of art. His little book, _Songs and Sonnets,_ published +in 1892, exhibits the range of his work as well as anything that he +has written. It is founded on a deep and pure religious faith.... +Norreys Jephson O'Conor is a young Irish-American, a graduate of +Harvard, and has already published three volumes of verse, _Celtic +Memories,_ which appeared in England in 1913, _Beside the +Blackwater,_ 1915, and _Songs of the Celtic Past,_ 1918; in +1916 he published a poetic play, _The Fairy Bride,_ which was +produced for the benefit of Irish troops at the front. American by +birth and residence, of Irish ancestry, he draws his inspiration +almost wholly from Celtic lore and Celtic scenes. He is a natural +singer, whose art is steadily increasing in authority. + +In 1918 immediate attention was aroused by a volume of poems called +_My Ireland,_ from Francis Carlin. This is the work of a young +Irishman, a New York business man, who, outside of the shop, has +dreamed dreams. Many of these verses are full of beauty and charm. + +It will be seen from our review of the chief figures among +contemporary Irish poets that the jolly, jigging Irishman of stage +history is quite conspicuous by his absence. He still gives his song +and dance, and those who prefer musical-comedy to orchestral +compositions can find him in the numerous anthologies of Anglo-Irish +verse; but the tone of modern Irish poetry is spiritual rather than +hearty. + +Whatever may be thought of the appropriateness of the term "Advance of +English Poetry" for my survey of the modern field as a whole, there is +no doubt that it applies fittingly to Ireland. The last twenty-five +years have seen an awakening of poetic activity in that island unlike +anything known there before; and Dublin has become one of the literary +centres of the world. When a new movement produces three men of +genius, and a long list of poets of distinction, it should be +recognized with respect for its achievement, and with faith in its +future. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AMERICAN VETERANS AND FORERUNNERS + + + American Poetry in the eighteen-nineties--William Vaughn + Moody--his early death a serious loss to literature--George + Santayana--a master of the sonnet--Robert Underwood + Johnson--his moral idealism--Richard Burton--his healthy + optimism--his growth--Edwin Markham and his famous poem--Ella + Wheeler Wilcox--her additions to our language--Edmund Vance + Cooke--Edith M. Thomas--Henry van Dyke--George E. + Woodberry--his spiritual and ethereal quality--William Dudley + Foulke--translator of Petrarch--the late H. K. Vielé--his + whimsicality--Cale Young Rice--his prolific production--his + versatility--Josephine P. Peabody--_Sursum Corda_--her + child poems--Edwin Arlington Robinson--a forerunner of the + modern advance--his manliness and common sense--intellectual + qualities. + +To compel public recognition by a fresh volume of poems is becoming +increasingly difficult. The country fields and the city streets are +full of singing birds; and after a few more springs have awakened the +earth, it may become as impossible to distinguish the note of a new +imagist as the note of an individual robin. When the publishers +advertise the initial appearance of a poet, we simply say +_Another!_ The versifiers and their friends who study them +through a magnifying glass may ultimately force us to classify the +songsters into wild poets, gamy poets, barnyard poets, poets that hunt +and are hunted. + +But in the last decade of the last century, poets other than +migratory, poets who were winter residents, were sufficiently +uncommon. Indeed the courage required to call oneself a poet was +considerable. + +Of the old leaders, Whitman, Whittier, and Holmes lived into the +eighteen-nineties; and when, in 1894, the last leaf left the tree, we +could not help wondering what the next Maytime would bring forth. Had +William Vaughn Moody lived longer, it is probable that America would +have had another major poet. He wrote verse to please himself, and +plays in order that he might write more verse; but at the dawning of a +great career, the veto of death ended both. As it is, much of his work +will abide. + +Indiana has the honour of his birth. He was born at Spencer, on the +eighth of July, 1869. He was graduated at Harvard, and after teaching +there, he became a member of the English Department of the University +of Chicago. He died at Colorado Springs, on the seventeenth of +October, 1910. + +The quality of high seriousness, so dear to Matthew Arnold, was +characteristic of everything that Mr. Moody gave to the public. At his +best, there is a noble dignity, a pure serenity in his work, which +make for immortality. This dignity is never assumed; it is not worn +like an academic robe; it is an integral part of the poetry. _An Ode +in Time of Hesitation_ has already become a classic, both for its +depth of moral feeling and for its sculptured style. Like so many +other poets, Mr. Moody was an artist with pencil and brush as well as +with the pen; his study of form shows in his language. + +George Santayana was born at Madrid, on the sixteenth of December, +1863. His father was a Spaniard, and his mother an American. He was +graduated from Harvard in 1886, and later became Professor of +Philosophy, which position he resigned in 1912, because academic life +had grown less and less congenial, although his resignation was a +matter of sincere regret on the part of both his colleagues and his +pupils. Latterly he has lived in France. + +He is a professional philosopher but primarily a man of letters. His +philosophy is interesting chiefly because the books that contain it +are exquisitely written. He is an artist in prose and verse, and it +seems unfortunate that his professorial activity--as in the case of A. +E. Housman--choked his Muse. For art has this eternal advantage over +learning. Nobody knows whether or not philosophical truth is really +true; but Beauty is really beautiful. + +In 1894 Mr. Santayana produced--in a tiny volume limited to four +hundred and fifty copies on small paper--_Sonnets and Other +Poems;_ and in 1899 a less important book, _Lucifer: a +Theological Tragedy._ No living American has written finer sonnets +than our philosopher. In sincerity of feeling, in living language, and +in melody they reach distinction. + + A wall, a wall around my garden rear, + And hedge me in from the disconsolate hills; + Give me but one of all the mountain rills, + Enough of ocean in its voice I hear. + Come no profane insatiate mortal near + With the contagion of his passionate ills; + The smoke of battle all the valley fills, + Let the eternal sunlight greet me here. + This spot is sacred to the deeper soul + And to the piety that mocks no more. + In nature's inmost heart is no uproar, + None in this shrine; in peace the heavens roll, + In peace the slow tides pulse from shore to shore, + And ancient quiet broods from pole to pole. + + O world, thou choosest not the better part! + It is not wisdom to be only wise, + And on the inward vision close the eyes, + But it is wisdom to believe the heart. + Columbus found a world, and had no chart, + Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; + To trust the soul's invincible surmise + Was all his science and his only art. + Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine + That lights the pathway but one step ahead + Across a void of mystery and dread. + Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine + By which alone the mortal heart is led + Unto the thinking of the thought divine. + + ON A VOLUME OF SCHOLASTIC + PHILOSOPHY + + What chilly cloister or what lattice dim + Cast painted light upon this careful page? + What thought compulsive held the patient sage + Till sound of matin bell or evening hymn? + Did visions of the Heavenly Lover swim + Before his eyes in youth, or did stern rage + Against rash heresy keep green his age? + Had he seen God, to write so much of Him? + Gone is that irrecoverable mind + With all its phantoms, senseless to mankind + As a dream's trouble or the speech of birds. + The breath that stirred his lips he soon resigned + To windy chaos, and we only find + The garnered husks of his disused words. + +Robert Underwood Johnson was born at Washington, on the twelfth of +January, 1853, and took his bachelor's degree at Earlham College, in +Indiana, at the age of eighteen. When twenty years old, he became a +member of the editorial staff of the _Century Magazine,_ and +remained there exactly forty years. His first volume of poems, _The +Winter Hour,_ was published in 1891, since which time he has +produced many others. Now he is his own publisher, and two attractive +books "published by the author" appeared in 1917--_Poems of War and +Peace_ and _Italian Rhapsody._ + +Mr. Johnson is a conservative, by which he would mean that as editor, +publicist, and poet, he has tried to maintain the highest standards in +art, politics, morality, and religion. Certainly his services to his +country have been important; and many good causes that he advocated +are now realities. There is no love lost between him and the "new" +school in poetry, and possibly each fails to appreciate what is good +in the other. + +Moral idealism is the foundation of much of Mr. Johnson's verse; he +has written many occasional poems, poems supporting good men and good +works, and poems attacking the omnipresent and well-organized forces +of evil. I am quite aware that in the eyes of many critics such praise +as that damns him beyond hope of redemption; but the interesting fact +is, that although he has toiled for righteousness all his life, he is +a poet. + +His poem, _The Voice of Webster,_ although written years ago, is +not only in harmony with contemporary historical judgment (1918) but +has a Doric dignity worthy of the subject. There are not a few +memorable lines: + + Forgetful of the father in the son, + Men praised in Lincoln what they blamed in him. + +Always the friend of small and oppressed nations, whose fate arouses +in him an unquenchable indignation, he published in 1908 paraphrases +from the leading poet of Servia. In view of what has happened during +the last four years, the first sentence of the preface to these +verses, written by Nikola Tesla, has a reinforced emphasis--"Hardly is +there a nation which has met with a sadder fate than the Servian." How +curious today seems the individual or national pessimism that was so +common _before_ 1914! Why did we not realize how (comparatively) +happy we were then? Hell then seems like paradise now. It is as though +an athletic pessimist should lose both legs. Shall we learn anything +from Edgar's wisdom? + + O gods! Who is't can say "I am at the worst"? + I am worse than e'er I was. + +Another poet, who has had a long and honourable career, is Richard +Burton. He was born at Hartford, Connecticut, on the fourteenth of +March, 1859, and was educated at Trinity and at Johns Hopkins, where +he took the doctor's degree in Anglo-Saxon. For the last twenty years +he has been Professor of English Literature at the University of +Minnesota, and is one of the best teachers and lecturers in the +country. He paradoxically found his voice in a volume of original +poems called _Dumb in June,_ which appeared in 1895. Since then +he has published many books of verse and prose--plays, stories, +essays, and lyrics. + +He has shown steady development as a poet--_Poems of Earth's +Meaning_ (he has the habit of bad titles), which came out in 1917, +is his high-water mark. I am glad that he reprinted in this volume the +elegy on the death of Arthur Upson, written in 1910; there is not a +false note in it. + +The personality of Richard Burton shines clearly through his work; +cheerful manliness and cheerful godliness. He knows more about human +nature than many pretentious diagnosticians; and his gladness in +living communicates itself to the reader. Occasionally, as in +_Spring Fantasies,_ there is a subtlety easy to miss on a first +of careless reading. On the edge of sixty, this poet is doing his best +singing and best thinking. + +Sometimes an author who has been writing all his life will, under the +flashlight of inspiration, reveal deep places by a few words formed +into some phrase that burns its way into literature. This is the case +with Edwin Markham (born 1852) who has produced many books, but seems +destined to be remembered for _The Man With the Hoe_ (1899). His +other works are by no means negligible, but that one poem made the +whole world kin. To a certain extent, the same may be said of Ella +Wheeler Wilcox (born 1855). In spite of an excess of sentimentality, +which is her besetting sin, she has written much excellent verse. Two +sayings, however, will be remembered long after many of her +contemporaries are forgotten: + + Laugh and the world laughs with you, + Weep, and you weep alone. + +Furthermore, in these days of world-tragedy, we all owe her a debt of +gratitude for being the author of the phrase written many years ago: + + No question is ever settled + Until it is settled right. + +The legitimate successor to James Whitcomb Riley is Edmund Vance Cooke +(born 1866). He has the same philosophy of cheerful kindliness, +founded on a shrewd knowledge of human nature. Verse is his mother +tongue; and occasionally he rises above fluency and ingenuity into the +pure air of imagination. + +Among America's living veterans should be named with respect Edith M. +Thomas, who has been bravely singing for over thirty years. She was +born in Ohio on the twelfth of August, 1854 and her first book of +poems appeared in 1885. She is an excellent illustration of just how +far talent can go unaccompanied by the divine breath of inspiration. +She has perhaps almost too much facility; she has dignity, good taste, +an excellent command of a wide variety of metrical effects; she has +read ancient and modern authors, she is a keen observer, she is as +alert and inquisitive now, as in the days of her youth; and loves to +use her abilities in cultivating the fruits of the spirit. I suspect +that with the modesty that so frequently accompanies good taste, she +understands her own limitations better than any critic could do. + +Her long faithfulness to the Muse ought to be remembered, now that +poetry has come into its kingdom. + +Among our veteran poets should be numbered also Henry Van Dyke (born +1852). His versatility is so remarkable that it has somewhat obscured +his particular merit. His lyric _Reliance_ is spiritually as well +as artistically true: + + Not to the swift, the race: + Not to the strong, the fight: + Not to the righteous, perfect grace: + Not to the wise, the light. + + But often faltering feet + Come surest to the goal; + And they who walk in darkness meet + The sunrise of the soul. + + A thousand times by night + The Syrian hosts have died; + A thousand times the vanquished right + Hath risen, glorified. + + The truth by wise men sought + Was spoken by a child; + The alabaster box was brought + In trembling hands defiled. + + Not from the torch, the gleam, + But from the stars above: + Not from my heart, life's crystal stream, + But from the depths of love. + +George E. Woodberry (born 1855), graduate of Harvard, a scholar, +literary biographer, and critic of high standing, has been eminent +among contemporary American poets since the year 1890, when appeared +his book of verse, _The North Shore Watch._ In 1917 an +interesting and valuable _Study_ of his poetry appeared, written +by Louis V. Ledoux, and accompanied by a carefully minute +bibliography. I do not mean to say anything unpleasant about Mr. +Woodberry or the public, when I say that his poetry is too fine for +popularity. It is not the raw material of poetry, like that of Carl +Sandburg, yet it is not exactly the finished product that passes by +the common name. It is rather the essence of poetry, the spirit of +poetry, a clear flame--almost impalpable. "You may not be worthy to +smoke the Arcadia mixture," well--we may not be worthy to read all +that Mr. Woodberry Writes. And I am convinced that it is not his +fault. His poems of nature and his poems of love speak out of the +spirit. He not only never "writes down" to the public, it seems almost +as if he intended his verse to be read by some race superior to the +present stage of human development. + + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. + +William Dudley Foulke may fairly be classed with the Indiana group. He +was born at New York in 1848, but has lived in Indiana since 1876. He +has been conspicuous in much political and social service, but the +soul of the man is found in his books of verse, most of which have +been first printed in England. He is a lifelong student of Petrarch, +and has made many excellent translations. His best independent work +may be found in a group of poems properly called _Ad Patriam._ I +think such a sonnet as _The City's Crown_ is fairly +representative: + + What makes a city great? Huge piles of stone + Heaped heavenward? Vast multitudes who dwell + Within wide circling walls? Palace and throne + And riches past the count of man to tell, + + And wide domain? Nay, these the empty husk! + True glory dwells where glorious deeds are done, + Where great men rise whose names athwart the dusk + Of misty centuries gleam like the sun! + + In Athens, Sparta, Florence, 'twas the soul + That was the city's bright, immortal part, + The splendour of the spirit was their goal, + Their jewel, the unconquerable heart! + + So may the city that I love be great + Till every stone shall he articulate. + +The early death of Herman Knickerbocker Vielé robbed America not only +of one of her most brilliant novelists, but of a poet of fine flavour. +In 1903 he published a tall, thin book, _Random Verse,_ that has +something of the charm and beauty of _The Inn of the Silver +Moon._ In everything that he wrote, Mr. Vielé revealed a winsome +whimsicality, and a lightness of touch impossible except to true +artists. It should also be remembered to his credit that he loved +France with an ardour not so frequently expressed then as now. Indeed, +he loved her so much that the last four years of agony might have come +near to breaking his heart. He was one of the finest spirits of the +twentieth century. + +Cale Young Rice was born in Kentucky, on the seventh of December, +1872. He is a graduate of Cumberland University and of Harvard, and +his wife is the famous creator of Mrs. Wiggs. He has been a prolific +poet, having produced many dramas and lyrics, which were collected in +two stout volumes in 1915. In 1917 appeared two new works, _Trails +Sunward_ and _Wraiths and Realities,_ with interesting +prefaces, in which the anthologies of the "new" poetry, their makers, +editors, and defenders, are heartily cudgelled. Mr. Rice is a +conservative in art, and writes in the orthodox manner; although he is +not afraid to make metrical experiments. + +I like his lyrical pieces better than his dramas. His verse-plays are +good, but not supremely good; and I find it difficult to read either +blank verse or rimed drama, unless it is in the first class, where +assuredly Mr. Rice's meritorious efforts do not belong. + +His songs are spontaneous, not manufactured. He is a natural singer +with such facility that it is rather surprising that the average of +his work is so good. A man who writes so much ought, one would think, +to be more often than not, commonplace; but the fact is that most of +his poems could not be turned into prose without losing their life. He +has limitations instead of faults; within his range he may be counted +on to give a satisfactory performance. By range I mean of course +height rather than breadth. He is at home all over the earth, and his +subjects are as varied as his style. + +Josephine Preston Peabody (Mrs. Marks) was born at New York, and took +her degree at Radcliffe in 1894. For two years she was a member of the +English department of Wellesley (two syllables only). Her drama +_Marlowe_ (1901) gave her something like fame, though I have +always thought it was overrated; it is certainly inferior to _The +Death of Marlowe_ (1837), by Richard Hengist Horne. In 1910 her +play _The Piper_ won the Stratford-on-Avon prize, and +subsequently proved to be one of the most successful plays seen on the +American stage in the twentieth century. It was produced by the New +Theatre, the finest stock company ever known in America. + +Josephine Peabody has written other dramas, and has an enviable +reputation as a lyric poet. The burden of her poetry is _Sursum +Corda!_ As I read modern verse, I am forced to the conclusion that +men and women require a vast deal of comforting. The years preceding +the war seem in the retrospect happy, almost a golden age; +homesickness for the England, France, Italy, America that existed +before 1914 is almost a universal sentiment; yet when we read the +verse composed during those days of prosperous tranquillity, when +youth seemed comic rather than tragic, we find that half the poets +spent their time in lamentation, and the other half in first aid. An +enormous number of lyrics speak as though despondency were the normal +condition of men and women; are we really all sad when alone, engaged +in reading or writing? "Every man is grave alone," said Emerson. I +wonder. + +So many poets seem to tell us that we ought not absolutely to abandon +all hope. The case for living is admittedly a bad one; but the poets +beseech us to stick it. Does every man really go down to business in +the morning with his jaw set? Does every woman begin the day with +compressed lips, determined somehow to pull through till afternoon? +Even the nature poets are always telling us to look at the birds and +flowers and cheer up. Is that all botany and zoology are good for? +Have we nothing to learn from nature but--buck up? + +I do not mean that Josephine Peabody's poems resemble glad Polyanna, +but I was driven to these divagations by the number of cheery lyrics +that she has felt it necessary to write. Now I find it almost as +depressing to be told that there _is_ hope as to be told that +there isn't. + + I met Poor Sorrow on the way + As I came down the years; + I gave him everything I had + And looked at him through tears. + + "But, Sorrow, give me here again + Some little sign to show; + For I have given all I own; + Yet have I far to go." + + Then Sorrow charmed my eyes for me + And hallowed them thus far; + "Look deep enough in every dark, + And you shall see the star." + +The first two poems in _The Harvest Moon_ (1916) are very fine; +but sometimes I think her best work is found in a field where it is +difficult to excel--I mean child poetry. Her _Cradle Song_ is as +good as anything of hers I know, though I could wish she had omitted +the parenthetical refrain. I hope readers will forgive me--though I +know they won't--for saying that _Dormi, dormi tu_ sounds a +triumphant exclamation at the sixteenth hole. + +An American poet who won twenty-two years ago a reputation with a +small volume, who ten years later seemed almost forgotten, and who now +deservedly stands higher than ever before is Edwin Arlington Robinson. +He was born in Maine, on the twenty-second of December, 1869, and +studied at Harvard University. In 1896 he published two poems, _The +Torrent_ and _The Night Before;_ these were included the next +year in a volume called _The Children of the Night._ His +successive books of verse are _Captain Craig,_ 1902; _The Town +Down the River,_ 1910; _The Man Against the Sky,_ 1916; +_Merlin,_ 1917; and he has printed two plays, of which _Van +Zorn_ (1914) despite its chilling reception, is exceedingly good. + +Mr. Robinson is not only one of our best known American contemporary +poets, but is a leader and recognized as such. Many write verses today +because the climate is so favourable to the Muse's somewhat delicate +health. But if Mr. Robinson is not a germinal writer, he is at all +events a precursor of the modern advance. The year 1896 was not +opportune for a venture in verse, but the Gardiner poet has never +cared to be in the rearward of a fashion. The two poems that he +produced that year he has since surpassed, but they clearly +demonstrated his right to live and to be heard. + +The prologue to the 1897 volume contained his platform, which, so far +as I know, he has never seen cause to change. Despite the title, he is +not an infant crying in the night; he is a full-grown man, whose voice +of resonant hope and faith is heard in the darkness. His chief reason +for believing in God is that it is more sensible to believe in Him +than not to believe. His religion, like his art, is founded on common +sense. Everything that he writes, whether in drama, in lyrics, or in +prose criticism, is eminently rational. + + There is one creed, and only one, + That glorifies God's excellence; + So cherish, that His will be done, + The common creed of common sense. + + It is the crimson, not the grey, + That charms the twilight of all time; + It is the promise of the day + That makes the starry sky sublime. + + It is the faith within the fear + That holds us to the life we curse;-- + So let us in ourselves revere + The Self which is the Universe! + + Let us, the Children of the Night, + Put off the cloak that hides the scar! + Let us be Children of the Light, + And tell the ages what we are! + +This creed is repeated in the sonnet _Credo_, later in the same +volume, which also contains those rather striking portraits of +individuals, of which the most impressive is _Richard Cory_. More +than one critic has observed that these dry sketches are in a way +forerunners of the _Spoon River Anthology_. + +The next book, _Captain Craig_, rather disappointed the eager +expectations of the poet's admirers; like Carlyle's Frederick, the man +finally turns out to be not anywhere near worth the intellectual +energy expended on him. Yet this volume contained what is on the +whole, Mr. Robinson's masterpiece--_Isaac and Archibald_. We are +given a striking picture of these old men, and I suppose one reason +why we recognize the merit of this poem so much more clearly than we +did sixteen years ago, is because this particular kind of +character-analysis was not in demand at that time. + +The figure of the man against the sky, which gives the name to the +work published in 1916, does not appear, strictly speaking, till the +end of the book. Yet in reality the first poem, _Flammonde_, is +the man against the sky-line, who looms up biggest of all in his town +as we look back. This fable teaches us to appreciate the +unappreciated. + +Mr. Robinson's latest volume, _Merlin_, may safely be neglected +by students of his work. It adds nothing to his reputation, and seems +uncharacteristic. I can find little in it except diluted Tennyson, and +it won't do to dilute Tennyson. One might almost as well try to polish +him. It is of course possible that Mr. Robinson wished to try +something in a romantic vein; but it is not his vein. He excels in the +clear presentment of character; in pith; in sharp outline; in solid, +masculine effort; his voice is baritone rather than tenor. + +To me his poetry is valuable for its moral stimulus; for its unadorned +honesty and sincerity; for its clear rather than warm singing. He is +an excellent draughtsman; everything that he has done has beauty of +line; anything pretentious is to him abhorrent. He is more map-maker +than painter. He is of course more than a maker of maps. He has drawn +many an intricate and accurate chart of the deeps and shallows of the +human soul. