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POETRY 

A  MAGAZINE  OF   VERSE 

VOLUME  XV III 


ME 


oetru 


VOLUME  XVIII 
April -September,  1921 

Edited  by 
Harriet  Monroe 


543CASSSTT2EET 
CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1921, 

by 
Harriet  Monroe 


Ps 


A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


Editor 
Associate  Editors 

Business  Manager 
Advisory  Committee 

Administrative  Committee 


HARRIET  MONROE 
ALICE  CORBIN   HENDERSON 
MARION  STROBEL 
MILA  STRAUB 
HENRY  B.  FULLER 
EUNICE  TIETJENS 
WILLIAM  T.  ABBOTT 
CHARLES  H.  HAMILL 


TO   HAVE  GREAT   POETS 

THERE    MUST    BE    GREAT    AUDIENCES    TOO 

Whitman 


SUBSCRIBERS  TO  THE  FUND 


Mr.  Howard  Shaw 
Mr.  Arthur  T.  Aldis 
Mr.  Edwin  S.  Fetcher 
Mrs.  Charles  H.  Hamill 
Mrs.  Emmons  Elaine  (4) 
Mr.  Wm.  S.  Monroe 
Mr.  E.  A.  Bancroft 
Mr.  C.  L.  Hutchinson 
Mrs.  Wm.  J.  Calhoun 
Mrs.  P.  A.  Valentine 


Mrs.  Bryan  Lathrop 

Mr.  Martin  A.  Ryerson 

Hon.  John  Barton  Payne 

Mr.  Thomas  D.  Jones 

Mr.  Charles  Deering 

Mrs.  W.  F.  Dummer 

Mr.  Arthur  Heun 

Mr.  Edward  F.  Carry 

Mr.  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  (2) 

Mr.  F.  Stuyvesant  Peabody 


[i] 


Mr.  Horace  S.  Oakley  Miss  Dorothy  North 

Mr.  Eames  MacVeagh  Mrs.  F.  Louis  Slade 

Mr.  Charles  G.  Dawes  Mrs.  Julius  Rosenwald 

Mr.  Owen  F.  Aldis  Mrs,  Andrea  Hofer  Proudfoot 

Mr.  Albert  H.  Loeb  (2)  Mrs.  Arthur  T.  Aldis 

The  Misses  Skinner  Mrs.  George  W.  Mixter 

Misses  Alice  E.  and  Margaret  D.  Mrs.  Walter  S.  Brewster 

Moran  Mrs.  Joseph  N.  Eisendrath 

Miss  Mary  Rozet  Smith  Mrs.  Simeon  Ford 

Mr.  John  Borden  Mrs.  Thomas  W.  Lamont 

Mrs.  Clarence  I.  Peck  Mr.  Henry  J.  Patten 

Mr.  John  S.  Miller  Mr.  Charles  H.  Dennis 

Mr.  Edward  P.  Russell  Mrs.  Frank  Gates  Allen 

Mrs.  Frank  O.  Lowden  Mrs.  Otto  Seiffert 

Mrs.  Frederic  Clay  Bartlett  Mr.  Frank  Gates  Allen 

Mr.  Rufus  G.  Dawes  Mrs.  E.  C.  Chadbourne 

Mr.  Gilbert  E.  Porter  Mrs.  Richard  T.  Crane 

Mr.  George  A.  McKinlock  Mrs.  William  M.  Lybrand 

Mrs.  Samuel  Insull  Mr.  Charles  H.  Swift 

Mr.  A.  G.  Becker  Mr.  S.  T.  Jacobs 

Mrs.  Roy  McWilliams  Mrs.  Jacob  Baur 

Mr.  Benjamin  V.  Becker  Mr.  A.  D.  Lundy 

Mr.  George  F.  Porter  Mrs.  Robert  N.  Montgomery 

Mrs.  Charles  A.  Chapin  Miss  Joanna  Fortune 
Mr.  S.  O.  Levinson 


Others  besides  these  guarantors  who  testify  to  their  appreciation  of  the  mag- 

i  by  generous  gifts  are: 

Mr.  Edward  L.  Ryerson,  Miss  Amy  Lowell  and  Mrs.  Edgar  Speyer. 


Two  annual  prizes  will  be  awarded  as  usual  in  November  for  good  work  of  the 
current  year.  To  the  donors  of  these  prizes,  as  well  as  to  the  above  list  of  guaran- 
tors, the  editor  wishes  to  express  the  appreciation  of  the  staff  and  the  poets: 

To  Mr.  S.  O.  Levinson,  for  the  Helen  Haire  Levinson  Prize  of  two  hundred 
dollars,  to  be  awarded  for  the  eighth  time;  and  to  the  anonymous  guarantor  who 
will  present,  for  the  seventh  time,  a  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars. 

We  feel  that  these  prizes  are  a  most  valuable  service  to  the  art. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  XVIII 
VERSE 

PAGE 

Bishop,  John  Peale: 

The    Hunchback 131 

Bodenheim,   Maxwell: 

SAPPHO  ANSWERS  ARISTOTLE: 

Impulsive    Dialogue 61 

Emotional   Monologue 64 

Feminine   Talk 67 

Philosophical   Dialogue 69 

Banner,  Amy: 

PAGEANTRY : 

Revelations,    Poise 82 

Booth,   Edward   Townsend: 

To  a  New  England  Girl 26 

To  an  Authentic  Priest 26 

Boutelle,  Grace  Hodsdon: 

It    Vanished 245 

Campbell,  Nancy: 

Innocent     Sleep 247 

Ciolkowska,  Muriel: 
TONIGHT: 
Snow,    Presence 80 

Coates,  Grace  Stone: 

The    Intruder '.......       27 

Conkling,   Grace  Hazard: 

Pnmaveral 144 

Crawford,  John: 
NIGHT: 

Nadir 308 

Sumac 308 

Brackish  Well 309 

Endymion 310 

DeLaughter,    Margaret : 

IN  THE  NIGHT  WATCHES: 

Invocation,   Pierrot   and   Columbine 252 

Requiem,   Toward   Evening 253 

Deutsch,  Babette: 

SEMPER   EADEM: 

Fourth    Dimension 190 

Overtones 191 

Reflections,   Knowledge 192 

Dismorr,   Blanche: 

Charlotte    Bronte 83 

Dodd,   Lee   Wilson: 

Age  and  Youth .  22 

Riddle 23 

Edgerton,  Gladys: 

Love's  Passing  .  254 

My   Sepulchre 255 

Fenton,    Carroll   Lane: 

"E  Be  Than" 24 

Ficke,  Arthur  Davison: 
THREE  SONNETS: 
Perspective   of    Co-ordination,    World    Beyond   World    ....        28 

[Hi] 


Leaf-movement         29 

THREE  Son  NETS: 

Old   Wives'   Talk,    Holy   Writ 72 

The  Book  of  Lu  T'ang  Chu 73 

Fort,  Paul  (See  John  Strong  Newberry) 

Freeman,  Mason  A.,  Jr.: 

POEMS  ORIGINAL  AND  DERIVED: 

The  Triple   Shroud,  The  Way,  Once  More 256 

Epigrams 257 

From  the  Vedic 258 

Fujita,  Jun: 
TANKA: 

To  Elizabeth,  Spring,  May  Moon,  Storm 128 

November,  A  Leaf,   December  Moon,   Echo 129 

Gessler,  Clifford  Franklin: 
THE  VILLAGER: 

Your   Horses 132 

Nevertheless 133 

Concentric   Circles,    Prayer 134 

Golding,  Louis: 

Numbers 198 

Hall,  Hazel: 

REPETITIONS: 

Two    Sewing 86 

Instructions       .  87 

Three  Songs   for  Sewing  I-III 88 

Cowardice 89 

Flash 90 

Hamilton,   David   Osborne : 
HOOFS  AND  HALOES: 

Te  Deum,  The  Idiot 239 

Beauty  on   Fourth  Street  I-II 240 

Our    Time 241 

Hey  ward,   DuBose : 

The   Mountain   Graveyard      . 246 

Houston,    Margaret   Belle: 

Memory         241 

Hughes,  Richard: 

Dirge 248 

Huntingdon,  Julia  Weld: 

Off  the    Highway 81 

Kilmer,  Aline: 

THREE  POEMS: 

Charmian's  Song,  For  All  Ladies  of  Shalott 74 

The  Heart  Knoweth  its  own  Bitterness 75 

Kwan,   Moon   (Translator): 

Goodfellowship — A   Fragment,  by  Li  Po 130 

Lonely,  by  Wang  Wei,   Eighth  Century,  A.  D 130 

Lemont,  Jessie   (Translator): 

Charles  the  Twelfth  of  Sweden  Rides  in  the  Ukraine 

(From  the  German  of  Rainer  Maria  Rilke) 319 

Lowell,  Amy: 

Twenty-four  Hokku  on  a  Modern  Theme  I-XXIV 124 

McVickar,  Dorothy: 

Long   Days,   Heaphy   Herself 84 

Mixter,  Florence  Kilpatrick: 
POEMS  : 
All  Soul's   Eve,   Chinese   Epitaph 242 


PAGE 

Alchemy         . 243 

Invocation '-.      244 

Lullaby .      .     245 

Morris,    Gilbert : 

FROM  THE  NEAR   EAST: 

Cape  Helles 140 

The    Boulghar    Dagh 141 

Murphy,  Charles  R.: 
GROWTH  : 

Advent 235 

Sown,   To  Earth 236 

Winter,   Spring 237 

Humility,    Mid-May 238 

Newberry,  John  Strong  (Translator): 
POEMS  BY  PAUL  FORT: 

Louis   Eleventh,    Curious  Man 293 

The  Miraculous   Catch 294 

Lament  of  the   Soldiers 299 

The     Return 300 

The    Little    Silent    Street 301 

Eternity         302 

Nicholl,  Louise  Townsend: 

Timelessness 249 

N orris,   William  A.: 

0    Changing  One 201 

Patterson,  Antoinette  DeCoursey: 

Folk-song — from    the    Danish 250 

Lucrezia   Borgia's  Last   Letter 251 

Pennell,   Elizabeth  Hart: 

Youth   and   Age 85 

Pinckney,  Josephine: 
FOUR  POEMS: 

In  the  Barn 194 

Strange 195 

The  Outcast,   Swamp  Lilies 196 

Po,  Li  (See  Moon  Kwan) 

Rice,   Ruth  Mason : 

Trailing   Arbutus 83 

Rich,  H.    Thompson: 

Song         25 

Rilke,  Rainer  Maria  (See  Jessie  Lemont) 

Roberts,  Elisabeth  Madox: 
UNDER  THE  TREE: 

The   Cornfield,   The   Pilaster 185 

The  Star,  Water  Noises 186 

Crescent   Moon,   Strange   Tree 187 

A    Child    Asleep 188 

My    Heart 189 

Sabel,  Marx  G. : 

ANNOTATIONS: 

Jeremiad 146 

No  Good  Thing 147 

The   Strange   Load 148 

Safford,  Muriel: 

God-lover 135 

Sapir,   Edward : 
BACKWATER: 
A    Childish   Tale 76 

[v] 


PAGE 

The  Old  Town 77 

Overlooked 78 

She    Sits    Vacant-eyed 79 

Sarett,  Lew: 

THE  Box  OF  GOD: 

I:     Broken  Bird i 

II:     Whistling  Wings 7 

III:     Talking   Waters 16 

Seiffert,  Marjorie  Allen: 

GALLERY  OF  PAINTINGS: 

The  Shop 177 

Dingy    Street 178 

Interior,  Cubist  Portrait J79 

Two  Women,  Portrait  of  a  Lady 180 

Dream-kiss 181 

Shadow,  As  You  Are  Now 182 

Nocturne 183 

Suckow,  Ruth: 

BY  HILL  AND  DALE: 

Prayer  at  Timber-line,   Beauty 142 

The  Odd  Ones,  Grampa  Schuler 143 

Swift,  Ivan: 

Descent 312 

Taggard,    Genevieye: 

Boys  and  Girls 119 

Thanhouser,  Marian: 

At   Night 3i3 

Turbyfill,  Mark: 
VOLUNTARIES  : 

The  Intangible   Symphony 136 

The   Power    of   Nothing 137 

Repletion,   The    Sea    Storm 138 

Things  Not  Seen 139 

Vinal,  Harold: 

Forgotten 197 

Walton,  Eda  Lou: 

BEYOND  SORROW: 

So  It  Befell 260 

Without  Grief,  I  would  be  Free 261 

Crisis,  Despair,  Now  More  than  Ever  Divided 262 

In   Recompense 263 

Wei,  Wang  (See  Moan  Kwan) 

Wescott,  Glenway : 
STILL-HUNT: 

Ominous  Concord,  Without   Sleep 303 

The   Chaste   Lovers 304 

To  L.   S.     MI 305 

The   Poet  at   Nightfall 306 

The    Hunter 307 

Williams,   Oscar: 

GOLDEN  DARKNESS: 

There  Was  a  Time,  Clouds  and  Waves 202 

Cobwebs,  Grey 203 

Rains 204 

The    Golden    Fleece 205 

Because,   Motes,  The    Subway  is  Lit 206 

The  Bubble,  The  Return 207 

[vi] 


Wilson,  Anne  Elizabeth: 

Recompense,  The  Sweet  Lady MS 

Wylie,  Elinor: 

STILL  COLORS: 

Velvet    Shoes 18 

"Fire  and  Sleet  and  Candle-light" 19 

Silver   Filagree 20 

Atavism         21 

Zaturensky,  Marya: 
SPINNERS: 

She    Longs   for   the   Country 3*4 

The  Spinners  at  Willowsleigh 3*4 

Song  of  a  Factory  Girl 3*5 

A  Song  for  Vanished  Beauty 3*6 

An  Old  Tale 3*7 

Memories 3*8 


PROSE 


Drinkwater  on  Abercrombie H.  M.       30 

REVIEWS: 

Nectar   and   Syrup E.   Carnevali      36 

Collected  Poems,  by  Walter  de  la  Mare  (2  vols.) 

One    Poet Isidor   Schneider      39 

Advice,  by  Maxwell  Bodenheim.  The  Forerunner:  His  Parables 
and  Poems,  by  Kahlil  Gibran.  Neighbors,  by  Wilfrid  Wilson 
Gibson.  The  Birds  and  Other  Poems,  by  J.  C.  Squire.  Songs 
While  Wandering,  by  A.  Newberry  Choyce 

Teacher-poets Nelson  Antrim  Crawford       44 

The  Roomer  and  Other  Poems,  by  George  Edward  Woodberry 
Sonnets  from  a  Prison  Camp,  by  Archibald  Allen   Bowman 

Two  Books  of  Refuge E.   Carnevali      46 

Black  Marigolds,  translated  by  E.  Powys  Mathers.  The  Dark 
Mother,  by  Waldo  Frank 

Celtic    Fairies H.  M.       49 

Visions  and   Beliefs  itf  the   West  of  Ireland    (2  vols.),   collected 

by  Lady  Gregory,  essays  and  notes  by  W.  B.  Yeats 
Irish   Fairy    Tales,   by   James    Stephens 
The  Boy  Apprenticed  to  an  Enchanter,  by  Padraic  Colum 

A  Little  School  for  the  Elect N.  A.  C.       50 

The  Little  School,  by  T.   Sturge  Moore 

Homespun A.  C.  H.       51 

Rhymes  of  a  Homesteader,  by  Elliott  C.  Lincoln 

Mr.  Bynner's   Skit H.  M.       52 

Pins  for  Wings,  by  Emanuel  Morgan 
OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

Bond  or  Free? 53 

CORRESPONDENCE: 

Concerning  Kora  in  Hell Robert  McAlmon       54 

Southern    Shrines H.  M.       91 

The  Death  of  "B.  L  .T." H.  M.       97 

The  Poet  and  Modern   Life R.  A.       99 

[vii] 


REVIEWS: 

Pastels Laura   Sherry     101 

Poems,  by  Haniel  Long 

Silence  Awakening R.  A.     103 

Terra  Italica,   by   Edward   Storer 

Country   Sentiment Nelson   Antrim  Crawford     105 

Fairies  and  Fusiliers,  and  Country  Sentiment,   by   Robert  Graves 

Recent  Anthologies H.  M.     106 

The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Miscellany:  June,  1920.  A  Queen's 
College  Miscellany.  A  Treasury  of  War  Poetry;  Second  Series, 
edited  by  George  Herbert  Clarke.  Dreams  and  Voices,  com- 
piled by  Grace  Hyde  Trine.  Joyful  Sorrow,  compiled  by  L.  H. 
B.  Lillygay:  an  Anthology  of  Anonymous  Poems.  American 
and  British  Verse  from  the  Yale  Review.  Modern  British 
Poetry,  edited  by  Louis  Untermeyer.  Contemporary  Verse  An- 
thology, edited  by  Charles  Wharton  Stork. 

French  Poets  in  English Agnes  Lee  Freer     in 

Fleurs  de  Lys,  translated  and  edited  by  Wilfred  Thorley 

Symbolists  and  Decadents A.  L.  F.     113 

La  Melee  Symboliste,  by   Ernest  Raynaud 
OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

Two   New    Magazines H.  M.     115 

A  Word  about  Keats H.  M.     150 

The  Sub-conscious  Cliche B.   T.     153 

REVIEWS: 

From   New   Mexico Carl  Sandburg     157 

Red  Earth:  Poems  of  New  Mexico,  by  Alice  Corbin 

Mr.    Aiken's   Bow   to    Punch E.    T.     160 

Punch,  The  Immortal  Liar,  by  Conrad  Aiken 

A    Contrast H.  M.     162 

In  America,  by  John  V.  A.  Weaver 
The  Well  of  Being,  by  Herbert  Jones 

Still  a  Soul  to  Save Nelson  Antrim  Crawford     166 

Before  Dawn,   by   Irene  Rutherford   McLeod 

Coleridge    and   Wordsworth H.   B.   F.     167 

Coleridge's  Biographia  Literaria,  with   Wordsworth's  Preface  and 

Essays  on  Poetry 
CORRESPONDENCE: 

A  Letter  from  Paris Jean  Cat  el     168 

The  Winter's  Publishing  in  England R.  Hughes     172 

OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

Kreymborg's    Millions • 174 

Here  in   Cass   Street H.  M.     208 

The   Nebraska   Laureate H.  M.     212 

REVIEWS: 

A   Census    Spiritual H.  M.     214 

Domesday  Book,  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters 

Little   Theatre    Rhythms Laura   Sherry     218 

Plays  for  Merry  Andrews,  by  Alfred  Kreymborg 

Nightmare    Fingers Marion    Strobel     222 

Resurrecting   Life,    and  Clair  de   Lune,    by   Michael    Strange 

The   Silver   Stallion Oscar   Williams     223 

Young  Girl  and  Other  Poems,  by  Hildegarde  Planner.  Poems  for 
,,...  _  T-t._  A  .....-_  o,  ^.-^  ,_  3dan  Padraic  Q'Seasnain. 

Moods  of  Manhattan,  by 
'ue  Crane,  by  Ivan  Swift. 

High   Company,   by   Harry   Lee.      A    Music-teacher's  Note-book, 
by    Henry    Bellamann 


oung  (jiri  ana  uiner  roems,  oy  nuaegai 
Men,  by  John  Austin.  Star-drift,  by  Br: 
Poems  and  Essays,  by  Alfred  Hitch.  A 
Louise  Mallinckrodt  Kueffner.  The  Blue 


[viii] 


PAGE 

Who  Writes   Folk-songs? A.   C.   H.     227 

Poetic  Origins  and  The  Ballad,  by  Louise  Pound 
CORRESPONDENCE  : 

Professor  Phelps  and  Rostand Jean   Catel     232 

Midsummer    Delite H.    M.     264 

Brazilian  Dance    Songs Evelyn   Scott     267 

Aboriginal    Tasmanian    Poetry H.    W.    Stewart     271 

REVIEWS: 

Robinson's  Double  Harvest H.   M.     273 

The  Three  Taverns  and  Avon's  Harvest,  by  Edwin  Arlington 
Robinson 

The  Poet  of  the  War A.   C.  H.     276 

Poems,  by  Wilfred  Owen,  with  an  Introduction  by  Siegfried  Sas- 
soon 

Mr.   Masefield's   Racer N.   Howard   Thorp     279 

Right  Royal,  by  John  Masefield 

Songs  and  Splashes H.  M.     281 

Morning,   Noon  and  Night,   by   Glenn   Ward   Dresbach 

Modern   and   Elizabethan H.  M.     283 

The  Poet  in  the  Desert,  by  Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood.  Maia— 
a  Sonnet  Sequence,  by  Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood,  with  two 
sonnets  by  Sara  Bard  Field 

Classics    in    English Glenway    Wescott     284 

Sappho,   by   Henry  Thornton   Wharton.     The   Golden   Treasury   of 
the    Greeks,    by    Alexander    Lothian.      Medallions    in    Clay,    by 
Richard  Aldington.    The  Poet's  Translation  Series:  Second  Set 
OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

The    Dial's   Annual    Award 289 

New  Magazines 290 

Dante — and  Today   ..........     Emanuel  Carnevali     323 

John  Adams'   Prophecy H.   M.     327 

REVIEWS: 

Gerard   Hopkins Edward   Sapir     330 

Poems  of  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins 

Unity  Made  Vital Nelson  Antrim  Crawford     336 

New  Poems,  by  D.  H.  Lawrence 

Youth  and  the  Desert H.  M.     339 

The  Bitterns,  by  Glenway  Wescott 
The   Immobile    Wind,   by    Yvor   Winters 

Two  English  Poets Marion  Strobel     343 

The   Waggoner,  by   Edmund   Blunden 
Kaleidoscope,  by   Sherard   Vines 
CORRESPONDENCE: 

Concerning  Awards *4rthur   T.  Aldis     347 

Notes 59,   "7,   '75,  ^33,  291,  348 

Books    Received 60,   118,   176,  234,  292,  350 


[ix] 


POETRY 

A  MAGAZINE  OF  VERSE 

VOLUME  XV 111 


DEAR  POETRY:  I  always  feel  that  I  ought  to  renew  my  thanks  for  your 
enterprise  and  faith,  which  are  so  ceaselessly  at  work  on  the  task 
of  renewing  me. 

Ferdinand   Schevill 

Vol.  XVIII  No.  I 

POETRY  for  APRIL,  1921 

PAGE 

The  Box  of  God Lew  Sarett  i 

I:     Broken    Bird— II:      Whistling    Wings— III:     Talking 
Waters 

Still  Colors Elinor  Wylie  18 

Velvet   Shoes — "Fire    and    Sleet    and    Candle-light" — Silver 
Filagree — Atavism 

Age  and  Youth— Riddle Lee  Wilson  Dodd  22 

"E   be   Than" Carroll  Lane  Fenton  24 

Song H.    Thompson  Rich  25 

To  a  New  England  Girl — To  an  Authentic  Priest     .... 

Edward  Townsend  Booth  26 

The  Intruder Grace  Stone  Coates  27 

Three   Sonnets Arthur  Davison   Ficke  28 

Perspective  of  Co-ordination — World  beyond  World — Leaf- 
movement 

Drinkwater  on  Abercrombie H.  M.  30 

Reviews : 

Nectar   and   Syrup E.   Carnevali  36 

One   Poet Isidor   Schneider  39 

Teacher-poets Nelson  Antrim  Crawford  44 

Two  Books  of  Refuge E.  Carnevali  46 

Celtic  Fairies H .  M.  49 

A  Little  School  for  the  Elect N.  A.  C.  50 

Homespun A.  C.  H.  51 

Mr.  Bynner's  Skit H.  M.  52 

Our  Contemporaries: 

Bond  or  Free?                                 * 53 

Correspondence: 

Concerning  "Kora  in  Hell"       .       .       .       Robert  McAlmon  54 

Notes  and  Books  Received 59,  60 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed 
envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates:  In  the  United  States,  Mexico, 
Cuba  and  American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all 
other  countries  in  the  Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class 
matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the  post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  the  Act  of 
March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543   Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 

Copyright  1<>21     bv   Harriet  Monroe.      All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 
No.  I 

A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


APRIL  1921 


THE  BOX  OF  GOD 

I:       BROKEN    BIRD 

O   broken  bird, 
Whose  whistling  silver  wings  have  known  the  lift 
Of  high  mysterious  hands,  and  the  wild  sweet  music 
Of  big  winds  among  the  ultimate  stars! — 
The  black-robed  cures  put  your  pagan  Indian 
Soul  in  their  white  man's  House  of  God,  to  lay 
Upon  your  pagan  lips  new  songs,  to  swell 
The  chorus  of  amens  and  hallelujahs. 
In  simple  faith  and  holy  zeal,  they  flung 
Aside  the  altar-tapestries,  that  you 
Might  know  the  splendor  of  God's  handiwork, 
The  shining  glory  of  His  face.     O  eagle, 
They  brought  you  to  a  four-square  box  of  God, 
Crippled  of  pinion,  clipped  of  soaring  wing; 
And  they  left  you  there  to  flutter  against  the  bars 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

In  futile  flying,  to  beat  against  the  gates, 
To  droop,  to  dream  a  little,  and  to  die. 

Ah,  Joe  Shing-6b — by  the  sagamores  revered 

As  Spruce  the  Conjurer,  by  the  black-priests  dubbed 

The  Pagan  Joe — how  clearly  I  recall 

Your  conversion  in  the  long-blade's  House  of  God, 

Your  wonder  when  you  faced  its  golden  glories. 

Don't  you  remember? — when  first  you  sledged  from  out 

The  frozen  Valley  of  the  Sleepy-eye, 

And  hammered  on  the  gates  of  Fort  Brazeau — 

To  sing  farewell  to  Ah-nah-quod,  the  Cloud, 

Sleeping,  banked  high  with  flowers,  clothed  in  the  pomp 

Of  white  man's  borrowed  garments  in  the  church  ? 

Oh,  how  your  heart,  as  a  child's  heart  beating  before 

High  wonder-workings,  thrilled  at  the  burial  splendor !- 

The  coffin,  shimmering-black  as  moonlit  ice, 

And  gleaming  in  a  ring  of  waxen  tapers; 

After  the  chant  of  death,  the  long  black  robes, 

Blown  by  the  wind  and  winding  over  the  hills 

With  slow  black  songs  to  the  marked-out-place-of-death  ; 

The  solemn  feet  that  moved  along  the  road 

Behind  the  wagon-with-windows,  the  wagon-of-death, 

With  its  jingling  nickel  harness,  its  dancing  plumes. 

Oh,  the  shining  splendor  of  that  burial  march, 

The  round-eyed  wonder  of  the  village  throng! 

And  oh,  the  fierce-hot  hunger,  the  burning  envy 

That  seared  your  soul  when  you  beheld  your  friend 

Achieve  such  high  distinction  from  the  black-robes! 

[2] 


Lew  Sarett 

And  later,  when  the  cavalcade  of  priests 

Wound  down  from  the  fenced-in-ground,  like  a  slow  black 

worm 

Crawling  upon  the  snow — don't  you  recall? — 
The  meeting  in  the  mission? — that  night,  your  first, 
In  the  white  man's  lodge  of  holy-medicine  ? 
How  clearly  I  can  see  your  hesitant  step 
On  the  threshold  of  the  church;  within  the  door 
Your  gasp  of  quick  surprise,  your  breathless  mouth; 
Your  eyes  round-white  before  the  glimmering  taper, 
The  golden-filigreed  censer,  the  altar  hung 
With  red  rosettes  and  velvet  soft  as  an  otter's 
Pelt  in  the  frost  of  autumn,  with  tinsel  sparkling 
Like  cold  blue  stars  above  the  frozen  snows. 
Oh,  the  blinding  beauty  of  that  House  of  God!— 
Even  the  glittering  bar  at  Jock  McKay's, 
Tinkling  with  goblets  of  fiery  devil's-spit, 
With  dazzling  vials  and  many-looking  mirrors, 
Seemed  lead  against  the  silver  of  the  mission. 

I  hear  again  the  chanting  holy-men, 

The  agents  of  the  white  man's  Mighty  Spirit, 

Making  their  talks  with  strong,  smooth-moving  tongues: 

"Hear!    Hear  ye,  men  of  a  pagan  faith! 
Forsake  the  idols  of  the  heathen  fathers, 
The  too-many  ghosts  that  walk  upon  the  earth. 
For  there  lie  pain  and  sorrow,  yea,  and  death ! 

[3] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

"Hear!    Hear  ye,  men  of  a  pagan  faith! 
And  grasp  the  friendly  hands  we  offer  you 
In  kindly  fellowship,  warm  hands  and  tender, 
Yea,  hands  that  ever  give  and  never  take. 
Forswear  the  demon-charms  of  medicine-men; 
Shatter  the  drums  of  conjuring  Chee-sah-kee — 
Yea,  beyond  these  walls  lie  bitterness  and  death! 

"Pagans! — ye  men  of  a  bastard  birth! — bend, 
Bow  ye,  proud  heads,  before  this  hallowed  shrine! 
Break! — break  ye  the  knee  beneath  this  roof, 
For  within  this  house  lives  God!     Abide  ye  here! 
Here  shall  your  eyes  behold  His  wizardry; 
Here  shall  ye  find  an  everlasting  peace." 

Ah,  Joe  the  pagan,  son  of  a  bastard  people, 
Child  of  a  race  of  vanquished,  outlawed  children, 
Small  wonder  that  you  drooped  your  weary  head, 
Blinding  your  eyes  to  the  suns  of  elder  days; 
For  hungry  bellies  look  for  new  fat  gods, 
And  heavy  heads  seek  newer,  softer  pillows. 
With  you  again  I  hear  the  eerie  chants 
Floating  from  out  the  primal  yesterdays — 
The  low  sweet  song  of  the  doctor's  flute,  the  slow 
Resonant  boom  of  the  basswood  water-drum, 
The  far  voice  of  the  fathers,  calling,  calling. 
I  see  again  the  struggle  in  your  eyes — 
The  hunted  soul  of  a  wild  young  grouse,  afraid, 
Trembling  beneath  maternal  wings,  yet  lured 

[4] 


Lew  Sarett 

By  the  shrill  whistle  of  the  wheeling  hawk. 

I  see  your  shuffling  limbs,  hesitant,  faltering 

Along  the  aisle — the  drag  of  old  bronzed  hands 

Upon  your  moccasined  feet,  the  forward  tug 

Of  others,  soft  and  white  and  very  tender. 

One  forward  step  .  .  .  another  ...  a  quick  look  back! — 

Another  step  .  .  .  another  .  .  .  and  lo!  the  eyes 

Flutter  and  droop  before  a  flaming  symbol, 

The  strong  knees  break  before  a  blazoned  altar 

Glimmering  its  tapestries  in  the  candle-light, 

The  high  head  beaten  down  and  bending  before 

New  wonder-working  images  of  gold. 

And  thus  the  black-robes  brought  you  into  the  house 

Wherein  they  kept  their  God,  a  house  of  logs, 

Square-hewn,  and  thirty  feet  by  forty.    They  strove 

To  put  before  you  food,  and  purple  trappings — 

Oh,  how  they  walked  you  up  and  down  in  the  vestry, 

Proudly  resplendent  in  your  white  man's  raiment, 

Glittering  and  gorgeous,  the  envy  of  your  tribe: 

Your  stiff  silk  hat,  your  scarlet  sash,  your  shoes 

Shining  and  squeaking  gloriously  with  newness! 

Yet  even  unto  the  end — those  blood-stained  nights 

Of  the  sickness-on-the-lung ;  that  bitter  day 

On  the  Barking  Rock,  when  I  packed  you  down  from  camp 

At  Split-hand  Falls  to  the  fort  at  Sleepy-eye; 

While,  drop  by  drop,  your  life  went  trickling  out, 

As  sugar-sap  that  drips  on  the  birch-bark  bucket 

[5] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  finally  chills  in  the  withered  maple  heart 

At  frozen  dusk:   even  unto  the  end — 

When  the  mission  doctor,  framed  by  guttering  candles, 

Hollowly  tapped  his  hooked-horn  finger  here 

And  there  upon  your  bony  breast,  like  a  wood-bird 

Pecking  and  drumming  on  a  rotten  trunk — 

Even  unto  this  end  I  never  knew 

Which  part  of  you  was  offering  the  holy  prayers — 

The  chanting  mouth,  or  the  eyes  that  gazed  beyond 

The  walls  to  a  far  land  of  windy  valleys. 

And  sometimes,  when  your  dry  slow  lips  were  moving 

To  perfumed  psalms,  I  could  almost,  almost  see 

Your  pagan  soul  aleap  in  the  fire-light,  naked, 

Shuffling  along  to  booming  medicine-drums, 

Shaking  the  flat  black  earth  with  moccasined  feet, 

Dancing  again — back  among  the  jangling 

Bells  and  the  stamping  legs  of  gnarled  old  men — 

Back  to  the  fathers  calling,  calling  across 

Dead  winds  from  the  dim  gray  years. 

O  high-flying  eagle, 

Whose  soul,  wheeling  among  the  sinuous  winds, 
Has  known  the  molten  glory  of  the  sun, 
The  utter  calm  of  dusk,  and  in  the  evening 
The  lullabies  of  moonlit  mountain  waters! — 
The  black-priests  locked  you  in  their  House  of  God, 
Behind  great  gates  swung  tight  against  the  frightened 
Quivering  aspens,  whispering  perturbed  in  council, 

[6] 


Lew  Sarett 


And  muttering  as  they  tapped  with  timid  fists 

Upon  the  doors  and  strove  to  follow  you 

And  hold  you;  tight  against  the  uneasy  winds 

Wailing  among  the  balsams,  fumbling  upon 

The  latch  with  fretful  fingers;  tight  against 

The  crowding  stars  who  pressed  their  troubled  faces 

Against  the  windows.     In  honest  faith  and  zeal, 

The  black-robes  put  you  in  a  box  of  God, 

To  swell  the  broken  chorus  of  amens 

And  hallelujahs;  to  flutter  against  the  door, 

Crippled  of  pinion,  bruised  of  head ;  to  beat 

With  futile  flying  against  the  gilded  bars; 

To  droop,  to  dream  a  little,  and  to  die. 

Ill     WHISTLING    WINGS 

Shing-6b,  companion  of  my  old  wild  years 

In  the  land  of  K'tchee-gah-mee,  my  good  right  arm 

When  we  battled  bloody-fisted  in  the  storms 

And  snows  with  rotting  scurvy,  with  hunger  raw 

And  ravenous  as  the  lusting  tongues  of  wolves — 

My  Joe,  no  longer  will  the  ghostly  mountains 

Echo  your  red-lunged  laughters  in  the  night; 

The  gone  lone  days  when  we  communed  with  God 

In  the  language  of  the  waterfall  and  wind 

Have  vanished  with  your  basswood  water-drum. 

Do  you  recall  our  cruise  to  Flute-reed  Falls? 
Our  first  together — oh,  many  moons  ago — 

[7] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Before  the  cures  built  the  village  mission? 
How,  banked  against  our  camp-fire  in  the  bush 
Of  sugar-maples,  we  smoked  kin-nik-kin-nik, 
And  startled  the  sombre  buttes  with  round  raw  songs, 
With  wails  that  mocked  the  lynx  who  cried  all  night 
As  if  her  splitting  limbs  were  torn  with  pain 
Of  a  terrible  new  litter?     How  we  talked 
Till  dawn  of  the  Indian's  Keetch-ie  Ma-ni-do, 
The  Mighty  Spirit,  and  of  the  white  man's  God? 
Don't  you  remember  dusk  at  Cold-spring  Hollow  ? — 
The  beaver-pond  at  our  feet,  its  ebony  pool 
Wrinkled  with  silver,  placid,  calm  as  death, 
Save  for  the  fitful  chug  of  the  frog  that  flopped 
His  yellow  jowls  upon  the  lily-pad, 
And  the  quick  wet  slap  of  the  tails  of  beaver  hurrying 
Homeward  across  the  furrowing  waters,  laden 
With  cuttings  of  tender  poplar  .  .  .  down  in  the  swale 
The  hermit-thrush  who  spilled  his  rivulet 
Of  golden  tones  into  the  purple  seas 
Of  gloam  among  the  swamps  .  .  .  and  in  the  East, 
Serene  against  the  sky — do  you  remember? — 
Slumbering  Mont  du  Pere,  shouldering  its  crags 
Through    the    crumpled    clouds,    rose-flushed    with    after- 
glow .  .  . 

And  dew-lidded  dusk  that  slipped  among  the  valleys 
Soft  as  a  blue  wolf  walking  in  thick  wet  moss. 
How  we  changed  our  ribald  song  for  simple  talk!  .  .  . 


[8] 


Lew  Sarett 

"My  jrieri ,  Ah-deek,  you  ask-um  plenty  hard  question: 

Ugh!    Were  Keetch-ie  Md-ni-do  he  live? 

Were  all  dose  Eenzhun  spirits  walk  and  talk? 

Me — /  dunno!  .  .  .  Mebbe  .  .  .  mebbe   over  here, 

In  beaver-pond,  in  t'rush,  in  gromping  bullfrog; 

Mebbe  over  dere,  he's  sleeping  in  dose  mountain  .  .  . 

"Sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Look!  .  .  .  Over  dere  .  .  .  look,  my 
frien! 

On  Mont  du  Pere  .  .  .  he's  moving  little!  .  .  . 
ain't?  .  .  . 

Under  dose  soft  blue  blanket  she's  falling  down 

On  hill  and  valley!  -Somebody — somebody's  dere!  .  .  . 

In  dose  hill  of  Mont  du  Pere,  sleeping  .  .  .  sleep- 
ing. .  .  ' 

And  when  the  fingers  of  the  sun,  lingering, 

Slipped  gently  from  the  marble  brow  of  the  glacier 

Pillowed  among  the  clouds,  blue-veined  and  cool, 

How,  one  by  one,  like  lamps  that  flicker  up 

In  a  snow-bound  hamlet  in  the  valley,  the  stars 

Lighted  their  candles  mirrored  in  the  waters  .  .  . 

And  floating  from  the  hills  of  Sleepy-eye, 

Soft  as  the  wings  of  dusty-millers  flying, 

The  fitful  syllables  of  the  Baptism  River 

Mumbling  among  its  caverns  hollowly, 

Shouldering  its  emerald  sweep  through  cragged  cascades 

In  a  flood  of  wafted  foam,  fragile,  flimsy 

As  luna-moths  fluttering  on  a  pool  .  .  . 

[91 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

"Caribou,  you  hear  dat?  .  .  .  somebody's  dere!  .  .  . 

Ain't?  .  .  .  in  dose  hills  of  Mont  du  Pere  .  .  .  sleep- 
ing. 

Sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  You  hear-um?  .  .  .  dose  far  'way 
Flute-reed  Fall?  .  .  . 

Somebody's  dere  in  Mont  du  Pere,  sleeping  .  .  . 

Somebody  he's  in  dere  de  whole  night  long  .  .  . 

And  w'ile  he's  sleep,  he's  talking  little  .  .  .  talk- 
ing. .  .  ." 

Hush! — don't  you  hear  K'tchee-gah-mee  at  midnight? — 
That  stretched  far  out  from  the  banks  of  Otter-slide 
To  the  dim  wet  rim  of  the  world — North,  East,  West  ? — 
The  Big-water,  calm,  thick-flecked  with  the  light  of  stars 
As  the  wind-riffled  fur  of  silver  fox  in  winter  .  .  . 
The  shuffle  of  the  sands  in  the  lapsing  tide  .  .   . 
The  slow  soft  wash  of  waters  on  the  pebbles  .  .  . 

"Sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Look,  Ah-deek!  .  .  .  on  K'tchee-gah- 
mee!  .  .  . 

Somebody — somet'ing  he's  in  dere  .  .  .  ain't?  .  .  . 

He's    sleep    w'ere    black    Big-water    she's    deep  .  .  . 
Ho!  .  .  . 

In  morning  he's  jump  up  from  hees  bed  and  race 

Wit'  de  wind;  but  tonight  he's  sleeping  .  .  .  rolling 
little  .  .  . 

Dreaming  about  hees  woman  .  .  .  rolling  .  .  .  sleep- 
ing. .  .  ." 

[TO] 


Lew  Sarett 

And  later — you  recall? — beyond  the  peaks 

That  tusked  the  sky  like  fangs  of  a  coyote  snarling, 

The  full-blown  mellow  moon  that  floated  up 

Like  a  liquid-silver  bubble  from  the  waters, 

Serenely,  till  she  pricked  her  delicate  film 

On  the  slender  splinter  of  a  cloud,  melted, 

And  trickled  from  the  silver-dripping  edges. 

Oh,  the  splendor  of  that  night!  .  .  .  The  Twin-fox  stars 

That  loped  across  the  pine-ridge  .  .  .  Red  Ah-nung, 

Blazing  from  out  the  cavern  of  the  gloom 

Like  the  smoldering  coal  in  the  eye  of  carcajou  .  .  . 

The  star-dust  in  the  valley  of  the  sky, 

Flittering  like  glow-worms  in  a  reedy  meadow! 

"Somebody's  dere  .  .  .  He's  walk-urn  in  dose  cloud  .  .  . 
Look!  .  .  .  You  see-um?  .  .  .  He's  mak'-um  for  hees 

woman 

De  w'ile  she  sleep,  dose  t'ing  she  want-urn  most — 
Blue  dress  for  dancing!  .   .  .   You  see,  my  frien'f  .  .  . 

ain't?  .  .  . 

He's  t'rowing  on  de  blanket  of  dose  sky 
Dose  plenty-plenty  handfuls  of  w'ite  stars; 
He's  sewing  on  dose  plenty  teet'  of  elk, 
Dose  shiny  looking-glass  and  plenty  beads.  • 

Somebody's  dere  .   .  .  somet'ing  he's  in  dere.  .   .  ." 

The  green  moons  went — and  many  many  winters. 

Yet  we  held  together,  Joe,  until  our  day 

Of  falling  leaves,  like  two  split  sticks  of  willow 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Lashed  tight  with  buckskin  buried  in  the  bark. 

Do  you  recollect  our  last  long  cruise  together, 

To  Hollow-bear,  on  our  line  of  marten  traps? — 

When  cold  Pee-boan,  the  Winter-maker,  hurdling 

The  rim-rock  ridge,  shook  out  his  snowy  hair 

Before  him  on  the  wind  and  heaped  up  the  hollows? — 

Flanked  by  the  drifts,  our  lean-to  of  toboggans, 

Our  bed  of  pungent  balsam,  soft  as  down 

From  the  bosom  of  a  whistling  swan  in  autumn  .  .  . 

Our  steaming  sledge-dogs  buried  in  the  snow-bank, 

Nuzzling  their  snouts  beneath  their  tented  tails, 

And  dreaming  of  the  paradise  of  dogs  .  .  . 

Our  fire  of  pine-boughs  licking  up  the  snow, 

And  tilting  at  the  shadows  in  the  coulee  .  .  . 

And  you,  rolled  warm  among  the  beaver-pelts, 

Forgetful  of  your  sickness-on-the-lung, 

Of  the  fever-pains  and  coughs  that  wracked  your  bones — 

You,  beating  a  war  song  on  your  drum, 

And  laughing  as  the  scarlet-moccasined  flames 

Danced  on  the  coals  and  bellowed  up  the  sky. 

Don't  you  remember?  .  .  .  the  snowflakes  drifting  down 

Thick  as  the  falling  petals  of  wild  plums  .  .  . 

The  clinker-ice  and  the  scudding  fluff  of  the  whirlpool 

Muffling  the  summer-mumblings  of  the  brook  .  .  . 

The  turbulent  waterfall  protesting  against 

Such  early  winter-sleep,  like  a  little  boy 

Who  struggles  with  the  calamity  of  slumber, 

[12] 


Lew  Sarett 

Knuckling  his  leaden  lids  and  his  tingling  nose 

With  a  pudgy  fist,  and  fretfully  flinging  back 

His  snowy  cover  with  his  petulant  fingers. 

Out  on  the  windy  barrens  restless  bands 

Of  caribou,  rumped  up  against  the  gale, 

Suddenly  breaking  before  the  rabid  blast, 

Scampering  off  like  tumbleweeds  in  a  cyclone  .  .  . 

The  low  of  bulls  from  the  hills  where  worried  moose, 

Nibbling  the  willows,  the  wintergreens,  the  birches, 

Were  yarding  up  in  the  sheltering  alder-thicket  .  .  . 

From  the  cedar  wind-break,  the  bleat  of  calves  wedged  warm 

Against  the  bellies  of  their  drowsy  cows  .  .  . 

And  then  the  utter  calm  .  .  .  the  wide  white  drift 

That  lay  upon  the  world  as  still  and  ghastly 

As  the  winding-sheet  of  death  .  .  .  the  sudden  snap 

Of  a  dry  twig  .  .  .  the  groan  of  sheeted  rivers 

Beating  with  naked  hands  upon  the  ice  ... 

The  brooding  night  ...  the  crackle  of  cold  skies  .  .  . 

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Look,     my    frien,  .  .  .  somebody's 

dere!  .  .  . 
Ami?  .  .  .  over  dere?  .  .  .  He's  come  from  dose  Land- 

of-Winter!  .  .  . 

Wit'  quilt  he's  cover-um  up  dose  baby  mink, 
Dose  cub,  dose  wild  arbutus,  dose  jump-up- Johnny  .  .  . 
He's  keep  hees  ch.il' ens  warm  for  long,  long  winter  .  .  . 
Sh-sh-sh-sh /  .  .  .  Somebody's    dere    on    de    w'ite    sa- 

vanne!  ,.  .  . 

[13] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Somebody's  dere!  .   .  .  He's  walk-um  in  de  timber  .  .  . 
He's  cover-urn  up  hees  chil'ens,  soft  .  .  .  soft  .  .  ." 

And  later,  when  your  bird-claw  fingers  rippled 
Over  the  holes  of  your  cedar  Bee-bee-gwun 
Mellowly  in  a  tender  tune,  how  the  stars, 
Like  little  children  trooping  from  their  teepees, 
Danced  with  their  nimble  feet  across  the  sky 
To  the  running-water  music  of  your  flute  .  .  . 
And  how,  with  twinkling  heels  they  scurried  off 
Before  the  Northern  Light  swaying,  twisting, 
Spiralling  like  a  slender  silver  smoke 
On  the  thin  blue  winds,  and  feeling  out  among 
The  frightened  starry  children  of  the  sky  .  .  . 

"Look!  .   .   .  in    de    Land-of- Winter  .   .   .  sotnet'ing's 

dere!  .  .   . 
Somebody — he's    reaching    out    hees    hand!   .   .   .   for 

me!  .  .  . 
Ain't?  .  .  .  For     me     he's     waiting  .  .  .  Somebody's 

dere!  .  .  . 
Somebody  he's  in  dere,  waiting  .  .   .  waiting  .  .  ." 

Don't  you  remember? — the  ghostly  silence,  splintered 
At  last  by  a  fist  that  cracked  the  hoary  birch, 
By  a  swift  black  fist  that  shattered  the  brittle  air, 
Splitting  it  into  a  million  frosty  fragments  .  .  . 
And  dreary  Northwind,  coughing  in  the  snow, 
Spitting  among  the  glistening  sheeted  pines, 

[14] 


Lew  Sarett 

And  moaning  on  the  barrens  among  the  bones 

Of  gaunt  white  tamaracks  mournful  and  forlorn  .  .  . 

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  My   Caribou!  .  .  .  Somebody's 

dere!  .   .  . 

He's  crying  .   .  .  little  bit  crazy  in  dose  wind  .  .  . 
Ain't?  .  .  .  You  hear-um?  .   .  .  far  'way  .  .  .  crying 
Lak  my  old  woman  w'en  she's  lose  de  baby 
And  no  can  find-um — w'en  she's  running  everyw'ere, 
Falling  in  snow,  talking  little  bit  crazy, 
Calling  and  crying  for  shees  little  boy  .  .  . 
Sh-sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Somet'ing's  dere  .  .   .  you  hear-um? 

.  .  .  ain't?  .  .  . 
Somebody — somebody's  dere,  crying  .  .  .  crying  .  .  ." 

Then  from  the  swale,  where  shadows  pranced  grotesquely 

Solemn,  like  phantom  puppets  on  a  string, 

A  cry — pointed,  brittle,  perpendicular — 

As  startling  as  a  thin  stiff  blade  of  ice 

Laid  swift  and  sharp  on  fever-burning  flesh: 

The  tremulous  wail  of  a  lonely  shivering  wolf, 

Piercing  the  world's  great  heart  like  an  icy  sword  .  .  . 

"Look!  .   .   .   Quick!  .   .   .  Ah-deek!  .   .   .   Somebody's 

dere!  .  .  . 
Ain't?  .  .  .  He's  come — he's  come  for  me — for  me! 

Me — me,  I  go! My  Caribou  .  .  . 

Dose  fire — dose  fire  she's  going  out — she's  cold  .  .  . 

[15] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

T'row — t'row    on    dose    knots    of    pine  .   .  .  Mee- 

gwetch!  .  .  . 

And  pull  'way  from  dose  flame — dose  pan  of  sour-dough, 
If   you    want    eat — in    de    morning — damn-good    flap- 
jack .  .  i 

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Something's    dere!  .  .  .  You     hear- 

umf  .  .  .  ain't?  .  .  . 

Somebody — somebody's  dere,   calling  .  .  .  calling  .  .  . 
I  go  ...  I  go — me!  .  .  .  me  .  .  .  I  go.  .  .  ." 

III!     TALKING   WATERS 

O  eagle  whose  whistling  wings  have  known  the  lift 

Of  high  mysterious  hands,  and  the  wild  sweet  music 

Of  big  winds  among  the  ultimate  stars, 

The  black-robes  put  you  in  a  box  of  God, 

Seeking  in  honest  faith  and  holy  zeal 

To  lay  upon  your  lips  new  songs,  to  swell 

The  chorus  of  amens  and  hallelujahs. 

O  bundle  of  copper  bones  tossed  in  a  hole, 

Here  in  the  place-of-death — God's  fenced-in  ground! — 

Beneath  these  put-in  pines  and  waxen  lilies, 

They  placed  you  in  a  crimson  gash  in  the  hillside, 

Here  on  a  bluff  above  the  Sleepy-eye, 

Where  the  Baptism  River,  mumbling  among  the  canyons, 

Shoulders  its  flood  through  crooning  waterfalls 

In  a  mist  of  wafted  foam  fragile  as  petals 

[16] 


Lew  Sarett 

Of  wfndflowers  blowing  across  the  green  of  April; 

Where  ghosts  of  wistful  leaves  go  floating  up 

In  the  rustling  blaze  of  autumn,  like  silver  smokes 

Slenderly  twisting  among  the  thin  blue  winds; 

Here  in  the  great  gray  arms  of  Mont  du  Pere, 

Where  the  shy  arbutus,  the  mink,  and  the  Johnny-jump-up 

Huddle  and  whisper  of  a  long,  long  winter; 

Where  stars,  with  soundless  feet,  come  trooping  up 

To  dance  to  the  water-drums  of  white  cascades — 

Where  stars,  like  little  children,  go  singing  down 

The  sky  to  the  flute  of  the  wind  in  the  willow-tree — 

Somebody — somebody's  there  .  .  .  O  pagan  Joe  .  .  . 

Can't  you  see  Him  as  He  moves  among  the  mountains — 

Where  dusk,  dew-lidded,  slips  among  the  valleys 

Soft  as  a  blue  wolf  walking  in  thick  wet  moss? 

Look!   ...  my  friend!   ...   at  the  breast  of  Mont  du 

Pere!  .  .  . 

Sh-sh-sh-sh!  .  .  .  Don't  you  hear  His  talking  waters  .  .  . 
Soft  in  the  gloam  as  broken  butterflies 
Hovering  above  a  somber  pool?  .  .  .  Sh-sh-sh-sh! 
Somebody's  there  ...  in  the  heart  of  Mont  du  Pere  .  .  . 
Somebody — somebody's  there,  sleeping  .  .  .  sleeping  .  .  . 

Lew  Sarett 


[17] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
STILL  COLORS 

VELVET  SHOES 

Let  us  walk  in  the  white  snow 
In  a  soundless  space; 

With  footsteps  quiet  and  slow, 
At  a  tranquil  pace, 
Under  veils  of  white  lace. 

I  shall  go  shod  in  silk, 
And  you  in  wool, 

White  as  a  white  cow's  milk, 
More  beautiful 
Than  the  breast  of  a  gull. 

We  shall  walk  through  the  still  town 
In  a  windless  peace; 

We  shall  step  upon  white  down, 
Upon  silver  fleece, 
Upon  softer  than  these. 

We  shall  walk  in  velvet  shoes : 

Wherever  we  jgo 
Silence  will  fall  like  dews 

On  white  silence  below. 

We  shall  walk  in  the  snow. 

[18] 


Elinor  Wylie 


For  this  you've  striven, 

Daring,  to  fail: 
Your  sky  is  riven 

Like  a  tearing  veil. 

For  this,  you've  wasted 
Wings  of  your  youth; 

Divined,  and  tasted 
Bitter  springs  of  truth. 

From  sand  unslaked 
Twisted  strong  cords, 

And  wandered  naked 
Among  trysted  swords. 

There's  a  word  unspoken, 

A  knot  untied. 
Whatever  is  broken 

The  earth  may  hide. 

The  road  was  jagged 
Over  sharp  stones: 

Your  body's  too  ragged 
To  cover  your  bones. 

The  wind  scatters 
Tears  upon  dust; 

[19] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Your  soul's  in  tatters 

Where  the  spears  thrust. 

Your  race  is  ended — 

See,  it  is  run: 
Nothing  is  mended 

Under  the  sun. 

Straight  as  an  arrow 
You  fall  to  a  sleep 

Not  too  narrow 
And  not  too  deep. 


SILVER    FILAGREE 

The  icicles  wreathing 

On  trees  in  festoon 
Swing,  swayed  to  our  breathing: 

They're  made  of  the  moon. 

She's  a  pale,  waxen  taper; 

And  these  seem  to  drip 
Transparent  as  paper 

From  the  flame  of  her  tip. 

Molten,  smoking  a  little, 
Into  crystal  they  pass; 

Falling,  freezing,  to  brittle 
And  delicate  glass. 

[20] 


Elinor  Wylie 


Each  a  sharp-pointed  flower, 
Each  a  brief  stalactite 

Which  hangs  for  an  hour 
In  the  blue  cave  of  night. 


ATAVISM 

I  always  was  afraid  of  Somes's  Pond: 

Not  the  little  pond,  by  which  the  willow  stands, 

Where  laughing  boys  catch  alewives  in  their  hands 

In  brown,  bright  shallows ;  but  the  one  beyond. 

There,  when  the  frost  makes  all  the  birches  burn 

Yellow  as  cow-lilies,  and  the  pale  sky  shines 

Like  a  polished  shell  between  black  spruce  and  pines, 

Some  strange  thing  tracks  us,  turning  where  we  turn. 

You'll  say  I  dream  it,  being  the  true  daughter 
Of  those  who  in  old  times  endured  this  dread. 
Look!   Where  the  lily-stems  are  showing  red 
A  silent  paddle  moves  below  the  water, 
A  sliding  shape  has  stirred  them  like  a  breath  ; 
Tall  plumes  surmount  a  painted  mask  of  death. 

Elinor  Wylie 


[21] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
AGE  AND  YOUTH 

How  little  wisdom  in  how  many  years — 

How  little  wisdom  and  how  much  of  pain! 

And  now  the  slack  knees  tremble,  the  eye  blears, 

And  mist-wreaths  blur  the  mirror  of  the  brain. 

And  Memory,  in  her  niche,  with  fumbling  ringers 

Plucks  at  old  dreams  mislaid  which  crumble  soon; 

And  there  is  naught  she  touches  now  that  lingers; 

And  her  lamp  smokes  and  dims,  a  clouded  moon. 

And  Youth,  a  long  way  off,  looks  sidewise  over 

Into  the  place  of  shadow,  and  stops  singing 

The  immemorial  lay  of  Love's  true  lover; 

While,  for  a  space,  Hope's  hand  grows  tried  of  clinging 

To  his  limp  hand,  and  droops  careless  and  cold 

Along  the  grass — and  even  Youth  seems  old. 

And  even  Youth  seems  old  ?  .  .  .  But  Youth  is  old, 

Old  as  the  springtide,  as  the  April  flowers. 

Youth's  infinite  history  is  a  tale  thrice  told — 

Aeons  but  mask  them  in  Youth's  counted  hours. 

That  rosebud,  and  the  dew  upon  that  rose, 

Lack  but  the  memory  of  all  ages  past; 

The  wavering  snowflake  knows  not — but  God  knows 

The  winters  it  has  lasted  and  shall  last! 

Yes,  Youth  is  old  .  .  .  and  Age  is  ever  young — 

A  new  thing  in  its  season,  a  new  thing; 

New,  and  more  terrible  than  ever  tongue 

[22] 


Lee  Wilson  Dodd 


Of  fool  or  poet  has  dared  to  say  or  sing! 

Yet  not  more  terrible  than  Youth,  that  seems 

A  dreamer's  dream  of  some  dead  dreamer's  dreams. 


RIDDLE 

You  would  be  free! 

Would  you  be  free 

If  you  were  free? 

Is  the  wind  free, 

Or  the  wind-worn  sea? 

Or  sun-tied  earth, 

Or  the  earth-tied  moon? 

Is  Ariel? 

Is  Caliban? 

Is  Satan  in  Hell? 

Or  God  in  Heaven? 

Riddle  my  rune, 
Little  man! 

Lee  Wilson  Dodd 


[23] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
"E  BE  THAN" 

They  come  weeping, 

They  raise  their  voices, 

Women  meet  them 

As  they  ride  from  the  plain. 

The  band  is  home, 

But  none  rejoices — 

For  many  men 

Return  not  again. 

The  chief  leads  them; 

Yet,  heavy-hearted, 

He  slowly  rides 

From  the  wide,  shining  plain. 

Warriors  mourn 

The  friends  departed — 

For  many  men 

Return  not  again. 

Women  follow; 

The  children,  weeping, 

Straggle  along 

Through  the  dust  of  the  plain, 

Many  mourning 

Friends  or  fathers — 

For  many  men 

Return  not  again. 

[24] 


Carroll  Lane  Fenton 

Priests,  chanting 

The  sacred  death-song, 

Raise  dull  grave-poles 

High  above  the  wide  plain; 

Men  mourn 

Sons  and  cousins — 

For  dead  men's  souls 

Return  not  again. 

Carroll  Lane  Fenton 


SONG 

Hills  are  all  aflower, 

Skies  are  all  afire — 
Fool  was  I  to  sorrow 

For  a  dead  desire! 

Lo,  the  April  marvel 

Stirs  the  earth  again: 
Break,  my  heart,  of  beauty, 

That  would  not  break  of  pain ! 

H.  Thompson  Rich 


[25] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

TO  A  NEW  ENGLAND  GIRL 

Ah,  you  have  taken  my  hot  delight 

In  France  and  stripped  it  of  its  wings ; 

Broken  the  swift  Icarian  flight 

Of  untoward  imaginings 

That  sought  a  sun  hardly  my  own. 

And  you  have  winged  and  brought  me  down 

Through  sudden  ecstasy  to  rest 

Upon  your  white  New  England  breast, 

Where  love  is  fragrantly  austere 

As  those  deep-bosomed  hillsides  are 

That  slope  down  to  Franconia, 

Full-blossoming  in  early  year. 


TO  AN  AUTHENTIC  PRIEST 

He  weighs  me  down,  this  Christ  of  yours. 
He  weighs  me  down — his  arm  is  on 
My  elbow  in  the  streaked  dawn; 
Oppresses  he  my  evening  hours; 
Still  he  outshines  the  manifold 
Bright  rays  that  centre  in  my  heart. 
Much  loveliness  I  knew  grows  cold 
The  while  his  threatening  fires  start 
To  gnaw  at  this  old  edifice 
Of  sturdy  lusts.     Outsavors  he 

[26] 


Edward  Towns  end  Booth 

The  savor  of  my  ancient  bliss. 
He  tempts  me  to  apostasy. 

Edward  Townsend  Booth 


THE  INTRUDER 

Across  my  book  your  hand  augustly  reaches — 

Thrusts  it  away. 
I  turn  impatient  to  the  window,  watching 

The  tossed  trees'  play, 
March  sunshine  glinting  on  a  chilly  rain-pool 

That  snow-banks  frame. 
A  lusty  wind  comes  gusting  on  its  errand 

And  names  your  name. 

Captive,  defeated,  having  striven  I  yield  me 

To  thought  awhile; 
Letting  the  sunlight  on  the  roughened  waters 

Bear  me  your  smile; 
Hearing  the  mischief-making  wind  that  named  you 

Question  afresh 
If  spirit  find  in  spirit  full  contentment 

Only  through  flesh. 

Grace  Stone  Coates 


[27] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
THREE  SONNETS 

PERSPECTIVE   OF  CO-ORDINATION 

The  circles  never  fully  round,  but  change 
In  spiral  gropings — not,  as  on  a  wall, 
Flat-patterned,  but  back  into  space  they  fall, 
In  depth  on  depth  of  indeterminate  range. 
Where  they  begin  may  be  here  at  my  hand 
Or  there  far  lost  beyond  the  search  of  eye; 
And  though  I  sit,  desperately  rapt,  and  try 
To  trace  round-round  the  line,  and  understand 
The  sequence,  the  relation,  the  black-art 
Of  their  continuance,  hoping  to  find  good 
At  least  some  logic  of  part-joined-to-part, 
I  judge  the  task  one  of  too  mad  a  mood: 
And  prophecy  throws  its  shadow  on  my  heart, 
And  Time's  last  sunset  flames  along  my  blood. 


WORLD    BEYOND   WORLD 

Two  mirrors,  face  to  face,  is  all  I  need 

To  build  a  mazy  universe  for  my  mind 

Where  world  grows  out  of  world.    I  dizzily  find 

Solace  in  endless  planes  that  there  recede. 

The  fifth  plane-world,  soft-shimmering  through  the  glass — 

Surely  it  has  a  light  more  bland  than  ours. 

[28] 


Arthur  Davison  Ficke 


And  in  the  far  ninth  hides  a  whirl  of  powers 
Unknown  to  our  dull  senses.     I  would  pass 
Down  the  long  vista,  pausing  now  and  then 
To  taste  the  flavor  of  each  separate  sphere, 
And  with  each  vast  perspective  cool  my  eye. 
Whom  should  I  meet  there  ?    Never  living  men ! 
What  should  I  love  there?    Nothing  I  hold  dear! 
What  would  the  end  be?    Endless  as  am  I ! 


LEAF-MOVEM  ENT 

From  its  thin  branch  high  in  the  autumn  wind 
The  yellow  leaf  now  sails  in  upward  flight; 
Hovers  at  top-slope;  then,  a  whirling  bright 
Eddy  of  motion,  sinks.    The  storm  behind 
With  gusts  and  veering  tyrannies  would  uphold 
Even  as  it  downward  beats  this  gorgeous  thing 
Which  like  an  angel's  lost  and  shattered  wing 
Against  the  grey  sky  sweeps  its  broken  gold. 
Another  eddy,  desperate  or  in  mirth, 
Brings  it  to  rest  here  on  the  crackled  earth 
Where  men  can  see  it  better  than  on  the  bough. 
What  quite  preposterous  irony  of  wind's-will 
Touches  it  where  it  lies,  golden  and  still, 
And  once  more  lifts  it  vainly  heavenward  now! 

Arthur  Davison  Ficke 


[29] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 

DRINKWATER   ON   ABERCROMBIE 

MR.  JOHN  DRINKWATER,  during  his  recent  visit  to 
Chicago,  threw  out  a  challenge  to  the  advocates  of 
the  "new  movement"  by  saying,  during  one  of  his  club  lec- 
tures, "Lascelles  Abercrombie  is  the  most  important  poet 
under  forty-five  now  writing."  To  be  sure,  he  expressed 
the  opinion  tentatively,  remarking  on  the  futility  of  any 
attempt  at  finality  in  contemporary  criticism — on  the  im- 
possibility of  ranking  an  artist  while  he  is  still  in  active 
career.  And  it  must  be  admitted  that  to  many  of  his  hearers 
the  eminence  decreed  to  Mr.  Abercrombie  was  a  convincing 
example  of  this  futility. 

We  all  express  opinions,  but,  unless  blind  egotists,  we 
do  it  with  Mr.  Drinkwater's  modest  reserve;  offering  them 
as  a  passing  and  perishing  comment,  a  stick  thrown  on  the 
current  rather  than  a  tree  planted  to  outlast  its  violence. 
And  so,  while  agreeing  heartily  with  Mr.  Drinkwater  as 
to  the  unfinality — if  one  may  coin  a  word — of  contemporary 
opinion,  let  us  take  up  what  we  consider  his  over-praise  of 
Mr.  Abercrombie,  and  try  to  justify  a  contrary  point  of 
view. 

Mr.  Abercrombie  is  distinctly,  even  slavishly,  in  the  Vic- 
torian tradition.  Tennyson  and  Swinburne  are  his  imme- 
diate progenitors,  with  such  traces  of  remoter  ancestry  as 
they  have  handed  down.  He  loves  to  wander  in  the  old 
protected  gardens,  amid  a  lush  overgrowth  of  verbal  foliage, 

[30] 


Drlnkwater  on  Abercrombie 

a  heavy  atmosphere  of  rank  rhetorical  perfumes.  He  repre- 
sents the  extreme  of  all  those  qualities  of  aesthetic  motive 
and  style  which  the  more  progressive  modern  poets,  from 
Yeats  and  Robinson  to  Ezra  Pound  and  Carl  Sandburg,  have 
been  leading  us  away  from — qualities  which  express,  not 
the  strength  of  "the  tradition,"  but  its  feebleness  and  excess, 
not  its  growth  but  its  decay.  Let  us  illustrate  by  quoting  a 
rather  long  passage  from  Emblems  of  Love.  It  is  Sappho 
who  speaks,  the  brief  and  magic  Sappho,  who,  though  re- 
membered for  only  thirty  lyric  lines,  has  tempted  more  poets 
to  platitudes  than  even  Helen  of  Troy  herself.  We  quote 
three  sentences — the  first  two-thirds  of  her  monologue: 

This  bright  earth 

Maketh  my  heart  to  falter;  yea,  my  spirit 
Bends   and   bows  down   in   the   delight  of  vision, 
Caught  by  the  force  of  beauty,  swayed   about 
Like  seaweed  moved  by  the  deep  winds  of  water: 
For  it  is  all  the  news  of  love  to  me. 
Through  paths  pine-fragrant,  where  the  shaded  ground 
Is  strewn  with  fruits  of  scarlet  husk,  I  come, 
As  if  through  maidenhood's  uncertainty, 
Its   darkness  colored   with   strange   untried   thoughts; 
Hither  I  come,  here  to  the   flowery  peak 
Of  this  white  cliff,  high  up  in  golden  air, 
Where  glowing  earth  and   sea   and   divine  light 
Are  in  mine  eyes  like  ardor,  and  like  love 
Are  in  my  soul:  love's  glowing  gentleness, 
The  sunny  grass  of  meadows  and  the  trees, 
Towers  of  dark  green  flame,  and  that  white  town   • 
Where  from  the  hearths  a  fragrance  of  burnt  wood, 
Blue-purple  smoke  creeps  like  a  stain  of  wine 
Along  the  paved  blue  sea:  yea,  all  this  kindness 
Lies  amid  salt  immeasurable  flowing, 
The  power  of  the  sea,  passion  of  love. 
I,  Sappho,  have  made  love  the  mastery 

[31] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 


Most  sacred  over  man ;  but  I  have  made  it 
A  safety  of  things  gloriously  known, 
To  house  his  spirit  from  the  darkness  blowing 
Out  of  the  vast  unknown:  from  me  he  hath 
The  wilful  mind  to  make  his  fortune  fair. 

We  hear  a  number  of  old  favorites  discoursing  thus  elo- 
quently in  Emblems  of  Love — Helen,  Vashti,  Judith  and 
Holofernes,  a  pair  of  warrior  cave-men,  and  finally  the 
typical  He  and  She  of  an  achieved  millennial  world.  In 
this  last  of  the  dialogues,  before  the  Marriage  Song  and 
Epilogue,  "She"  clothes  her  passion  in  the  following  lofty 
lines : 

What  hast  thou  done  to  me ! — I  would  have  soul, 
Before  I  knew  thee,  Love,  a  captive  held 
By  flesh.     Now,  only  delighted  with  desire, 
My  body  knows  itself  to  be  nought  else 
But  thy  heart's  worship  of  me;   and  my  soul 
Therein  is  sunlight  held  by  warm  gold  air. 
Nay,  all  my  body  is  become  a  song 
Upon  the  breath  of  spirit,  a  love-song. 

To  match  this  nobly  rotund  declaration  of  love,  one  must 
go  back  to  Tennyson's  lover  in  The  Princess,  whose  passion 
so  overwhelmed  him  that  he  cried: 

Nay,  but  thee — 

From   yearlong  poring  on   thy   pictured   eyes 
Ere  seen   I   loved,   and   loved   thee  seen,   and   saw 
Thee  woman  through  the  crust  of  iron  moods 
That   masked  thee   from   men's   reverence   up,   and   forced 
Sweet  love  on  pranks  of  saucy  boyhood;  now 
Given  back  to  life,  to  life  indeed,  through  thee, 
Indeed    I    love. 

It  took  twenty  more  lines  to  clinch  the  affair  with  Tenny- 
son's princess,  and  Mr.  Abercrombie's  He  and  She  are  even 
more  expansive. 

[32] 


Drinkwater  on  Abercrombie 

Mr.  Untermeyer  calls  Mr.  Abercrombie's  type  of  product 
"metaphysical  poetry."  Without  inquiring  whether  this 
phrase  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  one  might  insist  that 
Emblems  of  Love  contains  very  little  of  either  poetry  or 
metaphysics,  that  it  is  merely  a  turgid,  long-winded  artificial- 
izing  of  certain  grand  old  tales  which  only  genius  of  a  high 
order  can  touch  to  new  beauty.  To  me  the  dullness  of  it  is 
not  atoned  for  by  magic  of  sound  or  phrase,  or  by  that  swift 
breathless  Tightness  of  imagery  with  which  the  true  poet  sur- 
prises us.  Mr.  Abercrombie  offers  plenty  of  images — care- 
fully thought  out,  elaborately  wrought  similes  and  metaphors 
set  forth  in  his  heavy,  slow-pacing  iambics  according  to  the 
most  approved  classic  rules;  images  which  we  follow  at  a 
respectful  distance  and  without  a  thrill.  Here  is  one,  from 
the  speech  of  a  "tramp"  in  the  dialogue  Blind,  in  Interludes 
and  Poems,  published  in  1908: 

Fool,  I  have  been 

One  of  the   mutiny   that   attempts   God 
And  to  take  landing  on  the  side  of  Heaven, 
For  foothold  on  the  slippery  peril  of  wall 
Reaching  and  tearing  at  God's  sheer  resentment, 
Still  to  be  thrown  down  by  the  towering  glass 
A  litter  of  upturned  faces,   gesturing 
Against  the  calm  front  of  his  Sabbath's  wall, 
The  desperate  height  of  shining  builded  scorn.   . 

Interludes  and  Poems,  issued  when  the  poet  was  only 
twenty-four,  might  be  excused  as  one  of  the  solemn  follies 
of  youth — youth  over-educated  and  reeking  with  "meta- 
physical" wisdom.  The  five  dramatic  Interludes  have  each 
a  large,  profound,  and  usually  tragic  subject-motive,  under 

[33] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    V -e  r  s  e 

which  the  pompous  verse  staggers,  heavily  overburdened. 
One  is  hardly  convinced  when  God  himself  utters  a  speech 
of  nearly  fifty  lines,  beginning — 

Simple   this   prayer    is,   smelling    sweet   to    me, 
Therefore   I  take  it  and  begin  my  power: 
Yea,  I  will  largely  let  thee  out  of  here, 
Of  being  beautiful,  otherwise  tiring  thee. 

Nor  does  The  Seeker  persuade  us  when  he  says: 

I  have  achieved.     That  which  the  lonely  man 
Spoke  of,  core  of  the  world,  that  Self,  I  know. 

with  seventy  lines  more  to  explain  the  achievement. 

At  twenty-eight  the  poet  should  have  matured  somewhat, 
but  Emblems  of  Love  shows  him  still  more  deeply  involved" 
in  the  tangled  meshes  of  an  intellectually  theorized  and 
heavily  artificialized  art.  He  might  have  persisted  in  that 
manner  to  the  end  if  the  "new  movement''  hadn't  begun 
about  that  time;  for  even  in  England  the  new  movement, 
as  expressed  in  Harold  Monro's  Poetry  and  Drama  and  the 
Georgian  anthologies,  meant  something  simpler  than  Mr. 
Abercrombie's  style  had  as  yet  achieved.  In  the  first 
Georgian  Poetry  we  find  his  dialogue — between  a  sea  captain, 
a  doubting  Thomas  and  a  mysterious  Stranger — a  little 
more  tolerable,  though  it  moralizes  tediously;  and  in  the 
second  his  play,  The  End  of  the  World,  shows  the  beginning 
of  an  effort  at  modern  diction  and  a  less  involved  style — a 
necessary  change,  since  the  people  are  ordinary  publicans 
and  sinners.  The  play  is  stiffly  talky,  however,  and  its  motive 
is  too  slight  for  all  the  pother  of  reflective  or  didactic 
speeches. 

[34] 


Drinkwater  on  Abercrombie 

Deborah  j  published  in  1913,  is  another  evidence  of  a  change 
of  heart.  Even  though  still  clogged  and  rhetorical,  the  style 
seems  almost  bare  in  comparison  with  the  works  above 
quoted,  as  the  following  passage  shows : 

That  was  not  wind! 

That  was  a  hound's  tongue !     Deborah,  you  heard  ? 
The  beagles  out  of  hell  are  loose  in  the  wind, 
The  Gabriel  hounds  are  running  wild  tonight! 
Oh  now,  God  rest  the  little  one's  soul — he  died 
Unchristened,  and  the  Gabriel  hounds  are  out! 
Here  we  two  sit  and  warm  us  at  the  fire, 
And  yonder  in  the  darkness  and  the  wind 
The  little  soul  of  Miriam's  still-born  child 
Runs  crying  from  the  mouths  of  the  Gabriel  hounds ! 

Deborah  is  a  good  example  of  the  tragedy  deliberate, 
descriptive  and  static,  so  to  speak;  tragedy  which  is  willed 
by  the  author  rather  than  decreed  by  fate,  in  which  the  char- 
acters are  pulled  by  strings  instead  of  impelled  by  their  own 
mysterious  and  unreasoning  volition.  The  plot — or  rather 
the  three  plots,  for  the  three  acts  fall  apart — -is  perfectly 
reasonable,  indeed  too  reasonable.  But  it  lacks  spontaneity, 
the  breath  of  life;  and  therefore  we  are  not  convinced  when 
Miriam  and  Deborah  run  out  into  the  deadly  marsh. 

Mr.  Abercrombie  seems  to  the  writer  the  extreme  example 
of  the  kind  of  thing  that  is  the  matter  with  much  modern 
English  poetry.  His  over-intellectualized  motives,  and  his 
lush  and  leaden  involved  style  have  been  admired  too  much 
by  the  Georgians.  And  so  we  feel  impelled  to  record  our 
divergence  from  Mr.  Drinkwater's  publicly  announced 
opinion.  H.  M. 


[35] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
REVIEWS 

NECTAR  AND  SYRUP 

Collected  Poems,  by  Walter  de  la  Mare  (2  vols.)      Henry 

Holt  &  Co. 

A  fit  of  admiration  for  de  la  Mare's  works  has  upset  the 
U.  S.  A.  and  her  newspapers.  But  every  newspaper  article 
I  have  read  is  a  weak  jumble,  done  in  a  strange  attitude  of 
self-defense.  One  of  the  last  champions  of  rhyme  is  passing 
— if  this  chance  is  lost,  rhyme  is  to  be  an  entirely  lost  proposi- 
tion: this  is  what  they  seem  to  say. 

This  chance  is  not  completely  lost.  Walter  de  la  Mare 
is  a  good  rhymer,  one  of  the  very  best  of  today.  Indeed,  he 
is  probably  the  sweetest  rhymer  of  today.  His  Peacock  Pie 
poems  and  his  Poems  for  Childhood  are  clever  and  darling. 
They  are  not  the  drooling  child-poems  one  often  meets  with. 
They  are  good  old-fashioned  child-poems  and  a  little  more: 
there  is  a  naively  mystical  note  in  most  of  them,  and  bright 
new  humor. 

And  so  Listeners,  Motley  and  the  previous  book,  Poems 
1906,  contain  poems  that  have  a  hauntingly  sweet  music, 
and  others  the  mysticism  of  which  is  real,  sweet  and  naive; 
also  landscapes  delicately  drawn,  like  this  one: 

Snow   at  break  of   day, 
On  fields  forlorn  and  bare. 
For  shadow  it  hath  rose, 
Azure    and    amethyst; 
And  every  air  that  blows 
Dies  out  in  beauteous  mist. 

[36] 


Nectar  and  Syrup 

But  too  many  other  poems  strike  us  as  Maxfield  Parrish's 
pictures  do;  they  are  at  first  sight  lovely;  but  then,  to  more 
scrupulous  eyes,  this  loveliness  becomes  falsity.  They  are 
embellishments  rather  than  works  of  beauty.  The  naivete 
of  them  is  studied,  and  they  are  childish  where  they  should 
be  simple.  The  truthfulness  of  the  image  is  sacrificed  for 
the  sake  of  vividness,  with  the  effect  that  a  short-lived  vivid- 
ness is  attained  which  dies  under  scrupulous  eyes.  Thus  the 
famous  moonlight  poem,  where  everything  is  silver  even  to 
the  paws  of  the  sleeping  dog  and  the  snout  of  the  running 
rat,  is  essentially  a  falsified  picture.  Stripped  of  truthful- 
ness, all  that  remains  of  it  is  a  sometimes  pleasing  jingle. 

As  for  his  much  discussed  use  of  hackneyed  words,  symbols, 
colors,  music — inasmuch  as  this  is  the  age-old  vice  of  poets 
and  scribblers,  there  is  nothing  to  say  in  de  la  Mare's  defense. 
And  inasmuch  as  our  times  have  witnessed  a  quite  wonderful 
movement  towards  complete  newness  in  poetry,  Mr.  de  la 
Mare,  for  this  serious  fault  of  his,  may  be  called  unoriginal. 
It  is  extenuating  that  the  quaint  delightful  music  of  some 
of  his  poems  gains  in  quaintness  by  the  use  of  words  which, 
if  hackneyed,  have  a  certain  traditional  flavor.  But  the 
worst  of  it  is  that  this  use  of  hackneyed  language  and  forms 
springs  from  a  lack  of  faith  in  today;  and  moreover  it  is 
made  possible  by  the  fact  that  nothing  very  actual  concerns 
Mr.  de  la  Mare,  for  were  he  concerned  in  things  that  require 
to  be  expressed  in  a  modern  language  he  would  use  it.  Here 
we  find  fairies  and  witches  of  the  old  type,  we  find  knights 
and  damsels  instead  of  guys  and  janes.  Why  not  give  us 

[37] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

today's  witches?  There  are  some.  And  why  not  give  us, 
if  not  guys  and  janes,  today's  knights  and  damsels?  There 
are  some. 

However,  the  critic  should  not  say,  "Why  not?"  He  is 
concerned  in  the  work  of  art  as  it  is  and  not  as  it  should  be. 
Well,  let  us  admit  then  that  we  have  seen  these  witches, 
these  damsels,  these  knights  before,  in  a  hundred  books  of 
the  past.  De  la  Mare  is  a  repeater.  Not  a  bad  one,  but 
for  that  reason  he  is  just  so  much  less  a  poet.  He  is  a  poet 
of  abstract  sentiment  chiefly.  And  in  this  abstraction  we 
detect  a  lack  of  roots,  a  lack  of  force.  Even  most  of  his 
landscapes  are,  as  we  have  said,  embellishments  of  old 
models;  and  the  only  human  beings  in  these  books  are  some 
characters  from  Shakespeare. 

Like  many  poets,  Walter  de  la  Mare  belongs  in  the  class 
of  sentimental  rejecters  of  reality  and  today.  His  mysticism, 
what  there  is  of  it,  is  therefore  a  weak  thing,  a  negation 
rather  than  an  exuberance.  His  music  has  the  melodious 
sweetness  of  a  luxury,  rather  than  of  everyday  song. 

Among  his  best  child  poems  we  find  this: 

Ann !     Ann ! 
Come  quick  as  you  can ! 
There's  a  fish  that  talks 
In   the   frying   pan. 

He  put  up  his  mouth 
And   moaned   "Alas!" 
Oh,  most  mournful — 
"Alas,  alack !" 

Then  turned   to  his  sizzling, 
And  sank  him  back. 

[38] 


Nectar  and  Syrup 

We  must  say  it  again,  some  of  these  child  poems  are  as 
delightful  as  Mother  Goose's.  E.  Carnevali 

ONE    POET 

Advice,  by  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

The  Forerunner:  His  Parables  and  Poems,  by  Kahlil  Gibran, 

Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Neighbors,  by  Wilfrid  Wilson  Gibson.     Macmillan  Co. 
The  Birds  and  Other  Poems,  by  J.  C.  Squire.     George  H. 

Doran  Co. 
Songs  While   Wandering,  by  A.  Newberry  Choyce.     John 

Lane  Co. 

There  are  three  Englishmen,  one  Syrian  and  one  American 
in  this  list;  and  patriots  may  stand  up  and  cheer,  since  the 
single  American  has  written  the  only  book  among  them  that 
is  worth  any  serious  consideration.  I  shall  postpone  my 
comment  upon  it  to  the  end. 

Mr.  Choyce  sings  some  old  songs  while  wandering.  His 
chief  distinction  seems  to  be  that  he  was  wounded  in  action, 
and  has  just  completed  a  lecture  tour  through  our  West, 
South  and  Middle- west.  The  publishers  themselves  think 
so,  for  they  let  these  important  matters  take  first  place  in 
their  wrapper  description  and  add  a  few  perfunctory  words 
about  charm,  lyric  qualities,  etc.  To  these  casualties  were 
added  a  small  gift  for  rhyming,  and  a  grateful  heart.  So 
we  have  variations  on  the  theme  of  God's  own  country,  rocky 
mountains,  peaceful  valleys,  descriptions  of  soulful  meetings 

[39] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

with  a  Mormon  maid  and  an  Indian  princess,  and  other 
tender  damsels,  varied  with  nice  longings  for  Home  (Eng- 
land, in  the  sheltering  sea,  etc.)  and  Mother.  It  is  quite  as 
if  the  English  Captain  in  Shaw's  Great  Catherine  had  trav- 
eled here,  and  appreciatively  burst  into  poetry.  The  only 
comfort  one  can  get  is  that  Mr.  Choyce  is  evidently  quite 
young  and  has  years  of  self-awareness  before  him. 

In  language  that  is  simple  and  apt,  that  even  rises  to  a 
quiet  poignancy,  a  pervading  suspense  that  is  truly  stirring, 
Mr.  Gibson's  Neighbors  is  a  gathering  of  those  intimate 
biographies  that  catch  a  life-time  on  one  pivotal  perception. 
This,  the  larger  part  of  the  book,  gives  it  some  distinction. 
If  read  too  consecutively,  impressions  are  dulled  by  a  mo- 
notony of  theme  and  treatment.  Mr.  Gibson  is  skilful  in 
weaving  his  spell,  but  he  cannot  escape  it  himself ;  one  finds 
the  same  emotions  underlying,  the  same  moods  pervading 
all  the  poems.  In  the  end  one  rises  from  the  book,  having 
fed  upon  fare  touched  with  a  faint  savour  of  the  bread  of 
Elysium ;  and  been  made  hungrier  thereby.  The  other  poems 
are  mainly  occasional  pieces  of  little  importance. 