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +VACHEL LINDSAY AND ROBERT FROST + + + Lindsay the Cymbalist--first impression--Harriet Monroe's + Magazine--training in art--the long vagabond tramps--correct + order of his works--his drawings--the "Poem Game"--_The + Congo_--_General William Booth_--wide sweep of his + imagination--sudden contrasts in sound--his prose works--his + interest in moving pictures--an apostle of democracy--a + wandering minstrel--his vitality--a primary man--art plus + morality--his geniality--a poet and a missionary--his + fearlessness--Robert Frost--the poet of New England--his + paradoxical birth--his education--his career in England--his + experiences on a farm--his theory of the spoken word--an + out-door poet--not a singer--lack of range--interpreter as + well as observer--pure realism--rural tragedies--centrifugal + force--men and women--suspense--the building of a poem--the + pleasure of recognition--his sincerity--his truthfulness. + + "But you--you can help so much more. You can help spiritually. + You can help to shape things, give form and thought and + poignancy to the most matter-of-fact existence; show people + how to think and live and appreciate beauty. What does it + matter if some of them jeer at you, or trample on your + work? What matters is that those for whom your message is + intended will know you by your work." + + --STACY AUMONIER, _Just Outside_. + +Of all living Americans who have contributed to the advance of English +poetry in the twentieth century, no one has given more both as prophet +and priest than Vachel Lindsay. His poems are notable for originality, +pictorial beauty, and thrilling music. He belongs to no modern school, +but is doing his best to found one; and when I think of his love of a +loud noise, I call him a Cymbalist. + +Yet when I use the word _noise_ to describe his verse, I use it +not only in its present, but in its earlier meaning, as when Edmund +Waller saluted Chloris with + + While I listen to thy voice, + Chloris! I feel my life decay; + That powerful noise + Calls my flitting soul away. + +This use of the word, meaning an agreeable, harmonious sound, was +current from Chaucer to Coleridge. + +My first acquaintance with Mr. Lindsay's poetry began with a +masterpiece, _General William Booth Enters into Heaven_. Early in +the year 1913, before I had become a subscriber to Harriet Monroe's +_Poetry_, I found among the clippings in the back of a copy of +the _Independent_ this extraordinary burst of music. I carried it +in my pocket for a year. Nothing since Francis Thompson's _In No +Strange Land_ had given me such a spinal chill. Later I learned +that it had appeared for the first time in the issue of _Poetry_ +for January, 1913. All lovers of verse owe a debt of gratitude to Miss +Monroe for bringing the new poet to the attention of the public; and +all students of contemporary movements in metre ought to subscribe to +her monthly magazine; the numbers naturally vary in value, but almost +any one may contain a "find"; as I discovered to my pleasure in +reading _Niagara_ in the summer of 1917. + +Nicholas Vachel Lindsay--Vachel rimes with Rachel--was born at +Springfield, Illinois--which rimes with boy--on the tenth of November, +1879. His pen name omits the Nicholas. For three years he was a +student at Hiram College in Ohio, and for five years an art student, +first at Chicago, and then at New York. This brings us to the year +1905. From that year until 1910 he drew strange pictures, lectured on +various subjects, and wrote defiant and peculiar "bulletins." At the +same time he became a tramp, making long pilgrimages afoot in 1906 +through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and in 1908 he invaded in a +like manner some of the Northern and Eastern States. These wanderings +are described with vigour, vivacity, and contagious good humour in his +book called _A Handy Guide for Beggars_. His wallet contained +nothing but printed leaflets--his poems--which he exchanged for bed +and board. He was the Evangelist of Beauty, preaching his gospel +everywhere by reciting his verses. In the summer of 1912 he walked +from Illinois to New Mexico. + +To understand his development, one should read his books not according +to the dates of formal publication, but in the following order: _A +Handy Guide for Beggars_, _Adventures While Preaching the Gospel +of Beauty_, _The Art of the Moving Picture_--these three being +mainly in prose. Then one is ready for the three volumes of poetry, +_General William Booth Enters into Heaven_ (1913), _The +Congo_ (1914), and _The Chinese Nightingale_ (1917). Another +prose work is well under way, _The Golden Book of Springfield_, +concerning which Mr. Lindsay tells me, "The actual Golden Book is a +secular testament about Springfield, to be given to the city in 2018, +from a mysterious source. My volume is a hypothetical forecast of the +times of 2018, as well as of the Golden Book. Frankly the Lindsay the +reviewers know came nearer to existing twelve years ago than today, my +manuscripts are so far behind my notes. And a thing that has helped in +this is that through changing publishers, etc., my first prose book is +called my latest. If you want my ideas in order, assume the writer of +the _Handy Guide for Beggars_ is just out of college, of +_Adventures While Preaching_ beginning in the thirties, and +_the Art of the Moving Picture_ half-way through the thirties. +The Moving Picture book in the last half embodies my main social ideas +of two years ago. In mood and method, you will find _The Golden Book +of Springfield_ a direct descendant of the general social and +religious philosophy which I crowded into the photoplay book whether +it belonged there or not. I hope you will do me the favour and honour +to set my work in this order in your mind, for many of my small public +still think _A Handy Guide for Beggars_ the keynote of my present +work. But it was really my first wild dash." + +The above letter was written 8 August, 1917. + +Like many creative writers, Mr. Lindsay is an artist not only with the +pen, but with the pencil. He has made drawings since childhood; +drawing and writing still divide his time and energy. The first +impression one receives from the pictures is like that produced by the +poems--strangeness. The best have that Baconian element of strangeness +in the proportion which gives the final touch to beauty; the worst are +merely bizarre. He says, "My claim for them is that while laboured and +struggling in execution, they represent a study of Egyptian +hieroglyphics and Japanese art, two most orthodox origins for art, and +have no relation whatever to cubism, post-impressionism, or +futurism.... I have been very fond of Swinburne all my life, and I +should say my drawing is nearer to his ornate mood than any of my +writing has been. But that is a matter for your judgment." I find his +pictures so interesting that I earnestly hope he will some day publish +a large collection of them in a separate volume. + +One of his latest developments is the idea of the _Poem Game_, +which is elaborated with interesting poetic illustrations in the +volume called _The Chinese Nightingale_. In giving his directions +and suggestions in the latter part of this book, he remarks, "The +present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager. The Poem Game +idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs, its +further development to be on their own initiative. Informal parties +might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. The whole +might be worked out in the spirit in which children play King William +was King James's Son, London Bridge.... The main revolution necessary +for dancing improvisers, who would go a longer way with the Poem Game +idea is to shake off the Isadora Duncan and the Russian precedents for +a while, and abolish the orchestra and piano, replacing all these with +the natural meaning and cadences of English speech. The work would +come closer to acting than dancing is now conceived." + +Here is a good opportunity for house parties, in the intervals of Red +Cross activities; and at the University of Chicago, 15 February, 1918, +_The Chinese Nightingale_ was given with a full chorus of twelve +girls, selected for their speaking voices. From the testimony of one +of the professors at the university, it is clear that the performance +was a success, realizing something of Mr. Lindsay's idea of the union +of the arts, with Poetry at the centre. + +Among the games given in verse by the author in the latter part of +_The Chinese Nightingale_ volume is one called _The Potatoes' +Dance_, which appears to me to approach most closely to the +original purpose. It is certainly a jolly poem. But whether these +games are played by laughing choruses of youth or only by the +firelight in the fancy of a solitary reader, the validity of Vachel +Lindsay's claim to the title of Poet may be settled at once by +witnessing the transformation of a filthy rumhole into a sunlit +forest. As Edmond Rostand looked at a dunghill, and saw the vision Of +Chantecler, so Vachel Lindsay looked at some drunken niggers and saw +the vision of the Congo. + + Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, + Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, + Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, + Pounded on the table, + Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, + Hard as they were able, + Boom, boom, BOOM, + With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, + Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. + THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision, + I could not turn from their revel in derision. + THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, + CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. + Then along that river bank + A thousand miles + Tattooed cannibals danced in flies; + Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song + And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.... + A negro fairyland swung into view, + A minstrel river + Where dreams come true. + The ebony palace soared on high + Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. + The inlaid porches and casements shone + With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.... + Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes, + Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, + Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, + And tall silk hats that were red as wine. + And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, + Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, + Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, + And bells on their ankles and little black-feet. + +There are those who call this nonsense and its author a mountebank. I +call it poetry and its author a poet. You never heard anything like it +before; but do not be afraid of your own enjoyment. Read it aloud a +dozen times, and you, too will hear roaring, epic music, and you will +see the mighty, golden river cutting through the forest. + +I do not know how many towns I have visited where I have heard "What +do you think of Vachel Lindsay? He was here last month and recited his +verses. Most of his audience were puzzled." Yet they remembered him. +What would have happened if I had asked them to give me a brief +synopsis of the lecture they heard yesterday on "The Message of John +Ruskin"? Fear not, little flock. Vachel Lindsay is an authentic +wandering minstrel. The fine phrases you heard yesterday were like +snow upon the desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, is +gone. + +_General William Booth Enters into Heaven_--with the accompanying +instruments, which blare out from the printed page--is a sublime +interpretation of one of the varieties of religious experience. Two +works of genius have been written about the Salvation Army--_Major +Barbara_ and _General William Booth Enters into Heaven_. But +_Major Barbara_, with its almost appalling cleverness--Granville +Barker says the second act is the finest thing Shaw ever composed--is +written, after all, from the seat of the scornful, like a metropolitan +reporter at a Gospel tent; Mr. Lindsay's poem is written from the +inside, from the very heart of the mystery. It is interpretation, not +description. "Booth was blind," says Mr. Lindsay; "all reformers are +blind." One must in turn be blind to many obvious things, blind to +ridicule, blind to criticism, blind to the wisdom of this world, if +one would understand a phenomenon like General Booth. + + Booth led boldly with his big bass drum-- + (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) + The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come." + (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?).... + Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, + Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank, + Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale-- + Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail:-- + Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, + Unwashed legions with the ways of Death-- + (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?).... + And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer + He saw his Master thro' the flag-filled air. + Christ came gently with a robe and crown + For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down. + He saw King Jesus. They were face to face, + And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place. + (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) + +Dante and Milton were more successful in making pictures of hell than +of heaven--no one has ever made a common conception of heaven more +permanently vivid than in this poem. See how amid the welter of crowds +and the deafening crash of drums and banjos the individual faces stand +out in the golden light. + + Big-voiced lassies made their banjos bang, + Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang.... + Bull-necked convicts with that land make free... + The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled + And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.... + Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl! + Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean, + Rulers of empires, and of forests green! + +It is a pictorial, musical, and spiritual masterpiece. I am not afraid +to call it a spiritual masterpiece; for to any one who reads it as we +should read all true poetry, with an unconditional surrender to its +magic, General William Booth and his horde will not be the only +persons present who will enter into heaven. + +Vachel Lindsay needs plenty of room for his imagination--the more +space he has in which to disport himself, the more impressive he +becomes. His strange poem, _How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of +Heaven_, has the vasty sweep congenial to his powers. _Simon +Legree_ is as accurate an interpretation of the negro's conception +of the devil and of hell as _General William Booth_ is of the +Salvation Army's conception of heaven, though it is not so fine a +poem. When he rises from hell or descends from heaven, he loves big, +boundless things on the face of the earth, like the Western Plains and +the glory of Niagara. The contrast between the bustling pettiness of +the artificial city of Buffalo and the eternal fresh beauty of Niagara +is like Bunyan's vision of the man busy with the muck-rake while over +his head stood an angel with a golden crown. + + Within the town of Buffalo + Are prosy men with leaden eyes. + Like ants they worry to and fro, + (Important men, in Buffalo). + But only twenty miles away + A deathless glory is at play: + Niagara, Niagara.... + + Above the town a tiny bird, + A shining speck at sleepy dawn, + Forgets the ant-hill so absurd, + This self-important Buffalo. + Descending twenty miles away + He bathes his wings at break of day-- + Niagara, Niagara. + +True poet that he is, Vachel Lindsay loves to show the contrast +between transient noises that tear the atmosphere to shreds and the +eternal beauty of unpretentious melody. After the thunder and the +lightning comes the still, small voice. Who ever before thought of +comparing the roar of the swiftly passing motor-cars with the sweet +singing of the stationary bird? Was there ever in a musical +composition a more startling change from fortissimo to pianissimo? + + Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking, + Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking. + Way down the road, trilling like a toad, + Here comes the _dice_-horn, here comes the _vice_-horn, + Here comes the _snarl_-horn, _brawl_-horn, _lewd_-horn, + + Followed by the _prude_-horn, bleak and squeaking:-- + (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas) + Here comes the _hod_-horn, _plod_-horn, _sod_-horn, + Nevermore-to-_roam_-horn, _loam_-horn, _home_-horn, + (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas) + + Far away the Rachel-Jane + Not defeated by the horns, + Sings amid a hedge of thorns:-- + "Love and life, + Eternal youth-- + Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, + Dew and glory, + Love and truth, + Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet." + +Of Mr. Lindsay's prose works the one first written, _A Handy Guide +for Beggars_, is by all odds the best. Even if it did not contain +musical cadenzas, any reader would know that the author was a poet. It +is full of the spirit of joyous young manhood and reckless adventure, +and laughs its way into our hearts. There is no reason why Mr. Lindsay +should ever apologize for this book, even if it does not represent his +present attitude; it is as individual as a diary, and as universal as +youth. His later prose is more careful, possibly more thoughtful, more +full of information; but this has a touch of genius. Its successor, +_Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_, does not quite +recapture the first fine careless rapture. Yet both must be read by +students of Mr. Lindsay's verse, not only because they display his +personality, but because the original data of many poems can be found +among these experiences of the road. For example, _The Broncho That +Would not Be Broken_, which first appeared in 1917, is the rimed +version of an incident that happened in July, 1912. It made an +indelible impression on the amateur farmer, and the poem has a +poignant beauty that nothing will ever erase from the reader's mind. I +feel certain that I shall have a vivid recollection of this poem to +the last day of my life, assuming that on that last day I can remember +anything at all. + +A more ambitious prose work than either of the tramp books is _The +Art of the Moving Picture_. It is rather singular that Mr. Lindsay, +whose poetry primarily appeals to the ear, should be so profoundly +interested in an art whose only appeal is to the eye. The reason, +perhaps, is twofold. He is professionally a maker of pictures as well +as of chants, and he is an apostle of democracy. The moving picture is +the most democratic form of art that the world has ever seen. Maude +Adams reaches thousands; Mary Pickford reaches millions. It is clear +that Mr. Lindsay wishes that the limitless influence of the moving +picture may be used to elevate and ennoble America; for here is the +greatest force ever known through which his gospel may be +preached--the gospel of beauty. + +Like so many other original artists, Mr. Lindsay's poetry really goes +back to the origins of the art. As John Masefield is the twentieth +century Chaucer, so Vachel Lindsay is the twentieth century minstrel. +On the one occasion when he met W. B. Yeats, the Irishman asked him +point-blank, "What are we going to do to restore the primitive singing +of poetry?" and would not stay for an answer. Fortunately the question +was put to a man who answered it by accomplishment; the best answer to +any question is not an elaborate theory, but a demonstration. As it is +sometimes supposed that Mr. Lindsay's poetry owes its inspiration to +Mr. Yeats, it may be well to state here positively that our American +owes nothing to the Irishman; his poetry developed quite independently +of the other's influence, and would have been much the same had Mr. +Yeats never risen above the horizon. When I say that he owes nothing, +I mean he owes nothing in the manner and fashion of his art; he has a +consuming admiration for Mr. Yeats's genius; for Mr. Lindsay considers +him of all living men the author of the most beautiful poetry. + +Chants are only about one-tenth of Vachel Lindsay's work. However +radical in subject, they are conservative in form, following the +precedents of the ode from its origin. It is necessary to insist that +while the material is new, the method is consciously old. He is no +innovator in rime or rhythm. But the chants, while few in number, are +the most individual part of his production; and up to the year +1918--the most impressive. + +For in _The Congo_ we have real minstrelsy. The shoulder-notes, +giving detailed directions for singing, reciting, intoning, are as +charming in their way as the stage-directions of J. M. Barrie. They +not only show the aim of the poet; they admit the reader immediately +into an inner communion with the spirit of the poem. + +Every one who reads _The Congo_ or who hears it read cannot help +enjoying it; which is one reason why so many are afraid to call it a +great poem. For a similar reason, some critics are afraid to call +Percy Grainger a great composer, because of his numerous and +delightful audacities. Yet _The Congo_ is a great poem, +possessing as it does many of the high qualities of true poetry. It +shows a splendid power of imagination, as fresh as the forests it +describes; it blazes with glorious colours; its music transports the +listener with climax after climax; it interprets truthfully the spirit +of the negro race. + +I should not think of attempting to determine the relative position of +Percy Grainger in music and of Vachel Lindsay in poetry; but it is +clear that both men possess an amazing vitality. Is it not the lack of +vital force which prevents so many accomplished artists from ever +rising above the crowd? I suppose we have all read reams on reams of +magazine verse exhibiting technical correctness, exactitude in +language, and pretty fancy; and after a momentary unspoken tribute the +writer's skill, we straightway forget. But a poem like _Danny +Deever_ appears, it is to call it a music-hall ballad, or to +pretend it is not high art; the fact is that the worst memory in the +world will retain it. Such a poem comes like a breeze into a close +chamber; it is charged with vitality. We are in contact with a new +force--a force emanating from that mysterious and inexhaustible stream +whence comes every manifestation of genius. To have this +super-vitality is to have genius; and although one may have with it +many distressing faults of expression and an unlimited supply of bad +taste, all other qualities combined cannot atone for the absence of +this one primal element. Indeed the excess of wealth in energy is +bound to produce shocking excrescences; our Springfield poet is +sometimes absurd when he means to be sublime, bizarre when he means to +be picturesque. The same is true of Walt Whitman--it is true of all +creative writers whom John Burroughs calls _primary_ men, in +distinction from excellent artists who remain in the secondary class. +Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Walt Whitman, John Masefield, Vachel +Lindsay are primary men. + +I have often wondered who would write a poem worthy of the Grand +Canyon of the Colorado. Vachel Lindsay is the only living American who +could do it, and I hope he will accept this challenge. Its awful +majesty can be revealed only in verse; for it is one of the very few +wonders of the world which no photograph and no painting can ever +reproduce. Who ever saw a picture that gave him any conception of this +incomparable spectacle? + +In order to understand the primary impulse that drove Mr. Lindsay into +writing verse and making pictures, one ought to read first of all his +poem _The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings Of the Morning_. +The first half of the title exhibits his love of resounding harmonies; +the second gives an idea of the range of his imagination. His finest +work always combines these two elements, melody and elevation, "and +singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." I hope that the +picture he drew for _The Tree of Laughing Bells_ may some time be +made available for all students of his work, as it was his first +serious design. + +Vachel Lindsay is essentially honest, for he tries to become himself +exactly what he hopes the future American will be. He is a Puritan +with a passion for Beauty; he