We  have  had  conductor-music,  and  now  we  have  editor- 
poetry.  J.  C.  Squire  presents  charming,  well  worked,  in- 
telligent poems  which  show  discrimination  and  taste.  I  have 
the  impression,  in  reading  his  book,  of  skilful  parodies  upon 
some  unknown  and  invisible  poet.  There  is  disproportionate 
intellectuality,  but  it  entertains  and  stimulates  even  if  it 
tends  merely  to  wear  a  path  around  old  emotions.  It  is, 
after  all,  something  to  get  the  careful  expression  of  a  highly 

[40] 


One  Poet 

cultured,  versatile  man,  whose  words  have  restraint  and 
authority  if  not  the  compulsion  of  genius.  The  first  im- 
pression is  of  admiration  for  work  well  done,  for  the  fault- 
less architecture  of  his  metaphors,  and  the  unobtrusive 
efficiency  of  his  rhythms. 

Parables  and  prose  poems  like  those  in  The  Forerunner, 
by  Kahlil  Gibran,  will  have  all  the  unpopularity  of  sermons 
outside  the  pulpit.  The  form  itself,  that  of  free,  self-respon- 
sible utterance,  gives  an  irritating  finality  to  the  content, 
which  a  world  grown  skeptical  is  tempted  to  snub.  There 
is  in  this  book  neither  the  stark  authenticity  of  prophecy,  nor 
the  beautiful  crystallizations  of  a  creative  imagination. 
What  we  have  here  is  pompous  dramatizations  of  only  half- 
individualized  platitudes;  sounding  sufficiently  sad-true, 
through  a  mist  of  fine  language,  to  catch  the  attention  with 
mirages.  The  accompanying  drawings,  in  dim  shadow-shape 
and  vague  lines,  give  a  fine  touch  of  completeness  to  the 
book,  supplying  a  somewhat  needed  justification  for  the  text. 
Incidentally,  this  volume  should  be  praised  as  a  specimen  of 
bookmaking.  Mr.  Knopf  has  been  conscientious  in  making  out 
his  list;  and  he  has  been  careful,  as  other  progressive  pub- 
lishers have  not,  to  give  each  book  an  appropriate  format. 

Mr.  Bodenheim's  book  is  a  garland  of  persistently  new 
flowers,  so  different  that  a  myth  might  be  made  of  the  strange 
sap  in  these  short  stems,  of  the  new  designs  made  by  the 
cluster  of  the  petals,  the  new  color,  new  flesh;  and  of  the 
truly  terrifying  fact  that  there  are  no  roots — or  at  least 
none  that  are  visible  or  palpable  or  explicable. 

[41] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

We  know  that  Bodenhefm's  faith  is  an  exaltation  of  form 
." — out  of  his  own  mouth"  if  we  were  inclined  to  a  polemic. 
What  philosophy  has  not  been  .enunciated  a  thousand  times, 
what  beauty  has  not  been  celebrated  over  and  over,  what 
sunrise,  sunset,  moon,  sea,  or  mountain  has  not  been  pub- 
lished into  notoriety  by  a  timeless  following  of  rhapsodists! 
Nothing  that  a  man  can  touch  but  is  mottled  over  ^with 
fingerprints.  The  business  of  the  poet  then,  if  he  is  not  to 
add  merely  a  new  and  more  or  less  unrecognizable  parody, 
is  to  mold  his  material  into  a  new  shape,  to  give  creative 
individuality  a  play  in  fashioning  an  ultimate  appearance. 

Actually  Bodenheim  has  done  more.  He  has  found  new 
themes,  going  to  neglected  or  forbidden  realms  to  find  them. 
And  he  has  come  to  them  with  a  new  attitude,  enabling  him 
to  equip  his  foundry  with  new  molds. 

In  doing  this,  in  not  making  his  poems  a  personal  synthesis 
of  instinctively  selective  preferences,  in  seeming  to  have  writ- 
ten suddenly  and  on  impulse,  without  drawing  matter  and 
manner  from  confessed  admirations  or  self-fertilizing  mem- 
ories, Bodenheim  has  actually  proved  himself  an  original 
poet.  He  has  broken  through  where  so  many  others  have 
wandered  in  circles,  have  taken  vague  new  paths  and  come 
dishearteningly  back  to  their  starting-places;  where  so  many 
others,  less  self-sufficient,  have  fallen  into  impotent  night- 
radiances  of  disintegration. 

A  new  attitude  is  a  rare  achievement,  and  originality  an 
enviable  state  of  blessedness.  One  may  well  believe  that 
new  words  and  new  meanings  are  needed  for  its  expression, 

[42] 


One  Poet 

and  forgive  the  inversions,  ellipses,  forced  embraces,  ex- 
aggerations and  diminutions,  of  his  vocabulary.  But  it  has 
its  penalty.  To  what  conflagration  Mr.  Bodenheim's  fire 
may  lead  to  is  impossible  to  say,  but  its  flame  is  small  and 
illuminates  a  little  space  only.  One  misses  in  his  work 
exactly  that  contact  with  a  literary  evolution  which  enables 
lesser  poets  over  cleared  fields  to  cover  wider  areas. 

It  is  impossible  to  miss  or  fail  to  enjoy  the  exhilaration  of 
this  verse.  Like  the  composers  who  have  transformed  music, 
who  have  swelled  the  orchestra  with  new  instruments,  who 
have  added  to  each  section  whole  new  gamuts,  and  in  daring 
new  combinations  have  made  the  orchestra  more  articulate: 
so  Bodenheim  is  widening  the  scope  of  words;  his  verbs  are 
quivering  with  new  gestures;  his  adjectives  are  suffused  with 
new  and  subtle  colors;  his  nouns  cry  out  new  names;  his 
pronouns  enter  strange  new  relationships;  and  the  juxtaposi- 
tions of  phenomenal  contrasts  and  harmonies  have  added 
new  sounds,  deeper  and  more  sonorous,  or  shriller  and  more 
piercing. 

But  just  as  the  new  composers  as  yet  are  finding  it  hard 
enough  work  to  utter  the  new  sounds,  and  have  hardly  be- 
gun to  sing  songs  with  them;  so  Bodenheim  has,  in  my 
opinion,  found  it  hard  enough  work  to  fashion  the  new  mean- 
ings of  words,  without  attempting  to  say  much  with  them. 
His  poems,  be  they  about  grass-blades  or  men,  have  a  final 
common  appearance;  because  their  subjects  are  not  inspira- 
tions, but  serve,  like  the  string  in  the  chemical  precipitate, 
merely  to  focus  crystallization.  Any  string  would  do  as 

[43] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

well;  and  to  provide  himself  a  store  of  strings  we  find  the 
poet  tending  to  make  catalogues;  he  gives  advice  impartially 
to  a  large  list  of  things  and  it  occurs  to  me  that  he  would  give 
the  same  advice  to  any  fortuitous  association  of  subjects;  that 
Bodenheim  had  to  give  advice,  and  it  didn't  matter  to  whom. 
So  we  find  him  drawing  a  series  of  portraits.  So  we  find 
him  wearily  stretching  out  to  the  stock  figures — to  prosti- 
tutes, Pierrots,  etc. 

There  is  no  quarrel  with  this.  It  seems  to  be  Mr.  Boden- 
heim's  destiny  to  break  the  molecules  of  words  into  atoms 
of  meanings,  and  to  indicate  crudely  the  possible  new  associa- 
tions. No  doubt  other  poets  will  use  them  for  greater 
speech.  Isidor  Schneider 

TEACHER-POETS 

The  Roamer  and  Other  Poems,  by  George  Edward  Wood- 
berry.     Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

Sonnets  from  a  Prison  Camp,  by  Archibald  Allen  Bowman. 
John  Lane  Co. 

When  one  reads  Dr.  Woodberry's  poems,  the  question 
arises,  why  does  this  man's  work  occupy  so  high  a  place  in 
the  minds  of  many  supposedly  discriminating  people?  There 
is  even  a  Woodberry  Society — the  only  society  dedicated  to 
a  living  American  writer.  Yet  Dr.  Woodberry's  poetry  is 
merely  the  careful,  well-wrought  work  of  a  cultivated  gentle- 
man, trained  in  literary  traditions  and  familiar  with  the 
world  of  books. 

[44] 


Teacher-poets 

I  wonder  if  the  explanation  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
prevalent  American  theory  that  because  a  man  is  successful 
in  one  field  he  is  necessarily  to  be  treated  with  reverence  in 
every  other  field.  The  average  citizen  believes  that  because 
Henry  Ford  has  made  millions  of  dollars  building  auto- 
mobiles he  is  an  authority  on  the  single  tax,  the  Jews,  the 
theory  of  relativity,  the  internal  problems  of  Santo  Domingo, 
and  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  The  relatively 
learned  gentlemen  who  comprise  the  Woodberry  Society  may 
not  swallow  such  bunk  as  that,  but  they  share  mildly  in  the 
popular  hallucination.  Dr.  Woodberry  was  a  great,  even  a 
delightful,  university  teacher.  A  census  of  the  Woodberry 
Society  would  probably  show  a  comfortable  majority  im- 
pressed originally  with  their  hero's  pedagogical  ability  and 
personal  charm.  He  was  a  great  teacher ;  ergo  he  is  a  great 
poet. 

Dr.  Woodberry 's  latest  volume  contains  a  long  spiritual 
narrative,  The  Roomer,  in  blank  verse;  a  sonnet  sequence, 
Ideal  Passion;  and  a  number  of  other  sonnets  and  lyrics. 
Technical  excellence  a-plenty  is  found  in  all  the  poems;  so 
is  conventional  but  sincere  idealism.  What  is  lacking  is 
intensity.  There  is  about  the  emotions  an  unearthly  pallor. 
Austerity,  the  quality  which  the  poems  most  nearly  approach, 
is  just  missed — and  missed  because  they  are  lit  not  by  the 
consuming  white  flame  of  experience,  but  by  the  clear,  cold, 
steady  light  of  intellectual  reflection. 

Sonnets  from  a  Prison  Camp  is  also  the  work  of  a  teacher. 
Dr.  Bowman,  now  professor  of  philosophy  in  Princeton 

[45] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

University,  was  an  officer  in  the  British  army  and  was  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Germans.  The  hundred  or  more  sonnets 
dealing  with  his  experiences  are  too  numerous  unless  ex- 
ceedingly good,  which  these  are  not.  They  are  interesting, 
but  they  give  an  impression  mainly  of  craftsmanship.  There 
is  too  much  emphasis  on  ethical  and  esthetic  theory — not 
surprising  in  a  professor  of  philosophy.  Moreover,  the  son- 
nets tend  to  form  an  explicit  rather  than  an  implicit  nar- 
rative, whereas  the  sonnet  sequence,  being  a  succession  of 
Jvrics,  is  best  adapted  to  the  opposite. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

TWO  BOOKS  OF  REFUGE 

Black  Marigolds,  translated  by  E.  Powys  Mathers. 
The  Dark  Mother,  by  Waldo  Frank.     Boni  £  Liveright. 

There  be  two  deluges,  everlasting.  One  is  the  deluge  of 
new  poetry,  which  one  may  witness  at  the  POETRY  office ;  the 
other  is  the  deluge  of  new  novels  from  England,  aggravated 
by  the  indigenous  rain. 

This  month  we,  the  lovers  of  poetry,  stand  on  a  rock  out 
of  the  one  deluge;  and  on  a  raft  over  the  second  deluge. 
The  rock  is  a  little  yellow  pamphlet,  decorated  with  strange 
black  scrawls,  Black  Marigolds;  the  raft  is  a  novel,  The 
Dark  Mother,  by  the  author  of  Our  America. 

Whoever  thought  of  Sanskrit?  Whoever  heard  of 
Chauras?  And  who  is  E.  Powys  Mathers? 

Here  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  poems  I  ever  read.     It 

[46] 


Two  Books  of  Refuge 

is  the  love  poem  of  Chauras,  a  young  man  of  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago,  dying  for  having  loved  the  king's  daughter. 

If  I  see  ....  her  body  beaten  about  with  flame, 
Wounded  by  the  flaring  spear  of  love.  .  .  . 
Then  is  my  heart  buried  alive  in  snow. 

Seeing  the  stupendous  wealth  of  expression  in  this  ancient 
poem,  so  beautifully  rendered  by  Mr.  Mathers,  we  dreamed 
that  in  those  days  there  were  only  poets  living  in  a  beautiful 
world,  only  poetic  words  to  be  spoken.  But  the  pitiful 
struggle  of  the  beautiful  is  eternal;  and  here  too  we  have  a 
glimpse  of  it,  where  eternal  love  and  death  are  sung: 

They  chatter  her  weakness  through  the  two  bazaars, 

Who  was  so  strong  to  love  me.     And  small  men, 

That  buy  and  sell  for  silver,  being  slaves, 

Crinkle  the  fat  about  their  eyes;  and  yet 

No  Prince  of  the  Cities  of  the  Sea  has  taken  her, 

Leading  to  his  grim  bed.    Little  lonely  one, 

You  clung  to  me  as  a  garment  clings,  my  girl. 

A  delightfully  quaint  flavor  is  given  to  the  poem  by  the 
slightly  ungrammatical  expressions  and  punctuation.  In  the 
translator's  own  words:  "I  have  tried,  by  not  letting  my 
verse  become  a  coherent  lyric  poem  in  the  English  sense,  to 
keep  its  disjointed  air." 

This  is  one  of  those  cases  in  which  we  cannot  do  better 
than  quote: 

I  see  her — far  face  blond  like  gold, 

Rich  with  small  'lights,  and  tinted  shadows 

Over  and  over  all  of  her.  .  .  . 

Her  scented  arms 

Lay  like  cool  bindweed  over  against  my  neck. 

When  slow  rose-yellow  moons  looked  out  at  night, 

[47] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

To  guard  the  sheaves  of  harvest  and  mark  down 
The  peach's  fall,  how  calm  she  was  and  love-worthy! 

The  salt  of  the  whispers  of  my  girl, 
Murmurs  of  confused  colors  as  we  lay  near  sleep ; 
Little  wise  words  and  little  witty  words, 
Wanton   as  water,  honied   with  eagerness. 

We  may  recall,  here,  another  beautiful  love-death,  that 
of  Wagner's  Tristan  and  Yseult.  The  experience  that  be- 
came song  for  Chauras  cost  him  his  young  life. 

A  brief  notice  only  of  the  other  book.  The  reason  why 
we  so  much  as  mention  The  Dark  Mother  here  is  that  we 
have  found  in  this  book  what  is  very  seldom  to  be  found  in 
a  novel — poetry. 

It  is  a  book  of  sensitive  health.  The  symbol  for  the  first 
fifty  pages  might  be  a  tall-stemmed  flower  quivering  in  a 
sweet  even  breeze.  There  is  such  delicacy,  mixed  with 
such  extreme  health,  that  we  are  reminded  of  the  antennae 
of  insects: 

The  air  moved  toward  the  mountain;  the  waves  and  the  trees 
and  the  earth  moved  toward  the  mountain.  All  the  world  moved 
gently  upward  toward  the  mountain  like  a  tide.  The  mountain 
moved  downward  toward  earth,  spilled  water  and  spread  trees 
in  it. 

This  David  is  a  man  of  perfect  senses,  perfect  eyes : 

And  David  saw  the  breathing  of  the  woods,  the  warm  comfort 

of  trees  that  had  grown  up  together  and  knew  their  silences.   They 

were   clothed    in    a    sweet   sanctity   of    resolve    and  repose.     They 
took  the  rain  with  faint  bowed  heads. 

Lovers  of  poetry  owe  at  least  an  acknowledgment  to  this 
book  of  honest  prose,  which  is  full  of  beautiful  words — a  real 
gardenful.  E.  Carnevali 

[48] 


Celtic  Fairies 


CELTIC    FAIRIES 


Visions  and  Beliefs  in  the  West  of  Ireland  (2  vols.) ,  collected 

and  arranged  by  Lady  Gregory,  with  two  essays  and  notes 

by  W.  B.  Yeats.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
Irish  Fairy  Tales,  by  James  Stephens,  illustrated  by  Arthur 

Rackham.     Macmillan  Co. 
The  Boy  Apprenticed  to  an  Enchanter,  by  Padraic  Colum, 

illustrated  by  Dugald  Stewart  Walker.     Macmillan  Co. 

Although  the  books  here  listed  are  not  strictly  in  POETRY'S 
province,  their  highly  imaginative  content  places  them  so 
near  it  that  we  must  recommend  them  briefly  to  our  readers. 

Lady  Gregory's  beautiful  and  scholarly  work  presents 
the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  modern  Irish  poets,  headed 
by  Synge  and  Yeats,  have  shaped  masterpieces,  and  from 
which  their  successors  will  continue  to  draw  so  long  as 
there  are  Irish  poets.  In  setting  forth  thus  the  "Celtic  con- 
sciousness of  an  imminent  supernaturalism,"  the  distinguished 
editor  uses  the  names  and  the  exact  language  of  the  in- 
dividuals who  tell  the  tales,  giving  thus  to  her  book  the 
value  of  direct  testimony,  as  well  as  the  vigor  and  beauty 
of  that  folk-diction  which  Synge  has  immortalized.  The 
scope  of  the  work  is  indicated  by  such  sectional  sub-titles  as 
Sea  Stories,  Seers  and  Healers,  The  Evil  Eye,  Banshees  and 
Warnings,  Friars  and  Priest  Cures.  Mr.  Yeats'  essays  and 
notes  are  of  course  not  only  competent  but  sympathetic. 

Mr.  Stephens'  beautiful  book  is  a  poet's  retelling  of  some 
of  the  old  Celtic  folk-tales,  tales  handed  down  from  long  ago 
in  the  manner  Lady  Gregory's  collection  makes  us  under- 

[49J 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

stand.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  tales  are  shaped  into 
compact  form  by  this  close  stylist  without  loss  of  simplicity 
and  charm.  And  Mr.  Rackham's  illustrations  are  a  return 
to  his  best  manner  and  most  imaginative  mood. 

This  book  and  Mr.  Colum's  are  for  children  in  the  sense 
only  that  some  of  the  world's  best  literature  has  been  so 
intended ;  but  no  grown-up  who  loves  imaginative  and 
poetic  folk  stories  should  deny  himself  the  pleasure  of  such 
work  by  poets  at  play.  One  is  "apprenticed  to  an  enchanter" 
in  reading  Mr.  Colum's  book;  and  his  paraphrases  of  the 
classic  epics — Homer,  the  Norse  sagas,  etc. — may  also  be 
recommended  to  any  child,  young  or  old,  as  examples  of 
vivid  and  beautiful  imaginative  prose.  H.  M. 

A  LITTLE  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  ELECT 

The  Little  School,  by  T.  Sturge  Moore.     Harcourt,  Brace 

and  Howe. 

The  little  school  for  which  Mr.  Moore  writes  his  lovely 
book  is  obviously  the  sort  of  school  that  an  artist  like  Mr. 
Moore  would  plan.  Its  teacher  would  be  a  painter  or  en- 
graver or  poet,  while  the  pupils  would  be  girls  and  boys  with 
the  vision  and  the  appreciation  of  the  developing  artist. 

Naturally  this  is  not  the  kind  of  school  or  book  that  chil- 
dren nourished  on  the  red  and  yellow  humor  of  Rudolph 
Dirks  or  even  the  monotonous  wholesomeness  of  The  Youth's 
Companion  will  greatly  care  for.  It  is  too  quiet,  too  re- 
flective, too  full  of  beauty.  But  this  fact  is  not  against  it. 
The  child  with  parent  or  teacher  of  sense  and  apprecia- 

[50] 


Homespun 

tion  will  find  in  the  volume — perhaps  not  "realms  of  gold", 
but  at  least  places  where  blow  the  many  winds,  always 
things  of  mystery  to  children  and  not  to  children  alone; 
where,  as  Mr.  Moore  himself  says, 

None  comes,   none   goes, 
But  the  wind  knows. 

And  the  man  or  woman  will  find  in  the  poems  as  much* 
as  the  boy  or  girl;  indeed,  to  almost  any  child,  without  guid- 
ance, the  book  is  likely  to  be  a  bit  recondite.     N.  A.  C. 

HOMESPUN 

Rhymes  of  a  Homesteader,  by  Elliott  C.  Lincoln.    Houghton 

Mifflin  Co. 

This  is  a  book  of  western  verse,  much  of  it  of  the  homely 
familiar  kind  in  dialect  which  passes  current  as  good  news- 
paper verse.  It  is  hard  to  establish  a  line  by  which  one  can 
say  of  verse  of  this  sort:  This  is  a  counterfeit  of  the  genuine 
homespun,  and  this,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  real  stuff. 
Several  of  the  poems  in  this  book  rise  above  the  counterfeit 
and  approach  the  real  thing,  but  the  majority  are  written 
down  with  that  careful  colloquial  carelessness  which  fails  of 
its  effect  just  because  of  its  too  apparent  condescension.  The 
naivete  of  genuine  folk  homespun  is  not  assumed.  An 
author  may  achieve  the  folk  quality  because  he  is  naive 
really;  or  he  may  achieve  it  through  conscious  simplicity; 
but  not  merely  through  rhyming  dialect  or  colloquial  non- 
chalance. 

[51] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

One  may  be  severe  on  this  score,  because  Mr.  Elliott's 
best  poems  are  so  far  beyond  the  rest.  Wheel  Tracks,  The 
Homesteader,  The  Sheepherder,  Forty  Below,  The  Chinook, 
and  The  Third  Year  give  promise  of  a  much  finer  develop- 
ment of  the  author's  talent.  A.  C.  H. 

MR.  BYNNER'S  SKIT 

Pins  for  Wings,  by  Emanuel  Morgan.     The  Sunwise  Turn, 

New  York. 

Mr.  Bynner  must  have  had  a  beautiful  time  with  him- 
self working  out  these  thumb-nail  caricatures.  There  are 
too  many  for  them  all  to  be  clever,  of  course;  but  a  few 
have  the  delicate  tang  of  wit. 

"A  hamadryad  in  the  tree  of  knowledge"  is  not  bad  for 
Miss  Millay,  or  "Overalls  rhyming"  for  Walt  Mason.  "A 
cardinal  on  a  merry-go-round"  is  still  better,  perhaps,  for 
Mr.  Chesterton.  "A  graphophone  in  the  morgue"  is  only 
a  half-success  for  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  and  "A  colored  post- 
card as  Hamlet"  does  not  quite  hit  off  adequately  the  cruelly 
battered  egoism  of  Cale  Young  Rice. 

But  the  masterpiece  of  wit  which  would  excuse  a  volume 
of  failures,  the  portrait  complete  and  satisfying  which  leaves 
nothing  more  to  be  said,  is  this  of  George  Edward  Wood- 
berry  : 

Grape-juice 

In   the   Holy   Grail. 

A  word  of  praise  also  for  Mr.  Saphier's  line-drawings, 
and  for  one  or  two  of  Mr.  Opffer's  sketches.  H.  M. 

[52] 


OUR  CONTEMPORARIES 

BOND  OR  FREE? 

They  are  still  talking  about  free  verse — both  pro  and  con; 
although  the  champions  of  both  sides  insist  that  the  dis- 
cussion is  closed,  and  the  poets  continue  to  do  as  they  please 
and  get  their  poems  printed.  We  commend  to  Mr.  Tom 
Daly  and  other  fulminators  the  following  contribution  to 
the  controversy  from  a  recent  number  of  the  Mercure  de 
France.  It  is  part  of  the  theatrical  review  of  Dec.  15,  1920, 
by  Maurice  Boissard: 

To  say  that  rhyme  is  poetry,  that  there  is  no  poetry  where  there 
isn't  rhyme,  is  to  express  the  worst  poetic  routine.  Let's  take  an 
example — Jose-Maria  de  Heredia,  if  you  will.  You  know  the  son- 
nets of  Trophees.  God  knows  that  those  lines  rhyme,  but  is  it 
poetry,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  ?  Not  in  the  least.  It  is  versi- 
fication— extremely  brilliant,  we  admit,  but  still  mere  versification. 
It  is  made  for  the  eye,  for  the  ear,  not  for  the  spirit  or  the  soul. 
It  is  a  sequence  of  tours  de  force,  a  show  of  patience,  suggestively 
like  certain  complicated  trinkets  manufactured  with  tiny  shells  by 
meticulous  maniacs.  Do  you  want  a  more  general  argument?  You 
certainly  have  read  poems  by  foreign  poets  translated  into  French 
line  by  line  and  without  any  rhyme  because  the  translator  had  in 
mind  only  the  thought  of  being  faithful  to  the  significance  of  the 
poem  itself.  Have  you  felt  the  penetrating  charm  of  these  trans- 
lations?— a  charm  due  solely  to  the  feeling  expressed,  to  the  land- 
scape described;  charm  that  the  lack  of  rhyme  left  untouched,  or 
even  increased,  by  means  of  those  essentially  poetic  elements:  vague- 
ness, imprecision,  indecision,  all  that  which  is  poetry  itself.  Rhyme, 
with  its  dryness,  its  regularity,  its  monotony,  its  mechanical  quality 
and  exterior  brilliance,  would  have  left  nothing  of  that  beauty; 
or  at  any  rate  would  have  decidedly  impaired  it.  Rhyme  is  nothing 
but  a  poetic  make-up,  a  way  to  look  like  poets  for  people  who  know 
no  better  than  to  make  verses;  and  it  is  high  time  to  follow  the 
advice  Verlaine  gave,  to  tordre  enfin  le  cou  a  ce  bijou  d'un  sou. 

[53] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Not  only  rhyme  is  not  poetry,  but  moreover  it  is  an  encumbrance, 
an  obstacle  to  poetry;  for  its  sake  the  poet  falsifies  his  inspiration. 

Probably  Mr.  Daly's  favorite  magazine  is  Scribners,  for 
we  read  in  one  of  its  recent  advertisements: 

The  four  or  more  poems  contained  in  a  representative  number 
of  Scribner's  are  joyous,  lyrical,  and  well-conceived.  Such  themes 
as  the  bird  on  the  bough,  summer  in  Arcady,  the  little  silver  strip 
of  road,  are  preferred  over  grave  or  mournful  subjects.  Yet  all 
poems  must  conform  to  a  high  standard  of  dignity  and  distinctive- 
ness. 

CORRESPONDENCE 

CONCERNING 

Dear  POETRY: — Writers,  quite  as  much  in  the  countries 
of  older  art  tradition  as  in  America,  may  be  divided  into 
two  classes:  one  the  professionals,  whose  concern  is  style, 
technique,  finished  achievement ;  the  other,  those  who  attempt 
at  least  to  explore  and  develop  new  experience.  The  former 
class  restrict  themselves  generally  to  quite  conventional 
themes;  or,  if  they  are  very  daring,  develop  for  themselves 
new  themes — about  which  they  write  "verses" — ultimately 
hardening  into  a  manner,  inherited  or  their  own,  and  soften- 
ing in  so  far  as  ability  to  penetrate  deeply  goes.  Limiting 
ourselves  strictly  to  America,  we  may  mention  such  poets 
of  the  first  class  as  Masters,  Sandburg,  Aiken — the  list  need 
stop  short  of  only  a  very  few  names.  Particularly  with 
Sandburg  may  one  be  sure  that  he  will  take  an  image,  and 
consciously  sustain  and  develop  it,  long  after  he  has  lost 
poignant  feeling  for  the  validity  of  the  image.  He  is  a 

[54] 


Concerning  "Kora  in  Hell'' 

professional  writer.  He  has  learned,  in  his  own  manner  to 
be  sure,  how  to  use  the  image,  the  metaphor,  the  brutal 
truth,  and  the  sentimental  humanitarianism.  So,  starting 
out  with  the  statement  that  the  moon  is  a  pot  of  gold  mud, 
he  must  have  that  gold  mud  spread  over  worldly  possessions, 
and  of  course  at  last  a  love- woman.  He,  and  many  others, 
seem  to  feel  that  it  is  necessary  to  write — if  not  an  authentic 
poem,  to  write  anyway.  Unless  from  an  impulse  to  say 
something  keenly  felt,  writing  is  without  justification. 

Of  this  first  group  few  pass  from  their  adolescent  re- 
bellions and  miseries  into  a  more  spiritual  type  of  searching. 
Their  discovery  of  experience  is  limited  to  material  en- 
vironment— the  corn-fields,  the  marching  men,  small-town 
viciousness,  the  hog-butcher.s  of  industrialism.  Outside,  and 
perhaps  controlling  the  forces  back  of  these  externalities,  are 
more  fundamental  forces  which  they  do  not  sense,  forces 
which  have  a  universal  application,  while  retaining  also  a 
strictly  local  significance.  The  experience  of  the  locality  is 
after  all  that  of  the  universe.  The  history  of  any  individual 
relates  itself  with  startling  similarity  to  that  of  the  age. 

Today  is  a  time  of  the  breakdown  of  faiths  amongst  the 
so-called  "sensitized"  and  "intellectuals."  With  the  coming 
of  the  theory  of  evolution  the  more  sublime  metaphysical 
theories  were  gradually  abandoned;  pragmatism,  with  its 
doctrines  concerning  the  usable  realities,  followed  on  to 
lubricate  the  joints  of  a  mechanistic  universe.  However, 
where  a  few  began  to  doubt  the  value  of  these  "practical" 
answers  before  the  war,  literally  thousands  now  doubt.  Why 

[55] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

should  we  believe  in  evolution  which  does  not  explain  in- 
volution, or  the  quite  evident  lack  of  progress?  Have  we 
anything  to  prove  that  physically  and  Spiritually  the  human 
species  is  not  on  the  retrograde?  What  is  morality? — is 
non-morality  a  possibility?  Dogmatized,  it  becomes  at  last 
a  degenerate  morality — must  all  ethics  be  individualized 
then?  Many  questionings,  cynicisms,  scoffings  and  doubt- 
ings  attack  all  former  judgments,  and  demand  that  their 
defenders  prove  their  basis,  and  indicate  clearly  that  it  is 
something  other  than  blind  faith,  or  inward  hunger  rhap- 
sodized into  a  proclamatory  religion  made  out  of  dream- 
stuff.  Ecstatic  faith  and  prophetic  exaltation  are  too  prim- 
itive to  be  explainable  in  the  religious  instinct — for,  say 
Whitman — to  satisfy  the  diagnostic  mind,  and  the  psy- 
chologist. 

Whatever  certain  groups  or  individuals  may  think  or  feel, 
the  civilized  peoples  of  the  world  are  groping  for  some  basis 
of  faith:  a  faith  in  the  mere  value  of  living  out  their  lives 
rather  than  a  religious  explanation  of  existence.  But  there 
is  a  new  difficulty  in  their  groping:  they  no  longer  trust 
logic,  sequence,  order — the  intelligible,  rational,  deducible. 

It  is  writers  who  are  sensitive  to  this  baseless  way  of 
accepting  life,  or  rather  tolerating  it  because  life  is  what 
we  have,  who  are  developing  the  so-called  "modern  forms." 
Both  modern  and  form  are  words  that  signify  too  much  tra- 
ditionally, and  too  little  actually.  To  qualify,  let  me  say 
I  mean  by  modern  that  which  is  of  the  quality  of  today, 
displaying  sensitive  consciousness  of  the  age's  attitudes  and 

[56] 


Concerning  "Kora  in  Hell" 

philosophies.  By  form  I  mean  method  of  expression  and 
conveyance,  and  I  have  no  concern  with  any  structural 
form — metrical,  rhythmic,  or  geometric. 

James  Joyce  with  his  prose  first  indicated  the  modern 
form.  Possibly  his  style  could  be  traced  back  to  the  often- 
times incoherent  Rimbaud ;  the  likeness  here  is  purely  a  mode 
— the  texture,  quality  of  perception,  attitude,  and  substance 
are  quite  different:  the  one  has  the  mature  detached  mind; 
the  other  tossed  himself  with  the  seething  of  adolescence 
into  the  field  of  sophisticated  discovery,  and  perhaps  when 
adolescence  and  its  ragings  were  over  he  would  have  re- 
lapsed into  quite  conventional  or  mediocre  writing. 

In  America  William  Carlos  Williams,  and  he  beginning 
only  with  his  improvisations  entitled  Kora  in  Hell,  is  con- 
scious of  the  new  form  in  relation  to  the  dubiety  of  the  day. 
Not  agnosticism,  for  the  agnostic  will  say  "I  can't  know" 
decisively;  we  are  simply  doubting,  and  doubting  whether 
we  are  right  in  doubting.  There  is  in  this  book  the  spas- 
modic quality  of  the  active,  imaginative,  alternately  fright- 
ened and  reckless,  consciousness.  One  will  search  in  vain 
for  sequential  outline;  it  is  incoherent  and  unintelligible  to 
— may  I  say  the  ordinary  mind,  though  I  dislike  the  superior 
implication  of  self  which  the  phrase  carries  with  it?  (Since 
minds  are  so  elusive,  none  is  actually  ordinary.)  It  is  in- 
coherent and  unintelligible  to  those  people  with  lethargy  of 
their  sensing  organs.  They  look  for  the  order  and  neatness 
of  precise,  developed  thought.  It  is  not  there.  Kora  in  Hell 
is  accepted  as  a  portrait  of  Williams'  consciousness — a  sort 

[57] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

of  retouched  photograph.  He  is  not  distinctly  located  to 
himself — it's  a  "Should  I,  or  shouldn't  I,  and  what  if  I 
don't?"  It's  a  conscientious  sensitive  mind,  or  life  organ- 
ism; trained  in  childhood  to  staid  and  tried  acceptances  and 
moralities,  trying  to  be  open,  and  to  think,  sense,  or  leap 
to  a  footing  which  more  acceptably  justifies  the  life-process 
than  any  of  the  traditional  footings  seem  to. 

To  me  Kora  in  Hell  is  immeasurably  the  most  important 
book  of  poetry  that  America  has  produced.  I  find  in  Whit- 
man a  hardened  exaltation,  which  proclaims  rhapsodic  dog- 
matism— the  result  of  physical  well-being,  of  the  freedom 
of  open  air,  space,  and  green  fields.  Admirable  in  its  day, 
but  the  day  is  by  for  those  of  us  who  live  in  cities  such  as 
New  York  and  Chicago,  and  who  perhaps  have  never  seen 
a  real  prairie  or  the  mountains  of  the  Great  Divide,  and  who 
sleep  in  tenement-house  bedrooms  several  stories  up  from 
the  soil  which  flavors  Indian  imagism  and  produces  sweep- 
of-the-corn-sap-flowing  rhythms.  And  we  will  not  accept  the 
statement  that  "it  is  regrettable  we  have  never  had  these 
things."  Our  situation  is  our  situation,  and  by  the  artist 
can  be  utilized  as  substance  for  art.  There  can  be  no  turn- 
ing back  to  the  soil,  to  the  Indians — literature  is  not  thus 
consciously  developed.  We  are  here,  in  the  cities  of  smoke, 
subways,  tired  faces,  industrialism ;  here  with  the  movies  and 
their  over-gorgeousness,  and  the  revues  and  follies  which 
gradually  inject  their  ultra-coloration  into  vaudeville;  here 
where  it  is  deemed  necessary  to  applaud  "art  things"- 
Mozart  and  Schumann  music,  established  classics  which  fall 

[58] 


Concerning  "Kora  in  Hell" 

dully  upon  our  hyper-neurotic  senses.  Be  the  conditions 
hectic,  heated,  artificial  (are  economic,  political  and  social 
forces  then  "not  natural"?)  they  are  the  conditions  of  a 
great  portion  of  the  country. 

For  those  who  wish  poetry  to  create  some  sublime  beauty, 
which  to  others  grows  irksome  since  it  is  necessary  to  turn 
from  its  sublimity  to  the  reality  of  existence,  William  Carlos 
Williams'  Kora  in  Hell  will  mean  little.  To  those  however 
who  rather  like  to  have  the  record  of  somebody  else's  con- 
scious states  by  which  to  check  their  own,  with  which  to 
respond  and  commune,  it  will  mean  a  great  deal.  The 
writer,  not  caring  for  literature  as  literature;  not  knowing 
what  function  it  performs  in  life  other  than  that  of  a  men- 
tal decoration  if  it  does  not  get  into,  reveal,  and  sensitize 
people  to,  new  experience;  believes,  however,  that  no  book 
previously  produced  in  this  country  has  been  so  keenly,  vivid- 
ly aware  of  age  conceptions,  qualities,  colors,  noises,  and 
philosophies  as  Kora  in  Hell.  It  is  a  break-away  from 
poetry  written  by  poets  who  set  out  to  be  poets.  It  is  ad- 
venturous exploration.  Robert  McAlmon 

NOTES 

Mr.  Lew  Sarett,  whose  interpretations  of  Chippewa  life  are 
familiar  to  our  readers,  is  now  a  resident  of  Evanston,  111.,  being 
in  the  faculty  of  Northwestern  University.  His  book,  Many  Many 
Moons,  was  published  last  year  by  Henry  Holt  &  Co. 

Mr.  Arthur  Davison  Ficke,  of  Davenport,  Iowa,  has  recently 
returned  from  his  eight-months'  sojourn  in  China  and  Japan.  His 
latest  book  of  verse  is  An  April  Elegy,  published  by  Mitchell 
Kennerley  in  1917. 

[59] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 


Mr.  Lee  Wilson  Dodd,  who  lives  near  New  Haven,  Conn.,  is 
the  author  of  a  number  of  plays  and  two  books  of  verse.  Of 
these  the  later  is  The  Middle  Miles  and  Other  Poems  (Yale  Uni- 
versity Press,  1915). 

Mr.  H.  Thompson  Rich,  of  Rutherford,  N.  J.,  has  contributed 
to  various  magazines. 

The  other  poets  of  this  number  appear  for  the  first  time  in  POETRY, 
and  none  of  them  has  printed  a  volume  as  yet,  so  far  as  the  editor 
is  aware. 

Elinor  Wylie  (Mrs.  Horace  Wylie),  who  lives  in  Washington, 
D.  C.,  has  contributed  to  other  periodicals. 

Mr.  Edward  Townsend  Booth,  of  New  York,  served  with  the 
A.  E.  F.,  and  later  went  to  Ukrainia  to  do  relief  work. 

Mr.  Carroll  Lane  Fenton,  whose  specialty  is  paleontology,  is 
now  working  at  the  Walker  Museum,  University  of  Chicago.  He 
is  a  member  of  the  U.  of  C.  Poetry  Club. 

Grace  Stone  Coates  (Mrs.  Henderson  Coates)  lives  in  Martins- 
dale,  Mont. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Punch:  the  Immortal  Liar,  by  Conrad  Aiken.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Verses,  by  William  Grant  McCooley,  Jr.  Privately  printed,  Mil- 
waukee, Wis. 

Pools  of  Glass  and  Other  Poems,  by  Cyrus  Caswell  Johnson.  Pri- 
vately printed,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

Cactus  Center,  by  Arthur  Chapman.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  Broads — 1919,  by  Hugh   Money-Coutts.     John  Lane   Co. 

Forgotten  Shrines,  by  John  Chipman  Farrar.  (Yale  Series  of 
Younger  Poets.)  Yale  University  Press,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Star-dust  and  Gardens,  by  Virginia  Taylor  McCormick.  Plimp- 
ton Press,  Norwood,  Mass. 

Borderlands,  Kitchener  of  Khartoum  and  Other  Poems,  by  Benj.  C. 
Moomaw.  Privately  printed,  Barber,  Va. 

The  Choice  of  Paris  and  Other  Poems,  by  D.  C.  Chase.  Privately 
printed,  Cedar  Rapids,  la. 

The  Attic  of  the  Past  and  Other  Lyrics,  by  Louis  Ginsberg.  Small, 
Maynard  &  Co. 

Outlaws,  by  Nancy  Cunard.     Elkin  Mathews,  London. 

Breakers  and  Granite,  by  John  Gould  Fletcher.     Macmillan  Co. 

Poems,  by  Mary  Allen  Keller.    Privately  printed,  Yorba  Linda,  Cal. 

[60] 


DEAR  POETRY:  I  always  feel  that  I  ought  to  renew  my  thanks  for  your 
enterprise  and  faith,  which  are  so  ceaselessly  at  work  on  the  task 
of  renewing  me. 

Ferdinand   Schevill 

Vol.  XVIII  No.  II 

POETRY  for  MAY,  1921 

PAGE 

Sappho  Answers  Aristotle     ....    Maxwell  Bodenheim  61 
Impulsive    Dialogue — iEmotional    Monologue  —  Feminine 
Talk — Philosophical  Dialogue 

Three   Sonnets Arthur  Davison  Ficke  72 

Old    Wives'    Tale— Holy   Writ— Book   of   Lu    T'ang    Chu 

Three  Poems Aline  Kilmer  74 

Charmian's  Song— For  All  Ladies  of  Shalott— The  Heart 
Knoweth  its  Own  Bitterness 

Backwater Edward  Sapir  76 

A   Childish  Tale— The   Old   Town— Overlooked— She  Sits 
Vacant-eyed 

Tonight    (Snow — Presence)    .       .      .v           Muriel  Ciolkowska  80 

Off  the  Highway Julia  Weld  Huntington  81 

Pageantry    (Revelations — Poise)       ....      Amy  Banner  82 

Charlotte  Bronte       . Blanche  Dismorr  83 

Trailing  Arbutus Ruth  Mason  Rice  83 

Long  Days — Heaphy  Herself  ....      Dorothy  McVickar  84 

Youth  and  Age Elizabeth  Hart  Pennell  85 

Repetitions Hazel  Hall  86 

Two  Sewing — Instruction — Three  Songs  for  Sewing  I-III 
— Cowardice — Flash 

Southern    Shrines H.M.  91 

The    Death    of    "B.   L.    T." H.  M.  97 

The  Poet  and  Modern  Life       .......        R.A.^ 

Reviews: 

Pastels Laura    Sherry  101 

Silence   Awakening R.   A.  103 

Country  Sentiment    ....    Nelson  Antrim  Crawford  105 

Recent    Anthologies H.    M.  106 

French  Poets  in  English      ....     Agnes  Lee  Freer  in 

Symbolists   and   Decadents A.  L.  F.  113 

Our  Contemporaries: 

Two  New  Magazines H.  M.  115 

Notes    and    Books    Received                117,  118 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed 
envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico, 
Cuba  and  American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all 
other  countries  in  the  Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class 
matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the  post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  the  Act  of 
March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543   Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 

Copyright  1921     J.v   Harriet   Monroe.      All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 
No.  II 
A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


MAY  1921 


SAPPHO  ANSWERS  ARISTOTLE 

IMPULSIVE    DIALOGUE 

Will  you,  like  other  men, 

Offer  me  indigo  indignities? 
Undertaker.     Indigo  indignities! 

The  words  are  like  a  mermaid  and  a  saint 

Doubting  each  other's  existence  with  a  kiss. 
Poet.     The  words  of  most  men  kiss 

With  satiated  familiarity. 

Indigo  is  dark  and  vehement, 

But  one  word  in  place  of  two 

Angers  barmaids  and  critics. 
Undertaker.     Straining  after'  originality, 

You  argue  with  its  ghost! 

A  simple  beauty,  like  morning 

[61] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Harnessed  by  a  wide  sparkle 

And  plodding  into  the  hearts  of  men, 

Cannot  reach  your  frantic  juggling. 
Poet.     I  can  appreciate 

The  spontaneous  redundancy  of  nature 

Without  the  aid  of  an  echo 

From  men  who  lack  her  impersonal  size. 
Undertaker.     The  sweeping  purchase  of  an  evening 

By  an  army  of  stars; 

The  bold  incoherence  of  love; 

The  peaceful  mountain-roads  of  friendship — 

These  things  evade  your  dexterous  epigrams! 
Poet.     A  statue,  polished  and  large, 

Dominates  when  it  stands  alone. 

Placed  in  a  huge  profusion  of  statues, 

Its  outlines  become  humiliated. 

Simplicity  demands  one  gesture 

And  men  give  it  endless  thousands. 

Complexity  wanders  through  a  forest, 

Glimpsing  details  in  the  gloom. 
Undertaker.     I  do  not  crave  the  dainty  pleasure 

Of  chasing  ghosts  in  a  forest! 

Nor  do  I  care  to  pluck 

Exaggerated  mushrooms  in  the  gloom. 

I  have  lost  myself  on  roads 

Crossed  by  tossing  hosts  of  men. 

Pain  and  anger  have  scorched  our  slow  feet: 

Peace  has  washed  our  foreheads. 

[62] 


Maxwell  Bodenheim 

Poet.     Futility,  massive  and  endless, 

Captures  a  stumbling  grandeur 

Embalmed  in  history. 

In  my  forest  you  could  see  this 

From  a  distance,  and  lose 

Your  limited  intolerance. 

Simplicity  and  subtlety 

At  different  times  are  backgrounds  for  each  other, 

Changing  with  the  position  of  our  eyes.    .    .    . 

Death  will  burn  your  eyes 

With  his  taciturn  complexity. 
Undertaker.     Death  will  strike  your  eyes 

With  his  wild  simplicity! 
Poet.     Words  are  soldiers  of  fortune 

Hired  by  different  ideas 

To  provide  an  importance  for  life. 

But  within  the  glens  of  silence 

They  meet  in  secret  peace.    .    .    . 

Undertaker,  do  you  make  of  death 

A  puffing  wretch  forever  pursued 

By  duplicates  of  vanquished  forms? 

Or  do  you  make  him  a  sneering  king 

Brushing  flies  from  his  bloodless  cheeks? 

Do  you  see  him  as  an  unappeased  brooding 

Walking  over  the  dust  of  men? 

Do  you  make  him  an  eager  giant 

Discovering  and  blending  into  his  consciousness 

The  tiny  parts  of  his  limitless  mind? 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Undertaker.     Death  and  I  do  not  know  each  other. 

I  am  the  stolid  janitor 

Who  cleans  the  litter  he  has  left 

And  claims  a  fancied  payment. 
Poet.     Come  to  my  fantastic  forest 

And  you  will  not  need  to  rise 

From  simple  labors,  asking  death 

For  final  wages. 


EMOTIONAL   MONOLOGUE 

A  man  is  sitting  within  the  enigmatic  turmoil  of  a  railroad 
station.  His  face  is  narrow  and  young,  and  his  nose, 
lips,  and  eyes,  carved  to  a  Semitic  sharpness,,  have  been 
sundered  by  a  bloodless  catastrophe.  A  traveling-bag 
stands  at  his  feet.  Around  him  people  are  clutching 
farewells  and  shouting  greetings.  Within  him  a  mono- 
logue addresses  an  empty  theatre. 

I  am  strangling  emotions 

And  casting  them  into  the  seats 

Of  an  empty  theatre. 

When  my  lifeless  audience  is  complete, 

The  ghosts  of  former  emotions 

Will  entertain  their  dead  masters. 

After  each  short  act 

A  humorous  ghost  will  fly  through  the  audience, 

Striking  the  limp  hands  into  applause, 

[64] 


Maxwell  Bodenheim 


And  between  the  acts 

Sepulchral  indifference  will  mingle 

With  the  dust  upon  the  backs  of  seats. 

Upon  the  stage  a  melodrama 

And  a  travesty  will  romp 

Against  a  back-drop  of  fugitive  resignation. 

Climax  and  anti-climax 

Will  jilt  each  other  and  drift 

Into  a  cheated  insincerity. 

Sometimes  the  lights  will  retire 

While  a  shriek  and  laugh 

Make  a  martyr  of  the  darkness. 

When  the  lights  reappear 

An  actor-ghost  will  assure  the  audience 

That  nothing  has  happened  save 

The  efforts  of  a  fellow  ghost 

To  capture  life  again. 

In  his  role  of  usher 

Another  ghost  will  arrange 

The  lifeless  limbs  of  the  audience 

Into  postures  of  relief. 

Sometimes  a  comedy  will  trip 

The  feet  of  an  assassin, 

Declaring  that  if  ghosts  were  forced 

To  undergo  a  second  death 

Their  thinness  might  become  unbearable. 

At  other  times  indignant  tragedy 

Will  banish  an  intruding  farce, 

[65] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Claiming  that  life  should  not  retain 

The  luxury  of  another  laugh. 

The  first  act  of  the  play  will  show 

The  owner  of  the  theatre 

Conversing  with  the  ghost  of  a  woman. 

As  unresponsive  as  stone 

Solidly  repelling  a  spectral  world, 

His  words  will  keenly  betray 

The  bloodless  control  of  his  features. 

He  will  say:    "With  slightly  lowered  shoulders, 

Because  of  a  knife  sticking  in  my  back, 

I  shall  trifle  with  crowded  highways, 

Buying  decorations 

For  an  interrupted  bridal-party. 

This  process  will  be  unimportant 

To  the  workshop  of  my  mind 

Where  love  and  death  are  only 

Colorless  problems  upon  a  chart." 

The  ghost  of  the  woman  will  say: 

"Your  mind  is  but  the  rebellious  servant 

Of  sensitive  emotions 

And  brings  them  clearer  dominance." 

And  what  shall  I  mournfully  answer? 

I  am  strangling  emotions 

And  casting  them  into  the  seats 

Of  an  empty  theatre. 


[66] 


Maxwell  Bodenheim 


FEMININE    TALK 


First  Woman.     Do  you  share  the  present  dread 

Of  being  sentimental? 

The  world  has  flung  its  boutonniere 

Into  the  mud,  and  steps  upon  it 

With  elaborate  gestures! 

Certain  people  do  this  neatly, 

Using  solemn  words  for  consolation: 

Others  angrily  stamp  their  feet, 

Striving  to  prove  their  strength. 
Second  Woman.     Sentimentality 

Is  the  servant-girl  of  certain  men 

And  the  wife  of  others. 

She  scarcely  ever  flirts 

With  creative  minds, 

Striving  also  to  become 

Graceful  and  indiscreet. 
First  Woman.     Sappho  and  Aristotle 

Have  wandered  through  the  centuries, 

Dressed  in  an  occasional  novelty — 

A  little  twist  of  outward  form. 

They  have  always  been  ashamed 

To  be  caught  in  a  friendly  talk. 
Second  Woman.     When  emotion  and  the  mind 

Engage  in  deliberate  conversation, 

One  hundred  nightingales 

And  intellectuals  find  a  common  ground, 

[67] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  curse  the  meeting  of  their  slaves! 
First  Woman.     The  mind  must  only  play 

With  polished  relics  of  emotion, 

And  the  heart  must  never  lighten 

Burdens  of  the  mind. 
Second  Woman.     I  desire  to  be 

Irrelevant  and  voluble, 

Leaving  my  terse  disgust  for  a  moment. 

I  have  met  an  erudite  poet. 

With  a  northern  hardness 

Motionless  beneath  his  youthful  robes. 

He  shuns  the  quivering  fluencies 

Of  emotion,  and  shifts  his  dominoes 

Within  a  room  of  tortured  angles. 

But  away  from  this  creative  room 

He  sells  himself  to  the  whims 

Of  his  wife,  a  young  virago 

With  a  calculating  nose. 

Beneath  the  flagrant  pose 

Of  his  double  life 

Emotion  and  the  mind 

Look  disconsolately  at  each  other. 
First  Woman.     Lyrical  abandon 

And  mental  cautiousness 

Must  not  mingle  to  a  magic 

Glowing,  yet  deliberate! 
Second  Woman.     Never  spill  your  wine 

Upon  a  page  of  mathematics. 

[68] 


Maxwell  Bodenheim 


Drink  it  decently 
Within  the  usual  tavern. 


PHILOSOPHICAL   DIALOGUE 

First  Man.     We  gaze  upon  a  negro  shoveling  coal. 

His  muscles  fuse  into  a  poem 

Stifled  and  sinister, 

Censuring  the  happy  rhetoric  of  morning  air. 

Some  day  he  may  pitch  his  tent 

Upon  the  ruins  of  a  civilization, 

Playing  with  documents  and  bottles  of  perfume 

Found  in  deserted  corridors. 
Second  Man.     Listen  to  this  song 

Dipped  in  the  Negro  South  of  America. 

She  brought  me  collars  and  shoes. 

She  brought  me  whiskey  and  tea. 
She  brought  me  everything  that  I  could  use 

But  the  jail-house  key! 

Time  inserts  the  jail-house  key 
Into  a  succession  of  rusty  locks, 
Straining  until  they  open. 
Do  you  hear,  beneath  the  rattling  strut 
Of  this  city,  an  imperceptible  groan? 
Time  is  turning  the  jail-house  key. 
They  build  larger  jails  for  Time: 

[69] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

He  makes  larger  keys  of  blood  and  iron, 

But  often  the  labor  is  delayed 

By  pausing  squeals  of  freedom. 
First  Man.     An  insignificant  jest 

In  the  wider  life  of  Time. 

He  has  dropped  to  this  earth 

To  play  a  barbarous  comedy. 

Philosophers  loudly  explain  the  scenes; 

But  poets,  with  greater  restraint, 

Tender  them  a  masquerade. 
Second  Man.     Once  I  sat  and  watched 

A  scientific  philosopher 

Place  white  lines  on  a  black-board, 

Diagraming  his  mighty  system  of  logic. 

While  he  worked,  the  wind  outside 

Squandered  its  derision 

And  offered  him  a  cup  he  dared  not  drink. 

Afterwards,  in  the  open  air, 

The  slash  of  rain  on  my  face 

Mockingly  baptised  his  words. 
First  Man.     To  him  the  wind  and  rain 

Were  trivialities  against  a  brick  wall. 
Second  Man.     To  me  they  were  tormented  wanderers 

Quarreling  above  a  doll's  house 

Whose  intricate  patterns 

Waited  to  be  kicked  aside. 

I  changed  myself  to  a  height 

That  made  them  whimpering  pygmies, 

[-o] 


Maxwell  Bodenheim 

And  gave  them  grotesque  costumes, 

Enjoying  the  insolence  of  imagination. 
First  Man.     The  scientific  philosopher 

Raised  his  umbrella  against  the  rain, 

And  communed  with  venerable  argument. 
Second  Man.     He  was  interested  in  improving 

The  lustre  of  a  doll's  house 

In  which  I  had  left  my  small  body. 

Walls  are  enticing  black-boards  to  some 

And  neglected  prisons  to  others. 

I  prefer  the  second 

Of  tenuous  bravado 

That  turns  the  prison  into  a  threshold 

And  jests  with  the  wind  and  rain  that  survive  it. 

Maxwell  Bodenheim 


[71] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
THREE  SONNETS 

OLD  WIVES*    TALE 

I  saw  my  grandmother's  shadow  on  the  wall 

In  firelight;  it  danced  with  queer  grimaces 

As  if  her  serious  soul  were  making  faces 

At  me  or  life  or  God  or  at  us  all. 

And  I,  an  urchin  lying  at  her  feet, 

Then  caught  my  first  glimpse  of  the  secret  powers 

That  stir  beneath  this  universe  of  ours, 

Making  a  witches'  carnival  when  they  meet. 

Across  the  firelit  dusk  my  sensitive  mood 

Dreamed  out  to  mingle  with  the  waifs  of  Time 

Whose  unsolved  stories  haunt  the  poets'  rhyme 

And  in  dark  streets  of  ancient  cities  brood — 

Like  sudden  ghosts  rising  above  the  grime 

With  beauty  and  with  terror  that  chills  the  blood. 


HOLY  WRIT 

It  does  not  seem  so  many  years  ago — 

Those  nights  when  I  lay  shivering  in  my  bed 

And  saw  the  candle-light  round  my  aunt's  head 

Casting  its  hazy  sanctifying  glow; 

And  heard  her  read  strange  story  after  story 

Of  Jonah,  Adam,  Moses,  Esau,  Ruth, 

[72] 


Arthur  Davison  Ficke 


Of  Solomon's  old  age  and  David's  youth — 
Things  haunting,  tender,  terrible  or  gory. 
Still  can  I  see  the  Queen  of  Sheba's  hair; 
And  all  real  lions  are  but  mockery 
To  him  who  once  knew  Daniel's;  there's  no  tree 
That  can  with  Eve's  great  Paradise  Tree  compare: 
A  golden  light  gleamed  through  that  ancient  air 
That  leaves  me  homesick  in  modernity. 


THE  BOOK  OF  LU  T  ANG  CHU 

In  the  reign  of  the  great  Emperor  Lu  T'ang  Chu 
Wise  men  were  ordered  to  inscribe  in  a  book 
All  the  great  body  of  wisdom  that  men  knew. 
Today  I  turn  the  pages,  and  as  I  look 
I  cannot  see  anything  very  new  or  old, 
And  I  wonder  why  it  was  worth  the  trouble,  then, 
Of  days  and  nights  and  a  thousand  labors  untold 
Which  the  volume  must  have  exacted  from  those  wise  men. 
But  still  we  write — and  the  Emperor  now  is  blown 
As  grey  dust  over  the  limitless  Asian  plains. 
Still  we  inscribe  all  that  is  humanly  known, 
Although  no  ruler  honors  us  for  our  pains- 
Recording  a  thousand  wisdoms,  all  our  own, 
To  celebrate  our  good  and  glorious  reigns. 

Arthur  Davison  Ficke 


[73] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

THREE  POEMS 
CHARMIAN'S  SONG 

I'm  glad  I  have  but  a  little  heart — 

For  my  heart  is  very  small: 
It  makes  it  free  to  come  and  go, 

And  no  one  cares  at  all. 

I  give  my  heart  for  a  tender  look, 

For  a  gentle  word  or  touch; 
And  the  one  who  has  it  never  knows, 

And  it  does  not  hurt  me  much. 

If  my  heart  were  great  and  I  gave  it  away, 

Then  all  the  world  would  see ; 
But  my  heart  is  only  a  little  thing 

And  it  does  not  trouble  me. 

I  may  give  my  little  heart  unseen, 

It  is  so  small  and  light; 
And  only  very  wakeful  things 

Can  hear  it  cry  at  night. 

FOR  ALL   LADIES  OF   SHALOTT 

The  web  flew  out  and  floated  wide: 
Poor  lady! — I  was  with  her  then. 

She  gathered  up  her  piteous  pride, 
But  she  could  never  weave  again. 

[74] 


Aline  Kilmer 


The  mirror  cracked  from  side  to  side; 

I  saw  its  silver  shadows  go: 
"The  curse  has  come  on  me!"  she  cried. 

Poor  lady! — I  had  told  her  so. 

She  was  so  proud,  she  would  not  hide; 

She  only  laughed  and  tried  to  sing. 
But  singing  in  her  song  she  died  ; 

She  did  not  profit  anything. 


THE  HEART  KNOWETH  ITS  OWN  BITTERNESS 

The  heart  knoweth?    If  this  be  true  indeed, 

Then  the  thing  that  I  bear  in  my  bosom  is  not  a  heart, 

For  it  knows  no  more  than  a  hollow,  whispering  reed 

That  answers  to  every  wind. 
I  am  sick  of  the  thing.     I  think  we  had  better  part. 

My  heart  would  come  to  any  piper's  calling — 

A  fool  in  motley  that  dances  for  any  king; 
But  my  body  knows,  and  its  tears  unbidden  falling 

Say  that  my  heart  has  sinned. 

You  would  have  my  heart?     You  may.     I  am  sick  of 
the  thing. 

Aline  Kilmer 


[75] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
BACKWATER 

A   CHILDISH   TALE 

Listen  to  my  childish  tale: 

My  heart  was  sad  today; 
My  heart  was  so  sad  I  could  not  find 

Anything  to  say. 

I  walked  out  to  the  city's  edge 

Where  the  streets  all  disappear, 
And  I  thought  the  fields  were  sad  with  me — 

Songless  fields  and  drear. 

I  sat  down  under  a  maple  tree 

That  rose  up  lone  and  bare; 
Its  dying-colored  leaves  were  strewn 

About  me  everywhere. 

I  sat  and  pondered  aimlessly 

Under  the  silent  tree, 
I  pondered  sadly  under  the  boughs 

That  I  thought  were  sad  with  me. 

Then  in  a  flash  I  felt  a  cool 

And  steely  serenity 
Descending  from  those  silent  boughs — 

They  were  not  sad  with  me. 

[76] 


Edward  Sapir 


And  I  felt  the  steely  calm  of  their  strength 
Slip  in  my  heart  like  a  breath, 

And  I  was  like  a  wakened  man 
That  had  drowsed  away  in  death. 

I  saw  that  steel  was  the  maple-tree, 
It  had  never  been  sad  with  me; 

I  saw  that  the  blue  of  the  sky  was  steel 
In  its  cool  serenity. 

We  were  all  steel  out  there  in  the  field, 

We  three  beyond  the  town — 
We  three  that  were  strong  over  the  leaves 

Dying  in  red  and  brown. 

Now  you  have  heard  my  childish  tale: 

My  heart  was  sad  today 
And  it  lost  its  sadness  under  a  tree. 

That  is  all  I  wanted  to  say. 


THE  OLD  TOWN 

Oh,  let  me  not  enter  the  old  town, 

The  straggling  street! 
Oh,  I  fear,  I  fear  the  going  down 

On  stumbling  feet! 

)h,  let  me  not  grope  down  the  dim  way 
To  the  pitchy  sea, 

[77] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Unlit  of  a  moon  or  a  dim  ray 
Through  a  cavernous  tree. 

All,  all  they  will  take  from  me 

By  the  black  shore; 
The  ancients  will  steal  me  silently 

The  purple  I  wore. 

They  will  steal  my  love,  they  will  steal  my  hate, 

I  shall  tremble  bare; 
They  will  make  my  body  cold  and  straight 

And  lay  me  there 

Where  my  childhood  sleeps  forever  and  ever. 

Oh,  I  fear, 
I  fear  the  town  that  ever  and  ever 

I'm  coming  near. 


OVERLOOKED 

I  was  nothing,  though  I  had  a  kind  of  pain  or  feeling — 

I  knew  her  hair — 
I  think  it  might  be  said  I  knew  too  well,  but  I  was  nothing 

To  her  but  air. 

That  other  one,  he  knew  her  eyes  with  only  half  a  knowing — 

I  knew  her  eyes — 
I  think  it  might  be  said  I  knew  too  well  whom  he  Was  loving. 

Yes,  he  was  wise. 

[78] 


Edward  Sapir 

Oh  well,  and  they  are  wed — I  might  indulge  in  grieving  or 
in  smiling — 

I  hardly  dare. 
You  see,  it  wasn't  very  much  I  was  to  her — nothing, 

Nothing  but  air. 

SHE   SITS  VAC  ANT- EYED 

Surely,  surely,  there  is  something  for  me, 

There  is  something  to  fill  my  spirit's  measure. 

Winds  tell,  rains  tell — 

Somewhere,  somewhere  is  my  treasure. 

They  promised  it  me  when  a  raven  spoke 

Back  in  the  reaches  of  maidenhood. 
He  spoke  for  God,  he  spoke  well — 

I  am  groping  for  what  I  then  understood. 

Ten  thousand  pathways  ran  to  treasure — 

The  raven  spoke,  I  saw  the  vision. 
Suns  burn,  moons  burn — 

God,  God!     I  am  sitting  in  prison! 

mrely,  surely,  there  is  something  for  me — 
There  is  something  to  fill  my  spirit  whole. 

!un,  burn!  sun,  burn! 
Pity  me,  make  a  blaze  of  my  soul! 

Edward  Sapir 


[79] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
TONIGHT 

SNOW 

This  night  my  body  is  an  offering— 

I  am  carried  to  you. 

Years  I  was  near  you 

And  you  were  far. 

But  tonight  of  all  nights 

Was  not  the  night 

To  be  parted. 

I  would  fain  go  forth 

And  seek  you, 

And  sink  down  by  you, 

As  the  flakes  falling  outside 

Sink  into  the  cushioned  ground. 

And  that  which  is  me 
Is  also  a  field 
Glowing  and  boundless. 


PRESENCE 

You.  Your  presence.  Why  can  I  not  dip  into  your  presence 
as  I  dip  into  sleep,  clasp  it  and  bask  in  it?  How  hold 
it?  How  savour  it?  It  is  more  than  I  wanted.  And 
less. 


Muriel  Ciolkowska 

Now  you  have  left — you,  in  whose  presence  I  would  steep, 
around  whose  presence  I  hover  like  a  gull  over  the 
lake.  And,  ere  I  have  tasted  it,  your  presence  is  no 
more  your  presence. 

You  have  left.  You  have  returned  to  me.  Your  presence 
no  longer  disturbs  me  from  you. 

Muriel  Ciolkowska 


OFF  THE  HIGHWAY 

Lilacs  lift  leaves  of  cool  satin 
And  blossoms  of  mother-of-pearl 
Against  the  tarnished  silver  of  the  deserted  house. 
Tall,  exquisite  grasses  fill  the  door-yard  with  spray. 
Through  the  sun-drenched  fragrance  drifts  the  hazy  mono- 
tone of  bees. 

Tints  of  opal  and  jade;  the  hush  of  emerald  shadows, 
And  a  sense  of  the  past  as  a  living  presence 
Distil  a  haunting  wistful  peace. 

Julia  Weld  Huntington 


[81] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
PAGEANTRY 

REVELATIONS 

Crystals  of  light, 

Like  raindrops, 

Beat  down  about  my  head; 

And  I  kneel  low  to  receive  them 

Reverently. 

POISE 

I  must  step 

From  star  to  star 

Amid  the  shadowed  planets 

That  hang  in  the  profound  deepness 

Of  bottomless  space, 

With  thin  clouded  draperies 

Filming  about  my  feet 

In  eddies  of  motion. 

My  path  is  as  wide 

As  the  pageantry  of  worlds 

That  fling  themselves  out 

In  the  dance  of  fettered  motion; 

And  I  shall,  stride 

As  though  all  were  still. 

Amy  Banner 


[82] 


CHARLOTTE  BRONTE 

On  reading  her  letters  to  M.  Heger 

O  proud!  O  passionate!  what  desperate  pain 
Subdued  that  haughty  soul,  that  iron  will — 
Bowed  that  stiff  neck,  wore  that  wild  spirit,  till 

It  bit  the  dust,  and,  broken,  rose  again! 

What  feverish,  trembling  fingers  held  the  pen 
Which  traced  those  delicate  characters — the  cry 
Of  one  too  hungry-hearted,  plain  and  shy, 

Baffled  and  stung  by  the  strange  moods  of  men. 

Discarded  fragments,  eloquent  and  rare, 
Carelessly  torn  by  man  without  regret; 
Roughly  sewn  up,  with  some  parts  missing  yet, 

How  many  a  woman's  heart  lies  bleeding  there! 

Blanche  Dismorr 


TRAILING  ARBUTUS 

Why  do  you  hide  beneath  the  pines,  and  cling  to  earth, 

Infrequent,  foolish  flower  of  fragrant  breath? 
Your  blossoms  fresh  and  pink,  like  babies  at  their  birth; 
Your  twigs  as  brown  and  brittle  as  old  women  at  their 
death. 

Ruth  Mason  Rice 


[83] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

LONG  DAYS 

I  have  watched  long  days  of  dawning, 

And  long,  long  nights  of  dread; 
And  I  am  a  little  weary 

Of  traveling  toward  the  dead. 
When  I  looked  out  last  evening 

I  thought  the  wan  moonlight 
Seemed  tired  and  pale  with  shining, 

A  lantern  in  the  night. 

I  heard  them  whisper  this  morning 

As  I  heard  them  yesterday, 
"Do  you  think  she  will  last  much  longer, 

Dragging  along  this  way? 
Her  hands  are  like  withered  flowers, 

Her  face  is  a  strange  dried  leaf; 
She  has  stayed  too  long  in  her  body, 

She  is  wheat  turned  dust  in  the  sheaf." 

HEAPHY  HERSELF 

When  Heaphy,  the  old  woman, 

Is  not  looking, 

Herself  trips  lightly  off  to  Donegal 

And  there  dances  in  the  shadow  of  Slieve. 

When  Heaphy,  the  old  woman, 
Is  looking, 


Dorothy  McVickar 

Herself  has  never  a  chance  at  the  dancing, 
But  stays  in  the  kitchen 
Mopping  the  floor. 

Dorothy  McVickar 


YOUTH  AND  AGE 

Youth  has  music  on  his  lips 

And  in  his  hurrying  feet, 
Rhythm  in  his  finger-tips 

And  in  his  laughter  sweet. 

Age  has  silence  on  his  tongue — 

Never  a  note  or  sound; 
But  his  heart  is  often  wrung 

By  music  all  around. 

Youth  has  tongue,  but  lacks  an  ear — 

He  whistles,  pipes  and  sings. 
Age  is  still,  but  he  can  hear 

Silence  and  growing  things. 

Elizabeth  Hart  Pennell 


[85] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
REPETITIONS 

/  plunge  at  the  rearing  hours — 
Life  is  a  steed  of  pride, 

Who  so  high  above  me  towers 
I  cannot  mount  and  ride. 

TWO   SEWING 

The  wind  is  sewing  with  needles  of  rain; 

With  shining  needles  of  rain 

It  stitches  into  the  thin 

Cloth  of  earth — in, 

In,  in,  in. 

(Oh,  the  wind  has  often  sewed  with  me!- 

One,  two,  three.) 

Spring  must  have  fine  things 

To  wear,  like  other  springs. 

Of  silken  green  the  grass  must  be 

Embroidered.     (One  and  two  and  three.) 

Then  every  crocus  must  be  made 

So  subtly  as  to  seem  afraid 

Of  lifting  color  from  the  ground. 

And  after  crocuses  the  round 

Heads  of  tulips,  and  all  the  fair 

Intricate  garb  that  Spring  will  wear 

The  wind  must  sew  with  needles  of  rain, 

With  shining  needles  of  rain 

[86] 


Hazel  Hall 


Stitching  into  the  thin 

Cloth  of  earth — in, 

In,  in,  in — 

For  all  the  springs  of  futurity. 

(One,  two,  three.) 


INSTRUCTION 

My  hands  that  guide  a  needle 

In  their  turn  are  led 
Relentlessly  and  deftly, 

As  a  needle  leads  a  thread. 

Other  hands  are  teaching 
My  needle;  when  I  sew 

I  feel  the  cool,  thin  fingers 
Of  hands  I  do  not  know. 

They  urge  my  needle  onward, 
They  smooth  my  seams,  until 

The  worry  of  my  stitches 
Smothers  in  their  skill. 

All  the  tired  women, 

Who  sewed  their  lives  away, 
Speak  in  my  deft  fingers 

As  I  sew  today. 


[87] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

THREE   SONGS   FOR   SEWING 


A  fibre  of  rain  on  a  window-pane 

Talked  to  a  stitching  thread: 
In  the  heaviest  weather  I  hold  together 
The  weight  of  a  cloud! 

To  the  fibre  of  rain  on  a  window-pane 

The  talkative  stitches  said: 
I  hold  together  with  the  weight  of  a  feather 
The  heaviest  shroud! 


II 

My  needle  says:    Don't  be  young, 

Holding  visions  in  your  eyes, 
Tasting  laughter  on  your  tongue! — 

Be  very  old  and  very  wise, 
And  sew  a  good  seam  up  and  down 
In  white  cloth,  red  cloth,  blue  and  brown. 

My  needle  says:    What  is  youth 
But  eyes  drunken  with  the  sun, 

Seeing  farther  than  the  truth; 
Lips  that  call,  hands  that  shun 

The  many  seams  they  have  to  do 

In  white  cloth,  red  cloth,  brown  and  blue! 

[88] 


Hazel  Hall 


HI 


One  by  one,  one  by  one, 
Stitches  of  the  hours  run 

Through  the  fine  seams  of  the  day; 
Till  like  a  garment  it  is  done 

And  laid  away. 

One  by  one  the  days  go  by, 

And  suns  climb  up  and  down  the  sky ; 

One  by  one  their  seams  are  run — 
As  Time's  untiring  fingers  ply 

And  life  is  done. 


COWARDICE 

Discomfort  sweeps  my  quiet,  as  a  wind 

Leaps  at  trees  and  leaves  them  cold  and  thinned. 

Not  that  I  fear  again  the  mastery 

Of  winds,  for  holding  my  indifference  dear 

I  do  not  feel  illusions  stripped  from  me. 

And  yet  this  is  a  fear — 

A  fear  of  old  discarded  fears,  of  days 

That  cried  out  at  irrevocable  ways. 

I  cower  for  my  own  old  cowardice — 

For  hours  that  beat  upon  the  wind's  broad  breast 

With  hands  as  impotent  as  leaves  are:  this 

Robs  my  new  hour  of  rest. 

[89] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

I  thought  my  pride  had  covered  long  ago 
All  the  old  scars,  like  broken  twigs  in  snow; 
I  thought  to  luxuriate  in  rich  decay, 
As  some  far-seeing  tree  upon  a  hill; 
But,  startled  into  shame  for  an  old  day, 
I  find  that  I  am  but  a  coward  still. 


FLASH 

I  am  less  of  myself  and  more  of  the  sun; 
The  beat  of  life  is  wearing  me 
To  an  incomplete  oblivion, 
Yet  not  to  the  certain  dignity 
Of  death.     (They  cannot  even  die 
Who  have  not  lived.) 

The  hungry  jaws 

Of  space  snap  at  my  unlearned  eye, 
And  time  tears  in  my  flesh  like  claws. 

If  I  am  not  life's,  if  I  am  not  death's, 
Out  of  chaos  I  must  re-reap 
The  burden  of  untasted  breaths. 
(Who  has  not  waked  may  not  yet  sleep.) 

Hazel  Hall 


[90] 


COMMENT 

SOUTHERN   SHRINES 

EVERY  traveler  may  be  his  own  Columbus;  for  every 
journey  is  a  voyage  of  discovery,  leading,  mayhap,  to 
the  promised  land.  The  editor,  setting  out  for  a  few  talks 
about  poetry  in  the  warm  and  mellow  South,  discovered  rich 
quarries  in  the  blossoming  landscape  and  ships  of  magic 
ready  to  set  sail  from  the  shores — all  guarded  by  local  loyal- 
ties jealously  excited  and  aware. 

In  other  words,  she  seemed  to  find  a  stirring  of  new 
beauty  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  as  well  as  in  the  spring- 
garlanded  fields  and  hills;  and  an  enthusiasm  of  preparation 
— a  feeling  of  expectancy,  as  if  efflorescence  must  be  as 
simple  and  inevitable  in  art  as  in  nature.  Sow  the  seed,  till 
the  soil,  and  the  harvest  will  surely  follow — such  would 
seem  to  be  the  faith  of  the  new  South,  the  South  which  loves 
its  traditions  but  refuses  to  be  enslaved  by  them,  which  is 
not  satisfied  to  sit  in  colonial  houses  and  contemplate  its  his- 
toric and  romantic  past. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  spinsters  in  Charleston  and  Savannah 
who  still  live  on  tea  and  toast  in  the  midst  of  faded  splendor 
rather  than  sell  ancestral  portraits  by  Sully  and  Romney, 
or  even  a  single  mahogany  hautboy  or  old  Lowestoft  plate; 
grandes  dames  of  the  old  regime  who  stay  indoors  rather  than 
replace  the  carriage-and-pair  with  an  automobile.  And  there 
are  college  professors  to  whom  Sidney  Lanier  uttered  the 
last  audible  word  of  poetry;  who  even,  in  extreme  cases,  re- 

[91] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

sent  the  present  neglect  of  Timrod.  But  the  nephews  and 
nieces  and  grandchildren  of  these  ultra-loyalists  are  forming 
poetry  and  art  societies  and  little-theatre  enterprises,  and 
inviting  up-to-date  people  like  Carl  Sandburg  and  Daniel 
A.  Reed  to  help  give  them  a  good  start.  And  they  are 
aiming  at  a  frank  expression  of  the  locale  in  their  exhibitions 
and  poems  and  play-productions — a  special  stress  which  is 
much  to  be  desired,  because  the  beauty  of  that  moss-hung 
landscape,  and  the  dramatic  contrasts  of  feeling  in  the  spirit 
of  the  bi-racial  people,  are  a  sufficient  basic  motive  for  put- 
ting those  south-eastern  Atlantic  states  more  adequately  on 
the  modern  artistic  map. 

Columbia,  South  Carolina,  was  the  first  full-stop  of  the 
editor's  pilgrimage.  In  its  little  Town  Theatre,  the  adroit 
reformation  of  a  quaint  old  house,  Mr.  Reed,  trained  in  the 
Chicago  Little  Theatre  and  seconded  by  a  group  of  en- 
thusiasts, is  offering  a  generous  hospitality  to  all  the  arts. 
Plays,  exhibitions,  lectures,  readings,  musicals,  all  find 
audience-room  here  and  a  congenial  atmosphere  of  challeng- 
ing sympathy.  Even  the  quiet  old  University  of  South  Caro- 
lina, a  few  steps  away  up  the  hill,  seems  to  welcome  this 
modern  interloper  into  the  old  state  capital,  and  to  co- 
operate in  the  stirring-up  process  which  its  presence  implies. 
And  it  is  not  easy  to  be  stirred  up  under  the  languid 
southern  sun,  in  towns  whose  every  old  mossy  brick  and 
stone  is  sacred  but  whose  occasional  sky-scraper  seems  an 
anachronism. 

Proud  Charleston  was  the  second  stage — Charleston,  as 

[92] 


Southern  Shrines 

indomitable  as  ever,  as  unchangeably  a  beautiful  great  lady 
of  heroic  spirit  and  aspect.  What  Charleston  wills  she  does : 
not  in  the  bravoura  Chicago  manner,  by  a  bubbling-up  of 
helter-skelter  democratic  forces;  but  by  a  haughty  wave  of 
her  queenly  hand,  the  grand  gesture  of  the  assured  aristocrat 
who  never  dreams  of  denial.  Today  she  wills  the  arts:  she 
is  restoring  her  old  houses,  summoning  her  painters  to  local 
exhibitions,  and  creating  the  Poetry  Society  of  South  Caro- 
lina, with  its  two  hundred  members  professional  and  ama- 
teur, and  its  critical  committees  to  pass  on  poems  and  award 
numerous  prizes.  Du  Bose  Heyward,  Beatrice  Ravenel  and 
others  are  leaders  in  this  effort  to  turn  the  local  ambition 
toward  the  arts;  also  one  or  two  painters  who  recognize  the 
pictorial  charm  of  the  colonial  houses  with  their  grilled 
gateways,  and  of  the  moss-draped,  semi-tropical  landscape. 

The  wealth  of  historic  tradition  and  association  in  Charles- 
ton may  well  be  a  hope  and  an  agony  in  the  heart  of  any 
poet  who  loves  her,  for  no  art  has  yet  expressed  it  ade- 
quately. The  old  houses  bring  something  of  it  home  to  us — 
houses  spaciously  planned  for  patriarchal  slave-holding 
families,  stately  enough  for  eighteenth-century  banquets,  and 
of  an  elegance  befitting  the  crinoline  of  Victorian  emotions; 
houses  therefore  inconsiderate  of  modern  needs,  imprisoning 
many  a  pathetic  comedy  of  servantless  impecuniosity,  and 
perhaps  now  and  then  a  tragedy  of  some  free  spirit  beating 
its  wings  against  ancient  barriers.  One  wonders  at  neither 
excess  of  loyalty,  so  beautiful  is  the  curve  of  old  mansions 
along  the  Battery  against  the  wide  blue  water  of  the  harbor, 

[93] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

so  full  of  charm  are  the  fading  memories,  the  lavender-scented 
relics,  of  more  leisurely,  better-mannered  days. 

If  Charleston  is  a  great  lady,  Savannah  is  a  fine  one. 
Charleston  commands,  and  Savannah  persuades.  She  is 
tempted  to  sit  dreaming  over  her  past,  to  linger  in  the  two 
old  moss-hung  graveyards  whose  mournful  beauty  is  a  won- 
der-story all  over  the  world.  Children  were  romping  in  the 
Colonial  Cemetery  while  I  scanned  its  eloquent  monuments, 
but  they  avoided  the  most  eloquent  of  all — that  bitter  me- 
morial of  a  suicide,  with  four  coiled  serpents  carved  in  the 
four-square  stone,  under  the  inverted  marble  urn,  as  the  only 
record  of  a  nameless  agonist.  But  Savannah  does  not  forget 
that  she  is  one  of  the  great  ports  of  the  world,  with  all 
Spanish  America  to  the  south  of  her;  and  now  and  then  she 
salutes  the  future  with  a  sky-scraper.  Or  even  with  a  poetry 
society — a  little  one,  The  Prosodists  she  calls  it,  to  show 
that  its  five  members  are  students  of  technique. 

Jacksonville  is  frankly  modern,  with  more  sky-scrapers 
than  colonial  houses.  And  the  cause  of  modern  poetry,  of 
modern  art,  is  eagerly  sponsored  by  the  Round  Table  Club, 
whose  membership  is  both  professional  and  amateur.  Marx 
G.  Sabel,  whose  second  POETRY  group  will  appear  in  June,  is 
one  of  its  officers. 

From  young  Jacksonville  it  is  only  an  hour  or  two  by 
motor  to  old  St.  Augustine.  But  even  in  St.  Augustine  the 
invading  tourist  demands  a  compromise  between  old  and 
new;  and  gets  a  swept  and  garnished,  guide-regulated  mu- 
seum-fort, a  quaint  little  gate-guarded  ancient  street  for  his 

[94] 


Southern  Shrines 

modern  trinket-shops,  and  numerous  ultra-modern  hotels  dis- 
guised in  pseudo-Spanish  architecture.  St.  Augustine  is  on 
the  high-road;  in  full-season  it  seems  less  atmospheric  than 
San  Antonio,  and  far  less  intact  than  drowsy  old  Santa  Fe, 
still  lisping  Spanish  to  her  aboriginal  pueblos.  But  it  has 
corners  to  which  one  may  retire  with  the  past — a  little  old 
graveyard,  an  ancient  church  or  two,  certain  mossy  walls. 
And  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  corner  of  all  is  that  barrel- 
vaulted  guardroom  of  the  old  fort  whose  damp  masonry  is 
fringed  to  the  top  with  delicate  maidenhair. 

A  contrasting  episode  though  ultra-modern  seemed  blessed 
with  timelessness,  like  all  other  simple  and  elemental  ex- 
periences. This  was  a  flight  in  a  passenger  aeroplane  over 
the  white  sands  and  blue  water  of  Atlantic  Beach.  The 
sensation? — oh,  merely  a  feeling  of  being  joyously  at  ease, 
like  a  bird,  as  we  sailed  slowly  through  the  warm,  blue  sky, 
and  looked  down  at  the  fishes  in  the  rippling  sea  and  the 
automobiles  crawling  over  the  long  white  strip  of  sand,  and 
at  the  cottage  roofs  and  the  stretch  of  marsh  with  its  ribbon- 
twist  of  river.  It  seemed  strange  that  men  had  waited  these 
thousands  of  years  to  do  a  thing  so  natural,  so  inevitable. 

From  Jacksonville  I  followed  the  northward  trail  of  the 
blossoming  spring,  stopping  at  Atlanta's  suburb,  Decatur, 
for  a  day  in  the  Agnes  Scott  College,  which  has  a  course  in 
modern  poetry;  and  at  Bowling  Green,  Kentucky,  where 
new  oil-wells  are  piercing  the  century-old  farms,  and  new 
ideas  the  patriarchal  before-the-war  traditions;  and  finally 
at  Louisville,  where  Cale  Young  Rice,  Hortense  Flexner 

[95] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

King  and  others  keep  the  muse's  fires  alight,  and  where  Otto 
A.  Rothert,  convinced  that  Madison  Cawein  was  one  of  the 
immortals,  is  devoting  years  to  the  preparation  of  a  monu- 
mental Life  and  Letters  complete  enough  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mands of  the  poet's  vociferous  future  fame. 

The  journey  was  another  reminder  of  the  variety  and 
potential  richness  of  culture,  of  imaginative  and  spiritual  life, 
in  these  far-flung  United  States.  The  problem  is,  of  course, 
to  make  the  local  loyalties  generously  productive  and  creative 
instead  of  narrowly  exclusive  and  prejudicial,  to  sweep  away 
hindrances  between  the  imaginative  energy  of  elect  souls  and 
the  adequate  expression  of  that  energy  in  the  arts  and  in  life. 
The  energy  is  there — of  that  I  was  once  more  convinced 
during  this  southern  journey;  but  against  its  vital  force  rise 
always  the  dead  walls  of  conservative  repression. 