is a zealous reformer filled with +Falstaffian mirth; he goes along the highway, singing and dancing, +distributing tracts. "Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest." + +We know that two mighty streams, the Renaissance and the Reformation, +which flowed side by side without mingling, suddenly and completely +merged in Spenser's _Faery Queene_. That immortal song is a +combination of ravishing sweetness and moral austerity. Later the +Puritan became the Man on Horseback, and rode roughshod over every +bloom of beauty that lifted its delicate head. Despite the genius of +Milton, supreme artist plus supreme moralist, the Puritans managed +somehow to force into the common mind an antagonism between Beauty and +Morality which persists even unto this day. There is no reason why +those two contemporaries, Oscar Wilde and the Rev. Charles H. +Spurgeon, should stand before the London public as the champions of +contending armies; for Beauty is an end in itself, not a means, and so +is Conduct. + +In the best work of Vachel Lindsay, we find these two qualities +happily married, the zest for beauty and the hunger and thirst after +righteousness. He made a soap-box tour for the Anti-Saloon League, +preaching at the same time the Gospel of Beauty. As a rule, reformers +are lacking in the two things most sedulously cultivated by commercial +travellers and life-insurance agents, tact and humour. If these +interesting orders of the Knights of the Road were as lacking in +geniality as the typical reformer, they would lose their jobs. And yet +fishers of men, for that is what all reformers are, try to fish +without bait, at the same time making much loud and offensive speech. +Then they are amazed at the callous indifference of humanity to "great +moral issues." + +Vachel Lindsay is irresistibly genial. Nor is any of this geniality +made up of the professionally ingratiating smile; it is the foundation +of his temperament. What has this got to do with his poetry? It has +everything to do with it. It gives him the key to the hearts of +children; to the basic savagery of a primitive black or a poor white; +to peripatetic harvesters; to futurists, imagists, blue-stockings, +pedants of all kinds; to evangelists, college professors, drunken +sailors, tramps whose robes are lined with vermin. He is the great +American democrat, not because that is his political theory, but +simply because he cannot help it. + +His attitude toward other schools of art, even when he has nothing in +common with them, is positively affectionate. Could there be two poets +more unlike in temperament and in style than Mr. Lindsay and Mr. +Masters? Yet in the volume, _The Chinese Nightingale_, we have a +poem dedicated "to Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect." He speaks +of "the able and distinguished Amy Lowell," and of his own poems +"parodied by my good friend, Louis Untermeyer." He says, "I admire the +work of the Imagist Poets. We exchange fraternal greetings.... But +neither my few heterodox pieces nor my many struggling orthodox pieces +conform to their patterns.... The Imagists emphasize pictorial +effects, while the Higher Vaudeville exaggerates musical effects. +Imagists are apt to omit rhyme, while in my Higher Vaudeville I often +put five rhymes on a line." + +Impossible to quarrel with Vachel Lindsay. His stock of genial +tolerance is inexhaustible, and makes him regard not only hostile +humans, but even destructive insects, with inquisitive affection. + + I want live things in their pride to remain. + I will not kill one grasshopper vain + Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door. + I let him out, give him one chance more. + Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim, + Grasshopper lyrics occur to him. + +During his tramps, the parents who unwillingly received him +discovered, when he began to recite stories to their children, that +they had entertained an angel unawares; and I have not the slightest +doubt that on the frequent occasions when his application for food and +lodging was received with a volley of curses, he honestly admired the +noble fluency of his enemy. When he was harvesting, the singing +stacker became increasingly and distressingly pornographic; instead of +rebuking him for foulness, which would only have bewildered the +stacker, Mr. Lindsay taught him the first stanza of Swinburne's +chorus. "The next morning when my friend climbed into our barge to +ride to the field he began: + + When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, + The mother of months, in meadow or plain, + Fills the shadows-- + +'Dammit, what's the rest of it? I've been trying to recite that piece +all night.' Now he has the first four stanzas. And last evening he +left for Dodge City to stay overnight and Sunday. He was resolved to +purchase _Atalanta in Calydon_ and find in the Public Library +_The Lady of Shalott_ and _The Blessed Damozel_, besides +paying the usual visit to his wife and children." + +If a man cannot understand music, painting, and poetry without loving +these arts, neither can a man understand men and women and children +without loving them. This is one reason why even the cleverest +cynicism is never more than half the truth, and usually less. + +Mr. Lindsay is a poet, and a missionary. As a missionary, he wishes +all Americans to be as good judges of poetry as they are, let us say, +of baseball. One of the numerous joys of being a professional +ball-player must be the knowledge that you are exhibiting your art to +a prodigious assembly of qualified critics. John Sargent knows that +the majority of persons who gaze at his picture of President Wilson +are incompetent to express any opinion; his subtlety is lost or quite +misunderstood; but Tyrus Raymond Cobb knows that the thousands who +daily watch him during the summer months appreciate his consummate +mastery of the game. Vachel Lindsay, I suppose, wants millions not +merely to love, but to detect the finer shades of the poetic art. + +If he set out to accomplish this dream by lowering the standards of +poetry, then he would debase the public and be a traitor to his guild. +But his method is uncompromising--he taught the harvester not Mrs. +Hemans, but Swinburne. He calls his own verse the higher vaudeville. +But _The Congo_ is the higher vaudeville as _Macbeth_ is the +higher melodrama. And there is neither melodrama nor vaudeville in +_Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight_--a poem of stern and solemn +majesty. + +Mr. Lindsay is true to the oldest traditions of poetry in his +successful attempts to make his verses ring and sing. He is both +antique and antic. But he is absolutely contemporary, "modern," "new," +in his fearlessness. He has this in common with the practicers of free +verse, with the imagists, with the futurists; he is not in the least +afraid of seeming ridiculous. There can be no progress in art until +artists overcome wholly this blighting fear. It is the lone +individual, with his name stamped all over him, charging into the +safely anonymous mass; but that way lies the Advance. + +When Thomas Carlyle took up the study of Oliver Cromwell, he found +that all previous historians had tried to answer this question: What +is the mask that Oliver wore? And suddenly the true answer came to him +in the form of another question: What if it should prove to be no mask +at all, but just the man's own face? So there are an increasingly +large number of readers who are discerning in the dauntless gambols of +Vachel Lindsay, not the mask of buffoonery, worn to attract attention, +but a real poet, dancing gaily with bronchos, children, field-mice and +potatoes. + +Such unquenchable vitality, such bubbling exuberance, cannot always be +graceful, cannot always be impressive. But the blunders of an original +man are sometimes more fruitful than the correctness of a copyist. +Furthermore, blunders sometimes make for wisdom and truth. Let us not +forget Vachel Lindsay's poem on Columbus: + + Would that we had the fortunes of Columbus, + Sailing his caravels a trackless way, + He found a Universe--he sought Cathay. + God give such dawns as when, his venture o'er, + The Sailor looked upon San Salvador. + God lead us past the setting of the sun + To wizard islands, of august surprise; + God make our blunders wise. + + COLD PASTORAL! + +The difference between Vachel Lindsay and Robert Frost is the +difference between a drum-major and a botanist. The former marches +gaily at the head of his big band, looking up and around at the crowd; +the latter finds it sweet + + with unuplifted eyes + To pace the ground, if path be there or none. + +Robert Frost, the poet of New England, was born at San Francisco, and +published his first volume in London. Midway between these two cities +lies the enchanted ground of his verse; for he belongs to New England +as wholly as Whittier, as truly as Mr. Lindsay belongs to Illinois. He +showed his originality so early as the twenty-sixth of March, 1875, by +being born at San Francisco; for although I have known hundreds of +happy Californians, men and women whose love for their great State is +a religion, Robert Frost is the only person I ever met who was born +there. That beautiful country is frequently used as a springboard to +heaven; and that I can understand, for the transition is less violent +than from some other points of departure. But why so few natives? + +Shamelessly I lift the following biographical facts from Miss Amy +Lowell's admirable essay on our poet. At the age of ten, the boy was +moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He went to school, and disliked the +experience. He tried Dartmouth and later Harvard, staying a few months +at the first and two years at the second. Between these academic +experiences he was married. In 1900 he began farming in New Hampshire. +In 1911 he taught school, and in 1912 went to England. His first book +of poems, _A Boy's Will,_ was published at London in 1913. The +review in _The Academy_ was ecstatic. In 1914 he went to live at +Ledbury, where John Masefield was born, and where in the neighbourhood +dwelt W.W. Gibson. His second volume, _North of Boston,_ was +published at London in 1914. Miss Lowell quotes a sentence, full of +insight, from the review in the _Times._ "Poetry burns up out of +it, as when a faint wind breathes upon smouldering embers." In March, +1915, Mr. Frost returned to America, bringing his reputation with him. +He bought a farm in New Hampshire among the mountains, and in 1916 +appeared his third volume, _Mountain Interval._ + +Was there ever a better illustration of the uncritical association of +names than the popular coupling of Robert Frost with Edgar Lee +Masters? They are similar in one respect; they are both poets. But in +the glorious army of poets, it would be difficult to find two +contemporaries more wholly unlike both in the spirit and in the form +of their work than Mr. Frost and Mr. Masters. Mr. Frost is as far from +free verse as he can stretch, as far as Longfellow; and while he +sometimes writes in an ironical mood, he never indulges himself in +cynicism. As a matter of fact, Mr. Frost is nearer in his art to Mr. +Lindsay than to Mr. Masters; for his theory of poetry, which I confess +I cannot understand, requires the poet to choose words entirely with +reference to their spoken value. + +His poetry is more interesting and clearer than his theories about it. +I once heard him give a combination reading-lecture, and after he had +read some of his poems, all of which are free from obscurity, he began +to explain his ideas on how poetry should be written. He did this with +charming modesty, but his "explanations" were opaque. After he had +continued in this vein for some time, he asked the audience which they +would prefer to him do next--read some more of his poems, go on +talking about poetry? He obtained from his hearers an immediate +response, picked up his book, and read in admirable fashion his +excellent verse. We judge poets by their poems, not by their theories. + +Robert Frost is an out-door poet. Even when he gives a picture of an +interior, the people are always looking out of the windows at +something or other. In his poems we follow the procession of the +seasons, with the emphasis on autumn and winter. One might be +surprised at the infrequency of his poems on spring, were it not for +the fact that his knowledge of the country is so precise and definite. +Spring is more beautiful in the city than in the country; it comes +with less alloy. No one has ever drawn a better picture of a country +road in the pouring rain, where "the hoof-prints vanish away." + +In spite of his preoccupation with the exact value of oral words, he +is not a singing lyrist. There is not much _bel canto_ in his +volumes. Nor do any of his poems seem spontaneous. He is a thoughtful +man, given to meditation; the meanest flower or a storm-bedraggled +bird will lend him material for poetry. But the expression of his +poems does not seem naturally fluid. I suspect he has blotted many a +line. He is as deliberate as Thomas Hardy, and cultivates the lapidary +style. Even in the conversations frequently introduced into his +pieces, he is as economical with words as his characters are with +cash. This gives to his work a hardness of outline in keeping with the +New England temperament and the New Hampshire climate. There is no +doubt that much of his peculiarly effective dramatic power is gained +by his extremely careful expenditure of language. + +It is, of course, impossible to prescribe boundary lines for a poet, +although there are critics who seem to enjoy staking out a poet's +claim. While I have no intention of building futile walls around Mr. +Frost's garden, nor erecting a sign with the presumptuous prohibition +of trespassing beyond them, it is clear that he has himself chosen to +excel in quality of produce rather than in variety and range. In the +first poem of the first volume, he concludes as follows: + + They would not find me changed from him they knew-- + Only more sure of all I thought was true. + +This is certainly a precise statement of the impression made on the +reader who studies his three books in chronological order. _A Boy's +Will,_ as befits a youth who has lived more in himself than in the +world, is more introspective than either _North of Boston_ or +_Mountain Interval;_ but this habit of introspection gave him +both the method and the insight necessary for the accurate study of +nature and neighbours. He discovered what other people were like, +simply by looking into his own heart. And in _A Boy's Will_ we +find that same penetrating examination of rural scenes and common +objects that gives to the two succeeding the final stamp of veracity. +I do not remember ever having seen a phrase like the following, though +the phrase instantly makes the familiar picture leap into that empty +space ever before the reader's eye--that space, which like bare +wall-paper, seems to demand a picture on its surface. + +_Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand._ + +It is fortunate that the law of diminishing returns--which every +farmer is forced to heed--does not apply to pastoral poets. Out of the +same soil Robert Frost has successfully raised three crops of the same +produce. He might reply that in the intervals he has let the ground +lie fallow--but my impression is that he is really working it all the +time. + +The sharp eye of the farmer sees nothing missed by our poet, but the +poet has interpretation as well as vision. He not only sees things but +sees things in their relations; and he knows that not only is +everything related to every other thing, but that all things are +related to the eternal mystery, their source and their goal. This is +why the yellow primrose is so infinitely more than a yellow primrose. +This also explains why the poems of Mr. Frost, after stirring us to +glad recognition of their fidelity, leave us in a revery. + +His studies of human nature are the purest realism. They are +conversations rather than arias, for he uses the speaking, not the +singing voice. Poets are always amazing us, and some day Robert Frost +may astonish me by writing a romantic ballad. It would surely be a +surprise, for with his lack of operatic accomplishment, and his +fondness for heroes in homespun, he would seem almost ideally unfitted +for the task. This feeling I find strengthened by his poem called +_An Equal Sacrifice_, the only one of his pieces where anything +like a ballad is attempted, and the only one in all three books which +seems to be an undeviating failure. It is as flat as a pancake, and +ends with flat moralizing. Mr. Frost is particularly unsuccessful at +preaching. + +No, apart from his nature poems, his studies of men and women are most +impressive when they follow the lines of Doric simplicity in the +manner of the powerful stage-plays written by Susan Glaspell. The +rigidity of the mould seems all the better fitted for the suppressed +passion it contains, just as liquid fire is poured into a vessel with +unyielding sides. His two most successful poems of this kind are +_Home Burial_, in _North of Boston_, and _Snow_, in +_Mountain Interval_. The former is not so much a tragedy as the +concentrated essence of tragedy. There is enough pain in it to furnish +forth a dozen funerals. It has that centrifugal force which Mr. +Calderon so brilliantly suggests as the main characteristic of the +dramas of Chekhov. English plays are centripetal; they draw the +attention of the audience to the group of characters on the stage; but +Chekhov's, says Mr. Calderon, are centrifugal; they throw our regard +off from the actors to the whole class of humanity they represent. +Just such a remark applies to _Home Burial_; it makes the reader +think of the thousands of farmhouses darkened by similar tragedies. +Nor is it possible to quote a single separate passage from this poem +for each line is so necessary to the total effect that one must read +every word of it to feel its significance. It is a masterpiece of +tragedy. And it is curious, as one continues to think about it, as one +so often does on finishing a poem by Robert Frost, that we are led +first to contemplate the number of such tragedies, and finally to +contemplate a stretch of life of far wider range--the broad, profound +difference between a man and a woman. Are there any two creatures on +God's earth more unlike? In this poem the man is true to himself, and +for that very reason cannot in his honest, simple heart comprehend why +he should appear to his own wife as if he were some frightful monster. +He is perplexed, amazed, and finally enraged at the look of loathing +in the wide eyes of his own mate. It was a little thing--his innocent +remark about a birch fence--that revealed to her that she was living +with a stranger. Grief never possesses a man as it does a woman, +except when the grief is exclusively concerned with his own bodily +business, as when he discovers that he has cancer or toothache. To the +last day of human life on earth, it will seem incomprehensible to a +woman that a man, on the occasion of a death in the family, can sit +down and eat with gusto a hearty meal. For bodily appetite, which is +the first thing to leave a woman, is the last to leave a man; and when +it has left every other part of his frame, it sometimes has a +repulsive survival in his eyes. The only bridge that can really cross +this fathomless chasm between man and woman is the bridge of love. + +The dramatic quality of _Snow_ is suspense. The object through +which the suspense is conveyed to the reader is the telephone, +employed with such tragic effect at the Grand Guignol. Mr. Frost's art +in colloquial speech has never appeared to better advantage than here, +and what a wave of relief when the voice of Meserve is heard! It is +like a resurrection. + +In order fully to appreciate a poem like _Mending Wall_, one +should hear Mr. Frost read it. He reads it with such interpretative +skill, with subtle hesitations and pauses for apparent reflection, +that the poem grows before the audience even as the wall itself. He +hesitates as though he had a word in his hands, and was thinking what +would be exactly the best place to deposit it--even as the farmer +holds a stone before adding it to the structure. For this poem is not +written, it is built. It is built of separate words, and like the wall +it describes, it takes two to build it, the author and the reader. +When the last line is reached, the poem is finished. + +Nearly every page in the poetry of Robert Frost gives us the pleasure +of recognition. He is not only sincere, he is truthful--by which I +mean that he not only wishes to tell the truth, but succeeds in doing +so. This is the fundamental element in his work, and will, I believe, +give it permanence. + + GOOD HOURS + + I had for my winter evening walk-- + No one at all with whom to talk, + But I had the cottages in a row + Up to their shining eyes in snow. + + And I thought I had the folk within: + I had the sound of a violin; + I had a glimpse through curtain laces + Of youthful forms and youthful faces. + + I had such company outward bound. + I went till there were no cottages found. + I turned and repented, but coming back + I saw no window but that was black. + + Over the snow my creaking feet + Disturbed the slumbering village street + Like profanation, by your leave, + At ten o'clock of a winter eve. + +A poem like that gives not only the pleasure of recognition; it has an +indescribable charm. It is the charm when joy fades, not into sorrow, +but into a deep, abiding peace. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AMY LOWELL, ANNA BRANCH, EDGAR LEE MASTERS, LOUIS UNTERMEYER + + + Amy Lowell--a patrician--a radical--her education--her years + of preparation--vigour and versatility--definitions of free + verse and of poetry--Whitman's influence--the + imagists--_Patterns_--her first book--her rapid + improvement--sword blades--her gift in narrative--polyphonic + prose--Anna Hempstead Branch--her dramatic power--domestic + poems--tranquil meditation--an orthodox poet--Edgar Lee + Masters--his education--Greek inspiration--a + lawyer--_Reedy's Mirror_--the _Anthology_--power of + the past--mental vigour--similarity and variety--irony and + sarcasm--passion for truth--accentuation of + ugliness--analysis--a masterpiece of cynicism--an ideal + side--the dramatic monologue--defects and limitations--Louis + Untermeyer--his youth--the question of beauty--three + characteristics--a gust of life--_Still Life_--old + maids--burlesques and parodies--the newspaper humourists--F. + P. A.