The  people,  there  as  elsewhere,  must  learn  that  beauty  is 
created  from  within — it  cannot  be  inherited  from  the  past 
or  imported  from  over-seas,  or  manufactured  for  passive 
minds  by  theatrical  and  movie  syndicates  and  subserviently 
popular  writers  and  artists.  It  is  an  achievement  of  the 
individual  soul;  and  if  the  individual  soul  fails  to  achieve  it, 
to  create  its  own  beauty  in  some  one  of  the  innumerable  art- 
impulses  or  spiritual  impulses  of  life,  something  within  that 
soul  turns  to  dust  and  ashes.  And  what  is  true  of  the  in- 
dividual is  true  of  the  group :  hand-me-down  art  and  liter- 
ature, hand-me-down  ethics,  morals,  politics — the  ready-made 
everywhere,  the  self-created  crowded  out,  speeded  away — 
this  is  the  dusty-ashen  threat  against  our  modern  civilization. 

H.  M. 
[96] 


The  Death  of  ((B.  L.  T." 

THE   DEATH    OF 

"The  Line"  came  to  a  full  stop  with  the  passing  of  Bert 
Leston  Taylor  on  the  nineteenth  of  March.  Who  now  will 
carry  on  "the  column  that  made  Chicago  famous,"  the 
column  of  wit  and  wisdom  founded  in  the  old  Record  by 
Eugene  Field  of  happy  memory,  and  built  up  in  the  Tribune 
as  a  finely  whimsical  all-American  monument  by  the  genial 
genius  who  has  gone  ? 

It  would  be  difficult  to  set  bounds  to  the  influence  of  this 
witty  wise  man,  who  so  modestly,  so  humanely,  so  urbanely, 
disguised  in  kindly  humor  his  good  judgment  and  good  taste. 
The  warmth  of  his  sympathy  mellowed  the  penetrating  keen- 
ness of  his  satire — he  never  expected  too  much  of  "the  so- 
called  human  race,"  and  always  felt  himself  a  fellow-offender 
in  its  inexplicable  derelictions  and  vagaries. 

In  music,  art,  literature  he  was  a  sane  and  penetrating 
critic;  a  word  in  "The  Line"  went  further  than  many  long 
reviews  to  set  some  clamorous  best-seller  in  its  place  or 
promote  some  shy  work  of  beauty.  His  column  was  an  open 
book  of  the  amenities;  Henry  Kitchell  Webster,  in  his  me- 
morial address,  called  it  a  daily  letter  to  his  friends,  classing 
him  with  Gray  and  Fitzgerald  among  the  great  letter-writers 
of  the  world. 

But  he  ranks  also,  with  Frederick  Locker  and  Austin 
Dobson,  with  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich  and  Eugene  Field  among  the  best  of  the  ever-to-be- 
gratefully-remembered  lyrists  of  the  drawing-room  and — no, 
we  don't  have  drawing-rooms  now-a-days — of  the  living- 

[97] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

room  and  library.  One  might  quote  an  hundred  poems  to 
prove  it;  we  choose  Canopus  because  it  is,  not  better  than 
many  others,  but  possibly  a  keener  self-revelation: 

When  quacks  with  pills  political  would  dope  us, 

When  politics  absorbs  the  livelong  day, 
I  like  to  think  about  the  star  Canopus, 

So  far,  so  far  away. 

Greatest  of  visioned  suns,  they  say  who  list  'em; 

To  weigh  it  science  always  must  despair. 
Its   shell  would   hold   our  whole   dinged   solar   system, 

Nor  ever  know  'twas  there. 

When  temporary  chairmen  utter  speeches, 

And  frenzied  henchmen  howl  their  battle  hymns, 

My  thoughts  float  out  across  the  cosmic  reaches 
To  where  Canopus  swims. 

When   men    are   calling   names   and   making   faces, 

And   all  the  world's  ajangle  and   ajar, 
I  meditate  on  interstellar  spaces 

And   smoke   a  mild   seegar. 

For  after  one  has  had  about  a  week  of 
The  arguments  of  friends  as  well  as  foes, 

A  star  that  has  no  parallax  to  speak  of 
Conduces  to  repose. 

Thus  one  felt  heights  and  depths  in  this  man,  against 
which  he  measured  sublunary  affairs.  His  gayest  word  was 
always  in  scale,  always  had  perspective.  So  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  he  was  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  woods  and  all 
wild  places  of  nature,  as  some  of  the  finest  of  his  more 
serious  poems — The  Road  to  Anywhere,  for  example — prove. 

He  died  in  the  spring-time,  as  he  wished.  Let  us  hope 
that  the  white-throat,  whose  music  "is  sweet  as  April's  sun," 
will  sing  over  his  grave.  H.  M. 

[98] 


The  Poet  and  Modern  Life 

THE  POET  AND  MODERN  LIFE 

The  problems  confronting  the  modern  poet  are  exceed- 
ingly complex.  How  can  poetry,  which  is  essentially  order, 
affirmation,  achievement,  be  created  in  an  age,  a  milieu,  of 
profound  doubt  and  discouragement?  How  is  it  possible  to 
build  up  a  "spiritual  monument"  when  the  most  necessary 
elements  are  lacking — in  a  period  of  social  disorder,  mental 
anarchy,  when  so  very  few  are  at  all  concerned  with  in- 
tellectual progress  and  so  many  are  utterly  bounded  by 
material  progress?  How,  again,  is  the  poet  to  obtain  the 
ideas  and  knowledge  which  are  the  matter  he  works  with, 
when  he  is  simply  confused  by  an  immeasurable  discord,  a 
vast  unsynthesized  knowledge?  And  does  not  this  situation, 
undeniable,  I  think,  and  so  much  more  acute  than  it  was 
fifty  years  ago,  lend  strength  to  Matthew  Arnold's  pessimism, 
and  force  us  to  conclude  that  now,  if  ever,  must  be  an  age 
of  criticism,  an  age  of  pure  conservation,  if  any  intellectual 
life  is  to  survive  the  dying  of  the  Renaissance?  The  narrow 
ideas  of  comfort  and  utilitarianism,  which  are  the  motive 
force  of  the  contemporary  revolution,  must  of  necessity  be 
unfruitful  in  the  larger  sphere  of  the  mind.  In  our  progress 
we  have  become  curiously  abased;  from  the  Hellenic  dream 
of  god-like  man  in  harmony  with  nature,  from  the  mediaeval 
dream  of  man  transcending  nature  through  religion,  from 
the  Renaissance  dream  which  infused  a  new  life  into  Hellen- 
ism, from  those  centuries  when  the  life  of  the  senses  and 
the  intelligence  struggled  with  the  life  of  the  spirit  and 
sentiment,  we  have  fallen  into  an  apathy  of  discouragement 

[99] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

where  we  hope  for  no  more  than  that  each  individual  should 
conform  to  "modern  standards  of  living."  Man  exists 
spiritually  as  he  conceives  of  himself ;  and  the  modern  world 
conceives  of  man,  through  a  vague  deceptive  mist  of  "social 
reform,"  as  an  animal  which  eats,  drinks,  is  clothed,  travels 
and  needs  to  be  amused ;  add  to  this  a  little  confused  "educa- 
tion," a  little  tepid  "religion,"  and  a  fair  amount  of  ancient 
superstition  revived  as  "new  thought,"  and  you  get  a  not 
too  incorrect  picture  of  the  modern  world  and  its  motives. 
Deep  spiritual  enthusiasm  and  energy,  disinterested  thought, 
unfettered  intelligence,  profound  culture,  where  will  you 
find  a  combination  of  these  essentials  of  poetry? 

Meanwhile  we  go  on  writing,  many  just  echoing  the 
words  of  their  predecessors,  some  trying  to  strike  out  rough 
new  images  of  vitality,  a  few  trying  to  add  to  mere  vitality 
the  mellowness  of  culture,  the  permanence  of  intelligence. 
Certain  writers,  impatient  with  that  mere  aping  of  a  van- 
ished order  which  is  unhappily  the  mark  of  modern  poetry 
in  England,  have  thrown  violently  aside  the  reflective,  the 
intellectual  aspects  of  their  art  to  create  something  which 
is  essentially  only  vital.  This  is  preferable  to  stagnation,  but 
it  is  not  nearly  enough.  I  should  like  to  see  that  vitality 
more  mellow,  saturated  with  fertile  ideas,  enlightened ;  for  so 
far  it  has  done  little  but  interpret  a  violent  material  activity. 
How  indeed  could  it  do  more?  The  essential  elements  are 
lacking,  for  without  an  intelligent,  enlightened,  cultivated 
milieu  each  poet  speaks  into  pandemonium,  loses  himself  in 
confusion  or  in  egotism,  in  provincialism.  R.  A. 

[100] 


REVIEWS 


PASTELS 

Poems,  by  Haniel  Long.    Moffat,  Yard  &  Co. 

In  this  slim  volume  Haniel  Long  presents  his  rhymed 
lyrics  in  their  various  colors — pastel  transparents,  romantic 
and  oriental  opaques.  We  miss  the  free-verse  student 
sketches,  which  Alfred  Kreymborg  includes  in  his  Others 
for  1919.  As  usual  the  free-verse  medium  seems  to  make 
the  poet  relax  and  be  natural;  in  it  Mr.  Long  sees  and  feels 
with  clean  honest  lines,  washing  in  his  emotions  with  their 
own  colors.  In  the  best  of  his  rhymed  lyrics,  he  works 
through  a  group  of  imperfect  songs  played  on  pipes  rather 
than  on  a  lute  or  a  lyre.  In  this  group — Madness,  Midnight 
Sun,  With  Compliments,  Song  of  Young  Burbage,  The 
Winter  Sprite,  I  Gather  Treasures  of  the  Dark — each  has  a 
promise  which  unfolds  to  an  art  achievement  in  a  pagan 
pastoral  idyl  of  real  beauty,  The  Herd  Boy : 

The  night  I  brought  the  cows  home 

Blue  mist  was  in  the  air; 
And  in  my  heart  was  heaven, 

And  on  my  lips  a  prayer. 

I  raised  my  arms  above  me,  • 

I  stretched  them  wide  apart, 
And  all  the  world  was  pressing 

In  beauty  on  my  heart. 

The  lane  led  by  a  river 

Along  an   ancient  wood, 
And  ancient  thoughts  came  softly, 

As  with  the  leaves  they  should. 

[101] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

I  hung  the  cows  with  garlands, 

And  proud  they  walked  before; 
While  mother-naked  after, 

A  laurel  branch  I  bore. 

The  other  poems  in  this  vein  go  scurrying  through  surfaces 
painted  in  transparents  over  nothing,  rhyming  insignificantly. 
The  poet's  attempt  at  wilder  pagan  freedom  is  weakened  by 
a  natural  love  for  pastoral  restraint — or  is  it  an  academic 
inhibition  ? 

Mr.  Long's  more  colorful  dipping  into  the  romantic  is 
rather  limp,  and  in  the  panoramic  his  sweep  is  tight.  The 
Death  of  Alexander  the  Great  lacks  the  freedom  and  flare 
of  pageantry,  which  we  find  quite  glorious  in  his  free-verse 
Student  group,  when  he  would  have  his  girl  enter  his 

class-room  window 
On  the  elephant's  trunk. 

In  his  rhymed  pageantry  it  is  as  if  he  were  trying  to  blow 
a  fanfare  of  trumpets  on  his  pipes.  However  in  Dead  Men 
and  the  Moon,  Dead  Men  Tell  No  Tales,  and  His  Deaths, 
there  is  the  swagger  and  color  of  truth  romantically  ex- 
pressed, perhaps  romance  truthfully  expressed. 

The  Cuban  in  the  States  lacks  Spanish  feeling  and  interest. 
The  pitch  is  too  high  in  his  remote  tropical  effects,  the  tone 
too  thin,  the  touch  too  cool,  not  enough  of  the  green-eyed 
serpent  subtleties.  There  Was  a  City  Where  Serpents 
Writhed  comes  nearer  finding  the  remote  than  Gifts.  And 
the  war  poems  are  too  personal — they  look  puny  against  the 
conflict.  War  is  a  stride  in  the  ages,  an  impressionistic 
record  from  a  gigantic  panorama.  Laura  Sherry 

[102] 


Silence  Awakening 

SILENCE  AWAKENING 

Terra  Italica,  by  Edward  Storer.    The  Egoist,  London. 

Mr.  Edward  Storer  is  not  typical  of  the  English  poets 
of  today;  he  may  have  some  of  their  virtues  and  weak- 
nesses, but  he  has  others  which  are  peculiar  to  himself.  He 
is  English  in  his  clinging  to  decoration,  to  suavity;  he  is 
English  in  a  kind  of  inarticulateness  which  prevents  his  say- 
ing all  the  fine  things  that  are  in  him ;  but  he  is  un-English 
in  his  profound  and  unaffected  love  of  beauty,  he  is  un-Eng- 
lish inasmuch  as  he  hates  quaintness.  The  rough  strength 
of  the  "vital"  poet  is  not  his;  when  he  tries  to  interpret 
modern  life  he  fails  because  this  life  is  so  alien,  so  hostile 
to  his  subtler  conceptions.  He  makes  me  think  of  some 
pupil  of  Heine,  intoxicated  by  Heine's  adoration  of  Hellenic 
beauty,  but  most  un-German  in  that  the  ideas  he  works  with 
are  very  few  and  simple.  Moreover  that  English  love  of 
decoration  leads  him  away  from  Heine's  fine  simplicity; 
though  one  feels  how  Mr.  Storer  struggles  against  this  na- 
tional vice,  how  he  has  lived  with  the  classics  to  purge  and 
lighten  his  mind  of  all  the  sluggish  barbarity  still  adhering 
to  the  English  character.  His  earlier  work,  fragile  and 
imaginative,  lacked  strength  but  never  sweetness;  his  new 
book  retains  this  Ovid-like  sweetness  and  has  gained  strength, 
the  strength  of  brevity  and  thought  ,and  therefore  it  is  his 
best.  Intentionally  or  unintentionally  he  had  criticised  his 
own  poetry  in  these  words: 

It  is  so  near  to  silence  as  to  seem 
Silence  awakening, 

[103] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

A   listening  rather  sweet; 

A  mood   evaporating 

That*  has   entered   in 

To    all   your   spirit 

Numbing  it  with  peace, 

Oozed  to  the  very  core  of  you 

With   ethereal    sweet; 

A   vaporous   light, 

Luminance   rarified, 

Yet  dewy  with  the  sap  of  earth ; 

Bitter  a  little 

From  the  great  salt  sea. 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood ;  in  pointing  to  a  "weak- 
ness" in  this  fine  highly-wrought  poetry  I  do  not  mean  to 
imply  any  inferiority  to  the  poetry  of  vitality.  The  weak- 
ness in  Mr.  Storer's  poetry  is  the  weakness  of  much  thought, 
much  emotion,  much  living;  of  a  cultivated  mind  turning  in 
disappointment  and  discouragement  from  the  present  to 
linger  in  imagination  over  the  happier  past,  with  a  charm, 
a  lightness,  an  elegance  wholly  delightful.  The  melancholy, 
the  skepticism,  the  discouragement  of  these  poems,  their  sad 
devotion  to  a  lost  ideal  of  beauty,  their  haunting  insistence 
on  the  Horatian  theme  of 

the  dream  called  life, 
Rosy  with  a  little  love, 
Quick  with  sharp  sorrows — 

are  certainly  delightful  to  react  to  in  certain  moods,  yet 
typical  of  that  unavowed  but  deep  despair  which  holds  so 
many  sensitive  minds  in  a  distracted  Europe.  R.  A. 


[104] 


Country  Sentiment 


COUNTRY    SENTIMENT 

Fairies  and  Fusiliers,   and    Country   Sentiment,   by   Robert 

Graves.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

The  poetry  of  Robert  Graves  compares  with  the  mass  of 
good  modern  poetry,  especially  in  the  United  States,  as  the 
trim,  well-ordered  English  farm  compares  with  the  vast 
cattle  ranch  of  Wyoming  or  the  great  wheat  farm  of  North 
Dakota.  Mr.  Graves  has  chosen  a  small  field,  withal  one 
chosen  by  many  English  poets  before  him.  He  tills  it  well, 
and  it  brings  forth  lovely  blossoms  if  not  always  luscious, 
satisfying  fruit. 

Melody,  everyday  humanness,  fancy,  quiet  whimsy,  chiv- 
alry— these  are  words  that  come  to  mind  as  one  reads  Mr. 
Graves'  verse.  They  represent  qualities  found  in  Skelton, 
in  Surrey,  or  in  Herrick,  poets  in  whose  tradition  Mr.  Graves 
would  probably  class  himself.  One  gets  the  impression  that 
the  author  studies  rather  than  observes,  as  when  the  boy 
stays  away  from  church  and  goes  walking — 

To  ponder  there  in  quiet 
God's   Universal   Plan. 

These  are  the  boy's  own  words!     Such  boys  exist  only  in 
eighteenth-century  English  paintings. 

Generally,  however,  Mr.  Graves  presents  clear,  vivid  pic- 
tures, as  in  Finland: 

The  skies  are  jewelled   all   around, 

The    ploughshare   snaps    in    the    iron    ground. 

The  Finn,  with  face  like  paper 

And  eyes  like  a  lighted  taper, 

Hurls  his  rough   rune 

[105] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

At  the  wintry  moon, 

And  stamps  to  mark  the  tune. 

Country  Sentiment  shows  an  advance  over  the  author's 
first  book  in  story-telling  and  dramatic  power,  in  hardness 
and  cleanness  of  expression: 

Here  they  lie  who  once  learned  here 
All  that  is  taught  of  hurt  or  fear. 
Dead,  but  by  free  will  they  died: 
They  were  true  men,  they  had  pride. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

RECENT   ANTHOLOGIES 

The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Miscellany:  June,  1920.    Basil 

Blackwell,  Oxford,  England. 

A  Queen  s  College  Miscellany.     Queen's  College,  Oxford. 
A  Treasury  of  War  Poetry.    Second  Series,  edited  by  George 

Herbert  Clarke.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Dreams  and  Voices,  compiled  by  Grace  Hyde  Trine.     The 

Woman's  Press,  New  York. 

Joyful  Sorrow,  compiled  by  L.  H.  B.     E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 
Lilly  gay:  an  Anthology  of  Anonymous  Poems.     The  Vine 

Press,  Steyning,  England. 
American  and  British  Verse  from  The  Yale  Review.     Yale 

University  Press. 
Modern  British  Poetry,  edited  by  Louis  Untermeyer.     Har- 

court,  Brace  &  Howe. 
Contemporary  Verse  Anthology }  edited  by  Charles  Wharton 

Stork.    E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 

The  above  list  is  a  slight  indication  of  the  present  rush 

[106] 


Recent  Anthologies 

of  anthologies;  and  incidentally  it  is  proof  of  a  public  for 
modern  poetry:  a  public,  however,  too  eager  for  pre-digested 
food,  too  eager  to  lean  upon  the  opinions  of  editors  and  pub- 
lishers. Perhaps  this  is  inevitable — in  these  crowded  days 
no  one  can  read  everything,  even  in  one  specialty.  But  the 
public  should  choose  its  anthologies  carefully,  avoiding  those 
whose  motives  are  frankly  commercial. 

Our  list  may  be  divided  into  four  groups:  The  first  in- 
cludes those  anthologies  intended  to  introduce  a  group  of 
young  poets  connected  by  similar  ideals,  or  perhaps  merely 
by  acquaintance  or  propinquity;  second,  subject  anthologies; 
third,  resumes  of  a  period  or  a  locale;  fourth,  reprints  from 
special  magazines. 

Under  the  first  heading  there  is  no  suspicion  of  a  com- 
mercial motive.  The  poems  included  in  such  collections  may 
be  well  or  ill  chosen:  the  new  claimants  for  the  laurel  may 
be  raw  or  crude,  affected  or  supersophisticated ;  or  they  may 
be  young  geniuses  trying  their  wings;  but  at  least  the  pub- 
lisher is  making  room  for  the  unknown  and  taking  a  gam- 
bler's chance  with  the  public.  The  first  two  titles  listed 
above  are  of  this  kind;  and  although  neither  pamphlet  con- 
tains any  very  exciting  evidences  of  genius,  a  variety  of 
talent — fictional,  critical,  limnal  and  musical,  as  well  as 
poetic — is  displayed  in  an  admirable  typographic  setting. .  The 
two  miscellanies,  though  of  recent  work,  are  not  confined 
to  undergraduates,  the  first  including  names  like  Robert 
Graves  and  Edith  Sitwell.  In  poetry  the  most — I  had 
almost  said  the  only — interesting  exhibits  are  in  a  mood  of 

[107] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

sarcasm  verging  on  the  grotesque — Absinthe  by  Royston  D. 
Campbell,  The  Survivor  by  Godfrey  Elton,  and  this  bit  of 
satire  by  E.  W.  Jacot: 

Jabez  Q.,  the  millionaire. 

Has   oozy   hands,   dead    lichen    hair; 

A  grey  rag  eye — no  spark  is  there. 

He   also  has  a   garden  close, 

Where  Jabez   likes   to  think  he   grows 

The  most  expensive  kinds  of  rose. 

Once  he  puffed   a  ring  of  smoke 
Towards   the    stars;    it    spread,    it   broke, 
Disintegrated   past  revoke. 

Jabez  watched  it;  hiccoughed  "Gee!" 
Then   shuddered  .  .  .  what   if   he 
Became   like   this — vacuity? 

When   his   body — horrid   doubt — 
Suffered   this   atomic  rout, 
Would  it  ... 

His  cigar  was  out 

"Waal,"   said   Jabez,   "I'm   doggoned!"— 
And  pitched  it  in  the  lily-pond. 

Of  the  subject  anthologies,  the  second  series  of  Mr. 
Clarke's  Treasury  of  War  Poetry  is  mostly  depressing  read- 
ing; apparently  the  first  series  gathered  the  cream,  leaving 
for  this,  with  of  course  a  few  notable  exceptions,  skim  milk. 
The  book  seems  to  represent  the  war-muse's  too-sober  second 
thought — neither  her  first  fierce  inspiration  nor  her  final 
verdict. 

Dreams  and  Voices,  a  book  of  parental  and  filial  poems 
by  modern  poets  of  varying  quality ;  and  Joyful  Sorrow,  with 
entries,  chiefly  by  British  poets  past  and  present,  intended  to 

[108] 


Recent  Anthologies 

cheer  up  those  who  grieve — these  are  two  curious  examples 
of  publishers'  efforts  to  attract  a  special  public.  Lilly  gay: 
An  Anthology  of  Anonymous  Poems,  is  more  intriguing,  with 
its  lively  little  wood-cuts  by  Eric  and  Percy  West.  Its 
cheering  lyrics  and  ballads  must  be  centuries  old — at  least 
some  of  them  are,  the  beautiful  Lyke-wake  Dirge  for  exam- 
ple ;  and  no  reviewer  would  be  mean-spirited  enough  to  guess 
at  a  later  origin  for  others. 

Of  our  third  class,  Mr.  Uintermeyer's  Modern  British 
Poetry  is  the  only  example.  It  is  a  companion  to  his  rather 
elementary  Modern  American  Poetry ,  both  running  from 
1870  to  1920,  and  being  intended  especially  for  young  stu- 
dents. In  the  latter  case  one  was  forced  to  wonder  at  the 
poor  showing  of  a  rich  period,  but  the  British  volume  may 
be  a  little  more  satisfactory. 

In  our  fourth  class,  of  magazine  anthologies,  the  Yale 
Review  book  opens  with  The  Passing  Strange,  one  of  Mr. 
Masefield's  finest  meditative  poems;  and  its  other  entries — 
by  Messrs.  Robinson,  Frost,  Fletcher,  Sassoon,  Mmes. 
Teasdale,  Wharton,  and  other  poets — show  that  this  maga- 
zine has  done  generous  work  in  this  department. 

As  good  manners  would  almost  debar  us  from  reviewing 
the  anthology  of  our  most  steadfast  fellow-specialist  in  mod- 
ern poetry,  we  shall  permit  the  editor  of  Contemporary 
Verse,  Mr.  Charles  Wharton  Stork,  to  speak  for  himself 
in  regard  to  his  anthology,  which  brings  together  the  more 
notable  poems  from  several  years'  issues  of  his  magazine. 
In  the  Introduction  he  says: 

[109] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Most  of  the  other  magazines,  we  thought,  were  over-stressing 
the  appeal  of  novelty.  We  believed  that  the  growing  power  of 
American  poetry  could  be  shown  to  express  itself  in  forms  that  an 
average  person  could  enjoy.  .  .  .  The  great  universal  motives  of 
the  race — love  of  home,  delight  in  outdoor  nature,  generous  human 
sympathy,  kindly  humor,  and  a  quiet,  first-hand  religious  sense — 
all  of  these  will  be  found  in  abundance. 

However, 

A  moderate  number  of  free-verse  ventures  have  been  included, 
where  genuineness  of  feeling  and  beautiful  handling  of  its  changing 
rhythms  have  seemed  to  justify  the  exceptions. 

And  the  editor  inquires: 

Where,  one  may  ask,  is  one  likely  to  find  more  American  idealism 
than  in  a  volume  such  as  this? 

Perhaps  one  may  question  Mr.  Stork's  conclusion.  He 
says: 

The  American  people  has  a  right  to  ask  that  poetry  should  ex- 
press the  thoughts  and  emotions  of  this  generation  in  a. style  which 
can  be  widely  understood  and  appreciated. 

Do  poets  worthy  of  the  name  take  orders,  even  from 
that  formidable  connoisseur,  "the  American  people"? 

The  haphazard  arrangement  of  the  book  makes  appraise- 
ment difficult — the  poems  are  quite  ungrouped,  whether  by 
subjects  or  authorship.  However,  one  may  find,  by  search- 
ing, Joyce  Kilmer's  gay  dialogue,  The  Ashman,  Edwin  Ford 
Piper's  Gee-up  dar,  Mules,  and  a  few  fine  lyrics — by  Sara 
Teasdale,  E.  Merrill  Root,  Marx  G.  Sabel,  Helen  Hoyt 
and  one  or  two  others.  H.  M. 


[no] 


French  Poets  in  English 


FRENCH   POETS  IN   ENGLISH 

Fleurs  de  Lys,  translated  and  edited  by  Wilfred  Thorley. 

Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  introduction  to  this  anthology  is  so  lucid  and  com- 
plete that  the  reader  expects  equally  competent  translations. 
It  sets  forth  briefly,  but  well,  a  history  of  the  poets  of 
France  from  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  present  day,  show- 
ing how  their  personalities  were  affected  by  their  times, 
analyzing  their  methods  of  work  and  estimating  their  values 
in  as  fair  a  manner  as  is  possible  to  foreign  thought.  And, 
throughout,  we  find  those  who  would  translate  urged  to 
keep  to  the  spirit,  rather  than  the  word  of  the  original.  With 
all  this  in  mind,  it  is  a  shock  to  turn  to  the  opening  poem, 
which  reads  like  a  Scotch  ballad !  Here  is  one  stanza : 

The  mirk  did  fa'  lang  syne,  lang  syne, 
When  twa  fond   systres  wi'   hands  that  twine 
Went  doun  to  bathe  whaur  the  waters  shihe. 

Blaw  ivind,   bend  beugh  in   the  stormy  weather, 

They  that  be  leel  sleep  saft  taegither. 

Clearly,  the  author  of  this  anthology  has,  as  he  says,  at- 
tempted to  match  the  French  language  as  closely  as  pos- 
sible with  that  of  the  same  period  in  English  literature. 
He  has  followed  this  plan  with  all  his  translations  of  old 
French,  and  it  seems  to  me  a  grave  mistake,  even  an  affecta- 
tion. For  the  flavor  which  should  infuse  its  spirit  into  the 
English  is  altogether  missed. 

Mr.  Thorley  has  done  better  with  the  more  modern  poems. 
He  says  is  his  introduction : 

[mi 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  real  task  of  a  translator  is  that  of  re-creating,  and  unless 
he  can  bring  to  his  original  as  much  as  he  takes  from  it,  he  had 
far  better  leave  it  alone. 

But  he  has  sometimes  fallen  short  of  his  theories,  as  in  his 
renderings  of  Gautier.  L'Art,  the  oft-attempted,  has  been 
translated  better  by  Dobson,  or  Santayana.  Again  he  says: 

It  is  so  difficult  to  keep  rightly  informed  and  critically  aloof  amid 
the  trumpeting  and  disparagement  of  rival  clans,  whose  activities 
seem  only  to  bewilder  the  native  doctors,  that  a  mere  foreigner 
may  be  forgiven  for  including  frankly  what  happens  to  appeal 
to  him. 

And  he  has  given  evidence  of  his  critical  aloofness  in  The 
Cloud,  considered  one  of  the  most  delicate  of  the  Emaux  et 
Camees.  Of  this  he  has  done  into  English  only  three  of  the 
original  nine  stanzas;  omitting  the  whole  point  of  the  poem, 
which  seems  hardly  fair  to  the  author. 

The  renderings  of  Baudelaire  are  especially  fine.  They 
have  the  spirit  of  the  French,  and  yet — truly  a  rare  achieve- 
ment— they  do  not  read  like  translations.  Mallarme's 
Apparition  keeps  the  subtle  savor  of  the  original.  The 
author  has  been  less  happy  with  the  ten  versions  of  Verlaine. 
Maeterlinck  is  represented  by  only  one  poem,  The  Seven 
Maids  of  Orlamonde,  a  questionable  choice  but  well  trans- 
lated. Autumn  and  Cleopatra,  by  Samain,  are  beautifully 
presented.  Rodenbach's  In  Tiny  Townships  is  as  musical 
in  English  as  in  French.  Of  the  translations  of  de  Regnier, 
The  Secret  and  Experience  are  excellent,  while  good  render- 
ings of  Viele-Griffin,  Fort,  Bataille,  Gregh,  Guerin  and 
many  other  poets  give  distinction  to  this  anthology. 

Agnes  Lee  Freer 

[112] 


Symbolists  and  Decadents 


SYMBOLISTS   AND   DECADENTS 

La  Melee  Symbolist  e}  by  Ernest  Raynaud.     La  Renaissance 

du  Livre,  Paris. 

Here  is  an  example  of  the  fine  book-making  of  La  Renais- 
sance du  Livre.  Consisting  of  reminiscences  of  the  author 
and  his  poet-companions,  it  suggests  Gautier's  La  Fenetre 
Ouver  te,  and  is  equally  fascinating. 

A  chapter  on  Les  Zutistes,  founded  by  Charles  Cros,  de- 
scribes the  Cafe  de  Versailles,  where  every  evening  this 
leader  gathered  about  him  such  men  as  Coppee,  Richepin 
and  Raoul  Ponchon.  Here  Louis  Marsolleau  recited  senti- 
mental bagatelles  or  noble  poems,  and  here  Poussin  was  made 
to  read  over  and  over  again  his  artistic  achievement,  La 
Jument  Morte,  which  resounded  through  the  breweries  of 
the  Latin  Quarter  for  several  seasons.  But  what  assured 
this  order,  aside  from  the  renown  of  Charles  Cros,  a  place 
in  history,  was  that  it  was  the  cradle  of  a  lyric  evolution, 
in  which,  perhaps,  the  two  most  prominent  figures  were 
Laurent  Tailhade  and  Jean  Moreas.  From  their  fruitful 
controversies  arose  the  new  movement.  Here  is  a  portrait 
of  Jean  Moreas  at  that  time : 

He  always  went  gloved  in  white,  corseted  tightly,  his  glossy  hair 
curled  in  the  latest  fashion,  wearing  a  multicolored  cravat  and  a 
flower  in  his  buttonhole.  His  timid  nature  was  hidden  under 
brusque  mannerisms,  and  he  fortified  himself  with  an  insolent 
monocle.  His  hatred  of  mediocrity  was  expressed  in  brief  aphorisms. 
And  Tailhade  draped  himself,  like  a  Spaniard,  in  a  black,  scarlet- 
lined  cape.  Full  of  anecdote  and  wit,  he  offset  the  disdainful 
haughtiness  of  Moreas  toward  bad  poets  by  firing  at  them  a  volley 
of  cleverness.  No  one  knew  as  he  did  how  to  use  irony  and  unctuous 
epigram. 

[113] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

At  this  time  the  two  were  merely  at  their  debut,  their 
period  of  dilettantism.  Later  they  were  to  descend  from 
their  ivory  tower  to  write  for  the  periodical  Lutece,  wherein 
Verlaine  had  already  begun  to  print  his  Poetes  Maudits. 
Lutece,  once  a  banal  gazette  of  the  Latin  Quarter,  was  be- 
coming the  official  organ  of  advancing  symbolism.  To  this 
paper  we  are  indebted  for  poems  by  Paul  Adam,  Rachilde, 
Henri  de  Regnier,  Jules  Laforgue,  Francis  Viele-Griffin,  and 
Ernest  Raynaud.  According  to  Raynaud,  Lutece,  which 
came  to  its  end  in  1886,  had  the  glory  of  devoting  itself 
entirely  to  the  poets  of  the  new  school,  who  wrote  for  it 
their  best  and  worst  poems. 

To  me  one  of  the  most  interesting  things  in  this  little 
volume  is  the  discovery  of  the  origin  of  the  word  decadent. 
Verlaine  was  sick  in  bed,  his  confreres  gathered  about  him. 
On  the  bed  lay  a  magazine  in  coarse  gray  paper.  Someone 
took  it  up  and  read  mockingly  from  the  cover,  frLe  Decad- 
ent!"— and  asked,  "What  imbecile  invented  this  ridiculous 
title?"  "I  am  the  imbecile,"  challenged  a  crisp  voice.  The 
author  turned  and  saw  Anatole  Baju,  a  little  man  with 
flaming  eyes  set  in  a  wizened  face.  The  history,  as  given 
by  Raynaud,  of  this  founder  of  Le  Decadent  is  very  enter- 
taining. Verlaine,  who  ardently  supported  the  magazine, 
defines  its  purpose  thus: 

Decadence  is  Sardanapalus,  in  the  midst  of  his  women,  setting 
the  torch  to  his  funeral  pile ;  it  is  Seneca  reciting  poems  as  he  opens 
his  veins;  it  is  Petronius  masking  his  agony  with  flowers;  it  is 
the  marchioness  walking  to  the  guillotine  with  a  smile,  and  with 
care  not  to  disturb  her  coiffure.  Decadence  is  the  art  of  dying 
beautifully. 

["4] 


Symbolists  and  Decadents 

Le  Decadent  raised  a  hue  and  cry  from  the  symbolists;  yet 
their  aims  against  the  literature  then  in  vogue  were  alike. 
Both  wanted  to  be  freed  from  form  which  had  outlived  itself. 

A.  L.  F. 

OUR   CONTEMPORARIES 

TWO  NEW  MAGAZINES 

We  welcome  two  new  magazines  which  are  to  be  devoted 
wholly  or  largely  to  poetry — The  Measure,  published  by 
Frank  Shay  at  4  Christopher  Street,  New  York;  and  The 
Double-dealer,  from  204  Baronne  Street,  New  Orleans. 
The  former  began  in  March,  the  latter  in  January. 

The  Measure:  A  Journal  of  Poetry  is  thus  advertised: 

Edited  by  Maxwell  Anderson,  Padraic  Colum,  Agnes  Kendrick 
Gray,  Carolyn  Hall,  Frank  Ernest  Hill,  David  Morton,  Louise 
Townsend  Nicholl,  George  O'Neil,  Genevieve  Taggard.  From 
these  nine  an  acting  editor  and  an  assistant  are  elected  quarterly 
by  the  board. 

We  are  much  interested  in  this  experiment  of  a  shifting 
editorial  board.  As  fellow-editors,  we  wonder  how  it  will 
be  arranged — will  each  pair  of  acting  editors  accept  only 
the  exact  number  of  poems  to  be  used  in  their  own  three 
numbers  and  return  all  others?  or  will  there  be  hold-overs 
from  one  quarterly  editorial  pair  to  the  next — hold-overs 
accepted  by  the  first  pair  and  perhaps  despised  by  the  second 
and  third  and  fourth?  At  any  rate,  so  populous  an  editorial 
board,  with  a  three-months'  elective  tenure  of  office,  makes 
for  variety,  relieving  the  editors  of  the  danger  of  satiety 
and  the  magazine  of  a  too  monotonous  consistency. 

[us] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  first  number,  while  not  exciting,  is  competent  and 
interesting.  There  is  nothing  revolutionary,  but  there  are 
characteristic  poems  by  Padraic  Colum,  Robert  Frost,  Con- 
rad Aikin,  Alfred  Kreymberg,  Hazel  Hall  and  others  we 
know,  besides  two  or  three  less  familiar  entries.  The  long- 
est poem,  Ice  Age,  by  Genevieve  Taggard,  asserts  once  more 
her  unusual  promise;  and  Wallace  Stevens'  Cortege  for 
Rosenbloom  is  a  beautiful  airy  fling  of  his  magician's  wand. 

Maxwell  Anderson,  the  first  editor,  seems  not  over-con- 
fident in  his  initial  article:  "This  is  not  an  age  favorable  to 
great  poetry,"  he  says;  "there  are  not  any  great  poets  writ- 
ing at  this  time  in  English,  or  none  so  far  uncovered.  .  .  . 
The  very  value  of  art,  of  life,  grows  dubious."  And  he 
confesses : 

The  Measure,  then,  is  a  hope  against  hope,  a  venture  in  the 
face  of  despair,  a  riddling  while  Rome  burns.  ...  If  The  Measure 
gets  hold  of  an  undoubted  masterpiece  once  in  its  career,  it  will 
be  lucky.  POETRY,  of  Chicago,  has  come  out  uninterruptedly  for 
ten  years  without  doing  it.  This  is  not  the  fault  of  the  editors  of 
POETRY.  If  there  had  been  masterpieces  to  print,  they  would  have 
printed  them. 

Not  yet  ten  years — only  eight-and-a-half;  so  there  is  still 
hope!  But  meantime  may  we  remind  this  despairing  young 
editor  that  it  takes  a  master  to  recognize  a  masterpiece;  and 
a  slow  procession  of  masters,  in  accord  across  spaces  of  time, 
to  pronounce  the  ultimatum? 

The  Double-dealer  is  an  auspicious  attempt  to  give  the 
South  a  literary  organ.  It  ought  to  succeed — we  hope  and 
trust  it  will,  for  the  South  has  a  right  to  speak  with  its  own 
voice;  and  those  members  of  the  staff  whom  we  know — for 

[116] 


Two   New  Magazines 

example,  John  McClure,  the  New  Orleans  poet,  and  Vincent 
Starrett,  Chicago  correspondent — are  certainly  competent. 

The  local  flavor  is  not  yet  very  strong  in  the  first  three 
numbers,  but  no  doubt  that  will  come.  Meantime  we  have 
a  gay-spirited  monthly  which  has  the  air  of  being  happily 
alive,  and  some  of  whose  entries — of  stories,  plays,  criti- 
cism, verse — are  vivid  and  interesting.  H.  M. 


NOTES 

Mr.  Maxwell  Bodenheim,  formerly  of  Chicago  but  now  of  New 
York,  is  the  author  of  Minna  and  Myself  (Pagan  Pub.  Co.)  ;  and 
of  Advice  (Alfred  A.  Knopf),  which  was  reviewed  last  month. 

Miss  Hazel  Hall  lives  in  Portland,  Oregon.  Her  first  book  of 
verse  will  soon  be  published  by  the  John  Lane  Co. 

Mr.  Edward  Sapir,  of  the  Canadian  Geological  Survey  in  Ot- 
tawa, is  the  author  of  Dreams  and  Gibes  (Poet  Lore  Co.). 

Mr.  Arthur  Davison  Ficke  was  listed  last  month. 

The  other  poets  in  this  number  are  new  to  our  readers: 

Aline  Kilmer  (Mrs.  Joyce  Kilmer)  of  Larchmont,  N.  Y.,  is  the 
author  of  Candles  that  Burn,  published  iu  1919  by  the  George  H. 
Doran  Co. 

Madame  Muriel  Ciolkowska  is  a  poet  and  journalist  resident 
in  Bellevur,  France.  She  has  served  as  Paris  correspondent  of  the 
London  Egoist  and  other  critical  journals. 

Julia  Weld  Huntingdon  (Mrs.  John  P.),  who  has  published 
verse  and  prose  in  various  magazines,  lives  near  Norwich,  Conn. 
Ruth  Mason  Rice  (Mrs.  Willis1  B.),  a  resident  of  New  York,  has 
published  a  novel  and  written  for  various  papers.  Miss  Dorothy 
McVickar  is  living  at  present  in  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. ;  and  Miss 
Amy  Bonner  and  Elizabeth  Hart  Pennell  (Mrs.  Henry  B.,  Jr.) 
are  residents  of  New  York  City.  Miss  Blanche  Dismorr  is  an 
English  poet,  resident  in  or  near  London.  So  far  as  the  editor 
knows,  none  of  these  six  ladies  has  published  as  yet  a  book  of 
verse. 


["7] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

BOOKS   RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

A  Canopic  Jar,  by  Leonora  Speyer.    E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 
The  Last  Knight  and  Other  Poems,  by  Theodore  Maynard.    Fred- 
erick A.  Stokes  Co. 

Seen  and  Unseen,  by  Yone  Noguchi.     (New  Ed.)  Orientalia,  N.  Y. 
Julian  Hunter:  Soldier  Poet,  and  The  Dales  of  Arcady,  by  Dorothy 

Una  Ratcliffe.    Erskine  Macdonald,  Ltd.,  London. 
Poems,  by  Wilfred  Owen.    B.  W.  Huebsch,  Inc. 
The  Wind  Over  the  Water,  by  Philip  Merivale.    Four  Seas  Co. 
Indian  Summer,  by  Henry  Lane  Eno.     Duffield  &  Co. 
Passions,  by  Russell  Green.    Holden  &  Hardingham,  Ltd.,  London. 
Dawn  on  the  Distant  Hills,  by  Steel  Grenfell  Florence,  Pri.  ptd. 
To-day    and   Yesterday — Sonnets   and   Other    Verses,   by    William 

Dudley   Foulke,  LL.D.    Oxford   Univ.  Press,   Oxford,  Eng. 
The  Little  Wings — Poems  and  Essays,  by  Vivienne  Dayrell.    Basil 

Blackwell,  London. 

Roses  and  Rime,  by  Glenn  D.  Whisler.     Pri.  ptd.,  Cleveland. 
Dreams  at    Twilight,  by   Ada   Emery   McCurdy.     Pri.   ptd.,    New 

Albany,  Ind. 
Swift    Wings:   Songs  in   Sussex,  by   the   editor   of  Lillygay.    The 

Vine  Press,  Sussex,  England. 

ANTHOLOGIES  AND  TRANSLATIONS  I 

Oxford  Poetry:   1917-1919.    Basil   Blackwell,   Oxford,   Eng. 
A  Miscellany  of  American  Poetry:  1920.    Harcourt,  Brace  &  Howe. 
Star-points:   Songs  of  Joy,  Faith,  and  Promise  from  the  Present- 
day  Poets,  ed.  by  Mrs.  Waldo  Richards.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
The  Garden  of  Bright  Waters:  One  Hundred  and  Twenty  Asiatic 

Love  Poems,  tr'd  by  E.  Powys  Mathers.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Selections  from  the  Rubaiyat  &  Odes  of  Hafiz,  tr'd  by  a  member  of 

the  Persia  Society  of  London.    J.  M.  Watkins,  London. 

PLAYS: 

Mary  Stuart,  by  John  Drinkwater.    Houghton   Mifflin   Co. 
Two  Mothers,  by  John  G.  Neihardt.     Macmillan   Co. 

PROSE : 

The  Sacred  Wood,  by  T.  S.  Eliot.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
The   Tales  of  Chekhov— Vol.  IX,   The  Schoolmistress   and  Other 

Stories,  translated  by  Constance   Garnett.    Macmillan   Co. 
Romance  of  the  Rabbit,  by  Francis  Jammes,  translated  by  Gladys 

Edgerton.     Nicholas  L.  Brown. 

[118] 


V 

l\t 

POETRY  is  one  of  the  three  good  magazines  in  America. 

Geoffrey   Parsons,   of  the  New    York    Tribune 

Vol.  XVIII  No.  Ill 

POETRY  for  JUNE,  1921 

PAGE 

Boys  and  Girls Genevieve  Taggard    119 

Twenty-four  Hokku  on  a  Modern  Theme     I-XXIV   Amy  Lowell    124 

Tanka  I-VIII   . Jun  Fujita     128 

Goodfellowship — Lonely Translated  by  Moon  Kwan  130 

The  Hunchback John  Peak  Bishop    131 

The  Villager Clifford  Franklin  Gessler    132 

Your  Horses — Nevertheless — Concentric  Circles — Prayer 

God-lover Muriel  S  afford    135 

Voluntaries Mark  Turbyfill    136 

The  Intangible  Symphony — The  Power  of  Nothing — Reple- 
tion— The  Sea  Storm — Things  Not  Seen 

From  the  Near  East Morris  Gilbert     140 

Cape  Helles — The  Boulghar  Dagh 

By  Hill  and  Dale Ruth  Suckow  142 

Prayer    at    Timber-line — Beauty — The  Odd    Ones — Grampa 
Schuler 

Primaveral        .  Grace  Hazard  Conkling    144 

Recompense — The  Sweet  Lady  ....         Anne  Eliz.  Wilson     145 

Annotations Marx  G.  Sabel    146 

Jeremiad — No  Good  Thing — The  Strange  Load 

A  Word  About  Keats .      .      .      H.  M.     150 

The  Sub-conscious  Cliche E.  T.     153 

Reviews: 

From  New  Mexico Carl  Sandburg    1 57 

Mr.  Aiken's  Bow  to  Punch E.  T.     160 

A  Contrast H.  M.     162 

Still  a  Soul  to  Save Nelson  Antrim  Crawford    166 

Coleridge  and  Wordsworth .  H.  B.  F.     167 

Correspondence : 

A  Letter  from  Paris Jean  Catel    168 

The  Winter's  Publishing  in  England  .  .  .  .  R.  Hughes  172 
Our  Contemporaries: 

Kreymborg's  Millions 174 

Notes  and  Books  Received    . 175,176 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self -addressed 
envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico, 
Cuba  and  American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all 
other  countries  in  the  Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class 
matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the  post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  the  Act  of 
March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543   Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 

Copyright  1921,   by   Harriet  Monroe.      All  rights   reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 
No.  Ill 
A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


JUNE  1921 


BOYS  AND  GIRLS 

The  Sun-children: 

Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play ! 
The  sun  is  up,  the  wind's  astray, 
Early  morning's  gold  is  gone — 
(They  slumber  on,  they  slumber  on!) 
I  have  never  done  with  you 
Half  the  things  I  want  to  do. 
I  will  put  kisses  on  your  knees, 
And  we  will  squander  as  we  please 
This  little,  lazy,  lovely  day. 

Ninety  million  miles  away 

The  sun  halloos:    "Come  out  to  play! 

The  winds  are  prancing  on  tip-toe, 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Impatient  with  long  waiting  so; 

The  hills  look  up.    Come  out!  and  oh, 

Let  your  bodies  dart  and  run 

While  I  make  shadows!"  says  the  sun. 

Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play 
Before  the  river  runs  away. 
I  have  never  done  with  you 
Half  the  things  I  want  to  do. 

The  Sun: 

Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play 
Before  the  river  runs  away. 
While  you  are  fluid,  unafraid, 
Beneath  my  light  and  shadow  skim, 
Before  this  folded  gloom  is  dim 
And  limb  no  longer  follows  limb, 
Dancing  under  spotted  shade. 

For  dancing  were  your  bodies  made! 
Before  the  roses  of  you  fade 
Find  your  meaning  for  the  mouth 
While  I  lean  south;  while  I  go  west 
Find  your  meaning  for  the  rest. 

The  Sun-child: 

Throw  back  your  head  and  fly  with  me — 
Love  me,  chase  me,  lie  with  me! 
Follow,  sweetheart  of  the  sun, 

[120] 


Genevieve  Taggard 


Turn  and  follow  where  I  run 
Between  blue  vineyards  and  fruit-trees — 
Fall  down  and  kiss  me  on  the  knees ! 
Pant  beside  me  while  I  pull 
Berries  for  you  from  the  full 
Blue-jewelled  branches!    Crush  them  red- 
Not  on  your  mouth,  on  mine  instead! 

The  Sun: 

Nimble  you  move — you  are  my  own, 
My  pliant  essence.    All  alone 
On  fire  in  the  passive  sky 
I  burn — a  stone,  a  liquid  stone. 
Together,  you  in  double  shade, 
Discover  why  your  limbs  were  made. 

The  Sun-child: 

I  have  never  done  with  you 
Half  the  things  I  want  to  do! 
Link  your  arms  and  loosen  them, 
Pluck  and  suck  a  grass's  stem, 
Touch  my  breasts  with  that  blue  aster; 
Kiss  me  fast — I'll  kiss  you  faster! 
Link  your  arms  and  loosen  them. 

Now  link  your  arms  like  mine  'together, 
Toward  me  lightly — like  a  feather 
Dance!    Like  feathers  you'll  be  blown 
Across  the  level  field  alone. 

[121] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  like  a  brown  wing  my  bare  feet 
Will  skim  the  meadow  till  we  meet. 

The  river  skips,  but  we  are  quicker: 
Its  little  body's  slender  glisten 
Goes  down  alley-ways  of  leaves. 
Flicker,  sun,  and  river,  flicker! 
Listen,  lover,  listen,  listen 
How  the  river  laughs  and  grieves! 

I  have  never  done  with  you 

Half  the  things  I  want  to  do. 

Leap  for  me,  sweetheart — reach  and  try 

To  catch  me,  sweetheart!    Kiss  and  cry 

After  me,  sweetheart,  darting  by! 

After  you  seize  me,  we  will  lie, 
I  in  the  grass,  you  in  the  sky; 
After  you  kiss  me,  we  will  start 
To  try  and  reach  each  other's  heart; 
And,  searching  frantically,  find 
The  unseen  blisses  of  the  blind. 

The  Sun-children: 

Before  the  river  runs  away, 
Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play. 
(They  slumber  on,  they  slumber  on — 
Morning's  glint  is  almost  gone!) 
With  yellow  bubbles  fill  your  veins 

[122] 


Genevieve  Taggard 

Before  the  lusty  day-star  wanes. 
(They  slumber  on,  they  slumber  on — 
Silken  leopard  noon  is' gone!) 
Die  you  may,  die  you  must — 
Fill  your  mouths  with  pollen  dust; 
Calyxes  and  honey  thighs 
Both  will  wither.    Beauty  dies ! 
Find  out  why  mouths  are  berry-red 
Before  you  stiffen  in  your  drab  bed. 
Over  you  humming  summer  will  glide, 
You'll  never  lie  languid  on  your  side 
And  listen  then  as  you  listen  now 
To  half-heard  melodies — oh,  how 
The  river  runs  and  runs  and  runs, 
Fluid  with  splendor,  and  the  sun's 
Circuit  is  singing.    Fragile  day! 
Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play! 

Genevieve  Taggard 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

TWENTY-FOUR  HOKKU  ON  A  MODERN  THEME 

i  • 

Again  the  larkspur, 
Heavenly  blue  in  my  garden. 
They,  at  least,  unchanged. 

ii 

How  have  I  hurt  you  ? 
You  look  at  me  with  pale  eyes, 
But  these  are  my  tears. 

in 

Morning  and  evening — 
Yet  for  us  once  long  ago 
Was  no  division. 

IV 

I  hear  many  words. 

Set  an  hour  when  I  may  come 

Or  remain  silent. 


In  the  ghostly  dawn 
I  write  new  words  for  your  ears- 
Even  now  you  sleep. 

vi 

This  then  is  morning. 
Have  you  no  comfort  for  me 
Cold-colored  flowers? 

[124] 


Amy  Lowell 


VII 

My  eyes  are  weary 
Following  you  everywhere. 
Short,  oh  short,  the  days! 

VIII 

When  the  flower  falls 

The  leaf  is  no  more  cherished. 

Every  day  I  fear. 

IX 

Even  when  you  smile, 
Sorrow  is  behind  your  eyes. 
Pity  me,  therefore. 


Laugh — it  is  nothing. 

To  others  you  may  seem  gay, 

I  watch  with  grieved  eyes. 

XI 

Take  it,  this  white  rose. 
Stems  of  roses  do  not  bleed; 
Your  fingers  are  safe. 

XII 

As  a  river-wind 

Hurling  clouds  at  a  bright  moon, 

So  am  I  to  you. 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

XIII 

Watching  the  iris, 

The  faint  and  fragile  petals — 

How  am  I  worthy? 

XIV 

Down  a  red  river 

I  drift  in  a  broken  skiff. 

Are  you  then  so  brave? 

xv 

Night  lies  beside  me 
Chaste  and  cold  as  a  sharp  sword. 
It  and  I  alone. 

XVI 

Last  night  it  rained. 
Now,  in  the  desolate  dawn, 
Crying  of  blue  jays. 

XVII 

Foolish  so  to  grieve, 

Autumn  has  its  colored  leaves — 

But  before  they  turn  ? 

XVIII 

Afterwards  I  think: 

Poppies  bloom  when  it  thunders. 

Is  this  not  enough? 


Amy  Lowell 

XIX 

Love  is  a  game — yes? 
I  think  it  is  a  drowning: 
Black  willows  and  stars. 

xx 

When  the  aster  fades 

The  creeper  flaunts  in  crimson. 

Always  another! 

XXI 

Turning  from  the  page, 
Blind  with  a  night  of  labor, 
I  hear  morning  crows. 

xxn 

A  cloud  of  lilies, 

Or  else  you  walk  before  me. 

Who  could  see  clearly? 

xxm 

Sweet  smell  of  wet  flowers 
Over  an  evening  garden. 
Your  portrait,  perhaps? 

XXIV 

Staying  in  my  room, 

I  thought  of  the  new  spring  leaves. 

That  day  was  happy. 

Amy    Lowell 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
TANKA 

TO  ELIZABETH 

Against  the  door  dead  leaves  are  falling; 
On  your  window  the  cobwebs  are  black. 
Today,  I  linger  alone. 

The  foot-step? 
A  passer-by. 

SPRING 

Down  the  slope  white  with  flowers, 
Toward  the  hills  hazy  blue, 
A  butterfly 
Floats  away. 

MAY  MOON 

Milky  night; 
Through  the  resting  trees 
A  petal- 
Falling. 

STORM 

Against  the  gulls  that  play  in  the  gale 
The  black  waves  dart 
White  fangs 
fn  vain. 


Jun  Fujita 


NOVEMBER 


On  a  pale  sandhill 

A  bare  tree  stands; 

The  death-wind 

Has  snatched  the  last  few  leaves. 


A  LEAF 


The  November  sky  without  a  star 
Droops  low  over  the  midnight  street; 
On  the  pale  pavement,  cautiously 
A  leaf  moves. 


DECEMBER  MOON 

Among  the  frozen  grasses 

Frosting  in  the  moon  glare, 

Tombstones 

Are  whiter  tonight. 

ECHO 

I  know  it  is  not  she, 
Yet  I  listen 
To  distant  laughter 
Fleeting  away. 

Jun  Fujita 

[129] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

GOODFELLOWSHIP 

A  Fragment  by  Li  Po 

Hast  thou  not  beheld  the  Yellow  River 
Which  flows  from  Heaven? 
It  runs  rapidly  down  and  empties  into  the  sea, 
Nevermore  to  return. 

Hast  thou  behe!4  the  mirror  in  the  hall 

That  reflects  the  grief  of  white  hair? 

In  the  morning  it  is  like  black  silk, 

In  the  evening  it  will  be  covered  with  snow. 

While  we  are  in  the  mood  of  joy, 
Let  us  drink! 

Let  not  the  golden  bottle  be  lonely, 
Let  us  waste  not  the  moon! 

LONELY 

By  Wang  Wei,  Eighth  Century,  A.  D. 

When  the  moon  begins  to  grow 
And  the  autumn  dews  to  fall,^ 
My  silken  jacket  is  lightly  thin, 
But  I  have  not  changed: 
Wistfully  I  play  my  lute 
Long  and  deep  into  the  night, 
For  my  heart  is  shy 
Of  the  empty  chamber. 

Translated  from  the  Chinese  by  Moon  Kwan 

[130] 


THE  HUNCHBACK 

I  saw  a  hunchback  climb  over  a  hill, 
Carrying  slops  for  the  pigs  to  swill. 

The  snow  was  hard,  the  air  was  frore, 
And  he  cast  a  bluish  shadow  before. 

Over  the  frozen  hill  he  came, 

Like  one  who  is  neither  strong  nor  lame; 

And  I  saw  his  face  as  he  passed  me  by, 
And  the  hateful  look  of  his  dead-fish  eye: 

His  face,  like  the  face  of  a  wrinkled  child 
Who  has  never  laughed  or  played  or  smiled. 

I  watched  him  till  his  work  was  done; 
And  suddenly  God  went  out  of  the  sun, 

Went  out  of  the  sun  without  a  sound 

But  the  great  pigs  trampling  the  frozen  ground. 

The  hunchback  turned  and  retracked  the  snows; 
But  where  God's  gone,  there's  no  man  knows. 

John  Peak  Bishop 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
THE  VILLAGER 

YOUR  HORSES 

Often,  in  clear  winter  afternoons  or  crisp  fall  mornings, 
Walking  long  stretches  of  sand  where  waves  charge  in 

proudly, 
Or  standing  on  curving  walls,  looking  out  over  empty 

water, 

I  am  aware  of  the  memory  of  you  and  your  horses — 
Prancing  bays,  proud  roans,  and  wild  white  horses; 
Your  laughter  syncopating  the  hoof-beats  of  horses, 
Pounding  on  clay  turf-land  or  drumming  on  long  white 

roads. 

Standing  at  the  forks  of  the  river  at  Orleans  Street, 
Watching  the  ice  dip  up  and  down  in  the  oily  water — 
Big  gray  and  white  lake  birds  circling  slowly  slantwise 

over  the  water, 

A  tug  with  smoke-stack  down  for  bridges, 
And  two  engines  coughing  out  of  time  with  each  other — 
I  ride  again  with  the  memory  of  you  and  your  horses, 
Of  you  mounting  a  flight  of  steps  on  a  glossy  black, 
Riding  down  a  railroad  track  to  meet  me  on  a  deep-chested 

bay. 

And  the  sound  of  your  laughter  comes  to  me  over  the  backs 

of  horses, 
The  memory  of  your  hajr  streaming  with  the  manes  of 

horses, 


Clifford  Franklin  Gessler 

Your  firm  brown  hand  flung  out  in  the  crowding  of  horses, 
Greeting  me  over  the  necks  of  wild  white  horses,  galloping 
home. 


NEVERTHELESS 

Inasmuch  as  I  love  you 

And  shall  know  no  peace  more  unless  I  am  near  you, 

Though  you  are  a  flame  of  will 

Proud  and  variable  as  you  are  beautiful  and  dear — 

Nevertheless  I  will  go  your  way, 

Since  you  will  not  go  mine. 

Therefore,  although  the  cool  roads  of  my  village 
Are  more  pleasant  to  me  than  the  pavements  of  your  city; 
Although  its  dim  streets  are  more  kindly  than  your  glar- 
ing arcs; 

Though  the  unhurried  voices  of  my  townspeople 
Are  more  friendly  music  in  my  ears  than  the  screamings 
And  glib  chatter  of  your  city-dwellers: 
Nevertheless  I  will  go  down  with  you  into  the  city 
And  bruise  my  heart  upon  its  bricks; 
Become  brother  to  its  shrieking  "elevated" 
And  learn  to  hurry  away  my  days  in  this  brief  world 
Among  the  grimy  roofs  that  soil  the  clean  young  sunshine; 
Thinking  only  at  long  whiles,  in  summer  dusks, 
Of  hushed  paths  where  hurrying  feet  have  never  trodden, 
Of  cool  lanes  white  in  the  splendor  of  the  rising  moon. 

[133] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

CONCENTRIC  CIRCLES 

Cracks  in  broken  windows 

Thread  out  like  spokes  from  the  center  where  a  pebble 
or  a  bullet  struck, 

Cross  and  recross,  and  spread  to  the  edge  of  the  pane. 

Ripples  in  still  water  or  running  water  race  out  in  con- 
centric circles  from  the  place  where  a  stone  or  a 
body  is  thrown  in. 

Ice  forms  on  pools  in  long  thin  slivers  that  knit  slowly 
and  close  up  the  gaps  till  a  hard,  brittle  floor  is 
formed. 

Fissures  in  stones  spread  slowly,  and  widen  and  deepen 
with  the  prying  of  frost. 

Thoughts  are  like  all  these  things. 

PRAYER 

O  thou  elemental 

Rain,  sun,  and  body  of  the  quick  warm  earth: 
Hear  these  words  from  the  cells  of  thy  blood, 
Multitudinous,  various! 

Let  the  waters  at  the  dim  roots  of  the  grass  be  sweet, 
And  the  milk  be  abundant  in  the  breasts  of  time — 
Yet  a  little  while,  till  the  pearl-gray  banners  of  smoke 
Be  dissolved,  and  the  flowing  of  rivulets  be  but  a  distant 

murmur 
In  the  shout  and  the  far  white  splendor  of  thy  coming. 

[134] 


Clifford  Franklin  Gessler 

Let  thy  kindness  be  as  a  wide  white  blanket  covering  all 

The  brave  inglorious  futile  race  of  men 

Who  lift  tired  eyes  ever  to  sad  stars 

More  desolate 

Than  the  wind-harrowed  wastes  of  ocean, 

Whence  comes  no  answer. 

And  after  our  futile  striving,  give  us 

Peace. 

Clifford  Franklin  Gessler 


GOD-LOVER 

Who  are  you? 

Why  do  you  hide  behind 

Your  mask — the  sun  and  stars  ? 

The  brazen  day  and 

The  moon-washed  night 

Are  alms  that  you  give  your  beggars. 

I  ask  no  mendicant's  pittance — 

I  cry  for  the  supreme  desolation  of  your  face. 

Muriel  Safford 


[135] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
VOLUNTARIES 

THE   INTANGIBLE    SYMPHONY 

How  shall  I  capture 
Sound  and  desire? 

Let  candor  stir  upon  candor 

As  sword  upon  sword, 

Tempering  the  tenor  and  the  timbre 

Of  this  sweet  ecstasy. 

Grieved  is  my  mind, 

Harassed  by  music 

Untouched  of  any  sound. 

Yet  on  trellis,  on  infinite  arch, 
On  bridges  of  fretted  iron — 
Frail  to  thought,  acrid  to  sight, 
Thunderous  with  traffic  of  men — 
Red-budding,  peach-petalled 
Beauty  flames  into  view. 

But  how  shall  I  capture 

Sound  and  desire? 

How  shall  I  hear 

The  pointed  vagaries, 

The  evanescent  harmonies, 

That  float  unfingered 

Across  the  strings  of  the  mind  ? 

[136] 


Mark  Turbyfill 

How  shall  I  hear, 

Plucked  from  the  intangible  mind-strings, 

The  song  desire  sings,  and  sings? 

There  is  no  create  instrument. 

THE    POWER    OF    NOTHING 

I  only  laughed, 

As  at  a  gauche  mistake, 

When  I  learned  we  had  paid 

With  innocent  counterfeit — 

That  such  carnival,  confetti, 

Festival  of  flamingo  fun, 

We  had  danced  for  nothing  spent: 

So  much  brightness 

All  out  of  nothing! 

But  when  I  learned  of  my  awkwardness — 

Mistaking  the  denomination,  color,  design 

Of  a  little  word  you  gave  me ! — 

And  of  the  bright  shapes  of  dreams 

Germinated  in  my  heart 

All  out  of  nothing, 

I  could  not  laugh  any  more; 

For  there  was  a  sharp  severing  of  slender  unseen  roots, 

And  that  fruit  which  they  bore 

Fell  dangling  and  bruised 

From  the  tendrils  and  the  vine. 

[137] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 


REPLETION 


I  have  fed  on  the  radiance  of  my  beloved 

Lying  beneath  the  flowering  pear-tree. 

Her  breasts  are  inverted  cups  of  sunlight; 

She  is  dappled  over  with  iridescence. 

Light  and  heat 

Pierce  the  pear  leaves, 

And  fall  dizzily 

Through  a  flashing  of  petal-flakes, 

Burnishing  and  mellowing  her. 

My  nostrils  are  prophetic 

With  the  sweetness  of  pear  flesh, 

My  eyes  are  dazzled  with  love  made  manifest, 

And  my  mind  is  parturient  and  tremulous 

With  glistening  schemes. 


THE    SEA    STORM 

I  hurtled  like  a  hound  for  joy 

Through  the  storm 

Of  your  magnificence — 

Wave  on  crashing,  dashing,  crested  wave, 

You  hurl  yourself  against  space! 

You  are  positive  force, 

You  might  crush  me  to  nothingness; 

Yet  I  revel  like  a  golden  super-carp 

[138] 


Mark  Turbyfill 

Flashing  pas  de  poisson 
Through  flowers  of  foam. 

And  I  know  your  ecstatic  response, 
Exquisite  monster, 
As  I  blossom  into  glittering  spray 
Above  you! 

THINGS    NOT    SEEN 

The  sea-gull  poises 

In  the  charged,  expectant  air. 

The  sea-gull  poises 
With  delicate  resistance. 

Its  sheer  conscious  being 
Is  cause  to  strike  creation 
Out  of  all  this  emptiness. 

The  sea-gull  waits, 

Wavering  slightly 

Against  this  mighty  immanence. 

So  does  my  heart  wait 

For  the  release  of  a  substance 

Not  yet  seen. 

Mark  Turbyfill 


[139] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
FROM  THE  NEAR  EAST 

CAPE  HELLES 

This  water  is  all  rich;  and  no  great  wave, 
Rushing,  can  ever  sweep  from  the  old  ooze 
The  witnesses  of  simple  men  who  gave 
Their  lives  here  to  the  sea. 

Our  ship's  foot  goes 
Warily  now,  for  here  she  treads  above 
The  globed  mortal  homes  of  dreams  all  drowned. 
Sometimes,  as  if  a  man  smiled  at  his  love, 
A  smile  turns  in  the  water.    Round  and  round, 
Sometimes,  a  hundred  cries  go  swimming,  while 
Such  common  woes  and  hopes  are  ocean-freight, 
That  every  eddy  of  the  grey  sea-mile 
Is  strewn  with  ardors  inarticulate 
And  homing  memories. 

Yet  this  must  be: 

That  men's  ghosts  ever  shame  old  pagan  Earth, 
With  human  blood  crimson  grey  Neptune's  sea, 
Snap  the  Fates'  thread  with  high  impetuous  mirth, 
Cast  in  the  dicing  game  mortality, 
Slip  from  the  moorings  of  sweet  flesh,  and  then 
Clean  past  the  loom  of  the  Ultimate  Islands  ride, 
To  bring  a  vision  down  to  the  sea  again 
In  ships,  and  keep  the  faith,  and  take  the  tide. 

[140] 


Morris  Gilbert 


THE  BOULGHAR  DAGH 


Day  by  day  the  sun  booms  over  this  long  valley, 

And  the  mountains  are  sun-flowers 

And  smile  fondly  at  him  as  he  goes  by. 

For  only  Gunesh,  the  sun, 

Of  all  the  people  they  have  seen  pass, 

Is  steadfast. 

Alexander  came  through  this  valley, 

And  did  not  return. 

At  its  mouth  a  lass  unparalleled 

Found  Antony  in  a  market-place, 

Whistling  to  the  air:  they  sailed  away  together. 

A  man  named  Saul  trudged  up  this  road  soon  after: 

He  went  on  to  Rome. 

Godfrey  de  Bouillon  passed  this  way,  to  drown 

In  Cydnus. 

Some  troopers  from  Bavaria  and  Pesth 

Were  here  last  year — and  they  fled. 

Now  Pathans  and  Sikhs 

And  other  swarthy  fighting-men  camp  hereabouts. 

But  presently  they'll  be  gone. 

Morris  Gilbert 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
BY  HILL  AND  DALE 

PRAYER    AT   TIMBER-LINE 

Oh,  that  I  could  fashion  words 
As  the  wind  bends  the  trees — 

Could  shape  my  lines  as  shining-bare, 
As  exquisite,  as  these 

White  branches  of  the  writhen  pine 

Standing  alone  at  timber-line! 

Winds  of  life,  blow  stinging-free 
Into  my  heart  that's  waiting,  still! 

Beat  on  my  words  unceasingly, 
And  shape  them  to  your  stern  white  will ! 


BEAUTY 

I  went  where  pines  grew; 

Beauty  I  found  in  these, 
In  stars,  and  in  the  strange 

Twisted  boughs  of  trees. 

I  went  where  houses  were; 

Beauty  I  found  then 
In  eyes,  and  in  the  strange 

Twisted  lives  of  men. 


Ruth  Suckow 


THE    ODD    ONES 

I  like  best  those  crotchety  ones 

That  follow  their  own  way 
In  whimsical  oblivion 

Of  what  the  neighbors  say. 

They  grow  more  rare  as  they  grow  old, 
Their  lives  show  in  their  faces  — 

In  little  slants  and  twisted  lines; 
Like  trees  in  lonely  places. 

GRAMPA    SCHULER 

Grampa  Schuler,  when  he  was  young, 

Had  a  crest  of  hair,  and  shining  eyes. 

He  wore  red-flowered  waistcoats, 

Wild  Byronic  ties. 

The  whole  land  of  Germany 

Wasn't  wide  enough!  — 

He  ran  away  one  night,  when  winter 

Seas  were  fierce  and  rough. 

He  has  a  sleek  farm  here 
With  already  a  settled  air. 
He's  patriarchal,  with  his  sons 
And  daughters  round  him  everywhere, 
His  son's  son  Jim  has  fiery  eyes  — 
He  wants  to  go  where  the  land  is  new! 
Grampa  bitterly  wonders:    "What  are 
Young  fools  coming  to!" 

[H3] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

PRIMAVERAL 

You  should  have  seen  the  griffin  in  the  pine-tree 
With  stars  for  eyes ! 

You  are  my  own,' 

Mine,  though  I  never  found  you. 

There  was  the  hollow  valley 
With  its  river, 
There  was  the  big  magnolia 
Strung  with  moons  .  .  . 

/  look  for  you  .  .  . 

Love  makes  my  feet  unsteady. 

One  day 

The  perul  in  the  garden  was  on  fire  with  tanagers  .  .  . 

I  saw  it  burning. 

/  wonder  where  you  were? 

Yesterday  the  flower  woman  brought  me  violets  .  .  . 
Cape  jasmine  .  .  .  dark  roses  .  .  . 

When  are  you  coming? 

Today  the  yucca  has  finished  building  her  tower  of 
ivory  .  .  . 

//  is  late  .  .  . 

What  excuse  will  you  offer? 

Grace  Hazard  Conkling 

[144] 


RECOMPENSE 

You  are  growing  old,  my  lithe  and  gay, 

But  age  with  you  is  different  and  rare; 

Gray — yes,  but  like  the  mist  that  veils  an  autumn  moon 

Stretched  across  the  black  trees'  gaunt  array. 

Your  light,  now  opalescent  and  more  gently  bright, 

Makes  beautiful  the  wintry  night. 

Why  do  you  long  for  the  bronze  hue  of  youth, 

Or  the  noisiness  of  its  display? 

Let  us  be  comforted  in  this  sweet  quietness  where 

There  is  nothing  loved  before 

But  that  our  having  loved  so  long  can  make  more  fair. 

THE  SWEET  LADY 

She  is  so  gay- 
Such  easy  sweetness  falls  away 
From  her!    Her  words  are  simple  as  a  little  wind 
That  sings  all  day. 

Such  lazy  kindliness  she  spreads  about, 
As  thoughtless  as  her  hands  that  twine 
And  turn  their  pink  palms  in  and  out. 
Such  loving  weariness  has  she 
Of  giving  sweetness  forth  unthinkingly, 
That  she  is  almost  sad — still  smiling  sad, 
Tired  with  her  all-unknowing  ministry. 

Anne  Elizabeth  Wilson 

[145] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
ANNOTATIONS 

JEREMIAD 

What  avail  are  these  days? 
The  days  come  and  the  days  go, 
Limping  like  old  men 
Over  an  uneven  pathway. 

Day  follows  day, 

And  each  day 

Falls  over  my  last  memory  of  you 

Like  a  thin  white  sheet 

Over  a  dead  body. 

Day  after  day — 

Sheet  upon  sheet — 

Until  now  I  cannot  see 

The  lines  of  the  dead  body  underneath. 

What  avail  are  these  nights? 

The  nights  come  and  the  nights  go, 

Shambling  like  heavy  negresses 

Walking  down  a  steep  path 

With  overflowing  baskets  on  their  heads. 

Night  follows  night, 

And  each  night 

Falls  over  my  last  memory  of  you, 

Like  a  heavy  black  sheet  over  a  dead  body. 

Night  follows  night, 


Marx  G.  Sabel 


Sheet  falls  upon  sheet, 

Until  now  I  cannot  see 

The  lines  of  the  dead  body  underneath. 

What  avail  are  these  days 

And  these  nights, 

These  halt  men,  and  these 

Cumbersome  negresses  burdened  with  baskets? 

Day  after  day, 

Night  after  night, 

Sheet  upon  sheet, 

Black  on  white, 
Falling  over  a  dead  body, 
Covering  a  dead  body, 
Falling  upon  and  covering  my  memory  of  you. 


NO    GOOD   THING 

It  is  no  good  thing 

Even  on  a  dark  night 

To  clutch  a  memory  for  guidance. 

I  know,  because  I  have  tried  it 

Confidently. 

I  walked  on  in  the  dark  night 

Remembering. 

I  walked  on  and  on, 

Yet  no  star  shone, 

[147] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine   of   Verse 

And  there  was  no  light  nor  even  any  ghost  of  light 

Ever 

To  guide  me. 

I  shall  walk  on  in  the  dark  night 

Forgetting. 

I  shall  clutch  no  memory  for  guidance. 

I  shall  walk  on  and  on, 

Accepting  the  darkness 

Proudfully,  fearlessly,  without  hope. 

For  it  is  no  good  thing 

Even  on  a  dark  night 

To  clutch  a  memory  for  guidance. 

THE    STRANGE    LOAD 

Things  have  come  to  a  fine  pass! 

Just  now, 

As  I  sat  teasing  shy  thoughts, 

A  strange  load  lifted 

Of  its  own  volition ! 

Maybe  I  should  make  a  moan, 

Or  gurgle  in  my  throat  a  bit, 

On  losing  suddenly 

And  for  no  apparent  reason 

The  strange  load — 

The  little  weight  of  chosen  sorrowings, 

The  small  warm  woes  of  love. 


Marx  G.  Sabel 

Little  lady  whom  my  heart  has  nurtured, 

The  pressure  of  your  petulance 

Has  passed; 

Your  eyes'  chatoyancy 

In  the  deep  dark  night  of  my  heart's  heart 

Has  faded, 

And  the  phosphorescent  glimmers  of  your  body 

In  the  center  of  my  mind 

Have  faded. 

Faded  .  .  .  lifted  .  .  .  faded  .  .  . 
Entirely  done  away  with. 

Shall  I  miss  the  strange  load  lifted, 

Having  carried  it  so  far, 

So  long,  with  such  great  care? 

Now  I  arise  from  a  cramped  posture, 
Now  I  slowly  swing  my  shoulders  back 
And  take  a  deep  breath ! 

Now  I  shatter  heights  of  thin  air, 
Stretching  forth  rejuvenescent  fingers! 

Yes  .  .  .  surely  .  .  . 

Things  have  come  to  a  fine  pass, 

A  fine  pass,  indeed. 

Marx  G.  SabeL 


[H9] 


POETRY:    A   Magazine   of   Verse 
COMMENT 


A    WORD    ABOUT    KEATS 


TO  remember  in  December  a  February  centenary  — 
*•  that  is  plainly  an  editor's  duty.  In  that  plain  duty 
the  editors  of  POETRY  plainly  failed,  else  would  they  have 
prepared  the  February  number  with  reference  to  Keats. 
No  poet  on  our  list  having  aspired  to  challenge  Adonais 
with  an  elegy,  the  editor  should  have — indeed,  would  have 
—paid  a  brief  prose  tribute  to  a  spirit  whose  flaring  fame 
no  longer  needs  one. 

As  it  is,  the  month  has  gone  by,  but  not  the  year — a 
year  also  sacred  to  Dante,  who  died  at  Ravenna  Septem- 
ber fourteenth,  1321,  leaving  his  work  achieved  and  com- 
plete after  a  rounded  life  of  fifty-six  rich  years.  Of  all 
English  poets  since  Shakespeare  there  may  be  two,  Keats 
and  Synge,  who  gave  promise  of  genius  as  powerful  and 
shapely  as  Dante's,  and  of  mind  and  will  as  capable  of 
fulfilling  its  high  serene  commands;  and  these  two,  by 
the  same  tragic  hazard,  were  fatally  interrupted  by  illness 
and  early  death. 

The  Quarterly's  reception  of  Keats  has  become  a  by- 
word— it  is  so  easy  for  the  casual  inheritor  of  opinions  to 
be  wise  after  the  fact.  But,  after  all,  the  youthful  bard 
was  trying  out  a  new  instrument;  and  even  Shelley  himself 
was  not  at  once  impressed,  for  he  said  of  Endymion,  "The 
author's  intention  seems  to  be  that  no  person  should 
possibly  get  to  the  end  of  it;"  not  to  speak  of  Byron, 

[150] 


A  Word  About  Keats 

whose  remarks  are  almost  unprintable.  So  far  as  this 
luscious  and  exuberant  exercise  of  youthful  genius  is  con- 
cerned, I  sympathize  with  Shelley,  for  I  never  could  read 
it  through  without  liberal  skipping.  Ditto  Hyperion — but 
then,  my  appetite  for  modernized  Greek  myth  is  dis- 
tinctly limited;  I  cannot  "appreciate  the  intensity  and 
complexity  of  symbolic  and  spiritual  meaning"  which 
Keats  and  many  other  poets  have  read  into,  and  wrung 
out  of,  a  folk-lore  beautiful  in  its  original  primitive  sim- 
plicity. 

Isabella^  or  the  Pot  of  Basil  was  a  more  Chaucerian 
stunt  of  verse-narrative — a  tale  drawn  from  Boccaccio's 
rich  mediaeval  storehouse:  a  pretty  thing,  but  slight — 
even  the  poet  soon  tired  of  it,  called  it  "mawkish." 
Lamia  also  did  not  quite  "come  off."  And  the  beauty  of 
The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes  ^  exquisite  as  it  is,  is  of  the  fragile, 
the  dreamily  artificial  kind,  like  a  Venetian  goblet  blown 
in  many-colored  glass. 

These  all  were  preparatory.  What  have  we  to  assert 
triumphantly  the  immortality  of  Keats  the  master?  We 
have  a  half-dozen  lyrics  of  beauty  incredible  and  supreme, 
beauty  which  admits  this  youth  to  the  innermost  magic 
circle  of  all  the  rich  domain  of  English  poetry,  the  circle 
haunted  by  Shakespeare's  voice,  by  a  few  strains  from 
Marlowe  and  Spenser,  from  Coleridge  and  Shelley  and 
Blake;  while  beyond,  near  but  not  quite  within,  one  may 
hear  the  chanting  of  Milton  and  of  old  John  Donne, 
and  perfect  chords  from  Burns,  Byron  and  Poe,  leading 

[151] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

on  many  others,  a  number  of  moderns  among  them — 
poets  ever  to  be  remembered,  who  have  sung  a  few  songs, 
or  maybe  only  one,  too  beautiful  to  perish. 

The  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  and  the  ballad  La  Belle  Dame 
sans  Merci — any  long  life  were  richly  charged  with  these 
two  poems  alone.  And  when  we  add  to  these  the  other 
great  odes — the  Grecian  Urn,  Autumn,  Melancholy,  Bards 
of  Passion  and  of  Mirth;  and  certain  sonnets — On  Chap- 
man s  Homer,  When  I  Have  Fears,  and  the  last  one  of  all, 
Bright  Star — one  must  say  "Wonderful — wonderful!" 
and  feel  that  what  Death  robbed  us  of  might  have  added 
to  the  mass,  but  hardly  to  the  splendor,  of  this  poet's  gift. 

But  what  a  man  gives,  be  he  poet,  beggar  or  king,  is 
always  himself;  and  the  fascinating  thing  about  Keats' 
imperishable  gift  is  the  torch-like  beauty  of  that  glorious 
spirit  which  went  flaming  through  the  cluttered  world  for 
a  few  brief  years,  leaving  a  cleared  path  for  men's  souls  to 
walk  in.  He  saw  straight  and  true  in  a  perplexed  and  dis- 
tracted age — 

Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty — that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know. 

To  him  Byron's  rebellions,  Shelley's  reforms,  were  negli- 
gible details  in  the  rounded  spiritual  experience  of 
man.  To  him,  as  to  Blake,  "nothing  is  pleasing  to  God 
except  the  glad  invention  of  beautiful  and  exalted  things." 
He  knew  that  beauty  includes  all  perfections  sublunary 
and  subliminal;  that  it  is  the  magic  circle  which  encloses 
them  all,  giving  form  and  symmetry  to  the  created  uni- 


A  Word  About  Keats 

verse — and  to  that  infinitesimal  detail  of  it,  the  life  and 
dreams  of  man. 

And  then  the  tragic  poignancy  of  his  suffering — for  un- 
fulfilled love  and  early  death  caught  his  spirit  unready  and 
unreconciled;  and  the  great  things  he  had  done  seemed 
slight  to  his^despair  in  contrast  with  those  "high-piled 
books"  unwritten  in  his  "teeming  brain."  Of  course  we 
know  now  that  his  disease  was  a  direct  infection  from  the 
young  brother  whom  he  had  nursed  tenderly  to  the  end; 
and  that  the  medical  malpractice  of  his  time  speeded  him 
off  as  fast  as  possible  by  prescribing  a  starvation  diet.  It 
is  small  consolation  to  feel  that  today  a  science  more 
enlightened  might  have  saved  him  to  round  out  Dante's 
fifty-six  years  and  rival  the  majestic  mass  of  the  great 
Italian's  completed  labors.  Fortunately  there  is  a  higher 
consolation:  a  few  perfect  poems,  which,  being  perfect, 
are  therefore  in  themselves  complete,  sufficient. 

H.  M. 

THE    SUB-CONSCIOUS    CLICHE 

To  what  extent  does  language,  created  and  constantly 
influenced  by  a  nation's  thinking,  react  upon  the  thinking 
which  creates  it? 

Rabindranath  Tagore  brought  this  old  question  of  the 
philologists  to  my  mind  afresh  when  he  said  recently  in 
Chicago,  speaking  of  transferring  his  poems  from  Bengali 
to  English,  "It  was  not  like  translating,  it  was  recreating 
in  another  medium." 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

I  take  this  to  mean  that  the  English  words  themselves 
influenced  the  thought  back  of  the  poems,  since  this 
thought  must  have  been  the  same  in  both  cases.  So  it 
has  occurred  to  me  that  the  influence  of  words  in  our 
mother  tongue  is  probably  so  ingrained  in  us  that  we  are 
unable  to  perceive  it,  but  that  in  a  foreign  tongue  we  might 
be  able  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  its  action.  And  I  have  been 
amusing  myself  by  comparing  the  stock  poetical  cliches  of 
several  languages.  I  do  not  mean  the  stock  similes,  for 
the  influence  would  be  too  hard  to  trace  here;  but  the 
rhyme  cliches,  in  which  it  is  more  apparent.  I  know  only 
two  other  languages,  French  and  German,  well  enough  to 
do  anything  with  this,  but  I  wish  some  more  scholarly 
poet  would  consider  it. 

A  tendency  is  so  much  easier  to  recognize  in  its  exag- 
gerated forms,  when  it  reduces  itself  ad  absurdum,  that  I 
shall  offer  as  examples  the  worst  possible  cliches. 

They  pertain,  it  seems,  in  all  languages  to  the  tender 
sentiments.  The  word  heart  for  example.  In  English 
the  standard  rhymes  to  it  are  part  and  dart.  Part  follows 
naturally  enough  perhaps.  But  why  should  we,  out  of 
the  innumerable  images  pertaining  to  love,  have  fastened 
with  such  tenacity  to  that  of  Cupid's  dart  and  the  con- 
crete image  of  a  pierced  heart,  except  that  it  rhymes? 
I  can  find  no  such  persistent  reference,  indeed  very  little 
reference  at  all,  in  either  French  or  German  doggerel  to 
this  particular  image.  Has  not  the  accidental  physical 
sound  of  the  words  foisted  it  on  us?  In  German  the 

[154] 


The  Sub-conscious  Cliche 

standard  rhymes  to  Herz  are  Schmerz  (pain)  and  Scherz 
(a  gay  whimsy  or  joke}.  In  French  coeur  is  a  syllable  more 
easily  rhymed,  so  the  cliches  are  less  marked,  but  pleure 
seems  to  be  the  most  common  with  meure  a  close  second. 
In  all  of  these  it  appears  that  the  melancholy  side  of  love 
is  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  the  budding  poet  of  whatever 
nation.  But  the  precise  form  this  melancholy  takes  would 
seem  to  depend  on  the  rhymes  he  finds  to  hand. 

In  this  connection  French  offers  an  excellent  example. 
The  word  tendresse,  of  which  the  French  are  very  fond,  has 
a  cliche  ivresse  (literally  drunkenness  but  figuratively  rap- 
ture) ,  which  follows  it  everywhere.  This  image  of  being 
drunk  on  love  is  so  seldom  found  in  either  English  or 
German  that  one  cannot  help  thinking  it  is  suggested  by 
the  rhyme. 

Sometimes  of  course  the  natural  sequence  of  ideas  hap- 
pens to  rhyme  and  so  the  words  become  wedded,  as  kiss 
and  bliss,  or  eyes  and  skies;  which  last — curiously  enough, 
since  the  words  are  both  of  northern  origin — rhyme  also 
in  French,  yeux  and  deux.  But  how  about  our  English 
rhymes  for  love — above  and  dove?  Is  either  of  these  ideas 
inherent  in  the  idea  of  love?  L 'amour  on  the  other  hand 
seems  to  suggest  to  the  sentimental  Frenchman  toujours, 
though  this  follows  more  naturally  and  is  not  a  perfect 
rhyme.  In  German  Liebe  is  difficult  to  handle,  and  is 
most  often  either  lopped  off  or  imperfectly  rhymed  with 
trube  (forlorn). 

Of  the  cliches  on  other  subjects  life  in  English  is  accom- 

[155] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

panied  by  strife,  naturally  enough  perhaps,  but  more  per- 
sistently than  elsewhere.  And  to  the  French  patrie  seems 
to  carry  with  it  most  frequently  tyrannic.  Country  in 
English  doesn't  rhyme  easily,  but  we  are  apt  to  distort  it  to 
rhyme  with  free.  Germany,  which  is  fond  of  its  Lieder, 
brings  in  constant  reference  to  Flieder  (lilacs),  for  no 
very  visible  reason  except  the  rhyme.  There  are  others 
of  course,  but  these  are  enough  to  point  the  question. 

Perhaps  the  poetaster  ,who  is  responsible  for  these 
cliches  does  not  set  down  in  them  what  he  wants  to  say, 
but  what  he  can  say;  and  certainly  the  better  poet,  being 
more  accustomed  to  riding  the  only  half  tractable  steed  of 
language,  hesitates  to  use  them.  But  is  it  not  possible 
that  the  association  of  ideas  started  by  the  rhyme  has 
driven,  with  these  better  poets,  down  into  the  subcon- 
scious, whence  it  emerges  in  other  forms  than  those  re- 
quired by  the  rhyme  ?  Have  we  not  even  in  better  English 
lyrics  more  reference  to  the  dove — though  it  be  carefully 
unrhymed — and  more  wounded  hearts,  than  we  should 
otherwise  have?  Do  not  the  French  think  more  often  of 
rapture  and  the  Germans  of  lilacs  because  of  this? 

Short  of  some  instrument  of  precision,  on  the  order  of 
that  which  my  doctor  friend  invented  in  a  dream  one 
night  after  a  bout  with  several  poets,  an  instrument  which 
measured  with  scientific  exactitude  the  value  of  a  poem, 
and  gave  it  a  number  like  the  Bertillon  system — there  will 
probably  be  no  definite  answer  to  this  question.  But  the 
idea  has  amused  me.  E.  T. 


REVIEWS 

FROM  NEW  MEXICO 

Red  Earth:     Poems  of  New  Mexico,  by  Alice  Corbin. 

Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour,  Chicago. 

If  a  book  is  born  out  of  high  deliberation,  then  the 
shrewdest  comment  on  it  shall  come  out  of  high  deliber- 
ation. 

There  are  books  all  aloof  from  life's  tumult,  like 
out-of-the-way  corner  haunts  where  the  flair  of  life  equals 
the  most  vivid  of  flowers;  and  the  mob,  the  stenches,  the 
clumping  feet  and  the  poking  sightseers  are  not  of  it. 

Such  a  book  is  Alice  Corbin's  Red  Earth — clean  and 
aloof  as  the  high  deliberate  table-lands  where  it  was 
written;  elusive  as  the  grave,  questioning  faces  of  the  dying 
nations  of  copper-skinned  people  whose  last  homes  are 
there. 

Here  is  a  poem,  Trees  and  Horses.     It  reads: 

Trees  stand  motionless  among  themselves; 

Some  are  solitary. 

Horses  wander  over  wide  pastures; 

At  night  they  herd  closely, 

Rumps  hunched  to  the  wind. 

The  verbal  weaving  here  is  simple  and  direct  as  the 
stripes  in  an  Indian  blanket.  Of  course,  there  are  touch- 
and-go  readers  who  would  get  this  as  only  an  over-stressed 
statement  of  livery-stable  fact.  Still  others  of  us  get  an 
impressionist  painting  oHew  lines. 

[157] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Those  who  read  a  poem,  hear  a  song,  look  at  a  picture, 
must  have  seen  some  semblance  of  the  thing  the  artist 
is  trying  to  tell,  sing  or  paint;  else  it  is  no  use  at  all  to 
read,  hear  or  look  at  what  that  artist  attempts  to  deliver. 
Take  Afternoon  as  Alice  Corbin  saw  it  once  on  the  high 
deliberate  plateau  of  New  Mexico: 

Earth  tips  to  the  west 

And  the  hills  lean  backward — 

Cedar-trees 

Hugging  the  hillsides. 

Smoke  drifts  in  the  valley — 
The  pinto  sun 
Nickers  over  the  gate 
Of  the  home  corral. 

Here  is  a  woman  who  has  read  nearly  all  books  of  im- 
portance, and  in  the  centres  of  so-called  culture  absorbed 
wide  ranges  of  intellectual  fact.  And  in  the  piece  titled 
Sunlight,  written  amid  the  aloof  heights  of  New  Mexico, 
she  voices  the  heart  of  a  myriad  of  sunburnt  farmers  and 
farmers'  wives  who  joined  the  ashes  of  their  ancestors 
with  peace  and  few  regrets.  Sunlight  reads: 

The  sunlight  is  enough, 

And  the  earth  sucking  life  from  the  sun. 

Horses  in  a  wide  field  are  a  part  of  it, 

Dappled  and  white  and  brown; 

Trees  are  another  kind  of  life, 

Linked  to  us  but  not  understood. 

(Whoever  can  understand  a  horse  or  a  tree 

Can  understand  a  star  or  a  planet. 

But  one  ma'y  feel  things  without  understanding, 

Or  one  may  understand  theiif  through  feeling.) 


From  New  Mexico 

The  simple  light  of  the  sun  is  enough. 

One  will  never  remember 

A  greater  thing  when  one  dies 

Than  sunlight  falling  aslant  long  rows  of  corn, 

Or  rainy  days  heavy  with  grey  sullen  skies. 

Not  love,  not  the  intense  moment  of  passion, 

Not  birth,  is  as  poignant 

As  the  sudden  flash  that  passes, 

Like  light  reflected  in  a  mirror, 

From  nature  to  us. 

The  last  five  lines  are  five  too  many.  The  fault  is 
''the  crime  of  adjectives/'  and  negations  that  blur  too 
dark  a  gray  over  the  already  decently  crossed  slants  of 
afternoon  light. 

Joseph  Warren  Beach  once  wrote  of  a  poet,  "He  has 
been  known  to  cry,  but  never  to  weep."  That  would 
apply  to  Red  Earth,  the  book. 

Attractions  of  a  house  swept  and  garnished,  ready  for 
a  hurdy-gurdy  or  the  undertaker;  an  open  door  for  tam- 
bourines and  bells,  or  crape  and  a  coffin — there  is  a  hospi- 
tality that  widely  varied  in  Red  Earth. 

Here  is  an  Indian  song — only  four  lines — to  be  read 
a  hundred  times,  and  then  again.  It  is  called  The  Wind 
and  goes: 

The  wind  is  carrying  me  round  the  sky; 
The  wind  is  carrying  me  round  the  sky. 
My  body  is  here  in  the  valley — 
The  wind  is  carrying  me  round  the  sky. 

Carl  Sandburg 

[159] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

MR.  AIKEN'S  BOW  TO  PUNCH 

Punch,  The  Immortal  Liar,  by  Conrad  Aiken.     Alfred  A. 

Knopf. 

Four  years  ago  I  reviewed  for  POETRY  a  book  by 
Conrad  Aiken — Turns  and  Movies,  it  was  called.  Looking 
back  at  that  review  I  see  that  I  accused  him  of  being 
derivative,  always  haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  the  other 
story-tellers  in  verse.  And  I  added : 

This  is  the  more  unfortunate  because  Mr.  Aiken  has  invention, 
vividness,  compression  and  at  times  a  pleasing  lyric  quality.  His  situa- 
tions are  real  situations,  swiftly  told,  his  technique  easy  and  effective. 
It  is  hard  to  say  just  where  the  authenticity  seeps  out,  yet  the  total 
effect  is  that  of  a  clever  craftsman,  working  well  in  the  medium  of  his 
day,  yet  never  quite  reaching  to  the  heights. 

Today  that  accusation  no  longer  stands,  the  authen- 
ticity no  longer  seeps  out.  Conrad  Aiken  has  found  him- 
self. 

Punch,  The  Immortal  Liar  is  a  real  achievement.  All 
the  good  qualities  of  his  earlier  work  are  here — the  inven- 
tion and  swiftness  and  surety  of  his  narrative  sense,  the 
vividness  of  phrase  and  of  situation;  and  they  are  no 
longer  troubled  by  ghosts.  Even  the  witty  acerbity  which 
in  Mr.  Aiken's  prose  criticism,  in  Scepticisms  and  else- 
where, makes  one  instinctively  doubt  his  judgments,  feel- 
ing that  some  personal  complex  must  underlie  so  inclusive 
a  displeasure — even  this  acerbity  is  of  value  in  Punch, 
since  one  cannot  doubt  Mr.  Aiken's  judgment  of  a  char- 
acter of  his  own  invention. 

Developing   the   technique  he  used   so  effectively  in 

[160] 


Mr.  Aiken' s  Bow  to  Punch 

Sen/in,  Mr.  Aiken  has  divided  his  poem  into  a  number  of 
short  facets,  telling  the  story  from  different  angles.  This 
cutting  the  story  apart  serves  a  double  purpose:  it  avoids 
the  strain  put  upon  poetry  by  a  long  sustained  narrative — 
a  strain  which  the  medium  can  seldom  if  ever  survive, 
and  it  serves  to  throw  his  character  into  relief,  to  show 
Punch  in  the  round. 

The  section  called  What  Punch  Told  Them  contains  a 
real  masterpiece  of  bragging — the  good  old  robust  brag- 
ging of  burlier  days,  with  a  big  sweep  of  imagination,  a 
dash  of  Rabelais  and  a  fine  abandon.  The  pathetic  inade- 
quacy of  the  man  behind  the  bragging,  as  it  is  later  re- 
vealed, comes  with  great  poignancy. 

To  my  thinking  however  the  Epilogue  is  a  mistake. 
Mr.  Aiken  has  thoroughly  established  in  the  body  of  the 
story  the  thesis  that  all  men  are  puppets.  And  when  the 
reader  has  accepted  this  it  is  disconcerting  to  find  it  stated 
explicitly  in  the  epilogue  that  the  author  of  the  book  is  no 
exception  to  the  rule  of  mankind.  But  this  is  quite  unable 
to  spoil  what  is  otherwise  a  very  fine  piece  of  work. 

Here  is  a  lyric,  spoken  to  Punch  in  a  dream,  which 
gives  the  mood  of  the  gallant  and  pathological  bragga- 
docio of  the  story. 

Solomon,  clown,  put  by  your  crown; 
And  Judas,  break  your  tree. 
Seal  up  your  tomb  and  burn  your  cross, 
Jesus  of  Galilee! 

For  here  walks  one  who  makes  you  seem 
But  atoms  that  creep  in  grass; 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

You  are  the  pageant  of  his  dream, 
And  he  will  bid  you  pass. 

Let  Rome  go  over  the  earth  in  gold 
With  trumpets  harshly  blown! 
For  here  comes  one  whose  splendor  burns 
More  gloriously,  alone. 

Heliogabalus,  laugh  your  last! 

Queen  Sappho,  lie  you  down ! 

Punch  the  immortal  shakes  the  seas         , 

And  takes  the  sun  for  crown. 

E.  T. 

A    CONTRAST 

In  American,  by  John  V.  A.  Weaver.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
The  Well  of  Being,  by  Herbert  Jones.    John  Lane  Co. 

These  two  books  offer  an  interesting  contrast  of  char- 
acter, mood,  manner.  Here  are  two  young  American  poets 
starting  out  from  the  same  town — .Chicago — with  talent 
and  literary  ambition.  The  one  explores  the  neighboring 
streets,  shops,  parks;  and  his  first  book  presents  the  every- 
day adventures  of  every-day  city  people  in  the  slangy 
jargon  with  which  they  disguise  the  English  language. 
The  other  goes  to  London  as  the  best  place  in  which  to 
work  out  a  literary  career,  and  seeks  beauty  not  in  com- 
mon life  but  in  refined  and  sophisticated  experience.  Two 
sonnets,  both  love  lyrics,  will  present  the  resulting  con- 
trast better  than  pages  of  disquisition.  The  first,  Au 
Revoir,  is  from  Mr.  Weaver's  book: 

Don't  kiss  me!    Not  no  more!  .  .  .  Oh,  can't  you  see? 
Everythin's  perfect  now,  the  way  it  is. 

[162] 


A  Contras 

Why  do  I  hafta  fight  and  beg  like  this? 
It's  been  so  sweet — oh,  can't  you  leave  things  be? 

Oh,  now  I  hurt  you!    Dear,  don't  look  so  sad.  .  .  . 

Oh,  gee!    I  guess  men  ain't  got  ways  to  know 

How  a  girl  feels,  and  when  it's  time  to  go, 
And  how  too  much  of  even  kisses  is  bad. 

But  it's  the  things  you  didn't  just  quite  do, 
And  what's  left  over  for  some  other  day, 
That  makes  her  wonder  and  hope  and  cry  and  pray, 

And  tell  herself,  "Next  time!"  and  dream  of  you. 

Good  night,  dear  .  .  .  you  must  go  ...  it's  for  your  sake. 
I'll  dream  about  that  kiss  you  didn't  take.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Jones'  sonnet  is  number  XXVIII  in  a  sequence  of 
sixty-two: 

I  know  how  it  will  be  when  we  have  met 
After  these  months  which  you  as  well  as  I 
Have  spent  in  longing:  you'll  be  very  shy, 
Your  grey  eyes  very  bright,  a  little  wet; 
You'll  kiss  me,  in  the  station  crowd,  and  yet 
When  we're  alone,  you'll  blush,  and  laugh,  and  try 
Not  to  be  shy,  and  fail,  and  wonder  why, 
And  ask  me  if  I'll  have  a  cigarette. 

Doubtless  I'll  smoke  it,  but  I'll  watch  meanwhile 
The  play  of  light  and  shadow,  blush  and  smile, 
Over  your  face,  so  quiet  yet  so  stirred. 
No  matter  if  you  think  your  mood  absurd — 
Bashful,  when  you're  alone  with  me:  I  know 
How  that  will  vanish  in  one  soft-breathed  "Oh!" 

Both  young  men,  perhaps,  are  feeling  their  way  as  yet 
toward  their  different  goals.  There  is  nothing  final,  noth- 
ing fully  demonstrated,  in  either  book.  The  danger  in 
the  one  case  is  of  course  super-sophistication — an  intellec- 
tual thinning-out  of  emotion,  and  a  too  dapper  use  of  an 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

over-studied  instrument.  In  the  other  case  the  danger  is 
vulgarization — a  danger  which  may  become  a  persistent 
and  aggressive  temptation  if  Mr.  Weaver's  book  proves  a 
best-seller,  so  that  popular  magazines  and  newspaper 
syndicates  try  to  make  its  author  a  rival  of  Walt  Mason. 
As  yet  neither  young  poet  has  yielded  to  the  danger. 
Mr.  Jones'  poetry,  while  slight  as  yet  and  naively  full  of 
cliches,  has  a  certain  authentic  youthful  delicacy — a 
delicacy  a  bit  too  gentlemanly,  perhaps,  but  sincere  and 
sweet;  as  if  he  were  playing,  with  grace  and  feeling,  old- 
fashioned  airs  on  a  flute.  And  in  Mr.  Weaver's  book  there 
is  no  vulgarity;  for  no  dialect  that  passes  through  human 
lips  is  vulgar  per  se,  however  snobs  may  call  it  so  in 
Piccadilly  or  Madison  Street;  and  these  poems  "in  the 
American  language"  are  lifted  above  vulgarity  by  the 
genuine  human  emotion  in  them,  the  authentic  character- 
ization, the  unexpected  little  turns  of  pathos,  tenderness 
or  humor. 

Sometimes  Mr.  Weaver's  imagination  is  adventurous, 
but  the  leap  is  usually  justified,  as  in  Moonlight: 

Say — listen — 

If  you  could  only  take  a  bath  in  moonlight! 

Hey!    Can't  you  just  see  yourself 

Take  a  runnin'  dive 

Inta  a  pool  o'  glowin'  blue, 

Feel  it  glidin*  over  you 

All  aroun'  and  inta  you? 

Grab  a  star — huh? — 

Use  it  for  soap; 

Beat  it  up  to  bubbles 

And  white  sparkin'  foam — 

[164] 


A  Contrast 

Roll  and  swash — 

Gee! 

I  just  like  to  bet 

You  could  wash  your  soul  clean 

In  moonlight! 

Sometimes  the  monologues — of  a  bar-keep,  perhaps,  or  a 
drug-store  man — seem  harsh  in  their  bald  realism;  bufin 
each  case  the  poet  gives  us  a  hint  of  the  man's  dream, 
shows  us  the  special  queer  glint  that  lights  his  life.  It  is 
vital  stuff,  this  book — a  good  rich  promise. 

The  piece  de  resistance  in  Mr.  Jones'  volume  is  a  love- 
story  in  a  thousand  lines  of  rhymed  verse — a  quiet  tale, 
simply  told,  of  a  youth  and  maid  meeting  here  and  there 
in  Europe,  and  falling  joyously  in  love.  The  description 
of  the  girl  will  suggest  the  style: 

A  beauty?    Never.    Something  far  more  rare: 
A  spirit  bright  and  flame-like,  straight  and  clear, 
That  shone  from  laughing  eyes  and  filled  the  air 
Around  her;  knowing  neither  doubt  nor  fear; 
A  little  out  of  breath,  with  glowing  cheeks, 
As  if  the  sun  and  tingling  frost  were  brought 
Into  the  room  with  her;  and  when  she  speaks, 
Her  quaint  and  happy  phrases  come  unsought. 

The  story  moves  along  with  a  certain  soft  music,  in  a 
style  more  mature  than  that  of  the  sonnets.  There  is  a 
faint,  delicate  perfume  in  it,  as  of  a  genuine  and  sensitive 
youthfulness.  Mr.  Jones  will  have  to  guard  against  temp- 
tations toward  literary  sophistication  which  beset  an 
American  aspirant  in  London.  Probably  he  would  be  in 
less  danger  at  home — perhaps  he  needs  crude  contacts. 

[165] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

It  will  be  interesting  to  watch  these  two  young  Chicago 
poets,  travelling  such  different  roads,  from  the  same  start- 
ing-point. //.  M. 

STILL  A  SOUL  TO  SAVE 

Before  Dawn,   by   Irene   Rutherford   McLeod.      B.    W. 

Huebsch. 

On  the  jacket  of  Before  Dawn  appears  the  same  portrait 
of  Miss  McLeod  which  adorned  the  extremely  promising 
Songs  to  Save  a  Soul,  published  several  years  ago.  The  fact 
is  significant.  Miss  McLeod  has  not  developed.  She  is  still 
trying  to  save  her  soul,  but  she  has  grown  a  trifle  weary  in 
the  process. 

Most  of  the  poems  express  a  woman's  reaction  to  the 
war.  One  does  not  doubt  the  author's  sincerity;  but  fresh, 
deep-rooted  poignancy  is  lacking.  And  there  is  a  lack  of 
reticence,  of  restraint — qualities  hardly  to  be  expected  in  a 
poet  who  writes  of  a  lover  and  his  beloved  as  "twin  ships 
of  joy  upon  a  summer  sea." 

Included  in  the  book  is  a  sequence  of  sixteen  inconse- 
quential  sonnets.      There   are   good   lines,    but   enough 
atrocious  ones  to  appal,  or  amuse,  the  reader;  for  example: 
How  sexual  education  still  is  rotten. 
Monogamy  in  males  is  nature's  freak. 

This  scorpion  janitress,  whose  watchful  part 
Is  to  destroy  who  comes  his  heart  to  maim. 

Probably  the  best  lines  are  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  longer 
poems,  untitled  like  most  of  them. 

[i  66] 


Still  a  Soul  to  Save 

Patient  Mother,  I  have  come, 
With  some  withered  flowers,  home: 
Some  were  flowers,  some  were  weeds — 
Life  has  given  to  both  their  seeds. 
Lying  in  thy  heart,  I  pray 
Winds  may  bear  the  weeds  away 
Where  their  roots  shall  sprawl  in  vain. 
But  O  my  flowers,  spring  again! 

For  that  matter,  Miss  McLeod  is  at  her  best  in  her  long- 
er poems.  Maggie  Winwood^  a  narrative  of  some  seven 
hundred  rhymed  octosyllabic  lines,  has  elements  of 
strength,  effectiveness  in  character  portrayal,  and  re- 
straint. Objectiveness  is  the  saving  grace  of  this  poem,  as 
a  somewhat  futile  subjectiveness  explains  the  weakness 
of  other  poems  in  the  volume.  Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

COLERIDGE  AND  WORDSWORTH 

Coleridge's  Biographia  Literaria^  with  Wordsworth's  Preface 
and  Essays  on  Poetry.  University  Press,  Cambridge, 
England. 

This  caption  summarizes  the  elaborate  title  of  a  work 
dealing  with  the  earliest  of  the  reform  movements  in  mod- 
ern English  verse — a  work  edited  by  George  Sampson  and 
introduced,  lengthily,  by  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch.  The 
volume  offers  such  portions  of  Coleridge's  book  as  can  be 
combined  to  form  a  shapely  little  treatise  for  the  use  of"  all 
who  enjoy  a  poet's  interpretation  of  poetry  unclouded  by 
the  obscurity  of  yesterday's  philosophy,"  and  also  those 
Wordsworthian  essays  "out  of  which  the  book  arose  and 
without  which  it  might  never  have  been  written. "  Quiller- 

[167] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verte 

Couch's  introduction  offers  a  judicious  union  of  the  bi 
ographical,  the  historical  and  the  critical.         H.  B.  F. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

A    LETTER    FROM    PARIS 

My  dear  POETRY:  I  was  waiting  for  a  masterpiece  to 
unveil  to  you;  but  the  offerings,  if  many,  have  not  been 
masterly.  Yet  our  muse  has  given  a  few  golden  songs. 
I  wish  I  might  enclose  in  my  letter  something  of  their 
amiable  beauty,  transmuted  into  the  metal  of  your  speech. 

Pierre  Camo  has  published  his  Book  of  Regrets  done  in 
the  mellifluous  and  azure  tones  of  Ronsard  and  Chenier. 
Camo  is  a  troubadour  from  the  Pyrenees  who  has  pitched 
his  tent  in  Madagascar,  his  aloofness  from  Paris  being  the 
condition  of  his  originality.  His  classical  prosody  gives 
him  a  place  apart  from  the  crowd  of  modernists.  The 
sonnet,  the  stanza,  are  the  genuine  mold  of  his  sensitive- 
ness; such  molds  might  be  crushed  to  dust  in  the  topsy- 
turvy productiveness  of  Paris. 

New  books  from  Paul  Valery,  Georges  Duhamel  and 
Mallarme  have  a  somewhat  different  sound. 

Valery's  works  are  few,  and  most  of  them  can  be  found 
only  in  reviews  and  anthologies.  Les  Odes  has  just  come 
out,  and  La  Nouvelle  Revue  Francaise  has  given  us  Sea 
Cemetery.  These  works  show  an  evolution  in  Valery.  In 
his  odes  he  turns  back  to  the  traditional  forms  of  Racine, 

[168] 


A  Letter  from  Paris 

Vigny,  Hugo;  yet  he  is  a  creator  because  of  his  breadth  of 
vision  and  ecstasy.  Sea  Cemetery  is  a  meditation;  the  poet 
stands  before  the  graves  where  his  dear  ones  sleep  to  the 
sea's  perpetual  chanting.  He  sees  their  souls  reborn  in 
flowers.  A  wide  serenity  carries  him  above  the  petty 
emotions  of  life: 

Fair  sky,  true  sky,  look  down  on  me  who  change; 

After  so  much  pride,  after  so  much  strange 

Idleness,  but  pregnant  with  power, 

I  give  myself  up  to  this  resplendent  space; 

On  the  roofs  of  the  dead  my  shadow  moves, 

Subduing  me  to  its  fleeting  frailty. 

Briny  and  cool  water  work  an  emotional  change  in  the 
poet: 

The  wind  rises!    I  must  try  to  live! 

The  immense  air  opens  and  closes  my  book; 

In  foam-dust  the  daring  wave  flashes  from  the  rocks. 

Away,  dazzled  pages! 

Valery's  verse  unites  the  intellectual  and  verbal  magics 
which  Mallarme  blended  so  beautifully. 

George  Duhamel's  art  is  purely  emotional.  His  war 
meditations,  published  as  La  Vie  des  Martyres,  have  won 
world-wide  fame — I  am  sure  you  have  read  some  of  them 
together  with  Barbusse's.  His  Elegies  are  still  permeated 
with  the  horror  of  those  unforgotten  scenes:  the  Ballad  of 
the  Man  with  the  Wounded  Throat l,  The  Sadness  of  Sergeant 
Gautiery  the  already  famous  Ballad  of  Florentin  Prunier. 
In  the  pages  of  the  new  book  we  hear  the  sighs  of  sleepless 
nights,  the  rattle  of  dying  throats,  the  farewells  of  fellow- 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

creatures.  But  through  the  suffering  we  feel  the  approach 
of  hope,  for  the  beauty  of  things  earthly  comes  with  biting 
acidity  to  the  poet's  heart.  Blossoming  apple-trees,  glit- 
tering sea,  a  familiar  street,  restore  hope  to  his  mind.  The 
Elegies  hesitate  between  despair  and  bliss — a  smile  ex- 
quisitely veiled  with  tears: 

I  knew  you,  happiness! 
Despair,  I  know  you. 
In  turns  have  you  not  tortured 
My  slavish  heart! 

Of  his  Ballad  of  Florentin  Prunier  I  shall  quote  a  few 
lines.  The  hero's  mother  has  come  from  the  farthest  fron- 
tier of  the  provinces: 

She  carries  a  basket  with  twelve  apples, 
And  fresh  butter  in  a  small  pot. 

All  day  long  she  stays  in  her  chair, 
Near  the  bed  where  Florentin  is  dying. 

She  stares  obstinately 

At  the  wan  face  damp  with  sweat. 

She  stares  and  never  complains — 
It  is  her  way,  being  a  mother. 

For  twenty  long  days  he  held  death  at  bay, 
While  his  mother  was  near  him. 

At  last  one  morning,  as  she  was  weary 
With  twenty  nights  spent  God  knows  where, 

She  let  her  head  hang  a  little, 
And  slept  for  a  little  while. 

And  Florentin  Prunier  died  quickly 
And  quietly,  not  to  waken  her. 

The  daughter  of  Stephane  Mallarme  has  carefully  gath- 

[170] 


A  Letter  from  Paris 

ered  a  few  hitherto  unpublished  lines  of  the  famous  writer 
of  The  Afternoon  of  a  Faun.  An  amiable  distraction  of 
a  great  poet — that's  what  they  seem  to  be.  Some  of  them 
are  a  series  of  addresses  written  in  quatrains.  Some  are 
inscriptions  for  red  Easter  eggs,  for  New  Year's  gifts,  for 
fans.  A  certain  number  of  these  quatrains  are  delightful 
trifles;  a  few  relate  the  funny  little  facts  of  life.  Partic- 
ularly charming  is  Mallarme's  fancy  when  he  writes  to 
the  ladies.  Everywhere  we  recognize  the  delicate  mirage 
which  his  more  familiar  works  have  taught  us  to  admire. 

I  am  glad  I  can  associate  such  a  stern  production  as 
Duhamel's  with  Mallarme's  precious  grace.  Seriousness 
and  fancy  have  always  attended  our  muse;  a  new  blending 
of  them  seems  to  be  in  the  making. 

If  the  influences  of  Moreas  and  Rimbaud  are  still  dis- 
cernible in  the  verse  of  today,  yet  a  great  deal  of  purely 
fanciful  verse  has  been  issued  lately,  verse  which  reflects 
the  ironical  smile  of  Laforgue  and  Apollinaire.  The 
changes  which  the  war  has  brought  into  our  social  life  as 
well  as  our  verse  are  suggested  not  only  in  serious  poems, 
but  in  occasional  outbursts  of  gayety  and  fancy.  France 
may  be  a  sober — shall  I  risk  saying  puritanical  ? — country 
(you  should  see  her  provincial  towns  and  study  her 
Parisian  middle-class!);  but  in  spite  of  difficult  circum- 
stances, in  spite  of  an  official  gravity  and  its  communica- 
tive gloom,  modern  verse  reflects  the  most  diverse  moods. 

Fancy  has  now  left  Montmartre — Max  Jacob  is  never  at 
home! — to  dwell  with  Jean  Cocteau  near  the  Champs 

[171] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Elysees.  Having  danced  Auric's  one-step  on  the  terrace  of 
a  fashionable  sky-scraper,  they  both  went  back  to  the  little 
band  of  their  youth,  led  by  Poulenc  at  a  street  corner. 
There  they  mixed  up  with  soldiers,  nurses,  children  and 
sentimental  workmen. 

Back  home  the  couple  entertain  their  six  musician 
friends  and  a  few  poets.  The  apartment  is  simple,  of  a 
refined  poverty,  such  as  Okakura  would  have  liked.  The 
chief  ornament  is  a  rose  in  a  glass  of  water,  the  very  im- 
mortal French  rose  that  Raymond  Radiguet  boasts  of  hav- 
ing thrown  like  a  bomb  in  the  Galerie  des  Machines,  full 
of  modern  and  exotic  monsters.  The  poetry  of  this  group 
aims  to  be  as  perfect,  as  useless  and  as  indispensable  as 
red  on  beautiful  cheeks,  as  a  rare  wine  or  a  silent  prom- 
enade; and  some  of  Cocteau's  and  Radiguet's  verse  is  not 
far  from  such  perfection.  Jean  Cafe/ 

THE  WINTER'S  PUBLISHING  IN  ENGLAND 

Dear  POETRY:  The  quite  unnatural  interest  in  poetry, 
which  the  British  public  was  stirred  to  by  the  emotional 
activity  of  the  War,  has  given  way  now,  broken  down 
before  another  bad  attack  of  the  usual  British  lethargy  in 
matters  artistic.  Two  books  which  a  year  or  so  ago  would 
have  won  for  their  authors  a  wide  as  well  as  a  narrow  circle 
of  readers — Edmund  Blunden's  Waggoner  (Sidgwick  & 
Jackson,  and  Alfred  A.  Knopf)  and  Wilfred  Owen's  Poems 
(Chatto  &  Windus),  books  which  have  been  greeted  enthu- 


The  Winter  s  Publishing  in  England 

siastically  by  nearly  all  reviewers — have  achieved  a  repu- 
tation in  the  narrower  sense,  it  is  true;  but  have  not 
reached  the  sales  of  far  inferior  stuff  which  appeared  dur- 
ing those  tragic  years.  Edmund  Blunden  was  recognized 
at  once  as  a  distinguished  poet  of  English  country  life; 
and  Wilfred  Owen,  whose  posthumous  war-poems  have 
now  appeared,  is  generally  considered  an  abler  war-poet 
than  Nichols,  Graves,  or  even  Sassoon  himself.  He  has  an 
absolute  clarity  and  intense  vividness  of  vision  and  an 
unflinching  sympathy,  which  are  hardly  equalled  any- 
where in  the  poetry  of  the  War. 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Edward  Thomas  (Selwyn  & 
Blount,  and  Henry  Holt  &  Co.)  have  now  appeared,  with 
an  introduction  by  Walter  de  la  Mare.  A  collected  edition 
of  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  own  poems  has  also  appeared;  (Martin 
Secher,  and  Henry  Holt  &  Co.) —  but  this  does  not,  un- 
happily, include  the  poems  published  in  illustration  of 
Pamela  Bianco's  drawings  in  Flora  (Wm.  Heinemann); 
in  many  respects  his  best  work,  as  well  as  his  latest. 

W.  H.  Davies  has  published  another  volume,  the  Song 
of  Life  (Fifield),  which  is  in  fair  accord  with  his  earlier 
work.  One  of  the  most  interesting  books  produced  dur- 
ing the  winter  is  Robert  Graves'  Pier-glass  (Martin  Secher), 
a  work  which  shows  that  he  is  developing  in  a  new  and 
quite  unexpected  direction.  It  is  not  a  kind  pf  poetry 
that  is  likely  to  be  popular;  but  such  poems  as  The  Gnat, 
The  Pier-glass  and  The  Jubilee  Murder  Cycle ,  are  an  inter- 
esting variation  from  the  usual  modern  trend. 

[173] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

John  Masefield's  racing  poem,  Right-Royal,  is  too  widely 
known  to  need  comment. 

The  first  number  of  a  new  annual  anthology  has  ap- 
peared, Mr.  Masefield  contributing  the  introduction. 
William  Heinemann  is  the  publisher,  and  it  is  to  present 
successive  collections  of  Public  School  Verse,  thus  in  a  way 
anticipating  the  poetry  of  the  next  generation.  The  first 
number  has  discovered,  in  P.  C.  Quennell,  of  Berkhansted 
School,  at  least  one  poet  of  surprising  promise  and  no 
inconsiderable  attainment.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  those 
responsible  will  insure  that  his  talent  is  not  forced.  A 
second  volume  is  in  the  press.  R.  Hughes 

OUR  CONTEMPORARIES 

KREYMBORG'S  MILLIONS 

The  Dial  for  May  opens  its  page  of  Comment  by  quoting 
this  remark  of  W.  C.  Blum : 

Williams'  first  suggestion  was  that  someone  give  Alfred  Kreymborg 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

And  the  editor  goes  on  to  inform  us  of  a  windfall  of 
money: 

What  do  you  know?  Somebody's  gone  and  done  it!  Alfred  Kreym- 
borg and  Harold  Loeb  announce  an  International  Magazine  of  the  Arts, 
to  be  printed  in  Italy  and  sold  all  round  the  block.  How  much  is 
$100,000  in  lire,  just  now? 

"Tirra  lirra,"  by  the  river 

Sang  Sir  Alfred  Kreymborg. 

[174] 


Kreymborgs  Millions 

Some  people  are  born  lucky!  Nobody  ever  offered 
POETRY  an  hundred  thousand,  whether  in  pounds,  dollars, 
or  lire!  And  POETRY  has  been  a  conspicuous  target 
for  such  windfalls  these  ten  years — nearly — whereas  Mr. 
Kreymborg  carried  Others  scarcely  more  than  a  year. 

The  new  international  is  to  be  called  The  Broom. 
May  it  sweep  clean  without  raising  too  much  dust. 

NOTES 

Genevieve  Taggard,  who  first  appeared  in  POETRY  in  June  of  last  year, 
removed  soon  after  from  Berkeley  to  New  York,  and  last  winter  became 
one  of  the  nine  editors  of  The  Measure,  the  new  poetry  magazine  which 
we  greeted  last  month.  In  March,  Miss  Taggard  married  Mr.  Robert 
L.  Wolf,  and  the  bridal  pair  are  living  at  present  near  Farmington,  Conn. 

Miss  Amy  Lowell,  of  Brookline,  Mass.,  requires  no  introduction. 
Her  latest  book  of  verse,  Legends,  just  published  by  the  Macmillan  Co., 
is  advertised  in  this  issue. 

Mrs.  Grace  Hazard  Conkling,  who  is  in  the  Smith  College  faculty, 
lives  in  Northampton,  Mass.  Her  latest  book  of  verse,  published  last 
year  by  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  is  Wilderness  Songs, 

Mr.  Morris  Gilbert,  of  Yonkers,  N.  Y.,  who  served  in  the  navy  during 
the  war,  and  afterwards  in  the  Near-East  Relief,  is  the  author  of  A  Book 
of  Verse,  privately  printed  in  1917. 

Mr.  Mark  Turbyfill,  of  Chicago,  who  received  in  1919  POETRY'S 
prize  for  a  young  poet,  will  soon  issue,  through  Monroe  Wheeler,  of 
Evanston,  111.,  his  first  book  of  verse,  The  Living  Frieze. 

Mr.  Marx  G.  Sabel,  of  Jacksonville,  Florida,  has  appeared  in  various 
magazines. 

Mr.  Jun  Fujita  is  a  Japanese  poet  resident  in  Chicago,  and  now  in  the 
employ  of  The  Evening  Post. 

The  other  poets  in  this  number  are  new  to  our  readers: 

Miss  Ruth  Suckow,  who  is  a  bee-culturist  in  Earlville,  Iowa,  has 
appeared  in  various  magazines. 

[175] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Mr.  Clifford  F.  Gessler,  who  has  published  in  the  special  magazines, 
recently  left  Chicago  to  follow  his  profession  of  journalism  in  Honolulu. 

Miss  Anne  Elizabeth  Wilson,  now  of  Brooklyn,  but  a  native  of 
Kentucky,  has  published  little  as  yet.  Ditto,  Miss  Muriel  Safford,  of 
New  York  City. 

Moon  Kwan  is  a  Chinese  poet  who  studied  recently  in  the  University 
of  California,  but  is  now,  the  editor  is  informed,  in  Europe. 

Mr.  John  Peale  Bishop,  a  native  of  West  Virginia  and  a  resident  of 
New  York,  has  become,  since  he  got  out  of  khaki,  managing  editor  of 
our  brilliant  contemporary,  Vanity  Fair. 


The  editor  regrets  to  announce  that  Mr.  Richard  Aldington  has 
been  compelled  to  resign  as  London  correspondent  of  POETRY,  because 
of  numerous  and  pressing  literary  engagements  in  England.  Mr. 
Aldington's  first  appearance  as  a  poet  was  with  Choricos  and  two  other 
poems  in  POETRY'S  second  number,  November,  1912,  when  he  was  a 
boy  of  twenty.  Since  then  many  of  his  best  poems,  and  of  late  a  number 
of  editorials  and  reviews,  have  been  presented  in  our  pages;  and  we  shall 
hope  for  further  contributions. 

Since  his  three  years'  service  as  an  infantryman  on  the  Western 
Front,  Mr.  Aldington  has  gradually  become  engrossed  in  critical  and 
editorial  labors.  We  shall  hope  that  they  will  not  absorb  him  to  the 
neglect  of  poetry. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Avon's  Harvest,  by  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson.     Macmillan  Co. 
Ships  in  Harbour,  by  David  Morton.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
As  the  Larks  Rise,  by  Theodosia  Garrison.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
Poems,  by  Augusta  E.  Stetson,  C.  S.  D.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
Resurrecting  Life,  by  Michael  Strange.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
The  Harvest  Home,  by  James  B.  Kenyon.    James  T.  White  &  Co. 
Some  Songs  of  Bilitis,  by  S.  Fowler  Wright.     Birmingham,  England. 
Poems,  by  Arthur  L.  Phelps,  English  Club  of  Cornell  College,  Mount 

Vernon,  Iowa. 

Poems,  by  Stewart  Mitchell.     Duffield  &  Co. 
Highland  Light  and  Other  Poems,  by  Henry  Adams  Bellows.     Macmillan 

Co. 

[176] 


POETRY  is  one  of  the  three  good  magazines  in  America. 

Geoffrey  Parsons,  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

Vol.  XVIII  No.  IV 

POETRY  for  JULY,  1921 

PAGE 

Gallery  of  Paintings Marjorle  Allen  Seiffert    177 

The  Shop — Dingy  Street — Interior — Cubist  Portrait — Two 
Women — Portrait  of  a  Lady — Dream-kiss — Shadow — As 
You  are  Now — Nocturne 

Under  the  Tree Elizabeth  Madox  Roberts     185 

The  Cornfield— The  Pilaster— The  Star— Water  Noises— Cres- 
cent Moon — Strange  Tree — A  Child  Asleep — My  Heart 

Semper  Eadem Babette  Deutsch     190 

Fourth  Dimension — Overtones — Reflections — Knowledge 

Four  Poems Josephine  Pinckney     194 

In  the  Barn — Strange — The  Outcast — Swamp  Lilies 

Forgotten ... Harold  Vinal    197 

Numbers '. Louis  Golding     198 

O  Changing  One William  A.  N orris     2OI 

Golden  Darkness Oscar  Williams    202 

There  was  a  Time — Clouds  and  Waves — Cobwebs — Grey — 
Rains — The  Golden  Fleece — Because — Motes — The  Subway 
is  Lit— The  Bubble— The  Return 

Here  in  Cass  Street H.  M.     208 

The  Nebraska  Laureate H.  M.     212 

Reviews: 

A  Census  Spiritual H.  M.    214 

Little  Theatre  Rhythms Laura  Sherry     218 

Nightmare  Fingers Marion  Strobel    222 

The  Silver  Stallion Oscar  Williams    223 

Who  Writes  Folk-songs?      A.  C.  H.    227 

Correspondence : 

Professor  Phelps  and  Rostand Jean  Catel    232 

Notes  and  Books  Received 233,  234 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.    All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 

No.  IV 

A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


JULY  1921 


GALLERY  OF  PAINTINGS 


THE    SHOP 

THE  shop  is  red  and  crimson.     Under  the  forge 
Men  hold  red  bars  of  iron  with  black  iron  tongs. 
It  crashes — sparks  spatter  out;  it  crashes  again,  again. 
At  last  the  iron  is  bent  as  it  belongs. 

Swedes,  Norwegians,  Poles  or  Greeks — they  are  men: 
They  grin  when  they  please,  look  ugly  when  they  please; 

They  wear  black  oakum  in  their  ears  for  the  noise; 
They  know  their  job,  handle  their  tools  with  ease. 

Their  eyes  are  clean  and  white  in  their  black  faces; 

If  they  like,  they  are  surly,  can  speak  an  ugly  no; 
They  laugh  great  blocks  of  mirth,  their  jokes  are  simple; 

They  know  where  they  stand,  which  way  they  go. 

[177] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

If  I  wore  overalls,  lost  my  disguise 

Of  womanhood  and  youth,  they  would  call  me  friend; 
They  would  see  I  am  one  of  them,  and  we  could  talk 
And  laugh  together,  and  smoke  at  the  day's  end. 


DINGY    STREET 

It  is  twilight  by  the  dreary  edge  of  town, 
And  the  December  air 
Is  harsh  and  bitter.     All  the  trees  are  bare, 
The  leaves  are  scattered  and  trodden  down 
To  pulp;  and  every  house  is  brown. 
There  is  no  trace  of  beauty  anywhere. 

Night  comes  slowly,  the  houses  hide  in  the  gloom; 

But  toward  the  muddy  street 

One  by  one  their  shabby  windows  bloom 

Like  golden  flowers,  to  shine  and  greet 

The  bundled  effigies  on  sodden  feet 

Trudging  toward  welcome  in  the  hidden  room. 

There  is  a  magic  in  it.     There  once  more, 

Body  and  spirit,  they  are  warmed  and  fed. 

There,  as  a  thousand  times  before, 

The  ancient  feast  is  spread — 

The  simple  miracles  of  love  and  bread. 

They  stumble  into  beauty  at  the  door. 

[178] 


Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert 


INTERIOR 


Words  curl  like  fragrant  smoke-wreaths  in  the  room 

From  the  majestic  beard  of  an  old  man 

Who  props  his  shabby  feet  upon  the  stove 

Recalling  ancient  sorrows.     In  the  gloom 

Beyond  the  lamp  a  woman  thinks  of  love, 

Her  round  arms  wrapped  in  her  apron,  her  dark  head 

Drooping.     She  has  a  bitter  thing  to  learn. 

His  words  drift  over  her  .  .  .  uncomforted 

Her  pain  whirls  up  and  twists  like  a  scarlet  thread 

Among  his  words.     He  rises,  shoves  his  chair 

Back  from  the  stove,  pauses  beside  her  there; 

Shuffles  irresolutely  off  to  bed. 

CUBIST    PORTRAIT 

She  is  purposeless  as  a  cyclone;  she  must  move 
Either  by  chance  or  in  a  predestined  groove, 
Following  a  whim  not  her  own,  unable  to  shape 
Her  course.    From  chance  or  God  even  she  cannot  escape  ! 

Think  of  a  cyclone  sitting  far-off  with  its  head  in  its  hands, 
Motionless,  drearily  longing  for  distant  lands 
Where  every  lonely  hurricane  may  at  last  discover 
Its  own  transcendent,  implacable,  indestructible  lover! 

What  is  a  cyclone?     Only  thin  air  moving  fast 

From  here  to  yonder,  to  become  silent  emptiness  at  last. 

[179] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

TWO    WOMEN 

Two  faint  shadows  of  women  were  ascending 

The  pathway  of  a  desolate  hill, 
Pale  as  moth-wings  beneath  the  low-bending 

Sycamore  branches,  in  the  moonlight  paler  still. 

"This  one  is  dead,"  said  the  moon;    "her  face  is  ashen, 

She  is  dry  as  a  withered  leaf— 
What  has  she  known  of  beauty  or  of  passion 

To  come  by  moonlight  to  the  mountain  of  grief?" 

"The  other  too  is  dead,"  said  the  earth,  "yet  her  feet  are 
burning — 

I  feel  them  hot  and  restless  as  blown  fire. 
She  has  known  many  paths,  why  is  she  turning 

Here,  from  the  secret  valley  of  desire?" 

They  passed,  the  moon  paled,  and  from  leafy  places 
Morning  crept  forth.     At  last  they  came 

From  the  mountain  of  grief — women  with  tear-wet  faces 
Who  had  been  withered  leaf  and  shadow  of  flame. 


PORTRAIT    OF    A    LADY 

Good  morning,  madam,  in  your  sleepy  brown  hair — 
Twist  yourself  awake,  blink  and  stare! 
I  am  lying  on  the  floor, 
With  the  old  rose-red 

[180] 


Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert 


Dressing-gown  you  wore 
When  you  went  to  bed. 

Don't  look  stupid  with  your  drowsy  blue  eyes- 
Here  by  the  bed  is  your  disguise ! 
You're  a  gentle  wife 
And  a  tender  mother, 
And  all  your  life 
You  shall  be  no  other. 

Life  is  a  shawl  to  wrap  about  your  shoulder — 

Every  day  warmer,  every  day  older. 

In  half  an  hour 

You'll  be  dressed, 

Youth  like  a  flower 

Wilting  on  your  breast. 


DREAM-KISS 

Moment  of  delight — most  delicate, 
Cool  as  a  rose  is  cool; 
Swift  and  silent  as  a  pool 
To  mirror  wings  in  flight; 
Passionate  as  frost  is  passionate 
With  patterns  intricate  and  white; 
Pure  as  music  in  the  night, 
Far  oflf,  yet  intimate — 
It  came 

[181] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Poignant  as  beauty  on  swift  feet  of  flame. 
It  paused  .  .  .  was  gone  .  .  .  most  delicate 
Moment  of  delight. 

SHADOW 

Like  the  flickering  shadow 

Of  birds  flying 

Over  a  wide  meadow, 

Something  passes; 

Some  forgotten  or  untold 

Dream  flies  over, 

Its  wings  brushing 

Lightly  against  me,  as  rushing 

Fingers  of  wind  touch  clover 

And  bending  grasses. 

I  am  cold 

With  the  shadow  of  something  dying. 

AS    YOU    ARE    NOW 

Under  golden  boughs  that  lean  and  drift 
You  lift  your  head,  and  ripples  of  light 
Touch  the  leaves  till  they  quiver, 
Reaching  down  in  a  motionless 
Unachieved  caress. 
The  branches  ache  with  their  desire, 
And  the  wind  holds  its  breath. 
The  moment  dies  in  a  shiver 

[182] 


Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert 


Of  icy  fire — eternity  and  death. 
Then  leaves  fall  softly  on  your  head. 


NOCTURNE 


The  moonlit  hill 
And  the  black  trees 
Where  a  hidden  bird 
Sings  and  is  still  — 
Even  these 
Leave  me  unstirred. 

I  am  hidden  deep, 
Like  the  secret  bough 
Of  a  tree  in  leaf. 
I  am  safe  asleep  — 
What  can  touch  me  now 
Of  joy  or  grief? 

For  night  and  noon 
The  sky  is  shut, 
The  winds  are  dumb; 
Behind  the  moon 
No  gates  are  cut 
For  the  winds  to  come. 

Could  wind  from  the  moon 
Sweep  down  until, 
Like  a  winter  tree, 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

My  leaves  were  strewn 
On  the  moonlit  hill 
And  I  stood  free, 

Beauty  and  pain 
Would  touch  me  now 
With  bitter  cold, 
As  moonbeams  rain 
Through  a  naked  bough 
When  the  year  is  old. 

Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert 


UNDER  THE  TREE 

THE    CORNFIELD 

I  went  across  the  pasture  lot 

When  not  a  one  was  watching  me. 

Away  beyond  the  cattle  barns 
I  climbed  a  little  crooked  tree. 

And  I  could  look  down  on  the  field 
And  see  the  corn,  and  how  it  grows 

Across  the  world,  and  up  and  down, 
In  very  straight  and  even  rows. 

And  far  away  and  far  away — 
I  wonder  if  the  farmer  man 

Knows  all  about  the  corn,  and  how 
It  comes  together  like  a  fan. 

THE  PILASTER 

The  church  has  pieces  jutting  out 
Where  corners  of  the  walls  begin. 

I  have  one  for  my  little  house, 
And  I  can  feel  myself  go  in. 

I  feel  myself  go  in  the  bricks, 
And  I  can  see  myself  in  there. 

I'm  always  waiting  all  alone, 
I'm  sitting  on  a  little  chair. 

[185] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  I  am  sitting  very  still, 

And  I  am  waiting  on  and  on 
For  something  that  is  never  there, 

For  something  that  is  gone. 

THE  STAR 

0  little  one,  away  so  far, 

You  cannot  hear  me  when  I  sing. 

You  cannot  tell  me  what  you  are, 

1  cannot  tell  you  anything. 

WATER  NOISES 

When  I  am  playing  by  myself, 

'  And  all  the  boys  are  lost  around, 
Then  I  can  hear  the  water  go — 
It  makes  a  little  talking  sound. 

Along  the  rocks  below  the  tree, 

I  see  it  ripple  up  and  wink; 
And  I  can  hear  it  saying  on, 

"And  do  you  think?  and  do  you  think P" 

A  bug  shoots  by  that  snaps  and  ticks, 
And  a  bird  flies  up  beside  the  tree 

To  go  into  the  sky  to  sing. 

I  hear  it  say,  "Killdee,  killdee!" 

[186] 


Elizabeth  Madox  Roberts 


Or  else  a  yellow  cow  comes  down     . 

To  splash  a  while  and  have  a  drink. 
But  when  she  goes  I  still  can  hear 

The  v/ater  say,  "And  do  you  think?" 

CRESCENT  MOON 

And  Dick  said,  "Look  what  I  have  found!" 
And  when  we  saw  we  danced  around, 
And  made  our  feet  just  tip  the  ground. 

We  skipped  our  toes  and  sang,  "Oh-lo! 
Oh-who,  oh-who,  oh  what  do  you  know! 
Oh-who,  oh-hi,  oh-loo,  kee-lo!" 

We  clapped  our  hands  and  sang,  "Oh-ee!" 
It  made  us  jump  and  laugh  to  see 
The  little  new  moon  above  the  tree. 

STRANGE  TREE 

Away  beyond  the  Jarboe  house 

I  saw  a  different  kind  of  tree. 
Its  trunk  was  old  and  large  and  bent, 

And  I  could  feel  it  look  at  me. 

The  road  was  going  on  and  on 

Beyond,  to  reach  some  other  place. 

I  saw  a  tree  that  looked  at  me, 
And  yet  it  did  not  have  a  face. 

[187] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

It  looked  at  me  with  all  its  limbs; 

It  looked  at  me  with  all  its  bark. 
The  yellow  wrinkles  on  its  sides 

Were  bent  and  dark. 

And  then  I  ran  to  get  away, 

But  when  I  stopped  and  turned  to  see, 
The  tree  was  bending  to  the  side 

And  leaning  out  to  look  at  me. 


A  CHILD  ASLEEP 

And  I  looked  for  him  everywhere 
Because  I  wanted  him  to  play; 

And  then  I  found  him  on  his  bed 
Asleep,  but  it  was  day. 

His  eyes  were  shut  behind  the  lids — 
He  couldn't  lift  them  up  to  see. 

And  I  looked  at  him  very  long, 

And  something  in  him  looked  at  me. 

And  he  was  something  like  a  cat 
That  is  asleep,  and  like  a  dog; 

Or  like  a  thing  that's  in  the  woods 
All  day  behind  a  log. 

And  then  I  was  afraid  of  it, 

Of  something  that  was  sleeping  there. 

[188] 


Elizabeth  Madox  Roberts 


I  didn't  even  say  his  name, 
But  I  came  down  the  stair. 


MY  HEART 

My  heart  is  beating  up  and  down, 

Is  walking  like  some  heavy  feet. 
My  heart  is  going  every  day, 

And  I  can  hear  it  jump  and  beat. 

At  night  before  I  go  to  sleep 

I  feel  it  beating  in  my  head; 
I  hear  it  jumping  in  my  neck 

And  in  the  pillow  on  my  bed. 

And  then  I  make  some  little  words 
To  go  along  and  say  with  it — 

The  men  are  sailing  home  from  Troy, 
And  all  the  lamps  are  lit. 

The  men  are  sailing  home  from  Troy, 
And  all  the  lamps  are  lit. 

Elizabeth  Madox  Roberts 


[189] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
SEMPER  EADEM 

FOURTH  DIMENSION 

His  life  was  strangely  hedged  about 

By  three,  though  he  seemed  not  to  know  it: 

One  whom  he  loved,  who  shut  him  out; 

One  hid  her  passion  in  her  doubt; 

One  was  too  fond  and  wise  to  show  it. 

The  first  blew  on  desire's  dark  flame 
Until  he  tossed  with  every  flicker 
In  agonies  of  sad  self-blame, 
That  left  him  tired,  but  not  yet  tame 
Enough  to  cease  love's  tireless  bicker. 

The  second  tried  in  vain  to  bind  him, 
Uncertain  of  what  stirred  in  each. 
Walking  through  labyrinths  to  find  him, 
She  saw  him  shorn,  but  could  not  blind  him; 
And  silence  was  her  wittiest  speech. 

The  third  had  known  him  since  she  bore  him; 
And  suffered,  though  she  may  have  smiled, 
To  know  that  barren  wishes  tore  him, 
When  one  was  ready  to  adore  him 
As  if  he  were  not  still  her  child. 

Too  wise  to  hate  the  one  he  wanted, 
Too  fond  to  pity  her  he  scorned, 

[190] 


Eabette  Deutsch 


Her  hours,  like  his  own,  were  haunted 
By  devils  that  might  well  have  daunted 
A  monster  likewise  hoofed  and  horned. 

The  first,  meeting  his  mother,  knew  her 
A  woman  very  like  her  own. 
The  second  wondered  how  to  woo  her, 
While  ever  seeking  to  eschew  her, 
Fearful  of  what  she  must  have  known. 

And  so  their  days  were  all  one  tangle 
Of  this,  one  dropped,  and  that,  one  dared. 
While  he,  from  his  peculiar  angle, 
Half-wished  that  loneliness  might  strangle 
What  they  so  curiously  shared. 

OVERTONES 

Keep  up  your  talk — 

There  is  no  need  for  silence  now. 

I  am  content  to  listen,  and  watch  you  now. 

Your  voice  stops  while  you  walk. 

You  move  about, 

And  toss  back  from  your  brow 

The  lock  that  always  falls  across  your  brow. 

Your  grin  is  tinged  with  doubt. 

Einstein  and  art 

And  ranching — it  goes  on  somehow. 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Don't  stop,  or  it  will  be  too  much  somehow, 
And  you  will  hear  my  heart. 

REFLECTIONS 

Your  eyes  were  strange  with  sorrow:  were  there  tears 

That  touched  their  color  to  such  troubled  light? 

Those  mirrors  wherein  mine  had  shone  so  bright 

Refused  the  image,  looking  on  the  years, 

Like  naked  runners  running  upon  spears, 

That  showed  so  impotently  few  tonight — 

The  pageant  of  a  passion  men  requite 

With  death,  and  freedom  whose  chief  wage  is  fears. 

I  would  have  outstared  sorrow  in  your  eyes, 
But  looking  on  them,  mine  reflected  yours 
As  the  most  lucid  pool  shows  stormy  skies, 
Cloud  facing  cloud,  when  deepest  calm  endures. 
And  though  my  lips  had  drunk  your  bitter  wine, 
You  would  have  tasted  bitterer,  touching  mine. 

KNOWLEDGE 

Now  there  is  no  confusion  in  our  love — 

For  you  are  there 

With  the  big  brow,  the  cheek  of  tougher  grain, 

The  rougher  greying  hair; 

And  I  am  here,  with  a  woman's  throat  and  hands. 

We  are  apart  and  different. 

[192] 


Babette  Deutsch 

And  there  is  something  difference  understands 

That  peace  knows  nothing  of. 

It  is  the  pain  in  pleasure  that  we  seek 

To  kill  with  kisses,  and  revive 

With  other  kisses; 

For  by  our  hurt  we  know  we  are  alive. 

The  tides  return  into  the  salty  sea, 

And  the  sea-fingered  rocks  are  swept  and  grey. 

There  are  no  secrets  where  the  sea  has  crept, 

But  the  sea 

Has  kept  its  ageless  mystery. 

And  we, 

Beaten  by  the  returning  passional  tides, 

Searched  by  the  stabbing  fingers, 

Washed  and  lapped  and  worn  by  the  old  assault, 

Knowing  again 

The  bitterness  of  the  receding  wave, 

With  renewed  wonder  facing  the  old  pain, 

We  are  as  close 

As  one  wave  fallen  upon  another  wave; 

We  are  as  far 

As  the  sky's  star  from  the  sea-shaken  star. 

Love  is  not  the  moon 

Pulling  the  whole  sea  up  to  her. 

And  there  is  something  darkness  understands 

These  moons  know  nothing  of. 

Babette  Deutsch 

[193] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
FOUR  POEMS 

IN    THE    BARN 

The  sun,  in  wanton  pride, 

Drenches  the  country-side 

With  spilt  gold  from  his  old  autumnal  store. 

But  Scipio  sits  within  the  barn's  thick  gloom, 

The  merest  crack  of  light  coming  in  the  door — 

Sits  and  husks  the  corn  long  after  working  hours. 

Vainly  for  him  the  autumn  bloom 

Is  on  the  flowers. 

The  inside  of  the  barn  is  velvet  black 

Except  where  a  gold  thread  runs  along  a  crack; 

And  the  inquisitive  sun  thrusts  points  of  light 

Through  chink  and  cranny,  piercing  the  midnight. 

The  dry  husks  rattle,  and  his  shuffling  feet 

Keep  time  to  what  he  sings — an  elusive  tune, 

Husky  and  monotonous  and  sweet, 

Scarce  audible,  so  softly  does  he  croon 

To  keep  away  the  evil  eye: 

Everybody 

Who  is  livin 

Got  to  die. 

Across  the  evening  fields  the  setting  sun 
Richly  intones  toil  done. 
The  home-bound  negroes  idle  in  the  lanes, 
Gossiping  as  they  go;  coarse  laughter  falls 


Josephine  Pinckney 


On  the  resonant  air;  from  a  far  field  cat-calls 
Float  over,  and  a  banjo's  strains. 
Shucking  corn  in  the  darkness,  Scipio  in  reply 
Sits  and  sings  his  mournful,  husky  stave: 

Wid  a  silver  spade 

You  kin  dig  my  grave; 

Everybody 

Who  is  livin 

Got  to  die. 

STRANGE 

We  believed 

That  the  tides  of  our  being 

Set  to  each  other. 

But  when  we  came  to  speak, 

There  was  a  distance  between  us 

More  wide  and  strange 

Than  the  silvery  waste 

Of  the  marsh  under  the  moon. 

And  your  voice  came 

From  that  untrodden  stillness 

Like  the  calling  of  some  marsh  creature 

Disturbed — seeking. 

And  I,  too,  was  dumb — frozen, 
Like  the  flood-tide 
And  moon-silent  marsh. 

[195] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

THE    OUTCAST 

Into  the  valleys  I  flee,  into  the  shadows; 

But  there  is  no  peace,  no  sanctuary. 

The  hills,  like  elephants, 

Shoulder  noiseless  through  the  clouds 

And  close  in  on  me. 

Where  shall  I  hide  from  the  tread  of  their  feet  ? 

I  have  overset  the  gods  in  the  temples,  and  there  is  none 

to  protect  me — 

The  little  gods  of  jade  with  staring  eyes, 
The  great  gold  and  black  gods  with  foolish  faces. 

Tell  me,  little  gods  of  the  North  and  East,  and  of  the 

South  and  West, 

How  long  shall  my  bones  wait,  lying  on  these  rocks, 
To  become  as  white  as  the  broken  plaster 
Of  the  images  in  the  temple? 
Tell  me,  true  gods, 
Speak  a  swift  word! — 

For  the  clouds  descend  in  a  hot  white  mist  of  wrath, 
And  through  them  stamp  the  elephants  .  .  . 
The  terrible  elephants  .  .  . 
Trumpeting  .  .  . 

SWAMP    LILIES 

Today  I  feel  new-born,  for  I  have  seen 

A  stretch  of  cloistered  wood  thick-spread  with  green, 

[196] 


Josephine  Pinckney 

Where  wet  wild  lilies  grew  on  every  side, 
Streaming  away — an  immobile  white  tide. 
Not  as  the  sun  that  bursts  upon  our  eyes 
At  morning,  making  glory  of  the  skies, 
But  like  the  slow,  pervading  evening  light 
They  filled  the  eye — a  world  of  silvery  white 
Withdrawn  and  exquisite,  as  from  the  sod 
They  breathed  the  still  inviolateness  of  God. 

Josephine  Pinckney 


FORGOTTEN 

How  can  I  remember 

Autumn  and  pain, 
When  trees  hold  dreams 

In  their  arms  again? 

How  can  my  heart  break 

Till  it  cries? 
The  joy  of  summer 

Has  made  me  wise. 

I  can't  remember 

What  hurt  me  so — 
Autumn  and  winter 

Were  so  long  ago. 

Harold  Final 

[197] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

NUMBERS 

Three  sheep  graze  on  the  low  hill 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  five  trees. 

Three  sheep! 

Five  old  sycamores ! 
(The  noon  is  very  full  of  sleep. 
The  noon's  a  shepherd  kind  and  still. 
The  noon's  a  shepherd  takes  his  ease 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  five  trees, 

Five  old  sycamores.) 
Three  sheep  graze  on  the  low  hill. 
Down  in  the  grass,  in  twos  and  fours, 
Cows  are  munching  in  the  field. 
Three  sheep  graze  on  the  low  hill : 
Bless  them,  Lord,  to  give  me  wool. 
Cows  are  munching  in  the  field: 
Bless  them  that  their  teats  be  full. 
Bless  the  sheep  and  cows  to  yield 
Wool  to  keep  my  children  warm, 
Milk  that  they  should  grow  therefrom. 

Three  sheep  graze  on  the  low  hill, 

Beneath  five  sycamores. 
Cows  are  munching  in  the  field, 

All  in  twos  and  fours. 

On  an  elm-tree  far  aloof 

There  are  nine-and-twenty  crows, 


Louis  Go  Id  ing 


Croaking  to  the  blue  sky  roof 
Fifteen  hundred  ancient  woes. 


In  a  cracked  deserted  house, 
Six  owls  cloaked  with  age  and  dream- 
In  a  cracked  deserted  house, 
Six  owls  wait  upon  a  beam, 
Wait  for  the  nocturnal  mouse. 

In  the  stackyard  at  my  farm 
There  are  fourteen  stacks  of  hay. 

Lord,  I  pray 

Keep  my  golden  goods  from  harm, 
Fourteen  shining  stacks  of  hay! 

Fourteen  shining  stacks  of  hay, 
Six  owls,  nine-and-twenty  crows, 
Three  sheep  grazing  on  the  hill 

Beneath  five  sycamores, 
Fat  cows  munching  in  a  field, 

All  in  twos  and  fours — 
Fat  cows  munching  in  a  field, 
Fourteen  shining  stacks  of  hay. 

At  a  table  in  a  room 

Where  beyond  the  window-frames 

Glows  the  sweet  geranium — 

At  a  table  in  a  room 

My  three  children  play  their  games 

Till  their  father-poet  come. 

[199] 


POEfRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Stop  a  moment,  listen,  wait 
Till  a  father-poet  come — 
Lovely  ones  of  lovely  names, 
He  shall  not  come  late. 

Fourteen  shining  stacks  of  hay, 
Six  owls,  nine-and-twenty  crows, 
Fifteen  hundred  ancient  woes, 
Three  sheep  grazing  on  the  hill 

Beneath  five  sycamores, 
Fat  cows  munching  in  a  field 

All  in  twos  and  fours — 
Fourteen  shining  stacks  of  hay, 
My  three  lovely  children,  one 
Mother  laughing  like  the  sun, 
Sweetheart  laughing  like  the  sun 

When  the  baby  laughters  run. 

Now  the  goal  I  sought  is  won, 
Sweetheart  laughing  like  the  sun, 
Now  the  goal  I  sought  is  won, 
Sweet,  my  song  is  done. 

Louis  G aiding 


[200] 


O  CHANGING  ONE 

Sometimes,  O  changing  one, 

Your  feet  are  like  white  foam 

Riding  the  long  blue  rhythms  of  my  thought — 

Like  foam  on  a  subsiding  lake 

In  the  hour  next  before  sunset. 

And  sometimes  your  feet  are  leaves 

Red  from  the  first  frost, 

Whirling  into  the  corners  of  my  mind, 

Whirling  into  the  sunlight  again; 

Dancing,  chaotic, 

Gay  in  their  brief  autumn. 

But  sometimes 

Your  feet  are  like  black  velvet, 

And  you  move  without  sound  within  the  shadows; 

You  circle  the  firelight  of  my  thought. 

And  I,  by  the  red  fire  that  fights  the  shadows, 

Wonder  what  prey  you  seek — 

I,  not  wholly  at  ease. 

William  A.  N orris 


[201] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
GOLDEN  DARKNESS 

THERE  WAS  A  TIME 

There  was  a  time  when  I  was  shy  and  lonely, 
And  stood  in  strange  bewilderment  apart; 

And  no  one  spoke  to  me,  and  silence  only 
Would  fold  my  songs  into  her  tender  heart. 

There  was  a  time  when  only  windy  darkness 

Would  fan  my  dreams  with  glamoured  loveliness. 

But  you  have  come,  and  nights  are  filled  with  starkness; 
And  I  am  lonely  for  my  loneliness. 

Oh,  you  have  come — and  silence  is  a  stranger, 
And  darkness  keeps  aloof  from  my  distress; 

And  you — oh,  you  are  all  too  fraught  with  danger, 
And  I  am  lonely  for  my  loneliness. 


CLOUDS  AND  WAVES 

With  bent  heads  hidden  the  clouds  run  by, 
Muffled  in  shadow,  across  the  sky. 

With  lowered  eyes,  in  the  darkness  of  the  sea, 
The  hunched  lean  waves  scud  away  fearfully. 

How  great  is  the  wrong,  and  where  is  the  place? 
What  is  the  truth  that  they  cannot  face? 

[202] 


Oscar  Williams 


COBWEBS 

Rise  in  the  cool  dim  dawn 

When  a  mist  is  hung  on  the  pane — 
The  loose  gray  cobweb  of  the  fog 

Spun  by  the  rain. 

When  the  sun's  long  golden  fingers 
Have  brushed  it  away — then  go 

And  watch  the  sky  through  the  tree-tops 
Fall  like  snow. 

And  after,  when  you  are  tired 
And  twilight  hangs  on  the  leaves, 

Listen — and  the  silence  will  tell  you 
Why  it  grieves. 

For  the  fog,  the  sky  and  the  twilight 
Are  the  cobwebs  that  brush  the  eyes 

When  a  man  would  enter  the  dusty  door 
Of  paradise. 

GREY 

A  bleak  wind  rides  on  the  waves, 
And  the  shadowy  foam  is  hurled. 

Grey  rains  are  on  the  hills, 

And  a  grey  dusk  is  over  the  world. 

Bleak  moods  and  shadowy  moods 
Move  like  the  moods  of  the  sea; 

[203] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  mist,  a  grey  unspoken  thought, 
Is  looking  strangely  at  me. 

And  I  am  lost  in  greyness — 

My  dreams  are  still  and  furled; 
For  the  grey  rains  are  on  the  hills, 

And  a  grey  dusk  is  over  the  world. 

RAINS 

In  the  country  the  rain  comes  softly  with  timid  feet; 

A  grey  silence  is  in  her  face,  and  strands  of  darkness 

blowing  from  her  hair, 
And  trees  are  dark  in  her  eyes,  and  the  wind  is  a  mournful 

gesture. 

Softly  the  rain  comes  over  the  hills  and  her  face  is  memory: 
It  is  filled  with  the  twilight  blowing  of  waves  and  grasses; 
It  is  filled  with  shadowy  cloud-paws  feeling  among  the 

valleys; 
It  is  filled  with  the  leap  of  trees  that  are  instantly  caught 

by  the  earth. 
The  spirit  of  all  things  breathes  on  the  invisible  pane  of 

time, 
And  slowly  out  of  the  shadows  the  grey  face  of  the  rain 

comes  into  being — 
Softly  the  rain  comes  over  the  hills  and  her  face  is  sorrow. 

But  the  rain  in  the  city  is  a  j azz  rain : 

The  legs  of  the  rain  in  the  city  are  nimble — 

[204] 


Oscar  Williams 

She  is  loud  on  the  stones,  on  the  roof-tops,  on  the  windows; 

Her  dancing  is  filled  with  the  sway  and  the  glitter  of  tinsel. 

Behind  her  the  street  is  a  wide  grin,  showing  the  black 
teeth  of  houses — 

The  street  is  a  wicked  leer  dark  with  ugly  passion. 

But  though  the  laughter  of  the  jazz  rain  is  coarse  in  the 
gutter, 

Though  her  legs  are  nimble  and  innumerable  on  the  pave- 
ments, 

Though  the  jazz  rain  speaks  so  loud, 

The  brazen  rain  has  never  a  word  for  me. 

THE  GOLDEN  FLEECE 

I  know  that  life  is  Jason, 

And  that  beauty  is  the  witch-maiden  helping  him. 

I  know  that  the  soft,  luminous  night  of  stars 

Is  the  golden  fleece  he  is  seeking. 

I  know  that  in  the  beginning 

He  sowed  the  boulders,  the  teeth  of  dead  ages, 

And  the  innumerable  armored  cities  have  arisen. 

I  know  that  he  has  thrown  among  them  love  and  desire, 

And  they  have  warred  and  shall  war  with  each  other  until 

the  end. 

And  if  you  doubt  the  least  word  I  have  said, 
Come  out  on  the  dark  beach  some  strange  summer  night 
And  watch  the  huge  quivering  serpent  of  the  ocean 
Still  coiled  around  the  trunk  of  the  tree  of  paradise. 

[205] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

BECAUSE 

Because  I  have  not  kissed  as  yet  one  burning  mouth, 

I  have  kissed  a  hundred. 

Because  I  have  not  looked  into  one  pair  of  eyes, 

A  hundred  have  haunted  me. 

Because  I  have  not  lived  one  hour  in  passion's  flame, 

I  have  died  in  a  hundred  others. 

MOTES 

The  stars  are  mystical  motes 
Delicately  glimmering 
In  blue  sunlight. 
I  move  my  hand 
Through  the  elfin  radiance, 
And  my  fingers  are  strange 
With  dream  and  glamour. 

THE  SUBWAY  IS  LIT 

The  subway  is  lit  like  a  great  cathedral, 

And  myriad  shadows  whisper  and  float. 
But  the  eyes  of  darkness  are  filled  with  fury, 

And  a  scream  of  steel  is  in  the  wind's  throat. 
The  trains  are  moving  like  things  of  madness, 

And  the  eyes  of  men  have  a  glassy  stare. 
Where  is  the  music  of  holiness? 

And  where  the  uplifted  face  of  a  prayer? 

[206] 


Oscar  Williams 

THE  BUBBLE 

We  have  kings,  and  the  deadly  sins  seven; 
We  have  lives  for  all  things  that  die; 
We  have  wars  and  quite  a  bit  of  trouble: 
But  God,  ensconced  in  his  heaven, 
Watches  through  air  blue  as  sky, 
And  delights  in  his  beautiful  bubble. 

THE  RETURN 

In  some  far  and  lonely  midnight 

I  shall  arise  as  in  a  dream, 
And  part  dark  curtains  on  a  strange  room 

Where  mysterious  candles  gleam. 

I  shall  open  an  unknown  book 

In  that  weird  and  wind-stirred  place, 
•And  come  upon  a  poem 

With  a  sad  face. 

I  shall  listen  to  my  dead  heart's  cry 

Faint  through  the  years  that  are  gone, 
And  I  shall  feel  over  my  shoulder 

The  Silence  looking  on. 

And  very  softly  he  will  touch  me, 

And  I  shall  turn  toward  the  gloom; 
He  will  take  my  arm  and  quietly 
Lead  me  out  of  the  room. 

Oscur  Williams 
[207] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 

HERE    IN    CASS    STREET 

WE  should  like  to  pass  on  to  our  readers  a  more 
liberal  share  of  the  "life"  of  the  POETRY  office — to 
introduce  them  to  our  extremely  varied  callers,  show  them 
scraps  of  our  still  more  varied  correspondence,  let  them 
read  our  contradictory  clippings.  And  if  only  the  seal 
of  confidence  could  be  removed,  we  should  make  them 
laugh  by  printing  a  few  of  our  "museum"  features — poems 
so  amusingly  bad  that  we  could  not  bear  to  send  them 
back  without  making  copies  for  preservation. 

One  day,  for  example,  the  arriving  editor  discovers,  so 
to  speak,  a  foundling  on  the  door-step — a  young  poet 
from  New  York  or  Oklahoma  who  has  started  out  to  see 
the  world  with  a  few  dollars  in  his  pocket,  and  who  must 
find  some  kind  of  a  job  in  State  Street  or  La  Salle  to 
keep  him  fed  and  housed,  and  to  oil  the  wheels  of  his 
journey.  Again,  an  elderly  poet-adventurer  appears 
fresh  from  prison,  where  he  had  been  tangled  up  in  some 
friend's  attempt  at  counterfeiting — a  lank  starveling 
figure,  the  gaunt  picture  of  despair,  but  offering,  to  the 
editor's  surprise,  two  or  three  acceptable  poems;  and 
leaping  alive,  even  to  a  smile,  at  the  actual  receipt  of  a 
check.  Or,  a  rainy  morning  is  brightened  with  color  by 
the  visit  of  two  quite  astonishingly  superb  English  ladies — 
a  poet  and  her  sister — who  are  speeding  through  the  town 

[208] 


Here  in  Cass  Street 

with  their  uncle,  Sir  Kenneth  Somebody,  and  who  leave 
us  edition-de-luxe  books  and  Queen  of  Sheba  memories. 

Helen  Hoyt  once  gave  us  a  guest  book — it  was  while 
she  was  still  Helen  Hoyt,  two  years  before  her  bridal 
New  Year's  day  of  1921,  when  she  became  Mrs.  William 
Whittingham  Lyman  out  in  California  and  took  up  her 
abode  in  Berkeley.  Let  us  look  over  its  entries  since 
Christmas,  and  pause  a  moment  with  a  few  of  the  visitors: 

There  are  Henry  Bellamann  and  Glenn  Ward  Dresbach 
just  before  the  turn  of  the  year.  Southern  poets  both, 
the  one  from  South  Carolina  and  the  other  New  Mexico: 
Mr.  Bellamann  a  musician,  as  well  as  president  of  the 
Columbia  Poetry  Society;  and  Mr.  Dresbach  an  efficiency 
expert — a  rare  talent  for  a  poet! — who  had  been  making 
copper  efficacious  at  Tyrone.  And  with  the  new  year 
comes  Edward  Sapir  from  Ottawa,  where  he  has  been 
gathering  and  translating  French-Canadian  folk-songs. 
And  bluff,  black-bearded  Jo  Davidson,  sculptor  of  all 
the  war-heroes,  draws  his  inky  portrait  in  the  book. 
And  little  Winifred  Bryher  writes  her  slender  name 
there — the  quiet  English  girl-author  who  was  even  then 
on  her  way  to  New  York  to  surprise  her  friends  by  marry- 
ing Robert  McAlmon. 

Sara  Bard  Field,  the  warrior-suffragette  from  California; 
and  Nora  Douglas  Holt,  the  beautiful  bronze-colored 
founder  and  editor  of  the  new  and  interesting  Negro 
organ,  Music  and  Poetry — these  two  are  neighbors  in  the 
book.  A  week  later  comes  John  Drinkwater,  and  at  the 

[209] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

end  of  March  Franklin  P.  Adams,  the  St.  Simeon  Stylites 
of  the  New  York  Tribune.  Next  Clinton  Masseck,  now 
of  Kansas,  erstwhile  a  warrior  in  the  most  fiery  battle-line 
of  the  Argonne.  A  few  days  later  it  is  Nicolas  Roerich, 
the  big-brained,  high-souled  Russian  painter  and  dreamer, 
whose  pictures  are  a  more  vivid  revelation  than  Lenin's 
politics;  and  whose  poems — if  we  could  get  at  them  in 
the  three  or  four  books  he  has  published,  may  be  as  full 
of  color  and  vitality. 

And  so  it  goes.  The  correspondence  is  more  full  of 
contrasts,  possibly,  than  the  visitors.  Bits  of  it  come 
from  remote  corners  of  the  earth,  but  most  of  it  bears 
George  Washington's  familiar  red  portrait  on  the  envelope. 
The  editor  is  asked  not  only  to  criticize  poems — that  is 
an  obvious  and  common  request — but  to  advise  about 
publishers,  to  prepare  club  programs;  to  write  an  article 
on  Florence  Kiper  Frank  or  Haniel  Long  for  the  benefit 
of  some  college-student's  thesis;  to  reveal  the  author  of 
some  wandering  poem — usually  an  incredibly  poor  one; 
to  save  some  hapless  poet  from  starvation  or  get  him  out 
of  jail;  to  pass  judgment  on  some  elaborate  system  of 
psycho-analysis,  or  on  some  meticulous  questionnaire 
which  is  to  reveal  with  mathematical  accuracy  the  ability 
of  students  in  a  certain  great  university  to  judge  poetry— 
a  questionnaire  which  so  befuddles  the  editor's  brain  that 
judging  poetry  becomes  a  madhouse  dance.  These  are 
but  a  few  of  the  demands  put  forth  by  acquisitive  minds — 
sometimes  of  marvellous  ingenuity,  and  still  more  marvel- 

[210] 


Here  in  Cass  Street 

lous  confidence  in  the  editor's  lavishness  of  time,  interest 
and  spirit  to  meet  them. 

The  poets  themselves  are  usually  more  reasonable  than 
these  questioners  who  are  studying  or  writing  about  them. 
Of  course  now  and  then  the  ego  flaps  its  wings  and 
temperament  becomes  temper,  but  on  the  whole  they  are 
tolerant  of  the  editor's  short-comings  and  astonishingly 
patient  during  that  too-long  period  which  usually  divides 
acceptance  from  publication.  They  are  very  different — 
these  poets:  one,  an  I.  W.  W.  coal-miner;  another,  a 
bedridden  invalid  in  New  Zealand;  number  three,  a  fine 
lady  in  the  smartest  of  smart  sets;  number  four,  a  planta- 
tion Negro  in  Georgia;  number  five,  a  Syrian  rug-dealer; 
number  six,  a  live-wire  reporter  on  the  New  York  Scald; 
seven,  a  corporation  lawyer;  eight,  a  little  crippled 
seamstress  sewing  and  writing  in  a  wheeled  chair;  nine, 
a  lovely  red-haired  siren,  the  heroine  of  an  hundred 
romances;  ten,  a  lonely  spinster,  inaccessible  in  her 
emotional  desert;  eleven,  a  half-mad  starveling  whose 
little  gleam  of  genius  may  be  extinguished  by  niggardly 
denial  of  light  and  air  and  food  for  body  and  soul;  and 
twelve,  fortune's  favorite,  whose  gleam  may  be  extin- 
guished by  the  sheer  mass  and  weight  of  his  possessions 
and  opportunities.  And  there  are  the  married  and  the 
single,  the  too  much  married  and  too  little,  the  much 
divorced  and  the  undivorced,  and  the  careless  few  who 
get  on  without  any  of  these  formalities. 

In  short,  there  are  today  five  hundred  and  ninety-six 

[211] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

names  in  POETRY'S  card-index  of  accepted  poets;  and  a 
history,  thrilling  but  never  to  be  fully  revealed,  goes  with 
each  card.  Nearly  a  score  of  nationalities  are  represented 
either  directly  or  through  immigration,  and  forty-one  of 
our  forty-eight  states,  besides  the  District  of  Columbia 
and  Hawaii.  One  of  the  severest  shocks  of  the  editor's 
career  is  the  discovery  that  Indiana  is  not  among  them. 
Are  there  no  poets  left  in  Riley's  own  state,  the  state 
where  they  were  wont  to  foregather  and  go  on  pilgrimages? 
Or  have  the  poets  of  Indiana,  one  and  all,  boycotted 
POETRY?  Anyway,  Indiana  is  missing  from  our  list, 
along  with  Delaware,  Idaho,  North  Dakota,  Mississippi, 
North  Carolina  and  Utah. 

It's  a  long  and  crowded  trail  we  have  travelled  these 
eight-and-a-half  stirring  years.  H.  M. 