--his two books--his influence on English composition. + +Among the many American women who are writing verse in the twentieth +century, two stand out--Amy Lowell and Anna Branch. And indeed I can +think of no woman in the history of our poetry who has surpassed them. +Both are bone-bred New Englanders. No other resemblance occurs to me. + +It is interesting that a cosmopolitan radical like Amy Lowell should +belong ancestrally so exclusively to Massachusetts, and to so +distinguished a family. She is a born patrician, and a reborn Liberal. +James Russell Lowell was a cousin of Miss Lowell's grandfather, and +her maternal grandfather, Abbott Lawrence, was also Minister to +England. Her eldest brother, nineteen years older than she, was the +late Percival Lowell, a scientific astronomer with a poetic +imagination; he was one of the most interesting and charming +personalities I ever knew. His constant encouragement and example were +powerful formative influences in his sister's development. Another +brother is the President of Harvard, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, through +whose dignified, penetrating, sensible, authoritative speeches and +writings breathes the old Massachusetts love of liberty. + +Courage is a salient characteristic in Amy Lowell. She is afraid of +nothing, not even of her birthday. She was born at Brookline, on the +ninth of February, 1874. "Like all young poets, I was influenced by +everybody in turn, but I think the person who affected me most +profoundly was Keats, although my later work resembles his so little. +I am a collector of Keats manuscripts, and have spent much time in +studying his erasures and corrections, and they taught me most of what +I know about poetry; they, and a very interesting book which is seldom +read today--Leigh Hunt's _Imagination and Fancy._ I discovered +the existence of Keats through that volume, as my family read very +little of what was considered in those days 'modern poetry'; and, +although my father Keats in his library, Shelley was barred, on +account of his being an atheist. I ran across this volume of Leigh +Hunt's when I was about fifteen and it turned me definitely to +poetry." (_Letter of March, 1918._) + +When she was a child, her family took her on a long European tour; in +later years she passed one winter on the Nile, another on a fruit +ranch in California, another in visiting Greece and Turkey. In 1902 +she decided to devote her life to writing poetry, and spent eight +years in faithful study, effort, and practice without publishing a +word. In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for August, 1910, appeared her +first printed verse; and in 1912 came her first volume of poems, _A +Dome of Many-Coloured Glass,_ the title being a quotation from the +forbidden Shelley. Since that year she has been a notable figure in +contemporary literature. Her reputation was immensely heightened and +widened by the publication of her second book, _Sword Blades and +Poppy Seed,_ in 1914. In 1916 came the third volume, _Men, Women, +and Ghosts._ + +She has been a valiant fighter for poetic theory, writing many +articles on Free Verse, Imagism, and kindred themes; and she is the +author of two works in prose criticism, _Six French Poets,_ in +1915, and _Tendencies in Modern American Poetry,_ in 1917, of +which the former is the more valuable and important. In five years, +then, from 1912 to 1917, she produced three books of original verse, +two tall volumes of literary criticism, and a large number of magazine +poems and essays--a remarkable record both in quantity and quality. + +Vigour and versatility are the words that rise in one's mind when +thinking of the poetry of Amy Lowell. It is absurd to class her as a +disciple of free verse, or of imagism, or of polyphonic prose; she +delights in trying her hand at all three of these styles of +composition, for she is an experimentalist; but much of her work is in +the strictest orthodox forms, and when she has what the Methodists +used to call _liberty,_ no form or its absence can prevent her +from writing poetry. + +I can see no reason for either attacking or defending free verse, and +if I had any influence with Miss Lowell, I should advise her to waste +no more time in the defence of any school or theory, because the +ablest defence she or any one else can make is actually to write +poetry in the manner in which some crystallized critics say it cannot +be done. True poetry is recognizable in any garment; and ridicule of +the clothes can no more affect the identity of the article than the +attitude of Penelope's suitors toward the rags of Ulysses affected his +kingship. Let the journalistic wits have their fling; it is even +permissible to enjoy their wit, when it is as cleverly expressed as in +the following epigram, which I believe appeared in the Chicago +_Tribune:_ "Free verse is a form of theme unworthy of pure prose +embodiment developed by a person incapable of pure poetic expression." +Not at all bad; but as some one said of G. K. Chesterton, it would be +unfair to apply to wit the test of truth. It is better to remember +Coleridge's remark on poetry: "The opposite of poetry is not prose but +science; the opposite of prose is not poetry but verse." Perhaps we +could say of the polyphonic people that they are well versed in prose. + +The amazing growth of free verse during the last ten years has +surprised no one more than me, and it has convinced me of my lack of +prophetic clairvoyance. Never an idolater of Walt Whitman, I have also +never been blind to his genius; as he recedes in time his figure grows +bigger and bigger, like a man in the moving pictures leaving the +screen. But I used to insist rather emphatically that although he was +said to be both the poet of democracy and the poet of the future, he +was in fact admired mostly by literary aristocrats; and that the poets +who came after him were careful to write in strict composition. In the +'nineties I looked around me and behold, Kipling, Phillips, Watson and +Riley were in their work at the opposite extreme from Walt Whitman; he +had not a single disciple of unquestioned poetic standing. Now, in the +year of grace 1918, though he is not yet read by the common people--a +thousand of whom read Longfellow to one who reads Whitman--he has a +tribe of followers and imitators, many of whom do their utmost to +reach his results by his methods, and some of whom enjoy eminence. + +Those who are interested in the growth of imagist poetry in English +should read the three slender anthologies published respectively in +1915, 1916, and 1917, called _Some Imagist Poets,_ each +containing poems nowhere previously printed. The short prefaces to the +first two volumes are models of modesty and good sense, whether one +likes imagist poetry or hates it. According to this group of poets, +which is not a coterie or a mutual admiration society, but a few +individuals engaged in amicable rivalry at the same game, the +principles of imagism are mainly six, of which only the second is a +departure from the principles that have governed the production of +poetry in the past. First, to use the exact word: second, to create +new rhythms: third, to allow absolute freedom in the choice of +subject; fourth, to present an image: fifth, to produce poetry that is +hard and clear: sixth, to study concentration. + +There are six poets adequately represented in each volume; but the +best poem of all is _Patterns,_ by Amy Lowell. In spite of having +to carry six rules in her head while writing it--for if one is +determined to be "free" one must sufficiently indicate the fact--she +has written a real poem. It strictly conforms to all six requirements, +and is at the same time simple, sensuous, passionate. I like it for +many reasons--because it is real, intimate, confidential; because it +narrates a tragic experience that is all too common in actual life; +because its tragedy is enhanced by dramatic contrasts, the splendour +of the bright, breezy, sunlit garden contrasting with the road of +ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; the splendour of the +gorgeous stiff brocade and the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned +flesh; the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous harmony with the +rhythm of the swaying flowers, changed by one written word into a +desert of silence. It is the sudden annihilation of purpose and +significance in a body and mind vital with it; so that as we close the +poem we seem to see for ever moving up and down the garden path a +stiff, brocaded gown, moving with no volition. The days will pass: the +daffodils will change to roses, to asters, to snow; but the unbroken +pattern of desolation will change not. + +Publication is as essential to a poet as an audience to a playwright; +Keats realized this truth when he printed _Endymion._ He knew it +was full of faults and that he could not revise it. But he also knew +that its publication would set him free, and make it possible for him +immediately to write something better. This seems to have been the +case with Amy Lowell. Her first book, _A Dome of Many-Coloured +Glass,_ does not compare for a moment with _Sword Blades and +Poppy Seed._ It seems a harsh judgment, but I find under the dome +hardly one poem of unusual merit, and some of them are positively bad. +Could anything be flatter the first line of the sonnet _To John +Keats?_ + + Great master! Boyish, sympathetic man! + +The second volume, _Sword Blades and Poppy Seed,_ which came two +years later, showed a remarkable advance, and gave its author an +enviable position in American literature. An admirable preface reveals +three characteristics--reverence for the art of poetry, determination +not to be confined to any school, and a refreshingly honest confession +of hard labour in learning how to make poems. As old Quarles put it in +the plain-spoken seventeenth century, + + I see no virtues where I smell no sweat. + +The first poem, which gives its name to the volume, is written in the +lively octosyllabics made famous by _Christmas Eve._ The +sharpness of her drawings, one of her greatest gifts, is evident in +the opening lines: + + A drifting, April, twilight sky, + A wind which blew the puddles dry, + And slapped the river into waves + That ran and hid among the staves + Of an old wharf. A watery light + Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white + Without the slightest tinge of gold, + The city shivered in the cold. + +Soon the traveller meets a man who takes him to an old room, full of +the symbols of poetry-edged weapons, curiously and elegantly wrought +together with seeds of poppy. Poems may be divided into two classes, +stimulants and sedatives. + + All books are either dreams, or swords, + You can cut, or you can drug, with words. + +Tennyson's poetry is mainly soothing, which is what lazy and tired +people look for in any form of art, and are disappointed when they do +not find it; the poetry of Donne, Browning, Emerson is the sword of +the spirit; it is the opposite of an anaesthetic. Hence when readers +first meet it, the effect is one of disturbance rather than repose, +and they think it cannot be poetry. Yet in this piece of symbolism, +which itself is full of beauty, Amy Lowell seems to say that both +reveillé and taps are wrought by music--one is as much the legitimate +office of poetry as the other. But although she classifies her poems +in this volume according to the opening pair of symbols, and although +she gives twice as much space to poppies as to swords, her poetry is +always more stimulating than soothing. Her poppy seeds won't work; +there is not a soporific page in the whole book. + +One of the reasons why her books are so interesting is because she +knows how to tell a story in verse. In her romances style waits on +matter, like an attentive and thoroughly trained handmaid. Both poetry +and incident are sustained from beginning to end; and the reader would +stop more often to admire the flowers along the path if he were not so +eager to know the event. In this particular kind of verse-composition, +she has shown a steady development. The first real illustration of her +powers is seen in _The Great Adventure of Max Brueck,_ in +_Poppy Seed,_ though why so stirring a poem is thus classified is +to me quite mysterious; yet when we compare this "effort" with later +poems like _Pickthorn Manor_ and _The Cremona_ Violin we see +an advance both in vigour and in technique which is so remarkable that +she makes her earlier narrative seem almost immature. A poet is indeed +fortunate who can defeat that most formidable of all rivals--her +younger self. In _The Cremona Violin_ we have an extraordinary +combination of the varied abilities possessed by the author. It is an +absorbing tale full of drama, incident, realism, romanticism, imagism, +symbolism and pure lyrical singing. There is everything in fact except +polyphonic prose, and although I am afraid she loves her experiments +in that form, they are the portion of her complete works that I could +most willingly let die. + +Her sensitiveness to colours and to sounds is clearly betrayed all +through the romantic narrative of the _Cremona Violin,_ where the +instrument is a symbol of the human heart. Those who, in the old days +before the Germans began their career of wholesale robbery and murder, +used to hear Mozart's operas in the little rococo +_Residenz-Theater_ in Munich, will enjoy reminiscently these +stanzas. + + The _Residenz-Theater_ sparkled and hummed + With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing, + That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed + With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring + Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting + Of sharp, red brass pierced every eardrum; patting + From muffled tympani made a dark slatting + + Across the silver shimmering of flutes; + A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed; + The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes, + And mutterings of double basses trailed + Away to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed + Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter + They lost themselves amid the general clatter. + + Frau Altgelt, in the gallery, alone, + Felt lifted up into another world. + Before her eyes a thousand candles shone + In the great chandeliers. A maze of curled + And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled. + She smelt the smoke of candles guttering, + And caught the scent of jewelled fans fluttering. + +Her most ambitious attempt in polyphonic prose is _Guns as Keys: and +the Great Gate Swings,_ whereof the title is like a trumpet +fanfare. The thing itself is a combination of a moving picture and a +calliope. Written with immense gusto, full of comedy and tragedy, it +certainly is not lacking in vitality; but judged as poetry, I regard +it as inferior to her verse romances and lyrics. + +Rhythmical prose is as old as the Old Testament; the best modern +rhythmical prose that I have seen is found in the earlier plays of +Maurice Maeterlinck, written a quarter of a century ago. It is +unnecessary to enquire whether those dramas are poetry or not; for +although nearly all his work is in the printed form of prose, the +author is almost invariably spoken of as "the poet Maeterlinck." + +The versatility of Amy Lowell is so notable that it would be vain to +predict the nature of her future production, or to attempt to set a +limit to her range. In her latest and best book, _Men Women, and +Ghosts,_ besides the two admirable long narratives, we have poems +of patriotism, outdoor lyrics, town eclogues, pictures of still life +tragic pastorals in the manner of Susan Glaspell, and one delightful +_revenant, Nightmare,_ which takes us back to Dickens, for it is +a verse comment on a picture by George Cruikshank. Her robust vitality +is veined with humour; she watches a roof-shingler with active +delight, discovering poetry in cheerful manual toil. One day life +seems to her depressing; another day, beautiful; another, inspiring; +another, downright funny. + +In spite of her assured position in contemporary literature, one feels +that her career has not reached its zenith. + + + +Some twelve years ago, I was engaged in earnest conversation with +James Whitcomb Riley concerning the outlook for American poetry. The +chronic optimist for once was filled with woe. "There is not a single +person among the younger writers," said he, "who shows any promise of +greatness, except"--and then his face recovered its habitual +cheerfulness--"Anna Hempstead Branch. She is a poet." + +In justification of his gloom, it should be remembered that the +present advance in American poetry began some time after he uttered +these words; and although he was a true poet and wrote poems that will +live for many years to come, he was, in everything that had to do with +the art of poetry, the most conservative man I ever knew. + +Anna Branch was born at Hempstead House, New London, Connecticut, and +was graduated from Smith College in 1897. In 1898 she won a first +prize for the best poem awarded by the _Century Magazine_ in a +competition open to college graduates. Since then she has published +three volumes of verse, _The Heart of the Road,_ 1901, _The +Shoes That Danced,_ 1905, _Rose of the Wind,_ 1910. I fear +that her ambition to be a dramatist may have prevented her from +writing lyrical poetry (her real gift) during these last eight years. +If it is true, 'tis pity; for a good poem is a better thing than a +successful play and will live longer. + +Like many poets who cannot write plays, she is surcharged with +dramatic energy. But, to use a familiar phrase, it is action in +character rather than character in action which marks her work most +impressively, and the latter is the essential element for the +footlights. Shakespeare, Rostand, and Barrie have both, and are +naturally therefore great dramatists. Two of the most of Miss Branch's +poems are _Lazarus_ _Ora Pro Nobis._ These are fruitful +subjects for poetry, the man who came back from the grave and the +passionate woman buried alive. In the short piece _Lazarus,_ cast +into the form of dialogue Lazarus answers the question put to him by +Tennyson in _In Memoriam._ + + Where wert thou, brother, those four days? + +Various members of the group, astounded at his resurrection, try in +vain to have their curiosity satisfied. What do the dead do? Are they +happy? _Has my baby grown?_ What overpowering motive brought you +back from peace to live once more in sorrow? + +This last question Lazarus answers in a positive but unexpected way. + + A great desire led me out alone + From those assured abodes of perfect bliss.... + And by the way I went came seeking earth, + Seeing before my eyes one only thing-- + _The Crowd_ + What was it, Lazarus? Let us share that thing! + What was it, brother, thou didst see? + _Lazarus_ + A cross. + +Another dynamic poem, glowing with passion, is _Ora Pro Nobis._ +It is difficult to select passages from it, for it is sustained in +power and beauty from the first line to the last; yet some idea of it: +form and colour may be obtained by citation. A little girl was put +into a convent with only two ways of passing the time; stitching and +praying. She has never seen her face--she never will see for no mirror +is permitted; but she sees one day the reflection of its beauty in the +hungry eyes of a priest. + + Long years I dwelt in that dark hall, + There was no mirror on the wall, + I never saw my face at all, + (Hail Mary.) + In a great peace they kept me there, + A straight white robe they had me wear, + And the white bands about my hair. + I did not know that I was fair. + (Hail Mary.)... + The sweet chill fragrance of the snow, + More fine than lilies all aglow + Breathed around--he saw me so, + In garments spun of fire and snow. + (Holy Mother, pray for us.) + His hands were on my face and hair, + His high, stern eyes that would forswear + All earthly beauty, saw me there. + Oh, then I knew that I was fair! + (Mary, intercede for us.)... + Then I raised up to God my prayer, + I swept its strong and circling air, + Betwixt me and the great despair. + (Sweet Mary, pray for us.) + But when before the sacred shrine + I knelt to kiss the cross benign, + Mary, I thought his lips touched mine. + (Ave Maria, Ora Pro Nobis.) + +Although some of her poems have an intensity almost terrible, Anna +Branch has written household lyrics as beautiful in their uncrowded +simplicity as an eighteenth century room. The _Songs for My +Mother,_ celebrating her clothes, her her words, her stories +breathe the unrivalled perfume of tender memories. And if +_Lazarus_ is a sword, two of her most original pieces are +poppy-seeds, _To Nature_ and + + THE SILENCE OF THE POETS + + I better like that shadowed side of things + In which the Poets wrote not; when they went + Unto the fullness of their great content + Like moths into the grass with folded wings. + The silence of the Poets with it brings + The other side of moons, and it is spent + In love, in sorrow, or in wonderment. + After the silence, maybe a bird sings. + I have heard call, as Summer calls the swallow, + A leisure, bidding unto ways serene + To be a child of winds and the blue hazes. + "Dream"--quoth the Dreamer--and 'tis sweet to follow! + So Keats watched stars rise from his meadows green, + And Chaucer spent his hours among the daisies. + +This productive leisure has borne much fruit in the poetry of Anna +Branch; her work often has the quiet beauty rising from tranquil +meditation. She is an orthodox poet. She uses the old material--God, +Nature, Man--and writes songs with the familiar notation. She has +attracted attention not by the strangeness of her ideas, or by the +audacity of her method, but simply by the sincerity of her thought and +the superior quality of her singing voice. There is no difficulty in +distinguishing her among the members of the choir, and she does not +have to make a discord to be noticed. + +There are almost as many kinds of poets as there are varieties of +human beings; it is a far cry from Anna Branch to Edgar Lee Masters. I +do not know whether either reads the other; it may be a mutual +admiration exists; it may be that each would be ashamed to have +written the other's books; even if that were true, there is no reason +why an American critic--with proper reservations--should not be proud +of both. For if there is one thing certain about the advance of poetry +in America, it is that the advance is a general one along the whole +line of composition from free verse and polyphonic prose on the +extreme left to sonnets and quatrains on the extreme right. + +Edgar Lee Masters was born in Kansas, on the twenty-third of August, +1869. The family moved to Illinois the next year. His father was a +lawyer, and the child had access to plenty of good books, which he +read eagerly. In spite of his preoccupation with the seamy side of +human nature, he is in reality a bookish poet, and most of his +work--though not the best part of it--smells of the lamp. Fortunately +for him he was brought up on the Bible, for even those who attack the +Old Book are glad to be able to tip their weapons with biblical +language. Ibsen used to say that his chief reading, even in mature +years, was always the Bible; "it is so strong and mighty." + +Everything connected with books and literary work fascinated the +youth; like so many boys of his time--before wireless came in--he had +his own printing-press. I wonder if it was a "self-inker"? In my day, +the boy who owned a "self-inker" and "club-skates" was regarded with +envy. The three generations in this family illustrate the play +_Milestones;_ the grandfather vainly tried to make his son a +farmer, but the boy elected to be a lawyer and carried his point; he +in turn was determined to twist his son into a lawyer, whereas Edgar +wanted to be a writer. As this latter profession is usually without +emolument, he was forced into the law, where the virile energy of his +mind rewarded his zestless efforts with success. However, at the age +of twenty-one, he persuaded his father to allow him to study at Knox +College for a year, a highly important period in his development; for +he resumed the interrupted study of Latin, and began Greek. Greek is +the chief inspiration of his life, and of his art. He has read Homer +every year since his college days. + +Later he went to Chicago, and stayed there, busying himself not only +at his profession, but taking part in political activities, as any one +might guess from reading his poems. The primal impulse to write was +not frustrated; he has written verse all his life; and in fact has +published a considerable number of volumes during the last twenty +years, no one of which attracted any attention until 1915, when +_Spoon River Anthology_ made everybody sit up. + +Mr. Masters was nearly fifty when this book appeared; it is a long +time to wait for a reputation, especially if one is constantly trying +to obtain a hearing. It speaks powerfully for his courage, tenacity, +and faith that he should never have quit--and his triumph will +encourage some good and many bad writers to persevere. Emboldened by +the immense success of _Spoon River_, he produced three more +volumes in rapid succession; _Songs and Satires_ in 1916, _The +Great Valley_ in the same year, and _Toward the Gulf_ in 1918. +It is fortunate for him that these works followed rather than preceded +the _Anthology_; for although they are not destitute of merit, +they seem to require a famous name to ensure a sale. It is the brand, +and not the goods, that gives a circulation to these books. + +The pieces in _Spoon River Anthology_ originally appeared in +William Marion Reedy's periodical, called _Reedy's Mirror_, the +first one being printed in the issue for 29 May, 1914, and the others +following week after week. A grateful acknowledgment is made in a +brief preface to the volume, and the full debt is handsomely paid in a +dedicatory preface of _Toward the Gulf_, which every one +interested in Mr. Masters--and who is not?