THE    NEBRASKA    LAUREATE 

The  legislature  of  the  state  of  Nebraska  has  fitly 
honored  its  most  conspicuous  poet-citizen  by  appointing 
him  Poet  Laureate  of  the  state.  Mr.  Neihardt  earns  this 
distinction  not  only  by  his  artistic  achievement  in  general, 
but  also  by  the  fact  that,  as  the  resolution  puts  it,  he  "has 
written  a  national  epic  wherein  he  has  developed  the 
mood  of  courage  with  which  our  pioneers  explored  and 
subdued  our  plains,  and  thus  has  inspired  in  Americans 
that  love  of  the  land  and  its  heroes  whereby  great  national 
traditions  are  built  and  perpetuated." 

[212] 


The  Nebraska  Laureate 

We  congratulate  Nebraska  upon  its  gracious  decree, 
and  Mr.  Neihardt  upon  the  official  appreciation  of  his 
state.  The  appreciation  might  have  been  further  empha- 
sized by  a  salary  or  some  form  of  financial  award,  but 
perhaps  that  is  too  ideal  an  expression  of  truly  poetic 
justice  to  expect  at  present. 

We  have  criticized  Mr.  Neihardt's  artistic  principles  and 
methods  in  the  writing  of  his  epic  narratives,  but  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  in  detail  does  not  prevent  our  appreciation 
of  his  artistic  sincerity  and  quality,  and  of  the  value  of 
his  exploration  of  a  field  too  little  recognized  in  the  arts. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  one  volume  of  the  projected 
trilogy,  The  Song  of  Three  Friends,  shared  last  year  with 
the  Poems  of  the  late  Gladys  Cromwell  first  honors  in  the 
P.  S.  A.  prize  award  for  the  best  book  of  verse  published 
by  a  poet  of  the  United  States  during  the  year  1919. 

The  New  York  Evening  Mail  discovers  "subtle  Sinn- 
Fein  propaganda"  in  the  new  Nebraska  laureateship. 
This  would  seem  to  be  straining  a  point,  even  if  Mr. 
Neihardt  were  an  Irishman,  which  no  one  ventures  to 
allege  of  a  poet  born  in  Illinois  of  middle-western  ancestry. 
However,  this  laureateship  is  not  quite  the  first,  the 
Nebraska  State  Journal  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding; 
for  in  1919  the  legislature  of  California  bestowed  a  similar 
honor  upon  Miss  Ina  Coolbrith  in  declaring  her,  by  official 
decree,  "The  Loved  Laurel-crowned  Poet  of  California." 

H.  M. 


[213] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
REVIEWS 

A  CENSUS  SPIRITUAL 

I 

Domesday  Book,  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters.     Macmillan  Co. 

Mr.  Masters  is  both  a  lawyer  and  a  poet — a  fact  which 
has  advantages  and  disadvantages.  As  a  lawyer,  it 
makes  him  one  of  the  shrewdest,  most  keenly  imaginative 
cross-examiners  who  ever  turned  inside-out  the  soul  of 
an  unfortunate  witness;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  prob- 
ably tempts  him  away  from  legal  drynesses  and  asperities. 
As  a  poet,  it  gives  him  a  comprehensive  and  sympathetic 
experience  of  the  "innards"  of  life — the  human  motives 
and  processes,  enforcing  upon  him  respect  for  the  truth, 
for  all  the  aspects  and  values  in  any  given  "case";  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  carries  these  qualities  too  far  toward 
absolute  legal  justice,  involving  the  precision  and  prolixity 
of  an  argument  or  brief,  with  its  thorough  and  searching 
statements  of  all  aspects  of  a  given  question. 

The  mere  use  of  a  ten-syllable  iambic  line  through  hun- 
dreds of  pages  of  course  does  not  make  a  poem;  it  may  as 
well  be  admitted  that  many  of  these  monologues  are 
throughout  the  baldest  prose,  and  that  even  the  finest  of 
them  have  passages  which  strain  the  rather  liberal  ameni- 
ties usually  accorded  to  the  epic  bard.  Indeed,  a  more 
exacting  taste  would  have  struck  out  quite  a  number — the 
statements  of  people  whose  tangent  touch  upon  Elenor 
Murray  was  too  remote  to  be  artistically  relevant. 

However,  after  granting  the  numerous  and  manifest 


A  Census  Spiritual 

deductions,  Domesday  Book  establishes  its  epic  claim. 
Not  by  accomplishing  its  specific  charge,  to  be 

a  census  spiritual 
Taken   of  our    America — 

although  perhaps  it  comes  nearer  than  any  other  book  to 
such  a  prodigious  achievement — but  by  the  sheer  im- 
mensity and  weight  of  its  masses,  the  depth  and  richness 
of  its  colors,  all  thrown  together  into  a  rough  shapeliness, 
and  charged  with  a  rude  glamour,  like  a  mountain  lifted 
against  the  sunset  fires  of  the  sky.  The  mountain  has  not 
been  molded  and  perfected  by  art,  in  all  details  it  is 
faulty;  yet  there  it  stands,  of  a  truth  and  beauty  formida- 
ble and  unquestionable. 

Mr.  Masters'  book,  whether  a  complete  "  census  spiritual " 
or  not,  is  life — modern  life,  unfaltering,  uncompromising 
and  unashamed;  not  a  mere  photograph,  moreover,  but  a 
transfigured  vision  presenting  the  beauty  and  terror  in- 
herent in  the  human  tragedy — in  our  modern  human 
tragedy,  which  always  seems  half  wrought  out,  infinitely 
complicated,  unachieved,  a  thing  to  laugh  as  well  as  to 
weep.  Like  all  artists  of  power  and  sweep,  this  poet 
neither  palliates  nor  apologizes.  He  carries  his  heroine 
and  her  friends  through  deeds  of  vulgar  disrepute  and 
even  crime,  and  yet  brings  them  out  unbereft  of  piteous 
dignity  and  beauty.  He  accepts  all,  with  understanding 
and  sympathy  for  human  frailty  and  aspiration. 
Nf  Certain  of  the  actors  in  the  ever-widening  circles  of  this 
drama  confess  themselves  with  ruthless  precision,  so  that 

[215] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

we  know  them  completely  and  recognize  their  hard 
dilemma.  Henry  Murray,  for  example,  the  ineffectual 
father  who  sees  his  girl  slipping  away  and  agonizes  be- 
cause he  is  powerless  to  hold  her: 

This  daughter  and  myself,  while  temperaments 
Kept  us  at  swords'  points,  while  I  saw  in  her 
Traits  of  myself  I  liked  not,  also  traits 
Of  the  child's  mother  which  I  loathe,  because 
They  have  undone  me. 

And  Gregory  Wenner,  futile  both  as  business  man  and 
lover.  And  Gottlieb  Gerald,  absorbed  in  making  pianos 
and  dreams.  And  the  slap-dash  Alaska  man  and  the 
cheaply  second-rate  Barrett  Bays — both  accepting  all 
they  could  get  for  as  slight  a  return  as  possible.  And 
finally  Elenor  Murray  herself: 

Who  was  this  woman? 
This  Elenor  Murray  was  America. 
Corrupt,  deceived,  deceiving,  self-deceived, 
Half-disciplined,  half-lettered,  crude  and  smart; 
Enslaved  yet  wanting  freedom;  brave  and  coarse, 
Cowardly,  shabby,  hypocritical; 
Generous,  loving,  noble,  full  of  prayer; 
Scorning,  embracing  rituals,  recreant 
To  Christ  so  much  professed;  adventuresome; 
Curious,  mediocre,  venal;  hungry 
For  money,  place,  experience;  restless — no 
Repose,  restraint;  before  the  world  made  up 
To  act  and  sport  ideals — go  abroad 
To  bring  the  world  its  freedom,  having  choked 
Freedom  at  home:  the  girl  was  this  because 
These  things  were  bred  in  her — she  breathed  them  in 
Here  where  she  lived  and  grew. 

[216] 


A  Census  Spiritual 

•  Yet  that  word,  however  searching,  is  not  all.    One  of 
the  jurymen  protests: 

Look  at  her — she's  brave, 
Devoted,  loyal,  true  and  dutiful. 
She's  will  to  life,  and  through  it  senses  God, 
And  seeks  to  serve  the  cosmic  soul. 

And  with  all  potencies  clamorous  but  impotent  within 
her;  giving  herself  away  generously,  passionately,  but 
always  wastefully,  she  passes  by  and  goes  out  like  a  little 
flickering  torch  borne  by  Fate  through  the  high  winds  of 
Time. 

Does  the  poet  prove  his  thesis?  Does  he  make  this 
girl — restless,  sterile,  erotic,  but  somehow  clinging  to,  even 
while  violating,  a  certain  integrity  of  soul — a  symbol  of 
our  country  of  tireless  searching,  immense  achievement 
and  fertile  dreams  ?  Probably  most  of  us  will  deny  the 
authority  and  completeness  of  the  picture;  probably  the 
most  searching  critical  challenge  to  this  epic  bard  would 
be  a  demand  for  a  hero,  or  heroine — for  a  single  luminous 
soul  to  whom  our  hope  and  faith  might  cling.  The  heroic 
is  found  in  life,  and  in  all  the  great  epics  of  the  past. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  justly  evident  here. 

However,  whether  we  grant  the  main  thesis  or  not,  the 
book  has  immensity  of  scope  and  power.  It  is  a  modern 
tale  of  psychological  adventure;  grouping  somewhat  with 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  no  doubt,  but  taking  an  every-day 
American  life,  through  peace  and  war,  as  its  text,  instead 
of  a  mediaeval  Italian  crime.  It  is  a  rounding-up  of  our 

[217] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

modern  human  democracy  by  a  poet  of  profound  experi- 
ence and  insight.  H.  M. 


LITTLE  THEATRE  RHYTHMS 

Plays  for  Merry  Andrews ',  by  Alfred  Kreymborg.    Sunwise 

Turn,  New  York. 

There  are  certain  Broadway  critics,  using  the  term 
generically,  who  decry  the  potentialities  of  the  "Little 
Theatres"  because  they  do  not  function  like  Big  Theatres. 
Without  considering  the  medium,  or  the  plays  written 
and  produced  through  this  medium,  these  critics  damn 
them  as  piffling.  It  will  require  a  new  hatch  of  critics 
to  handle  this  art  of  the  Little  Theatre. 

Because  a  small  group  gathers  to  hear  subtleties  in 
humor,  minute  shadings  in  tone,  experiments  in  rhythms; 
to  concentrate  on  complexities  or  relax  to  simplicities,  one 
may  not  necessarily  infer  that  its  blood  is  thin.  A  healthy 
audience  functions  in  various  ways;  it  does  not  always 
wear  i  ts  heart  on  its  sleeve,  or  stand  in  a  ten-acre  lot  to 
hear  its  soul  bellowed  to  the  highways. 

Alfred  Kreymborg's  soul  would  feel  cramped  in  a  ten- 
acre  lot,  whereas  it  expands  in  intimacy.  He  has  accepted 
the  Little  Theatre  as  his  natural  medium,  accepted  it 
also  as  a  form  of  art  to  be  expressed  through  poetry, 
music,  and  dance.  We  have  here  no  note-book  jottings 
from  real  life,  dialogue  heard  in  passing,  sketch  life-class 
work.  In  the  Plays  for  Merry  Andrews,  the  use  of  sug- 


Little  Theatre  Rhythms 

gestion  is  not  so  remote  as  with  many  of  the  Fifth  Avenue 
school  of  "opacity."  In  a  play  the  poet  must  consider 
that  the  auditor  does  not  register  with  the  same  concen- 
tration as  the  reader.  Mr.  Kreymborg's  simplicity  ap- 
pears to  be  guileless,  but  there  is  always  the  suggestion 
under  his  naive  surfaces.  His  rhythms  and  images  are 
easy  to  imitate,  but  not  his  charm  and  his  humor;  and  to 
capture  his  agile  handling  of  suggestion  is  a  challenge — 
the  quiet  glance  with  a  keen  edge  back  of  it  which  points 
up  to  a  dart  and  shoots  through  so  deftly  that  we  are 
unaware  of  its  awareness. 

In  the  matter  of  rhythm,  he  is  not  an  "eye  poet."  He 
is  a  musician  arranging  and  combining  words  as  notes 
and  musical  phrases.  He  writes  gavottes,  scherzos, 
minuets  and  fugues;  and  he  sings  and  dances  his  thoughts 
about  the  stage.  Often  his  verbal  attempts  at  poly- 
phonic musical  forms  result  only  in  the  husk  of  tone.  His 
words  do  not  always  vibrate,  but  on  the  whole  there  is  a 
blending  of  tone  through  the  combining  of  vibrations 
from  his  succession  of  sounds.  His  rhythms  riot  in  their 
variety  through  all  of  his  plays,  which  helps  to  promote 
the  feeling  of  dance.  When  his  staccato  verges  on  the 
monotonous  he  gives  it  a  fillip  with  a  sudden  turn  or  lift. 
One  culminating  effect  which  he  uses  is  to  lead  us  up  to  the 
height  of  expectancy,  and  leave  his  suggestion  suspended 
in  mid-air  while  we  go  soaring  on  the  impetus. 

The  rhythms  of  his  prose  are  neither  "intentionally 
odd"  nor  "intentionally  dark";  they  are  patterned  to 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

express  his  whimsical  personality  according  to  the  varied 
meanings  of  his  fanciful  plot.  Take  a  passage  of  staccato 
from  Vote  the  New  Moon.  The  citizens  are  voting,  they 
are  definite  and  determined,  and  although  their  hammers 
have  been  dropped  the  concise  rapping  is  continued  in  the 
speech: 

Crier.     Burgher,  what  do  you  mean  by  "One  for  the  red"? — 

Burgess,  you  by  "One  for  the  blue"? 
Burgher.     I  mean — 
Burgess.     I  mean — 
Crier.     What  do  you  mean? 
Burgher.     We  mean — 
Burgess.     We're  tired — 
Crier.    Tired? 
Burgher.    Of  old  moons — 
Burgess.     We  want — 
Crier.     You  want? 
Duo.     A  new  moon! 

He  also  uses  his  staccato  to  convey  his  numerous  sprightly 
moods.  Again  in  Vote  the  New  Moon  the  harmonized 
resolve  to  vote  for  the  purple  is  expressed  in  a  fine  blend- 
ing of  resounding  vibration:  . 

Burgher.  One  for  the  purple — 

Burgess.  One  for  the  purple — 

Burgher.  One  for  the  purple — 

Burgess.  One  for  the  purple — 

ending  in  a  strong  chord  from  the  Crier — 
Crier.     Blasphemous ! 

Although  this  volume  is  freer  from  the  fault  shown  in 
his  earlier  group  of  Poem  Mimes — the  fault  of  assembling 

[220] 


Little  Theatre  Rhythms 

poems  more  or  less  related  into  a  play  instead  of  conceiving 
the  play  as  a  whole  poem,  in  quality  it  falls  short  of  the 
earlier  book,  which  is  consistently  fanciful,  poetic,  musical. 
The  Plays  for  Merry  Andrews  is  made  up  of  two  plays  in 
this  earlier  manner — Vote  the  New  Moon  and  Monday — 
whose  quality  is  up  to  his  standard  while  they  have  de- 
veloped in  form.  The  two  attempts  to  mix  the  reality 
of  farce  and  burlesque  with  the  fanciful  result  in  At  the 
Sign  of  the  Thumb  and  Nose  and  Uneasy  Street.  Of  these 
the  first  is  the  more  successful,  the  second  being  a  rather 
doubtful  experiment  for  the  Little  Theatre.  The  bulk 
of  the  coffin  would  crowd  the  humor  off  the  boards.  It 
begins  in  irony  and  ends  in  farce.  The  first  half  is  nicely 
pointed  and  balanced,  but  this  is  lost  in  the  later  con- 
fusion of  a  rather  commonplace  dialogue  and  a  bizarre 
ending.  The  Silent  Waiter  is  a  topic  discussed  with  some 
new  angles,  but  it  is  not  a  good  play.  The  handling  of  the 
window  panels,  the  hands,  and  the  headless  waiter,  while 
piquing  the  interest  at  first,  proves  tricky.  The  end  of 
the  discussion  is  trite. 

The  danger  of  the  subtleties  of  the  Little  Theatre  be- 
coming effete  is  obvious,  but  then  there  is  the  danger  of 
the  Big  Theatre  becoming  banal.  The  two  theatres 
cannot  be  paralleled — they  are  two  different  mediums. 

Alfred  Kreymborg's  danger  lies  in  his  facility  to  sing, 
to  be  whimsical,  to  charm;  in  the  temptation  to  spread  his 
material  too  thin  and  caper  for  the  fun  of  capering. 

Laura  Sherry 

[221] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 


NIGHTMARE  FINGERS 

Resurrecting  Life,  by  Michael  Strange.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Clair  de  Lune,  by  Michael  Strange.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
The  New  York  Times,  quoted  on  the  jacket  of  the  first 
of  these  books,  recommends  it  as  follows: 

Michael  Strange  is  a  signature  underneath  which  can  always  be  found 
images,  phrases,  the  embodiment  in  colorful  words  of  things  seen  or 
felt  or  thought,  so  unusual  and  so  outstanding  that  they  strike  the 
attention  at  once  and  remain  in  the  memory. 

Benjamin  De  Casseres  says  of  it: 

The  poems  of  Michael  Strange  do  not  "fly  to  the  eyes."  They  touch 
you  remotely  at  first  as  with  nightmare  fingers.  You  go  back  to  study 
them,  to  concentrate  on  them,  to  marry  them. 

In  the  light  of  such  praise,  it  is  only  fair  to  give  an 
example: 

O  those  vast  limbs  in  the  chrysalis  of  me — 

O  this  titanic  aerial  being  so  fettered  yet 

In  the  slime  of  my  defective  understanding — 

This  God  with  spheres  nestling  in  His  palm 

Asleep  in  me  yet — 

And  veiled  in  the  stupor  of  my  fear  of  things 

Concerning  this  one  tiny  world. 

However,  in  case  one  quotation  is  insufficient,  and  be- 
cause the  poems  have  as  yet  only  touched  us  "with  night- 
mare fingers"  whereas  someone  else  may  want  to  "marry 
them,"  it  may  be  reassuring  to  quote  Vision  in  its  en- 
tirety: 

I  will  follow  the  inward  chime 

Back  through  empurpling  cups  of  concave  hills — 

Back  through  a  swaying  clot  of  drowned  faces — 

[222] 


Nightmare  Fingers 

(All  fastened  and  by  nightmare  pain  into  the  sedges  of  memory) 

Back  through  those  negative  rivers  stilled  past  egress — 

And  out  at  last  beyond  brightening  grasses — 

Grasses  rushing  up  into  hills — peaks — 

And  up  through  these  through  a  fume  of  clouds — aye  at  last  into  ether — 

Ether — bright  with  those  silver  tracks  of  planet- visiting  angels — 

And  austerely  fragrant  from  the  trailing  of  their  doom-lined  scarves — 

Aye — out  into  ether  humming  from  the  dart  of  stars 

Shaken  by  a  choral  thunder — 

Until  at  last  appearing  among  arching  naves — 

These  ascending  in  architectural  jet — 

And  arrested  in  vast  foaming  coils  of  livid  lace — 

And  where — enlarging  at  the  farthest  end  of  distance — 

The  Eucharist — chromatic-rayed 

And  holding  forth  its  Mystic  Tenant — 

Of  Transfigured  Rest. 

Clair  de  Lune,  the  play  by  this  author  which  John 
Barrymore  produced  recently  in  New  York,  is  at  least 
written  in  prose.  Marion  Strobel 

THE  SILVER  STALLION 

Young  Girl  and  Other  Poems,  by  Hildegarde  Planner; 

with  an  introduction  and  decorations  by  Porter  Garnett. 

H.  S.  Crocker  Co.,  San  Francisco. 

Poems  for  Men,  by  John  Austin.    Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford. 
Star-drift,  by  Brian  Padraic  O'Seasnain.    Four  Seas  Co. 
Poems  and  Essays,  by  Alfred  Hitch.     Privately  printed, 

Stockton,  Cal. 
Moods  of  Manhattan,  by  Louise  Mallinckrodt  Kueffner. 

Modernist  Press,  New  York. 
The  Blue  Crane,  by  Ivan  Swift.    James  T.  White  &  Co. 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

High  Company,  by  Harry  Lee.    Fred.  A.  Stokes  Co. 
A    Music-teacher  s    Note-book,     by    Henry    Bellamann. 
Poetry  Book  Shop,  New  York. 

Wading  through  these  young  first  books  reminded  me 
of  a  time  I  had  last  summer  looking  for  a  run-away  horse 
in  the  Maine  woods.  The  silver  stallion  appears  for  an 
instant,  now  and  then,  but  it  is  an  uncomfortable  business 
looking  for  him  through  the  uncouth  growths. 

Possibly  Hildegarde  Planner  offers  us  freer  and  wider 
glimpses  through  the  leaves  of  her  little  volume.  Indeed, 
her  book  is  a  small  wood  of  white  birch-trees,  pale  and 
slender  and  frail.  The  poems  are  delicate,  and  in  This 
Morning  she  offers  us  a  moment  like  this: 

After  the  emotion  of  rain 

The  mist  parts  across  the  morning, 

Like  the  smile  of  one 

Who  has  laughed  in  sleep 

And  cannot  remember  why. 

There  is  a  quaint  simplicity  in  Discovery,  but  in  the 
main  the  book  lacks  music,  though  one  finds  a  hint  of 
music  and  even  strength  in  Communion.  Young  Girl 
received  last  year  the  Emily  Chamberlain  Cook  Prize  at 
the  University  of  California;  and  she  is  almost,  if  not 
entirely,  worthy  of  the  beautiful  dress  and  golden  orna- 
ments which  Porter  Garnett  and  the  Crocker  Company 
have  so  generously  given  her. 

Mr.  Austin's  Poems  for  Men,  if  more  virile,  are  full  of  a 
cold  reserve,  and  a  traditional  and  hampering  growth  of 
words;  and  coming,  as  they  do,  in  the  newer  and  freer 

[224] 


The  Silver  Stallion 

forms,  they  are  but  the  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing.  The  book 
is  studied  stuff,  impersonal  and  unstirring,  but  in  the 
rhyming  verses  the  poet  confesses  a  little,  and  in  A  Bed- 
room one  comes  on — 

The  fancied  forest  of  Desire, 
Among  whose  unseen  leaves 
Flits  the  golden-feathered  bird. 

I  have  read  and  re-read  Star-drift  and  Poems  and 
Essays,  trying  to  be  convinced  that  they  are  poetry.  I 
cannot  doubt  that  Mr.  Q'Seasnain  and  Mr.  Hitch  appreci- 
ate the  glittering  of  great  cities  at  night  and  the  beauty  of 
a  dawn  over  the  mountains;  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  won- 
der of  earth  has  a  word  for  them,  that  they  have  ideas, 
that  Mr.  O'Seasnain  is  "furious  with  the  littlenesses  of 
life,"  and  that  Mr.  Hitch  sees  "his  old  age  with  its  white 
hair — a  signal  of  distress,  white  flag  of  surrender,"  and 
is  sometimes  struck  with  the  futility  of  his  own  too  many 
words.  But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  great  silver 
stallion  whose  hoof-beats  are  shaking  the  unknown  winds 
like  curtains  over  the  hills? 

Somewhat  removed  from  forests  and  the  mythological 
silver  stallion,  is  Miss  Kueffner's  Moods  of  Manhattan. 
In  Afterword  she  begs  us  not  to  ask,  Is  it  prose? — is  it 
verse  ?  And  we  shall  spare  her  the  inconvenience  of  asking 
her,  Is  it  poetry?  We  shall  not  compare  or  contrast  her 
with  Whitman  or  Sandburg  whom  she  has  obviously 
imitated,  and  the  only  little  comment  we  make  is,  that 
her  work  is  very  much  like  Oppenheim — at  his  worst. 

[225] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  Blue  Crane,  by  Ivan  Swift,  is  crammed  with  re- 
spectability and  politeness,  and  a  triteness  that  some- 
times washes  its  face.  Old-fashioned  words  like  yon,  thy, 
full  sure  are  found  all  over  the  book.  And  for  Mr.  Swift 
"A  quiet  place  is  full  of  eloquent  whispers,"  a  tree  is 
"a  trim  sentry,"  and  "I  fain  would  laugh,"  if  you  please! 
Captain  Harry  Lee  probably  realizes  that  his  High 
Company  is  shredded  prose,  as  he  subtitles  it  Sketches. 
Some  of  these  are  good  war  sketches,  simple  and  sincere, 
and  there  is  sympathy  and  drama  in  Winged  Heels. 
Others  are  sentimental  and  melodramatic,  and  through 
the  whole  book  runs  the  so-called  free-verse  style  of 
certain  cigarette  advertisements.  John  Burroughs,  who 
in  a  recent  issue  of  Current  Opinion  called  Mr.  Sandburg's 
poetry  "Bolshevic  trash",  wrote  on  the  cover  of  High 
Company,  "These  poems  have  great  merit;  they  strike 
me  as  about  the  best  free-verse  poetry  I  have  seen." 

I  have  saved  the  last  book  for  a  little  relief.  One  finds 
in  Mr.  Bellamann's  poems  a  precision  and  a  choice  of 
words  that  give  a  mood  without  any  fringes,  or  "muddle, 
mist  and  moonshine" — as  in  Yellow  Leaves: 

Yellow  leaves  among  the  green, 

Like  gold  coins 

Deep  in  old  fountains. 

In  Dans  Le  Sillage,  the  poet  touches  off  some  of  his 
contemporaries: 

There's  Fletcher, 

Painting  with  frost 

On  silk  watered  like  an  opal  sea. 

[226] 


The  Silver  Stallion 

Amy  Lowell  rides  like  Joan 
Under  colored  banners, 
Flashing  a  thousand  lights 
From  her  two-edged  sword. 

Ezra  Pound  mutters  darkly 
Behind  a  Chinese  veil. 

And  here  one  strikes  the  gravest  fault  in  the  book: 
there  is  too  much  of  Fletcher,  Amy  Lowell  and  Ezra 
Pound  in  the  poems. 

If  these  first  books  are  a  bit  discouraging,  still 

The  winds  are  neighing 
Amid  the  monotonous  hills — 

and  the  silver  stallion  may  be  not  far  away. 

Oscar  Williams 

WHO    WRITES    FOLK-SONGS? 

Poetic  Origins  and  The  Ballad,  by  Louise  Pound.     Mac- 

millan  Co. 

Just  when  and  how  the  theory  of  the  communal  origin 
of  folk-song,  and  hence  of  poetry  itself,  came  to  be  evolved, 
I  do  not  know.  But  for  many  years  students  of  folk-lore 
have  held  tenaciously  to  the  idea  that  folk-poetry  is  of 
crowd  origin — i.  e.,  the  spontaneous  improvisation  of 
many  minds,  preferably  during  a  dance  or  some  com- 
munity festival. 

The  idea  is  very  like,  and  no  doubt  based  upon,  that 
similar  "play-instinct"  theory  of  the  origin  of  art — a 
theory  which  saw  nothing  incongruous  in  the  analogy  be- 
tween creative  effort  and  a  sportive  calf's  jumping! 

[227] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

To  me  the  belief  that  the  genesis  of  poetry,  or  of  rhythm, 
was  in  the  "hand-clapping  and  thigh-slapping"  of  prim- 
itive people  during  a  dance  has  always  seemed  unneces- 
sarily far-fetched.  As  if  man  were  outside  creation,  and 
some  special  arbitrary  means  had  to  be  devised  for  incul- 
cating in  him  the  laws  of  that  world  of  which  he  is  a  part! 
And  also,  how  account  then  for  the  genesis  of  space- 
rhythm?  Did  the  primitive  potter  and  artist  evolve  their 
volumes  and  lines  to  a  similar  bodily  accompaniment? 
And  should  the  artist  today,  who  wishes  to  regain  the  old 
simplicity,  take  a  twirl  or  two  and  jump  like  Nijinsky  be- 
tween each  stroke  that  he  gives  to  his  canvas? 

Miss  Pound  does  not  attempt  to  explain  psychologically 
the  beginnings  of  poetry.  Her  method  is  historical,  and 
she  adheres  very  strictly  to  the  task  she  has  set  herself, 
which  is  to  show:  that  the  classic  English  and  Scotch 
ballads,  such  as  are  preserved  in  the  Percy  and  Child 
collections,  could  be  only  the  work  of  individual  poets, 
and  not  of  a  crowd  or  "festal  throng";  and  that  the 
accepted  belief  in  the  communal  origin  of  folk-poetry  thus 
falls  down,  so  far  as  it  is  based  specifically  upon  these 
ballads.  Miss  Pound  then  uses  the  evidence  of  the  living 
folk-poetry  nearest  at  hand — that  of  the  American  In- 
dian, the  Negro,  and  the  cowboy — to  show  that  it  too  is 
almost  always  of  individual  authorship  (and  most  mark- 
edly inferior  when,  presumably,  it  is  not);  but  that  it  is,  in 
any  case,  of  a  character  essentially  different  from  the 
Child  ballads,  these  latter  being  of  a  much  higher  artistic 

[228] 


Who  Writes  Folk-songs? 

order  and  obviously  the  work  of  individual  poets  above 
the  peasant  average,  whether  in  that  time  or  this. 

One  chapter  seems  to  me  to  be  missing  from  Miss 
Pound's  book  which  would  make  it  finally  conclusive:  a 
chapter  on  the  medieval  troubadours  of  the  Continent. 
With  this  as  a  background,  the  conviction  that  the  Percy 
and  Child  ballads  must  have  been  the  work  of  individual 
authors,  who  held  as  stock-in-trade  the  poetic  traditions 
of  an  older  guild  of  minstrels  and  entertainers,  would  be 
inescapable. 

Apart  from  the  specific  problem  of  comparison  involved, 
Miss  Pound's  summary  of  the  origins  of  our  indigenous 
folk-poetry  is  exceedingly  interesting.  Beginning  with 
the  poetry  of  the  American  Indian,  she  shov/s  that  the 
individual  poet  is  as  well  known  in  the  most  primitive 
tribe  as  in  our  own  more  sophisticated  society;  and 
that  there  is  no  evidence  that  Indian  poetry,  although 
communally  sung,  is  so  composed.  She  shows  also  that 
many  of  the  Negro  spirituals  are  based  upon  the  white 
man's  hymns,  from  which  their  form  and  substance  are 
largely  derived.  Thus  although  the  individual  authorship 
of  the  spirituals  may  be  lost  sight  of,  their  parentage  at 
least  is  not  of  crowd  origin;  and  the  additions  made  by 
the  Negro  congregation  in  singing  these  songs  are  mostly 
in  the  nature  of  refrain. 

As  for  the  American  cowboy  songs,  for  which  Mr. 
Lomax  has  claimed  a  communal  origin,  Miss  Pound  shows 
that  almost  all  of  these  are  of  known  authorship;  although 

[229] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

she  does  not  on  this  account  deny  their  genuine  folk  char- 
acter, nor  (as  Professor  Gerould  in  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  implies)  discount  them  as  mere  "derelicts"  because 
they  have  been  based  upon  earlier  songs  or  adapted  to 
familiar  tunes.  On  this  score  one  would  have  to  call  many 
of  Burns'  poems  mere  derelicts,  and  discard  with  them  as 
well  a  large  body  of  accepted  folk-songs. 

But  Miss  Pound's  definition  of  folk-poetry  is  perhaps 
wider  than  many  folk-lore  scholars  will  accept.  She  says: 

All  types  of  song  are  folk-songs,  for  the  literary  historian,  which  ful- 
fil two  tests:  the  people  must  like  them  and  sing  them — they  must  have 
"lived  in  the  folk-mouth";  and  they  must  have  persisted  in  oral  cur- 
rency through  a  fair  period  of  years.  They  must  have  achieved  an  exist- 
ence not  dependent  upon  a  printed  original.  .  .  .  Whatever  has  com- 
mended itself  to  the  folk-consciousness,  and  has  established  currency 
for  itself  apart  from  written  sources,  is  genuine  folk-literature. 

By  this  she  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  song  must 
never  have  had  a  printed  origin,  but  that  it  must  have 
become  independent  of  this  by  being  transplanted  into  the 
folk-memory.  If  the  folk-lore  scholars  object  to  the 
inclusiveness  of  this  definition,  they  will  have  to  admit 
that  many  of  their  own  restrictions  would,  if  collectively 
applied,  rule  out  practically  the  whole  body  of  accepted 
folk-song,  including  the  classic  English  ballads. 

Thus,  if  known  authorship  discounts  the  term  "folk- 
poetry,"  then  the  poetry  of  the  American  Indian  is  not 
folk-poetry.  If  printed  sources  are  not  allowed,  then  all 
the  old  ballads  collected  in  broadsides  or  chap-books  must 
go.  If  the  fact  that  The  Cowboy's  Lament  was  adapted 

[230] 


Who  Writes  Folk-songs? 

from  a  popular  Irish  song  of  the  eighteenth  century  makes 
its  folk  pretensions  insecure,  then  Barbara  Allen^  which 
was  also  a  stage  song,  will  have  to  be  discarded.  In  fact, 
if  all  the  arbitary  barbed-wire  fences  of  the  folk-lorists  are 
heeded,  what  will  be  left  of  the  open  range  of  folk-song? 
The  professor  of  folk-song,  like  the  melancholy  cowboy, 
will  have  to  go. 

We  are  faced  then  with  the  necessity  of  accepting  a 
wider  definition  of  folk-song;  or  we  may  be  brought  to  the 
pass  of  confessing  that  there  is  no  such  thing — there  is 
only  poetry,  of  various  kinds.  Also  it  may  as  well  be 
admitted  that  folk-songs  are  as  diversified  in  character  as 
any  other  kind  of  poetry;  and  it  is  impossible  to  make  any 
one  type  the  "norm"  to  which  all  other  examples  must 
conform.  Certainly  the  classic  English  ballads  can  not — 
as  is  too  often  done — be  made  the  touchstone  of  what 
is  or  is  not  folk-poetry.  Theirs  is  a  highly  specialized 
form;  their  authors  were  undoubtedly  fairly  sophisticated 
poets;  and  we  have  every  right  to  believe  that  the  ballads 
became  folk-songs  by  the  well-known  process  of  descent. 

In  other  words,  we  must  recognize  two  broad  sources  of 
folk-song:  one  of  the  soil,  as  with  genuinely  primitive  peo- 
ple like  the  American  Indian  (though  none  the  less  of 
individual  origin);  and  the  other  of  the  stage,  the  church, 
the  court,  or  the  city,  descending  again  to  the  soil  and  the 
folk,  there  to  be  rediscovered  as  folk-song. 

Such  ideas  as  these,  presented  by  Miss  Pound,  are 
sufficiently  radical  to  meet  much  opposition  from  the 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

adherents  of  the  accepted  belief  in  the  communal  "crowd" 
origin  of  folk-song.  But  just  one  thing  is  needed  from 
Miss  Pound's  opponents  to  prove  her  theory  a  house  of 
cards,  and  that  is  some  evidence  of  a  crowd  or  group  im- 
provisation of  the  ballads,  or  of  any  poetry  higher  than 
the  nursery-rhyme  type  used  in  games.  Did  anyone  ever 
see  it  happen?  A.  C.  H. 

CORRESPONDENCE 

PROFESSOR    PHELPS    AND    ROSTAND 

My  dear  POETRY:  William  Lyon  Phelps  has  set  my 
nerves  cringing — is  it  possible  that  a  Yale  University 
professor  should  write  the  silly  pompous  windy  stuff  about 
Edmond  Rostand  which  appears  in  the  April  Yale  Review! 

What  a  pity,  when  the  whole  world  is  trying  to  get  a 
clear  insight  into  things,  to  read  such  trashy  stuff!  For- 
tunately we  know  better,  but  some  Frenchmen  mayjudge 
American  criticism  and  clearness  of  perception  by  Mr. 
Phelps'  oracular  utterances.  Note  the  wisdom  of  this: 

Creative  genius  is  the  most  valuable  gift  that  man  can  receive. 

Isn't  this  a  wonderfully  stamped  medal? — 

He  is  a  poet  and  a  playwright,  but  above  all,  he  is  a  magician. 

But  I  wouldn't  care  about  Mr.  Phelps'  platitudes  if  he 
didn't  pretend  to  judge  France  and  French  drama  with 
the  same  sweeping  alacrity.  I  shall  not  trouble  you  with 
a  reply  en  forme.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  nobody  here  with 

[232] 


Professor  Phelps  and  Rostand 

a  sane  mind  thinks  Rostand  a  "national"  poet;  and  that 
anyhow  poetry  had  nothing  to  do  with  our  aching  backs, 
our  smarting  feet — and  final  triumph.  Nobody  but  dusty 
mediaeval  people  can  foster  such  illusions. 

The  article  contains  such  luminous  ideas  as  these: 

We  must  go  back  to  La  Fontaine  for  anything  approaching  the  human 
manipulation  of  the  animal  kingdom. 

No  modern  dramatist  has  reached  the  Shakespearean  level  except 
Rostand. 

If  Mr.  Phelps  wants  to  understand  our  modern  drama 
better,  let  him  come  to  Le  Vieux  Colombier  with  Copeau  as 
a  director,  to  Le  Theatre  des  Arts  and  a  few  others.  Let 
him  not  forget,  above  all,  that  what  we  applaud  is  a 
dozen  immortal  masterpieces,  among  which  we  do  not 
count  L '  Aiglon^  Cyrano^  or  Chantecler.  Jean  Catel 

Pans:  April  25th,  1921. 

NOTES 

Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert  (Mrs.  Otto  S.),  of  Moline,  111.,  has  appeared 
frequently  in  POETRY,  and  in  1919  her  dialogue,  The  Old  Woman^  re- 
ceived one  of  our  annual  prizes.  Her  book,  A  Woman  of  Thirty,  was  pub- 
lished the  same  year  by  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Babette  Deutsch  (now  Mrs.  A.  Yarmolinsky),  of  New  York,  is  the 
author  of  Banners  (Geo.  H.  Doran  Co.).  Harcourt,  Brace  &  Howe  will 
publish  next  autumn  an  anthology  of  Russian  poetry  selected  and  trans- 
lated by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yarmolinsky. 

Mr.  Oscar  Williams,  a  Russian  by  birth,  resident  in  New  York  but  now 
sojourning  in  Chicago,  will  publish  next  autumn,  through  the  Yale  Press, 
his  first  book  of  verse. 

The  other  poets  of  this  month  are  new  to  our  readers. 

[233] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Mr.  Louis  Golding,  of  London,  is  the  author  of  Sorrows  of  War,  pub- 
lished in  this  country  by  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.  A  second  book  of  poems, 
Shepherd  Singing  Ragtime,  will  soon  appear  in  England.  His  first  novel, 
Forward from  Babylon,  is  one  of  six  recently  selected  as  the  best  of  1920-21 
in  competition  for  the  Vie  Heureuse  prize  in  Paris. 

Miss  Elizabeth  Roberts,  of  Chicago,  who  has  appeared  in  various 
magazines,  will  soon  publish  a  book  of  poems,  Under  the  Tree. 

Ditto  Mr.  Harold  Vinal,  of  Boston,  whose  book  will  be  entitled  April 
Flame. 

Miss  Josephine  Pinckney,  of  Charleston,  has  published  little  as  yet. 
Her  poem,  In  the  Barn,  received  recently  a  prize  from  the  Poetry  Society 
of  South  Carolina. 

Mr.  William  A.  Norris  is  a  young  poet  of  Milwaukee,  Wis. 


BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Legends,  by  Amy  Lowell.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Songs  in  the  Common  Chord,  by  Amelia  E.  Barr.    D.  Appleton  &  Co. 
Spanish  Moss  and  English  Myrtle,  by  Margaret  Dashiell.    Stratford  Co. 
The  Two  Captains,  by  Craven  Langstroth  Betts.    Alfred  Allen  Watts  Co., 

New  York. 

A  Love  Cycle,  by  Margery  Mayo.    Privately  printed,  Denver. 
Souvenirs,  by  Badry  Farkouh.     Privately  printed. 
Ireland,  Broadway  and  Other  Loves,  by  Mary  Fleming.     Guido  Bruno, 

New  York. 

The  Mystic  Warrior,  by  James  Oppenheim.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
The  Ruined  Barn  and  Other  Poems,  by  A.  Hugh  Fisher.    Selwyn  &  Blount, 

London. 
Poems  New  and  Old,  by  John  Freeman.    Harcourt,  Brace  &  Howe. 

PLAYS: 

Clair  de  Lune,  by  Michael  Strange.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
The  Cult  of  Content,  by  Noel  Leslie.    Four  Seas  Co. 

PROSE: 
The  Sacred  Band:    A  Litany  of  Ingratitude,  by  Guido  Bruno.  New  York. 

[234] 


X 


POETRY  is  one  of  the  three  good  magazines  in  America. 

Geoffrey  Parsons,  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

Vol.  XVIII  No.  V 

POETRY  for  AUGUST,  1921 

PAGE 

Growth  (seven  poems)         Charles  R.  Murphy  235 

Hoofs  and  Haloes  (five  poems)      .      .     David  Osborne  Hamilton  239 

Memory Margaret  Belle  Houston  241 

Poems  (five  poems) Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter  242 

It  Vanished Grace  Hodsdon  Boutelle  245 

The  Mountain  Graveyard DuBose  Heyward  246 

Innocent  Sleep Nancy  Campbell  247 

Dirge Richard  Hughes  248 

Timelessness Louise  Townsend  Nicholl  249 

Folk-song,    from    the    Danish — Lucrezia    Borgia's    Last    Letter 

Antoinette  DeCoursey  Patterson  250 

In  the  Night  Watches  (four  poems)    .      .      Margaret  DeLaughter  252 

Love's  Passing — My  Sepulchre Gladys  Edgerton  254 

Poems  Original  and  Derived     ....     Mason  A.  Freeman,  Jr.  256 

Beyond  Sorrow  (seven  poems)        ....       Eda  Lou  Walton  260 

Midsummer  Delite H.  M.  264 

Brazilian  Dance  Songs Evelyn  Scott  267 

Aboriginal  Tasmanian  Poetry H.  W.  Stewart  271 

Reviews: 

Robinson's  Double  Harvest H.  M.  273 

The  Poet  of  the  War .      .      .    A.  C.  H.  276 

Mr.  Masefield's  Racer '  N.  Howard  Thorp  279 

Songs  and  Splashes H.  M.  281 

Modern  and  Elizabethan H.  M.  283 

Classics  in  English Glenway  Wescott  284 

Our  Contemporaries: 

The  Dial's  Annual  Award 289 

New  Magazines 290 

Notes  and  Books  Received 291,  292 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.    All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 
NO.  V 
A  Magazine  of  \feree 


AUGUST  1921 


GROWTH 

ADVENT 

OUT  of  a  silence  greater  than  all  words; 
Over  the  unspeakable,  dumb, 
Everlasting  hills 
With  their  muter  herds; 
Swifter  than  a  blade  that  kills; 
Mightier  than  prayer; 
Fairer  than  the  dawn 
When  some  dew  yet  remains  unbroken; 
Stronger  than  despair; 
From  the  unspoken  to  the  spoken, 
While  the  heart  rests  momently; 
Lovely  as  the  half-uttered  words  of  a  child, 
More  delicate,  more  mild; 
Terrible  as  the  torn  breasts  of  anguish 

[235] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

When  strong  wills  languish: 
Suddenly,  dreadfully,  exquisitely, 
Love,  death,  and  God  shall  come. 

SOWN 

Rain  and  the  patience  of  the  planted  field, 

Grey  skies  that  hasten  to  the  need 

Of  brown  moistening  earth,  and  to  the  sealed 

Faint  harvest  in  the  unbroken  seed — 

Patience  for  waiting  give  us!    O  planted  men, 

Who  waits  your  budding  and  your  heaped 

Flowers  of  death?    Again,  again 

Perhaps  ye  shall  return — the  reapers,  not  the  reaped — 

And,  braver  than  corn-seed  hid  away  together, 

Of  our  meagre  or  our  mighty  yield 

Shall  wake  for  the  gathering  in  harvest  weather. 

TO    EARTH 

Oh,  fortunate  the  waiting  that  shall  end  in  wonder, 
And  blessed  now  the  patience  that  is  in  thy  biding; 
For  now  are  the  herded  clouds  and  the  wild  rain's  thunder 
Over  the  roof  of  thy  quiet  seeds'  hiding. 

We  too,  O  earth,  shall  need  thy  blessedness  of  waiting 
For  the  green  flowering  of  pastures,  when  the  panting 
Storm  shall  cease;  though  blood  be  the  rain  that  is  abating, 
And  men  be  the  seeds  of  our  wild  planting. 

[236] 


Charles  R.  Murphy 


WINTER 


Now  are  ye  lean,  O  trees,  and  shaped  for  soaring 
Over  the  sacred  snow  that  hides  the  land; 

Now  after  stress  of  bitter  storms  endured 
On  the  spent  earth  unmutinous  ye  stand. 

Only  your  faces  now  are  turned  not  earthward, 
However  deep  your  roots  are  clasped  there. 

With  the  gaunt  gesture  of  a  saint's  uprising, 
Ye  are  the  resurrection  that  is  prayer. 

SPRING 

Trees  have  a  gesture  of  departure, 

Yet  forever  stay; 
Into  what  eager  land  they'd  travel 

No  man  may  say. 

In  the  spring  they  stand  on  tip-toe; 

Yet,  self-willed,  remain 
In  autumn  to  let  earthward 

Their  hopes  like  rain. 

Yet  forever  a  new  spring  cometh, 

And  their  muteness  swells 
To  the  voice  of  one  long  risen 

For  long  farewells; 

Who  with  steps  of  eternal  patience, 
In  eternal  quest, 

[237] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Would  venture  a  truth  too  lofty 
To  be  expressed; 

Whose  heart  at  times  is  burdened, 

When  no  dream  consoles, 
With  a  heritage  too  mighty 

For  rooted  souls. 

HUMILITY 

Open  the  doors  of  temples,  scorn 

Their  veils!     Yet  in  the  flight  of  bird  on  sea, 

In  the  fall  of  leaf  from  tree, 

In  the  green  patient  spears  of  grain,  in  the  torn 

Sides  of  mountains  where  some  verdure  clings — 

In  all  these  things — 

We  have  enough  to  brood  on  till  we  be 

Ready  and  humble  as  the  corn. 

MID-MAY 

Put  aside  your  words,  and  there  are  left 
Stones  of  the  grey  walls  and  apple-trees; 
And  in  the  flesh  and  mind,  and  in  what  seems 
Birthing  almost  of  an  immortal  soul, 
Virginity  and  fortitude  and  hope — 
Delicate  as  blossoms  on  the  gnarled  limbs 
White,  grey  and  green  above  the  risen  grass. 

Charles  R.  Murphy 

[238] 


HOOFS  AND  HALOES 


TE    DEUM 


Out  in  the  hot  sun  I  saw  Satan  stand: 

He  stroked  the  peaches  with  his  finger-tips, 
And  burst  the  melons  open  in  his  hand, 

And  squirted  the  fat  grapes  between  his  lips. 
He  cracked  an  apple,  and  deep  in  the  rift 

Of  snowy  meat  his  yellow  teeth  he  thrust. 
A  daisy  from  the  grass  he  plucked  and  sniffed — 

His  fiery  breath  soon  charred  it  into  dust. 
He  pinched  the  purple  plums,  and  playfully 

Took  up  his  tail  and  twirled  it  round  and  round 
To  lash  the  gold  leaves  from  a  maple-tree, 

And  laughed — the  birds  fled  screaming  at  the  sound. 
He  swung  the  boughs,  and  with  his  sharp  horns  pricked 

The  pears  as  they  went  swinging  through  the  air, 
And  drove  his  hoof  into  the  ground,  and  kicked, 

Stirring  the  damp  earth  through  the  grasses  there; 
Then  tore  the  tangled  undergrowth  apart 

Till  in  its  shadow  he  was  deftly  placed, 
And  stretched  and  said:     "I  marvel  at  God's  art! 

The  earth  could  not  be  formed  more  to  my  taste/' 


THE  IDIOT 


When  earth  was  madly  green  he  lay 
And  mocked  his  shadow's  dancing  feet, 

[239] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Or  from  his  laughter  ran  away 

To  watch  the  poppies  burn  the  wheat. 

But  when  the  frozen  leaves  whirled  by 
And  colored  birds  were  blown  afar, 

He  climbed  the  bitter  winter  sky 
And  hanged  himself  upon  a  star. 


BEAUTY  IN   FOURTH   STREET 


It  was  not  strange  that  Beauty  found 

Our  path  in  June,  and  eagerly 
Thrust  up  the  gay  flowers  through  the  ground 

And  put  a  bird  on  every  tree. 

But  strange  it  was  when  skies  were  grey 
That  Beauty  followed  where  we  led, 

And  sat  beside  our  stove  all  day, 
And  lay  at  night  upon  our  bed. 

ii 

I  live  with  Beauty,  and  across  the  way 
I  see  a  shabby  park  where  women  sit 

And  scold  the  dirty  children  from  their  play, 
While  old  men  shift  their  wrinkled  legs  and  spit. 

[240] 


David  Osborne  Hamilton 


So  close  to  me  these  dusty  lives  go  past — 
Shall  I  cry  out  how  Beauty  came  to  me  ? 

O  futile  lips,  be  still!  O  heart,  close  fast! 
Break  not  with  joy,  lest  you  set  Beauty  free! 


OUR  TIME 

Once  more  earth  bellows  with  the  lust 

Of  rolling  drums.     Once  more  we  win  with  fire 

The  passing  wind,  and  perish  for  the  dust 
Of  man's  desire. 

Fierce  as  the  tiger  in  the  night, 

And  greedy  as  the  swine  that  roots  the  clod 
Is  man,  whose  spirit  of  eternal  light 

Moves  into  God. 

David  Osborne  Hamilton 


MEMORY 

I  walked  with  you  beside  the  orchard  bars, 

Where  the  still  plum-tree  drops  her  whiteness  down. 

You  kissed  my  brow:  your  kiss  was  like  a  crown. 
You  kissed  my  mouth:  my  crown  was  set  with  stars. 

Margaret  Belle   Houston 

[241] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 
POEMS 


ALL    SOULS      EVE 

Hark! — do  you  hear  the  choral  dead? 
Forgotten  now  their  pride 
Who  on  this  night  would  have  us  know 
They  passed  unsatisfied. 

They  shiver  like  the  thin  brown  leaves 
Upon  a  sapless  tree, 
Clinging  with  palsied,  withered  might 
To  their  identity. 

Their  voices  are  the  unearthly  winds 
That  die  before  the  dawn; 
And  each  one  has  some  tale  to  tell, 
And,  having  told,  is  gone. 

Ah! — you  who  come  with  sea-blue  eyes, 
And  dead  these  hundred  years, 
Be  satisfied!  I  hold  the  cup 
Still  brimming  with  your  tears. 

CHINESE    EPITAPH 

She  was  a  Manchu  lady  .  .  . 
Near  the  tomb  where  she  lies 

[242] 


Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter 

Broods  an  ancient  Buddha  with  robes  of  jade  and  of  coral 
And  curious  lapis-blue  eyes. 

She  was  a  wistful  lady  .  .  . 

When  the  west  wind  sighs 

Inscrutable  even  as  the  terrible  calm  of  Buddha 

Her  impassive  disguise. 

She  was  a  Manchu  lady  .  .  . 

Azure  the  skies, 

And  golden  the  tracery  sealing  the  proud  lips  of  Buddha 

As  the  west  wind  dies. 

ALCHEMY 

They  had  no  souls,  the  envious  ones! 

They  were  blind  to  your  heart's  beauty, 

Deaf  to  your  spirit's  voice, 

And  dumb  in  the  presence  of  your  holiness. 

But  they  felt  a  vague  warmth 

In  their  cold  hands 

As  you  passed. 

And  so  they  reached  out 

For  your  flaming  soul; 

Throwing  it  on  their  own  dead  altar-fires, 

Warming  their  numb  fingers  in  the  golden  flame 

That  rose  to  Heaven, 

Flickered, 

And  went  out. 

[243] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Somewhere,  among  the  scattered  ashes, 

Lies  the  matrix-stone 

Of  your  imperishable  beauty. 


INVOCATION 

Tonight  in  sleep  there  came  to  me 
A  dream  where  Christ  walked  on  the  sea; 
And,  shipwrecked,  I  called  out,  to  hear 
His  quiet  answer,  "I  am  near.'* 
But  when  the  waves  had  risen  high 
I  doubted — till  I  heard  him  cry: 
"Come  take  my  hand,  beloved  one — 
The  long  and  lonely  night  is  done. 
Fear  not!     and  you  shall  walk  with  me, 
As  Peter  walked,  upon  the  sea." 

Who  was  it  called?     The  night  is  slow 
To  answer;  but  awake  I  know 
The  clutching  terror  of  the  heart 
That  feels  the  weed-choked  waters  part, 
And,  drowning,  rears  a  Christ  who  stands 
With  dim-remembered  outstretched  hands. 
Who  knows  if  Peter's  Christ  is  mine? 
Like  Peter,  now,  I  ask  a  sign  .   .   . 
If  Christ  still  walks  upon  the  sea — 

How  calm  is  dawn  on  Galilee! 

[244] 


.Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter 

LULLABY 

Come,  sleep.     Her  heart's  a  wood-anemone. 

Her  thoughts  are  swallows  flown 
Across  the  dusk.     Her  hair's  a  willow-tree 

By  the  west  wind  blown. 
Her  eyes  are  pools  where  bubbles  rise  and  break — 

Dream-bubbles  from  the  deep. 
Her  soul's  a  moth  that  flutters  in  their  wake. 

Come  sleep.  .  .  .  come  sleep.  .  .  . 

Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter 


IT  VANISHED 

To  C.  A.  B. 

Can  it  matter  to  you  and  me 
Where  the  hurrying  years  have  fled, 
Since  they  told  me  you  ceased  to  be. 
Since  the  day  when  they  called  you  dead? 
Death?    As  a  cobweb  spun 
By  night  on  the  dew-drenched  grass, 
It  vanished   ...   I  saw  you  pass 
With  your  face  to  the  rising  sun. 

Grace  Hodsdon  Boutelle 


[245] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

THE  MOUNTAIN  GRAVEYARD 

High  on  the  mountain  where  the  storm-heads  are, 
Lying  where  all  may  see,  there  is  a  place 

As  hideous  and  shocking  as  a  scar 

That  mars  the  beauty  of  a  well-loved  face. 

Infinitely  drear,  and  raw,  and  nude, 

It  waits  and  listens  in  the  solitude. 

There  is  no  friendly  tree  in  all  that  square 
Of  scattered  stones  and  arid,  troubled  clay. 

Bleak  as  the  creed  of  those  who  journey  there, 
Hard  as  the  code  by  which  they  lived  their  day, 

It  gives  them  all  they  ask  of  it — its  best; 

No  beauty  and  no  softness — only  rest. 

But  oh,  the  pity  of  it  all  is  this: 

They  lived  with  beauty  and  their  eyes  were  blind. 
Dreaming  of  far  strong  joys,  they  came  to  miss 

Those  that  were  near.     So  at  the  last  we  find 
No  tenderness  of  blossom,  but  instead 
Mute  emblems  of  the  longings  of  the  dead. 

These  rain-bleached  sea-shells  in  an  ordered  row 
Tell  of  an  ocean  that  they  never  knew 

Except  in  dreams  which,  through  the  ebb  and  flow 
Of  years,  set  seaward  as  the  torrents  do. 

Always  they  planned  to  follow,  knowing  deep 

Within  their  hearts  that  dreams  are  but  for  sleep. 

[246] 


DuBose  Heyward 

And  see  these  tawdry  bits  of  broken  glass 

Which  speak  the  foreign  glories  of  the  town — 

The  crowds,  the  lights;  these  too  are  dreams  that  pass 
Here  where  the  hemming  walls  of  rock  look  down, 

And  clasp  their  children  fast  within  their  keep 

Until  they  cradle  them  at  last  to  sleep. 

Yet  all  the  while  if  they  could  only  know 

The  beauty  that  is  theirs  to  breathe  and  touch — 

The  whisper  of  the  dawn  across  the  snow, 

The  vast  low-drifting  clouds  that  love  them  much — 

Oh,  they  could  call  their  dreams  home  down  the  sky, 

And  carry  beauty  with  them  when  they  die. 

DuBose  Heyward 


INNOCENT  SLEEP 

My  little  son  half  woke  last  night — 

A  golden-headed  rosiness, 

Dark-eyed  with  drowsiness; 
Peered  for  a  moment  at  the  candle-light. 

So  I  have  seen  the  daisies  sleep 

Pink-tipped  along  a  mountain  wall, 
And  hardly  stir  at  all 

At  the  bright  dawn — their  dreams  have  been  so  deep. 

Nancy  Campbell 

[247] 


OETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 
DIRGE 

To   those  under  smoke-blackened   tiles,  and  cavernous 

echoing  arches, 

In  tortuous  hid  courts  where  the  roar  never  ceases 
Of  deep  cobbled  streets  wherein  dray  upon  dray  ever 

marches, 
The  sky  is  a  broken  lid,  a  litter  of  smashed  yellow  pieces. 

To  those  under  mouldering  tiles,  where  life  to  an  hour  is 

crowded — 

Life,  to  a  span  of  the  floor,  to  an  inch  of  the  light; 
And  night  is  all  feverous  hot,  a  time  to  be  bawded  and 

rowdied : 
Day  is  a  time  of  grinding,  that  looks  for  rest  to  the  night. 

Those  who  would  live,  do  it  quickly;  with  quick  tears, 
sudden  laughter, 

Quick  oaths,  terse  blasphemous  thoughts  about  God  the 
Creator. 

Those  who  would  die,  do  it  quickly;  with  noose  from  the 

rafter, 

Or  the  black,  shadowy  eddies  of  Thames,  the  hurry- 
hater. 

Life  is  the  master,  the  keen  and  grim  destroyer  of  beauty. 
Death  is  a  quiet  and  deep  reliever,  where  soul  upon  soul 
And  wizened  and  thwarted  body  on  body  are  loosed  from 
their  duty 

[248] 


Richard  Hughes 

Of  living,  and  sink  in  a  bottomless,  edgeless,  impalpable 
hole. 

Dead,  they  can  see  far  above  them,  as  if  from  the  depth  of 
a  pit, 

Black  on  the  glare  small  figures  that  twist  and  are  shriv- 
elled in  it. 

Richard  Hughes 


TIMELESSNESS 

We  knew  a  timeless  place  beside  three  trees, 

Where  lights  across  an  arching  bridge  were  set; 

And,  dark  against  the  sky,  was  flung  a  frieze 

Of  human  joy  in  shifting  silhouette. 

Figures  of  children — swift,  and  lovers — slow, 

Made  us  a  pageant  as  they  crossed  the  hill. 

We  called  it  "being  dead,"  and  watched  them  go, 

Remembering  when  we  were  living  still. 

Now  you  have  died,  and  found  those  timeless  nights; 

Ours  was  a  dream  which  you  have  made  come  true. 

Three  trees  are  there,  a  hill,  a  bridge  of  lights: 

I  know,  I  know — I  have  been  dead  with  you! 

I  shall  put  off  my  grief,  my  sick  despair, 

Since  only  joy  is  silhouetted  there. 

Louise  Townsend  Nicholl 


[249] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

FOLK-SONG— FROM  THE  DANISH 

Little  Rose  and  her  mother,  from  the  boat  where  it  lay, 
Bantered  each  other  in  the  merriest  way. 
Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sal 
Bantered  each  other  in  the  merriest  way! 

"No  lover  shall  wed  me — no  matter  how  bold — 
Till  trees  in  the  garden  bear  blossoms  of  gold. " 

Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sal 
"Till  trees  in  the  garden  bear  blossoms  of  gold." 

From  the  porch  thinks  Hr.  Peder,  amused  at  her  jest, 
'  'Tis  always  the  one  who  laughs  latest  laughs  best!" 

Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sa! 
'  'Tis  always  the  one  who  laughs  latest  laughs  best!" 

And  when  later  they  entered  the  garden — behold 
From  each  tree  was  hanging  a  ring  of  bright  gold ! 

Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sa! 
From  each  tree  was  hanging  a  ring  of  bright  gold! 

But  Rosalie,  scarlet  as  fresh-dripping  blood, 

Kept  both  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  grass  where  she  stood. 

Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sa! 
Kept  both  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  grass  where  she  stood. 

Then  Hr.  Peder  he  kissed  her,  still  full  of  the  jest: 
"Most  surely  the  one  who  laughs  latest  laughs  best!" 

Ha,  ha,  ha,  sa,  sa,  sa,  sa! 
"Most  surely  the  one  who  laughs  latest  laughs  best!" 

[250] 


Antoinette  DeCoursey  Patterson 

LUCREZIA  BORGIA'S  LAST  LETTER 

Before  me  shine  the  words  of  her  last  letter — 

Lucrezia  Borgia  to  the  Pope  at  Rome — 
Wherein  she  begs,  as  life 's  remaining  fetter 

Slips  from  her,  that  his  prayers  will  guide  her  home: 

The  favor  God  has  shown  to  me  confessing. 

As  swift  my  end  approaches,  Father •,  /, 
A  Christian  though  a  sinner,  ask  your  blessing 

And  kiss  your  feet  in  all  humility. 

The  thought  of  death  brings  no  regret,  but  pleasure; 

And  after  the  last  sacrament  great  peace 
Will  be  mine  own — in  overflowing  measure, 

If  but  your  mercy  marks  my  sour  s  release. 

And  here  the  letter  finds  a  sudden  ending, 
As  though  the  dying  hand  had  lost  its  power: 

My  children  to  Rome's  love  and  care  commending — 
Ferrara — Friday — at  the  fourteenth  hour. 

An  odor  as  of  incense  faintly  lingers 

About  the  page  of  saintly  sophistries — 
And  I  am  thinking  clever  were  the  fingers 

That  could  mix  poison  and  write  words  like  these. 

Antoinette  DeCoursey  Patterson 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Perse 

IN  THE  NIGHT  WATCHES 

INVOCATION 

Kwan-yin,  mother  of  mercies, 
"  Kwan-yin,  goddess  of  prayer, 
Hear  my  voice  at  thine  altar, 
Heed  my  foot  on  the  stair! 

Lo,  the  rice-bowl  is  empty; 

Toa-tai  smiles  no  more. 
Sorrow  lurks  at  our  roof-tree, 

Ruin  waits  at  the  door. 

Kwan-yin,  mother  of  mercies, 
Kwan-yin,  goddess  of  prayer, 

Hear  my  voice  at  thine  altar, 
Heed  my  foot  on  the  stair! 

PIERROT   AND    COLUMBINE 

The  gods  are  dead,  and  we  are  old; 

And  we  are  old,  for  now  at  last, 
For  now  at  last  our  hearts  are  cold; 

Our  hearts  are  cold,  and  love  is  past. 

Our  love  is  past,  and  even  so, 

And  even  so  our  dreams  have  fled. 

Our  dreams  have  fled,  and  so  we  know, 
And  so  we  know  the  gods  are  dead! 

[252] 


Margaret  DeLaughter 


REQUIEM 


All  the  love,  the  love  we  gave  them; 
Tears,  unanswered  prayers  to  save  them ! 
Now,  what  is  there  left  to  show? — 
Wooden  crosses  in  a  row! 

They  wore  their  crown  of  thorns  so  lightly, 
June  still  blossoms  just  as  brightly. 
How  can  laughing  roses  know 
Of  wooden  crosses  in  a  row? 

Is  it,  then,  so  sweet,  their  sleeping? 
After  all,  was  life  worth  keeping? 
There  they  lie,  and  none  may  know — 
Wooden  crosses  in  a  row. 


TOWARD    EVENING 

The  poppies  just  outside  my  door 
Still  flaunt  their  crimson  loveliness. 

How  can  they  blossom  any  more, 
Now  I  have  lost  my  happiness  ? 

Not  any  grief  of  mine  can  mar 

The  beauty  of  this  tranquil  weather. 

Each  evening,  with  the  first  pale  star, 

Comes  that  same  thrush  we  loved  together, 

[253] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  V erse 

And  pours  gold  notes  from  every  bough 

Of  his  old  sacred  apple-tree. 
But  he  has  lost  his  magic  now— 

He  cannot  sing  you  back  to  me. 

Margaret  DeLaughter 


LOVE'S  PASSING 

Gold  as  the  sun, 

Bold  as  a  boy, 
Your  wanton  wings  waken 

The  love  you  destroy, 
Leaving  within  the  heart  of  each  flower 
Longing  for  an  impassioned  hour. 

Shade  of  the  sea, 

Maid  of  the  sky, 
Your  azure  wings  beat  on 

My  heart  as  you  fly 
Dreamily  on  in  a  happy  trance, 
Letting  me  wither  with  never  a  glance. 

Rare  as  a  pearl, 

Fair  as  a  nun, 
Your  white  wings  inspire 

The  love  that  you  shun, 

[254] 


Gladys  Edgerton 


Rising  from  passion  and  glad  desire 
Into  the  sun's  heart  higher  and  higher. 

Flown  from  the  world, 

Blown  like  a  breath, 
You  leave  me  earth-rooted 

And  wedded  to  death, 
Wasting  for  lips  I  have  never  known, 
Hoarding  my  fragrance  for  you  alone! 


MY  SEPULCHRE 

The  flame  blue  of  heaven  glows  overhead, 
Under  my  halting  feet  crisp  leaves  burn  red. 
Oh,  what  an  ecstasy  now  to  be  dead ! 

Oh,  what  an  ecstasy  now  to  lie  down 

One  with  the  autumn  earth  pulsing  and  brown — 

So  in  the  sunlight  to  slumber  and  drown! 

To  drown  in  a  sea  of  gold,  melt  into  air 

Crisp  with  the  tang  of  frost,  pungent  and  rare — 

Sunshine  my  sepulchre,  wind  my  last  prayer! 

Gladys  Edgerton 


[255] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

POEMS  ORIGINAL  AND  DERIVED 

THE    TRIPLE    SHROUD 

This  is  the  triple  shroud, 

Spun  of  a  single  thread 
On  spindles  of  the  whirling  worlds 

In  thundering  halls  of  dread; 
It  makes  the  living  shine  as  flame, 

And  resurrects  the  dead. 

Life  is  the  shroud  of  love, 

Woven  of  dust  and  breath. 
Death  is  the  shroud  of  life; 

Love  is  the  shroud  of  death. 

THE  WAY 

Some  souls  have  slept  with  sorrow, 
And  some  have  walked  with  shame. 

With  both  I  went  in  shadows 
Through  firmaments  of  flame — 

To  clasp  the  formless  in  the  form, 
The  substance  in  the  name. 

ONCE  MORE 

Once  more  I  strip  my  shroud  from  me, 
Once  more  unfurl  my  azure  wings, 

[256] 


Mason  A.  Freeman^  Jr. 


Pursue  athwart  the  reeling  suns 
An  ever-dancing  star  that  sings 

Of  madder  joys  than  I  have  dreamed, 
And  fiercer  griefs  than  I  have  borne : 

Yet  would  I  burn  between  her  breasts 
Behind  the  curtains  of  the  morn! 


EPIGRAMS 

The  Poet 

Up  leaped  the  lark  in  flight, 
And  saw  the  dawn 
Singing  above  the  night. 

The  Untrammelled 

Only  the  wind  is  free — 
He  shapes  at  will 
The  sea's  plasticity. 

The  Beggar 

The  tulip  lifts  its  bowl 
Toward  sun  and  cloud 
To  ask  its  daily  dole. 

Weeping-willow 

Is  it  a  maid  I  see 

With  hair  unbound, 

Or  a  weeping- willow  tree? 

[257] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

The  Lotus 

The  lotus  dreams  that  she 

May  root  in  mud, 

Yet  steal  off  with  the  bee. 

On  a  Cameo 

This  image  on  a  ring 

Is  all  that  lives 

Of  what  was  once  a  king. 

Late  Mourning 

Plum  petals  fall  like  tears 
Upon  a  grave 
Neglected  now  for  years. 

Recognition 

What  seek  you  from  the  sky? 

Long  since 

The  noisy  geese  flew  by. 

The  Prophetess 

For  years  the  earth  has  known 

Impending  fate 

Each  time  the  dead  moon  shone. 


FROM    THE    VEDIC 

The  Egg 

What  lies  hidden  in  the  shell 

Was  born  through  torment  deep  in  hell; 

[258] 


Mason  A.  Freeman,  Jr. 

And  it  will  burst  its  bonds  to  sense 
Analogous  experience, 

And  swing  through  poles  of  heaven  and  hell 
To  lurk  again  within  the  shell. 

Ecce  Homo 

Behold  the  man  indeed — the  inner  self 

Who  sits  inside,  no  bigger  than  one's  thumb; 
Who  limbless  moves,  and  lacking  eyes  can  see; 
Scans  all  the  past,  can  all  the  future  plumb. 

The  Herdsman 

I  hail  the  wandering  herdsman  of  the  night, 

The  watcher  and  the  shepherd  of  the  stars, 
Who  points  the  pathway  leading  to  the  light, 

And  for  the  sheep  lets  down  the  golden  bars. 

The  Rosary 

Within  the  all-enfolding  hands 

The  worlds  are  being  told  like  beads. 
Lift  up  your  eyes  and  look  thereon ! — 

What  need  have  ye  of  forms  and  creeds  ? 

Creation 

The  moon  was  gendered  from  my  mind, 

And  from  my  eye  the  sun  had  birth, 
And  from  my  breast  the  winds  burst  forth, 
And  underneath  my  feet  the  earth. 

Mason  A.  Freeman,  Jr. 

[259] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 
BEYOND  SORROW 

SO    IT    BEFELL 

When  the  day  is  long 
And  full  of  pain, 
I  remember 
A  certain  little  lane 
Where  every  night, 
At  half-past  seven, 
The  train  flashed  by 
On  its  way  to  heaven. 

There  you  and  I, 
Watching  in  the  lane, 
Dreamed  of  riding 
Inside  the  train — 
Away  from  the  wide 
Sun-flowered  plain 
And  tall  fields  of 
High  rolling  grain. 

When  night  is  long 

And  strangely  sane, 

I  remember 

A  certain  little  lane, 

Where,  on  one  night — 

So  it  befell— 

The  train  passed  heaven 

On  its  way  to  hell. 

[260] 


Eda  Lou  Walton 

WITHOUT    GRIEF 

Beyond  sorrow  I  have  seen  a  pool 

Of  clear  green  waters 

Without  shadows, 

And  in  it  lay  my  body  cool 

And  quiet  as  a  leaf. 

And  I  have  watched  it  lying  there 

And  seen  the  sunlight  on  it — 

Now  I  come  back  and  meet  you 

Without  grief. 

I    WOULD    BE    FREE 

I  would  be  free  of  you,  my  body; 
Free  of  you,  too,  my  little  soul. 
I  am  so  tired  of  this  mocking  hobby, 
I  am  so  tired  of  this  imaged  whole. 

I  would  be  neither  base  nor  godly. 
Loathing  myself,  could  I  bear  then 
To  see  all  life  and  suffering  oddly 
Twisted  and  shaped  to  the  needs  of  men? 

I  would  be  neither  my  own  nor  another's: 
I  would  not  tend  for  myself,  nor  hate 
The  flame  of  silence  that  in  me  smothers 
Under  the  crackling  smoke  of  fate. 

[261] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

God ! — what  is  there  for  such  as  in  me 
Cannot  be  two  and  are  not  whole? 
Within  the  spirit  dwells  the  body, 
Upon  the  body  feeds  the  soul. 


CRISIS 


Then,  being  aloof, 
To  give  myself 
Was  nothing  to  me: 
Only  leaves  falling 
On  the  roof 
Were  prophecy. 

DESPAIR 

If  the  dream  goes 

Does  it  matter? 

Life  remains  compact, 

Integrate,  whole; 

And  the  living  of  it 

Is  the  same 

Day  by  identical  day — 

There  is  nothing  missing! 

NOW    MORE    THAN    EVER    DIVIDED 

Now  more  than  ever  divided, 
Loving  and  yet  not  loving, 

[262] 


Eda  Lou  Walton 

A  worshiper  of  your  gentleness, 
Demanding  my  own  aloofness; 
Now  more  than  ever  divided, 
Two  of  myself,  two  in  you; 
Reared  as  a  tower  of  granite 
Bright  on  the  last  blue  hill, 
Crumbled  and  rooted  with  wild-flowers 
Under  the  touch  of  your  hand, 
Torn  as  a  leaf  from  a  woodvine 
Colorfully  tossed  to  the  wind, 
Caught  with  dry  tendrils  of  yearning 
Close  to  an  ancient  wall! 

IN    RECOMPENSE 

Now  for  the  long  years  when  I  could  not  love  you, 

I  bring  in  recompense  this  gift  of  yearning — 

A  luminous  vase  uplifted  to  the  sun, 

Blue  with  the  shadows  of  near-twilight. 

Here  in  its  full  round  symmetry  of  darkness, 

Burning  with  swift  curved  flashes  bright  as  tears, 

I  lift  it  to  the  lonely  lips  that  knew 

Its  slow  creation,  and  the  wheel  of  sorrow  turning. 

Take  it  with  hands  like  faded  petals, 

White  as  the  moonlight  of  our  garden; 

And  for  the  long  years  when  I  could  not  love  you 

Drink  from  its  amber-colored  night. 

Eda  Lou  Walton 

[263] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 
COMMENT 

MIDSUMMER    DELITE 

THE  poets  should  companion  us  in  midsummer- 
poets  old  and  new,  so  they  be  good  ones.  And 
we  shall  like  them  the  better  if  we  give  way  to  their 
moods  a  little  instead  of  imposing  on  them  our  own. 
"In  this  time  of  our  despair  we  should  turn  to  the  poets 
for  guidance  and  inspiration  toward  manhood,  rather 
than  sink  into  the  degradation  of  utter  unbelief  in  any- 
thing outside  our  small  selves" — so  wrote  the  Chicago 
Post's  London  correspondent  not  long  ago.  Yes,  guid- 
ance and  inspiration,  no  doubt,  but  why  be  so  solemn 
about  it?  We  turn  to  the  poet  for  delight,  and  of  delight 
even  guidance  and  inspiration  are  mere  corollaries. 

Delight,  let  us  remind  ourselves,  is  no  cheap  or  vulgar 
emotion.  What  says  our  faithful  guide,  the  Century 
Dictionary?  First,  we  are  told  that  our  modern  spelling 
is  "wrong" — we  should  return  to  the  earlier  delite, 
for  there  is  no  etymological  reason  for  linking  up  this 
Old-French  word  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  light  and  its 
extinct  guttural.  Delite,  then  (let  us,  for  a  midsummer 
moment,  resume  the  old  spelling)  comes  from  the  Latin 
delicere,  to  allure — the  same  root  which  gives  us  delicate, 
delectable,  delicious;  and  the  verb  transitive  means,  we 
are  told,  "to  affect  with  great  pleasure  or  rapture." 

I  will  delite  myself  in  thy  statutes, 
sings  the  Psalmist  to  God  himself. 

[264] 


Midsummer  Delite 

Man  delites  not  me — no,  nor  woman  either, 

cries  Hamlet.     And  in  Macbeth  we  are  reminded  that 

The  labor  we  delite  in  physics  pain. 

No,  delite  is  too  rare  to  be  cheap,  and  too  richly  fine 
to  be  vulgar.  Guidance  and  inspiration  spring  from 
under  its  wings,  but  so  do  gayety  and  all  the  keen  little 
joys  of  sense.  Are  few  of  us  heirs  of  delite  ? — Do  we  take 
our  little  joys  and  big  ones  merely  as  fact-ridden  pleasures 
and  without  this  finer  imaginative  zest?  Then  surely 
we  are  cheated  of  our  share  of  man's  universal  inheritance; 
then  surely  we  have  a  grievance  against  the  world,  whose 
misguiding  civilization  has  locked  us  away  from  nature 
and  the  other  high  original  sources  of  delite;  then  surely 
we  must  turn  to  the  poets,  the  artists,  the  seers,  and  take 
them  out  with  us  under  the  sky,  into  the  woods,  the 
plains,  the  mountains — set  them  against  the  play  of 
winds  and  waves,  of  sunshine  and  dark  storns.  Somehow 
we  must  restore  the  connection,  regain  and  develop  our 
souls'  capacity  for  delite.  It  is  a  stark,  sometimes  a 
bitter  business;  it  implies  the  stripping  away  of  "fold 
on  fold  of  flesh  and  fabrics  and  mockeries."  It  implies 
the  strict  sincerities  of  nature  and  of  art. 

Perhaps  the  poets  would  be  of  more  assistance  in  this 
business  if  we  could  trust  them  more — if,  as  I  said  above, 
we  could  give  way  to  their  moods  a  little  instead  of 
inposing  on  them  our  own.  The  man  in  search  of  guid- 
ance and  inspiration  resents  a  sense  of  humor  in  a  poet, 
criticizes  a  grotesque  as  if  it  were  intended  for  a  god. 

[265] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

The  tame  man  resents  a  wild  fling  of  free  verse;  the  violent 
man  resents  the  sonnet's  rounded  mold  of  sentiment. 
The  average  man  looks  for  peace  in  art,  resents  its  call 
to  war;  looks  for  his  own  image  in  a  poet,  and  a  flattering 
image  at  that.  Our  standardized  fellow-citizens — wearing 
their  clothes,  doing  their  jobs,  thinking  their  thoughts 
all  too  much  alike — would  standardize  that  incarnation 
of  the  untamable,  the  poet.  As  The  Nation  puts  it: 

We  do  not  banish  poets  from  the  Republic,  but  try  to  make  them  over 
into  the  image  of  congressmen.  "Is  it  necessary,"  we  ask,  "to  be  so 
wild  and  passionate  and  heedless?  How  are  we  to  know  that  the  fellow 
is  a  poet  and  not  a  poseur? " 

And  the  paper  advises: 

Let  us  be  content  not  to  know.  Better  that  ten  thousand  poseurs 
should  have  their  little  fling  and  fun  than  that  one  Shelley,  or  one  far 
less  than  Shelley,  should  be  wounded  or  restrained  or  silenced.  Can 
we  not  be  liberated  from  this  spirit  of  miserable  thrift?  .  .  .  Let  us 
admit  the  noble  madness  of  poets  and  allow  for  it.  Our  verse  will  be 
less  cool  and  humble  and  diluted,  and  more  simple,  sensuous  and  passion- 
ate. .  .  .  We  stand  in  bitter  need  of  a  glow,  however  faint,  of  the 
Dionysian,  the  unsubdued.  The  universe,  as  William  James  finely 
said,  is  wild  as  a  hawk's  wing. 

So,  in  our  summer  wanderings  of  body  or  spirit,  it 
may  be  well  to  practice  •  a  little  spiritual  lavishness. 
Only  by  giving  ourselves  away  to  our  poet-companions 
can  we  explore  their  kingdom  of  delite.  It  should  be  a 
proud  companionship  of  the  free — on  equal  terms  of 
challenge  and  retort,  of  daring,  unflinching  sympathy. 
Almost  any  poet  worthy  of  the  name,  thus  treated,  has 
much  to  give.  H.  M. 

[266] 


Brazilian  Dance  Songs 

BRAZILIAN   DANCE    SONGS 

It  may  be  worth  while  if  I  set  down  for  the  readers  of 
POETRY  some  of  the  songs  which  I  learned  on  afazenda 
twenty-seven  miles  from  a  railway  in  the  state  of  Bahia,  in 
Brazil.  "White  people"  did  not  come  to  this  place,  and  I 
.think  it  very  improbable  that  any  Brazilian  has  taken 
the  trouble  to  note  either  the  words  or  the  music  of  these 
songs,  so  full  of  atmosphere,  which  are  known  to  the 
vaqueiros  (Brazilian  gauchos)  and  to  the  country  people  in 
general  who  dance — sometimes  to  the  sound  of  a  guitar, 
sometimes  to  the  combined  stimulus  of  an  accordion  and 
a  bean-rattle,  but  again  to  the  simply  rhythmic  accom- 
paniment of  the  latter  instrument  alone,  an  affair  made 
from  a  gourd  and  gaily  decorated. 

This  dance,  or  samba,  may  be  varied,  but  frequently  it 
consists  of  no  more  than  monotonous  movements  of  the 
hips  and  an  uninterrupted  stamping  of  the  feet.  The 
men,  usually  heated  to  the  proper  pitch  of  enthusiasm  by 
a  copious  indulgence  in  rum,  move  in  a  hesitating  circle, 
each  man  with  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the  dancer  be- 
fore him;  approaching  and  retreating  as  they  face  the 
women  who  make  a  similar  approach  and  retreat,  the 
groups  joining  in  the  song  which  is  half  recitative.  The 
dance  sometimes  constitutes  a  method  of  lightening  labor; 
for  when  a  hut  is  to  be  constructed  the  prospective  owner 
invites  a  sufficient  number  of  friends,  who  dig  the  large 
pit  in  which  the  mud  is  to  be  mixed  for  chinking  the 
frail  walls  of  the  palm-thatched  dwelling.  Here,  appro- 

[267] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

priately  intoxicated  by  their  appreciative  host,  the  male 
visitors,  in  the  dancing  attitude  described  above,  churn 
the  mud  with  their  feet,  while  the  women  pass  to  and 
from  the  nearest  water  supply,  carrying  and  emptying 
large  earthen  jars,  to  the  encouragement  of  the  singers 
who  stamp  and  sway  with  a  hypnotic  motion,  an  ex- 
pression of  mingled  stupidity  and  exaltation  upon  their 
tan-complexioned  faces.  I  give  you  a  very  literal  trans- 
lation of  a  song  which  I  heard  on  one  of  these  occasions. 
In  the  original  there  is  a  marked  regular  beat,  but  the 
singers  interpret  the  music  very  freely  with  an  undupli- 
catable  variety  of  minor  quavers  and  resultant  accidentals 
that  show  the  African  influence  dominant  over  the 
Portuguese. 

I  was  a  seven-months  child. 

I  did  not  drink  milk  from  the  breast  of  my  mother. 

Yet  now  they  send  me  to  the  stream  to  pound  their  clothes. 

In  my  father's  corral  were  a  hundred  cows 

From  which  the  milk  was  taken  to  feed  me. 

Yet  today  they  send  me  to  the  stream  to  beat  the  clothes. 

Ei!     Take  the  /eaves  from  the  poisonous  corana,  little  Bahian  half-breed! 

I  have  no  heart,  Yaya; 

But  I  go  to  wash  your  clothes! 

In  regard  to  this  one  must  recall  that  there  is  a  tra- 
ditional distinction  in  being  a  seven-months  child,  and  that 
only  mothers  of  the  common  people  suckle  their  children. 
Yaya  and  Yoyo  are  feminine  and  masculine  terms  of 
respectful  address  introduced  by  the  Negroes. 


Brazilian  Dance  Songs 


Another  song  begins: 


In  my  land  there  are  palm  trees,  little  half  breed, 
Where  the  sabia  sings. 

Eiy  lei-lei,  Yaya! 

Come  here,  my  pretty  little  lady. 

The  birds  in  this  place 
Can  not  sing  like  my  birds. 

Eiy  lei-lei ,  Yaya! 

Come  here,  my  little  miss! 

The  songs  one  hears  in  more  populous  districts  are 
many  of  them  entirely  Portuguese  in  origin,  and  have  the 
Latin  religious  naivete.  One,  known  I  think  from  one 
end  of  Brazil  to  the  other,  is  called  Noiva  Morta  (The 
Dead  Bride],  and  the  lines  are  as  follows: 

When  I  die  I  shall  be  dressed  like  a  bride, 

With  my  hair  flowing  free  under  my  veil. 

They  will  say  to  each  other, 

"Already  she  resembles  one  of  the  angels  of  heaven." 

My  dress  will  be  woven  of  jealousy 

And  marked  with  cruel  passion. 

My  wreath  will  be  of  the  flowers  of  white  longing, 

And  my  sepulchre  shall  be  in  your  heart. 

A  lullaby,  which  was  often  sung  to  my  baby,  says: 

Hush,  hush,  hush! 

Open  the  door! 

Turn  the  lamp  high — 

Little  Manoel  Jose  wants  to  nurse, 

Little  Manoel  Jose  wants  to  sleep. 

He  will  not  sleep  in  a  bed, 

But  in  a  hammock  of  boughs 

Under  the  leaves. 

[269] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

This  little  baby  can  not  sleep  in  a  bed 
Because  he  is  accustomed  to  lie  between  the  feet  of  Our  Lady,  Saint  Anna. 

And  another  favorite  of  the  same  nurse-maid  of  extremely 
unpoetical  exterior  has  the  charmingly  unconsidered 
verse : 

I  will  come  to  you  singing 
In  a  cart  filled  with  roses  and  pinks. 
Our  Lady  will  stand  in  the  centre 
And  she  will  select  for  me  the  one  of  you  who  is  most  beautiful. 

And  again: 

I  saw  the  sea  fringed  with  gold, 

And  I  thought  it  was  a  cushion  of  blue  velvet. 

I  saw  the  sea  wound  with  streamers  of  white  ribbon. 

No — I  was  mistaken. 

There  is  nothing  there, 

But  I  see  white  faces  rising  up  at  me  out  of  the  water. 

Here  is  a  bit  which  is  particularly  characteristic  of  an 
ingratiatingly  elastic  ethical  consciousness: 

Negress  Laurencia,  who  gave  you  the  lace? 
It  was  the  shopkeeper,  senhora. 
He  is  called  Senhor  Chico. 
He  is  called  Senhor  Chico. 

Lace  of  silk  threads. 

Skirt  of  coarse  cotton! 

O  lady,  strike  me! — 

Don't  lock  me  up! 

If  I  stole  the  lace 

It  was  because  I  needed  it  very  much 

To  make  me  a  skirt 

For  the  procession  of  my  saint! 

I  think  I  can  not  end  this  reminiscence  better  than  by 
[270] 


Brazilian  Dance  Songs 

giving  you  the  first  two  verses  of  the  Fado  de  Hylario.  A 
fado  is  properly  a  song  of  the  people,  and  the  one  noted 
here  is  of  Portuguese  inspiration  and  as  well  known  in 
both  Portugal  and  Brazil  as  Suwanee  River  or  My  Old 
Kentucky  Home  among  us : 

Go  away  ashamed,  moon! — 
Get  out  of  the  heavens! 
The  eyes  of  my  beloved 
Are  far  brighter  than  yours! 

Our  Lady  is  knitting  a  pair  of  stockings 
With  yarn  made  of  light. 
The  points  of  Her  needles  are  the  stars, 
And  the  stockings  are  for  the  baby  Jesus. 

The  above  translations  are  from  memory,  and  in  spite 
of  the  defect  of  ignoring  the  rhythm  will,  I  think,  give 
some  idea  of  the  temperamental  qualities  of  the  Brazilian 
people.  Evelyn  Scott 

ABORIGINAL    TASMANIAN    POETRY 

The  extinct  Tasmanians  are  interesting  in  that  they 
were  the  most  primitive  race  that  we  have  any  knowledge 
of.  They  wore  no  clothes,  and  their  only  shelters  were  a 
few  pieces  of  bark  propped  up  for  a  break- wind;  yet  they 
decked  themselves  with  shell-necklets  and  had  quite  elab- 
orate poetry.  Does  not  this  prove  that  art,  if  it  does  not 
come  before  utility,  at  least  comes  directly  after  food, 
before  clothes  and  shelter?  In  singing  their  songs  two  or 
three  would  take  up  the  burden,  always  at  intervals  of  a 

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POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

third.  Some  listeners  have  likened  them  to  the  songs  of 
the  Arabs;  one  (I  don't  know  whether  he  was  a  Scotch- 
man) compared  them  to  the  bagpipes.  Around  their  fire 
at  night  they  sang  of  the  doings  of  the  day,  and  very  often 
some  striking  scene  would  be  enacted.  If  the  acted  scene 
was  a  success,  a  corollary  was  born  which  passed  on  from 
tribe  to  tribe  all  over  the  island. 

Their  language,  full  of  vowel  sounds  and  liquid  con- 
sonants, was  almost  as  musical  as  Italian.  Here  is  a  song 
sung  by  the  women,  with  a  rough  translation  following  it: 

Nikkeh  ningeh  tribneh  nickeh  mollyga  pollyla. 

Namu  rykemmeh  treganna  mabeh  thinninneh  treganna 

Nehnane,  kehgreuna,  nynaby  thinneh^   tringeh  gugerra  tyathinneh, 

Nynabythinneh  koobryneh,  march  terrennet. 

Pypatehinneh  pungtinneh,  loocoothinneh. 

The  women  hunt  the  kangaroo  and  wallaby. 

The  emu  runs  in  the  bush,  the  kangaroo  runs  in  the  bush. 

The  young  emu,  the  wallaby,  the  joey-kangaroo,  the  bandicoot,  the 

kangaroo-rat, 
The  little  kangaroo-rat  and  the  little  opossum,  the  ring-tail  opossum, 

etc. 

And  so  on,  enumerating  all  the  animals  that  are  hunted. 
There  were  endless  repetitions,  some  lines  being  repeated 
two  or  three  times.  Time  was  kept  by  beating  sticks  to- 
gether and  beating  with  the  hands  on  skins  rolled  up  tight 
to  form  a  drum. 

A  narrative  called  The  Legend  of  Fire  is  the  only  fraction 
of  their  mythology  which  has  been  preserved.  The  two 
stars  Castor  and  Pollox  are  associated  with  its  heroes' 
adventures.  H.  W.  Stewart 

[272] 


REVIEWS 

ROBINSON'S  DOUBLE  HARVEST 

The  Three  Taverns,  and  Avon 's  Harvest,  by  Edwin  Arling- 
ton Robinson.    Macmillan  Co. 

It  is  a  relief  to  some  of  Mr.  Robinson's  admirers  to  find 
him  once  more  in  the  U.  S.  A.  instead  of  in  Camelot;  for, 
to  tell  the  truth,  he  is  much  more  at  home  here,  and  the 
figures  he  presents  are  much  more  convincing.  Although 
there  are  in  The  Three  Taverns  certain  studies  of  historic 
or  legendary  characters — Hamilton  and  Burr,  Rahel 
Robert,  John  Brown,  Paul  of  Tarsus,  Lazarus — both 
books  are  mainly  in  this  poet's  most  characteristic  vein, 
mainly  studies  of  his  gnarled  and  weather-beaten  neigh- 
bors; of  incomplete,  unrounded  characters  in  tragically  ill- 
fitting  human  relationships. 

Of  these  monologue  or  dialogue  narratives  Avon's  Har- 
vest, the  longest,  is  perhaps  the  most  distinguished.  With 
true  New  England  frugality,  it  weaves  a  closely  knit, 
formidable  tragedy  out  of  meagre  materials — a  college 
antagonism,  a  blow,  a  long  worm-eating  revenge;  and  its 
creeping  emotion  of  horror  is  all  the  more  powerful,  per- 
haps, because  of  the  poet's  restraint.  Probably  a  psycho- 
analyst would  diagnose  Avon's  case  as  insanity — delusions 
induced  by  fear  of  the  serpentine,  ruthless  being  whose 
offensive  love  had  changed  into  consuming  hatred.  But 
such  a  gradual  burrowing  insanity  was  never  more  sharply 
and  powerfully  presented.  The  thing  is  done  with  a  kind 

[273] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

of  cold  thrift,  as  effective  in  its  way  as  Poe's  lush  and 
shadowed  eloquence;  the  music  in  the  one  case  being  slow 
and  stern,  and  in  the  other  rich  and  full  of  sombre  color. 
Avon  has  a  tonal,  almost  monotonous  beauty: 

You  need  not  ask 

What  undulating  reptile  he  was  like, 
For  such  a  worm  as  I  discerned  in  him 
Was  never  yet  on  earth  or  in  the  ocean 
Or  anywhere  else  than  in  my  sense  of  him. 

Again: 

And  having  had  one  mordacious  glimpse  of  him 
That  filled  my  eyes  and  was  to  fill  my  life, 
I  have  known  Peace  only  as  one  more  word 
Among  the  many  others  we  say  over 
That  have  an  airy  credit  of  no  meaning. 

Last  year's  book,  The  Three  Taverns^  is  mostly  also 
dramatic  narratives.  I  confess  that  certain  ones  interest 
me  intellectually  but  bring  little  emotional  thrill.  The 
Hamilton-Burr  dialogue,  the  monologues  by  Saint  Paul 
and  Rahel  Robert  and  John  Brown,  are  searching  essays 
in  character  analysis,  but  they  leave  one  cold.  There  is 
more  of  John  Brown's  flaming  personality  in  a  few  lines 
of  Lindsay's  poem — 

And  there  he  sits 
To  judge  the  world; 
His  hunting    ogs 
At  his  feet  are  curled — 

than  in  these  pages  of  farewell  ito  his  wife  and  the  world, 
fine  as  many  passages  are: 

[274] 


Robinson 's  Doufr/e  Harvest 

Could  I  have  known,  I  say,  before  I  left  you 

That  summer  morning,  all  there  was  to  know — 

Even  unto  the  last  consuming  word 

That  would  have  blasted  every  mortal  answer 

As  lightning  would  annihilate  a  leaf, 

I  might  have  trembled  on  that  summer  morning; 

I  might  have  wavered;  and  I  might  have  failed. 

The  best  line  in  the  poem  is  fortunately  the  last: 
I  shall  have  more  to  say  when  I  am  dead. 

There  is.  no  lack  of  fire  in  London  Bridge,  a  case  of  ill- 
assorted  marriage  in  which  the  pair  hurl  swathed  rocks 
of  hatred  at  each  other — these  two  are  terribly  alive. 
Also,  in  a  marriage-case  less  violent  but  more  perplexing, 
one  is  deeply  moved  by  Nimmo  of  the  "velvet  eyes", 

At  his  bewildered  and  unfruitful  task 
Of  being  what  he  was  born  to  be — a  man. 

And  one  "gets"  completely  "the  inextinguishable  grace" 
of  the  vagabond  in  Peace  on  Earth,  and  the  nothingness  of 
Taskar  Norcross, 

a  dusty  worm  so  dry 

That  even  the  early  bird  would  shake  his  head 
And  fly  on  farther  for  another  breakfast. 

But  it  is  in  Mr.  Robinson's  meditative  poems  that  one 
tastes  most  keenly  the  sharp  and  bitter  savor  of  his  high 
aloof  philosophy.  He  is  not  for  Demos: 

Having  all, 

See  not  the  great  among  you  for  the  small, 
But  hear  their  silence;  for  the  few  shall  save 

[275] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

The  many,  or  the  many  are  to  fall — 
Still  to  be  wrangling  in  a  noisy  grave. 

He  offers  no  solution  of  the  problem  of  creation,  either 
in  general  or  in  detail,  but  he  presents  it  in  vivid  lines: 

There  were  seekers  after  darkness  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 
And  they  alone  were  there  to  find  what  they  were  looking  for. 

He  insists — 

That  earth  has  not  a  school  where  we  may  go 
For  wisdom,  or  for  more  than  we  may  know. 

But  meantime, 

Say  what  you  feel,  while  you  have  time  to  say  it — 
Eternity  will  answer  for  itself. 

H.M. 


THE    POET    OF   THE    WAR 

Poems,    by    Wilfred    Owen;    with    an    introduction    by 

Siegfried  Sassoon.    B.  W.  Huebsch. 

English  critics  have  been  giving  high  praise  to  Wilfred 
Owen's  poems.  Now  that  he  has  achieved  an  American 
edition,  we  are  enabled  to  ratify  their  choice  of  him  as 
the  most  distinguished  poet  of  the  War,  and  join  in  their 
sorrow  over  his  early  death  as  one  of  its  heaviest  losses. 

Personally  I  find  his  work  very  fine  indeed.  I  don't 
think  the  much-discussed  Strange  Meeting  stands  out  far, 
if  any,  above  the  others — Apologia  Pro  Poemate  Meo,  or 
The  Show,  for  instance;  or  the  three  lyrics,  Greater  Love, 
Arms  and  the  Boy,  Anthem  for  Doomed  Youth.  The  experi- 

[276] 


The  Poet  of  the  War 

ment  with  assonance  in  Strange  Meeting  arouses  interest, 
but  this  is  not  the  only  poem  by  any  means  in  which  he 
uses  alliterative  assonance  skilfully,  although  here  the 
scheme  is  more  definite  and  obvious. 

Certainly  there  is  nothing  cheap  about  Wilfred  Owen, 
and  if  he  was  making  propaganda  against  war  in  his 
verse,  as  he  might  very  justly,  he  was  consciously  making 
poetry  also;  which  is  what  some  of  the  other  war-poets 
forgot  or  failed  to  do.  In  one  or  two  of  the  poems  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  book  one  comes  upon  the  vein  made 
popular  by  Siegfried  Sassoon  and  Gibson  and  others — 
the  sort  of  "bloomin'  "  character-sketch  or  satiric  incident, 
as  in  Chances  or  S.  I.  W.>  in  which  someone  wrote  the 
mother  of  the  soldier  who  had  kissed  the  muzzle  of  his 
gun  and  shot  himself,  "Tim  died  smiling."  But  these 
are  below  the  level  of  Wilfred  Owen's  other  poems,  al- 
though certainly  not  below  this  type  of  poem  by  Sassoon 
or  Gibson. 

The  trouble  with  these  poems,  if  one  considers  them  as 
propaganda,  is  that  they  do  not  propagandize!  They 
have  a  piquant  flair  for  the  easy-chair  reader — quite  as 
much  as  that  first  emotional  reaction  to  war  which  was 
Rupert  Brooke's.  For  the  fact  is,  they  represent  war  as 
adventure;  and  on  the  page  it  matters  not  whether  a  man 
is  killed  in  a  trench  or  in  a  gun-fight  in  Arizona — the  zest 
for  the  reader  is  the  same.  And  the  result,  so  far  as  prop- 
aganda against  war  is  concerned,  is  quite  the  opposite 
of  the  effect  intended. 

[277] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

But  when  it  comes  to  the  slow  horror  of  such  a  poem  as 
The  Show,  or  the  subtle  satire  of  Arms  and  the  Boy,  or  the 
pitiful  hopelessness  of  Strange  Meeting,  there  you  have 
the  deep  personal  experience  and  revelation  which  is  the 
only  sort  of  propaganda  (and  one  might  say  of  poetry) 
that  counts.  These  poems  are  indeed  at  the  opposite  pole 
from  Rupert  Brooke's  gesture  of  sacrifice  and  renunci- 
ation. And  yet  the  sacrifice  is  made  no  less,  with  a  mar- 
velously  cool  restraint  and  clear  perception.  This  is 
what  makes  Greater  Love  such  a  fine  poem — fine  also  in 
sheer  poetic  quality;  with  a  certain  seventeenth-century 
perfection,  like  George  Herbert  or  Donne. 

To  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  sort  of  satiric  graphic 
sketches  noted  above,  what  I  mean  about  these  is  what 
Wilfred  Owen  meant: 

Nevertheless,  except  you  share 

With  them  in  hell  the  sorrowful  dark  of  hell, 
Whose  mould  is  but  the  trembling  of  a  flare, 
And  Heaven  but  as  the  highway  for  a  shell, 

You  shall  not  hear  their  mirth; 

You  shall  not  come  to  think  them  well  content, 
By  any  jest  of  mine.    These  men  are  worth 
Your  tears:  you  are  not  worth  their  merriment. 

Neither  are  we,  I  have  sometimes  thought,  worth  their 
stark  tragedies,  or  these  trench  paradoxes  which  furnish 
incidents  for  the  poetic  cinema,  so  to  speak — so  that  poets 
also  may  become  war  profiteers!  It  is  this  that  I  have 
resented  in  many  of  the  war-poems  which,  like  the  war 
to  end  war,  were  supposed  to  rid  war  of  its  glamour.  The 

[278] 


The  Poet  of  the  War 

best  of  Owen's  poems  are  far  indeed  from  this;  and  that 
is  their  virtue. 

Wilfred  Owen  evidently  belonged  to  a  later  generation 
than  Rupert  Brooke,  in  spite  of  the  few  years  between 
them;  this  not  only  in  respect  to  his  attitude  about  war, 
in  which  change  Brooke  would  undoubtedly  have  shared 
had  he  lived,  but  in  respect  to  his  verse  as  well.  It  is 
nervous,  sinewy,  closely  packed.  His  is  a  hardness  and 
a  precision  that — could  it  have  been  preserved  past  the 
Sambre  Canal,  where  he  fell  only  a  few  days  before  the 
Armistice — would  certainly  have  achieved  much.  He 
could  not,  one  feels  sure,  have  degenerated  into  any 
"Georgian"  looseness  of  thought  or  structure.  There  is 
too  much  aloofness  in  his  poems  for  that,  and  too  much 
clear  vision.  A.  C.  H. 

MR.  MASEFIELD'S  RACER 

Right  Royaly  by  John  Masefield.    Macmillan  Co. 

The  poem  Right  Royal^  by  John  Masefield,  is  un- 
doubtedly a  splendid  realistic  description  of  a  steeple- 
chase; written,  I  should  judge,  by  one  who  has  never 
ridden  over  a  course,  but  who,  being  a  good  horseman,  has 
painstakingly  covered  every  point  in  the  race.  Partic- 
ularly good  is  his  description  of  the  London  betting  com- 
missioner's representative  who  visits  the  racing  stables, 
and  his  picture  of  the  race  crowds  on  their  way  vividly 
recalls  Charles  Lever's  description  of  those  making  their 
annual  pilgrimage  to  the  Punchestown  steeplechases. 

[279] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

But  whether  Right  Royal  could  really  have  won  this 
race,  as  he  does  in  Mr.  Masefield's  poem,  is  another 
matter. 

After  the  most  grueling  race,  of  some  four  miles,  to 
which  a  horse  can  be  subjected,  it  seems  unreasonable  to 
suppose  this  super-horse  capable,  in  a  run  of  four  furlongs 
on  the  flat,  of  making  up  thirty  lengths  lost  by  his  mishap 
at  the  jump  known  as  Lost  Lady. 

Let  me  make  this  quite  clear:  Compton  Course,  on 
which  the  race  was  run,  was  four-and-a-quarter  miles  in 
length.  The  first  time  around  the  course  Right  Royal 
lost  thirty  lengths  at  the  hurdle  and  ditch.  Eighteen 
lengths  he  seems  to  have  made  up  by  the  time  he  came  to 
his  Lost  Lady  jump  on  the  second  time  around  the 
course.  This  of  course  took  a  great  deal  out  of  the  horse. 

Now,  at  the  average  speed  at  which  steeplechases  of  this 
distance  are  run,  the  horses  were  covering  approximately 
forty-eight  feet  a  second — about  four  and  a  half  lengths. 
Right  Royal,  in  pecking  at  the  Lost  Lady  jump,  thereby 
coming  almost  to  a  standstill,  recovering  himself  and 
again  getting  into  his  stride,  must  have  lost  some  four 
seconds,  or  eighteen  lengths.  As  he  was  twelve  lengths 
behind  when  taking  the  jump,  he  had  thirty  lengths  to 
recover  before  overtaking  his  field,  in  half  a  mile.  This 
is  obviously  impossible. 

Conceding  a  steeplechase  to  be  the  chanciest  of  races, 
the  poem  nevertheless  seems  to  convey  the  impression 
that  the  rider  of  Right  Royal  rather  expected  all  the  other 

[280] 


Mr.  Masefield^s  Racer 

horses  to  meet  with  mishaps,  thereby  enabling  his  mount 
to  win.  A  number  of  stanzas,  being  entirely  irrelevant, 
should  have  been  omitted:  for  a  four-mile  effort  it  carries 
too  much  hay.  But  the  poem  as  a  whole  is  delightful, 
and  takes  every  lover  of  a  thoroughbred  well  over  the 
jumps  with  him  and  holds  the  interest  from  post  to  finish. 

N.  Howard  Thorp 

NOTE.  Because  of  the  controversy  as  to  whether  Mr.  Masefield's 
hero  is  a  real  horse  or  a  super-steed  of  the  poet's  invention,  the  editor 
submitted  the  book  to  a  cowboy  poet  whose  horsemanship  is  as  famous 
throughout  the  West  as  his  poetry. 

SONGS    AND    SPLASHES 

Morning,  Noon  and  Night,  by  Glenn  Ward  Dresbach. 

Four  Seas  Co. 

One  may  find  a  few  fine  lyrics  in  this  book,  as  in  the 
two  earlier  ones  which  this  poet  has  put  out — songs  simple 
almost  to  obviousness,  but  deftly  and  musically  turned. 
Such  are  three  or  four  in  the  Burro  Mountains  and  Apple- 
blossoms  groups  which  open  the  volume,  numbers  three 
and  four  of  the  Fruit-growing  group,  the  longer  poem 
To  One  Beloved,  and  the  first  of  the  Songs  after  the  War. 
These,  all  but  the  last,  our  readers  have  seen;  here  is  a 
shapely  new  one,  with  a  wistful  ending. 

I  heard  a  thrush  when  twilight  came 
Sing  of  the  woes  it  had  not  known — 

Of  hearts  that  burned  in  rainbow  flame, 
Of  barren  fields  where  seeds  were  sown. 

[281] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  then  it  sang  of  happy  trees 

Where  fruit  is  golden  in  the  sun, 
Of  raptures  and  of  mysteries 

Through  which  the  songs  of  seasons  run. 

And  I  was  sadder  for  the  song 

Of  rapture  than  the  song  of  pain — 

For  one  lost  gladness,  gone  so  long, 
Came  back  and  could  not  hurt  again! 

Of  the  longer  poems  The  Nest  of  the  Bluebird  has  a 
softly  flowing  dreaminess,  the  dreamer  recalling  the  many 
human  lives  of  his  wandering  soul.  If  only  there  were 
more  magic  in  its  tunefulness,  more  invention  in  its  phras- 
ing and  epithets,  more  white  alchemic  fire  in  its  motive 
power — the  creative  zest  behind  it — we  should  have  a 
memorable  poem,  somewhat  in  the  mood  of  Tennyson's 
Lotus-eaters  but  bearing  a  different  spiritual  inference. 

Sometimes  one  is  more  irritated;  sometimes  it  seems 
absurd  that  a  poet  who  has  studiously  trained  himself 
should  do  the  obvious  or  banal  thing  with  such  an  inno- 
cent air.  Certain  of  the  narrative  poems  are  too  cheaply 
journalistic,  one  would  think — The  ColoneTs  Lady,  for 
example — to  be  allowed  typewriter  privileges,  not  to 
speak  of  printer's  ink.  And  how  can  an  accredited  poet 
commit  such  a  crime  as  the  second  of  these  two  lines: 

I  cannot  dine  with  you  today 
And  hear  how  all  your  wealth  does  good — 

or  close  a  war-song   with  such   a  meagre  rhyme-com- 
promise as 

But,  Lord  of  Nations,  tell  us 
That  Wars  no  more  remain. 

[282] 


Songs  and  Splashes 

A  few  of  the  songs  remind  us  that  the  poet  has  lived  in 
New  Mexico  and  Panama,  but  the  impress  of  the  wilder- 
ness, of  strange  places,  is  not  very  strong  on  a  temper- 
ament perhaps  too  hospitable  to  the  lighter  and  more 
facile  emotions.  H.  M. 

MODERN    AND    ELIZABETHAN 

The  Poet  in  the  Desert,  by  Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood. 

(New  revised  ed.)      Privately  printed,  Portland,  Ore. 
Maia — a  Sonnet  Sequence,  by  Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood, 

with  two  sonnets  by  Sara  Bard  Field.     Portland,  Ore. 

Some  years  ago — in  September,  1915 — POETRY  reviewed 
the  first  of  these  two  books,  then  just  published.  Let  us 
reaffirm  the  opinion  then  expressed,  which  referred 
especially  to  the  Prologue,  now  the  poem's  first  section: 

Mr.  Wood  proves  himself  a  poet  not  only  by  the  sweep  and  power 
of  his  vision,  but  by  the  rich  imagery  and  rhythmic  beauty  of  his  free 
verse  at  its  best.  His  special  distinction  is  that  he  really  "enters  into 
the  desert,"  that  his  poetry  really  presents  something  of  the  color  and 
glory,  the  desolation  and  tragedy,  of  this  western  wonderland. 

The  new  edition  of  the  poem  is  almost  a  re- writing  of 
much  of  it;  and  for  the  better,  as  it  is  relieved  of  a  good 
deal  of  social  and  political  propaganda. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  judge  impartially  Maia,  coming  as 
it  does  in  all  the  luxury  of  Gothic  type  on  hand-made 
large-paper,  with  decorative  illustrations  singularly  per- 
sonal (at  least  the  frontispiece  is  confessedly  by  the 
author),  and  of  a  beauty  a  bit  amateurish  perhaps,  but 
delicate  and  rare.  But  one  may  safely  record  astonish- 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

ment  that  the  same  man  should  achieve,  when  well  along 
in  the  dangerous  middle  years  of  life,  these  two  poems  of 
different  moods  and  modes — the  challenging  radical 
modernism  of  the  one,  and  the  old-world  freshness  and 
acceptance-of-joy  of  the  other. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  Mr.  Wood  is  a  more  arrest- 
ing poet  in  the  western  desert  than  in  the  Elizabethan 
garden.  The  sonnets  are,  perhaps  inevitably,  imitative 
of  Sidney  or  Spenser;  while  The  Poet  in  the  Desert  is  the 
intensely  personal  work  of  a  modern  observer  and  thinker, 
an  impassioned  challenge  to  civilization,  containing  pas- 
sages of  beauty  and  power.  H.  M. 

CLASSICS    IN    ENGLISH 

Sappho,  by  Henry  Thornton  Wharton.    Brentano's. 
The  Golden  Treasury  of  the  Greeks,  by  Alexander  Lothian. 

Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford,  England. 
Medallions  in  Clay,  by  Richard  Aldington.     Alfred  A. 

Knopf. 
The  Poets'  Translation  Series:  Second  Set.    The  Egoist. 

Translators  put  one  under  no  obligation  to  consider 
their  work  in  relation  to  original  texts  not  included  in 
their  books.  I  shall  assume  no  familiarity  with  the  classic 
works  involved,  but  shall  consider  these  books  principally 
as  English  poems  upon  foreign  and  antique  subjects. 

Wharton  is  the  standard  Sappho.  This  new  edition 
outdoes  the  former,  containing  useful  literal  translations, 

[284] 


Classics  in  English 

a  useless  and  elaborate  "life,"  metrical  versions  from 
various  hands,  and  disastrous  attempts  at  paraphrasis  by 
Miss  Anne  Bunner.  He  is  not  content  with  a  single  notion 
of  the  shifty  poet-pedagogue;  he  must  have  them  all — 
an  encyclopedia  of  Sapphos. 

Mr.  Lothian,  who  has  "rendered"  the  Greek  Anthology, 
has  worked  hard.  His  neat  rhymed  verse  is  no  more 
Greek,  or  at  least  no  less  English,  than  Herrick;  the 
comparison  which  he  invites  could  not  be  fair  to  him. 
At  his  worst  he  contrives  an  embarrassed  jig-rhythm. 
At  his  best  there  are  elegant  stanzas  like  this: 

Yet  there,  your  nightingales  as  clear 

Sing  as  they  sang  of  old. 
The  clutch  of  death  is  wide;  but  here 

Is  what  he  cannot  hold. 

Medallions  in  Clay  contains  the  translations  from  Anyte, 
Meleager,  the  Anacreontea,  and  the  Latin  poets  of  the 
Renaissance  which  Mr.  Aldington  prepared  for  the 
Poets'  Translation  Series  published  some  time  ago  in 
England.  A  writer  dealing  with  a  past  age  must  decide 
whether  frankly  to  outfit  it  in  historical  trappings,  "cos- 
tume," etc.;  or  to  transpose  it  into  the  idiom  of  his  race 
and  day,  which  produces  an  effect  consistent  if  bizarre 
(see  Synge's  Villon  and  Petrarch).  Mr.  Aldington  has 
done  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

All  traces  of  period  have  disappeared.  He  might  have 
preserved  the  aroma  of  these  verses  more  successfully 
if  he  had  kept  the  original  line-divisions,  leaving  the 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

words  more  or  less  in  their  original  order.  This  would 
not  of  course  indicate  the  original '  tune,  but  it  might 
create  another;  as  in  Miss  Densmore's  Chippewa  trans- 
lations, or  Arthur  Waley's  Ufa.  Such  rhythms  are  at 
least  jagged,  and  clash  upon  the  ear;  whereas  the  sort 
of  cadence  Mr.  Aldington  writes  lulls  the  mind  to  sleep. 
Contemporary  poetic  prose  seems  to  be  a  variety  of 
metrical  molasses. 

Mr.  Aldington,  however,  is  earnest  and  scholarly,  his 
translations  are  infinitely  to  be  preferred  to  the  hackwork 
of  professors,  and  they  doubtless  contribute  much  to  the 
general  culture  of  Anglo-Saxons.  To  do  so  may  have 
been  the  aim  of  the  various  imagists  whose  zeal  and  study 
carried  out  the  scheme. 

Except  H.  D.,  they  share  his  shortcomings,  as  well  as 
some  of  his  excellences.  They  all  have  reverent  and  bland 
dispositions  toward  the  holy  classics,  they  seem  to  have 
worked  in  a  cloud  of  "sweetness  and  light."  But  I  feel 
an  absence  of  outline,  clear  light,  sensuous  precision,  and 
a  corresponding  tendency  to  the  sweet  and  discreetly 
sentimental.  This  is  true  of  Mr.  Storer's  translations  of 
Sappho,  Poseidippus,  and  Asklepiades;  and  it  may  be  said 
also  of  the  work  of  Mr.  Flint  and  Mr.  Whitall  in  the 
•First  Set. 

The  Pound-Fenollosa  Chinese  had  faces,  manners,  gar- 
ments, dreams,  tangibles.  Most  of  these  Greeks  and 
Romans  have  none.  The  archaic  energy  which  must 
have  animated  their  exploits,  military  or  imaginative,  is 

[286] 


Classics  in  English 

nowhere  to  be  found.  No  race  of  men  ever  subsisted  on 
sweet  rhetorical  distinction.  This  absence  of  vitality  is 
an  effect  of  diction,  of  sound,  of  rhythm;  as  in  this,  from 
one  of  Mr.  Aldington's  Anacreontea: 

I  would  drink,  stretched  upon  delicate  myrtle  boughs  and  lotus  grass. 
And  Love,  with  his  robe  fastened  about  his  throat  with  papyrus,  should 
serve  me  wine. 

The  solitary  exception,  naturally  enough,  is  the  work 
of  H.  D.  She  writes  English  as  hard  as  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
cultivates  no  continental  suavities.  She  has  had  the 
discretion  to  select  for  her  contribution  Euripides — 
Choruses  from  the  Iphigenia  in  Aulis  and  the  Hippolytusy 
which  remained  impassioned  even  in  the  swathings  of 
Professor  Murray's  Swinburnian  verse. 

T.  S.  Eliot,  in  reviewing  the  First  Set  in  POETRY  some 
years  ago,  noted  that  in  avoiding  such  an  English  cliche 
as  "Achilles  ran  like  the  wind,"  her  version,  "Achilles  had 
strapped  the  wind  about  his  ankles,"  is  contrary  to 
Euripides.  I  agree  with  H.  D.,  who  seems  to  feel  that  a 
modern  poet  need  not  reproduce  with  exactness  phrases 
redundant  or  over-familiar.  She  explains  thus  in  a  note 
in  the  Egoist  (vol.  II,  No.  II) : 

While  the  sense  of  the  Greek  has  been  strictly  kept,  it  is  necessary 
to  point  out  that  the  repetition  of  useless,  ornamental  adjectives  .  .  .  is  a 
heavy  strain  on  the  translator's  ingenuity  .  .  .  the  Homeric  epithet 
degenerates  into  what  the  French  call  a  remplissage — an  expression  to 
fill  up  a  line.  Such  phrases  have  been  paraphased  or  omitted. 

Even  Greek  rhetoric  evidently  had  its  false  notes. 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

What  if  these  warriors  and  women  of  hers  are  not 
Greek?  The  Greeks  are  dead.  We  cannot  put  the  mask 
beside  the  face  to  measure  it.  It  is  enough  if  the  mask 
moves  and  speaks.  He  who  knows  no  Greek  has  the 
right  to  say:  I  will  call  these  Greek;  for  they  are  surely 
men  and  women,  they  have  substance,  they  move  with 
passion. 

They  will  lift  their  shields, 
Riveted  with  brass, 
As  they  enter  Simois 
In  their  painted  ships. 

Phaedra  cries  out  on  her  sick-bed: 

Take  me  to  the  mountains! 

Oh  for  woods,  pine  tracts, 

Where  hounds  athirst  for  death 

Leap  on  the  bright  stags! 

God,  how  I  would  shout  to  the  beasts 

With  my  gold  hair  torn  loose! 

The  individual  talent  cannot  develop  richly  without  an 
historic  sense.  One  need  not  know  all  periods  of  the 
past,  but  some  consciousness  of  Time's  moods  one  must 
have — one  must  feel  Time  strangely  garbed,  with  un- 
familiar talk  or  metric.  H.  D.'s  Greeks,  at  least  for  the 
moment,  are  my  Greeks.  It  does  not  matter  whether 
they,  any  more  than  Shakespeare's  Romans  from  Plutarch, 
correspond  with  the  latest  or  best  findings  of  scientific 
historians.  They  live,  are  entities  in  the  mind,  with  alien 
behavior  and  curious  looks;  and  in  the  contemplation  of 
them  the  poet  may  truly  see  himself  in  his  own  time. 

Glenway  Wescott 

[288] 


OUR  CONTEMPORARIES 

THE    DIAL'S    ANNUAL    AWARD 

Our  much  esteemed  contemporary  The  Dial  is  setting 
a  new  pace  for  literary  prizes  by  offering  an  annual  two- 
thousand-dollar  purse  to  some  one  of  its  contributors. 
This  is,  we  believe,  the  largest  literary  award  ever  made 
in  this  country — may  it  be  a  hint  to  others  capable  of 
being  moved  by  a  generous  sense  of  justice! 

POETRY,  from  its  first  number,  has  been  urging  prizes 
and  scholarships  for  poets,  believing  such  awards  to  be 
as  rightfully  due  in  this  art  as  in  painting,  sculpture  or 
music.  But  we  have  not  yet  made  much  headway. 
Meantime  count  the  scholarships  in  art  schools!  In  this 
year's  graduating  exercises  at  the  Chicago  Art  Institute 
art  school,  one  young  girl  sculptor  received  a  thousand- 
dollar  scholarship,  and  another  an  award  half  as  large,  for 
the  two  best  designs  on  the  subject  Harvest — fifteen 
hundred  dollars  handed  out  as  a  matter  of  course,  just 
like  that,  for  a  couple  of  nice  little  academic  bas-reliefs 
(I  saw  them),  not  to  be  compared  for  a  moment  with 
many  poems  we  have  printed  by  gifted  but  impecunious 
boys  and  girls  who  scarcely  know  where  their  next  meal 
is  coming  from!  Why  are  new  scholarships  and  prizes 
founded  every  year  in  art  exhibitions  and  schools,  while 
it  remains  impossible  to  convince  our  men  and  women  of 
wealth,  however  liberally  disposed  they  may  be,  that 
the  poets  have  much  more  need  of  such  awards,  and  at 

[289] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

present  more  right  to  them?  How  shall  we  wake  people 
up  to  the  bitter  injustice  of  the  poet's  meagre  earnings, 
to  the  lack  of  all  financial  recognition  of  his  service? 
The  Dial  is  doing  well  to  make  a  generous  move  in  the 
right  direction. 

NEW    MAGAZINES 

New  organs  of  this  art  are  appearing  so  rapidly  that  it 
is  difficult  to  keep  track  of  them.  The  Measure  is  now 
nearly  half  a  year  old,  with  Padraic  Colum  and  Carolyn 
Hall  as  its  editors  for  the  summer  quarter.  Tempo,  pub- 
lished at  Danvers,  Mass.,  with  Oliver  Jenkins  as  editor 
and  R.  Ellsworth  Larsson  as  associate,  appeared  in  June. 
And  Voices — A  Journal  of  Verse,  is  to  begin  next  autumn 
as  a  quarterly,  with  Harold  Vinal  as  editor  and  Fiswoode 
Tarleton  as  associate;  issuing  from  Steinert  Hall,  Boston. 

Besides  these  along  the  Atlantic,  we  welcome  also 
The  Lyric  West — A  Magazine  of  Verse,  which  began  in 
April  at  Los  Angeles,  under  the  editorship  of  Grace 
Atherton  Dennen,  1139  West  Twenty-seventh  Street. 
It  is  "designed  to  foster  the  poetic  development  of  the 
expanding  West,  though  it  will  be  an  open  market  for 
the  work  of  all  verse  writers  of  all  places." 

Mr.  Vinal  may  not  be  aware  that  there  is  an  English 
Voices — an  interesting  magazine  of  progressive  modern 
spirit,  devoted  chiefly  to  poetry  but  including  some 
imaginative  prose,  a  few  drawings  and  a  section  of 
reviews  and  notes.  In  the  latest  Summer  Number,  which 

[290] 


New  Magazines 

is  No.  Ill  of  Vol.  V,  we  find  poems  by  certain  of  our  own 
friends — John  Gould  Fletcher,  Louis  Golding,  Isaac 
Rosenberg — as  well  as  an  article  on  Rosenberg  by  Samuel 
Roth,  formerly  editor  of  The  Lyric ',  who  is  now  in  England. 
The  editor  of  Voices  is  Thomas  Moult,  whose  poem  of 
last  summer,  Here  for  a  Time,  our  readers  will  remember; 
and  the  publishers  are  Chapman  &  Hall,  Ltd. 

The  use  of  a  title  already  pre-empted  by  another 
magazine,  however  far  away,  is  of  course  unfortunate. 
POETRY  is  nearly  nine  years  old,  but  we  received  recently 
a  copy  of  a  monthly  published  by  Cornish  Bros.,  Ltd.,  in 
Birmingham,  England,  under  the  title  Poetry;  with  the 
sub- title  A  Magazine  of  Verse,  Comment  and  Criticism. 
Somewhat  intrigued,  we  inquired  of  the  editor,  Mr.  S. 
Fowler  Wright,  whether  he  was  ignorant  of  POETRY'S 
existence  when  he  adopted  the  same  title.  Mr.  Wright 
promised  to  pass  the  query  on  to  his  predecessor,  the 
founder,  but  we  have  never  received  an  answer.  As 
POETRY  is  fairly  well  known  in  England,  the  duplication 
of  titles  is  hardly  to  the  advantage  of  either  magazine. 

NOTES 

Mr.  Charles  R.  Murphy,  a  Philadelphia!!  and  a  graduate  of  Harvard, 
has  contributed  to  various  magazines,  and  published,  through  John 
Lane  Co.,  translations  of  Verhaeren. 

Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter  (Mrs.  Geo.  W.  M.),  who  has  recently 
removed  to  Buffalo  from  Moline,  111.,  will  soon  publish,  through  Boni  & 
Liveright,  her  first  book  of  verse. 

Antoinette  DeCoursey  Patterson  (Mrs.  T.  de  Hoge  P.),  of  Philadelphia, 

[291] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

is  the  author  of  three  books  of  verse,  the  latest  being  The  Son  of  Merope 
and  Other  Poems  (H.  W.  Fisher  &  Co.). 

Nancy  Campbell  (Mrs.  Joseph  C.)  of  Wicklow,  Ireland,  is  the  author 
of  Agnus  Dei  (Four  Seas  Co.). 

Miss  Eda  Lou  Walton,  a  native  of  New  Mexico,  was  one  of  Witter 
Bynner's  class  in  poetry  at  Berkeley  three  years  ago.  More  recently 
she  has  been  living  in  New  York. 

Mr.  DuBose  Heyward,  of  Charleston,  is  one  of  the  founders  and 
officers  of  the  Poetry  Society  of  South  Carolina. 

Louise  Townsend  Nicholl  (Mrs.  Marshall  Don  Bewick)  is  on  the 
staff  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

Of  the  poets  who  have  not  hitherto  appeared  in  POETRY: 

Mr.  David  Osborne  Hamilton,  of  New  York,  is  the  author  of  Four 
Gardens,  published  last  year  in  the  Yale  Series  of  Younger  Poets. 

Mr.  Richard  Hughes,  of  Talsarnau,  North  Wales,  is  a  student  at 
Oxford,  and  a  contributor  of  verse  and  prose  to  the  Athenaeum,  Man- 
chester Guardian,  and  other  papers.  Our  readers  will  remember  his 
recent  article  on  The  Winter's  Publishing  in  England. 

Miss  Gladys  Edgerton,  of  New  York,  has  contributed  to  magazines, 
and  translated  certain  French  authors. 

Mr.  Mason  A.  Freeman,  Jr.  "manufactures  vinegar  in  Huntington, 
W.  Va."  He  is  a  member  of  the  N.  Y.  Society  of  Independent  Artists. 

Miss  Margaret  DeLaughter  is  a  very  young  poet  of  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Margaret  Belle  Houston  (Mrs.  M.  L.  Kauffman),  who  lives  in  Bristol, 
Va.,  has  written  for  various  magazines. 

Miss  Grace  Hodsdon  Boutelle  lives  in  Minneapolis.  Her  poem  is  in 
honor  of  her  father,  for  many  years  a  congressman  from  Maine. 

Manuscripts  submitted  to  POETRY  in  mid-summer  are  subject  to  long 
delay. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

There  and  Here,  by  Allen  Tucker.     Duffield  &  Co. 
The  Marble  House  and  Other  Poems,  by  Ellen  M.  H.  Gates.     G.  P. 

Putnam's  Sons. 

The  Hills  of  Arcetri,  by  Leolyn  Louise  Everett.     John  Lane  Co. 
Lincoln  Life  Sketches  in  Verse  and  Prose,  by  Garrett  Newkirk.    Duffield 

&Co. 

[292] 


Your  June  number  renewed  me  wonderfully — an  absolutely  joyous  thing!  Go  to 
it,  hammer  and  tongs!  Infuse  a  little  beauty,  joy,  spirit,  pain  into  the 
life  of  today.  Did  I  say  a  little? — Oceans  of  them! — A  Canadian  subscriber 


Vol.  XVIII  No,  VI 

POETRY  for  SEPTEMBER,  1921 

PAGE 

Poems  by  Paul  Fort .      .      .     Translated  by  John  Strong  Newberry     293 
Louis  Eleventh,  Curious  Man — The  Miraculous  Catch — The 
Lament  of  the  Soldiers — The  Return — The  Little  Silent  Street 
— Eternity 

Still-hunt Glenway  Wescott    303 

Ominous  Discord — Without  Sleep — The  Chaste  Lovers — To 
L.  S.  I-II— The  Poet  at  Nightfall— The  Hunter 

Night John  Crawford    308 

Nadir — Sumach — Brackish  Well — Endymion 

Descent Ivan  Swift    312 

At  Night Marian  Thanhouser    313 

Spinners Mary  a  Zaturensky    314 

She  Longs  for  the  Country — The  Spinners  at  Willowsleigh — 
Song  of  a  Factory  Girl — A  Song  for  Vanished  Beauty — An  Old 
Tale — Memories 

Charles  the  Twelfth  of  Sweden  Rides  in  the  Ukraine     .... 

Rainer  Maria  Rilke,  translated  by  Jessie  Lemont    319 

Dante— and  Today Emanuel  Carnevali    323 

John  Adams' Prophecy H.  M.    327 

Reviews: 

Gerard  Hopkins Edward  Sapir    330 

Unity  Made  Vital Nelson  Antrim  Crawford    336 

Youth  and  the  Desert H.  M.    339 

Two  English  Poets Marion  Strobel    343 

Correspondence : 

Concerning  Awards Arthur  T.  Aldis    347 

Notes  and  Books  Received 348,  350 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.    All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XVIII 
No.  VI 
A  Magazine  of  \fersc 


SEPTEMBER  1921 


POEMS  BY  PAUL  FORT 

LOUIS    ELEVENTH,  CURIOUS    MAN 

LOUIS  ELEVENTH,  for  trifles  fain,  I  love  you,  curious 
man.  Dear  chafferer  in  chestnuts,  discreetly  did 
you  plan  to  pluck  the  chestnuts  of  fair  Burgundy!  You 
seemed  all  friendliness  and  courtesy.  Your  hood  was 
hung  with  images  of  lead  and  copper  medals.  Watchers 
would  have  said  your  pious  thoughts  were  fixed  on  things 
above.  Sudden  you  stooped,  your  long  arms  outward 
drove.  Gently,  not  even  ruffling  your  sleek  glove,  you 
filched  a  chestnut,  another,  half  a  dozen,  beneath  the 
menacing  gauntlet  of  your  cousin. 

But  if  by  chance  he  let  his  great  fists  fall  upon  your 
back,  your  scrawny  back,  you  roared  with  laughter  and 
his  stolen  goods  restored.  'Twas  but  an  empty  shell. 

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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Void    were    the    chestnuts    all.     Your    gentle    industry 
served  your  fortunes  well. 

So  I,  good  singer,  sage  of  little  worth,  pilfer  both  heaven 
and  earth,  provinces  of  my  brain,  under  the  hands  of  the 
Lord,  all  light.  I  deftly  pull  from  His  fingers  the  roses 
of  the  dawn,  the  rings  of  the  storm,  the  lilies  of  starry 
nights,  and  gain  little  ineffable  images,  a  heap  of  shining 
things  stored  up  beneath  my  skull. 

To  filch  by  slow  degrees  but  sure,  sweet  Louis  Eleventh, 
O  man  most  rare!  May  God,  good  politician,  O  rare 
among  the  Louis,  have  you  in  His  good  care;  and  as,  in 
days  of  old,  when  you  were  pleased,  your  favorite  grey- 
hound stretched  beneath  your  breeches,  mildly  to  judge 
by  that  grateful  warmth  appeased,  beneath  his  golden 
slippers  in  Paradise  may  you  be,  blest  little  king  at  rest, 
his  most  fervent  counsellor. 

And,  for  having  praised  you,  counter  to  my  teachers, 
and  with  all  candor  having  kept  your  law,  when  the  day 
of  my  doom  is  at  hand,  when  I,  in  my  turn,  shall  stand 
awaiting  judgment  at  the  bar  above,  pluck  at  God's  robe 
that  he  place  me  in  His  love. 


THE    MIRACULOUS    CATCH 

The  tidings  seemed  so  Heaven-sent — an  uncle  dead  so 
apropos — my  dear  little  Louis  Eleventh  was  fain  to  prop- 

[294] 


Paul  Fort,  translated  by  John  Strong  Newberry 

erly  express  his  glee  and  gain  additional  content  with  a 
modest  fete;  but  intimately,  in  pleasant  society. 

Master  Tristan,  all  imagination,  counseled  a  picnic  in 
the  plain,  and  as  he  blinked  with  his  sly  red  eyes,  "I  con- 
sent," said  the  king.  [ 'Tis  good  advice.  You 're  an  old 
villain,  though,  just  the  same." 

Next  day,  'neath  skies  of  celestial  blue,  gay  and  content, 
my  sweet  little  king,  Louis  Eleventh,  with  Tristan 
L'Ermite  and  their  fair,  frail  friends,  Simonne  of  the 
Chains  and  Perrette  of  the  Treasure,  together  came  to 
fish  for  the  gudgeon  that  swim  in  the  Seine,  at  the  reedy 
foot  of  the  tower  of  Nesle. 

Master  Oliver,  still  a  virgin,  stands  sentry  near  the 
river's  margin.  He  strides  along  his  tedious  beat,  crush- 
ing the  grass  with  careless  feet.  Agape  in  boredom's 
black  abyss,  no  consolation  can  he  find.  The  fall  of 
Buridan  it  is  that  occupies  his  mind. 

Simonne  of  the  Chains,  soul  and  heart  fast  bound  to 
the  heart  and  soul  of  her  well-loved  king,  like  a  dainty 
water-lily  bent  above  an  ancient  nenuphar,  on  her  lover's 
threadbare  shoulder  leant  her  bosom's  snows,  her  brow 
of  milk,  her  little  nose  of  swan-white  silk;  and,  now  and 
then,  the  gracious  king,  Louis  of  France,  with  a  tender 
look,  would  bid  his  lovely  handmaid  bring  a  squirming 
maggot  to  bait  his  hook.  Then  'twas  with  such  a  rnjelt- 
ing  charm  that  into  a  small  green  box  she  poured  one. 

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POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

'twas  with  such  a  sweet  and  profound  appeal  that  she 
gave  the  creature,  all  quivering,  to  that  reclining  king, 
her  adored  one,  that  Louis  the  impulse  no  more  restrains, 
but  kisses  an  ear  (not  the  ear  of  the  maggot  but  that  of 
Simonne  of  the  Chains)  amorously  whispering  into  its 
hollow  meekly  bent,  "You  shall  be  present  when  I  call 
the  Three  Estates  to  Parliament." 

Perrette  of  the  Treasure  (formerly  King  Louis'  light- 
o'-love,  your  pardon! — now  bequeathed,  a  charming 
guerdon,  to  Tristan  by  royal  clemency)  was  plump  and 
fresh  as  a  rambler  rose,  cheeks  like  a  peach,  ample  bosom 
bare,  where  in  duplicate  glows  the  rising  sun,  each  breast 
an  orb  but  a  pointed  one,  starred  with  grains  of  beauty 
ambulant  (fleas  I  would  say),  whereon  the  gaunt  Tristan 
from  underneath  his  hood  full  often  lets  his  glances  brood. 
And  when  good  Tristan,  his  line  drawn  taut,  a  fresher 
maggot  would  fain  acquire,  'twas  with  a  manner  so  lan- 
guor-fraught the  plump  dame  granted  this  slight  desire, 
that,  quite  transported  with  Cupid's  blisses,  he  dropped 
his  line  her  side  to  gain !  The  line,  released,  went  flic,  flac, 
floe,  and  sank  beneath  the  Seine,  while  Perrette  received 
on  her  neck,  all  warm,  two  or  three  hearty  headsman's 
kisses. 

Master  Oliver,  still  a  virgin,  stands  sentry  near  the 
river's  margin.  He  strides  along  his  tedious  beat,  crush- 
ing the  grass  with  careless  feet.  Agape  in  boredom's 

[2961 


Paul  Fort,  translated  by  John  Strong  Newberry 

black  abyss,  no  consolation  can  he  find.     The  fall  of 
Buridan  it  is  that  occupies  his  mind. 

He  saw  with  inattentive  eyes,  like  a  flower  beside  the 
river 's  brim,  a  certain  Master  Villon  skim  the  reeds  in 
chase  of  dragonflies.  From  eyes  ablaze  with  anarchy  a 
side-long  glance  he  sometimes  sends  towards  the  place 
where  those  boon-companions  ply  the  angler's  art  with 
their  gentle  friends.  Master  Oliver,  still  a  virgin,  having 
other  fish  to  fry,  that  advent  scarcely  heeds.  Vaguely 
he  saw  Master  Villon  disrobe  among  the  reeds,  but  merely 
murmured  in  slumbrous  tone,  like  one  who  speaks  in 
dreams,  "That  naked  gentleman  is  not  unknown  to  me, 
it  seems." 

And  Tristan  L'Ermite  landed  naught.  And  Louis 
Eleventh  landed  naught.  The  maggots  spun  in  vain,  in 
vain.  And  Master  Francois  Villon,  now  swimming  in 
mid-Seine,  as  he  floated  whispered  to  his  brother  fish: 
"Liberty  forever!  Don't  let  yourselves  be  caught!" 

"Gossip,"  said  Tristan,  "if  you  are  good,  and  sage 
withal,  I  here  engage  to  give  you  a  pass,  wherewith  to 
break  the  cordon  of  the  Scottish  guard  when  I  hang  and 
when  I  decapitate."  Quoth  Perrette  of  the  Treasure,  "A 
neat  reward."  "And,"  continued  Tristan  in  merry  vein, 
"if  your  heart  does  not  bid  you  the  fatal  view  shun,  some 
fine  spring  morning  you  shall  see  the  rapid  and  joyous 
execution  of  the  virgin  Oliver  le  Dain."  "I'll  be  there, 

[297] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

I'll  be  there,"  responded  Perrette,  clapping  her  hands 
with  glee. 

"Peace!"  cried  the  king,  "or  this  turbot  I  miss." 

"A  turbot,  seigneur,  is  a  fish  of  the  sea,"  timidly  ven- 
tured the  tender  Simonne.  "With  my  mother  I've  sold 
full  many  a  one  in  the  market-place  of  Saint-Honore  in 
the  time  of  my  virginity."  "A  fish  of  the  sea,  eh?  Then 
that  was  why  I  missed  him!"  The  monarch  made  reply, 
not  disconcerted  in  the  least! 

"Days  that  are  o'er  will  return  no  more,"  hummed 
Perrette,  on  her  hose  intent.  "Yes,  youth  has  only  a 
single  time,"  Tristan  intoned  in  hearty  assent.  Thereat 
the  timid,  the  tender  Simonne  cooed  to  an  air  that  is  little 
known,  "Twas  twenty  years  ago  my  mother  died."  It 
needed  only  that — Tristan  dissolved  in  tears.  While  the 
king,  as  he  fished  the  wind,  chanted  stentorianly,  "No,  no, 
my  friends,  I  do  not  wish  a  thing  of  naught  to  be." 

And  Tristan  L'Ermite  landed  naught.  And  Louis 
Eleventh  landed  naught.  In  vain  the  tempting  maggot 
spins.  The  esthetic  gudgeons  loud  applaud,  clapping 
their  frantic  fins.  Applaud,  no  doubt,  is  figurative,  but 
who  knows  what  fantastic  dream  is  truth — in  the  depths, 
where  fishes  live  at  the  bottom  of  the  stream? 

At  the  reedy  foot  of  the  tower  of  Nesle,  those  cronies 
good,  headsman  and  king,  in  chorus  sing  like  birds  of  the 

[298] 


Paul  Fort,  translated  by  John  Strong  Newberry 

wood.     And  about  their  floats  the  little  fish  waltz  as 
sweetly  as  heart  could  wish. 

Master  Oliver,  still  a  virgin,  stands  sentry  near  the 
river's  margin. 

Then  suddenly  Perrette  smothered  a  laugh  in  her  skirt. 
My  sweet  little  Louis  Eleventh,  feeling  his  line  drawn 
taut  and  heaving  it  up  with  ardor,  a  king-fisher  had 
caught.  "A  wager,"  Tristan  said.  Simonne,  "A  winged 
gudgeon,"  cried.  And  Master  Oliver  halted  dead  in  the 
middle  of  his  stride. 

"On  my  word,  the  judgment  was  too  empiric,"  mused 
Villon,  swimming  beneath  the  stream.  "To  fish  for  a 
gudgeon  and  catch  a  bird  ...  in  the  bourgeois  soul  of 
that  curmudgeon  mean  somewhere  survives  the  germ  of 
a  lyric!" 

And  about  their  floats  the  little  fish  waltzed  as  sweetly 
as  heart  could  wish. 


THE    LAMENT    OF   THE    SOLDIERS 

When  they  were  come  back  from  the  wars,  their  heads 
were  seamed  with  bleeding  scars; 

Their  hearts  betwixt  clenched  teeth  they  gripped,  in 
rivulets  their  blood  had  dripped. 

When  they  were  come  back  from  the  wars — the  blue, 
the  red,  the  sons  of  Mars — 

[299] 


POETRY :    A  M  a  g  a  z  i  n  c  of  Verse 

They  sought  their  snuff-boxes  so  fine,  their  chests,  their 
sheets  all  spotless  showing; 

They  sought  their  kine,  their  grunting  swine,  their 
wives  and  sweethearts  at  their  sewing, 

Their  roguish  children,  like  as  not  crowned  with  a  shin- 
ing copper  pot: 

They  even  sought  their  homes,  poor  souls  .  .  .  they 
only  found  the  worms  and  moles. 

The  carrion  raven  clamored  o'er  them.  They  spat 
their  broken  hearts  before  them! 

THE    RETURN 

Ivy  has  covered  all  the  wall.  How  many  hours,  how 
many  tears,  since  last  we  loved?  How  many  years? 

No  roses  now.  Ivy  has  crushed  the  vine.  Soul, 
whither  didst  thou  go?  Climbing  across  the  nests  of 
nightingales,  ivy  has  stifled  the  whole  chateau. 

Wind,  the  deep  wells  are  choked  with  the  roses  of 
yesterday.  Is  that  your  hiding-place,  O  my  dead  wife? 

No  one  replies?  Who  would  reply?  Is  it  not  best  to 
listen  to  the  wind  that  sighs  through  the  grasses,  "my 
sweet  love"? 

Flush  with  the  roof,  the  ancient,  crimson  sun  is  cut 
through  the  midst  so  mournfully. 

[300] 


Paul  Fort)  translated  by  "John  Strong  Newberry 

Shall  1  bid  the  gardener  come?  The  gardener?  No. 
It  would  be  better  to  summon  Death  to  reap  the  long 
grass: 

So  many  memories  and  so  much  love,  and  the  setting 
sun  at  the  level  of  the  earth. 


THE    LITTLE    SILENT    STREET 

The  stormy  silence  stirs  and  hums.     Will  there  be  none 
that  this  way  comes? 

Cobblestones  count  geraniums.     Geraniums  count  the 
cobblestones. 

Dream,  young  girl,  at  your  casement  high.     Shelled 
green  peas  before  you  lie.  t 

They  plump  the  apron  white  you  try  with  rosy  finger- 
tips to  tie. 

I  pass,  in  black  from  head  to  feet.     Is  it  forked  light- 
ning troubles  thee, 

Young  maiden,  or  the  sight  of  me?     The  peas  have 
fallen  in  the  street. 

Sombre  I  pass.     Behind  I  see  cobblestones  count  each 
fallen  pea. 

The  stormy  silence  stirs  and  hums.     Will  there  be  none 
that  this  way  comes? 

[301] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

ETERNITY 

One  does  not  need  to  credit  death.  The  human  heart 
to  rest  is  fain.  O'er  sleeping  fields  the  evening's  breath 
dreams,  and  I  hear  eternity  chime  in  the  bending  ears  of 
grain. 

"Hark! — an  angelus  dies  in  heaven's  blue  height."  Be 
comforted.  Hours  pass  away.  Hushed  is  the  belfry? 
God  doth  wake.  The  nightingale  salutes  the  day  hid  in 
the  turret's  rose-tree  brake,  and  in  its  turn  will  mourn 
the  night. 

"Hark! — once  again  the  hour  doth  swell."  But  the 
bell's  already  fast  asleep.  Eternity  is  chiming  deep, 
borne  by  the  sweet,  tormented  breath  of  zephyr  and  of 
Philomel. 

One  does  not  need  to  credit  death. 

Translated  from  the  French  of  Paul  Fort 
by  John  Strong  Newberry 


[3°2] 


STILL-HUNT 

OMINOUS    CONCORD 

As  if  I  were  Jeanne  d  'Arc, 
But  wearier,  I  prepare 
Answer  and  return 
To  the  prophetic  air; 

My  voice  answering 
Voices  of  the  unearthly  nation 
With  autumnal  melody 
Of  my  own  creation: 

Melody  of  alarm  lest  my 
So  long-imagined  love  retreat 
Into  despair  as  sharp  and  fine 
As  the  print  of  sea-gull's  feet. 

They  sing,  stilling  my  response 
With  silvery  indifference; 
And  what  they  mean  or  know 
Is,  like  the  falling  of  first  snow, 
An  indecipherable  cadence. 


WITHOUT    SLEEP 

He  earns  the  oblivion  of  book  and  shelf 
Who  will  have  for  muse  a  Beatrice 

[303] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Sitting  content  by  the  hearth 

To  whisper  his  history  and  thought. 

• 

Poet  uncuckolded,  he  hears 
No  mad  ethereal  crying 
For  merciless  cloud  and  ridge 
Tormented  by  the  golden  horn. 

Ah,  she  will  never  lift 

Her  intolerant  head  like  a  stag 

And  scorn  him,  thinking  of  wind 

And  naked  hunter  and  his  hallooing  hound. 


THE    CHASTE    LOVERS 

Siberia  is  a  land 
Drops  from  a  cloud. 
The  shackles  click, 
Yet  never  loud, 

Upon  a  pavement 
Of  the  frost — 
A  road  we  know, 
Yet  still  are  lost 

Within  the  semblance 
Of  its  cold 
Mile  after  mile 
Till  we  are  old. 

[304] 


Glenway  Wescott 


You  and  I,  man  and  maid. 
Together  form 
Procession  or  cavalcade 
Minute  as  a  worm. 

Prisoners  to  each  other, 
And  to  these  even  less  kind — 
The  bottomless  beauty  of  body, 
The  bottomless  pomp  of  mind. 

And  perpetually  discontent, 
We  eye  the  crows, 
Or  watch  the  weasel  where  it  went, 
Or  hail  the  wind  that  blows. 

TO  L.  s. 

i 

O  you 

Wing-of-the-wind, 
Why  do  you  chant 
Ree,  ree,  with  the  mourning-dove, 
And  dee,  dee,  with  the  male  gannet — 

When  you  may  live  forever 

In  the  fray  of  her  feathers, 

And  in  the  tumult  of  the  dark  wave 

Where  he  pillows 

In  all  weathers? 

[305] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

ii 

Why  the  perpetual  sway 

Of  the  air? 

Why  the  rift  of  the  heaven 

Into  light  and  dark, 

Into  black  and  white  of  division? 

Women  are  deeper  than  sound. 
They  are  the  storm,  which  continues 
In  quiet,  in  peace,  in  sunshine, 
Healing  and  building 
In  the  air  the  airy  sinews. 

THE    POET   AT    NIGHT-FALL 

I  see  no  equivalents 
For  that  which  I  see, 
Among  words. 

And  sounds  are  nowhere  repeated, 
Vowel  for  vocal  wind 
Or  shaking  leaf. 

Ah  me,  beauty  does  not  enclose  life, 
But  blows  through  it — 
Like  that  idea,  the  wind, 

Which  is  unseen  and  useless, 
Even  superseded  upon 
The  scarred  sea; 

[306] 


Glenway  Wescott 

Which  goes  and  comes 

Altering  every  aspect — 

The  poplar,  the  splashing  crest — 

Altering  all,  in  that  moment 
When  it  is  not 
Because  we  see  it  not. 

But  who  would  hang 

Like  a  wind-bell 

On  a  porch  where  no  wind  ever  blows? 

THE    HUNTER 

You  asked  me  what  I  did 
In  peaked  New  Mexico, 
Where  lives  the  most  wild  beauty 
To  which  a  man  may  go. 

And  I  answer  that  I  pursued 
Content  that  would  go  in  a  song 
Upon  its  silvery  mountains 
So  vainly  and  so  long 

That  if  it  were  bear  or  lion 
Which  I  had  hunted  there 
I  should  now  be  like  Orion, 
Fixed  hungry  in  the  air. 

Glenway  Wescott 


[307] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 
NIGHT 

NADIR 

I  am  part  of  lonely  things 
Of  this  lonely  city.  .  . 

A  gold  fish  in  a  bowl, 

Lowered  into  a  lake, 

Would  feel  the  sleeping  presence  of  fish 

Even  as  I 

Feel  life  withdrawn,  suspended.  .  .  . 

An  immanence  of  life, 

Like  a  remembered  song  of  violins 

And  oboes 

After  a  dance. 


Even  the  sound  of  my  footsteps 
Dies  in  the  snow. 


SUMACH 
An  old  monk  is  my  night.  .  .  . 

Long  ago  he  was  young  .  .  . 
Song  shone  between  his  lips, 
And  a  necklace  of  round  white  arms 
Fulfilled  his  throat.  .  .  . 

[308] 


John  Crawford 


Dried  fruit  of  trees 

That  blossom  in  bitterness 

Rustle  on  his  bent  shoulders  .  .  . 

Wry  grey  flesh  festoons  his  yellow  teeth. 

My  night  is  old.  .  .  . 

BRACKISH    WELL 

If  I  were  less  than  the  sum  of  what  I  am 
I  wonder — 

My  eyes  seek  yours 
Coaxing  the  flame — 

If  I  were  blind? 

If  I  were  dumb 
And  had  no  song? 

Say  you  would  love  me 
Blind  and  dumb — 
Nothing  to  hold  you, 
Nothing  to  bind  you  to  me. 
Say  you  would  love 
My  spirit  .  .  . 

I  will  say  to  you: 

Go  and  love  some  puff  of  wind 

From  a  graveyard. 

[309! 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

ENDYMION 

The  universe 
Crumbles  away, 
Crawls  away  .  .  . 

A  simoon 
Keyed  down, 
Hushed  away 
To  whispers.  .  .   . 

(Trickling,  trickling — 
Bare  legs — 

Impacts  of  sand-grains — 
Impacts  of  girls '  eyes — ) 

Up  to  my  knees  .  .  . 

(Isolation 

Of  flesh  from  flesh- 
Slippery,  gritty, 
Hands  grip  and  slide, 
Fingers  roll 
On  my  face — ) 

Knee  deep, 

Waist  deep, 

Eyes  prickling  .  .  . 

(It  was  my  gift 
To  catch  their  eyes, 
Catch  and  hold  their  eyes: 

[310] 


John  Crawford 

She  knew  that, 

But  She  could  not  blind 

All  their  eyes — ) 

Waist-deep — 

Up  to  my  arm-pits.  .  .   . 

(She  found  one 
Could  keep  my  arms  knit — 
Body  like  a  panther, 
That  one — ) 

Up  to  my  eyes — 

Sleep  slides 

Grain  by  grain.  .  .  . 

(What  She  did  to  you 

No  one  knows.  .  .    . 

She  '11  never  kill  the  feel  of  you 

With  Her  sand—) 

Crumbling, 

Crawling, 

Creeping — 

Ring  about  my  neck  .  .  . 

(Yours — 

Your  hands  at  my  throat — 

Your  lips — ) 

John  Crawford 


POETRY:    A  Magazin'e  of  Verse 

DESCENT 

It  is  large  life  to  sit  on  the  door-log 

Of  the  Hill  Tavern, 

Among  the  distinguished  birches 

Standing  in  groups, 

And  look  beyond  the  monotonous  green  floor 

Of  the  matted  tree-tops  of  the  lower  land 

To  the  high  horizon  and  the  barges, 

And  the  purple  island  in  a  ring  of  gold. 

But  I  am  of  the  lowland, 

Of  the  undistinguished  trees  and  juniper, 

And  must  go  down  the  deliberate  trail 

Of  the  undistinguished  dead— 

And  no  noon. 

Below  the  bluff-rim — 

The  trees  now  are  more  separate 

And  individual  of  pattern; 

But  the  dusk  marries  them  to  one  another, 

And  their  top  branches  intertwine, 

Like  parasols  in  a  crowded  park  of  listeners, 

As  far  as  the  path  leads  to  the  valley  terrace. 

Then  the  black  belt  of  tamarack 

And  tangled  bittersweet 

Is  like  the  Lower  Ten,  leaning  on  brothers 

To  make  stand  against  the  uncertain  winds, 

And  dying  in  the  smother  of  a  brief  day. 


Ivan  Swift 

Out  of  this  and  on  the  far  side,  I  knew— 

And  the  stranger  would  scarce  surmise 

And  rarely  venture — 

The  sun  dances  in  golden  tack-points 

On  the  near,  cool  shallows  of  the  sea. 

The  gray  islands  have  gone  down 

Over  the  world 's  rim, 

And  the  freight  barges  are  companion  buoys 

Floating  in  pairs  under  thin  smoke  fans. 

The  ring  of  gold  is  at  my  feet,  glistening! — 

Washed  clean  by  the  white  surf-reefs 

Broken  by  the  blue  shadow  of  a  gull. 

A  single  tiger-lily 

Flames  in  a  whorl  of  beach-juniper. 

Ivan  Swift 


AT  NIGHT 

Sometimes  at  night  I  hear  the  dark, 
Wide  and  wind-shaken,  calling  me. 
I  should  get  up,  and  flying  high 
Above  the  tree-tops  to  the  sea, 
Scream  till  the  waves  scream  back  at  me. 

Marian  Thanhouser 


[313] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 
SPINNERS 

SHE  LONGS  FOR  THE  COUNTRY 

It  is  the  May-time  now, 
And  in  a  place  I  know 
Some  girl  God  will  allow 
To  see  the  cowslips  blow; 

And  the  hyacinths,  the  fern 
That  grow  by  the  riversides; 
Narcissi,  white  and  stern 
Like  sad  unwilling  brides. 

Some  other  girl  will  run 
And,  dancing  through  the  grass, 
Will  laugh  in -the  wholesome  sun, 
And  feel  the  sweet  hours  pass. 

Laugh  and  be  merry — oh, 
Laugh!    Laugh,  and  play  for  me! 
Go  where  the  sweet  flowers  grow, 
And  see  what  I  cannot  see! 


THE    SPINNERS    AT    WILLOWSLEIGH 

The  young  girl  passes  by 

The  old  women  sit  at  Willowsleigh.     They  spin, 
And  shriek  and  sing  above  the  humming  din. 

[314] 


Marya  Zaturensky 

They  are  so  very  old  and  brown  and  wise, 
One  is  afraid  to  look  them  in  the  eyes. 

Their  bony  fingers  make  a  chilly  sound, 

Like  dead  bones  shaking  six  feet  underground ! 

Their  toothless  singing  mocks — they  seem  to  say: 
"What  I  was  yesterday  you  are  today; 

Stars  kissed  my  eyes,  the  sunlight  loved  my  brow — 
You  '11  be  tomorrow  what  I  am  now." 

They  dream  and  talk — they  are  so  old  and  lean; 
And  the  whole  world  is  young  and  fresh  and  green. 

Once  they  were  flowers,  and  flame,  and  livi  ng  bread; 
Now  they  are  old  and  strange,  and  almost  dead ! 

The  old  women  spin  at  Willowsleigh;  they  fool 
And  scold,  and  sleep.     Once  they  were  beautiful. 


SONG    OF    A    FACTORY    GIRL 

It's  hard  to  breathe  in  a  tenement  hall 
So  I  ran  to  the  little  park, 
As  a  lover  runs  from  a  crowded  ball 
To  the  moonlit  dark. 

I  drank  in  clear  air  as  one  will 
Who  is  doomed  to  die, 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Wistfully  watching  from  a  hill 
The  unmarred  sky. 

And  the  great  trees  bowed  in  their  gold  and  red 
Till  my  heart  caught  flame; 

And  my  soul,  that  I  thought  was  crushed  or  dead, 
Uttered  a  name. 

I  hadn't  called  the  name  of  God 
For  a  long  time; 

But  it  stirred  in  me  as  the  seed  in  sod, 
Or  a  broken  rhyme. 

A  SONG  FOR  VANISHED  BEAUTY 

The  house  is  desolate  and  bare — 
So  long  ago  young  Honora  left 
Her  quiet  chair! 

Through  the  rose-bordered  gardens,  reft 
Of  all  her  pretty,  tender  care — 
The  silent  hall,  the  lonely  stair- 
No  one  can  see  her  anywhere. 
Here  is  her  shawl,  her  fan,  her  book — 
She  is  not  there. 

No  one  remembers  her  bright  hair, 

Or  how  she  looked,  or  when  Death  came. 

Few  can  recall  her  name. 


Marya  Zaturensky 


Where  shall  we  turn  to  hope  or  look 
For  beauty  vanished  like  an  air? — 
In  what  forgotten  tomb  or  nook? 

AN    OLD    TALE 

What  shall  we  say  of  her, 

Who  went  the  path  we  knew  of?     She  is  dead — 

What  shall  we  say  of  her? 

Men  who  are  very  old 

Still  speak  of  her.     They  say 

That  she  was  far  too  beautiful;  they  say 

Her  beauty  wrought  her  ruin.     But  they 

Are  very  old. 

The  old  wives  break  their  threads,  they  shake  their 

heads. 

They  shake  their  heads  when  men  will  speak  of  her; 
They  say  she  was  too  beautiful. 

I  must  not  think  of  her,  I  must 
Not  speak  of  her!     My  mother  says 
One  should  not  think  of  her. 

She  went  the  path  we  knew  of;  she  is  dead. 
They  say  few  knew  her  truly  while  she  lived, 
Though  men  will  speak  of  her. 

It  really  does  not  matter  she  is  dead. 

One  need  not  think  of  her,  although  one  night 

[317] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Folks  heard  her  weeping  yet  beside  a  pool 
One  moonlit  springtime  I  could  swear  she  sang! 
But  she  is  dead — one  must  not  think  of  her. 


MEMORIES 
Lower  New  York  City  at  noon  hour 

There  is  a  noise,  and  then  the  crowded  herd 
Of  noon-time  workers  flows  into  the  street. 
My  soul,  bewildered  and  without  retreat, 
Closes  its  wings  and  shrinks,  a  frightened  bird. 

Oh,  I  have  known  a  peace,  once  I  have  known 
The  joy  that  could  have  touched  a  heart  of  stone — 
The  heart  of  holy  Russia  beating  still, 
Over  a  snow-cold  steppe  and  on  a  hill: 
One  day  in  Kiev  I  heard  a  great  church-bell 
Crying  a  strange  farewell. 

And  once  in  a  great  field,  the  reapers  sowing 
Barley  and  wheat,  I  saw  a  great  light  growing 
Over  the  weary  bowed  heads  of  the  reapers; 
As  growing  sweeter,  stranger,  ever  deeper, 
From  the  long  waters  sorrowfully  strong, 
Came  the  last  echoes  of  the  River  Song! 

Here  in  this  alien  crowd  I  walk  apart 
Clasping  remembered  beauty  to  my  heart! 

Mary  a  Zaturensky 


CHARLES  THE  TWELFTH  OF  SWEDEN 
RIDES  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Kings  in  old  legends  seem 

Like  mountains  rising  in  the  evening  light. 

They  blind  all  with  their  gleam, 

Their  loins  encircled  are  by  girdles  bright, 

Their  robes  are  edged  with  bands 

Of  precious  stones,  the  rarest  earth  affords. 

With  richly  jeweled  hands 

They  hold  their  slender,  shining,  naked  swords. 

A  young  king  from  the  North  did  fare, 

Defeated  in  the  Ukraine. 

He  hated  springtime  and  women 's  hair 

And  the  sound  of  the  harps '  refrain. 

Upon  a  steel  grey  horse  he  rode, 

And  like  steel  was  his  grey  eyes'  glance; 

Never  for  woman  had  they  glowed, 

And  to  none  had  he  lowered  his  lance. 

Never  a  woman  his  colors  claimed, 

And  none  to  kiss  him  would  dare; 

For  at  times,  when  his  quick  wrath  flamed, 

A  moon  of  pearls  he  would  tear 

From  a  coil  of  wondrous  hair. 

When  seized  by  melancholy  mood 

He  wreaked  his  will  of  a  maid  as  he  would, 

And  the  bridegroom,  whose  ring  she  wore,  pursued 

[319] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Through  the  glade  and  across  the  heath 
With  a  hundred  hounds  for  many  a  rood, 
Till  he  hunted  him  to  his  death. 

He  left  his  grey  land  dim  and  far, 

Whose  voice  to  him  never  spake; 

And  rode  out  under  the  thrall  of  war 

And  fought  for  danger's  sake. 

Now  he  seemed  under  a  spell  to  ride, 

Dreamily  slipping  his  steel-gloved  hand 

Over  his  armor  from  band  to  band; 

But  found  no  sword  at  his  side. 

And  then  a  miracle  occurred — 

A  glorious  vision  of  battle  stirred 

And  fired  his  kindling  pride. 

He  sat  on  his  horse  and  glanced  around — 

No  movement  escaped  him  and  no  sound. 

Steel  unto  steel  in  silver  spoke, 

Voices  were  now  in  everything; 

Like  many  bells  they  seemed  to  ring 

As  the  soul  of  each  thing  awoke. 

The  wind,  too,  stealthily  onward  crept 

And  suddenly  into  the  flags  it  sprang — 

Lean  like  a  panther  breathless  leapt; 

Reeling  as  blasts  from  the  trumpets  rang, 

It  wrestled  and  laughed  and  sang. 

Then  again  it  would  softly  hum, 

As  by  some  bleeding  boy  it  would  dart, 

[320] 


Rainer  Maria  Ri/ke,  translated  by  Jessie  Lemont 

Beating  a  rally  upon  his  drum, 
Carried  with  uplifted  head 
Into  the  grave,  borne  like  his  heart 
Before  his  battalions  dead. 
Many  a  mountain  upward  reared, 
As  though  the  earth  not  yet  old  had  grown 
But  in  the  making  still  appeared. 
And  now  the  iron  stood  still  as  stone, 
And  then  like  a  forest  at  evening  swayed, 
And  ever  the  rising  shape  still  neared 
The  army's  mightily  moving  shade. 
The  dust  rose  up  like  vapors  veiled; 
Darkness,  not  of  time,  enveloped  all, 
And  everything  grew  grey  and  paled, 
And  smoke  rose  up  and  fell  like  a  pall; 
Again  flame  broadened  and  grew  bright, 
And  all  was  festively  in  light. 
They  attacked:  the  exotic  colors  reeled, 
On  swarms  of  fantastic  provinces  rode; 
All  iron  with  laughter  suddenly  pealed; 
From  a  prince  in  luminous  silver  flowed 
The  gleam  of  the  evening  battle-field. 
Like  fluttering  joys  flags  seemed  to  thrill, 
Each  gesture  now  showed  the  desire 
To  regally  waste,  to  wantonly  spill — 
The  flames  leapt  on  far  buildings,  till 
The  stars  themselves  caught  fire. 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Night  came.     And  the  battle's  surging  range 

Receded  like  a  tired  sea 

That  brought  with  it  many  dead  and  strange; 

And  all  the  dead  lay  there  heavily. 

The  grey  horse  cautiously  picked  its  way 

Past  great  fists  starkly  warning  it  back; 

In  a  foreign  land  the  dead  men  lay 

Where  it  stepped  over  grass  that  was  matted  and  black. 

And  he  who  upon  the  grey  horse  sat, 

Looked  down  on  the  colors  moist  and  frayed, 

Saw  silver  like  shivered  glass  ground  flat, 

Saw  iron  wither,  and  helmets  drink, 

And  swords  stand  stiff  in  the  armor's  chink; 

Saw  dying  hands  waving  tattered  brocade  .  .  . 

And  saw  them  not. 

After  the  tumult  of  battle  he  rode 

Onward  as  though  in  a  trance,  alone; 

And  as  with  passion  his  warm  cheeks  glowed,  . 

Like  those  of  a  lover  his  grey  eyes  shone. 

Translated  from  the  German  of  Rainer  Maria  Rilke 

by  Jessie  Lemont 


[322] 


COMMENT 

DANTE — AND   TODAY 

ON  the  fourteenth  of  this  month  Dante  Alighieri 
will  have  been  dead  six  hundred  years.  Therefore 
the  whole  world  is  thinking  of  him,  and  his  spirit  seems  to 
be  questioning  the  changes  of  six  centuries,  challenging 
modern  civilization.  Aristocrat  and  monarchist  that  he 
was,  he  was  of  too  immense  stature  not  to  have  deeply 
humane  sympathies;  his  work  was  not  for  the  elect — in 
his  day  the  classically  educated,  but  for  the  people  of  his 
time  and  tongue;  and  thus  for  the  people  of  all  times  and 
tongues.  Indeed,  it  is  symbolically  significant  that  the 
three  greatest  men  in  Italian  literature — Dante,  Petrarca 
and  Boccaccio — wrote  in  the  dawn  of  that  literature,  in 
what  was  called  il  volgare,  the  language  spoken  by  the 
volgo,  the  people.  Although  this  does  not  make  of  Dante 
a  person  of  democratic  tendencies,  still  it  points  out  again 
that  all  great  things  have  their  foundations  in  the  vo/go, 
as  all  buildings  in  the  earth. 

Dante,  Petrarca,  Boccaccio:  they  embody  the  three 
traditions.  Boccaccio  was  the  artist  who  works  to  enter- 
tain and  amuse  his  public.  Among  the  thousands  who 
follow  this  tradition  are  the  buffoons,  as  Papini  calls 
them,  the  souls  sold  to  the  public  which  the  public  buys 
with  large  sums.  Petrarca  is  the  delicate  artist  for  whom 
only  the  inner  world  exists,  in  whose  trail  a  thousand  out- 
casts, egocentrics,  morphinomaniacs,  came;  for  whom 

[333] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

delicacy  is  not  a  luxury,  as  it  is  for  the  strong,  but  rather 
an  incurable  idiosyncrasy.  Dante  embodies  the  great- 
est tradition — that  of  those  who  through  literature  judge 
men  and  the  times;  besides  being  representative  of  that 
sturdy  healthy  beauty  which  has  a  greater  claim  on  lon- 
gevity. 

Dante  gathered,  into  what  is  perhaps  the  most  power- 
ful work  of  all  literatures,  all  the  history  and  philosophy, 
and  part  of  the  science  of  his  time.  He  classified  men 
and  judged  them;  but  his  judgment  is,  like  the  history 
contained  in  the  Commedia^  essentially  and  terrifically 
mediaeval.  A  fierce  god  is  this  "merciful  god"  who  gets 
a  vengeance  a  thousandfold  more  terrible  than  the  crime, 
than  any  crime.  And  a  fierce  little  man  it  was  who  went 
wandering  into  hell,  cursing  each  and  all  of  the  Italian 
cities,  and  several  of  the  foreign  ones,  and  their  unfor- 
tunate inhabitants,  for  some  slight  reason  or  other.  Today 
his  ethics  are  dead:  they  are  at  best  the  skeleton  around 
which  the  beautiful  immortal  flesh  of  Dante's  words  was 
cast.  Dante's  words — only  an  Italian,  and  a  good  Ital- 
ian, may  know  the  magical  beauty  of  them !  The  poign- 
ant dramatic  beauty  of  his  Conte  Ugo/ino,  and  the  sweet- 
ness of  his  Francesca,  and  the  marvelous  images  scattered 
throughout  his  work  like  pearls  and  diamonds  over  a 
gorgeous  gown! 

But,  as  I  say,  his  ethics,  like  the  history  in  his  work, 
are  past  and  dead.  We  know  now  that  hell  is  not  neces- 
sary— there  is  nothing  so  horrible  that  it  may  not  be 

[334] 


Dante — and  Today 

found,  at  one  time  or  another,  upon  the  face  of  our  earth. 
We  have  developed  a  philosophy  which  is  more  apt  to 
give  life  all  the  credit  due  to  life.  We  are  waiting  for  the 
poet  who  will  give  us  a  Divina  Commediaof  our  own  times, 
but  it  is  something  entirely  different  from  Dante's  that 
we  expect.  A  hell  more  terrific  than  the  hell  of  Dante  is 
the  hell  of  modern  warfare — an  immense,  eyeless,  stupid 
machine  that  batters,  mangles,  crushes,  distorts,  tor- 
tures, crazes  men.  And,  as  if  this  were  not  terrible 
enough,  men  are  studying  how  to  contrive  more  terrible 
means  to  kill;  and  the  next  war,  it  is  said,  will  be  mostly 
a  war  of  gas  and  germs!  Henri  Barbusse  and  Andreas 
Latzko  gave  us  some  horrible  glimpses  of  the  War.  But 
they  left  still  a  great  area  unmeasured,  an  area  perhaps 
immeasurable,  perhaps  impenetrable. 