--should read with +attention. The poet manfully lets us know that it was Mr. Reedy who, +in 1909, made him read the Greek Anthology, without which _Spoon +River_ would never have been written. Criticism is forestalled in +this preface, because Mr. Masters takes a prose translation of +Meleager, "with, its sad revealment and touch of irony"--exactly the +characteristics of _Spoon River_--and turns it into free verse: + + The holy night and thou, + O Lamp, + We took as witness of our vows; + And before thee we swore, + He that [he] would love me always + And I that I would never leave him. + We swore, + And thou wert witness of our double promise. + But now he says that our vows were written on the running + waters. + And thou, O Lamp, + Thou seest him in the arms of another. + +What Mr. Masters did was to transfer the method and the tone of the +Greek Anthology to a twentieth century village in the Middle West, or +as he expresses it, to make "an epic rendition of modern life." + +Even if it were desirable, how impossible it is to escape from the +past! we are ruled by the dead as truly in the fields of art as in the +domain of morality and religion. The most radical innovator can no +more break loose from tradition than a tree can run away from its +roots. John Masefield takes us back to Chaucer; Vachel Lindsay is a +reincarnation of the ancient minstrels; Edgar Lee Masters owes both +the idea and the form of his masterpiece to Greek literature. Art is +as continuous as life. + +This does not mean that he lacks originality. It was a daring +stroke--body-snatching in 1914. To produce a work like _Spoon River +Anthology_ required years of accumulated experience; a mordant +power of analysis; a gift of shrewd speech, a command of hard words +that will cut like a diamond; a mental vigour analogous to, though +naturally not so powerful, as that displayed by Browning in _The +Ring and the Book_. It is still a debatable proposition whether or +not this is high-class poetry; but it is mixed with brains. Imagine +the range of knowledge and power necessary to create two hundred and +forty-six distinct characters, with a revealing epitaph for each one! +The miracle of personal identity has always seemed to me perhaps the +greatest miracle among all those that make up the universe; but to +take up a pen and clearly display the marks that separate one +individual from the mass, and repeat the feat nearly two hundred and +fifty times, this needs creative genius. + +The task that confronted Mr. Masters was this: to exhibit a long list +of individuals with sufficient basal similarity for each one to be +unmistakably human, and then to show the particular traits that +distinguish each man and woman from the others, giving each a right to +a name instead of a number. For instinctively we are all alike; it is +the Way in which we manage our instincts that shows divergence; just +as men and women are alike in possessing fingers, whereas no two +finger-prints are ever the same. + +Mr. Masters has the double power of irony and sarcasm. The irony of +life gives the tone to the whole book; particular phases of life like +religious hypocrisy and political trimming are treated with vitriolic +scorn. The following selection exhibits as well as any the author's +poetic power of making pictures, together with the grinning irony of +fate. + + BERT KESSLER + + I winged my bird, + Though he flew toward the setting sun; + But just as the shot rang out, he soared + Up and up through the splinters of golden light, + Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, + With some of the down of him floating near, + And fell like a plummet into the grass. + I tramped about, parting the tangles, + Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, + And the quail lying close to the rotten roots. + I reached my hand, but saw no brier, + But something pricked and stunned and numbed it. + And then, in a second, I spied the rattler-- + The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, + The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, + A circle of filth, the color of ashes, + Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves, + I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled + And started to crawl beneath the stump, + When I fell limp in the grass. + +This poem, with its unforgettable pictures and its terrible climax, +can stand easily enough by itself; it needs no interpretation; and +yet, if we like, the rattler may be taken as a symbol--a symbol of the +generation of vipers of which the population of Spoon River is mainly +composed. + +In the _Anthology_, the driving motive is an almost perverted +passion for truth. Conventional epitaphs are marked by two +characteristics; artistically, when in verse, they are the worst +specimens of poetry known to man; even good poets seldom write good +epitaphs, and among all the sins against art perpetrated by the +uninspired, the most flagrant are found here; to a bad poet, for some +reason or other, the temptation to write them is irresistible. In many +small communities, one has to get up very early in the morning to die +before the village laureate has his poem prepared. This depth of +artistic infamy is equalled only by the low percentage of truth; so if +one wishes to discover literary illustrations where falsehood is +united with crudity, epitaphs would be the field of literature toward +which one would instinctively turn. + +Like Jonathan Swift, Mr. Masters is consumed with hatred for +insincerity in art and insincerity in life; in the laudable desire to +force the truth upon his readers, he emphasizes the ugly, the brutal, +the treacherous elements which exist, not only in Spoon River, but in +every man born of woman. The result, viewed calmly, is that we have an +impressive collection of vices--which, although inspired by a +sincerity fundamentally noble--is as far from being a truthful picture +of the village as a conventional panegyric. The ordinary photographer, +who irons out the warts and the wrinkles, gives his subject a smooth +lying mask instead of a face; but a photograph that should make the +defects more prominent than the eyes, nose, and mouth would not be a +portrait. + +A large part of a lawyer's business is analysis; and the analytical +power displayed by Mr. Masters is nothing less than remarkable. Each +character in Spoon River is subjected to a remorseless autopsy, in +which the various vicious elements existing in all men and women are +laid bare. But the business of the artist, after preparatory and +necessary analysing, is really synthesis. It is to make a complete +artistic whole; to produce some form of art. + +This is why the _Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard_, by +Thomas Gray, is so superior as a poem to _Spoon River Anthology_. +The rich were buried in the church; the poor in the yard; we are +therefore given the short and simple annals of the poor. The curious +thing is that these humble, rustic, unlettered folk were presented to +the world sympathetically by a man who was almost an intellectual +snob. One of the most exact scholars of his day, one of the most +fastidious of mortals, one of the shyest men that ever lived, a born +mental aristocrat, his literary genius enabled him to write an +immortal masterpiece, not about the Cambridge hierarchy, but about +illiterate tillers of the soil. The _Elegy_ is the genius of +synthesis; without submitting each man in the ground to a ruthless +cross-examination, Gray managed to express in impeccable beauty of +language the common thoughts and feelings that have ever animated the +human soul. His poem will live as long as any book, because it is +fundamentally true. + +I therefore regard _Spoon River Anthology_ not as a brilliant +revelation of human nature, but as a masterpiece of cynicism. It took +a genius to write the fourth book of _Gulliver's Travels_; but +after all, Yahoos are not men and women, and horses are not superior +to humanity. The reason why, in reading the _Anthology_, we +experience the constant pricking of recognition is because we +recognize the baser elements in these characters, not only in other +persons, but in ourselves. The reason why the Yahoos fill us with such +terror is because they are true incarnations of our worst instincts. +There, but for the grace of God, go you and I. + +The chief element in the creative work of Mr. Masters being the power +of analysis, he is at his best in this collection of short poems. When +he attempts a longer flight, his limitations appear. It is distinctly +unfortunate that _The Spooniad_ and _The Epilogue_ were +added at the end of this wonderful Rogues' Gallery. They are witless. + +Even the greatest cynic has his ideal side. It is the figure of +Abraham Lincoln that arouses all the romanticism of our poet, as was +the case with Walt Whitman, who, to be sure, was no cynic at all. The +short poem _Anne Rutledge_ is one of the few that strictly +conform to the etymological meaning of the title of the book; for +"Anthology" is a union of two Greek words, signifying a collection of +flowers. + +Like Browning, Mr. Masters forsook the drama for the dramatic +monologue. His best work is in this form, where he takes one person +and permits him to reveal himself either in a soliloquy or in a +conversation. And it must be confessed that the monologues spoken by +contemporaries or by those Americans who talk from the graveyard of +Spoon River, are superior to the attempts at interpreting great +historical figures. The Shakespeare poem _Tomorrow Is My +Birthday_ is not only one of the worst effusions of Mr. Masters' +pen, it is almost sacrilege. Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbear! + +Outside of the monologues and the epitaphs, the work of Mr. Masters is +mainly unimpressive. Yet I admire his ambition to write on various +subjects and in various metres. Occasionally he produces a short story +in verse, characterized by dramatic power and by austere beauty of +style. The poem _Boyhood Friends_, recently published in the +_Yale Review_, and quite properly included by Mr. Braithwaite in +his interesting and valuable Anthology for 1917, shows such a command +of blank verse that I look for still finer things in the future. With +all his twisted cynicism and perversities of expression, Mr. Masters +is a true poet. He has achieved one sinister masterpiece, which has +cleansed his bosom of much perilous Stuff. Tomorrow to fresh woods and +pastures new. + + + +Louis Untermeyer was born at New York, on the first of October, 1885. +He produced a volume of original poems at the age of twenty-five. This +was followed by three other books, and in addition, he has written +many verse-translations, a long list of prose articles in literary +criticism, whilst not neglecting his professional work as a designer +of jewelry. There is no doubt that this form of art has been a +fascinating occupation and an inspiration to poetry. He not only makes +sermons in stones, but can manufacture jewels five words long. Should +any one be dissatisfied with his designs for the jewel-factory, he can +"point with pride" to his books, saying, _Haec sunt mea +ornamenta_. + +Somewhere or other I read a review of the latest volume of verse from +Mr. Untermeyer, and the critic began as follows: "One is grateful to +Mr. Untermeyer for doing what almost none of his contemporaries on +this side of the water thinks of doing." This sentence stimulated my +curiosity, for I wondered what particularly distinguishing feature of +his work I had failed to see. "For about the last thing that poets and +theorizers about poetry in these days think of is beauty. In +discussion and practice beauty is almost entirely left out of +consideration. Frequently they do not concern themselves with it at +all." + +Such criticism as that starts with a preconceived definition of +beauty, misses every form of beauty outside of the definition, and +gives to Mr. Untermeyer credit for originality in precisely that +feature of his work where he most resembles contemporary and past +poets. I believe that beauty is now as it always has been the main aim +of the majority of American poets; but instead of legendary beauty, +instead of traditional beauty, they wish us to see beauty in modern +life. For example, it is interesting to observe how completely public +opinion has changed concerning the New York sky-scrapers. I can +remember when they were regarded as monstrosities of commercialism, an +offence to the eye and a torment to the aesthetic sense. But I recall +through my reading of history that mountains were also once regarded +as hideous deformities--they were hook-shouldered giants, impressive +in size--anything you like except beautiful. All the mountain had to +do was to go on staying there, confident in its supreme excellence, +knowing that some day it would be appreciated: + + Somebody remarks: + Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, + His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, + Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? + Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? + +We know better today; we know that the New York sky-scrapers are +beautiful; just as we know that New York harbour in the night has +something of the glory of fairyland. + +No, it will not do to say that Mr. Untermeyer is original in his +preoccupation with beauty; it Would be almost as true to say that the +chief feature in his work is the English language. + +What is notable in him is the combination of three things; an immense +love of life, a romantic interpretation of material things, and a +remarkable talent for parody and burlesque. + +Sex and Death--the obsessions of so many young poets--are not +particularly conspicuous in the poetry of this healthy, happy young +man. He writes about swimming, climbing the palisades, willow-trees, +children playing in the street. Familiar objects become mysterious and +thought-provoking in the light of his fancy. His imagination provides +him with no end of fun; he needs no melancholy solitary pilgrimage in +the gloaming to give him a pair of rimes; a country farm or a city +slum is quite enough. I like his affectionate salutation to the +willow; I like his interpretation of a side street. His greatest +_tour de force_ is his poem, _Still Life_. Of all painted +pictures, with the one exception of dead fish, the conventional +overturned basket of fruit is to me the most barren of meaning, the +least inspiring, in suggestion a blank. Yet somehow Mr. Untermeyer, +looking at a bowl of fruit, sees something I certainly never saw and +do not ever expect to see except on this printed page, something that +a bowl of fruit has for me in the same proportion as the stump of a +cigar--_something dynamic_. + +I do not understand why so many Americans plaster the walls of their +dining-rooms with pictures of overset fruit-baskets and of dead fish +with their ugly mouths open; but in "still life" this paradoxical poet +sees something full of demoniacal energy. O Death, where is thy sting? + + Never have I beheld such fierce contempt, + Nor heard a voice so full of vehement life + As this that shouted from a bowl of fruit, + High-pitched, malignant, lusty and perverse-- + Brutal with a triumphant restlessness. + +But the fruit in the basket is dead. The energy, the fierce vehemence +and the lusty shout are not in the bowl, but in the soul. Subjectivity +can no further go. + +It is rather curious, that when our poet can behold such passion in a +willow-tree or in a mess of plucked fruit, he should be so blind to it +in the heart of an old maid; though to be honest, the heroine of his +poem is meant for an individual rather than a type. If there is one +object on earth that a healthy young man cannot understand, it is an +old maid. Who can forget that terrible outburst of the aunt in _Une +Vie_? "Nobody ever cared to ask if my feet were wet!" Mr. +Untermeyer will live and learn. He is not contemptuous; he is full of +pity, but it is the pity of ignorance. + + Great joys or sorrows never came + To set her placid soul astir; + Youth's leaping torch, Love's sudden flame + Were never even lit for her. + +_Don't you believe it, Mr. Untermeyer!_ + +Even in his "serious" volumes of verse, there is much satire and +saline humour; so that his delightful book of parodies, called _---- +and Other Poets_ is as spontaneous a product of his Muse as his +utterances _ex cathedra_. The twenty-seven poems, called _The +Banquet of the Bards_, with which the book begins, are excellent +fooling and genuine criticism. He wrote these things for his own +amusement, one reason why they amuse us. A roll-call of twenty-seven +contemporary poets, where each one comes forward and "speaks his +piece," is decidedly worth having. John Masefield "tells the true +story of Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son"; William Butler Yeats "gives a +Keltic version of Three Wise Men in Gotham"; Robert Frost "relates the +Death of the Tired Man," and so on. I had rather possess this volume +than any other by the author; it is almost worthy to rank with the +immortal _Fly Leaves_. Furthermore, in his serious work Mr. +Untermeyer has only begun to fight. + +And while we are considering poems "in lighter vein," let us not +forget the three famous initials signed to a column in the Chicago +_Tribune_, Don Marquis of the _Evening Sun_, who can be +either grave or gay but cannot be ungraceful, and the universally +beloved Captain Franklin P. Adams, whose _Conning Tower_ +increased the circulation of the New York _Tribune_ and the blood +of its readers. Brightest and best of the sons of the Colyumnists, his +classic Muse made the _Evening Mail_ an evening blessing, sending +the suburbanites home to their wives "always in good humour"; then, +like Jupiter and Venus, he charged from evening star to morning star, +and gave many thousands a new zest for the day's work. Skilful indeed +was his appropriation of the methods of Tom Sawyer; as Tom got his +fence whitewashed by arousing an eager competition among the boys to +do his work for him, each toiler firmly persuaded that he was the +recipient rather than the bestower of a favour, so F. P. A. incited +hundreds of well-paid literary artists to compete with one another for +the privilege of writing his column without money and without price. + +His two books of verse, _By and Large_ and _Weights and +Measures_, have fairly earned a place in contemporary American +literature; and the influence of his column toward precision and +dignity in the use of the English language has made him one of the +best teachers of English composition in the country. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SARA TEASDALE, ALAN SEEGER, AND OTHERS + + + Sara Teasdale--her poems of love--her youth--her finished + art--Fannie Stearns Davis--her thoughtful verse--Theodosia + Garrison--her war poem--war poetry of Mary Carolyn + Davies--Harriet Monroe--her services--her original work--Alice + Corbin--her philosophy--Sarah Cleghorn--poet of the country + village--Jessie B. Rittenhouse--critic and poet--Margaret + Widdemer--poet of the factories--Carl Sandburg--poet of + Chicago--his career--his defects--J. C. Underwood--poet of + city noises--T. S. Eliot--J. G. Neihardt--love poems--C. W. + Stork--_Contemporary Verse_--M. L. Fisher--_The + Sonnet_--S. Middleton--J. P. Bishop--W. A. Bradley--nature + poems--W. Griffith--_City Pastorals_--John Erskine--W. E. + Leonard--W. T. Whitsett--Helen Hay Whitney--Corinne Roosevelt + Robinson--M. Nicholson--his left hand--Witter Bynner--a + country poet--H. Hagedorn--Percy Mackaye--his theories--his + possibilities--J. G. Fletcher--monotony of free verse--Conrad + Aiken--his gift of melody--W. A. Percy--the best American poem + of 1917--Alan Seeger--an Elizabethan--an inspired poet. + +Sara Teasdale (Mrs. Filsinger) was born at St. Louis (pronounced +Lewis), on the eighth of August, 1884. Her first book appeared when +she was twenty-three, and made an impression. In 1911 she published +_Helen of Troy, and Other Poems_; in 1915 a volume of original +lyrics called _Rivers to the Sea_; some of these were reprinted, +together with new material, in _Love Poems_ (1917), which also +contained _Songs out of Sorrow_--verses that won the prize +offered by the Poetry Society of America for the best unpublished work +read at the meetings in 1916; and in 1918 she received the Columbia +University Poetry Prize of five hundred dollars, for the best book +produced by an American in 1917. + +In spite of her youth and the slender amount of her production, Sara +Teasdale has won her way to the front rank of living American poets. +She is among the happy few who not only know what they wish to +accomplish, but who succeed in the attempt. How many manuscripts she +burns, I know not; but the comparatively small number of pages that +reach the world are nearly fleckless. Her career is beginning, but her +work shows a combination of strength and grace that many a master +might envy. It would be an insult to call her poems "promising," for +most of them exhibit a consummate control of the art of lyrical +expression. Give her more years, more experience, wider range, richer +content, her architecture may become as massive as it is fine. She +thoroughly understands the manipulation of the material of poetry. It +would be difficult to suggest any improvement upon + + TWILIGHT + + The stately tragedy of dusk + Drew to its perfect close, + The virginal white evening star + Sank, and the red moon rose. + +Although she gives us many beautiful pictures of nature, she is +primarily a poet of love. White-hot passion without a trace of +anything common or unclean; absolute surrender; whole-hearted devotion +expressed in pure singing. Nothing is finer than this--to realize that +the primal impulse is as strong as in the breast of a cave-woman, yet +illumined by clear, high intelligence, and pouring out its feeling in +a voice of gracious charm. + + PITY + + They never saw my lover's face, + They only know our love was brief, + Wearing awhile a windy grace + And passing like an autumn leaf. + + They wonder why I do not weep, + They think it strange that I can sing, + They say, "Her love was scarcely deep + Since it has left so slight a sting." + + They never saw my love nor knew + That in my heart's most secret place + I pity them as angels do + Men who have never seen God's face. + + A PRAYER + + Until I lose my soul and lie + Blind to the beauty of the earth, + Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by, + Dumb in a storm of mirth; + + Until my heart is quenched at length + And I have left the land of men, + Oh, let me love with all my strength + Careless if I am loved again. + +If the two pieces just cited are not poetry, then I have no idea what +poetry may be. + +Another young woman poet is Fannie Stearns Davis (Mrs. Grifford). The +quality of her mind as displayed in her two books indicates +possibilities of high development. She was born at Cleveland, on the +sixth of March, 1884, is a graduate of Smith College, was a teacher in +Wisconsin, and has made many contributions to various magazines. Her +first book of poems, _Myself and I_, appeared in 1913; two years +later came the volume called _Crack o' Dawn_. She is not much +given to metrical adventure, although one of her most original poems, +_As I Drank Tea Today_, has an irregular rime-scheme. For the +most part, she follows both in subject and style the poetic tradition. +She has the gift of song--not indeed in the superlative degree--but +nevertheless unmistakable; and she has a full mind. She is neither +optimist nor pessimist; I should call her a sympathetic observer. The +following poem sums up fairly well her accumulated wisdom: + + I have looked into all men's hearts. + Like houses at night unshuttered they stand, + And I walk in the street, in the dark, and on either hand + There are hollow houses, men's hearts. + + They think that the curtains are drawn, + Yet I see their shadows suddenly kneel + To pray, or laughing and reckless as drunkards reel + Into dead sleep till dawn. + + And I see an immortal child + With its quaint high dreams and wondering eyes + Sleeping beneath the hard worn body that lies + Like a mummy-case defiled. + + And I hear an immortal cry + Of splendour strain through the sodden words, + Like a flight of brave-winged heaven-desirous birds + From a swamp where poisons lie. + + --I have looked into all men's hearts. + Oh, secret terrible houses of beauty and pain! + And I cannot be gay, but I cannot be bitter again, + Since I looked into all men's hearts. + +There is one commandment that all poets under the first class, and +perhaps some of those favoured ones, frequently break: the tenth. One +cannot blame them, for they know what poetry is, and they love it. +They not only know what it is, but their own limited experience has +taught them what rapture it must be to write lines of flawless beauty. +This unconquerable covetousness is admirably and artistically +expressed in Fannie Davis's poem, _After Copying Goodly Poetry_. +It is an honest confession; but its author is fortunate in being able +to express vain desire so beautifully that many lesser poets will +covet her covetousness. + +Theodosia Garrison was born at Newark, New Jersey, on the twenty-sixth +of November, 1874. She has published three volumes of verse, of which +perhaps the best known is _The Joy of Life_ (1909). At present +she is engaged in war work, where her high faith, serene womanliness, +and overflowing humour ought to make her, in the finest sense of the +word, efficient. Her short poem on the war is a good answer to +detractors of America. + + APRIL 2nd + + We have been patient--and they named us weak; + We have been silent--and they judged us meek, + Now, in the much-abused, high name of God + We speak. + + Oh, not with faltering or uncertain tone-- + With chosen words we make our meaning known, + That like a great wind from the West shall shake + The double throne. + + Our colours flame upon the topmost mast,-- + We lift the glove so arrogantly cast, + And in the much-abused, high name of God + We speak at last. + +Another war alchemist is Mary Carolyn Davies, poet of Oregon and +Brooklyn. She knows both coasts of America, she understands the +American spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice, and her verses have a +direct hitting power that will break open the hardest heart. In her +book, _The Drums in Our Street_ (1918), the glory and the tragedy +of the world-struggle are expressed in terms of individual feeling. +There is decided inequality in this volume, but the best pieces are so +carefully distributed among the commonplace that one must read the +whole work. + +Harriet Monroe was born in Chicago and went to school in Georgetown, +D. C. In connection with the World's Exposition in Chicago she +received the honour of being formally invited to write a poem for the +dedication. Accordingly at the ceremony commemorating the four +hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, 21 October, 1892, +her _Columbian Ode_ was given with music. + +Harriet Monroe's chief services to the art of poetry are seen not so +much in her creative work as in her founding and editing of the +magazine called _Poetry_, of which I made mention in my remarks +on Vachel Lindsay. In addition to this monthly stimulation--which has +proved of distinct value both in awakening general interest and in +giving new poets an opportunity to be heard, Miss Monroe, with the +assistance of Alice Corbin Henderson, published in 1917 an anthology +of the new varieties of verse. Certain poets are somewhat arbitrarily +excluded, although their names are mentioned in the Preface; the title +of the book is _The New Poetry_; the authors are fairly +represented, and with some sins of commission the selections from each +are made with critical judgment. Every student of contemporary verse +should own a copy of this work. + +In 1914 Miss Monroe produced a volume of her original poems, called +_You and I_. There are over two hundred pages, and those who look +in them for something strange and startling will be disappointed. +Knowing the author's sympathy with radicalism in art, and with all +modern extremists, the form of these verses is surprisingly +conservative. To be sure, the first one, _The Hotel_, is in a +kind of polyphonic prose, but it is not at all a fair sample of the +contents. Now whether the reading of many manuscripts has dulled Miss +Monroe's creative power or not, who can say? The fact is that most of +these poems are in no way remarkable either for feeling or expression +and many of them fail to rise above the level of the commonplace. +There is happily no straining for effect; but unhappily in most +instances there is no effect. + +Alice Corbin (Mrs. Henderson) is a native of Virginia and a resident +of Chicago. She is co-editor with Miss Monroe of _The New Poetry_ +anthology, wherein her own poems are represented. These indicate skill +in the manipulation of different metrical forms; and they reveal as +well a shrewd, healthy acceptance of life as it is. This feeling +communicates itself in a charming way to the reader; it is too +vigorous for acquiescence, too wise for blind optimism, but nearer +optimism than pessimism. It seems perhaps in certain aspects to +resemble the philosophy of Ralph Hodgson, although his command of the +art of poetry is beyond her range. + +Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn was born at Norfolk, Virginia, on the fourth +of February, 1876, but since childhood has lived in Vermont. She +studied at Radcliffe College, and has written much verse and prose. In +1915 a number of her lyrics were printed between the short stories in +a volume by her friend, Dorothy Canfield, called _Hillsboro +People_. In 1917 she