The  world  has  become  overcrowded:  human  beings  are 
lost  in  it  and  nobody  knows.  This  twentieth-century 
world  erects  horrible  structures  that  look  like  skeletons — 
skeletons  of  a  thing  already  dead,  living  now  in  hell.  The 
mechanical  cities  loom  like  the  menace  of  the  future  over  our 
rivers:  over  and  under  them  the  continual  uproar  of  loco- 
motives, soul-rending,  passes.  Railways  hold  the  earth 
in  a  terrible  embrace.  And  the  makers  of  these  are  busi- 
ness men  who  do  not  see,  and  workers  whom  a  whirlwind 
sweeps  into  this  modern  tremendous  factory,  and  leaves 
there  like  fledglings  caught  in  the  blast  of  an  immense  fur- 
nace. Out  of  this  factory  the  human  soul  comes  crushed — 
out  of  this  factory  of  neurosis,  the  modern  world.  Ma- 

[325] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

chines  and  neurosis,  out  of  this  factory !  The  last  trees  are 
pushed  farther  and  farther  away  by  the  oncoming  cities. 
And  there  isn't  a  breeze  but  brings  to  them  the  feverish 
breath  of  the  cities.  Paradise  might  be  the  peace  and 
the  happiness  that  man  has  in  spite  of  the  world  he  him- 
self builds. 

This  is  Dante's  challenge  to  a  poet  of  today.  Who  will 
tune  down  this  noise,  arrange  this  turmoil,  find  one  voice 
in  this  chaos  of  voices?  His  task  will  be  a  hundred  times 
more  arduous  than  Dante's.  Dante's  conception  of  his 
narrow  world  was  centered  around  two  main  hypotheses 
— that  of  the  absolute  monarchy  and  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  power,  the  Pope.  A  modern  poet  would  require, 
besides  Dante's  great  genius,  the  energy  to  gather  to- 
gether in  his  thought  a  world  which  facility  of  trans- 
portation, and  science  in  general,  have  made  enormous. 

The  question  as  to  whether  a  poet  should  be  concerned 
in  this  great  outer  world,  as  opposed  to  the  petty  inner 
world  of  daily  moods,  cares,  worries  and  affection,  is  a 
ridiculous  question.  And  ridiculous  is  the  thesis  of  the 
esthetic  critic  when  he  proposes  that  the  individual  who 
accomplishes  the  feat  of  expressing  himself  ably  has  there- 
by attained  art:  implying  that  a  mole's  observation  of  life 
is  as  valid  as  that  of  a  soaring  eagle  who  sees  the  world 
from  above  the  horizons. 

But  there  are  still  eagles:  Walt  Whitman,  the  multi- 
tudinous man,  for  whom  the  world  was  a  purgatory  of 
striving  joy  and  self-redeeming  pain — he  enumerated,  at 

[326] 


Dante — and  Today 

least,  the  modern  world.  And  Verhaeren,  with  his  Villes 
Tentaculaires,  put  down  some  of  the  horror  of  it.  But  it 
is  either  an  Inferno  only,  or  a  Purgatorio  or  a  Paradiso 
only,  that  the  poets  of  the  six  centuries  since  Dante  have 
accomplished.  No  one  has  attained  Dante's  completeness. 

Emanuel  Carnevali 

JOHN  ADAMS'  PROPHECY 

Not  long  ago  The  Freeman  reminded  us  of  a  penetrating 
remark  of  old  John  Adams,  first  grand  chief  of  the  Adams 
clan  and  second  president  of  the  United  States.  Nay,  not 
old;  for  he  was  only  forty-five,  and  still  seventeen  years 
from  the  seat  of  Washington,  when  he  wrote  to  his  wife 
in  1780: 

I  must  study  politics  and  war,  that  my  sons  may  have  liberty  to  study 
mathematics  and  philosophy,  geography,  natural  history  and  naval 
architecture,  navigation  and  commerce  and  agriculture;  in  order  to  give 
their  children  a  right  to  study  painting,  poetry,  music,  architecture, 
statuary,  tapestry  and  porcelain. 

In  1780  America  was  quite  innocent  of  art;  or  rather, 
such  art  as  it  had — colonial  architecture,  a  few  imported 
paintings,  plays,  poems — it  took  quite  innocently,  with 
abstemious  discretion.  And  Adams,  if  not  himself  a 
thorough  Puritan,  was  only  four  generations  from  that 
Henry  Adams  who,  according  to  his  tombstone  in  Quincy, 
"took  his  flight  from  the  Dragon  Persecution  in  Devon- 
shire, England,  and  landed  with  eight  sons  near  Wolles- 
ton. "  And  the  Puritan  hostility  to  art  and  all  its  works — 

[327] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

was  it  not  attested  by  the  closing  of  theaters,  the  de- 
struction of  old  churches,  the  sale  of  Charles  I's  collection 
to  Spain,  and  other  temporarily  convincing  devices  to 
crush  out  the  universal  human  instinct  for  creating  beauty  ? 

Therefore  it  is  surprising  to  find  this  eighteenth-cen- 
tury wise  man  bequeathing  the  arts  as  a  glorious  heritage 
to  his  grandsons  yet  unborn,  and  feeling  his  own  hard 
labors  in  the  founding  of  a  nation  to  be  a  mere  prelimi- 
nary to  that  end.  Probably  he  never  asked  the  much  re- 
iterated modern  question,  "What  is  art?" — never  debated 
whether  it  was  an  iridescent  rust  of  the  mind,  the  be- 
ginning of  disintegration;  or  a  white-heat  of  creative 
energy,  the  fulmination  of  spiritual  planets  and  moons, 
new  dwellings  for  the  soul  of  man. 

The  nation  John  Adams  helped  to  found  has  passed  on 
to  the  third  or  fourth  generation  beyond  him  without  yet 
getting  its  machinery  into  such  perfect  running  order  as 
to  free  its  citizens  for  the  active  and  creative  life  of  the 
spirit.  There  is  plenty  of  machinery,  but  it  proves  cum- 
bersome, it  clogs.  For  few  descendants  of  those  nation- 
makers  are  capable  of  freedom;  they  are  bound — hand, 
foot  and  spirit — to  the  machine;  and  their  unconscious 
effort  is  to  bind  in  the  same  fashion  those  who  could  and 
would  be  free,  and  thereby  to  conceal  the  evidence  of 
their  own  slavery. 

Probably  each  age  has  its  due  proportion  of  artists, 
actual  or  potential — that  is,  its  due  proportion  of  creative- 
ly imaginative  minds.  Even  John  Adams'  time,  though 

[328] 


John  Adams'  Prophecy 

barren  in  artistic  product,  was  probably  no  more  barren 
than  any  other  in  artistic  impulse.  Certain  square- 
minded  historians  and  critics  are  always  talking  of  "great 
artistic  periods"  as  if  the  artists  who  illuminate  them  were 
necessarily  born  in  clusters;  as  if,  between  these  clusters, 
nature  must  hold  her  breath  in  barrenness.  There  are 
great  artistic  periods,  of  course;  but  they  arrive  when  the 
creative  impulse  in  the  few  meets  a  sympathetic  impulse 
in  the  many,  when  all  things  conspire  to  bring  the  artists 
together  into  emulative  clusters,  and  make  them  freely 
expressive  and  productive.  The  great  artistic  periods  come 
when  the  creatively  imaginative  mind  finds  all  conditions 
urging  him,  compelling  him  indeed,  to  produce  temples, 
songs,  tales,  murals,  carvings  of  men  and  gods,  rather 
than  "politics  and  war",  or  even  "mathematics  and  phil- 
osophy, geography,  natural  history"  and  the  rest. 

The  artist  can  not  be  born  to  order,  nor  ordered  after 
he  is  born.  Yet  it  is  paradoxically  true  that  only  by  the 
will  of  the  people,  his  contemporaries  and  neighbors, 
can  he  come  into  his  own. 

When  will  the  sons  of  John  Adams  will  it? 

ff.M. 


[329] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 
REVIEWS 

GERARD   HOPKfNS 

Poems  of  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins  (now  first  published)' 

Edited,  with  notes,  by  Robert  Bridges,  Poet  Laureate* 

Humphrey  Milford,  London. 

When  the  author's  preface  and  the  editor's  notes  are 
eliminated,  we  have  here  but  a  small  volume  of  some 
eighty-five  pages  of  poetry,  and  of  these  only  a  scant 
sixty-three  consist  of  complete  poems,  the  rest  being 
fragments  assembled  from  manuscripts  in  the  Poet  Lau- 
reate's possession.  The  majority  of  them  date  from  the 
years  1876  to  1889;  only  three  earlier  poems  are  included. 
Hopkins  is  long  in  coming  into  his  own;  but  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  his  own  will  be  secure,  among  the  few 
that  know,  if  not  among  the  crowd,  when  many  a  Geor- 
gian name  that  completely  overshadows  him  for  the 
moment  shall  have  become  food  for  the  curious. 

For  Hopkins'  poetry  is  of  the  most  precious.  His  voice 
is  easily  one  of  the  half  dozen  most  individual  voices  in 
the  whole  course  of  English  nineteenth-century  poetry. 
One  may  be  repelled  by  his  mannerisms,  but  he  cannot 
be  denied  that  overwhelming  authenticity,  that  almost 
terrible  immediacy  of  utterance,  that  distinguishes  the 
genius  from  the  man  of  talent.  I  would  compare  him  to 
D.  H.  Lawrence  but  for  his  far  greater  sensitiveness  to 
the  music  of  words,  to  the  rhythms  and  ever-changing 
speeds  of  syllables.  In  a  note  published  in  POETRY  in  1914, 

[330] 


Gerard  Hopkins 

Joyce  Kilmer  speaks  of  his  mysticism  and  of  his  glori- 
ously original  imagery.  This  mysticism  of  the  Jesuit 
poet  is  not  a  poetic  manner,  it  is  the  very  breath  of  his 
soul.  Hopkins  simply  could  not  help  comparing  the 
Holy  Virgin  to  the  air  we  breathe;  he  was  magnificently 
in  earnest  about  the  Holy  Ghost  that 

over  the  bent 
World  broods  with  warm  breast  and  with  ah!  bright  wings. 

As  for  imagery,  there  is  hardly  a  line  in  these  eighty- 
odd  pages  that  does  not  glow  with  some  strange  new 
flower,  divinely  picked  from  his  imagination. 

Undeniably  this  poet  is  difficult.  He  strives  for  no 
innocuous  Victorian  smoothness.  I  have  referred  to  his 
mannerisms,  which  are  numerous  and  not  always  readily 
assimilable.  They  have  an  obsessive,  turbulent  quality 
about  them — these  repeated  and  trebly  repeated  words, 
the  poignantly  or  rapturously  interrupting  oh's  and  ah's, 
the  headlong  omission  of  articles  and  relatives,  the  some- 
times violent  word  order,  the  strange  yet  how  often  so 
lovely  compounds,  the  plays  on  words,  and,  most  of  all, 
his  wild  joy  in  the  sheer  sound  of  words.  This  phonetic 
passion  of  Hopkins  rushes  him  into  a  perfect  maze  of 
rhymes,  half-rhymes,  assonances,  alliterations: 

Tatter-tassel-tangled  and  dingle-a-dangled 
Dandy-hung  dainty  head. 

These  clangs  are  not  like  the  nicely  calculated  jingling 
lovelinesses  of  Poe  or  Swinburne.  They,  no  less  than 
the  impatient  ruggednesses  of  his  diction,  are  the  foam- 

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POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

flakes  and  eddies  of  a  passionate,  swift-streaming  ex- 
pression. To  a  certain  extent  Hopkins  undoubtedly  loved 
difficulty,  even  obscurity,  for  its  own  sake.  He  may 
have  found  in  it  a  symbolic  reflection  of  the  tumult  that 
raged  in  his  soul.  Yet  we  must  beware  of  exaggerating 
the  external  difficulties;  they  yield  with  unexpected  ease 
to  the  modicum  of  good  will  that  Hopkins  has  a  right  to 
expect  of  us. 

Hopkins'  prosody,  concerning  which  he  has  something 
to  say  in  his  preface,  is  worthy  of  careful  study.  In  his 
most  distinctive  pieces  he  abandons  the  "running"  verse 
of  traditional  English  poetry  and  substitutes  for  it  his 
own  "sprung"  rhythms.  This  new  verse  of  his  is  not 
based  on  the  smooth  flow  of  regularly  recurring  stresses. 
The  stresses  are  carefully  grouped  into  line  and  stanza 
patterns,  but  the  movement  of  the  verse  is  wholly  free. 
The  iambic  or  trochaic  foot  yields  at  any  moment  to  a 
spondee  or  a  dactyl  or  a  foot  of  one  stressed  and  three  or 
more  unstressed  syllables.  There  is,  however,  no  blind 
groping  in  this  irregular  movement.  It  is  nicely  ad- 
justed to  the  constantly  shifting  speed  of  the  verse. 
Hopkins'  effects,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  in  the  high- 
est degree  successful.  Read  with  the  ear,  never  with  the 
eye,  his  verse  flows  with  an  entirely  new  vigor  and  light- 
ness, while  the  stanzaic  form  gives  it  a  powerful  compact- 
ness and  drive.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  freest  verse  of  our 
day  is  more  sensitive  in  its  rhythmic  pulsations  than  the 
"sprung"  verse  of  Hopkins*  How  unexpectedly  he  has 

[332] 


Gerard  Hopkins 

enlarged  the  possibilities  of  the  sonnet,  his  favorite  form, 
will  be  obvious  from  the  two  examples  that  I  am  going 
to  quote.  Meanwhile,  here  are  two  specimens  of  his  more 
smoothly  flowing  verse.  The  first  is  from  The  Leaden 
Echo,  a  maiden's  song: 

How  to  keep — is  there  any  any,  is  there  none  such,  nowhere  known 
some,  bow  or  brooch  or  braid  or  brace,  lace,  latch  or  catch  or  key 
to  keep 

Back  beauty,  keep  it,  beauty,  beauty,  beauty, .  .  from  vanishing  away  ? 

Oh  is  there  no  frowning  of  these  wrinkles,  ranked  wrinkles  deep, 

Down?  no  waving-offof  these  most  mournful  messengers,  still  messen- 
gers, sad  and  stealing  messengers  of  grey? 

No  there's  none,  there's  none — oh  no,  there's  none! 

Nor  can  you  long  be,  what  you  now  are,  called  fair — 

Do  what  you  may  do,  what,  do  what  you  may, 

And  wisdom  is  early  to  despair: 

Be  beginning;  since,  no,  nothing  can  be  done 

To  keep  at  bay 

Age  and  age's  evils — hoar  hair, 

Ruck  and  wrinkle,  drooping,  dying,  death 's  worst,  winding  sheets,  tombs 
and  worms  and  tumbling  to  decay; 

So  be  beginning,  be  beginning  to  despair. 

Oh  there's  none — no  no  no,  there's  none: 

Be  beginning  to  despair,  to  despair, 

Despair,  despair,  despair,  despair. 

This  is  as  free  as  it  can  be  with  its  irregular  line-lengths 
and  its  extreme  changes  of  tempo,  yet  at  no  point  is  there 
hesitation  as  the  curve  of  the  poem  rounds  out  to  definite 
form.  For  long-breathed,  impetuous  rhythms,  wind-like 
and  sea-like,  such  verse  as  this  of  Hopkins'  has  nothing 
to  learn  from  the  best  of  Carl  Sandburg.  My  second 
quotation  is  from  The  Wood-lark,  a  precious  fragment: 

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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Teevo  cheevo  cheevio  chee: 

Oh  where,  where  can  that  be? 

Weedio-weedlo:  there  again! 

So  tiny  a  trickle  of  song-strain; 

And  all  round  not  to  be  found 

For  brier,  bough,  furrow,  or  green  ground 

Before  or  behind  or  far  or  at  hand 

Either  left,  either  right, 

Anywhere  in  the  sunlight. 

Well,  after  all!    Ah,  but  hark— 

"I  am  the  little  wood-lark." 

This  is  sheer  music.  The  stresses  fall  into  place  with 
an  altogether  lovely  freshness. 

Yet  neither  mannerisms  of  diction  and  style  nor  prosody 
define  the  essential  Hopkins.  The  real  Hopkins  is  a 
passionate  soul  unendingly  in  conflict.  The  consuming 
mysticism,  the  intense  religious  faith  are  unreconciled 
with  a  basic  sensuality  that  leaves  the  poet  no  peace. 
He  is  longing  to  give  up  the  loveliness  of  the  world  for 
that  greater  loveliness  of  the  spirit  that  all  but  descends  to 
envelop  him  like  a  mother;  but  he  is  too  poignantly  aware 
of  all  sensuous  beauty,  too  insistently  haunted  by  the 
allurements  of  the  flesh.  A  Freudian  psychologist  might 
call  him  an  imperfectly  sex-sublimated  mystic.  Girlish 
tenderness  is  masked  by  ruggedness.  And  his  fuming 
self-torment  is  exteriorized  by  a  diction  that  strains, 
and  by  a  rhythmic  flow  that  leaps  or  runs  or  stamps 
but  never  walks. 

Here  is  The  Starlight  Night,  one  of  his  most  character- 
istic sonnets — white-heat  mysticism  forged  out  of  what 
pathos  of  sense-ecstasy! 

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Gerard  Hopkins 

Look  at  the  stars!     look,  look  up  at  the  skies! 
Oh  look  at  all  the  fire-folk  sitting  in  the  air! 
The  bright  boroughs,  the  circle-citadels  there! 
Down  in  dim  woods  the  diamond  delves!  the  elves '-eyes! 
The  grey  lawns  cold  where  gold,  where  quickgold  lies! 
Wind-heat  whitebeam!  airy  abeles  set  on  a  flare! 
Flake-doves  sent  floating  forth  at  a  farmyard  scare! — 
Ah  well!  it  is  all  a  purchase,  all  is  a  prize. 

Buy  then!  bid  then! — What? — Prayer,  patience,  alms,  vows. 

Look,  look:  a  May-mess,  like  on  orchard  boughs! 

Look!     March-bloom,  like  on  mealed- with-yellow  sallows! 

These  are  indeed  the  barn;  within  doors  house 

The  shocks.    This  piece-bright  paling  shuts  the  spouse 

Christ  home,  Christ  and  his  mother  and  all  his  hallows. 

"Ah  well!  it  is  all  a  purchase."  You  cannot  have  it 
for  the  asking. 

And,  finally,  this  other  sonnet,  addressed  to  his  own 
restless  soul,  "with  this  tormented  mind  tormenting  yet:" 

My  own  heart  let  me  have  more  pity  on;  let 
Me  live  to  my  sad  self  hereafter  kind, 
Charitable;  not  live  this  tormented  mind 
With  this  tormented  mind  tormenting  yet. 
I  cast  for  comfort  I  can  no  more  get 
By  groping  round  my  comfortless,  than  blind 
Eyes  in  their  dark  can  day  or  thirst  can  find 
Thirst 's  all-in-all  in  all  a  world  of  wet. 

Soul,  self;  come,  poor  Jackself,  I  do  advise 

You,  jaded,  let  be;  call  off  thoughts  awhile 

Elsewhere;  leave  comfort  root-room;  let  joy  size 

At  God  knows  when  to  God  knows  what;  whose  smile 

's  not  wrung,  see  you;  unforeseen  times  rather — as  skies 

Betweenpie  mountains — lights  a  lovely  mile. 

But  how  many  "lovely  miles"  could  there  have  been 
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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

on  the  long,  rocky  road  traversed  by  this  unhappy  spirit  ? 
In  face  of  this  agonising  poem  one  can  only  marvel  at 
the  Poet  Laureate's  imperturbable  exegesis  of  the  word 
"betweenpie": — "This  word  might  have  delighted 
William  Barnes  if  the  verb  'to  pie'  existed.  It  seems 
not  to  exist,  and  to  be  forbidden  by  homophonic  absurdi- 
ties."  From  our  best  friends  deliver  us,  O  Lord! 

Edward  Sapir 

UNITY    MADE    VITAL 

New  Poems,  by  D.  H.  Lawrence.     B.  W.  Huebsch. 

The  unimaginative  person  divides  life,  art,  science,  any- 
thing he  is  dealing  with.  He  analyzes  it,  classifies  it, 
puts  it  into  compartments.  The  poet,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  not  interested  in  divisions  so  much  as  in  unity,  because 
unity  is  the  aspect  under  which  life  presents  itself  natural- 
ly to  any  unbound  creative  spirit. 

Probably  there  is  no  living  poet  whose  perception  of 
the  unity  of  all  things  is  keener  and  more  profound  than 
D.  H.  Lawrence.  He  goes  further  than  Wordsworth  and 
the  romantic  school.  He  goes  further  than  the  symbol- 
ists. His  books  give  not  only  new  pleasure,  but,  more 
than  this,  new  light  to  the  understanding. 

Saturated  with  Pauline  theology — as  all  of  us  who 
have  studied  English  literature  at  all  are  bound  to  be — 
we  are  prone  to  draw  distinctions  between  body  and  spirit, 
or  even  between  mind  and  spirit,  and  to  set  one  up  as 
above  the  others.  The  lesser  poet  may  as  well  accept  the 

[336] 


Unity  Made  Vital 

distinctions:  an  artist  like  Mr.  Lawrence  abandons  these. 
He  sees  all  experiences  fused  into  the  indissoluble  whole 
which  is  life. 

Nay,  I  persist,  and  very  faith  shall  keep 

You  integral  to  me.     Each  door,  each  mystic  port 

Of  egress  from  you  I  will  seal  and  steep 

In  perfect  chrism 

So  you  shall  feel 

Ensheathed  invulnerable  with  me,  with  seven 
Great  seals  upon  your  outgoing,  and  woven 
Chain  of  my  mystic  will  wrapped  perfectly 
Upon  you,  wrapped  in  indomitable  me. 

The  utter  unity  of  art  is  brilliantly  revealed  in  such  a 
poem  as  Flapper,  which  cannot  fail  to  suggest  architect- 
ural method  in  its  structure,  and  in  its  keeping  of  all 
ornament  in  inherent  harmony  with  the  line  of  structure. 

Love  has  crept  out  of  her  sealed  heart 

As  a  field-bee,  black  and  amber, 

Breaks  from  the  winter-cell,  to  clamber 
Up  the  warm  grass  where  the  sunbeams  start. 

Mischief  has  come  in  her  dawning  eyes, 

And  a  glint  of  colored  iris  brings, 

Such  as  lies  along  the  folded  wings 
Of  the  bee  before  he  flies. 

Who,  with  a  ruffling,  careful  breath 

Has  opened  the  wings  of  the  wild  young  sprite? 
Has  fluttered  her  spirit  to  stumbling  flight 

In  her  eyes,  as  a  young  bee  stumbleth? 

Love  makes  the  burden  of  her  voice. 

The  hum  of  his  heavy,  staggering  wings 

Sets  quivering  with  wisdom  the  common  things 

That  she  says,  and  her  words  rejoice. 

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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

The  ten-page  preface  to  Mr.  Lawrence's  present  volume 
is  another  witness  to  unity — a  unity  perhaps  more  far- 
reaching,  more  comprehensive,  more  marvelous,  than  has 
been  suggested  by  the  previous  examples.  In  this  preface 
the  author  points  out  that  there  are  two  types  of  poetry, 
that  it  is  either  "the  voice  of  the  far  future,  exquisite  and 
ethereal,  or  the  voice  of  the  past,  rich,  magnificent". 
Both  types  possess  an  "exquisite  finality,  perfection  which 
belongs  to  all  that  is  far  off". 

The  poet  then  turns  to  "the  unrestful,  ungraspable 
poetry  of  the  sheer  present,  poetry  whose  very  permanency 
lies  in  its  wind-like  transit".  As  the  best  example  of  this, 
he  points  to  Whitman.  Free  verse,  he  says,  is  the  norm 
of  this  "seething  poetry  of  the  incarnate  Now",  which  is 
"supreme,  beyond  even  the  everlasting  gems  of  the  before 
and  after". 

In  his  discussion  Mr.  Lawrence  uses  with  great  effec- 
tiveness biologic  and  physical  examples.  Science  and  art 
may  be  popularly  regarded  as  enemies.  Mr.  Lawrence 
does  not  attack  science,  he  puts  science  into  his  pocket 
and  walks  off  with  it — a  distinct  achievement  in  the  di- 
rection of  unity. 

So  much  has  been  written  about  Lawrence,  intelligent 
readers  know  his  work  so  well,  that  detailed  discussion  of 
his  poems  seems  hardly  in  place.  His  New  Poems  has 
much  the  same  qualities  as  his  earlier  volumes  of  poems. 
There  is  the  same  passion-filled,  deep-running  ardor,  the 
same  exactness  of  phrasing,  the  same  fulness  of  conno- 

[338] 


Unity  Made  Vital 

tation,  the  same  subtle  rhythms.  Places  are  much  more 
extensively  used  as  subject  matter  than  in  his  previous 
books.  The  volume  has  not  the  emotional  completeness 
of  Look!  We  Have  Come  Through,  but  that  is  due  to  the 
plan  of  organic  development  followed  in  that  work. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

YOUTH    AND    THE    DESERT 

The  Bitterns,  by  Glenway  Wescott.     Monroe  Wheeler, 

Evanston,  111. 
The  Immobile  Wind,  by  Yvor  Winters.     Monroe  Wheeler. 

These  brief  first  books  of  two  friends  may  naturally  be 
reviewed  together,  since  they  are  the  product  of  sympa- 
thetic, though  quite  different,  minds  and  temperaments 
working  in  the  same  tradition — the  ultra-modern  tra- 
dition of  Ezra  Pound,  H.  D.,  perhaps  Carlos  Williams  and 
one  or  two  others,  and  above  all  Wallace  Stevens.  The 
two  young  poets  are  both  seekers  of  austere  beauty  in 
her  remote  cool  haunts;  and  their  Pegasus  is  reined  in  by 
a  taut  technique,  which  gives  him  order  and  direction 
but  possibly  too  little  freedom  of  movement. 

Youth  is  so  prone  to  prolixities  and  sentimentalities 
that  the  opposite  excess  is  something  of  a  relief — at  any 
rate  it  may  prove  good  discipline  for  young  poets  keenly 
strung  and  not  less  sensitive  because  they  abhor  facility. 
The  temptations  inherent  in  this  compression  are  obvious 
— self-consciousness  and  what  one  might  call  a  mannerism 
of  tightness.  In  both  these  books -one  feels  this  strain 

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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

— one  wishes  that  each  poet  would  be  less  reluctant  to 
speak  out,  to  let  himself  go,  to  reveal  his  meaning  with  a 
less  mystical  air. 

Mr.  Winters'  poem,  The  Priesthood,  suggests  the  kind 
of  austere  beauty  both  these  poets  are  aiming  at: 

We  stand  apart 

That  men  may  see 

The  lines  about  our  eyes. 

We  perish,  we 
Who  die  in  art, 
With  that  surprise 

Of  one  who  speaks 
To  us  and  knows 
Wherein  he  lies. 

And  Mr.  Wescott,  veiling  a  similar  theme,  says  in  his 
initial  poem,  After-image: 

Oh  I  have  never  sought 

This  image  of  remembered  fear 

Which  clings  to  the  eye  of  thought. 

I  have  desired  rather  to  create 
A  balance  of  beauty  as  direct 
As  the  hills  above  the  cruel  farms, 
Or  the  two  eyes  of  a  fawn — 

In  ecstasy  to  separate 
Wheat  of  memory  from  rust. 
But  trees  by  night  lift  heavy  arms, 
Or  a  hawk  screams  at  dawn: 

And  my  sight  turns  gray  as  dust. 

Residence  of  a  year  or  two  in  New  Mexico  has  con- 
firmed this  austerity  by  adding  its  own  stark  discipline 

[340] 


Youth  and  the  Desert 

of  deserts,  mountain  spaces,  and  the  art  of  primitive  races. 
These  poets  may  be  cryptic,  secretive;  but  they  can  not 
rival  the  desert  in  either  of  these  qualities,  nor  yet  in  a 
certain  harshness  streaked  with  color.  Mr.  Winters*  book 
has  the  feel  of  the  desert  in  its  title,  The  Immobile  Wind> 
which  no  one  who  has  been  in  those  still  spaces  can 
question  as  paradoxical.  This  poet  has  experienced  their 
gift  of  solitude;  he  is 

I,  one  who  never  speaks. 
Again: 

On  the  desert,  between  pale  mountains,  our  cries — 
Far  whispers  creeping  through  an  ancient  shell. 

Indeed,  the  whole  book  is  a  voice  from  the  desert,  the 
expression  of  a  spirit  in  intimate  communion  with  it — a 
spirit  proud  and  separate,  who  can  say: 

I  paved  a  sky 

With  days. 

I  crept  beyond  the  Lie. 

The  reader  may  be  left  to  his  own  interpretation  of 
the  more  cryptic  poems,  including  the  Two  Dramatic 
Interludes  for  Puppets.  But  even  one  who  lives  "in  the 
greatest  of  our  valleys"  can  hardly  fail  to  get  from  this 
one,  with  its  beautiful  last  line,  a  hint  of  desert  grandeur 
and  silence: 

Death  goes  before  me  on  his  hands  and  knees, 
And  we  go  down  among  the  bending  trees. 

Weeping  I  go,  and  no  man  gives  me  ease — 

I  am  that  strange  thing  that  each  strange  eye  sees. 

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POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Eyes  of  the  silence,  and  all  life  an  eye, 
Turn  in  the  wind,  and  always  I  walk  by. 

Too  still  I  go,  and  all  things  go  from  me —  . 

As  down  far  autumn  beaches  a  man  runs  to  the  sea. 

My  hands  are  cold,  my  lips  are  thin  and  dumb. 
Stillness  is  like  the  beating  of  a  drum. 

Mr.  Wescott's  experience  of  the  desert  is  less  intimate 
and  static.  He  has  followed  the  trail — for  him  the  desert 
moves: 

The  sun  slides  down: 

I  have  not  healed 

My  lame  leprous  day; 

I  am  not  swift  enough  to  walk 

From  May  to  May. 

Desert  flows  beneath  my  feet, 
Drips  out  of  the  sky. 
But  I  lie  down  beside  content, 
For  victory  is  imminent. 
Night  opens  her  deep  eye. 

Indeed,  the  desert  does  not  pervade  this  brochure  of 
twelve  poems.  There  is  a  hint  of  softer  places  and  more 
personal  emotions.  Mostly  however,  it  expresses  youth's 
loneliness — perhaps  the  following  poem  is  typical,  in  both 
mood  and  movement : 

These  are  the  subtle  rhythms,  rhythms  of  sloth: 

Mountains  which  fall  in  the  green  swirls 
Of  twilight  as  petals,  fallen  and  languid, 
Bud  in  the  dawn,  and  fall  again 
In  the  green  swirls  of  twilight,  a  little 
Nearer  the  stars  and  the  flickering  final  fires. 

These  are  the  rhythms  of  sloth: 
Mountains,  my  feet  on  the  trails. 

[342] 


Youth  and  the  Desert 

Enough  has  been  quoted  from  these  two  poets  to  show 
with  what  studious  insistence  they  work  out  their  closely 
packed  thoughts  in  rhythms  of  original  and  delicate 
beauty.  If  the  effect  is  sometimes  too  tight,  too  squeezed, 
this  may  be  the  ardor  of  youth,  which  will  yield  its  over- 
emphasis to  time.  Meantime  these  poets  have  struck  out, 
each  one,  a  new  and  personal  tune.  As  Mr.  Wescott  sings, 

I,  in  my  pitiful  flesh 
Transfigured,  have  woven 
Music  of  wilderness. 

H.M. 

TWO    ENGLISH    POETS 

The  Waggoner,  by  Edmund  Blunden.  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
The  Kaleidoscope,  by  Sherard  Vines.  C.  W.  Daniel,  Ltd., 

London. 

If  these  two  English  poets  were  dancing,  I  am  sure  one 
would  do  the  foxtrot  and  the  other  the  waltz.  And  I  do 
not  imply  any  lack  of  deference  in  using  this  analogy  of 
another  art. 

Mr.  Sherard  Vines,  the  foxtrotter,  would  be  playfully 
pagan  with  shoulders  and  feet;  and  Mr.  Edmund  Blun- 
den, the  waltzer,  would  glide  smoothly  and  turn  slowly: 
both  with  propriety.  And  just  as  the  waltz  is  a  more 
finished  dance  than  the  foxtrot,  so  Mr.  Blunden 's  poetry 
is  more  polished  than  that  of  Mr.  Vines. 

I  would  recommend  The  Waggoner  to  all  those  who 
prefer  the  i,  2,  3, — i,  2,  3  order  of  things.  The  poems 
are  suave,  smooth,  and  have  music.  They  are  very  pleas- 

[343] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine,  of  Verse 

ing  to  the  senses,  and  leave  the  emotions  unruffled.  They 
are  filled  with  soft  alliterations,  and  the  simple  panaceas 
of  "wood-fairies"  and  "trysts"  and  "lilied  lakes",  as 
well  as  more  original  ones: 

The  wild-rose  bush  lets  loll 

Her  sweet-breathed  petals  on  the  pearl-smooth  pool — 
The  bream-pool  overshadowed  with  the  cool 
Of  oaks  where  myriad  mumbling  wings  patrol. 

Frequently  there  are  lines  of  arresting  beauty: 
The  feather-footed  moments  tiptoe  past. 
Some  bell-like  evening  when  the  may's  in  bloom. 

And  always  Mr.  Blunden  is  a  sincere  follower  of  the 
old  English  pastoral  tradition.  He  has  the  same  genuine 
appreciation  and  authentic  knowledge  of  nature  which 
inspired  Wordsworth,  George  Crabbe,  John  Clare,  and 
the  eighteenth-century  poets  of  rural  life.  Sheepbells  is 
characteristic: 

Moon-sweet  the  summer  evening  steals 

Upon  the  babbling  day: 
Mournfully,  most  mournfully 

Light  dies  away. 

There  the  yew,  the  solitary, 
Vaults  a  deeper  melancholy, 
As  from  distant  dells 
Chance  music  wells 
From  the  browsing-bells. 

Thus  they  dingle,  thus  they  chime, 
While  the  woodlark's  dimpling  rings 

In  the  dim  air  climb; 

In  the  dim  and  dewy  loneness, 
Where  the  woodlark  sings. 

[344] 


Two  English  Poets 

Some  of  the  poems  are  as  coolly  refreshing  as  their 
titles — The  Silver  Bird  of  Herndyke  Mill,  A  Waterpiece, 
Perch-fishing,  etc. — and  all  of  them  have  a  quiet  charm. 
They  tell  of  nature  in  her  most  gentle  moods. 

The  range  of  Mr.  Blunden's  poetry  is  limited,  but  it  is 
highly  perfected. 

Mr.  Vines,  on  the  other  hand,  springs  fearlessly  from 
one  subject  to  another — starting  with  Sunrise,  and 
going  with  breathless  versatility  to  The  Gospel  of  Chimneys, 
to  A  Ballad  of  Judas,  to  Low  Tide,  to  The  Dying  Bolsh, 
and  so  on,  concluding  with  Anastasis.  He  uses  the  direct 
appeal  of  human  emotions,  and  hurls  his  observations  on 
love,  hatred,  and  despair  with  a  brutal  frankness: 

The  cold!    The  ghastly  cold, 
All  colorless!    The  only  color  is 
My  blood,  like  red  wax  from  a  guttering  candle — 
(You  know  these  red  candles  ladies  use 
In  piano  brackets). 

Bitter  wind, 

A  draught  blowing  so  shrilly  through  my  wound, 
Blowing  the  life  out,  blowing  the  life  out. 

There  are  no  sensuous  cadences  here,  as  in  Mr.  Blun- 
den's poems;  there  is  no  beauty  of  wording:  the  effect 
is  gained  through  a  harsh  simplicity,  and  the  subject  mat- 
ter is  always  more  unusual  than  the  manner  of  expression. 
The  poems  are — to  use  the  simile  again — like  the  foxtrot, 
the  modern  dance:  the  dance  that  is  primitive,  virile, 
whimsical — pagan.  The  veneer  of  rhythm  is  strangely 
a  part  of,  and  at  the  same  time  incongruous  to,  the  un- 

[345] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

conventional  audacity  of  the  ideas,  like  the  harmony  of 
discords  in  modern  music. 

Perhaps  Little  Mother  of  Sorrows  is  as  good  an  example 
as  any  one  poem  may  be: 

Little  mother  of  sorrows, 

What  is  her  desire? 
"  Pence,  to  buy  a  drop  of  milk, 

And  a  few  coals  for  a  fire. 

"My  baby  gets  no  milk  from  me — 

He's  crying  out  for  food. 
I  don't  know  who  his  daddy  is, 

But  one  that  was  no  good. 

"Yes,  sir,  I  used  to  walk  the  streets 

Before  I  got  so  ill; 
And  now  I  sell  spring  flowers  or  beg, 

Since  there's  two  mouths  to  fill." 

Little  mother  of  sorrows, 

With  holes  in  your  thin  shoes, 
And  little  son  of  sorrows, 

With  bare  pink  toes, 

No  one  in  the  whole  town 

Cares  for  you  at  all; 
So  go  into  the  workhouse, 

Or  drown  in  the  canal, 

The  two  poets,  like  the  two  dances,  have  found  a  dis- 
similar, yet  each  a  merited  recognition. 

Marion  Strobel 


[346] 


CORRESPONDENCE 

CONCERNING   AWARDS 

My  Dear  Miss  Monroe:  Your  comment  on  The  DiaVs 
generous  offer  of  prizes,  and  your  suggestion,  repeatedly 
made,  that  poetry  should  be  seriously  recognized  as  a 
serious  art  in  our  country  and  encouraged  and  rewarded 
as  such,  are  interesting. 

Let  me  first,  however,  correct  your  statement  about 
the  recently  won  prizes  offered  for  students  in  the  Chicago 
Art  Institute  school.  The  prizes  are  larger  than  you 
stated.  The  French  Memorial  Prize  is,  I  think,  about 
$1,200,  and  the  Bryan  Lathrop  Memorial  Prize  represents 
$800.  They  were  not  awarded  to  the  two  students,  as 
you  suggest,  "for  a  couple  of  nice  little  academic  bas- 
reliefs,"  but  rather  on  the  basis  of  these  and  all  their 
school  work  during  the  past  year'  plus  their  personal 
qualities;  and  the  prizes  are  for  definite  study  abroad. 
In  these  particular  cases  they  were  undoubtedly  the 
culmination  of  three  or  four  years  of  ardent  work. 

There  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  school  for  poetry  except- 
ing as  your  magazine,  and  perhaps  to  a  less  extent  some 
others,  afford  an  intelligent  and  discriminating  outlet 
and  opportunity  to  the  young  poets. 

Could  you  devise  and  suggest  some  plan  by  which 
prizes  would  not  be  awarded  for  an  individual  poem, 
but  based  on  broader  considerations  of  personal  produc- 
tion and  talent,  youth  and  need?  An  outline  for  such 

[347] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

a  prize  might  be  worth  publishing  in  POETRY  on  the 
chance  of  its  attracting  the  generous  sympathy  of  some 
well-to-do  reader.  In  the  meantime  let  me  repeat  that 
POETRY  is  itself  the  best  school  and  reward,  so  far  as  I 
know,  which  exists  at  the  present  time  for  young  poets. 

Arthur  T.  Aldis 

Note  by  the  Editor:  One  of  POETRY'S  annual  prizes  conforms  to  our 
correspondent's  suggestion — that  of  $100  "for  a  young  poet,"  awarded 
last  year  and  twice  previously.  This  is  not  given  "for  an  individual 
poem,"  but  is  "based  on  broader  considerations  of  personal  production 
and  talent,  youth  and  need."  But  we  submit  that  there  is  a  vast  differ- 
ence between  this  annual  hundred  dollars  (not  yet  secured  for  this  year, 
by  the  way)  and  those  two  far  richer  memorial  prizes  permanently  en- 
dowed for  the  benefit  of  the  Chicago  Art  Institute  art  school. 

If  anyone  feels  inclined  to  endow  such  a  memorial  prize  in  perpetuity 
for  the  benefit  of  young  poets,  the  editor  will  engage  to  satisfy  him  as  to 
the  terms  of  such  an  endowment.  Some  trust  company  of  proved  re- 
liability should  be  made  custodian  of  such  a  fund,  and  a  committee  of 
prominent  poets  should  administer  it.  The  editor  will  be  very  glad  ot 
suggestions  as  to  the  best  way  of  appointing  and  perpetuating  such  a 
committee,  in  order  to  keep  it  freshly  authoritative  and  uninstitution- 
alized. 

Those  who  are  interested — and  poets  especially  should  be  loyally  in- 
terested— are  requested  to  give  this  subject  careful  thought,  and  to  send 
in  their  suggestions  before  September  fifteenth,  so  that  we  may  resume 
the  subject  editorially  in  our  annual  Prize-award  Number  in  November. 

NOTES 

Paul  Fort  has  been  crowned  Prince  des  Poetes  in  Paris,  and  has  re- 
cently published,  through  Eugene  Fasquelle,  his  twenty-seventh  volume 
of  verse,  Au  Pays  des  Moulins.  Yet,  though  perhaps  the  most  popular 
and  prolific  of  French  poets,  he  was  little  known  in  this  country,  if  one 
may  judge  by  slightness  of  sales  and  library  circulation,  until  Amy 

[348] 


Notes 

Lowell  introduced  him  in  her  Six  French  Poets,  to  which  volume  the 
reader  is  referred  for  an  intelligent  presentation  of  the  man  and  his  art. 
The  Miraculous  Catch  is  partly  quoted  by  Miss  Lowell,  and  admirably 
translated  into  prose.  But  as  she  does  not  attempt  to  reproduce  M. 
Fort's  rhyme-scheme,  with  its  chiming  repetitions  of  sound  not  unlike 
her  own  polyphonic  prose,  we  present  Mr.  Newberry- 's  version  in  the 
hope  that  our  readers  will  be  interested  to  compare  the  two  translations 
of  a  poem  so  deliciously  and  whimsically  French  in  its  mood  and  style — 
its  manner  of  achieving  a  modern  picture  of  a  mediaeval  scene. 

M.  Fort's  series  of  Louis  Eleventh  poems,  of  which  we  present  two, 
have  been  incorporated  recently  in  a  play  which  is  to  be  produced  at 
the  Odeon  in  October.  This  autumn  Mr.  John  Strong  Newberry  will 
publish,  through  Duffield  &  Co.,  his  book  of  translations,  under  the  title 
Selected  Poems  and  Ballads  of  Paul  Fort. 

M.  Fort  was  born  at  Rheims  in  1872,  directly  opposite  the  Cathedral 
— now  "la  Cathedrale  assassinee"  as  he  has  called  it  since  its  destruc- 
tion. For  years  he  has  lived  in  Paris.  Miss  Lowell  speaks  of  his  joie 
de  vivre — "I  know  no  one,"  she  says,  "except  Sam  Weller,  who  seems  to 
me  so  bubblingly  alive." 

M.  Fort's  translator,  Mr.  John  Strong  Newberry,  is  a  resident  of 
Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Rainer  Maria  Rilke,  the  distinguished  Viennese  poet  from  whom  we 
present  a  translation,  was  discussed  by  Padraic  Colum  in  POETRY  for 
June,  1919,  in  a  review  of  a  volume  of  the  Lemont  translations.  "A 
mystic  poet,"  Mr.  Colum  calls  him,  one  "lonely  amid  the  crowd." 

Mrs.  Jessie  Lemont  Transil,  Rilke 's  very  competent  translator,  is  a 
resident  of  New  York. 

Of  the  American  poets  who  appear  this  month  for  the  first  time: 

Mr.  Glenway  Wescott,  a  native  of  Wisconsin  and  recently  resident 
in  Chicago  and  Santa  Fe*  is  the  author  of  The  Bitterns,  published  by 
Monroe  Wheeler  and  reviewed  in  this  number. 

Mr.  John  Crawford,  a  native  of  Arkansas  and  a  resident  of  New  York, 
has  written  for  various  papers — mostly  prose  criticisms. 

Mr.  Ivan  Swift,  a  painter  as  well  as  a  poet,  is  the  founder  of  Chippewa 
Cove  Woods,  an  artist  colony  near  Harbor  Springs,  Mich.,  where  he 
lives  at  least  part  of  each  year.  He  is  the  author  of  The  Blue  Crane 
(James  T.  White  &  Co.). 

[349] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Miss  Marian  Thanhouser,  formerly  of  Milwaukee,  Wis.,  is  now  study- 
ing at  the  University  of  California  in  Berkeley. 

The  only  poet  of  this  month  whom  our  readers  have  met  before  is 
Miss  Marya  Zaturensky — born  in  Moscow  and  resident  in  New  York 
since  she  was  brought  to  this  country  ten  years  ago.  She  has  contri- 
buted verse  to  various  magazines. 


BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Selected  Poems,  by  William  Butler  Yeats.     Macmillan  Co. 
The  Living  Frieze,  by  Mark  Turbyfill.     Monroe  Wheeler,  Evanston,  111. 
Commemoration  and  Other  Verses,  by  Thomas  Dwight  Goodell.     Yale 

University  Press. 

Poems,  by  Marianne  Moore.    The  Egoist  Press,  London. 
A  Song  of  Faith,  by  Katherine  Milner  Peirce.     Stratford  Co. 
Second  April,  by  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay.     Mitchell  Kennerley. 

ANTHOLOGIES: 

Modern  Czech  Poetry,  Selected  Texts  with  Translations  and  an  Intro- 
duction by  P.  Selver.  E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 

A  Queen's  College  Miscellany,  1921,  selected  and  edited  by  Edmund 
Blunden  and  Alan  Porter.  Oxford,  England. 

A  Hundred  Voices  and  Other  Poems  from  the  Second  Part  of  Life  Immov- 
able, by  Kostes  Palamas.  Translated  with  an  Introduction  and  notes 
by  Aristides  E.  Phontrides.  Harvard  University  Press. 

An  Anthology  of  New  English  Verse,  edited  by  Makoto  Sangu.  Osaka, 
Suzuya,  Japan. 

PROSE: 

Paul  Verlaine,  by  Harold  Nicholson.     Houghton  MifHin  Co. 
The  Hound  of  Heaven:  An  Interpretation,  by  Francis  P.  La  Buffe,  S.  J. 

Macmillan  Co. 
The  Story  of  a  Poet:     Madison  Cawein,  by  Otto  A.  Rothert.     (Filson 

Club  Publication  No.  30.)     John  P.  Morton  &  Co.,  Louisville,  Ky. 

DRAMA: 
Body  and  Soul,  by  Elizabeth  H.  Marsh.     Cornhill  Co. 

[350] 


POETRY 

A  MAGAZINE  OF   VERSE 

VOLUME  XIX 


oetru 


VOLUME  XIX 
October-March,  1921-1922 

Edited  by 
Harriet  Monroe 


545  CASS  STREET 
CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1921-2, 

by 
Harriet  Monroe 


A  Magazine  of  Verse 


Editor 
Associate  Editors 

Business  Manager 
Advisory  Committee 


Administrative  Committee 


HARRIET  MONROE 

ALICE  CORBIN  HENDERSON 

MARION  STROBEL 

MILA  STRAUB 

HENRY  B.  FULLER 

EUNICE  TIETJENS 

LEW  SARETT 

WILLIAM  T.  ABBOTT 

CHARLES  H.  HAMILL 


TO  HAVE  GREAT  POETS 

THERE    MUST    BE    GREAT    AUDIENCES    TOO 

Whitman 


SUBSCRIBERS  TO  THE  FUND 


Mr.  Howard  Shaw 
Mr.  Arthur  T.  Aldis 
Mr.  Edwin  S.  Fletcher 
Mrs.  Charles  H.  Hamill 
Mrs.  Emmons  Elaine  (4) 
Mr.  Wm.  S.  Monroe 
Mr.  E.  A.  Bancroft 
Mr.  C.  L.  Hutchinson 
Mrs.  Wm.  J.  Calhoun 
Mrs.  P.  A.  Valentine 


Mrs.  Bryan  Lathrop 

Mr.  Martin  A.  Ryerson 

Hon.  John  Barton  Payne 

Mr.  Thomas  D.  Jones 

Mr.  Charles  Deering 

Mrs.  W.  F.  Dummer 

Mr.  Arthur  Heun 

Mr.  Edward  F.  Carry 

Mr.  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  (2) 

Mr.  F.  Stuyvesant  Peabody 

[i] 


Mr.  Horace  S.  Oakley  Miss  Dorothy  North 

Mr.  Eames  MacVeagh  Mrs.  F.  Louis  Slade 

Mr.  Charles  G.  Dawes  Mrs.  Julius  Rosenwald 

Mr.  Owen  F.  Aldis  Mrs.  Andrea  Hofer  Proudfoot 

Mr.  Albert  H.  Loeb  (2)  Mrs.  Arthur  T.  Aldis 

The  Misses  Skinner  Mrs.  George  W.  Mixter 

Misses  Alice  E.  and  Margaret  D.    .  Mrs.  Walter  S.  Brewster 

Moran  Mrs.  Joseph  N.  Eisendrath 

Miss  Mary  Rozet  Smith  Mrs.  Simeon  Ford 

Mrs.  John  Borden  Mrs.  Thomas  W.  Lamont 

Mrs.  Clarence  I.  Peck  Mr.  Henry  J.  Patten 

Mr.  John  S.  Miller  Mr.  Charles  H.  Dennis 

Mr.  Edward  P.  Russell  Mrs.  Frank  Gates  Allen 

Mrs.  Frank  O.  Lowden  Mrs.  Otto  Seiffert 

Mrs.  Frederic  Clay  Bartlett  Mrs.  E.  C.  Chadbourne 

Mr.  Rufus  G.  Dawes  Mrs.  Richard  T.  Crane 

Mr.  Gilbert  E.  Porter  Mrs.  William  M.  Lybrand 

Mr.  George  A.  McKinlock  Mr.  Charles  H.  Swift 

Mrs.  Samuel  Insull  Mr.  S.  T.  Jacobs 

Mr.  A.  G.  Becker  Mrs.  Jacob  Baur 

Mrs.  Roy  McWilliams  Mr.  A.  D.  Lundy 

Mr.  Benjamin  V.  Becker  Mrs.  Robert  N.  Montgomery 

Mr.  George  F.  Porter  Miss  Joanna  Fortune 

Mrs.  Charles  A.  Chapin  Mrs.  Rockefeller  McCormick 

Mr.  S.  O.  Levinson  Mrs.  Francis  Neilson 

Others  besides  these  guarantors  who  testify  to  their  appreciation  of  the  mag- 
azine by  generous  gifts  are: 

Mr.  Edward  L.  Ryerson,  Miss  Amy  Lowell,  Mrs.  Edgar  Speyer  and  Mr. 
Edward  C.  Wentworth. 

Three  annual  prizes  will  be  awarded  as  usual  next  November  for  good  work 
of  the  current  year.  To  the  donors  of  these  prizes,  as  well  as  to  the  above  list  of 
guarantors,  the  editor  wishes  to  express  the  appreciation  of  the  staff  and  the  poets: 

To  Mr.  S.  O.  Levinson,  for  the  Helen  Haire  Levinson  Prize  of  two  hundred 
dollars,  to  be  awarded  for  the  ninth  time;  to  the  anonymous  guarantor  who  will 
present,  for  the  eighth  time,  a  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars;  and  to  the  Friday  Club 
of  Chicago,  which  has  donated  fifty  dollars  for  a  prize  to  a  young  poet. 

We  feel  that  these  prizes  are  a  most  valuable  service  to  the  art. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  XIX 
VERSE 

PAGE 

Aber,  Loureine: 

FROM  CITY  LANES: 

City  Wed 10 

If,  Elevator  Man,  Bereft 11 

Old  Man 12 

Girl,  Death 13 

Addison,  Medora  C.: 

Motherhood 261 

Andelson,  Pearl: 

FROM  A  BAY-WINDOW: 

Autumn  Rain,  Steeples 133 

Portrait  of  an  Old  Lady       .' 133 

To  a  Dead  Love,  To  Felix,  April  Snow,  Solace 134 

Beach  Song,  Song  on  Death,  Out  of  a  Cavalcade  of  Dust  ....     135 

Baker,  Karle  Wilson: 

THREE  SMALL  POEMS: 

To  Get  Wisdom,  Meekness  and  Pride,  Courage        .  16 

Not  in  the  Whirlwind 17 

Bellamann,  Henry: 
POEMS: 

Gargoyles  of  Notre  Dame 85 

Edges,  Lullaby * 86 

Peaks,  God 87 

The  Artist 89 

Bishop,  Morris: 

Ecclesiastes •  314 

A  New  Hampshire  Boy 315 

Brown,  Sarah-Margaret: 

From  a  Chicago  "  L"      .      . 251 

Buchanan,  Alison: 

The  Unloved 313 

Buss,  Kate: 

Gargoyle 77 

Butts,  Dorothy: 

THE  PASSERS-BY: 

The  Parade 80 

To  the  Hills  Around  Northampton 


A  Vanity,  Audience  . 
Listening,  May  Basket  . 
The  Transient,  Difference 
Please 


Bynner,  Witter  (Translator): 

POEMS  BY  WANG  WEI: 

Answering  Vice-prefect  Chang,  Bound  Home  to  Mount  Sung        .      .  235 

A  Message  to  P'ai  Ti,  On  the  Way  to  the  Temple 236 

Mount  Chung-nan,  A  View  of  the  Han  River 237 

In  my  Lodge  at  Wang-ch'uan  after  a  Long  Rain 237 

My  Retreat  at  Chung-nan 238 

In  a  Retreat  Among  Bamboos,  Lines 238 

A  Parting,  A  Song  at  Wei-ch'eng 239 

The  Beautiful  Hsi-shih 239 

A  Song  of  Young  Girls  from  Lo-yang 240 


PAGE 

Harmonizing  a  Poem  by  Palace-attendant  Kuo 241 

A  Green  Stream 241 

Carnevali,  Emanuel: 
NEURIADE: 

Lake 139 

Seep,  Aubade 140 

Encounter,  Sermon 141 

Hope,  Insomnia,  Smoke 142 

Funeral  March,  Italian  Song 143 

Old  Accustomed  Impudent  Ghost 144 

Invocation  to  Death 144 

Clarke.  Harlow: 

An  Old  Woman,  I  Complain  in  Passing 247 

Code,  Grant  H.: 

Sea  Quatrains  I-V 23 

Crawford,  Nelson  Antrim: 
FRAGILITIES: 

Song,  Lake .       24 

Companionship,  Impotence,  Branches 25 

Crew ,  Helen  Coale: 

Irish  Song 192 

Curran,  Edwin: 

The  Lions 59 

D.,  H.: 

HKSPERIDES: 

Fragment  XXXVI 26 

Song,  At  Baia 29 

DeFord,  Miriam  Allen: 

UNDER  THE  CUFF: 

Shadow  Canyon 18 

Themes,  Will  It  be  like  This? 19 

De  la  Mare,  Walter: 

The  Hostage 124 

Deutsch,  Babette: 

TakforSidst 259 

Dow,  Dorothy: 

HANDFUL  OF  ASHES: 

The  Captive  ...  130 

Waiting,  Futility 131 

Bound 132 

Dresbach,  Glenn  Ward: 

Songs  of  the  Plains  I-IV 187 

DriscoU,  Louise: 

Keep  My  Hand 17 

Flexner,  Hortense: 

Holiday  Crowd,  Winged  Victory 317 

Frost,  Robert: 

The  Witch  of  Coos 175 

Galahad,  Joseph  Andrew: 

Sic  Passim .       20 

Recalled 22 

Garnett,  Louise  Ayres: 
RESURGAM: 

I:      Birth .     117 

II:    Life 118 

III:  Death 119 

IV:  Rebirth 122 

[iv] 


PAGE 

Grannis,  Anita: 

A  Fillet  of  Thorn 75 

Harwood,  Ruth: 

WORKING-HOUR  SONGS: 

The  Shoe  Factory 310 

Making  Little  Clothes,  Always  and  Always 312 

Haste,  Gwendolen: 

IN  THE  OFFICE: 

The  Guardians,  Aileen 260 

Janson,  Ellen  Margaret: 
TABLEAUX: 

Scherzo,  Tryst 196 

Incense  Smoke < 197 

Night  in  the  City 198 

The  Unknown 199 

Johnson,  Fenton: 

Two  NEGRO  SPIRITUALS: 

A  Dream 128 

The  Wonderful  Morning 129 

Keeley,  Dorothy: 

On  the  Wing 193 

KiangKang-hu  (Translator  of  Wang  Wei).     See  Witter  Bynner      ....     235 

Lee,  Agnes: 

The  Jilt  I-VI 69 

The  Blunted  Age 71 

McCreary,  Frederick  R.: 
HILLSIDE  POEMS: 

Winter  Rain,  A  Naked  Maple 255 

Noontime,  Judges 256 

Alone  on  the  Hill 257 

Meeker,  Marjorie: 

SONGS  OF  NIGHT: 

Ode  to  Myself  Trying  to  Sleep 182 

In  Darkness,  By  a  Window 183 

Song  for  a  May  Night 184 

Color  of  Water,  Lonely  Sky  and  Sea 185 

Comrades 186 

Monro,  Harold: 

Fate  I-II 252 

Monroe,  Harriet: 

Supernal  Dialogue 125 

North,  Jessica  Nelson: 

The  Wages  of  Sin 76 

Norton,  Grace  Fallow: 
Two  POEMS: 

I  Shall  Remember     ....  190 

Shy  Perfect  Flower 191 

Peyton,  John  R.  C.: 

Geyser 77 

Reynolds,  Julia  R.: 

To  Sappho 191 

Ruble ,  Esther  Louise: 

First  Snow 186 

Ryan,  Kathryn  White: 

Fog 76 


Sandburg,  Carl: 

MEDLEY  OF  POEMS: 

Moon-riders  I-III 295 

Feather  Lights 298 

The  Naked  Stranger ....     298 

Medley 299 

Gypsy  Mother     ....  ...     301 

Simons,  Hi: 

INCIDENTALS: 

Dust  in  the  Road,  Taps,  The  Star 258 

Portrait  of  an  old  Roue 259 

Skinner,  Constance  Lindsay: 

Winter  Dawn 248 

Smith,  Maurine: 
POEMS: 

Joy,  Ceremony,  First  Comer 14 

Wind,  Swallows  Brush  a  Pool   .  15 

Speyer,  Leonora: 

In  Praise  of  Abrigada 242 

Stevens,  Wallace: 

SUR  MA    GUZZLA   GRACILE: 

Palace  of  the  Babies 1 

From  the  Misery  of  Don  Joost 2 

The  Doctor  of  Geneva,  Gubbinal 3 

The  Snow  Man 4 

Tea  at  the  Palaz  of  Hoon,  The  Cuban  Doctor 5 

Another  Weeping  Woman 6 

Of  the  Manner  of  Addressing  Clouds 7 

Of  Heaven  Considered  as  a  Tomb 7 

The  Load  of  Sugar-cane 8 

Hibiscus  on  the  Sleeping  Shores 9 

Sirobel,  Marion: 

SONG  SKETCHES: 

We  Have  a  Day 303 

Spring  Morning 304 

Tonight,  The  Silence  Stirs  Again 305 

The  Night 306 

I  Would  Pretend,  Admonition 307 

Frightened  Face,  Daily  Prayer 308 

L'Envoi 309 

Tanaquil,  Paul: 

Semper  Eadem 138 

The  Lover ....  261 

Tietjens,  Eunice: 

Fire 262 

Unna,  Sarah: 

Roads 316 

Unlermeyer,  Jean  Starr: 

From  the  Day-book  of  a  Forgotten  Prince 74 

Unlermeyer,  Louis: 

Monologue  from  a  Mattress 318 

Vail,  Laurence: 

Grey  Crust 136 

Waldron,  Winifred: 

Arpeggio 138 


Walsh,  Ernest: 

FOUR  POEMS: 

I  Ask  for  a  Friend,  Sonnet 194 

The  Fickle  Lover,  Collapse 195 

Wang  Wei  (See  Witter  Bynner) 
Wilkinson,  Florence: 

Don  Juan  in  Portugal 78 

Williams,  William  Carlos: 

POEMS: 

Wild  Orchard 200 

The  Lonely  Street 201 

Spouts,  The  Widow's  Lament  in  Springtime 202 

Zolinsky,  Henry  Saul: 

Two  POEMS: 

Will  Power,  Pain 137 


PROSE 

Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts H.  M.         31 

Influence  of  the  Art-theatre  on  Poetic  Drama Cloyd  Head        37 

REVIEWS: 

Museum  Ships Isidor  Schneider        44 

Ships  in  Harbor,  by  David  Morton 

New  Fire Glenway  Wescolt        47 

A  Canopic  Jar,  by  Leonora  Speyer 

Pageantry  and  Rhetoric Laura  Sherry        51 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  by  Percy  Mackaye 

Two  Mothers  (Eight  Hundred  Rubles  and   Agrippina),  by  John  G. 
Neihardt 

The  Novelist  as  Poet N.  A.  C.         53 

As  the  Wind  Blows,  by  Eden  Philpotts 

The  Professor  as  Critic Nelson  Antrim  Crawford        54 

The  Function  of  the  Poet  and  Other  Essays,  by  James  Russell  Lowell 
The  Kinds  of  Poetry  and  Other  Essays,  by  John  Erskine 

From  Queen  Anne  to  George  the  Fifth H.  M.        90 

REVIEWS: 

Drinkwater  as  Poet  and  Playwright      .      .  ...      Laura  Sherry        94 

Pawns,  Mary  Stuart,  and  Poems,  by  John  Drinkwater 

Of  Dreams  and  Stitches Pearl  Andelson       100 

Curtains,  by  Hazel  Hall 
CORRESPONDENCE: 

Poet  and  Composer  as  Allies Louise  Ayres  Garnett       102 

Reactionary  Composers Kay  Boyle       104 

Announcement  of  Awards 107 

OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

A  New  "Youth" 115 

Renewal  of  Youth H.  M.     146 

Alexander  Blok Glenway  Wescott    -149 

REVIEWS: 

A  Flourish  of  Trumpets Marion  Strobel     151 

Second  April,  by  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay 

Fletcherian  Colors Laura  Sherry     155 

Breakers  and  Granite,  by  John  Gould  Fletcher 

[vii] 


PAGE 

Minor  Chords Isidor  Schneider     158 

Bluestone,  by  Marguerite  Wilkinson 
Selected  Poems,  by  Lady  Margaret  Sackville 

Post-martial  Emotion Baker  Brownell     162 

Aurelia  and  Other  Poems,  by  Robert  Nichols 

Color  Sonatas Nelson  Antrim  Crawford     165 

Poems,  by  Iris  Tree 

The  Prematurity  of  Immaturity Isidor  Schneider     167 

Hidden  Path,  by  Ned  Hungerford 
CORRESPONDENCE  : 

The  Allied  Arts  Again      .      .     I— Charles  Albert  Case,  II— Bertha  War  dell     169 

The  Hope  of  Peace H.  M.     204 

Must  Art  be  Interesting  ? Baker  Brownell     206 

REVIEWS: 

A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore H.  M.    208 

Poems,  by  Marianne  Moore 

A  Mystic  Warrior Dorothy  Dudley    216 

The  Mystic  Warrior,  by  James  Oppenheim 

Mrs.  Wylie's  Poems H.  M.     220 

Nets  to  Catch  the  Wind,  by  Elinor  Wylie 

Thoughtful  Measures H.  M.     222 

Out  of  Mist,  by  Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter 
OUR  CONTEMPORARIES: 

New  International  Magazines 224 

Various  Prizes        ....  227 

CORRESPONDENCE: 

A  Letter  from  Paris Jean    Catel     229 

The  Utterance  of  Poetry H.  M.     266 

Translating  Wang  Wei Witter  Bynner    272 

REVIEWS: 

A  Cool  Master Yvor  Winters     278 

Collected  Poems  of  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 

Mr.  Yeats'  Plays Cloyd  Head  288 

Four  Plays  for  Dancers,  by  William  Butler  Yeats 

Newspaper  Verse .     .     .  H.  M .    324 

REVIEWS: 

Miss  Lowell's  Legends Dorothy  Dudley    330 

Legends,  by  Amy  Lowell 

Spear-shaft  and  Cyclamen-flower W.  Bryher    333 

Hymen,  by  H.  D. 

"A  Distinguished  Young  Man" Yvor    Winters     337 

The  Living  Frieze,  by  Mark  Turbyfill 

A  Prize-winner Pearl  Andelson     340 

Heavens  and  Earth,  by  Stephen  Vincent  Ben6t 

A  Lute  of  One  String H.  M.     344 

The  Lifted  Cup,  by  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse 

A  Poet  in  Embryo H.  M.     345 

Archways  of  Life,  by  Mercedes  de  Acosta 

Rhetoric  Unashamed H.  M.     346 

Ireland  Unfreed:    Poems  of  1921,  by  Sir  William  Watson 

CORRESPONDENCE  : 

The  Code  of  Minority Baker  Brownell     347 

A  New  Poetry  Society F.  P.     351 

Notes 37,  115,  173,  232,  292,  351 

Books  Received 58,116,174,233.293.352 

[viii] 


POETRY 

A  MAGAZINE  OF  VERSE 

VOLUME  XIX 


L 


Your  June  number  renewed  me  wonderfully— an  absolutely  joyous  thing!  Go  to 
it,  hammer  and  tongs!  Infuse  a  little  beauty,  joy,  spirit,  pain  into  the 
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Vol.  XIX  No.  I 

POETRY  for  OCTOBER,  1921 

PAGE 

Sur  ma  Guzzla  Gracile Wallace  Stevens       i 

Palace  of  the  Babies — Misery  of  Don  Joost — Doctor  of 
Geneva — Gubbinal — Snow  Man — Tea  at  the  Palaz  of 
Hoon — Cuban  Doctor — Another  Weeping  Woman — Man- 
ner of  Addressing  Clouds — Of  Heaven  Considered  as  a 
Tomb — The  Load  of  Sugar-Cane — Hibiscus  on  the  Sleeping 
Shores 

From  City  Lanes Loureine  Aber     10 

City  Wed— If— Elevator  Man— Bereft— Old  Man— Girl- 
Death 

Poems Maurine  Smith     14 

Joy — Ceremony — First  Comer — Wind — Swallows  Brush 
a  Pool 

Three  Small  Poems Karle  Wilson  Baker     1 6 

To  Get  Wisdom — Meekness  and  Pride — Courage 

Not  in  the  Whirlwind Karle  Wilson  Baker     1 7 

Keep  My  Hand Louise  Driscoll    17 

Under  the  Cliff Miriam  Allen  deFord     1 8 

Shadow  Canyon — Themes — Will  it  be  Like  This? 

Sic  Passim — Recalled Joseph  Andrew  Galahad    20 

Sea  Quatrains  I-V Grant  H.  Code    23 

Fragilities Nelson  Antrim  Crawford    24 

Song — Lake — Companionship — Impotence — Branches 

Hesperides H.  D.     26 

Fragment  XXXVI— Song— At  Baia 

Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts //.  A/.     3 1 

Influence  of  the  Art-theatre  on  Poetic  Drama       .      .      Cloyd  Head    37 
Reviews: 

Museum  Ships Isidor  Schneider    44 

New  Fire Glenway  Wescott    47 

Pageantry  and  Rhetoric .  Laura  Sherry     51 

The  Novelist  as  Poet N.  A.  C.     53 

The  Professor  as  Critic  ....       Nelson  Antrim  Crawford    54 
Notes  and  Books  Received 57>  58 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
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Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.    All  rights  reserved. 


etiy 

A  Magazine  of  Verse 


OCTOBER  1921 


SUR  MA  GUZZLA  GRACILE 

PALACE    OF   THE    BABIES 

THE  disbeliever  walked  the  moonlit  place, 
Outside  of  gates  of  hammered  serafin, 
Observing  the  moon-blotches  on  the  walls. 

The  yellow  rocked  across  the  still  facades, 

Or  else  sat  spinning  on  the  pinnacles, 

While  he  imagined  humming  sounds  and  sleep. 

The  walker  in  the  moonlight  walked  alone, 
And  each  black  window  of  the  building  balked 
His  loneliness  and  what  was  in  his  mind: 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

If  in  a  shimmering  room  the  babies  came, 
Drawn  close  by  dreams  of  fledgling  wing, 
It  was  because  night  nursed  them  in  its  fold. 

Night  nursed  not  him  in  whose  dark  mind 

The  clambering  wings  of  birds  of  black  revolved, 

Making  harsh  torment  of  the  solitude. 

The  walker  in  the  moonlight  walked  alone, 

And  in  his  heart  his  disbelief  lay  cold. 

His  broad-brimmed  hat  came  close  upon  his  eyes. 

FROM   THE    MISERY    OF    DON   JOOST 

I  have  finished  my  combat  with  the  sun; 
And  my  body,  the  old  animal, 
Knows  nothing  more. 

The  powerful  seasons  bred  and  killed, 
And  were  themselves  the  genii 
Of  their  own  ends. 

Oh,  but  the  very  self  of  the  storm 

Of  sun  and  slaves,  breeding  and  death, 

The  old  animal — 

The  senses  and  feeling,  the  very  sound 
And  sight,  and  all  there  was  of  the  storm — 
Knows  nothing  more. 

[2] 


Wallace  Stevens 


THE    DOCTOR    OF    GENEVA 


The  doctor  of  Geneva  stamped  the  sand 

That  lay  impounding  the  Pacific  swell, 

Patted  his  stove-pipe  hat  and  tugged  his  shawl. 

Lacustrine  man  had  never  been  assailed 
By  such  long-rolling  opulent  cataracts, 
Unless  Racine  or  Bossuet  held  the  like. 

He  did  not  quail.     A  man  so  used  to  plumb 
The  multifarious  heavens  felt  no  awe 
Before  these  visible,  voluble  delugings, 

Which  yet  found  means  to  set  his  simmering  mind 
Spinning  and  hissing  with  oracular 
Notations  of  the  wild,  the  ruinous  waste, 

Until  the  steeples  of  his  city  clanked  and  sprang 

In  an  unburgherly  apocalypse. 

The  doctor  used  his  handkerchief  and  sighed. 

GUBBINAL 

That  strange  flower,  the  sun, 
Is  just  what  you  say. 
Have  it  your  way. 

The  world  is  ugly, 
And  the  people  are  sad. 

[3] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

That  tuft  of  jungle  feathers, 
That  animal  eye, 
Is  just  what  you  say. 

That  savage  of  fire, 
That  seed- 
Have  it  your  way. 

The  world  is  ugly, 
And  the  people  are  sad. 


THE    SNOW    MAN 

One  must  have  a  mind  of  winter 
To  regard  the  frost  and  the  boughs 
Of  the  pine-trees  crusted  with  snow; 

And  have  been  cold  a  long  time 

To  behold  the  junipers  shagged  with  ice, 

The  spruces  rough  in  the  distant  glitter 

Of  the  January  sun;  and  not  to  think 
Of  any  misery  in  the  sound  of  the  wind, 
In  the  sound  of  a  few  leaves, 

Which  is  the  sound  of  the  land 

Full  of  the  same  wind 

That  is  blowing  in  the  same  bare  place 

[4] 


Wallace  Stevens 


For  the  listener,  who  listens  in  the  snow, 

And,  nothing  himself,  beholds 

Nothing  that  is  not  there  and  the  nothing  that  is. 


TEA    AT   THE    PALAZ    OF    HOON 

Not  less  because  in  purple  I  descended 
The  western  day  through  what  you  called 
The  loneliest  air,  not  less  was  I  myself. 

What  was  the  ointment  sprinkled  on  my  beard? 
What  were  the  hymns  that  buzzed  beside  my  ears  ? 
What  was  the  sea  whose  tide  swept  through  me  there? 

Out  of  my  mind  the  golden  ointment  rained, 
And  my  ears  made  the  blowing  hymns  they  heard. 
I  was  myself  the  compass  of  that  sea: 

I  was  the  world  in  which  I  walked,  and  what  I  saw 

Or  heard  or  felt  came  not  but  from  myself; 

And  there  I  found  myself  more  truly  and  more  strange, 


THE    CUBAN    DOCTOR 

I  went  to  Egypt  to  escape 

The  Indian,  but  the  Indian  struck 

Out  of  his  cloud  and  from  his  sky. 

[5] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

This  was  no  worm  bred  in  the  moon, 
Wriggling  far  down  the  phantom  air, 
And  on  a  comfortable  sofa  dreamed. 

The  Indian  struck  and  disappeared. 
I  knew  my  enemy  was  near — I, 
Drowsing  in  summer's  sleepiest  horn. 


ANOTHER    WEEPING    WOMAN 

Pour  the  unhappiness  out 
From  your  too  bitter  heart, 
Which  grieving  will  not  sweeten. 

Poison  grows  in  this  dark. 
It  is  in  the  water  of  tears 
Its  black  blooms  rise. 

The  magnificent  cause  of  being — 
The  imagination,  the  one  reality 
In  this  imagined  world — 

Leaves  you 

With  him  for  whom  no  phantasy  moves, 

And  you  are  pierced  by  a  death. 


[6] 


Wallace  Stevens 

OF   THE    MANNER    OF   ADDRESSING    CLOUDS 

Gloomy  grammarians  in  golden  gowns, 
Meekly  you  keep  the  mortal  rendezvous, 
Eliciting  the  still  sustaining  pomps 
Of  speech  which  are  like  music  so  profound 
They  seem  an  exaltation  without  sound. 
Funest  philosophers  and  ponderers, 
Their  evocations  are  the  speech  of  clouds. 
•So  speech  of  your  processionals  returns 
In  the  casual  evocations  of  your  tread 
Across  the  stale,  mysterious  seasons.     These 
Are  the  music  of  meet  resignation;  these 
The  responsive,  still  sustaining  pomps  for  you 
To  magnify,  if  in  that  drifting  waste 
You  are  to  be  accompanied  by  more 
Than  mute  bare  splendors  of  the  sun  and  moon. 


OF  HEAVEN  CONSIDERED  AS  A  TOMB 

What  word  have  you,  interpreters,  of  men 
Who  in  the  tomb  of  heaven  walk  by  night, 
The  darkened  ghosts  of  our  old  comedy? 
Do  they  believe  they  range  the  gusty  cold, 
With  lanterns  borne  aloft  to  light  the  way, 
Freemen  of  death,  about  and  still  about 
To  find  whatever  it  is  they  seek?    Or  does 

[7] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

That  burial,  pillared  up  each  day  as  porte 
And  spiritous  passage  into  nothingness, 
Foretell  each  night  the  one  abysmal  night, 
When  the  host  shall  no  more  wander,  nor  the  light 
Of  the  steadfast  lanterns  creep  across  the  dark? 
Make  hue  among  the  dark  comedians, 
Halloo  them  in  the  topmost  distances 
For  answer  from  their  icy  Elysee. 


THE    LOAD    OF    SUGAR-CANE 

The  going  of  the  glade-boat 
Is  like  water  flowing; 

Like  water  flowing 
Through  the  green  saw-grass, 
Under  the  rainbows; 

Under  the  rainbows 
That  are  like  birds, 
Turning,  bedizened, 

While  the  wind  still  whistles 
As  kildeer  do, 

When  they  rise 
At  the  red  turban 
Of  the  boatman. 

[8] 


Wallace  Stevens 

HIBISCUS    ON   THE    SLEEPING    SHORES 

I  say  now,  Fernanda,  that  on  that  day 
The  mind  roamed  as  a  moth  roams, 
Among  the  blooms  beyond  the  open  sand; 

And  that  whatever  noise  the  motion  of  the  waves 
Made  on  the  sea-weeds  and  the  covered  stones 
Disturbed  not  even  the  most  idle  ear. 

Then  it  was  that  that  monstered  moth 
Which  had  lain  folded  against  the  blue 
And  the  colored  purple  of  the  lazy  sea, 

And  which  had  drowsed  along  the  bony  shores, 
Shut  to  the  blather  that  the  water  made, 
Rose  up  besprent  and  sought  the  flaming  red 

Dabbled  with  yellow  pollen — red  as  red 

As  the  flag  above  the  old  cafe — 

And  roamed  there  all  the  stupid  afternoon. 

Wallace  Stevens 


[9] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    oj    Verse 
FROM  CITY  LANES 

The  dawn  comes  to  me  sweetly p,  as  a  soft  new  child 
Leans  with  its  soul  to  drain  a  bit  of  milk. 
And  I  am  new. 

0  gray  old  city. 

Lift  your  head  a  moment  from  the  pots  and  streets — 
Wash  over  me  your  meaning  as  a  flask  of  fire 
Tipped  and  spilled  over  at  the  altar  s  base. 

There  are  new  augurings  that  go  in  blue-gray  smoke 
Up  from  your  shops  ^ 

New  lips  that  rain  a  torrent  in  me  as  of  words. 
Be  still  a  moment ,  «Vy,  while  the  dawn  tells  tales. 

CITY  WED 

1  lie  by  the  bricks  at  night — 

Do  you  think  I  am  lying  by  you, 

And  this  is  your  breast  I  lean  against? 

No.     Bricks  are  my  lord — 

With  them  I  shall  procreate, 

Until  I  wake  some  morning  with  my  litter  of  stone. 

Not  that  I  want  to  lie  with  bricks, 

O  beloved  of  the  white  limbs  and  strong  neck! 

But  how  can  I  help  it  when  they  come  tumbling — 

These  bricks  that  come  fumbling 

At  my  breast? 

[10] 


Loureine  Aber 


IF 


If  it  were  not  for  this  dream  upon  me, 

I  should  make  my  coin; 

I  should  grind  my  way  to  fortune  with  the  little  wheels, 

I  should  count  the  flying  heels  my  slaves  to  bind, 

I  should  count  the  eardrums  and  the  ringers  mine.  .  .  . 

But  I  keep  thinking  I  can  touch  the  sky 

With  my  lips. 

ELEVATOR    MAN 

You  in  your  little  cage  and  I  in  mine, 

Elevator  man, 

We  will  pierce  the  wide  world's  heaven 

Far  as  we  can: 

You  to  go  up  and  down,  beating  up  and  down; 

I  to  brush  my  wings  off 

On  the  walls  of  Merchant  Town. 

BEREFT 

0  my  country, 

1  am  crying  to  you  piteously  as  a  hungry  bird, 
I  am  crying  to  you  for  your  beautiful  ports 
And  harbors, 

For  the  slow  beauty  of  your  Statue  and  its  silent  hope. 
O  my  country,  I  would  slink  into  the  crevices  of  your 

egoism, 
And  squat  on  the  doormat  of  your  excellences. 


POETRY:     A     Magazine     of     Verse 

But  what  shall  I  do  when  mad  spring  comes, 
And  blossoms  come, 
And  wild  sap  comes — 
But  my  lover  comes  not? 

O  my  country,  I  might  be  a  thin  thread  in  your  flag, 
Or  the  little  wind  blowing  your  ships  to  sea; 
But  what  shall  I  do  when  the  spring  comes  in, 
And  flowers  shoot  up  in  me? 


OLD  MAN 

Dawn  sprang  wildly  to  her  lips, 

And  the  little  hard  breasts  burst  as  a  waterfall  over  the 

rocks. 

I,  the  dark  pine  at  the  precipice  edge, 
Lunged  and  was  still; 
Then  swiftly,  as  wild  birds  go  to  the  kill, 
Toppled,  and  ran  with  her  youth  to  the  sea. 

They  said  I  was  wanton  and  cruel 

To  have  taken  her  youth  at  the  height, 

To  have  matched  the  great  might 

Of  my  years 

With  her  slender  beauty  and  tremulous  fears. 

I  tell  you,  I  lunged  and  was  still; 

Then  swiftly,  as  wild  birds  go  to  the  kill, 

[12] 


Loureine  Aber 

Toppled,  and  ran  with  her  youth  to  the  sea.  .  .  . 
Pity  me! 

GIRL 

Dreamily,  girl — 

Duskily,  night, 

Cover  your  dead. 

Make  a  plot  by  the  old  stream's  head, 

Plant  him  and  pray 

Till  worlds  make  way 

And  the  blooms  come. 

Duskily,  night — 
Dreamily,  girl. 

DEATH 

I  am  waiting  for  the  white  winds  to  come, 

White  with  the  long-whispering  dust, 

Withered  under  hoofs  and  feet, 

White  with  the  mountains  that  blow  their  sleep 

Into  the  sea. 

I  am  waiting  for  the  white  winds  to  come, 

Lifting  their  hands  as  beautiful  women  clad  for  the  moon; 

And  soon,  ah  soon, 

Lifting  my  heart  to  be  ashes  and  wind. 

Loureine  Aber 

[13] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
POEMS 

JOY 

Joy,  Joy,  run  over  me 

Like  water  over  a  shining  stone; 

And  I  beneath  your  sweet  shall  be 

No  longer  hungry  and  alone. 

The  light  at  my  heart's  gate  is  lit — 

My  love,  my  love  is  tending  it! 

CEREMONY 

The  unpeopled  conventional  rose  garden 

Is  where  I  shall  take  my  heart 

With  this  new  pain. 

Clipped  hedge  and  winter-covered  beds 

Shall  ease  its  hurt. 

When  it  has  grown  quiet, 

I  shall  mount  the  steps,  slowly, 

And  put  three  sorrows  in  the  terra-cotta  urn 

On  that  low  gate-pillar, 

And  leave  them  there,  to  sleep, 

Beneath  the  brooding  stillness  of  a  twisted  pine. 

FIRST    COMER 

Gold  bee, 

You  cling  too  still  and  drowsily 


Maurine  Smith 

In  the  frosty  noon. 

Think  you 

The  dandelion  is  a  sun 

To  warm  your  body  through? 

WIND 

Gulls  take  veering  way 

Through  the  fresh  day; 

Crisp  brown  oak-leaves  whirl  and  rise. 

Though  my  heart  flies, 

I  must  go 

Carefully  and  slow. 

Eager  is  the  wind,  shy 

As  any  butterfly — 

I'll  not  blur  life  with  my  frosty  breath, 

Nor  think  again  of  death! 

SWALLOWS    BRUSH    A    POOL 

Let  there  be  end  of  talk  of  good  and  evil, 
Thirst,  hunger  and  the  rest  .  .  .  Beauty  has  given 
The  white  gift  of  a  cherry  petal 
To  brood  upon. 

Maurine  Smith 


[15] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
THREE  SMALL  POEMS 

TO    GET    WISDOM 

I  will  spread  out  my  mind 
As  the  wind  spreads  the  skies; 
I  will  make  my  heart  Argus, 
Full  of  love's  eyes: 
So  shall  I  grow 
Abysmally  wise. 

MEEKNESS    AND    PRIDE 

Meekness  and  Pride 
Are  fruits  of  one  tree; 
Eat  of  them  both 
For  mastery: 
Take  one  of  Pride — 
Of  the  other,  three. 

COURAGE 

Courage  is  armor 

A  blind  man  wears, 

The  calloused  scar 

Of  outlived  despairs: 

Courage  is  Fear 

That  has  said  its  prayers. 

[16] 


Karle  Wilson  Baker 
NOT  IN  THE  WHIRLWIND 

Do  I  speak  soft  and  little — 

Do  I  offer  you  a  drop  of  honey  in  a  bent  brown  leaf? 

Yet  I  too  have  been  rent  by  the  whirlwind: 

I  have  lain  trembling  under  its  bello wings; 

I  have  endured  its  fangs; 

I  have  heard  it  hiss  and  groan,  "Bitterness,  bitterness!'* 

But  all  I  have  left, 

After  its  searchings  and  its  rendings, 

May  be  told  in  a  soft  voice 

And  is  sweet — 

Sweet, 

Like  a  drop  of  thick  honey  in  a  bent  brown  leaf. 

Karle  Wilson  Baker 


KEEP  MY  HAND 

Keep  my  hand,  because  I  am  afraid 

To  be  alone — 
I  am  afraid  of  all  the  dreams  I  made. 

If  you  were  shown 

Dream  after  little  dream  that  I  made  gay 
To  keep  my  spirit  strong  upon  the  way, 
You  would  hold  my  hand  closer  than  you  do 

Within  your  own! 

Louise  Dr is  coll 

[17] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
UNDER  THE  CLIFF 

SHADOW    CANYON 

The  earth  has  carved  a  hollow  cup, 

In  which,  most  delicately  set, 
Tall  redwood  boughs  are  lifted  up, 

To  form  a  sky-enlacing  net. 