published a book of verses, _Portraits and +Protests_, where the portraits are better than the protests. No one +has more truly or more sympathetically expressed the spirit of George +Herbert's poetry than Miss Cleghorn has given it with a handful of +words, in the lyric _In Bemerton Church_. But she is above all a +country mouse and a country muse; she knows her Vermont neighbours to +the skin and bone, and brings out artistically the austere sweetness +of their daily lives. I think I like best of all her work the poem + + A SAINT'S HOURS + + In the still cold before the sun, + _Her matins_ Her brothers and her sisters small + She woke, and washed and dressed each one. + + And through the morning hours all + _Prime_ Singing above her broom she stood + And swept the house from hall to hall. + + Then out she ran with tidings good, + _Tierce_ Across the field and down the lane, + To share them with the neighbourhood. + + Four miles she walked, and home again, + _Sexts_ To sit through half the afternoon + And hear a feeble crone complain. + + But when she saw the frosty moon + _Nones_ And lakes of shadow on the hill, + Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. + + She threw her pitying apron frill + _Vespers_ Over a little trembling mouse + When the sleek cat yawned on the sill + + In the late hours and drowsy house. + _Evensong_ At last, too tired, beside her bed + She fell asleep--her prayers half said. + +Is not this one of the high functions of poetry, to interpret the life +the poet knows best, and to interpret it always in terms of the +eleventh and twelfth commandments? Observe she loves the +sister-mother, and she loves the mouse as well as the cat. There is no +reason why those who love birds should not love cats as well; is a cat +the only animal who eats birds? It is a diverting spectacle, a man +with his mouth full of squab, insisting that cats should be +exterminated. + +A woman who has done much for the advance of English poetry in America +by her influence on public critical opinion, is Jessie B. Rittenhouse. +She is a graduate of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, +taught Latin and English in Illinois and in Michigan, and for five +years was busily engaged in journalism. In 1904 she published a volume +of criticism on contemporary verse, and for the last fourteen years +has printed many essays of interpretation, dealing with the new poets. +I dare say no one in America is more familiar with the English poetry +of the twentieth century than she. She has been so occupied with this +important and fruitful work that she has had little time to compose +original verse; but any one who will read through her volume, _The +Door of Dreams_, will find it impossible not to admire her lyrical +gift. She has not yet shown enough sustained power to give her a place +with Anna Hempstead Branch or with Sara Teasdale; but she has the +capacity of putting much feeling into very few words. + +Margaret Widdemer, the daughter of a clergyman, was born at +Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and was graduated from Drexel Institute +Library School in 1909. She has written verse and prose from early +childhood, but was not widely known until the appearance of her poem +_Factories_. In 1915 this was published in a book with other +pieces, and a revised, enlarged edition was printed in 1917, called by +the name of the now-famous song, and containing in addition nearly a +hundred lyrics. Although her soul is aflame at the omnipresence of +injustice in the world, her work covers a wide range of thought and +feeling. Her heart is swollen with pity for the sufferings of women; +but she is no sentimentalist. There is an intellectual independence, a +clear-headed womanly self-reliance about her way of thinking and +writing that is both refreshing and stimulating. In hope and in +despair she speaks for the many thousands of women, who first found +their voice in Ibsen's _Doll's House_; her poem, _The Modern +Woman to Her Lover_ has a cleanly honesty without any strained +pose. And although _Factories_ is doubtless her masterpiece in +its eloquent _Inasmuch as ye did it not_, she can portray a more +quiet and more lonely tragedy as well. Her poem called _The Two +Dyings_ might have been named _The Heart Knoweth its own +Bitterness_. + + I can remember once, ere I was dead, + The sorrow and the prayer and bitter cry + When they who loved me stood around the bed, + Watching till I should die: + + They need not so have grieved their souls for me, + Grouped statue-like to count my failing breath-- + Only one thought strove faintly, bitterly + With the kind drug of Death: + + How once upon a time, unwept, unknown, + Unhelped by pitying sigh or murmured prayer, + My youth died in slow agony alone + With none to watch or care. + +Never in any period of the world's history was the table of life so +richly spread as in the years 1900-1914; women were just beginning to +realize that places ought to be reserved for them as well as for men, +when the war came, and there was no place for any one except a place +to fight the Black Plague of Kaiserism; now when the war is over, +suppose the women insist? What then? Before the French Revolution, +only a few were invited to sit down and eat, while the majority were +permitted to kneel and watch from a distance. A Frenchman once +remarked, "The great appear to us great because we are kneeling--let +us rise." They rose, and out of the turmoil came an enormous +enlargement of the dining-hall. + +Carl Sandburg sings of Chicago with husky-haughty lips. I like Chicago +and I like poetry; but I do not much care for the combination as +illustrated in Mr. Sandburg's volume, _Chicago Poems_. I think it +has been overrated. It is pretentious rather than important. It is the +raw material of poetry, rather than the finished product. Mere passion +and imagination are not enough to make a poet, even when accompanied +by indignation. If feeling and appreciation could produce poetry, then +we should all be poets. But it is also necessary to know how to write. + +Carl Sandburg was born at Galesburg, Illinois, on the sixth of +January, 1878. He has "worked his own way" through life with courage +and ambition, performing any kind of respectable indoor and outdoor +toil that would keep him alive. In the Spanish war, he immediately +enlisted, and belonged to the first military company that went to +Porto Rico. In 1898 he entered Lombard College; after his Freshman +year, he tried to enter West Point, succeeding in every test--physical +and mental--except that of arithmetic; there he has my hearty +sympathy, for in arithmetic I was always slow but not sure. He +returned to Lombard, and took the regular course for the next three +years, paying his way by hard work. His literary ambition had already +been awakened, and he attained distinction among his mates. Since +graduation he has had constant and varied experience in journalism. +For a group of poems, of which the first was _Chicago_, he was +awarded the Levinson prize as the best poem by an American that had +appeared in _Poetry_ during the year October 1913-October 1914. +In 1916 appeared a substantial volume from his pen, called _Chicago +Poems_. + +His work gives one the impression of being chaotic in form and +content. Miss Lowell quotes him as saying, "I don't know where I'm +going, but I'm on my way." According to G. K. Chesterton, this +attitude was characteristic of modern life in general before the war. +We don't know where we're going,--but let's put on more speed. Perhaps +the other extreme, so characteristic of our southern African friends, +is no better, yet it has a charm absent in the strenuosity of mere +eagerness. A Southern negro, being asked whither he was going, replied +"I aint goin' nowhar: Ise been done gone whar I was goin'!" It would +appear that there is sufficient room between these extremes for +individual and social progress. + +In manner Mr. Sandburg is closer to Walt Whitman than almost any other +of our contemporary poets. I do not call him an imitator, and +certainly he is no plagiarist; but I like that part of his work which +is farthest removed from the manner of the man of Camden. Walt Whitman +was a genius; and whilst it is quite possible and at times desirable +to imitate his freedom in composition, it is not possible to catch the +secret of his power. It would be an ungracious task to quote Mr. +Sandburg at his worst; we are all pretty bad at our worst, whether we +are poets or not; I prefer to cite one of his poems which proves to me +that he is not only an original writer, but that he possesses a +perceptive power of beauty that transforms the commonplace into +something of poignant charm, like the song of the nightingale: + + Desolate and lone + All night long on the lake + Where fog trails and mist creeps, + The whistle of a boat + Calls and cries unendingly, + Like some lost child + In tears and trouble + Hunting the harbour's breast + And the harbour's eyes. + +He has a notable gift for effective poetic figures of speech; in his +_Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard_, an old pond in the moonlight +is a "wide dreaming pansy." This and other pieces show true power of +poetic interpretation; which makes me believe that the author ought to +and will greatly surpass the average excellence exhibited in +_Chicago Poems_. + +John Curtis Underwood is not only a dynamic, but an insurgent poet and +critic. He has published four volumes of poems, _The Iron Muse_ +(1910), _Americans_ (1912), _Processionals_ (1915), and +_War Flames_ (1917). The roar of city streets and the deafening +pounding of machinery resound through his pages; yet he somehow or +other makes a singing voice heard amid the din. In fact he uses the +din as an accompaniment; he is a kind of vocal Tubal Cain. He writes +about strap-hangers, chorus girls, moving pictures, convicts, +hospitals, bridge-builders and construction gangs--a symphony of +noise, where everybody plays some instrument. He is no pessimist and +he is not sour; there are a good many "damns" and "hells" in his +verse, because, whatever he lacks, he does not lack emphasis. His +philosophy seems to be similar to that of the last two stanzas of +_In Memoriam_, though Mr. Underwood expresses it somewhat more +concretely. + + Leading the long procession through the midnight, + Man that was ether, fire, sea, germ and ape, + Out of the aeons blind of slime emerging, + Out of the aeons black where ill went groping, + Finding the fire, was fused to human shape. + + Heading the dreary marches through dark ages; + Where the rest perished that the rest might be, + Out of the aeons raw and red of bloodshed, + Man that was caveman, found the stars. Forever + Man to the stars goes marching from the sea. + +His poem _Central_, in which the telephone girl's work is +interpreted, is as typical as any of Mr. Underwood's style; and no +one, I think, can fail to see the merit in his method. + + Though men may build their bridges high and plant their piers + below the sea, + And drive their trains across the sky; a higher task is left to + me. + I bridge the void 'twixt soul and soul; I bring the longing + lovers near. + I draw you to your spirit's goal. I serve the ends of fraud + and fear. + + The older fates sat in the sun. The cords they spun were + short and slight. + I set my stitches one by one, where life electric fetters night, + Till it outstrips the planet's speed, and out of darkness leaps + to day; + And men in Maine shall hear and heed a voice from San + Francisco Bay. + +There is such a display of cynical cleverness in the verse of T. S. +Eliot that I think he might be able to write almost anything except +poetry. He has an aggressive champion in the distinguished novelist, +May Sinclair, who says his best work is equal to the best of Robert +Browning. + +John G. Neihardt was born in Illinois on the eighth of January, 1881. +From 1901 to 1907 he lived among the Nebraska Indians, studying their +folklore and characteristics. He has published a number of books, of +which the best is perhaps _A Bundle of Myrrh_, 1907. In 1915 he +produced an epic of the American Fur Trade, preparing himself for the +task as follows: "I descended the Missouri in an open boat, and also +ascended the Yellowstone for a considerable distance. On the upper +river the country was practically unchanged; and for one familiar with +what had taken place there, it was no difficult feat of the +imagination to revive the details of that time--the men, the trails, +the boats, the trading posts where veritable satraps once ruled under +the sway of the American Fur Company." + +I heartily envy him these experiences; to me every river is an +adventure, even the quiet, serious old Connecticut. + +Yet the poem that resulted from these visions is not remarkable. +Nothing, I suppose, is more difficult than to write a good long poem. +Poe disapproved of the undertaking in itself; and only men of +undoubted genius have succeeded, whereas writers of hardly more than +ordinary talent have occasionally turned off something combining +brevity and excellence. I feel sure that Mr. Neihardt talks about this +journey more impressively than he writes about it. His love lyrics, in +_A Bundle of Myrrh_, are much better. The tendency to eroticism +is redeemed by sincerity of feeling. + +Charles Wharton Stork was born at Philadelphia, on the twelfth of +February, 1881, and studied at Haverford, Harvard, and the University +of Pennsylvania. He is a scholar, a member of the English Faculty of +the University of Pennsylvania, and has made many translations of +Scandinavian poems. Always interested in modern developments of +poetry, both in America and Europe, he is at present the editor of +_Contemporary Verse_, a monthly magazine exclusively made up of +original poems. This periodical has been of considerable assistance to +students of contemporary poetry, for it has given an opportunity to +hitherto unknown writers, and often it contains some notable +contribution from men of established reputation. Thus the number for +April, 1918, may some day have bibliographical value, since it leads +off with a remarkable poem by Vachel Lindsay, _The Eyes of Queen +Esther_. I advise collectors to secure this, and to subscribe to +the magazine. Mr. Stork has written much verse himself, of which +_Flying Fish: an Ode_, may be taken as illustrative of his +originality and imagination. + +Another excellent magazine of contemporary poetry is _The +Sonnet_, edited and published by Mahlon Leonard Fisher, at +Williamsport, Pennsylvania, of which the first number bears the date +February, 1917. This appears bimonthly; and while the attempt to +publish any magazine whatever displays courage, Mr. Fisher is +apparently on the side of the conservatives in art. "We have attempted +no propagandism, and acknowledged no revolution," is the sentence that +forms the signature to his periodical. Furthermore, we are informed +that "the sole aim of _The Sonnet_ is to publish poetry so well +thought of by its makers that they were willing to place it within +strict confines. The magazine will have nothing to say in defence of +its name. It will neither attack nor respond to attacks." It has +certainly printed some good sonnets, among which are many by the +editor. In 1917 appeared a beautiful little volume, limited to two +hundred copies, and published by the author--_Sonnets: a First +Series_. Fifty specimens are included, all written by Mr. Fisher. +More than a few have grace and truth. + +A new aspirant appeared in 1917 with his first volume, _Streets and +Faces_. This is Scudder Middleton, brother of George Middleton, the +dramatist. He was born at New York, on the ninth of September, 1888, +and studied at Columbia. His little book of poetry contains nothing +profound, yet there is evidence of undoubted talent which gives me +hope. The best poem of his that I have seen was published in +_Contemporary Verse_ in 1917, and makes a fine recessional to Mr. +Braithwaite's Anthology. + + THE POETS + + We need you now, strong guardians of our hearts, + Now, when a darkness lies on sea and land, + When we of weakening faith forget our parts + And bow before the falling of the sand. + Be with us now or we betray our trust + And say, "There is no wisdom but in death"-- + Remembering lovely eyes now closed with dust-- + "There is no beauty that outlasts the breath." + For we are growing blind and cannot see, + Beyond the clouds that stand like prison bars, + The changeless regions of our empery, + Where once we moved in friendship with the stars. + O children of the light, now in our grief + Give us again the solace of belief. + +A young Princeton student, John Peale Bishop, First Lieutenant of +Infantry in the Officers Reserve Corps, who studied the art of verse +under the instruction of Alfred Noyes, published in 1917 a little book +of original poems, with the modest title, _Green Fruit_. These +were mostly written during his last undergraduate year at college, and +would not perhaps have been printed now had he not entered the +service. The subjects range from the Princeton Inn to Italy. Mr. +Bishop is a clear-voiced singer, and there are original songs here, +which owe nothing to other poets. Such a poem as _Mushrooms_ is +convincing proof of ability; and there is an excellent spirit in him. + +William Aspenwall Bradley was born at Hartford, Connecticut, on the +eighth of February, 1878. He was a special student at Harvard, and +took his bachelor's and master's degrees at Columbia. He is now in the +Government War Service. He wrote an admirable _Life of Bryant_ in +the English Men of Letters series, and has made many scholarly +contributions to the literature of criticism. He has issued two +volumes of original verse, of which perhaps the better known is _Old +Christmas_, 1917. This is composed of tales of the Cumberland +region in Kentucky. These poem-stories are not only full of dramatic +power, comic and tragic, but they contain striking portraits. I think, +however, that I like best Mr. Bradley's nature-pictures. The pleasure +of recognition will be felt by everyone who reads the first few lines +of + + AUTUMN + + Now shorter grow November days, + And leaden ponds begin to glaze + With their first ice, while every night + The hoarfrost leaves the meadows white + Like wimples spread upon the lawn + By maidens who are up at dawn, + And sparkling diamonds may be seen + Strewing the close-clipped golfing green. + But the slow sun dispels at noon + The season's work begun too soon, + Bidding faint filmy mists arise + And fold in softest draperies + The distant woodlands bleak and bare, + Until they seem to melt in air. + +William Griffiths was born at Memphis, Missouri, on the fifteenth of +February 1876, and received his education at the public schools. He +has been a "newspaper man" and magazine editor, and has produced a +number of books in verse and prose, of which the best example is +_City Pastorals_, originally published in 1915, revised and +reissued in 1918. The title of this book appears to be a paradox; but +its significance is clear enough after one has read a few pages. It is +an original and interesting way of bringing the breath of the country +into the town. The scene is a New York Club on a side street; the year +is 1914; the three speakers are Brown, Gray, Green; the four divisions +are Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. The style is for the most part +rimed stanzas in short metre, which go trippingly on the tongue. Grace +and delicacy characterize the pictures of the country that the men +bring back to the smoky city from their travels. + + Occultly through a riven cloud + The ancient river shines again, + Still wandering like a silver road + Among the cities in the plain. + + On far horizons softly lean + The hills against the coming night; + And mantled with a russet green, + The orchards gather into sight. + + Through apples hanging high and low, + In ruddy colours, deeply spread + From core to rind, the sun melts slow, + With gold upcaught against the red. + + And here and there, with sighs and calls, + Among the hills an echo rings + Remotely as the water falls + And down the meadow softly sings. + + A wind goes by; the air is stirred + With secret whispers far and near; + Another token--just a word + Had made the rose's meaning clear. + + I see the fields; I catch the scent + Of pine cones and the fresh split wood, + Where bearded moss and stains are blent + With autumn rains--and all is good. + + An air, arising, turns and lifts + The fallen leaves where they had lain + Beneath the trees, then weakly shifts + And slowly settles back again. + + While with far shouts, now homeward bound, + Across the fields the reapers go; + And, with the darkness closing round, + The lilies of the twilight blow. + +Many of the other poems in this volume, that follow the _City +Pastorals_, are interpretations of various individuals and of +various nationalities. Mr. Griffith has a gift for the making of +epigrams; and indeed he has studied concision in all his work. It may +be that this is a result of his long years of training in journalism; +he must have silently implored the writers of manuscripts he was forced +to read to leave their damnable faces and begin. Certain it is, that +although he can write smoothly flowing music, there is hardly a page in +his whole book that does not contain some idea worth thinking about. +His wine of Cyprus has both body and bouquet. + +Three professional teachers of youth who write poetry as an avocation +are John Erskine, professor at Columbia, whose poems bear the impress +of an original and powerful personality, William Ellery Leonard, +professor in the University of Wisconsin, the author of a number of +volumes of poems, some of which show originality in conception and +style, and William Thornton Whitsett, of Whitsett Institute, Whitsett, +North Carolina, whose book _Saber and Song_ (1917), exhibits such +variations in merit that if one read only a few pages one might be +completely deceived as to the author's actual ability. His besetting +sin as an artist is moralizing. Fully half the contents of the volume +are uninspired, commonplace, flat. But when he forgets to preach, he +can write true poetry. He has the lyrical gift to a high degree, and +has a rather remarkable command of the technique of the art. _An Ode +to Expression, The Soul of the Sea_, and some of the _Sonnets_, +fully justify their publication. The author is rather too fond of the +old "poetic diction"; he might do well to study simplicity. + +A poet who differs from the two last mentioned in her ability to +maintain a certain level of excellence is Helen Hay Whitney. She +perhaps inherited her almost infallible good taste and literary tact +from her distinguished father, that wholly admirable person, John Hay. +His greatness as an international statesman was matched by the +extraordinary charm of his character, which expressed itself in +everything he wrote, and in numberless acts of kindness. He was the +ideal American gentleman. One feels in reading the poems of Mrs. +Whitney that each one is written both creatively and critically. I +mean that she has the primal impulse to write, but that in writing, and +more especially in revising, every line is submitted to her own severe +scrutiny. I am not sure that she has not destroyed some of her best +work, though this is of course only conjecture. At all events, while +she makes no mistakes, I sometimes feel that there is too much +repression. She is one of our best American sonnet-writers. Such a poem +as _After Rain_ is a work of art. + +Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (Mrs. Douglas Robinson, sister of Theodore +Roosevelt) has published two volumes of poems, _The Call of +Brotherhood_, 1912, and _One Woman to Another_, 1914. I hope +that she will speedily collect in a third book the fugitive pieces +printed in various magazines since 1914. Mrs. Robinson's poetry comes +from a full mind and a full heart. There is the knowledge born of +experience combined with spiritual revelation. She is an excellent +illustration of the possibility of living to the uttermost in the +crowded avenues of the world without any loss of religious or moral +values. It must take a strong nature to absorb so much of the strenuous +activities of metropolitan society while keeping the heart's sources as +clear as a mountain spring. It is the exact opposite of asceticism, yet +seems not to lose anything important gained by the ascetic vocation. She +does not serve God and Mammon: she serves God, and makes Mammon serve +her. This complete roundness and richness of development could not have +been accomplished except through pain. She expresses grief's +contribution in the following sonnet: + + Beloved, from the hour that you were born + I loved you with the love whose birth is pain; + And now, that I have lost you, I must mourn + With mortal anguish, born of love again; + And so I know that Love and Pain are one, + Yet not one single joy would I forego.-- + The very radiance of the tropic sun + Makes the dark night but darker here below. + Mine is no coward soul to count the cost; + The coin of love with lavish hand I spend, + And though the sunlight of my life is lost + And I must walk in shadow to the end,-- + I gladly press the cross against my heart-- + And welcome Pain, that is Love's counterpart! + +Meredith Nicholson, the American novelist, like Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. +Phillpotts and many other novelists in England, has published a volume +of original verse, _Poems_, 1906. It is possibly a sign of the +growing interest in poetry that so many who have won distinction in +prose should in these latter days strive for the laurel crown. Mr. +Nicholson's poems are a kind of riming journal of his heart. It is +clear that he is not a born poet, for the flame of inspiration is not +in these pages, nor do we find the perfect phrase or ravishing music; +what we do have is well worth preservation in print--the manly, +dignified, imaginative speculations of a clear and honest mind. +Furthermore, although he writes verse with his left hand, there is +displayed in many of these pieces a mastery of the exact meaning of +words, attained possibly by his long years of training in the other +harmony of prose. + +Witter Bynner--the spelling of whose name I defy any one to remember, +and envelopes addressed to him must be a collection of +curiosities--was born at Brooklyn on the tenth of August, 1881. He was +graduated from Harvard in 1902, and addressed his _Alma Mater_ in +an _Ode To Harvard_, published in book form in 1907. In 1917 he +collected in one attractive volume, _Grenstone Poems_, the best +of his production--exclusive of his plays and prose--up to that date. +One who knew Mr. Bynner only by the terrific white slave drama +_Tiger_, would be quite unprepared for the sylvan sweetness of +the Grenstone poems. Their environment, mainly rural, does not +localize the sentiment overmuch; for the poet's mind is a kingdom, +even though he is bounded in a nutshell. The environment, however, may +be partly responsible for the spirit of healthy cheerfulness that +animates these verses; whatever they lack, they certainly do not lack +purity and charm. Far from the madding crowd the singer finds +contentment, which is the keynote of these songs; happiness built on +firm indestructible foundations. Some of the divisional titles +indicate the range of subjects: _Neighbors and the Countryside, +Children and Death, Wisdom and Unwisdom, Celia, Away from +Grenstone_, where homesickness is expressed while travelling in the +Far East. And the tone is clearly sounded in + + A GRACE BEFORE THE POEMS + + "Is there such a place as Grenstone?" + Celia, hear them ask! + Tell me, shall we share it with them?-- + Shall we let them breathe and bask + + On the windy, sunny pasture, + Where the hill-top turns its face + Toward the valley of the mountain, + Our beloved place? + + Shall we show them through our churchyard, + With its crumbling wall + Set between the dead and living? + Shall our willowed waterfall, + + Huckleberries, pines and bluebirds + Be a secret we shall share?-- + If they make but little of it, + Celia, shall we care? + +It will be seen that the independence of Mr. Bynner is quite different +from the independence of Mr. Underwood; but they both have the secret +of self-sufficiency. + +Another loyal Harvard poet is Herman Hagedorn, who was born at New +York in 1882, and took his degree at college in 1907. For some time he +was on the English Faculty at Harvard, and has a scholar's knowledge +of English literature. He has published plays and books of verse, of +which the best known are _A Troop of the Guard_ (1909) and +_Poems and Ballads_, which appeared the same year. He has a good +command of lyrical expression, which ought to enable him in the years +to come to produce work of richer content than his verses have thus +far shown. + +The best known of the Harvard poets of the twentieth century is Percy +Mackaye, who is still better known as a playwright and maker of +pageants. He was born at New York, on the sixteenth of March, 1875, +and was graduated from Harvard in 1897. He has travelled much in +Europe, and has given many lectures on dramatic art in America. His +poetry may be collectively studied in one volume of appalling +avoirdupois, published in 1916. It takes a strong wrist to hold it, +but it is worth the effort. + +The chief difficulty with Mr. Mackaye is his inability to escape from +his opinions. He is far too self-conscious, much too much preoccupied +with theory, both in drama and in poetry. He can write nothing without +explaining his motive, without trying to show himself and others the +aim of poetry and drama. However morally noble all this may be--and it +surely is that--it hampers the author. I wish he could for once +completely forget all artistic propaganda, completely forget himself, +and give his Muse a chance. "She needs no introduction to this +audience." + +There is no doubt that he has something of the divine gift. His +_Centenary Ode on Lincoln_, published separately in 1909, was the +best out of all the immense number of effusions I read that year. He +rose to a great occasion. + +One of his most original pieces is the dog-vivisection poem, called +_The Heart in the Jar_. There is a tumultuous passion in it +almost overpowering; and no one but a true poet could ever have +thought of or have employed such symbolism. Mr. Mackaye's mind is so +alert, so inquisitive, so volcanic, that he seems to me always just +about to produce something that shall surpass his previous efforts. I +have certainly not lost faith in his future. + +John Gould Fletcher was born at Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1886. He +studied at Andover and at Harvard, and has lived much in London. He +has become identified with the Imagists. Personally I wish that Mr. +Fletcher would use his remarkable power to create gorgeous imagery in +the production of orthodox forms of verse. Free verse ought to be less +monotonous than constantly repeated sonnets, quatrains, and +stanza-forms; but the fact is just the other way. A volume made up +entirely of free verse, unless written by a man of genius, has a +capacity to bore the reader that at times seems almost criminal. + +Conrad Aiken was born at Savannah, Georgia, on the fifth of August, +1889, is a graduate of Harvard and lives in Boston. He has published +several volumes of poems, among which _Earth Triumphant_ (1914) +is representative of his ability and philosophy. It certainly +represents his ability more fairly than _The Jig of Forslin_ +(1916), which is both pretentious and dull. I suspect few persons have +read every page of it. I have. + +Not yet thirty, Mr. Aiken is widely known; but the duration of his +fame will depend upon his future work. He has thus far shown the power +to write melodious music, to paint nature pictures in warm colours; he +is ever on the quest of Beauty. His sensible preface to _Earth +Triumphant_ calls attention to certain similarities between his +style in verse-narrative and that of John Masefield. But he is not a +copier, and his work is his own. Some poets are on the earth; some are +in the air; some, like Shelley, are in the aether. Conrad Aiken is +firmly, gladly on the earth. He believes that our only paradise is +here and now. + +He surely has the gift of singing speech, but his poetry lacks +intellectual content. In the volume _Nocturne of Remembered +Spring_ (1917), there is a dreamy charm, like the hesitating notes +of Chopin. + +Although his contribution to the advance of poetry is not important, +he has the equipment of a poet. When he has more to say, he will have +no difficulty in making us listen; for he understands the magic of +words. Thus far his poems are something like librettos; they don't +mean much without the music. Let him remember the bitter cry of old +Henry Vaughan: every artist, racked by labour-pains, will understand +what Vaughan meant by calling this piece _Anguish_: + + O! 'tis an easy thing + To write and sing; + But to write true, unfeigned verse + Is very hard! O God, disperse + These weights, and give my spirit leave + To act as well as to conceive + +Among our young American poets there are few who have inherited in +richer or purer measure than William Alexander Percy. He was born at +Greenville, Mississippi, on the fourth of May, 1885, and studied at +the University of the South and at the Harvard Law School. He is now +in military service. In 1915, his volume of poems, _Sappho in +Leukas_, attracted immediately the attention of discriminating +critics. The prologue shows that noble devotion to art, that high +faith in it, entirely beyond the understanding of the Philistine, but +which awakens an instant and accurate vibration in the heart of every +lover of poetry. + + O singing heart, think not of aught save song; + Beauty can do no wrong. + Let but th' inviolable music shake + Golden on golden flake, + Down to the human throng, + And one, one surely, will look up, and hear and wake. + + Weigh not the rapture; measure not nor sift + God's dark, delirious gift; + But deaf to immortality or gain, + Give as the shining rain, + Thy music pure and swift, + And here or there, sometime, somewhere, 'twill reach the grain. + +There is a wide range of subjects in this volume, Greek, mediaeval, +and modern--inspiration from, books and inspiration from outdoors. +But there is not a single poem that could be called crude or flat. +Mr. Percy is a poet and an artist; he can be ornate and he can be +severe; but in both phases there is a dignity not always +characteristic of contemporary verse. I do not prophesy--but I feel +certain of this man. + +One day in 1917, I clipped a nameless poem from a daily newspaper, and +carried it in my pocketbook for months. Later I discovered that it +was written by Mr. Percy, and had first appeared in _The +Bellman_. I know of no poem by any American published in the year +1917 that for combined beauty of thought and beauty of expression is +superior to this little masterpiece. + + OVERTONES + + I heard a bird at break of day + Sing from the autumn trees + A song so mystical and calm, + So full of certainties, + No man, I think, could listen long + Except upon his knees. + Yet this was but a simple bird, + Alone, among dead trees. + +Alan Seeger--whose heroic death glorified his youth--was born at New +York on the twenty-second of June, 1888. He studied at Harvard; then +lived in Paris, and no one has ever loved Paris more than he. He +enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France at the outbreak of the war in +1914, and fell on the fourth of July, 1916. His letters show his mind +and heart clearly. + +He knew his poetry was good, and that it would not die with his body. +In the last letter he wrote, we find these words: "I will write you +soon if I get through all right. If not, my only earthly care is for +my poems. Add the ode I sent you and the three sonnets to my last +volume and you will have _opera omnia quae existant_." + +He wrote his autobiography in one of his last sonnets, paying poetic +tribute to Philip Sidney--lover of woman, lover of battle, lover of +art. + + Sidney, in whom the heydey of romance + Came to its precious and most perfect flower, + Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance + Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower, + I give myself some credit for the way + I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers, + Shunned the ideals of our present day + And studied those that were esteemed in yours; + For, turning from the mob that buys Success + By sacrificing all life's better part, + Down the free roads of human happiness + I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart, + And lived in strict devotion all along + To my three idols--Love and Arms and Song. + +His most famous poem, _I Have a Rendezvous with Death_, is almost +intolerably painful in its tragic beauty, in its contrast between the +darkness of the unchanging shadow and the apple-blossoms of the sunny +air--above all, because we read it after both Youth and Death have +kept their word, and met at the place appointed. + +He was an inspired poet. Poetry came from him as naturally as rain +from clouds. His magnificent _Ode in Memory of the American +Volunteers Fallen in France_ has a nobility of phrase that matches +the elevation of thought. Work like this cannot be forgotten. + +Alan Seeger was an Elizabethan. He had a consuming passion for +beauty--his only religion. He loved women and he loved war, like the +gallant, picturesque old soldiers of fortune. There was no pose in all +this; his was a brave, uncalculating, forthright nature, that gave +everything he had and was, without a shade of fear or a shade of +regret. He is one of the most fiery spirits of our time, and like +Rupert Brooke, he will be thought of as immortally young. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A GROUP OF YALE POETS + + + Henry A. Beers--the fine quality of his literary style in + prose and verse--force and grace--finished art--his humour--C. + M. Lewis--his war poem--E. B. Reed--_Lyra Yalensis_--F. + E. Pierce--his farm lyrics--Brian Hooker--his strong + sonnets--his _Turns_--R. C. Rogers--_The + Rosary_--Rupert Hughes--novelist, playwright, musician, + poet--Robert Hunger--his singing--R. B. Glaenzer--his + fancies--Benjamin R. C. Low--his growth--William R. Benét--his + vitality and optimism--Arthur Colton--his Chaucer poem--Allan + Updegraff--_The Time and the Place_--Lee Wilson Dodd--his + development--a list of other Yale Poets--Stephen V. Benét. + +During the twentieth century there has been flowing a fountain of +verse from the faculty, young alumni, and undergraduates of Yale +University; and I reserve this space at the end of my hook for a +consideration of the Yale group of poets, some of whom are already +widely known and some of whom seem destined to be. I am not thinking +of magazine verse or of fugitive pieces, but only of independent +volumes of original poems. Yale has always been close to the national +life of America; and the recent outburst of poetry from her sons is +simply additional evidence of the renaissance all over the United +States. Anyhow, the fact is worth recording. + +Professor Henry A. Beers was born at Buffalo on the second of July, +1847. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1870, but in 1871 became +an Instructor in English Literature at Yale, teaching continuously for +forty-five years, when he retired. He has written--at too rare +intervals--all his life. His book of short stories, containing _A +Suburban Pastoral_ and _Split Zephyr_, the last-named being, +according to Meredith Nicholson, the best story of college life ever +printed, would possibly have attracted more general attention were it +not for its prevailing tone of quiet, unobtrusive pessimism, an +unwelcome note in America. I am as sure of the high quality of _A +Suburban Pastoral_ as I am sure of anything; and have never found a +critic who, after reading the tale, disagreed with me. In 1885 +Professor Beers published a little volume of poems, _The Thankless +Muse_; and in 1917 he collected in a thin book _The Two +Twilights_, the best of his youthful and mature poetic production. +The variety of expression is so great that no two poems are in the +same mood. In _Love, Death, and Life_ we have one of the most +passionate love-poems in American literature; in _The Pasture +Bars_ the valediction has the soft, pure tone of a silver bell. + +Professor Beers has both vigour and grace. His fastidious taste +permits him to write little, and to print only a small part of what he +writes. But the force of his poetic language is so extraordinary that +it has sometimes led to a complete and unfortunate misinterpretation +of his work. In _The Dying Pantheist to the Priest_, he wrote a +poem as purely dramatic, as non-personal, as the monologues of +Browning; he quite successfully represented the attitude of an +(imaginary) defiant, unrepentant pagan to an (imaginary) priest who +wished to save him in his last moments. The speeches put into the +mouth of the pantheist no more represent Mr. Beers's own sentiments +than Browning's poem _Confessions_ represented Browning's +attitude toward death and religion; yet it is perhaps a tribute to the +fervour of the lyric that many readers have taken it as a violent +attack on Christian theology. + +Just as I am certain of the finished art of _A Suburban +Pastoral,_ I am equally certain of the beauty and nobility of the +poetry in _The Two Twilights._ This volume gives its author an +earned place in the front rank of living American poets. + +To me one of the most original and charming of the songs is the +valediction to New York--and the homage to New Haven. + + NUNC DIMITTIS + + Highlands of Navesink, + By the blue ocean's brink, + Let your grey bases drink + Deep of the sea. + Tide that comes flooding up, + Fill me a stirrup cup, + Pledge me a parting sup, + Now I go free. + + Wall of the Palisades, + I know where greener glades, + Deeper glens, darker shades, + Hemlock and pine, + Far toward the morning lie + Under a bluer sky, + Lifted by cliffs as high, + Haunts that are mine. + + Marshes of Hackensack, + See, I am going back + Where the Quinnipiac + Winds to the bay, + Down its long meadow track, + Piled in the myriad stack, + Where in wide bivouac + Camps the salt hay. + + Spire of old Trinity, + Never again to be + Seamark and goal to me + As I walk down; + Chimes on the upper air, + Calling in vain to prayer, + Squandering your music where + Roars the black town: + + Bless me once ere I ride + Off to God's countryside, + Where in the treetops hide + Belfry and bell; + Tongues of the steeple towers, + Telling the slow-paced hours-- + Hail, thou still town of ours-- + Bedlam, farewell! + +Those who are familiar with Professor Beers's humour, as expressed in +_The Ways of Yale,_ will wish that he had preserved also in this +later book some of his whimsicalities, as in the poem _A Fish +Story,_ which begins: + + A whale of great porosity, + And small specific gravity, + Dived down with much velocity + Beneath the sea's concavity. + + But soon the weight of water + Squeezed in his fat immensity, + Which varied--as it ought to-- + Inversely as his density. + +Professor Charlton M. Lewis was born at Brooklyn on the fourth of +March, 1866. He took his B.A. at Yale in 1886, and an LL.B at Columbia +in 1889. For some years he was a practising lawyer in New York; in +1895 he became a member of the Yale Faculty. In 1903 he published +_Gawayne and the Green Knight_, a long poem, in which humour and +imagination are delightfully mingled. His lyric _Pro Patria_ +(1937) is a good illustration of his poetic powers; it is indeed one +of America's finest literary contributions to the war. + + PRO PATRIA + + Remember, as the flaming car + Of ruin nearer rolls, + That of our country's substance are + Our bodies and our souls. + + Her dust we are, and to her dust + Our ashes shall descend: + Who craves a lineage more august + Or a diviner end? + + By blessing of her fruitful dews, + Her suns and winds and rains, + We have her granite in our thews, + Her iron in our veins. + + And, sleeping in her sacred earth, + The ever-living dead + On the dark miracle of birth + Their holy influence shed.... + + So, in the faith our fathers kept, + We live, and long to die; + To sleep forever, as they have slept, + Under a sunlit sky; + + Close-folded to our mother's heart + To find our souls' release-- + A secret coeternal part + Of her eternal peace;-- + + Where Hood, Saint Helen's and Rainier, + In vestal raiment, keep + Inviolate through the varying year + Their immemorial sleep; + + Or where the meadow-lark, in coy + But calm profusion, pours + The liquid fragments of his joy + On old colonial shores. + +Professor Edward B. Reed, B.A. 1894, published in 1913 a tiny volume +of academic verse, called _Lyra Yalensis_. This contains happily +humorous comment on college life and college customs, and as the +entire edition was almost immediately sold, the book has already +become something of a rarity. In 1917, he collected the best of his +more ambitious work in _Sea Moods_, of which one of the most +impressive is + + THE DAWN + + He shook his head as he turned away-- + "Is it life or death?" "We shall know by day." + Out from the wards where the sick folk lie, + Out neath the black and bitter sky. + Past one o'clock and the wind is chill, + The snow-clad streets are ghostly still; + No friendly noise, no cheering light, + So calm the city sleeps to-night, + I think its soul has taken flight. + + Back to the empty home--a thrill, + A shudder at its darkened sill, + For the clock chimes as on that morn, + That happy day when she was born. + And now, inexorably slow, + To life or death the hours go. + Time's wings are clipped; he scarce doth creep. + Tonight no drug could bring you sleep; + Watch at the window for the day; + 'Tis all that's left--to watch and pray. + But I think the prayer of an anguished heart + Must pierce that bleak sky like a dart, + And tear that pall of clouds apart. + + The poplars, edging the frozen lawn, + Shudder and whisper: "Wait till dawn." + + Two spirits stand beside her bed + Softly stroking her curly head. + Death whispers, "Come"--Life whispers, "Stay." + Child, little child, go not away. + Life pleads, "Remember"--and Death, "Forget." + Little child, little child, go not yet. + By all your mother's love and pain, + Child of our heart, child of our brain, + Stay with us; go not till you see + The Fairyland that life can be. + . . . . . . . . + The poplars, edging the frozen lawn, + Are dancing and singing. "Thank God--the Dawn!" + +Professor Frederick E. Pierce, B.A. 1904, has produced three volumes +of poems, of which _The World that God Destroyed_ exhibits an +epic sweep of the imagination. He imagines a world far off in space, +where every form of life has perished save rank vegetation. One day in +their wanderings over the universe, Lucifer and Michael meet on this +dead ball. A truce is declared and each expresses some of the wisdom +bought by experience. + + The upas dripped its poison on the ground + Harmless; the silvery veil of fog went up + From mouldering fen and cold, malarial pool, + But brought no taint and threatened ill to none. + Far off adown the mountain's craggy side + From time to time the avalanche thundered, sounding + Like sport of giant children, and the rocks + Whereon it smote re-echoed innocently. + Then in a pause of silence Lucifer + Struck music from the harp again and sang. + + "I am the shadow that the sunbeams bring, + I am the thorn from which the roses spring; + Without the thorn would be no blossoming, + Nor were there shadow if there were no gleam. + I am a leaf before a wind that blows, + I am the foam that down the current goes; + I work a work on earth that no man knows, + And God Works too,--I am not what I seem. + + "There comes a purer morn whose stainless glow + Shall cast no shadow on the ground below, + And fairer flowers without the thorn shall blow, + And earth at last fulfil her parent's dream. + Oh race of men who sin and know not why, + I am as you and you are even as I; + We all shall die at length and gladly die; + Yet even our deaths shall be not what they seem." + +Then Michael raised the golden lyre, and struck A note more solemn +soft, and made reply. + + "There dwelt a doubt within my mind of yore; + I sought to end that doubt and laboured sore; + But now I search its mystery no more, + But leave it safe within the Eternal's hand. + The tiger hunts the lamb and yearns to kill, + Himself by famine hunted, fiercer still; + And much there is that seems unmingled ill; + But God is wise, and God can understand. + + "All things on earth in endless balance sway; + Day follows night and night succeeds the day; + And so the powers of good and evil may + Work out the purpose that his wisdom planned. + Eternal day would parch the dewy mould, + Eternal night would freeze the lands with cold; + But wise was God who planned the world of old; + I rest in Him for He can understand. + + "Yet good and evil still their wills oppose; + And serving both, we still must serve as foes + On yon far globe that teems with human woes; + And sin thou art, though God work through thy hand. + But here the race of man is now no more; + The task is done, the long day's work is o'er; + One hour I'll dream thee what thou wert of yore, + Though changed thou art, too changed to understand." + + All day sat Michael there with Lucifer + Talking of things unknown to men, old tales + And memories dating back beyond all time. + And all night long beneath the lonely stars, + That watched no more the sins of man, they lay, + The angel's lofty face at rest against + The dark cheek scarred with thunder. + Morning came, + And each departed on his separate way; + But each looked back and lingered as he passed. + +Some of his best work, however, appears in short pieces that might +best be described as lyrics of the farm, or, to use a title discarded +by Tennyson, _Idylls of the Hearth_. Mr. Pierce knows the lonely +farm-houses of New England, both by inheritance and habitation, and is +a true interpreter of the spirit of rural life. + +One of the best-known of the group of Yale poets is Brian Hooker, who +was graduated from Yale in 1902, and for some years was a member of +the Faculty. His _Poems_ (1915) are an important addition to +contemporary literature. He is a master of the sonnet-form, as any one +may see for himself in reading + + GHOSTS + + The dead return to us continually; + Not at the void of night, as fables feign, + In some lone spot where murdered bones have lain + Wailing for vengeance to the passer-by; + But in the merry clamour and full cry + Of the brave noon, our dead whom we have slain + And in forgotten graves hidden in vain, + Rise up and stand beside us terribly. + + Sick with the beauty of their dear decay + We conjure them with laughters onerous + And drunkenness of labour; yet not thus + May we absolve ourselves of yesterday-- + We cannot put those clinging arms away, + Nor those glad faces yearning over us. + +Mr. Hooker also includes in this volume a number of _Turns_, +which he describes as "a new fixed form: Seven lines, in any rhythm, +isometric and of not more than four feet; Rhyming AbacbcA, the first +line and the last a Refrain; the Idea (as the name suggests) to Turn +upon the recurrence of the Refrain at the end with a different sense +from that which it bears at the beginning." For example: + + MISERERE + + Ah, God, my strength again!-- + Not power, nor joy, but these: + The waking without pain, + The ardour for the task, + And in the evening, peace. + Is it so much to ask? + Ah, God, my strength again! + +American literature suffered a loss in the death of Robert Cameron +Rogers, of the class of 1883. His book of poems, called _The +Rosary_, appeared in 1906, containing the song by which naturally +he is best known. Set to music by the late Ethelbert Nevin, it had a +prodigious vogue, and inspired a sentimental British novel, whose +sales ran over a million copies. The success of this ditty ought not +to prejudice readers against the author of it; for he was more than a +sentimentalist, as his other pieces prove. + +Rupert Hughes is an all around literary athlete. He was born in +Missouri, on the thirty-first of January, 1872, studied at Western +Reserve and later at Yale, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1899. +He is of course best known as a novelist and playwright; his novel +_The Thirteenth Commandment_ (1916) and his play _Excuse Me_ +(1911) are among his most successful productions. His works in prose +fiction are conscientiously realistic and the finest of them are +accurate chronicles of metropolitan life; while his short stories, +_In a Little Town_ (1917) are, like those of William Allen White, +truthful both in their representation of village manners in the West, +and in their recognition of spiritual values. In view of the +"up-to-dateness" of Mr. Hughes's novels, it is rather curious that his +one long poem _Gyges' Ring_ (1901), which was written during his +student days at Yale, should be founded on Greek legend. Yet Mr. +Hughes has been a student of Greek all his life, and has made many +translations from the original. I do not care much for _Gyges' +Ring_; it is hammered out rather than created. But some of the +author's short poems, to which he has often composed his own musical +accompaniment, I find full of charm. Best of all, I think, is the +imaginative and delightful. + + WITH A FIRST READER + + Dear little child, this little book + Is less a primer than a key + To sunder gates where wonder waits + Your "Open Sesame!" + + These tiny syllables look large; + They'll fret your wide, bewildered eyes; + But "Is the cat upon the mat?" + Is passport to the skies. + + For, yet awhile, and you shall turn + From Mother Goose to Avon's swan; + From Mary's lamb to grim Khayyam, + And Mancha's mad-wise Don. + + You'll writhe at Jean Valjean's disgrace; + And D'Artagnan and Ivanhoe + Shall steal your sleep; and you shall weep + At Sidney Carton's woe. + + You'll find old Chaucer young once more, + Beaumont and Fletcher fierce with fire; + At your demand, John Milton's hand + Shall wake his ivory lyre. + + And learning other tongues, you'll learn + All times are one; all men, one race; + Hear Homer speak, as Greek to Greek; + See Dante, face to face. + + _Arma virumque_ shall resound; + And Horace wreathe his rhymes afresh; + You'll rediscover Laura's lover; + Meet Gretchen in the flesh. + + Oh, could I find for the first time + The _Churchyard Elegy_ again! + Retaste the sweets of new-found Keats; + Read Byron now as then! + + Make haste to wander these old roads, + O envied little parvenue; + For all things trite shall leap alight + And bloom again for you! + +Robert Munger, B.A., 1897, published in 1912 a volume called _The +Land of Lost Music_. He is a lyric poet. Melody seems as natural to +him as speech. + + There is a land uncharted of meadows and shimmering mountains, + Stiller than moonlight silence brooding and wan, + The land of long-wandering music and dead unmelodious fountains + Of singing that rose in the dreams of them that are gone. + + That rose in the dreams of the dead and that rise in the + dreams of the living, + Fleeting, bodiless songs that passed in the night, + Winging away on the moment of wonder their cadence was giving + Into the deeps of the valleys of stifled delight. + +Richard Butler Glaenzer, B.A. 1898, whose verses have frequently been +seen in various periodicals, collected them in _Beggar and King_, +1917. His poems cover a wide range of thought and feeling, but I like +him best when he is most whimsical, as in + + COMPARISONS + + Jupiter, lost to Vega's realm, + Lights his lamp from the sun-ship's helm: + Big as a thousand earths, and yet + Dimmed by the glow of a cigarette! + +Mr. Glaenzer has published a number of verse criticisms of +contemporary writers, which he calls _Snapshots_. These display +considerable penetration; perhaps the following is fairly +illustrative. + + CABLE + + To read your tales + Is like opening a cedar-box + Of ante-bellum days, + A box holding the crinoline and fan + + And the tortoise-shell diary + With flowers pressed between the leaves + Belonging to some languid _grande dame_ + Of Creole New Orleans. + +Benjamin R. C. Low, B.A. 1902, a practising lawyer, has published four +or five volumes of poems, including _The Sailor who has Sailed_ +(1911), _A Wand and Strings_ (1913) and _The House that Was_ +(1915). He is seen at his best in _These United States_, +dedicated to Alan Seeger, which appeared in the _Boston +Transcript_, 7 February, 1917. This is an original, vigorous work, +full of the unexpected, and yet seen to be true as soon as expressed. +His verses show a constantly increasing grasp of material, and I look +for finer things from his pen. + +Although Mr. Low seems to be instinctively a romantic poet, he is fond +of letting his imaginative sympathy play on common scenes in city +streets; as in _The Sandwich Man_. + + The lights of town are pallid yet + With winter afternoon; + The sullied streets are dank and wet, + The halted motors fume and fret, + The world turns homeward soon. + + There is no kindle in the sky, + No cheering sunset flame; + I have no help from passers-by,-- + They part, and give good-night; but I.... + Walk with another's name. + + I have no kith, nor kin, nor home + Wherein to turn to sleep; + No star-lamp sifts me through the gloam, + I am the driven, wastrel foam + On a subsiding deep. + + I do not toil for love, or fame, + Or hope of high reward; + My path too low for praise or blame, + I struggle on, each day the same, + My panoply--a board. + + Who gave me life I do not know, + Nor what that life should be, + Or why I live at all; I go, + A dead leaf shivering with snow, + Under a worn-out tree. + + The lights of town are blurred with mist, + And pale with afternoon,-- + Of gold they are, and amethyst: + Dull pain is creeping at my wrist.... + The world turns homeward soon. + +A poet of national reputation is William Rose Benét, who was graduated +in 1907. Mr. Benét came to Yale from Augusta, Georgia, and since his +graduation has been connected with the editorial staff of the +_Century Magazine_. At present he is away in service in France, +where his adventurous spirit is at home. He may have taken some of his +reputation with him, for he is sure to be a favourite over there; but +the fame he left behind him is steadily growing. The very splendour of +romance glows in his spacious poetry; he loves to let his imagination +run riot, as might be guessed merely by reading the names on his +books. To every one who has ever been touched by the love of a quest, +his title-pages will appeal: _The Great White Wall_, a tale of +"magic adventure, of war and death"; _Merchants from Cathay_ +(1913), _The Falconer of God_ (1914), _The Burglar of the +Zodiac_ (1917). His verses surge with vitality, as in _The Boast +of the Tides_. He is at his best in long, swinging, passionate +rhythms. Unfortunately in the same measures he is also at his worst. +His most potent temptation is the love of noise, which makes some of +his less artistic verse sound like organized cheering. + +But when he gets the right tune for the right words, he is +irresistible. There is no space here to quote such a rattling +ballad--like a frenzy of snare-drums--as _Merchants from Cathay_, +but it is not mere sound and fury, it is not swollen rhetoric, it is +an inspired poem. No one can read or hear it without being violently +aroused. Mr. Benét is a happy-hearted poet, singing with gusto of the +joy of life. + + ON EDWARD WEBBE, ENGLISH GUNNER + + He met the Danske pirates off Tuttee; + Saw the Chrim burn "Musko"; speaks with bated breath + Of his sale to the great Turk, when peril of death + Chained him to oar their galleys on the sea + Until, as gunner, in Persia they set him free + To fight their foes. Of Prester John he saith + Astounding things. But Queen Elizabeth + He worships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. + Quaint is the phrase, ingenuous the wit + Of this great childish seaman in Palestine, + Mocked home through Italy after his release + With threats of the Armada; and all of it + Warms me like firelight jewelling old wine + In some ghost inn hung with the golden fleece! + +Arthur Colton, B.A. 1890, is as quiet and reflective as Mr. Benét is +strenuous. Has any one ever better expressed the heart of Chaucer's +_Troilus and Criseyde_ than in these few words? + + A smile, of flowers, and fresh May, across + The dreamy, drifting face of old Romance; + The same reiterate tale of love and loss + And joy that trembles in the hands of chance; + And midst his rippling lines old Geoffrey stands, + Saying, "Pray for me when the tale is done, + Who see no more the flowers, nor the sun." + +Mr. Colton collected many of his poems in 1907, under the title +_Harps Hung Up in Babylon_. He had moved from New Haven to New +York. + +Allan Updegraff, who left college before taking his degree, a member +of the class of 1907, recently turned from verse to prose, and wrote +an admirable novel, _Second Youth_. He is, however, a true poet, +and any one might be proud to be the author of + + THE TIME AND THE PLACE + + Will you not come? The pines are gold with evening + And breathe their old-time fragrance by the sea; + You loved so well their spicy exhalation,-- + So smiled to smell it and old ocean's piquancy; + And those weird tales of winds and waves' relation-- + Could you forget? Will you not come to me? + + See, 'tis the time: the last long gleams are going, + The pine-spires darken, mists rise waveringly; + The gloaming brings the old familiar longing + To be re-crooned by twilight voices of the sea. + And just such tinted wavelets shoreward thronging-- + Could you forget things once so dear--and me? + + Whatever of the waves is ceaseless longing, + And of the twilight immortality: + The urge of some wild, inchoate aspiration + Akin to afterglow and stars and winds and sea: + This hour makes full and pours out in libation,-- + Could you forget? Will you not come to me? + + What golden galleons sailed into the sunset + Not to come home unto eternity: + What souls went outward hopeful of returning, + This time and tide might well call back across the sea. + Did we not dream so while old Wests were burning? + Could you forget such once-dear things--and me? + + From the dimmed sky and long grey waste of waters, + Lo, one lone sail on all the lonely sea + A moment blooms to whiteness like a lily, + As sudden fades, is gone, yet half-seems still to be; + And you,--though that last time so strange and stilly,-- + Though you are dead, will you not come to me? + +Lee Wilson Dodd, at present in service in France, was graduated in +1899, and for some years was engaged in the practice of the law. This +occupation he abandoned for literature in 1907. He is the author of +several successful plays, and has published two volumes of verse, +_The Modern Alchemist_ (1906) and _The Middle Miles_ (1915). +His growth in the intervening years will be apparent to any one who +compares the two books; there is in his best work a combination of +fancy and humour. He loves to write about New England gardens and +discovers beauty by the very simple process of opening his eyes at +home. The following poem is characteristically sincere: + + TO A NEO-PAGAN + + Your praise of Nero leaves me cold: + Poems of porphyry and of gold, + Palatial poems, chill my heart. + I gaze--I wonder--I depart. + Not to Byzantium would I roam + In quest of beauty, nor Babylon; + Nor do I seek Sahara's sun + To blind me to the hills of home. + Here am I native; here the skies + Burn not, the sea I know is grey; + Wanly the winter sunset dies. + Wanly comes day. + Yet on these hills and near this sea + Beauty has lifted eyes to me, + Unlustful eyes, clear eyes and kind; + While a clear voice chanted-- + _"They who find + "Me not beside their doorsteps, know + "Me never, know me never, though + "Seeking, seeking me, high and low, + "Forth on the far four winds they go!" + + Therefore your basalt, jade, and gems, + Your Saracenic silver, your + Nilotic gods, your diadems + To bind the brows of Queens, impure, + Perfidious, passionate, perfumed--these + Your petted, pagan stage-properties, + Seem but as toys of trifling worth. + For I have marked the naked earth + Beside my doorstep yield to the print + Of a long light foot, and flash with the glint + Of crocus-gold-- + Crocus-gold! + Crocus-gold no mill may mint + Save the Mill of God-- + The Mill of God! + The Mill of God with His angels in't! + +Other Yale poets are W. B. Arvine, 1903, whose book _Hang Up +Philosophy_ (1911), particularly excels in the interpretation of +natural scenery; Frederick M. Clapp, 1901, whose volume _On the +Overland_ (since republished in America) was in process of printing +in Bruges in 1914, when the Germans entered the old town, and smashed +among other things, the St. Catherine Press. Just fifteen copies of +Mr. Clapp's book had been struck off, of which I own one; Donald +Jacobus, 1908, whose _Poems_ (1914) are richly meditative; James +H. Wallis, 1906, who has joined the ranks of poets with _The +Testament of William Windune_ and _Other Poems_ (1917); +Leonard Bacon, 1909, who modestly called his book, published in the +year of his graduation, _The Scrannel Pipe_; Kenneth Band, 1914, +who produced two volumes of original verse while an undergraduate; +Archibald Mac Leish, 1915, whose _Tower of Ivory_, a collection +of lyrics, appeared in 1917; Elliot Griffis, a student in the School +of Music, who published in 1918 under an assumed name a volume called +_Rain in May_; and I may close this roll-call by remarking that +those who have seen his work have a staunch faith in the future of +Stephen Vincent Benét. He is a younger brother of William, and is at +present a Yale undergraduate. Mr. Benét was born at Bethlehem, +Pennsylvania, on the twenty-second of July, 1898. His home is at +Augusta, Georgia. Before entering college, and when he was seventeen, +he published his first volume of poems, _Five Men and Pompey_ +(1915). This was followed in 1917 by another book, _The Drug +Shop_. His best single production is the Cook prize poem, _The +Hemp_. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +_I Have a Rendezvous with Death_ + +The remarkably impressive and beautiful poem by Alan Seeger which +bears the above title naturally attracted universal attention. I had +supposed the idea originated with Stephen Crane, who, in his novel +_The Red Badge of Courage_, Chapter IX, has the following +paragraph: + + At last they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up, + they perceived that his face wore an expression telling that + he had at last found the place for which he had struggled. His + spare figure was erect; his bloody hands were quietly at his + side. He was waiting with patience for something that he had + come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They paused and + stood, expectant. + +But I am informed both by Professor F. N. Robinson of Harvard and by +Mr. Norreys Jephson O'Conor that the probable source of the title of +the poem is Irish. Professor Robinson writes me, "The Irish poem that +probably suggested to Seeger the title of his _Rendezvous_ is the +_Reicne Fothaid Canainne_ (Song of Fothad Canainne), published by +Kuno Meyer in his _Fianaigecht_ (Dublin, 1910), pp. 1-21. Seeger +read the piece at one of my Celtic Conferences, and was much impressed +by it. He got from it only his title and the fundamental figure of a +_rendezvous_ with Death, the Irish poem being wholly different +from his in general purport. Fothad Canainne makes a tryst with the +wife of Ailill Flann, but is slain in battle by Ailill on the day +before the night set for the meeting. Then the spirit of Fothad (or, +according to one version, his severed head) sings the _reicne_ to +the woman and declares (st. 3): 'It is blindness for one who makes a +tryst to set aside the tryst with death.'" + +Miss Amy Lowell, however, believes that Seeger got the idea from a +French poet. Wherever he got it, I believe that he made it his own, +for he used it supremely well, and it will always be associated with +him. + +At Harvard, Alan Seeger took the small and special course in Irish, +and showed enthusiasm for this branch of study. Wishing to find out +something about his undergraduate career, I wrote to a member of the +Faculty, and received the following reply: "Many persons found him +almost morbidly indifferent and unresponsive, and he seldom showed the +full measure of his powers.... I grew to have a strong liking for him +personally as well as a respect for his intellectual power. But I +should never have expected him to show the robustness of either mind +or body which we now know him to have possessed. He was frail and +sickly in appearance, and seemed to have a temperament in keeping with +his physique. It took a strong impulse to bring him out and disclose +his real capacity." + +There is no doubt that the war gave him this impulse, and that the +poem _I Have a Rendezvous with Death_ must be classed among the +literature directly produced by the great struggle. After four years, +I should put at the head of all the immense number of verses inspired +by the war John Masefield's _August 1914_, Alan Seeger's _I +Have a Rendezvous with Death_, and Rupert Brooke's _The +Soldier_; and of all the poems written by men actually fighting, I +should put Alan Seeger's first. + +While reading these proofs, the news comes of the death of a promising +young American poet, Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in our army, who fell in +France, August, 1918. He was born 6 December, 1866, was a graduate of +Rutgers and Columbia, and had published a number of poems. His supreme +sacrifice nobly closed a life filled with beauty in word and deed. + + + + +INDEX + + +[Only important references are given; the mere mention of names is +omitted.] + + +Abercrombie, D., +Adams, F. P., +"A. E." (G. W. Russell), + personality, + a sincere mystic, + assurance, + discovery of Stephens, + influence on Susan Mitchell, +Aiken, C., +Andrews, C. E., _From the Front_, +Arnold, M., poem on Wordsworth compared to Watson's, +Arvine, W. B., +Aumonier, S., quotation from, +Austin, A., + +Bacon, L., +Barker, G., production of _Dynasts_, + remark on Shaw, +Beers, H, A., +Benét, S. V., +Benét, W. R., +Bishop, J. P., +Blackwell, B. H., a publisher, +Bradley, W. A., +Braithwaite, W. S., his anthology, +Branch, A. H., a leader, + poems, + education, + passion, + contrasted with Masters, +Bridges, R., poet-laureate, + his verse, +Brooke, R., canonized, + Gibson on, + poems, + letters, + Howland prize, + compared to De La Mare, + _The Soldier_, +Browne, T., compared to Yeats, +Browning, R., concentration, + _Pauline_, + on spiritual blessings, + lack of experience, + self-consciousness, + _Christmas Eve_, + natural poetry, + metre of _One Word More_, + _The Glove_, + Ogniben's remark, + compared to Brooke, + temperament, + contrasted with Yeats, + Masters compared to, + _Confessions_, +Burns, R., influence on democracy, +Burton, R., +Bynner, W., +Byron, Lord, sales of his poems, + wit compared to Watson's, + common sense, + +Calderon, G., remark on Chekhov, +Campbell, J., +Carlin, F., +Carlyle, T., + remark on Cromwell, +Chaucer, G., + effect on Masefield, +Chekhov, A., + centrifugal force, +Clapp, F. M., +Cleghorn, S. N., +Coleridge, S. T., + remark on poetry, +Colton, A., +Colum, P., +Conrad, J., + compared to Scott, +Cooke, E. V., +Corbin, A., +Crane, S., + _Red Badge of Courage_, +Crashaw, R., + his editor, + +Davidson, J., + test of poetry, +Davies, M. C., +Davies, W. H., +Davis, F. S., +De La Mare, W., + homage to, + poems, + compared to Hawthorne, + retirement, + _Listeners_, + Shakespeare portraits, + _Old Susan_, + _Peacock Pie_, +Dodd, L. W., +Donne, J., + reputation, + stimulant, + +Drake, F., + German statue to, + poem by Noyes, +Drinkwater, J., + +Egan, M. F., +Eliot, T. S., +Emerson, R. W., + prophecy on poetry, +Erskine, J., + +Flecker, J. E., + posthumous editor of, + translations, + aims, + _Oak and Olive_, + religion, + _Jerusalem_, +Fletcher, J. G., +Foulke, W. D., +Frost, R., + dedication by Thomas, + poems, + theories, + outdoor poet, + realism, + tragedy, + pleasure of recognition, + +Garrison, T., +Gibson, W. W., + homage to, + poems, + _Stonefolds_, + _Daily Bread_, + _Fires_, + _Thoroughfares_, + war poems, + _Livelihood_, + latest work, + his contribution, +Gladstone, W. E., + eulogy by Phillips, +Glaenzer, R. B., +Goethe, J. W., + Flecker's translation of, + poise, +Grainger, P., + great artist, + audacities, +Graves, R., +Gray, T., + on laureateship, + compared to Hodgson, + compared to Masters, +Griffis, E., +Griffiths, W., + +Hagedorn, H., +Hardy, T., + a forerunner, + _Dynasts_, + idea of God, + pessimism, + thought and music, + _Moments of Vision_, + Housman's likeness to, +Hawthorne, N., compared to De La Mare. +Henley, W. E.; + compared to Thompson; + paganism; + lyrical power. +Hodgson, R.; + a recluse; + love of animals; + humour; + compared to Alice Corbin. +Hooker, B. +Housman, A. E.; + modernity; + scholarship; + likeness to Hardy; + paganism and pessimism; + lyrical power. +Hughes, R. +Hyde, D., influence. + +Ibsen, H., student of the Bible. + +Jacobus, D. +James, H., tribute to Brooke. +Johnson, R. U. + +Keats, J., Phillips compared to; + influence on Amy Lowell; + Endymion; + Amy Lowell's sonnet on. +Kilmer, J. +Kipling, R.; + imperial laureate; + _Recessional_; + popularity; + influence on soldiers; + Watson's allusion to; + _Danny Deever_. + +Landor, W. S., his violence. +Lawrence, D. H. +Ledwidge, F. +Leonard, W. E. +Lewis, C. M. +Lindsay, N. V.; + Harriet Monroe's magazine; + _Booth_; + development; + drawings; + "games"; + _Congo,_ + _Niagara_; + prose; + chants; + geniality; + _Esther_. +Locke, W. J., his dreams. +Low, B. R. C. +Lowell, A. L., love of liberty. +Lowell, Amy, essay on Frost; + poems; + training; + free verse; + imagism; + _Sword Blades_; + narrative skill; + polyphonic prose; + versatility; + remark on Seeger. +Lowell, P., influence on Amy. + +MacDonagh, T. +Mackaye, P.; + stipend for poets; + poems. +MacLeish, A. +Macterlinck, M., compared to Yeats; + rhythmical prose. +Markham, E. +Marquis, D. +Masefield, J., homage to; + poems; + the modern Chaucer; + education; + _Dauber_; + critical power; + relation to Wordsworth; + _Everlasting Mercy_; + _Widow in the Bye Street_; + _Daffodil Fields_; + compared to Tennyson; + _August, 1914_; + lyrics; + sonnets; + _Rosas_; + novels; + general contribution; + Drinkwater's dedication; + Aiken's relation to. +Masters, E. L.; + education; + _Spoon River_; + irony; + love of truth; + analysis; + cynicism; + idealism. +Meredith, G., his poems. +Middleton, S. +Milton, J., his invocation; + Piedmont sonnet. +Mitchell, S. +Monroe, H., her magazine; + her anthology; + poems. +Moody, W. V. +Morley, J., remarks on Irishmen + and Wordsworth. +Munger, R. + +Neihardt, J. G. +Nichols, R. +Nicholson, M., poems; + remark on college stories. +Noyes, A., homage to; + poems; + education; + singing power; + _Tramp Transfigured_; + his masterpiece; + child imagination; + sea poetry; + _Drake_; + _May-Tree_; + new effects; + war poems; + optimism. + +O'Conor, N. J., poems; + remark on Seeger. +O'Sullivan, S. + +Peabody, J. P. +Percy, W. A. +Phillips, S.; + sudden fame; + education; + _Marpessa_; + realism; + _Gladstone_; + protest against Masefleld. +Pierce, F. E. + +Quarles, F., quoted. +Quiller-Couch, A., remark on + the _Daffodil Fields_. + +Rand, K. +Reedy, W. M., relation to Masters. +Rice, C. Y. +Riley, J. W., remark on Henley; + "Riley Day"; + remark on Anna Branch; + a conservative. +Rittenhouse, J. B. +Robinson, C. R. +Robinson, E. A. +Robinson, F. N., remark on Seeger. +Rogers, R. C. + +Sandburg, C. +Santayana, G. +Sassoon, S. +Scott, W., compared to Conrad; + sales of his poems. +Seeger, A.; + Low's dedication; + source of his poem. +Service, R. W., likeness to Kipling. +Shakespeare, W., compared to Wordsworth; + compared to Masefleld; + portraits by De La Mare; + poem on by Masters. +Shaw, G. B., _Major Barbara_. +Spingarn, J., creative criticism. +Squire, J. C., introduction to + Flecker +Stephens, J., + novels; + discovered by A. E.; + realism; + child-poetry; + power of cursing. +Stevenson, R. L., + remark on Whitman. +Stork, C. W. +Swinburne, A. C., + critical violence, + Lindsay's likeness to; + Lindsay's use of. +Synge, J. M., + advice from Yeats; + works; + versatility; + bitterness; + theory of poetry; + autobiographical poems; + thoughts on death; + influence on Stephens. + +Teasdale, S. +Tennyson, A., + continued popularity of; + his invocation; + compared to Hardy; + early poems on death; + compared to Masefield,; + his memoirs; + his reserve; + quality of his poetry. +Thomas, E. +Thomas, E. M. +Thompson, F., + compared to Henley; + religious passion; + _In No Strange Land_; + _Lilium Regis_; + Noyes's ode to; + Flecker's poem on. +Trench, H. + +Underwood, J. C. +Untermeyer, L. +Updegraff, A. + +Van Dyke, H. +Vaughan, H., quoted. +Vielé, H. K. + +Wallis, J. H. +Watson, W. + poor start; + address in America; + _King Alfred_; + _Wordsworth's Grave_; + epigrams; + _How Weary is Our Heart_; + hymn of hate; + war poems, + _Yellow Pansy_; + Byronic wit; + _Eloping Angels_; + dislike of new poetry. +Weaving, W. +Wells, H. G. + religious position. +Whitman, W. + natural style; + _Man of War Bird_; + early conventionality; + Stevenson's remark on; + growth of reputation; + Sandburg's relation. +Whitney, H. H. +Whitsett, W. T. +Widdemer, M. +Wilcox, E. W. +Willcocks, M. P. + remark on will. +Woodberry, G. E. +Wordsworth, W. + compared to Shakespeare; + Watson's poem on; + Masefield's relations to. + +Yeats, W. B. + education; + devotion to art; + his names; + love poetry; + dramas; + prose; + mysticism; + relation to Lindsay. + +Younghusband, G. + remark on Kipling + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Advance of English Poetry in the +Twentieth Century, by William Lyon Phelps + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY *** + +This file should be named 7930.txt or 7930.zip + +Tiffany Vergon, Cam Venezuela and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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