There,  on  the  ground  made  green  with  fern, 
The  sunshine  lies  in  pools  of  light; 

And  iris  holds  a  fragile  urn, 

With  morning's  gems  of  dew  bedight. 

There  is  no  sound  but  water  going, 
And  sunlight  thrilling  through  the  air. 

There  is  no  breath  but  breezes  blowing, 
And  wild  quail  rustling  to  their  lair. 

Here  is  a  deep  and  drowsing  haven, 
That  woven  sun-rays  pierce  and  cross; 

And  on  the  peaceful  trees  are  graven 
The  little  footprints  of  the  moss. 

Sweet  dreaming  canyon,  shadow-bound 
Yet  sunshine-stippled  all  the  day, 

The  calm  skies  circle  you  around, 
But  you  lie  deeper  hushed  than  they! 

[18] 


Miriam  Allen  deFord 


THEMES 


"I  remember"  and  "I  wish" — 

Of  such  stuff  are  poems  fashioned; 
Poems  lyric  with  regret, 

Vibrant  poems,  dream-impassioned. 

In  your  honor  and  your  praise 

I  would  strike  a  richer  chord, 
Sing:   "I  have  you  and  am  yours, 

O  adorer  and  adored!" 

WILL    IT    BE    LIKE    THIS? 

Will  it  be  like  this?— 

Climbing  the  hill  at  midnight, 

While  the  rain  seeps  from  the  plumaged  pepper-trees, 

And  the  damp  air  is  rank  with  eucalyptus; 

And  our  little  house  black  and  untenanted, 

Soundless,  where  your  hurrying  footsteps 

Used  to  run  to  the  door  to  greet  me; 

Black,  and  cold,  and  I  alone  there? 

Will  that  be  the  way  of  it, 

On  that  silent  day  when  I  shall  begin  waiting 

For  Death  to  release  me  to  you  ? 

Miriam  Allen  deFord 


[19] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

SIC  PASSIM 

The  Angel.          Now  here's  the  road  to  Allencourt, 
And  here's  the  road  to  Tyre. 
And  he  who  goes  to  Allencourt 
Is  purged  of  all  desire. 

The  Youth.         But  what  of  him  who  goes  to  Tyre, 

Among  the  cedar  trees? 
The  Angel.          Why,  he  who  goes  to  Tyre  has  none 

But  just  himself  to  please. 

While  he  who  goes  to  Allencourt 
Across  the  Hills  of  Pain 
Must  love  his  fellow  very  well, 
And  count  no  thing  as  gain 

That  wounds  another.     He  must  keep 
His  eyes  upon  the  crest 
Of  that  high  hill,  where  he  at  last 
Through  virtue  shall  find  rest. 

The  Youth.         But  what  of  him  who  goes  to  Tyre, 

Along  the  road  of  ease  ? 
The  Angel.          Why,  he  who  goes  to  Tyre  has  none 

But  just  himself  to  please; 

While  he  who  goes  to  Allencourt, 
And  does  not  lose  his  way 
Among  the  thorns  and  brambles,  comes 
To  rich  reward  some  day. 

[20] 


Joseph  Andrew  Galahad 

The  Old  Man.    Ah,  why  are  thorns  and  brambles  set 

To  make  the  road  a  care  ? 
The  Angel.          Why,  man  himself,  most  carelessly, 

Has  placed  the  brambles  there. 

The  Youth.         But  what  of  him  who  goes  to  Tyre 

Beside  the  sunny  seas? 
The  Angel.          Why,  he  who  goes  to  Tyre  has  none 

But  just  himself  to  please. 

The  Old  Man.    And  what's  the  toll  to  Allencourt? 
The  Youth.         And  what's  the  toll  to  Tyre? 
The  Angel.          Why,  he  who  goes  to  Allencourt 
Is  purged  of  all  desire. 

The  toll  is  love — a  brother's  love — 
For  man  in  full  sincerity. 
And  all  the  peace  that  God  has  willed 
Is  the  reward — eternally. 

But  toll  upon  the  other  road 
Is  crucible  of  burn  and  freeze: 
For  he  who  goes  to  Tyre  has  none 
But  just  himself  to  please. 

While  he  who  goes  to  Allencourt 

Is  purged  of  all  desire  .  .  . 
The  Old  Man.    Lord,  lead  me  on  to  Allencourt! 
The  Youth.         For  me,  I  go  to  Tyre. 

[21] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
RECALLED 

You  see  it  not  .  .  .   ?     This  Ivose  of  Rhone 

Has  something  of  the  flow 

Of  light — like  a  liquid  lacquer  on  the  wall. 

And  old  Madrid — I  swear,  it  shone 

More  with  your  light,  your  glow, 

Than  that  of  the  sun.     Why  do  your  eyelids  fall  ? 

You-hear  it  not  .  .  .  ?     The  Prado  was 

A  sweeping  meadow  then: 

The  swing  of  the  tunes  of  time  was  in  your  tone. 

No  dream  comes  to  you  now  because 

You  hear  my  voice  again — 

No  dream  of  a  youth  you  passed  at  dusk  alone? 

Three  hundred  years  .  .  .  !  you  mark  them  not? 

And  yet — you  loved  me  then, 

Who  now  in  the  light  of  mullioned  windows  stand. 

And  it  is  you  who  have  forgot 

That  once,  O  sought  of  men ! — 

When  I  was  the  king  of  Spain  I  kissed  your  hand. 

Joseph  Andrew  Galahad 


[22] 


SEA  QUATRAINS 

i 
Too  fast  the  silly  white-caps  run 

Their  helter-skelter  races; 
They  stumble  when  the  goal  is  won 

And  fall  upon  their  faces. 

ii 
A  purple  light  is  shaken  over 

The  greener  ocean  shadows, 
Like  clover  on  the  cooler  depths 

Of  grass  in  upland  meadows. 

in 
The  sea  hangs  kelp  upon  the  sand 

Like  garlands  on  a  grave, 
Mourning  the  dead  and  silent  land 

With  every  living  wave. 

IV 

The  breakers  thunder  in  the  night 

With  which  the  sea  is  drenched. 
Only  one  plunging  line  is  white; 

Even  the  stars  are  quenched. 

v 
The  fairest  ship  ever  a  wreck 

Had  not  so  white  a  sail 
As  this  fair  wave  cast  up  to  break, 

Driven  before  the  gale. 

Grant  H.  Code 

[23] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
FRAGILITIES 

SONG 

These  are  the  words  of  the  wind : 

Over  your  white  body  shall  pass 

Whorls  of  water,  whorls  of  light, 

Of  the  lustre  of  blown  glass. 
These  are  the  words  of  the  wind. 

You  are  beloved  of  the  silence 

And  the  grey  still  rain. 
Once  the  sun  loved  you  utterly, 

And  shall  love  you  again. 

These  are  the  words  of  the  wind: 

Over  your  white  body  shall  pass 

Whorls  of  water,  whorls  of  light, 

Of  the  lustre  of  blown  glass. 
These  are  the  words  of  the  wind. 

LAKE 

You  are  a  broad  white  lake, 

Silent. 

On  your  surface  people  launch  their  brown  sun-warmed 

souls. 

Reflected  in  you,  they  see  themselves 
Tall,  profound,  mystical. 

[24] 


Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 


COMPANIONSHIP 


In  the  intertwirling  smoke  of  our  cigarettes 

Is  a  caressing  sense  of  intricate  congruity. 

There  is  sea-blue  in  this  quiet  place, 

And  infinite  crisp  echoes  of  music, 

Bound  together  with  cords  of  uttermost  fragility. 


IMPOTENCE 


While  you  lived 

I  could  make  you  neither  glad  nor  unhappy. 

Now  you  are  dead 

I  can  neither  lull  nor  awaken  you. 

Always  I  am  impotent. 

BRANCHES 

Pierre  Gris, 
When  an  old  man, 
Saw  winter  branches 
Brown,  grey,  dulled  silver. 

These,  he  said,  are  the  no  longer  green 
Hopes  of  my  youth. 
They  seem  to  interlace, 
But  I  remember  that  that  is 
Illusion. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

[25] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
HESPERIDES 

FRAGMENT    XXXVI 

/  know  not  what  to  do: 
My  mind  is  divided. 

Sappho 

I  know  not  what  to  do — 
My  mind  is  reft. 
Is  song's  gift  best? 
Is  love's  gift  loveliest? 
I  know  not  what  to  do, 
Now  sleep  has  pressed 
Weight  on  your  eyelids. 

Shall  I  break  your  rest, 

Devouring,  eager? 

Is  love's  gift  best? — 

Nay,  song's  the  loveliest. 

Yet,  were  you  lost, 

What  rapture  could  I  take  from  song?— 

What  song  were  left  ? 

I  know  not  what  to  do: 

To  turn  and  slake 

The  rage  that  burns, 

With  my  breath  burn 

And  trouble  your  cool  breath — 

So  shall  I  turn  and  take 

Snow  in  my  arms, 

(Is  love's  gift  best?) 

[26] 


H.  D. 


Yet  flake  on  flake 
Of  snow  were  comfortless, 
Did  you  lie  wondering, 
Wakened  yet  unawake. 

Shall  I  turn  and  take 
Comfortless  snow  within  my  arms, 
Press  lips  to  lips  that  answer  not, 
Press  lips  to  flesh 
That  shudders  not  nor  breaks? 

Is  love's  gift  best? — 
Shall  I  turn  and  slake 
All  the  wild  longing  ? 
Oh,  I  am  eager  for  you ! 
As  the  .Pleiads  shake 
White  light  in  whiter  water, 
So  shall  I  take  you? 

My  mind  is  quite  divided; 
My  minds  hesitate, 
So  perfect  matched 
I  know  not  what  to  do. 
Each  strives  with  each: 
As  two  white  wrestlers, 
Standing  for  a  match, 
Ready  to  turn  and  clutch, 
Yet  never  shake 
Muscle  or  nerve  or  tendon; 
So  my  mind  waits 

[27] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

To  grapple  with  my  mind — 

Yet  I  am  quiet, 

I  would  seem  at  rest. 

I  know  not  what  to  do. 

Strain  upon  strain, 

Sound  surging  upon  sound, 

Makes  my  brain  blind; 

As  a  wave  line  may  wait  to  fall, 

Yet  waiting  for  its  falling 

Still  the  wind  may  take, 

From  off  its  crest, 

White  flake  on  flake  of  foam, 

That  rises 

Seeming  to  dart  and  pulse 

And  rend  the  light, 

So  my  mind  hesitates 

Above  the  passion 

Quivering  yet  to  break, 

So  my  mind  hesitates  above  my  mind 

Listening  to  song's  delight. 

I  know  not  what  to  do. 
Will  the  sound  break, 
Rending  the  night 
With  rift  on  rift  of  rose 
And  scattered  light  ? 
Will  the  sound  break  at  last 
As  the  wave  hesitant, 

[28] 


H.D. 


Or  will  the  whole  night  pass 
And  I  lie  listening  awake? 

SONG 

You  are  as  gold 
As  the  half-ripe  grain 
That  merges  to  gold  again, 
As  white  as  the  white  rain 
That  beats  through 
The  half-opened  flowers 
Of  the  great  flower  tufts 
Thick  on  the  black  limbs 
Of  an  Illyrian  apple  bough. 

Can  honey  distil  such  fragrance 

As  your  bright  hair? — 

For  your  face  is  as  fair  as  rain, 

Yet  as  rain  that  lies  clear 

On  white  honey-comb 

Lends  radiance  to  the  white  wax, 

So  your  hair  on  your  brow 

Casts  light  for  a  shadow. 

AT  BAIA 

I  should  have  thought 
In  a  dream  you  would  have  brought 
Some  lovely  perilous  thing: 
Orchids  piled  in  a  great  sheath, 

[20] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

As  who  would  say,  in  a  dream, 
"I  send  you  this, 
Who  left  the  blue  veins 
Of  your  throat  unkissed." 

Why  was  it  that  your  hands, 
That  never  took  mine — 
Your  hands  that  I  could  see 
Drift  over  the  orchid  heads 
So  carefully; 

Your  hands,  so  fragile,  sure  to  lift 
So  gently,  the  fragile  flower  stuff — 
Ah,  ah,  how  was  it 

You  never  sent,  in  a  dream, 

The  very  form,  the  very  scent, 

Not  heavy,  not  sensuous, 

But  perilous — perilous! — 

Of  orchids,  piled  in  a  great  sheath, 

And  folded  underneath  on  a  bright  scroll, 

Some  word: 

Flower  sent  to  flower; 

For  white  hands  the  lesser  white. 

Less  lovely,  of  flower  leaf. 

Or, 

Lover  to  lover — no  kiss, 

No  touchy  but  forever  and  ever  this! 

H.D. 

[30] 


COMMENT 

POETRY  AND  THE  ALLIED  ARTS 

POETRY  would  like  to  celebrate  its  ninth  birthday 
*•  by  inaugurating  a  closer  affiliation  with  the  allied 
arts  of  music  and  the  drama — perhaps  also  the  dance. 
If  the  movies,  and  the  scarcely  less  photographic  commer- 
cial plays,  are  banishing  poetry  from  one  end  of  the  stage, 
it  must  needs  go  around  to  the  other  door,  and  re-enter 
hand  in  hand  with  the  opera  and  lyric  song,  with  the 
ballet,  and  perhaps,  paradoxically,  symbolic  pantomine. 
Times  are  changing,  and  the  arts  with  them — the  poet, 
the  composer,  the  dancer  should  prove  their  pliancy, 
their  mobility.  They  should  not — indeed,  they  cannot — 
stay  apart;  they  must  get  together  and  co-operate,  and 
accept  each  other's  influence. 

At  present  our  poets  and  composers  move  in  different 
orbits,  have  scarcely  a  bowing  acquaintance  with  each 
other  either  personally  or  professionally.  POETRY  would 
be  grateful  for  suggestions  as  to  the  best  available  method 
of  establishing  closer  relations. 

Not  long  ago  Musical  America  published  an  article 
by  Charles  Albert  Case,  a  well-known  tenor,  entitled 
The  Quest  of  the  American  Song,  and  sub-titled  A  Chal- 
lenge to  Poets  rather  than  Composers.  Mr.  Case  thinks 
that  the  American  public  wants  American  songs,  and 
that  the  singers  are  eager  for  this  change  from  the  usual 
polyglot  programs,  but  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  up 

[31] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

a  sufficiently  interesting  and  varied  recital  without 
foreign  aid.  And  for  this  condition  he  thinks  our  poets 
are  more  to  blame  than  our  musicians.  He  says: 

The  fact  that  there  are  few  American  songs  which  are  truly  great  is  a 
challenge  to  American  poets  rather  than  to  American  composers.  The 
question  "what  to  sing"  is  the  most  vital  and  the  most  persistently 
intrusive  one  that  a  busy  song  recitalist  has  to  face.  Naturally  American 
singers  want  very  much  to  sing  American  songs,  and  most  of  us  do  sing 
them,  but  in  building  our  recital  programs  we  invariably  find  ourselves 
limited  in  the  number  of  such  songs  we  can  use;  for  we  must  avoid  singing 
a  succession  of  songs  in  the  same  humor,  and  when  one  is  face  to  face 
with  the  assembled  material  one  finds  that  the  contrasting  elements 
which  make  for  essential  variety  in  the  "group  unit"  are  astonishingly 
lacking. 

Mr.  Case  then  contrasts  our  meagreness  with  German 
and  French  richness,  and  continues: 

Being  a  loyal  American,  I  admit  it  reluctantly,  but  there  is  far  less 
variety  in  American  songs,  even  when  one  plans  to  choose  a  group  from 
several  different  composers,  than  one  can  find  in  any  single  one  of  the 
greater  German  song-writers.  .  .  . 

We  have  some  splendid  American  songs  and  some  of  them  are  truly 
noble,  but  most  of  them  are  not  good  enough.  Many  of  the  most 
successful  of  them  are  settings  by  other  than  American  poets.  Some  of 
the  best  of  them  are  not  even  in  English! 

Mr.  Case  then  reminds  us  that  a  good  song  must  unite 
two  arts — a  fundamental  truth  which  both  singers  and 
auditors  too  often  forget.  He  inquires,  "What  con- 
stitutes a  good  song?"  and  answers  his  query  thus: 

A  good  poem  adequately  set  to  music.  There  is  the  whole  matter  in  a 
nutshell. 

The  many  bad  American  songs  are  bad  either  because  the  text  was 
trivial  to  begin  with,  or  else  was  carelessly  read  and  consequently 
inadequately  interpreted  in  music.  In  some  cases  the  text  was  even 

[32] 


Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts 

"adapted" — distorted,  pinched  and  pulled  into  the  approximate  shape 
of  a  ready-made  melody.  Ready-made  melodies  are  like  ready-made 
clothes.  They  fit  nobody  because  they  were  made  to  fit  everybody. 

Schubert  read  Mueller,  Goethe,  Heine,  Rueckert,  Uhland,  Shake- 
speare. Schumann  read  Rueckert,  Geibel,  Uhland,  Eichendorff, 
Moerike.  Chausson  read  DeLisle  and  Gautier.  These  men  read  the 
best  poetry  of  their  time,  and  they  read  it  with  true  understanding  and 
genuine  respect.  What  greatness  there  was  in  them  lay  largely  in  their 
power  to  discriminate,  to  select  fine  poetry  from  the  mediocre,  and  then 
to  bend  to  the  task  of  making  worthy  musical  settings.  Too  often  our 
young  Americans  write  as  though  they  thought  the  lyrics  of  which  they 
try  to  make  songs  were  not  good  enough  for  them.  .  .  . 

I  have  frequently  been  asked  by  young  aspiring  composers  to  help 
them  find  words  to  set  to  music.  They  say:  "You  know — something  you 
consider  singable.  I  haven't  time  to  read."  This  is  rank  impudence. ' 
I  never  offer  such  people  much  sympathy.  I  do  not  think  they  should 
be  encouraged.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  must  read  much  poetry  to 
understand  a  little.  Reading,  and  reading  with  unusual  intelligence,  is 
part  of  a  song-writer's  job. 

Thus  far  Mr.  Case's  indictment  accuses  the  composers, 
but  he  concludes  with  a  fling  at  the  poets: 

I  have  real  sympathy  for  the  trained,  educated,  honest-intentioned 
American  composer  who  reads  native  poets  and  finds  so  little  to  inspire 
him  to  exercise  his  genius.  Surely  his  material  is  limited.  Eventually 
we  shall  have  truly  noble  American  songs.  But  first  there  must  be 
noble  American  poetry.  From  the  mass  of  it  the  song-writer  must 
choose  with  a  fine  exercise  of  discrimination.  We  have  many  Americans 
who  have  the  taste  to  choose  and  the  ability  adequately  to  set  beautiful 
poetry  to  music.  But  American  song-writing  is  at  the  same  stage  of 
development  as  American  poetry.  Let  us  hope  that  some  of  the  lyrically 
gifted  will  start  soon  to  write  about  something  besides  the  sunset  and 
the  skyline  from  the  Jersey  shore,  or  the  sensation  of  ascending  Wool- 
worth  tower  in  a  modern  elevator! 

Now,  with  all  due  deference  to  Mr.  Case  and  his 
"trained,  educated,  honest-intentioned  American  com- 

[33] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

poser,"  we  doubt  whether  either  one  of  them  has  sym- 
pathetically investigated  the  extraordinary  range  and 
variety  of  modern  American  poetry.  We  doubt  whether 
either  one  of  them,  having  discovered  a  poet  suggestive 
for  his  purpose,  has  ever  tried  to  get  acquainted  with 
him,  even  if  he  was  a  neighbor,  and  discuss  this  highly 
interesting  esthetic  problem  on  which  the  future  of 
American  song  depends. 

There  is  among  American  artists- — poets,  musicians, 
and  all  the  others — a  curious  professional  aloofness  which 
fights  against  co-operation.  The  architect  makes  his 
design,  the  sculptor  models  his  isolated  figure,  the  painter 
paints  his  easel  picture,  all  separate  and  alone — they  do 
not  get  together,  as  in  the  Phidian  or  the  Gothic  age,  or 
the  Renaissance,  to  pool  their  energies  and  make  a 
grand,  complete  and  monumental  building.  In  the 
same  infertile  way  the  poet  writes  his  poem  apart  in  his 
traditional  garret;  and  the  musician,  seeking  a  song 
poem,  or  a  ballet  motive,  or  an  opera  libretto,  reads  in 
his  library  uncharted  seas  of  poetry,  history  and  romance 
instead  of  going  where  modern  poetry  is  created  and 
swinging  into  its  current,  so  that  the  two  arts  may  move 
along  together  and  mutually  inspire  each  other. 

Among  themselves  poets — and  doubtless  musicians, 
painters,  and  the  rest — are  free-and-easy  enough  in 
intercourse  and  criticism.  But  this  professional  aloof- 
ness, this  shyness,  comes  in  the  way  of  attempts  at  co- 
operation. A  distinguished  Chicago  composer  says  he 

[34] 


Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts 

is  "very  familiar"  with  the  work  of  certain  equally  dis- 
tinguished Illinois  poets,  though,  to  his  regret,  he  has 
never  succeeded  in  harnessing  up  their  poetry  to  his 
music;  but  we  doubt  if  he  has  ever  attempted  to  work 
together  with  any  modern  poet,  in  the  frank  give-and-take 
of  such  a  partnership,  toward  the  production  of  a  wholly 
modern  and  American  work  of  art.  When  I  protest 
against  his  going  back  to  the  nineties  for  a  pseudo- 
romantic  motive  for  a  ballet,  when  I  suggest  Stevens  or 
Kreymborg,  H.  D.  or  Edna  Millay,  he  answers  by  what 
might  be  called  a  flank  attack: 

I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  the  copies  of  POETRY  which  you  sent 
to  me  containing  the  Stevens  and  Kreymborg  pieces.  I  like  particularly 
the  Three  Travelers,  although  I  doubt  whether  I  could  improve  it  any 
with  music. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  thing  we  must  all  remember  in  talking  about 
an  opera  libretto  is  the  fact  that  we  must  depend  for  our  effect  on  the 
poetry  or  the  drama  of  the  action  rather  than  on  the  poetry  or  drama  of 
the  words.  Therefore,  the  ideal  opera  librettist  would  be  the  poet  gone 
dumb  who,  by  his  simple  gesture,  could  make  us  jump  through  any 
hoop  he  pleases. 

But  even  if  this  composer  and  others  are  turning 
toward  pantomime  and  ballet  rather  than  opera,  pre- 
ferring the  orchestra  to  the  human  voice,  even  so  they 
cannot  eliminate  the  poet;  for  though  no  word  be  said, 
no  song  sung,  the  imaginative  invention  of  some  poet, 
dead  or  living,  must  furnish  the  motive,  the  story,  the 
plot.  And  no  doubt  the  ballet  of  the  future  will  include 
the  poem  either  as  an  introductory  recitative  or  a  series 
of  lyric,  perhaps  choral,  interludes;  as  in  Rimsky-Kor- 

[35] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

sakov's  ballet-opera,  The  Golden  Cockerel.  Thus  it  is  for 
the  composer  to  choose  whether  he  will  be  true  to  his  own 
age  and  race  by  linking  up  with  modern  poets  and  de- 
riving his  stimulus  from  imaginations  now  actively 
functioning;  or  go  back  to  dead  poets  for  his  motive,  and 
thereby  run  the  risk  of  endangering  the  vitality  of  his 
own  art,  of  not  connecting  it  up  with  either  the  present 
or  the  past. 

But  however  important  ballet  and  pantomime  may 
prove  as  motives  for  modern  music,  it  is  safe  to  predict 
that  the  human  voice  will  not  lose  its  prestige.  And  it 
must  be  safe  to  predict  that  the  sooner  our  composers 
look  to  their  poet-neighbors  for  the  texts  of  opera,  oratorio, 
cantata,  song-cycle,  ballad,  madrigal,  song,  instead  of 
searching  all  ages,  myths  and  languages  of  the  past,  the 
sooner  will  our  musical  art  become  as  up-to-date  and  as 
racially  expressive  as  the  musical  art  of  Russia. 

Something  has  been  done,  no  doubt.  The  present 
writer  would  be  ungrateful  not  to  recall  Mr.  Chadwick's 
fine  choral  and  orchestral  setting  of  the  lyrics  in  The 
Columbian  Ode.  Another  effective  instance  is  John 
Carpenter's  beautiful  setting  of  Tagore's  lyrics  from  an 
early  number  of  POETRY.  And  we  are  permitted  to 
announce  an  oratorio,  which  is  to  be  the  joint  creation 
of  Louise  Ayres  Garnett  and  Henry  Hadley,  the  text  of 
which  will  appear,  under  the  title  Resurgam^  in  POETRY 
for  December.  But  such  instances  are  isolated  cases; 
they  do  not  yet  represent  a  general  tendency. 

[36] 


Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts 

If  POETRY  can  do  anything  toward  such  a  tendency 
by  making  poets  and  composers  more  aware  of  each 
other,  bringing  them  more  in  contact  personal  and 
spiritual,  we  should  be  most  happy  to  offer  to  the  utmost 
any  service  in  our  power.  And  we  shall  be  very  glad 
of  discussion  and  suggestions.  H.  M. 

INFLUENCE   OF  THE   ART-THEATRE   ON   POETIC   DRAMA 

If  the  new  movement  in  the  theatre  had  accomplished 
nothing  else,  it  would  nevertheless  be  justified  by  the 
release  it  has  brought  to  poetic  drama  and  to  the  poetic 
mood  in  drama.  The  new  movement,  long  since  estab- 
lished in  continental  Europe,  still  struggles  precariously 
in  the  virgin  soil  of  America.  It  exists,  however;  and 
having  existed  thus  far,  it  probably  will  continue  to  exist 
until  in  time  it  flourishes. 

Meanwhile,  by  the  creation  of  a  modern  technique, 
it  offers  poetic  drama  in  English  the  first  justifiable  hope 
of  escape  from  the  senile  lethargy  into  which  three  cen- 
turies of  imitation  had  plunged  it.  Strictly  speaking, 
there  had  been  no  poetic  drama  since  the  Puritans  stopped 
the  rich  stream  of  Elizabethan  eloquence  by  closing  the 
theatres  in  1642.  Occasionally  a  dramatist,  deriving  his 
method  from  a  compromise  between  the  continentals, 
the  Greeks  and  Shakespeare,  had  made  a  play  in  verse; 
or,  more  stagnantly,  had  built  a  romantic  hodge-podge, 
verbose  and  rhetorical,  around  the  pseudo-realistic 

[37] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

formula  of  the  days  of  gas-lamp  illumination.  But  there 
had  been  no  impetus,  no  technical  incentive,  towards  a 
renascence  of  poetic  drama  until  the  new  movement 
cleansed  the  theatre  by  challenging  theatric  values. 

"To  save  the  theatre,"  said  Eleanora  Duse,  "the 
theatre  must  first  be  destroyed."  And  the  younger  men, 
the  revolutionists,  set  themselves  to  destroy  it  in  theory, 
and  to  recreate  it  in  practice  and  theory  both,  by  the 
simple  but  incisive  idea  of  re-theatralhation.  No  better 
proof  could  be  offered  of  the  sterility  of  poetic  drama  than 
the  fact  that  these  men  were  all,  without  exception,  men 
of  the  theatres-directors,  scenic  artists,  actors — none  of 
them  playwrights.  In  other  words,  the  new  movement 
differed  from  any  earlier  developments  of  the  kind,  so 
far  as  I  know,  in  being  almost  wholly  independent  of  the 
drama.  The  emphasis  was  shifted  decisively  from  the 
drama  to  the  theatre  as  the  dominant  art  form. 

Now,  that  habit  of  mind  which  insists  that  the  theatre 
shall  be  the  handmaid  of  the  arts,  and  particularly  of  the 
art  of  writing,  is  apt  to  view  such  a  transfer  of  emphasis 
with  alarm.  For  the  theatre  to  assert  its  own  inherent 
vitality  is  permissible  so  long  as  it  does  not  intrude  this 
vitality  into  the  sacred  traditions  of  the  drama.  But 
the  new  movement  involves  an  esthetic  too  fundamental 
not  to  re-open  the  entire  problem  of  dramatic  construc- 
tion. Concerned  chiefly  with  the  production  of  the 
play  in  the  theatre,  it  uncovers  an  esthetic  resource  that 
touches  the  very  definition  of  poetic  drama. 

[38] 


Influence  of  the  Art-theatre  on  Poetic  Drama 

The  reform  in  stagecraft  is  a  protest  against  the  fal- 
lacy of  a  realistic  technique,  against  that  ineptitude  of 
the  mise  en  scene  which  has  made  "theatrical"  a  syn- 
onym for  the  imitation  of  beauty  by  tinsel  and  exagger- 
ation. It  is  toward  a  simplified  and  therefore  an 
allusive  and  poetic  decoration,  toward  an  emotional 
and  therefore  a  poetic  use  of  light,  toward  a  rhythmic  and 
therefore  a  poetic  movement.  In  synthesizing  these  vis- 
ual elements  into  an  organic  whole,  the  new  stagecraft  has 
released  in  them  a  dramatic  value  entirely  apart  from 
representation.  Just  as  poetry  is  the  rhythmic  expres- 
sion of  a  theme  to  be  developed  by  words,  so  these  visual 
elements  in  the  theatre  serve  both  the  purpose  of  repre- 
sentation and  of  rhythmic  beauty.  Thus,  the  background 
may  be  both  a  statement  of  locality,  and  a  design  holding 
the  production  in  key.  Movement  may  be  utilized  not 
only  for  its  obvious  and  objective  purpose,  but  also  for 
the  intrinsic  beauty  of  motion.  Light,  treated  emotion- 
ally, is  capable  of  following,  emphasizing,  or  even  leading 
the  mood  of  the  action. 

I  have  attempted  briefly  to  indicate  the  trend  of  the 
new  stagecraft  because  in  this  discovery  of  an  independent 
esthetic  resource  in  the  visual  elements  of  the  theatre 
originates  the  essential  difference  between  the  new  tech- 
nique and  the  old,  as  it  affects  the  dramatist.  The  central 
rhythm  of  the  play,  instead  of  being  developed  through 
words  only,  is  developed  through  all  the  media  of  pro- 
duction— through  light,  stage  decoration  and  movement 

[39] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

as  well  as  through  the  spoken  word.  These  visual  elements 
become  a  part  of  the  inner  structure  of  the  play;  and 
because  of  their  poetic  quality  they  bind  the  theatre 
inseparably  to  poetry,  to  poetic  drama,  making  the 
theatre  a  place  well  fitted  for  the  renascence  of  poetic 
drama. 

But  with  these  additional  factors  of  expression,  it  is  no 
longer  necessary  for  the  dramatist  to  trust  so  exclusively, 
and  cling  so  tenaciously,  to  words.  In  the  Elizabethan 
drama  even  the  locality  of  the  scene  was  often  stated  in 
words:  every  mood,  every  emotion  was  projected  verbally. 
It  was  a  drama  of  eloquence;  and  as  such  it  suited,  as  no 
other  form  could,  the  torrential  flood  of  Elizabethan 
poetry.  But  modern  poetry,  irrespective  of  the  drama,  is 
more  restrained;  it  tends  to  leave  much  unsaid,  to  project 
the  meaning  by  ellipsis  and  overtones.  Unless  I  am  mis- 
taken, though  I  know  little  of  the  technique  of  poetry, 
this  brevity  is  sometimes  carried  to  extreme  lengths,  in 
which  the  imagination  of  the  reader  supplies  much  more 
at  the  poet's  instigation  than  the  poet  himself  expresses. 
It  is  a  subtle  technique;  and  it  is  pre-eminently  the 
technique  of  the  dramatist. 

With  this  distinction:  that,  instead  of  restraining  verbal 
expression  to  stimulate  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  the 
dramatist  uses  words  cautiously  in  adjustment  to  the 
other  media  of  his  expression.  To  take  an  obvious,  and 
well  understood,  example:  a  gesture  is  sometimes  equal 
in  effectiveness  to  many  words.  In  the  theatre,  where 

[40] 


Influence  of  the  Art-theatre  on  Poetic  Drama 

economy  of  expression  is  imperative,  gesture  and  words 
will  often  complement  each  other  without  duplication. 
And  what  is  true  of  gesture  becomes  true  in  the  art- 
theatre  of  all  phases  in  movement,  of  stage  decoration,  of 
light;  and  on  occasion  of  music. 

The  effect  of  this  upon  the  poetry  of  the  poetic  drama, 
and  especially  upon  verse  structure,  is  significant  and  far- 
reaching.  It  necessitates  the  development  of  a  verse  form 
that  will  admit  of  distortions,  interruptions  and  irreg- 
ularities. These  are  more  apparent  than  real.  As  soon 
as  the  poetic  drama  is  conceived  as  a  fusion  of  many  arts 
into  an  organic  whole,  the  rhythm  of  the  play  becomes  an 
inclusive  rhythm  to  the  progression  of  which  all  the  media 
are  contributory  and.  in  a  sense  subordinate.  The  irreg- 
ularities in  such  a  drama  would  be  due  to  the  separation 
of  the  verse  from  its  theatric  context.  When  the  play 
came  into  being  in  the  theatre  these  irregularities  would 
disappear,  merging  into  the  larger  current  of  rhythmic 
beauty.  To  the  dramatist  this  may  seem  the  weakness 
or  the  strength  of  the  new  poetic  drama — that  it  comes  to 
fulfilment  only  in  the  theatre,  as  a  symphony  lives  only  in 
the  orchestra. 

Blank  verse,  which  alone  of  the  standard  forms  has 
been  accepted  as  a  proper  medium  for  the  poetic  drama  in 
English,  depends  for  acceptance  upon  an  insidious  flexi- 
bility. This  flexibility  serves  the  purpose  of  the  theatre 
so  long  as  the  characters  keep  talking.  But  talk  they 
must;  and  the  terrified  volubility  of  the  poetic  drama  is, 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     0}    Verse 

I  think,  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  has  been  in  general  a 
form  displeasing  to  modern  audiences.  This  is  no  fault  of 
blank  verse,  which  has  been  deflected  from  its  original  and 
legitimate  intention  to  serve  as  best  it  might  an  art  that 
lacks  its  own  form.  It  has  thus  created  a  compromise 
between  the  printed  page  and  the  theatre  which  has  made 
the  poetic  drama  neither  fish  nor  flesh,  neither  wholly 
satisfactory  for  reading  nor  wholly  satisfactory  for  acting. 
Moreover,  the  need  for  well-rounded  periods  has  reacted 
upon  the  dramatist  by  giving  him  a  false  sense  of 
untroubled  leisure.  The  time  element,  which  scarcely 
exists  in  the  printed  page,  is  in  the  theatre  of  the  utmost 
importance.  The  reader  may  take  his  own  pace:  the 
auditor  must  listen;  he  must  accept  .the  pace  of  the  actor. 
The  verse  is  spoken  apparently  with  a  retarded  movement, 
and  must  therefore  be  quantitatively  less,  and  more  com- 
pact for  the  purpose.  Such  a  compactness  is  hostile,  one 
would  say,  judging  by  examples,  to  the  mood  of  blank 
verse.  One  need  only  refer,  among  many  instances,  to  the 
plays  of  Stephen  Phillips  or  Zoe  Akins,  each  of  whom  has 
a  keen  dramatic  instinct;  or  to  that  parody  of  Elizabethan 
grandeur,  that  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  rhetoric  in  a  theme 
not  without  power,  Caius  Gracchusy  to  note  the  clogging 
result  of  the  intrusion  of  the  stricter  verse  forms  into  the 
theatre.  It  may  almost  be  stated  as  a  generality  that, 
other  things  being  equal,  the  more  smoothly  a  play  reads 
the  worse  it  will  act. 


[42] 


Influence  of  the  Art-theatre  on  Poetic  Drama 

A  new  verse  form  that  will  be  native  to  the  theatre,  that 
will  be  an  inseparable  component  of  the  flow  of  the  com- 
plex rhythm  of  the  play,  cannot  be  created  out  of  hand. 
It  too,  like  the  modification  of  painting  for  stage  decora- 
tion, of  illumination  for  emotional  lighting,  must  develop 
through  knowledge  of  the  exigencies  of  the  medium.  To 
understand  the  poetic  theatre  is  to  understand  the  use  of 
poetry  in  that  theatre.  In  America  the  dramatist  has 
grasped  neither  the  technique  nor  the  possibilities  in 
expression  that  it  offers  him.  Toy  plays,  Columbine 
plays,  gay  and  adolescent  trifles,  thin  tragedies — all 
superficial  experiments  in  the  externals  of  the  new  stage- 
craft— follow  one  another  in  an  almost  (but  fortunately 
not  quite)  unbroken  succession. 

In  a  recent  article  the  most  brilliant  director  that  the 
new  movement  has  produced  this  side  the  Atlantic, 
Maurice  Browne,  summarizes  thus  the  situation  in  respect 
of  finding  a  drama  for  the  art-theatre: 

A  fight  which  has  hardly  begun:  the  fight  for  the  play.  That  is  where 
the  Chicago  Little  Theatre  failed,  and  where  all  the  artist-groups  in 
America  have  failed,  except  perhaps  the  Provincetown  Players. 

But  it  may  be  true  that  out  of  a  clearer  understanding 
will  come  the  dramatist  who  will  evolve  the  form  which 
his  medium  demands.  And  after  him — the  deluge. 

Cloyd  Head 


[43] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
REVIEWS 

MUSEUM    SHIPS 

Ships  in  Harbor^  by  David  Morton.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

What  is  there  in  David  Morton's  verse  that  seems  to 
save  it,  that  intervenes  in  moments  of  irritation  with  its 
punctual  urbanity?  There  is  not  an  original  line  in  it. 
Not  one  cry,  one  intense  expression  comes  from  it;  one 
vision,  that  the  poet  has  kept  from  his  privileged  dreaming, 
which  can  draw  the  mind  an  inch  out  of  even  the  shallowest 
rut. 

Is  it  its  cleanly  manufacture,  its  unstraying  measures 
and  kempt  familiar  figurines?  To  me  its  charm  has  been 
a  charm  too  soon  worn  out — the  charm  that  sometimes 
attracts  us  to  a  diffident  guest  when  we  are  overborne  by 
the  intrusions  and  ineptitudes  of  the  vivacious,  when  the 
quiet  and  subdued  deceptively  appear  to  be  powerful  and 
profound. 

It  is  fatal,  however,  to  turn  closely  to  the  poems  them- 
selves for  verification.  They  are  demure  enough,  but  thin 
and  fragile;  and  made  with  earnest  and  helpless  plagiarism. 
Never  the  robust  piracies  of  a  Shakespeare  or  Sterne,  but 
a  pallid  imitativeness  that  paints  the  past  more  ruinous 
with  perfunctory  restorations,  and  blows  about  it  feeble 
ghosts — pale,  mute,  and  not  recognizable  as  ghosts  should 
be,  of  any  of  the  shapes  of  destiny. 

The  book  is  called  Ships  in  Harbor — there  is  such  a  poem 
in  the  book,  and  other  occasional  verses  on  ships.  But 

[44] 


Museum  Ships 

the  reader  who  expects  salt  and  storm,  or  anything 
authentically  of  the  sea,  should  look  elsewhere — in  the 
dubious  prose  of  Joseph  Conrad,  for  instance.  There  are 
some  conventionally  nautical  words  and  phrases,  and  the 
tidy  thoughtfulness  about  mystical  things  that  gives  to 
diffident,  cornered  people  their  misleading  impressiveness. 
It  makes  David  Morton  talk  twice,  on  successive  pages,  of 
"weightless  cargoes" — and  one  might  add  lifeless  crews, 
and  meaningless  uses,  and  tinsel.  The  sea  is  brought  in 
because  it  is  on  the  same  wall  with  Greece  and  Rome, 
spring  and  patriotism;  and  not  being  so  bent  with  overuse, 
is  more  convenient  to  hang  poems  upon.  Sonnets — for 
David  Morton  writes  mostly  in  sonnets. 

We  agree  that  grammar  is  spoken  language,  stagnant; 
out  of  which  nevertheless  speech  drips  and  sometimes 
splashes.  We  agree  that  rhetoric  is  literature,  stagnant; 
that  as  there  can  be  limitless  variations  of  the  correct 
sentences,  phrases,  clauses  and  what-nots  of  grammar,  so 
there  can  be  a  limitless  variation  of  forms  of  rhetoric. 
These  verses  are  rhetoric,  often  skilful  and  surprising, 
often  mildly  intricate;  but  never  poetry. 

There  should  be  a  word  bearing  the  same  relation  to 
subject  matter  which  grammar  and  rhetoric  bear  to 
language.  Pageant,  perhaps;  but  pageant  is  free,  ringing, 
and  dramatic.  Pageant  is  play,  and  this  other  thing 
pretends  solemnly  to  poetry;  but  uses  pageant  properties. 
It  rounds  up  all  the  popular  places  and  heroes,  the  story- 
book locales  and  personae,  and  treats  them  with  apologetic 

us] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

sophistication,  and  with  a  snuffling  sentimentality  very 
wide  of  the  crude  romantics  of  the  pageant  crowd. 

The  favorite  property  is  the  Past.  After  reading  this 
book  through  (a  Spartan  exercise)  I  turned  the  pages 
casually  at  various  places  to  see  whether  the  Past  appeared 
as  often  as  I  thought.  I  read,  in  On  Hearing  a  Bird  at 
Night: 

Out  of  what  ancient  summers  of  soft  airs. 

Christ,  Dante,  Athens,  Time,  Roman,  pyramid,  Phidias, 
are  all  in  one  sonnet  called  Moments;  Pan  and  the  Gods 
are  in  Redemption;  and  in  Encore^ 

This  old  slow  music  .  .  .  with  dancers  who  were  graceful  long  ago. 

Does  Mr.  Morton  make  a  confession  in  Inviolate? 

For  present  loveliness  there  is  no  speech: 

A  word  may  wrong  a  flower  or  face, 

And  stars  that  swim  beyond  our  stuttering  reach 

Are  safer  in  some  golden,  silent  place. 

Only  when  these  are  broken,  or  pass  by, 

Wonder  and  worship  speak  ...  or  sing  ...  or  cry. 

The  thought  seems  more  penetrating  than  it  is.  If  the 
present  and  the  future  are  inviolate  to  the  pen  of  the  poet, 
the  past  is  equally  so,  and  Mr.  Morton  should  quietly 
take  to  other  things.  He  knows  that  the  past  is  beautiful 
only  through  the  poets  who  recorded  its  beauty — and 
ugliness.  The  Past  is  a  convention;  time  is  a  unity,  and 
no  fragment  of  it  is  less  alive  than  another,  unless  one 
wittingly  puts  on  blinders. 

To  continue  our  census,  this  from  Transfiguration: 

[46] 


Museum  Ships 

What  old  historic  dust  gives  back  the  rose! 
What  crumbled  empires  yield  the  creeping  vine! 

And  these  from  Survival  and  Ruins: 

Lead  back  the  tragic  chariots  of  Troy ! 

The  spring  comes  in  to  me  like  spring  in  Rome. 

I  might  add,  and  so  on  and  so  on,  because  Mr.  Morton's 
obsession  is  the  Past,  and  it  stalks  him  like  a  shadow 
everywhere  he  goes;  although  the  other  commonplaces  of 
poetry,  the  ready-rapture  articles  of  every  variety,  are 
not  neglected,  and  although  he  succeeds  as  little  in 
vitalizing  the  past  as  the  sea.  Perhaps  for  him  the  sea 
has  run  out,  and  the  past  has  been  neatly  embalmed  in  a 
general  history.  There  is  even  a  curious  indifference  about 
them,  as  if  they  were  a  poetaster's  shop-talk. 

And,  oh  yes,  the  sonnets  are  very  carefully  made. 
They  are  trim,  rhythmic,  proper  sonnets  in  every  respect. 

Isidor  Schneider 

NEW    FIRE 

A  Canopic  Jar,  by  Leonora  Speyer.  E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 
This  is  the  first  book  of  a  mature  woman  too  intelligent 
to  be  content  with  gifts  already  fulfilled  and  creations 
accomplished.  The  book,  hiding  "the  hidden  thing, 
making  protection  for  Hapi,  who  is  within,"  indicates 
careful  research  into  the  forms  of  verse,  and  contains 
poems  in  various  forms.  The  task  of  the  reviewer  is 
somewhat  to  disentangle  the  set  of  perceptions  for  which 

[47] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

the  development  of  appropriate  rhetoric  will  yield  most 
to  her  ambition. 

Mrs.  Speyer's  ambition  is  neither  historical,  evangelical 
nor  journalistic,  but  esthetic.  This  in  itself  is  noteworthy. 
It  is  often  said  that  pursuits  and  ideas  must  now  be 
estimated  upon  their  contribution  to  the  war  problem, 
the  food  problem,  or  the  proletariat  problem.  If  this 
were  true,  every  healthy-minded  man  should  strive  in  a 
chemical  laboratory  to  find  the  secret  lair  of  energy, 
which  men  will  control  in  the  good  day  coming,  so  that 
drudgery  will  cease,  and  food  and  power  become  so  cheap 
that  they  will  not  be  worth  fighting  for. 

But  in  the  meantime,  if  conviction  fails  us,  or  an  un- 
scientific education  has  forever  limited  our  activities, 
there  is  a  phase  of  thought  in  which  a  gifted  woman  may 
participate  as  well  as  a  chemist  or  war-correspondent: 
these  speculative  adventures  and  flashes  of  interpretive 
insight,  which,  when  fixed  in  pattern  or  rhythmic  utter- 
ance, we  call  art.  And  if  art  is  to  remain  as  vital  as 
protozoology,  or,  for  that  matter,  as  prize-fighting,  its 
principal  concern  must  be  the  search  for  new  form,  its 
own  lairs  of  energy,  however  useless  in  the  end. 

In  this  search  Mrs.  Speyer  is  engaged.  For  convenient 
examination  of  the  book,  I  shall  take  up  certain  qualities 
in  more  or  less  arbitrary  order.  In  the  construction  of 
phrase  which  shall  convey  precisely  a  precise  idea  or 
impression,  not  a  matter  of  verse-technique  alone,  her 
imagination  is  deft.  Occasionally  her  abstraction  is  as 

[48] 


New  Fire 

sharp-edged  as  a  tangible  object:  "O  pompous  cry,  O 
puny  sin!"  These  are  even  stronger,  and  cling  to  the 
memory: 

I  am  the  path  that  my  own  feet  tread. 

Gulls  flap  unevenly  through  the  muffled  hours; 
Spaces  listen  in  hiding. 

Rhythm  is  of  course  the  special  problem  of  verse.  Two 
divisions  of  it  may  be  dissociated:  The  first  indicates  an 
inner  logic  not  otherwise  shown,  or  an  emotion  not  other- 
wise evoked,  as  in  traditional  or  imposed  forms.  The  other 
fuses  with  the  rhythm  of  the  fact,  as  that  the  old  man 
walked  amid  the  green  rye,  so  that  the  old  man  may  seem 
to  walk.  Movement  is  duplicated  by  movement-of- 
words.  Coleridge  is  full  of  examples  of  this: 

The  moving  moon  went  up  the  sky, 

And  nowhere  did  abide: 
Softly  she  was  going  up, 

And  a  star  or  two  beside. 

Of  this  rhythm,  Leonora  Speyer  may  become  a  dis- 
tinguished exponent.  The  lovely  after-battle  poem, 
April  on  the  Battlefield— 

And  birds  sit  close  for  comfort 
On  broken  boughs — 

Squall,  and  First  Snow  on  the  Hills,  indicate  this  ability. 
Curiously,  although  an  excellent  musician,  she  does  not 
invent  musical  schemes  which  are  interesting  in  them- 
selves. 

[49] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  American  genius  has  taken  up  satire.  The  axe, 
which  has  rusted  since  Swift,  but  for  such  bourgeois 
holidays  as  Thackeray  afforded,  is  used  with  new  intent 
and  no  reformatory  zeal.  The  bias  given  to  perceptions 
by  scorn,  not  spleen,  is  recognized  to  be  as  true  an 
emotional  bias  as  another;  and  perhaps,  in  a  world  of 
newspapers  and  languid  religions,  the  most  pertinent  of 
all.  In  her  speech,  Leonora  Speyer  may  capture  the  most 
mordant  and  bewildering  humor  of  her  time.  It  is  not 
negative  wit,  and  may  not  be  completely  conscious;  but 
it  strips  away  all  hoakum,  however  sweet,  leaving  our 
intent  and  passion  like  a  shell  crusted  with  salt.  There 
are  traces  of  this  trenchancy  in  her  verse: 

O  bottled  widow's  woe, 
Standing  in  ostentatious  row 
Within  the  gloom 
Of  dear  departed's  tomb! 
Evaporated  lover's  grief! 

A  Canopic  Jar  has  unpretentious  beauty  and  clear 
thought,  and  no  earmarks  of  vulgar  success  or  sacrosanct 
largeness.  She  seems  able  to  endure  the  inward  conflict 
and  sedentary  work  required  even  to  commence  art.  And 
one  may  be  sure  that  she  will  not  rest  upon  the  achieve- 
ment of  this  book,  or  repeat  it  in  her  second,  betraying 
those  who  have  faith  in  her.  Already  her  Magdalene 
ballad  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Nation  is  a  finer  episodic 
lyric  than  any  in  this  book.  She  is  able  to  create  passages 
of  such  intransient  beauty  as  this: 

[50] 


New  Fire 

Does  the  heart  grieve  on 
After  its  grief  is  gone, 
Like  a  slow  ship  moving 
Across  its  own  oblivion? 

Who  shall  say  that  her  fire  in  the  rushes,  which  gives  so 
fair  a  light,  may  not  come  to  burn  gold? 

Glenway  Wescott 

PAGEANTRY   AND    RHETORIC 

Rip  Van  Winkle^  by  Percy  Mackaye.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Two  Mothers  (Eight  Hundred  Rubles  and  Agrippina),  by 

John  G.  Neihardt.     Macmillan  Co. 

The  talent  of  Percy  Mackaye  lies  in  the  field  of 
pageantry;  and  it  is  no  mean  talent,  as  he  proved  in 
his  St.  Louis  masque.  In  pageantry  the  picture  must 
speak  louder  than  words,  and  Mr.  Mackaye  unquestion- 
ably speaks  louder  with  pictures  than  with  words.  For 
years  he  has  been  laboring  to  find  his  medium  through 
poetry.  The  sensibilities  of  an  artist,  and  a  laudable 
ambition,  have  led  him  to  fake  poetry;  but  his  words  fail 
to  augment  or  enhance  his  pictures.  Until  he  practically 
discards  the  use  of  words,  he  will  not  be  a  free  artist. 

Rip  Van  Winkle  has  pageant  values  rather  than  poetic. 
Written  as  light  opera,  it  is  patterned  in  the  usual  manner 
— dialogues,  lyrics,  comedy,  dance.  It  lacks  the  snap  of 
light  opera,  but  its  pictures  and  ensembles  are  distinctly 
valuable  as  sublimated  extravaganza,  and  poetically 
effective  as  pageant  material.  The  author  has  a  vision  for 
pictorial  symbolism  in  broad  compositions  filling  large 

[51] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

canvases,  for  extravagant  effects  to  be  put  across  great 
distances  and  to  register  in  the  conglomerate  comprehen- 
sion of  fifteen  thousand  people. 

The  story  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  is  a  tradition.  It  is 
material  for  a  drama  if  the  protagonist,  Rip — light- 
hearted,  humorous,  pathetic,  tragic — is  sincerely  and  pro- 
foundly characterized.  Playing,  drinking,  dreaming — the 
outcast — we  want  it  all  to  the  bitter  end,  not  a  sugar- 
coated  substitute.  Mr.  Mackaye's  more  palatable  ar- 
rangement of  the  story  lacks  the  original  tang.  His 
tampering  with  the  legend  is  like  changing  the  theme  of  a 
play  which  has  made  the  play.  Washington  Irving, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Tony  Sarg's  puppets,  all  retain  the  old 
flavor.  Mr.  Mackaye's  version  is  flat,  lacks  the  old 
richness. 

In  the  beginning  of  Act  ///,  Rip  for  the  first  time  takes 
the  characterization  familiar  to  us — a  fantastic  figure 
without  locale.  Later  in  the  act  he  assumes  the  dialect 
of  a  New  England  farmer,  and  at  the  close  he  is  suddenly 
transformed  by  the  magic  flask  into  a  romantic  youth. 

Something  of  a  fakir  and  something  of  an  artist,  Mr. 
Mackaye  paints  living  pictures  on  an  enormous  canvas  in 
a  public  park. 

Eight  Hundred  Rubles  >  by  John  G.  Neihardt,  is  a  tragic 
episode  compact  in  scenario  but  unbalanced  in  its  develop- 
ment. The  long  speeches,  the  digressions,  and  the  song 
at  the  beginning  of  the  episode,  hamper  the  progression 
at  the  start.  They  do  not,  to  any  extent,  promote  suspense 

[52] 


Pageantry  and  Rhetoric 

nor  establish  the  exposition.  In  so  short  a  play,  the 
exposition  must  be  precipitated  into  the  drama  immedi- 
ately. Without  premonition  the  tragedy  is  revealed,  and 
the  play  is  over  before  we  know  it  has  begun.  The  verse 
lacks  ease,  and  the  flow  of  line  into  line;  it  jolts  over  a 
corduroy  road. 

In  Agrippina  he  again  indulges  in  long  speeches,  and 
they  in  turn  indulge  themselves  to  the  point  of  licentious- 
ness in  rhetorical  luxury.  The  licentiousness  of  Nero 
pales  by  comparison,  and  the  delayed  story  grows  dull. 

The  stories  of  these  two  plays  seem  far  removed,  as 
does  the  verse;  but  it  is  possible  that  Mr.  Neihardt's 
spirit  lives  and  breathes  and  has  its  being  in  the  far 
removed.  All  a  poet  can  do,  and  all  that  one  can  demand 
of  a  poet,  is  to  react  honestly.  The  sincerity  of  Mr. 
Neihardt  is  generally  acknowledged,  but  Bacchus  cannot 
be  revived  by  filling  his  cup  with  grape-juice. 

Laura  Sherry 

THE    NOVELIST    AS    POET 

As  the  Wind  Blows,  by  Eden  Philpotts.     Macmillan  Co. 

Not  a  few  novelists  try  their  hand  at  poetry.  Ap- 
parently it  seems  to  them  somehow  the  fitting  thing  to  do. 
Commonly  they  write  poetry  which  shows  taste  and 
literary  craftsmanship  rather  than  emotional  impulse. 

Mr.  Philpotts'  book  is  of  this  kind.  It  manifests  skill 
in  the  handling  of  rhyme  and  conventional  rhythms.  It 
has  the  sense  of  fitness  which  has  characterized  the 

[53] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

English  literary  tradition  for  generations.  It  has  also 
the  "poetic"  vocabulary  and  attitude  which  have  been  a 
part  of  the  same  tradition.  For  example: 

For  June  must  joy  though  joy  departs, 
And  life  must  laugh  though  sorrow  smarts, 
And  buds  must  break  as  well  as  hearts. 

Most  of  the  author's  work,  of  course,  is  better  than  this, 
though  still  lacking  in  intensity  and  originality  of  expres- 
sion. His  lighter  verse,  such  as  Gaffer  s  Song  and  Scandal, 
possesses  humor  and  charm.  As  would  be  expected  in  the 
work  of  a  novelist,  however,  the  narrative  poems  carry 
most  entertainingly  the  rather  boyish  naivete  of  subject 
and  style — Tiger,  for  example;  or  The  Fruit  of  the  Tree, 
which  solemnly  offers  the  suggestion  that  if  ape  or  sloth 
had  eaten  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  it  might  have  ruled 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world  "with  kinder  wit  than  man." 
In  Tiger  there  is  a  good  deal  of  spirit  and  vividness,  sug- 
gested by  the  rattling  rhythm  of  the  opening  lines: 

To  the  barking  of  the  monkeys,  to  the  shrieking  of  the  birds; 
To  the  bellow  of  the  bison  and  stampeding  of  the  herds; 
At  fiery  edge  of  sunset,  from  the  jungle  to  the  wold, 
Death  stalks  in  shining  ebony  and  orange-tawny  gold. 

N.  A.  C. 

THE    PROFESSOR    AS    CRITIC 

The  Function  of  the  Poet  and  Other  Essays,  by  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

The  Kinds  of  Poetry  and  Other  Essays,  by  John  Erskine. 
Duffield  &  Co. 

[54] 


The  Professor  as  Critic 

James  Russell  Lowell,  during  his  Harvard  period,  was 
the  leading  professor  of  English  literature  in  the  United 
States.  John  Erskine,  now  professor  of  English  in  Co- 
lumbia, has  a  distinguished  position  in  academic  circles 
of  the  present  day.  The  earliest  essay  in  the  Lowell 
volume  was  originally  published  in  1845,  the  latest  in 
1894.  The  earliest  paper  in  Dr.  Erskine 's  book  first  ap- 
peared in  1912,  the  most  recent  in  1920.  The  two  books 
therefore  afford  opportunity  to  compare  academic  criti- 
cal opinion  of  two  quite  distinct  periods. 

Few  persons  nowadays  read  Lowell 's  criticism.  The  pre- 
face to  the  present  volume,  contributed  by  AlbertMordell, 
admits  that  some  of  Lowell's  literary  opinions  "are  old- 
fashioned  to  us",  though  the  learned  commentator  char- 
acteristically claims  that  "Lowell,  before  Freud,  under- 
stood the  psychoanalytic  theory  of  genius  in  its  connec- 
tion with  childhood  memories."  Whether  or  not  Lowell 
realized  the  influence  of  childish  repressions,  it  is  certain 
that  he  is  old-fashioned.  He  speaks  a  language  that  we 
of  today  are  not  quite  at  home  in  and  are  not  interested 
enough  to  learn.  His  classifications,  his  reduction  of 
criticism  to  scientific  laws,  his  rhetorical  style,  belong  to 
the  journalism  of  an  earlier  day.  We  shall  not  again  at- 
tire our  thought  in  this  sort  of  raiment,  any  more  than 
we  shall  wear  the  kind  of  clothes  that  Mr.  Lowell  wore. 

This  does  not  mean  that  Lowell's  critical  work  was 
valueless.  It  was  not.  He  contributed  to  American  crit- 
icism a  degree  of  scholarship  and  fairness;  and,  except 

[55] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

when  puzzled  by  the  intrusion  of  a  man  of  genius  like 
Poe,  he  welcomed,  sometimes  very  cordially,  the  new 
writer.  He  did  much  to  turn  criticism  away  from  the  per- 
sonal blind  alleys  into  which  it  had  previously  been  so 
often  led.  He  is  a  figure  of  interest  in  the  history  of  crit- 
icism, but  we  do  not  turn  to  him  for  guidance  today. 

Dr.  Erskine's  book  belongs  to  its  own  time  as  much  as 
Dr.  Lowell*s.  The  difference  is  that  Dr.  Erskine's  day 
is  ours.  His  four  essays  make  an  interesting  book,  with 
a  flavor  of  sly  humor  now  and  then  which  adds  a  zest  to  its 
solid  value.  I  think  the  universities  should  require  every 
student  who  expects  to  teach  English  literature  to  read  it, 
not  because  it  is  the  best  book  on  poetry  of  the  present 
day,  but  because  it  is  the  best  on  the  subject  for  the  sort 
of  person  who  usually  teaches  literature.  But  the  pub- 
lishers will  probably  not  get  out  an  extra  edition  on  the 
prospect  of  orders  from  the  universities.  They  doubtless 
know  that  Lowell's  book  is  more  likely  to  get  the  aca- 
demic orders  than  is  Erskine  's.  Dr.  Erskine  has  the  qual- 
ity, never  forgiven  by  the  true  academician,  of  not  being 
interested  in  what  everybody  else  has  forgotten. 

The  Erskine  book  is  also  suggestive  for  the  poet;  espe- 
cially the  closing  essay,  Scholarship  and  Poetry ',  in  which 
the  author  shows  the  value  to  the  poet  of  an  unpedantic 
literary  background.  The  essay  on  The  New  Poetry  is 
hospitable  to  the  new,  but  contains  little  material  which 
the  ordinary  student  of  the  movement  does  not  already 
know.  I  must,  however,  quote  one  delicious  sentence: 

[56] 


The  Professor  as  Critic 

"  Many  of  the  new  poems  do  look  at  first  a  bit  outrageous, 
especially  to  old-fashioned  readers  who  have  not  read 
widely  in  old-fashioned  literature." 

Lowell  was  in  tune  with  his  time,  and  Erskine  is  with 
his.  It  is  unfortunate  that  much  academic  criticism  of 
today  is  living  in  Lowell  *s  time  instead  of  Erskine 's. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

NOTES 

Mr.  Wallace  Stevens,  of  Hartford,  Conn.,  has  appeared  often  in 
POETRY  since  1914.  Two  years  ago  his  Pecksniffiana  received  the 
Levinson  Prize.  Mr.  Stevens  has  been  a  frequent  and  valued  contributor 
to  the  special  magazines,  but  he  has  not  yet  yielded  to  the  solicitation  of 
his  admirers  so  far  as  to  publish  a  volume. 

H.  D.  (Mrs.  Richard  Aldington),  originally  of  Philadelphia  but  now 
usually  resident  in  England,  is  also  a  familiar  contributor  since  her  first 
appearance  in  POETRY'S  fourth  number.  Her  book,  Sea  Garden,  is 
published  in  America  by  the  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.;  and  her  transla- 
tions from  Euripides  have  been  issued  in  pamphlet  form  by  The  Egoist. 

Karle  Wilson  Baker  (Mrs.  Thos.  E.),  of  Nacogdoches,  Texas,  is  the 
author  of  Blue  Smoke  (Yale  University  Press). 

Miss  Loureine  Aber,  of  Chicago,  will  issue  her  -first  book  before 
Christmas  through  Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour. 

Miss  Louise  Driscoll,  of  Catskill,  N.  Y.,  has  contributed  often  to  this 
magazine  and  others.  Her  tragic  dialogue,  Metal  Checks,  received  a 
prize  from  POETRY  as  the  best  poem  printed  in  its  War  Number — Nov. 
1914,  and  it  remains  one  of  the  finest  poems  suggested  by  the  great 
catastrophe. 

Mr.  Nelson  Antrim  Crawford,  of  the  faculty  of  the  Kansas  State 
Agricultural  College  at  Manhattan,  received  last  year  a  prize  in  a  Kansas 
contest  for  the  best  poem  published  during  the  year  by  a  resident  of  that 
state.  The  prize  was  awarded  to  The  Carrying  of  the  Ghost,  which  our 
readers  will  remember. 

Miriam  Allen  deFord,  who  recently  married  Mr.  Maynard  Shipley,  is 

[57] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

now  a  resident  of  San  Francisco.  She  has  written  verse  and  prose  for 
the  radical  papers. 

Other  contributors  appear  for  the  first  time  in  this  issue.    Of  these: 

Maurine  Smith  was  a  highly  gifted  student  at  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  a  valued  member  of  its  Poetry  Club,  when  she  died  about 
three  years  ago.  Her  friends  have  collected  her  best  poems  with  the 
intention  of  publishing  a  small  volume  to  perpetuate  her  memory. 

Mr.  Joseph  Andrew  Galahad,  of  Portland,  Oregon,  has  contributed  to 
various  magazines. 

Mr,  Grant  H.  Code,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  is  in  the  faculty  of  Boston 
University. 

Perhaps  we  should  also  remind  our  readers  that  Mr.  Cloyd  Head,  of 
Chicago,  who  contributes  the  art-theatre  article  to  our  prose  section,  is 
the  author  of  that  powerful  modern  one-act  tragedy,  Grotesques,  which 
received  the  Levinson  Prize  in  1916;  and  that  Mrs.  Laura  Sherry,  of 
Milwaukee,  is  the  director  of  the  Wisconsin  Players,  an  organization 
which  has  been  for  years  one  of  the  most  efficient  and  enlightened  of  the 
art-theatre  companies  in  this  country. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

The  Blue  Ship,  by  Herbert  Jones.     John  Lane. 

Eyes  of  Vigilance,  by  Furnley  Maurice.  Sydney  J.  Endacott,  Mel- 
bourne, Australia. 

Ways  and  Means,  by  Furnley  Maurice.     Sydney  J.  Endacott. 

The  Contemplative  Quarry  and  The  Man  with  a  Hammer,  by  Anna 
Wickham.  Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co. 

Sonnets  to  B.  B.  R.,  by  Laban  Lacy  Rice.     Richard  G.  Badger. 

Poems,  by  Stewart  Mitchell.     Duffield  &  Co. 

The  Journey — Odes  and  Sonnets,  by  Gerald  Gould.     Yale  Univ.  Press. 

The  Captive  Lion  and  Other  Poems,  by  William  Henry  Davies.  Yale 
University  Press. 

Curtains,  by  Hazel  Hall.     John  Lane  Co. 

Ireland  Unfreed — Poems  oj  1921,  by  Sir  William  Watson.    John  Lane  Co. 

Wampum  and  Old  Gold,  by  Hervey  Allen.    Yale  University  Press. 

Second  April,  by  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay.     Mitchell  Kennerley. 

In  Gossamer  Gray,  by  Oscar  Williams.    The  Bookfellows,  Chicago. 

[58] 


think  your  July  number  is,  not  only  the  best  issue  you  have  ever  printed,  but 
the  best  issue  of  any  poetry  magazine  that  I  have  ever  seen. 

William  Stanley  Braithwaite 


Vol.  XIX  No.  II 

POETRY  for  NOVEMBER,  1921 

PAGE 

The  Lions Edwin  Curran  59 

The  Jilt  I-VI— The  Blunted  Age Agnes  Lee  69 

From  the  Day-book  of  a  Forgotten  Prince     .        Jean  Untermeyer  74 

A  Fillet  of  Thorn Anita  Grannis  75 

The  Wages  of  Sin Jessica  Nelson  North  76 

Fog Kathryn  White  Ryan  76 

Geyser John  R.  C.  Peyton  77 

Gargoyle Kate  Buss  77 

Don  Juan  in  Portugal Florence  Wilkinson  78 

The  Passers-by Dorothy  Butts  80 

The  Parade — To  the  Hills  around  Northampton — A  Van- 
ity— Audience — Listening — May  Basket — The  Transient — 
Difference— Please 

Poems Henry  Bellamann  85 

Gargoyles  of  Notre  Dame — Edges — Lullaby — Peaks — God — 
The  Artist 

From  Queen  Anne  to  George  the  Fifth H .  M.  90 

Reviews: 

Drinkwater  as  Poet  and  Playwright  ....  Laura  Sherry  94 

Of  Dreams  and  Stitches Pearl  Andelson  100 

Correspondence: 

Poet  and  Composer  as  Allies  .      .      .      .Louise  Ayres  Garnett  102, 

Reactionary  Composers Kay  Boyle  104 

Announcement  of  Awards 107 

Our  Contemporaries: 

A  New  "Youth" 115 

Notes  and  Books  Received 115,116 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1921,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  uuder  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.     All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XIX 
No.  II 
A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


NOVEMBER  1921 


THE  LIONS 

THE  jungle  glistens  like  a  cloud — 
Purple-cool,  tree-deep,  lake-pearled; 
Where  lions  lurk  and  thrash  and  crowd, 

Like  lands  that  battle  for  the  world. 
Behold,  one  lion  leaps  for  his  prey, 

Trotting  like  a  saffron  mist, 
As  savage  nations  in  our  day 

Pounce  on  some  weak  antagonist. 

Across  the  jungle-painted  grass 

His  roar  breaks  through  the  tropic  air; 

And  he  runs  like  a  tawny  flame — 
Swift  yellow  stroke  of  lightning  there. 

His  cry  is  like  the  thunder's  sound, 
Shaking  leaf  and  bough  and  bole; 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

And  he  is  part  of  Africa — 

The  yellow  monarch  in  her  soul. 

Painted  birds  fly  through  the  trees 

And  stain  the  sky  with  brown  on  blue, 
Hammering  with  their  wings  the  breeze, 

Hitting  songs  across  the  dew. 
Parrots  gaudy  as  a  star 

Tap  their  bells  and  chatter  sound. 
Each  insect  sweeps  his  dim  guitar 

Like  music  hidden  in  the  ground. 

The  tawny  lion  goes  like  a  shot — 

A  daub  of  gold  against  the  green, 
Scenting  a  wounded  bleeding  doe 

That  he  is  following  unseen. 
A  spangled  serpent  lights  a  tree, 

A  coiling  flame  around  it,  curled; 
But  the  old  lion  goes  great  and  free, 

The  master  of  his  jungle  world. 

Bravely  born  and  bravely  bred, 

Proud  as  a  diamond  of  his  fire, 
This  yellow  monarch  of  the  south 

Goes  like  the  hosts  that  swarmed  to  Tyre. 
Hungry  to  kill,  he  scents  the  air, 

And  roars  into  beginning  night, 
His  blond  mane  tossing  up  its  hair, 

His  eyes  two  pools  of  blazing  light. 

[60] 


Edwin  Curran 


He  stops  and  lips  the  evening  gale, 

Reading  the  wind  across  the  trees; 
Giant  cat  in  his  tawny  mail, 

Spelling  out  the  trail-warm  breeze. 
Then  on  he  darts  as  though  with  wings, 

To  find  his  prey  and  drink  the  blood 
And  feast  upon  the  harmless  things 

That  God  has  put  into  the  wood. 

A  gorilla  slouches  through  the  bush; 

A  leopard's  eyes  shoot  stars  of  light; 
The  deep  luxuriant  forest  hush 

Hides  serpents  beetle-colored,  bright. 
The  crane  nods  sleeping,  spindle-shanked; 

Gray  monkeys  troop  and  clack  and  peer; 
A  jungle  stream  goes  emerald-banked, 

Purring  like  a  wild-cat  near. 

The  cinnamon-colored  land  awakes 

Around  the  lion  fold  on  fold; 
Yellowing  with  fruit,  blue  with  lakes, 

Stuck  with  fireflies  burnished  gold. 
Gray  monkeys  watch  the  lion  and  talk, 

Lassoing  trees  with  leather  tails; 
Some  far  palms  by  the  seaside  walk, 

And  near-by  sing  the  nightingales. 

The  moon  hangs  like  a  petal  of  gold 
Broken  upon  the  western  sky. 

[61] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

The  blue  dusk  deepens  fold  on  fold, 
The  shattered  day  lies  down  to  die. 

Here  in  this  wild  primeval  place, 
Savage,  wooded,  poisonous,  still, 

Far  from  mankind  and  human  face, 
The  old  lion  goes  to  hunt  and  kill. 

His  prey  is  near,  the  scent  is  strong, 

He  roars  out  in  his  ghastly  mirth. 
There,  bleeding  like  a  shattered  song, 

His  wounded  doe  is  run  to  earth. 
But  as  he  leaps  to  take  its  throat 

A  younger  lion  leaps  up  and  cries; 
And  there  the  two  lions  stand  like  stone, 

The  fires  of  ages  in  their  eyes. 

It  took  the  centuries  to  make 

These  lions'  sun-colored  bodies  bright, 
These  great-teethed  felines  from  the  brake, 

Tawny,  crouching,  cruel  as  night. 
Their  eyes  turn  red — these  cats  of  brown 

Swift  as  wind,  lithe  as  air, 
Savage-maned  and  monarch-crowned, 

With  blazing  eyes  and  yellow  hair. 

The  painted  snake  makes  not  a  sound; 

The  frightened  birds  shake  in  the  tree: 
Like  two  great  russet  clouds  they  bound, 

These  monarchs,  for  the  mastery. 

[62] 


Edwin  Curran 


The  teak-tree  groans,  the  gum  is  still, 
The  coffee- tree  nods  to  the  duel; 

An  elephant  calf  stares  from  a  hill, 
A  lizard  watches  from  a  pool. 

White  silver  moon,  an  eye  of  snow, 

Looks  from  the  dusk  with  beauty  hung, 
Her  pale  lids  open  and  aglow 

Where  starry  ladders  are  far-flung. 
The  lions'  steel  sinews  knot  in  cords; 

There  is  a  crash  of  yellow  forms; 
The  zebu  and  chimpanzee  run; 

The  jungle  with  the  battle  storms. 

A  roar  that  rocks  the  ground  is  heard, 

And  monkeys  chatter,  parrots  flee. 
The  coiled  snake  and  the  gaudy  bird 

Slink  from  their  everlasting  tree. 
The  colors  of  the  painted  land 

All  disappear  as  quick  as  light; 
The  great  palms  tremble,  and  the  hand 

Of  God  draws  over  all  the  night. 

The  dotted  turtles  hunt  the  ground, 
Now  rocking  with  the  battling  pair; 

The  night  birds,  startled,  make  no  sound, 
The  vultures  scent  the  bloody  air. 

Hyenas  wait  to  eat  the  dead 

And  pick  the  polished  bones  and  wail; 

[63] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

A  python  crawls  with  silken  tread 
On  silver  plates  of  sliding  mail. 

The  wild  things  of  the  jungle  know 

A  battle  of  the  kings  is  on; 
The  zebras  cry,  trie  tree-cats  yell; 

The  tall  giraffe  has  swiftly  flown; 
The  spiders  hang  on  polished  webs — 

Greenish  discs  of  jeweled  light; 
A  frog  is  croaking  in  his  well, 

The  fireflies  shower  through  the  night. 

The  two  huge  cats  are  at  their  duel — 

Two  yellow  whirlwinds,  hard  as  stones; 
Snapping,  biting,  wild  and  cruel, 

Tearing  flesh  and  crunching  bones. 
Jaws  upraised  and  crashing  shut, 

Lifting,  sinking,  slashing  there; 
Paws  like  razors  slitting  skin, 

Teeth  like  knives  of  white  that  tear. 

The  painted  flowers  drip  with  blood, 

The  hiding  snake  is  crushed  below; 
The  lizard  stamps  into  the  ground; 

The  trees  shake  as  when  whirlwinds  blow. 
The  monkeys  swing  away  and  run; 

The  wildcat  looks  and  leaps  away; 
The  leopard,  spotted  with  the  sun, 

Slides  by  into  the  mist  of  gray. 


Edwin  Curran 


The  poisonous  flies  have  scented  blood, 

And  elephants  have  come  to  peer; 
Ant-eaters  look  into  the  wood 

To  see  the  battle  of  the  year. 
The  scorpion  squirms  into  the  view, 

And  things  unspeakable,  to  see — 
Speared  and  horned  and  crusted  blue, 

The  toad  and  reptile  infantry. 

The  jungle  sees  the  battle  rage 

Intense,  ferocious,  swift  and  fast — 
A  terrible  and  an  awful  sight, 

So  horrible  toward  the  last 
The  lions  have  cowed  the  very  night, 

And  stunned  the  shadows  and  the  trees: 
A  scuffle  like  the  break  of  worlds, 

The  shattering  of  centuries. 

But  the  old  lion  shows  greater  skill, 

With  harder  blows  and  mastery; 
His  teeth  were,  longer  trained  to  kill, 

His  strength  upholds  his  majesty. 
Yet  the  young  lion  is  quick  and  strong — 

So  wiry  lithe  he  seems  to  float; 
He  worries  the  old  lion  for  long — 

Till  the  old  lion  leaps  at  his  throat. 

They  wave  in  battle,  spinning  round 
Together,  snarling,  thundering,  bright, 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Thrashing  through  the  dry  dead  grass; 

Until  the  day  has  turned  to  night, 
And  left  the  young  lion  dead  and  still — 

In  ribbons,  mangled  on  the  sod, 
His  broken  body  cold  and  chill — 

The  old  lion  still  his  lord  and  god. 

The  old  master  of  the  forest  stands 

With  one  paw  on  the  fallen  breast — 
The  monarch  of  the  jungle  lands 

Whose  victory  challenges  the  best. 
A  king  is  dead — long  live  the  king! 

He  roars,  his  eyes  like  coals  aglow. 
He  calls  his  mate,  a  lioness  there, 

To  come  and  feast  and  eat  the  doe. 

He  calls  his  lady  through  the  night, 

And  she  replies  and  comes  to  him, 
Where  the  dead  doe  lies  still  and  white, 

To  banquet  in  the  shadows  dim: 
Like  nations,  when  the  war  is  done, 

Who  gather  at  the  feasting  board 
To  dine  upon  the  hard-won  prey, 

Each  like  a  monarch  and  a  lord. 

The  snake  slips  back  into  his  tree, 
The  monkeys  chatter  now  in  peace; 

And  over  the  blue  woods  there  falls 
The  age-old  night  of  centuries. 

[66] 


Edwin  Curran 


The  fireflies  hang  their  lanterns  back 
To  star  the  dark;  the  beetles  bell; 

The  lizards  creep,  and  nightbirds  sing; 
The  snail  is  dancing  in  his  shell. 

The  yellow  floods  are  still  and  quiet; 

The  sky  is  blue  like  trembling  glass; 
Beasts,  birds  and  toads  and  insects  riot 

Beneath  the  stars  in  jungle  grass. 
After  the  battle  night  alone; 

Moon-mist,  ghostly  poison-flowers; 
Trumpeting  of  beasts  that  moan 

Through  creeping  crawling  crimson  hours. 

A  shaky  moon  rocks  in  the  night, 

A  grumbling  sea,  far  palms,  the  crash 
Of  monkeys  chattering  as  they  fight; 

Gray  serpents  going  like  a  flash; 
Slow  turtles,  swifter  bats  on  wing; 

Worms  creeping  back,  and  spiders,  flies; 
Lizards  with  poisonous  following, 

And  fanged  things  in  their  paradise. 

Slimy  silken  bellies  squirming, 

OfFal-scented  beasts  of  prey; 
Hungry,  lethal  toads  and  reptiles 

Who  move  by  night  and  hide  by  day: 
Tearing  flesh  of  birds  that  nest, 

Rending  bones  that  drip  with  blood. 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

So  the  jackals  strike  and  quest 
In  the  world's  jungle  brotherhood. 

But  must  these  creepers  in  their  turn 

Be  conquered  in  the  coming  light, 
As  new  hope  rises  on  the  world 

And  the  old  lions  go  with  the  night? 
Yet  who  can  tell  what  signs  of  death 

Await  the  nations  one  by  one? 
Ah,  what  will  happen  in  earth's  dark  night 

Before  the  rising  of  the  sun? 

Edwin  Curran 


[68] 


THE  JILT 


Let  other  feet  go  drudging 

About  the  house  he  built! 
A  free  girl,  a  jilted  girl — 

I'm  glad  he  was  a  jilt. 

We  quarrelled  till  it  almost 
Destroyed  my  breath  of  life. 

He  nagged  me  and  bullied  me, 
As  if  I'd  been  his  wife. 

ii 

We  grew  cold  and  bitter 
The  more  we  would  explain, 

And  if  we  held  our  tongues 
The  worse  it  was  again. 

He  flashed  a  cruel  sign, 

I  flashed  a  cruel  word, 
And  neither  could  forget 

The  blame  the  other  heard. 

in 

But  his  eyes  could  be  tender  with  love,  and  his  voice — 

how  tender! 
Some  words  he  sang  are  with  me  the  whole  day  through. 

[69] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

I  hang  out  the  linen  and  burnish  the  brass  and  copper, 
And  they  won't  go  out  of  my  head,  whatever  I  do. 

Strange  how  they  come  when  I  feel  alone  and  forsaken, 
How  they  wake  me  up  when  the  dawn  in  my  room  is 

hazy, 
How  they  drug  me  asleep  when  the  night  has  darkened  my 

pillow! 

Ah,  a  song  will  sing  in  your  head  when  your  heart  is 
crazy ! 

IV 

What  can  I  do  but  sit  here  and  shake 

And  let  the  windows  rattle  mournfully, 
While  Sunday  brings  him  never  and  Monday  brings  him 
not, 

And  winter  hides  the  town  away  from  me? — 

Dreaming  how  he  drew  my  soul  from  my  lips, 

Seeming  just  to  hear  forevermore 

What  my  heart  tells  the  clock,  what  the  clock  tells  my 
heart, 

Dreaming  back  the  springtime  at  my  door? 


Why  should  I  curl  my  hair  for  him  ? 

He  said  the  trouble  couldn't  be  mended, 
He  said  it  must  be  good-by  and  go; 

And  he  took  up  his  hat,  and  all  was  ended. 

[70] 


Agnes  Lee 

So  all  was  over.     And  I'm  not  dead! 

And  I've  shed  all  the  tears  I'm  going  to  shed! 

And  now  he's  wanting  to  come  again? 

Perhaps  he's  sorry,  perhaps  he  misses 
The  hill-top  girl.    Well,  let  him  come! 

But  no  more  love  and  no  more  kisses — 
Whatever  the  future,  gay  or  grim, 
Why  should  I  curl  my  hair  for  him  ? 

VI 

I  shall  go  out  in  the  sun  today. 
I  don't  know  whether  to  laugh  or  pray, 
For  along  the  waking  paths  of  spring 
Bird  calls  to  bird  till  the  branches  ring. 

Something  stirs  me — spring's  own  will — 
To  wander  to  the  edge  of  the  hill, 
Where  I  can  see  as  I  look  down 
Patches  of  green  on  the  gray  old  town. 

THE  BLUNTED  AGE 

[The  old  man  sips  his  broth  and  reads  his  paper  before 
the  fire.  His  daughters  whisper  at  a  window.  One  of  them 
holds  a  letter.} 

First  Daughter 

I  dread  his  knowing. 

[71] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

Second  Daughter 

She  was  his  favorite  sister — 

Older  than  he,  and  very  far  away. 

Think  of  it — no  one  with  her  at  the  last! 

Better  delay  the  telling  .  .  .  such  a  sorrow  .  .  . 
First  Daughter 

Ah,  you  remember  how  he  loved  our  mother! 

And  yet,  last  summer,  after  she  had  died 

He  never  seemed  to  take  it  hard  at  all. 

He  seemed  too  much  resigned,  too  much  himself. 

It  would  have  killed  him  twenty  years  ago! 
Second  Daughter 

It  is  the  age  they  come  to.     Something  goes  out, 

Goes  mercifully  out.     I  often  think 

They  learn  to  take  death  as  they  take  their  broth, 

Their  daily  walk,  their  game  of  solitaire. 
First  Daughter 

And  you  and  I,  sister?     Already  youth 

Slips  far  and  far  behind  us.     Shall  we,  too  .  .  .   ? 
Second  Daughter  [Tearfully] 

How  can  you  say  it?     How  can  you  say  it?     Oh! 
First  Daughter 

Here  comes  old  Nurse  Lucretia  up  the  street, 

Heavy  with  her  dull  robes,  and  hurrying 

To  be  the  first  to  bear  the  word  to  him. 
Second  Daughter 

Sign  to  her,  wave  her  away,  wave  her  away! 

He  has  seen  her  close  so  many  dead  eyes ! 

[72] 


Agnes  Lee 

First  Daughter  No, 

She  has  passed  along,  she  was  not  coming  in. 
Second  Daughter 

Hush,  he  may  hear! 

First  Daughter  His  mind  is  on  his  paper. 

Second  Daughter 

Make  some  good  reason,  take  the  paper  from  him 

Before  he  reads  .  .  .  the  names.     Who  knows  but 
hers 

Might  be  already  there? 
First  Daughter  It  is  too  late. 

His  ringer  finds  the  column. 
The  Old  Man  [Calling]  Here !     See  here ! 

Why,  Adelaide  is  dead!     My  sister  Adelaide! 
Daughters 

O  father,  father! 

The  Old  Man  I  suppose  it's  true. 

First  Daughter 

A  letter  came.     Now  read  it,  deary,  read  it. 
The  Old  Man 

No,  let  it  wait.     So  Adelaide  is  dead! 

Well,  she  was  restless — go  and  go  she  must, 

First  to  this  place,  then  that  place,  till  at  last 

She  settled  in  Nevada.     As  for  me, 

Here  I  am  still,  and  I  shall  count  my  hundred. 

Well,  well,  well,  well,  so  Adelaide  is  dead! 

Agnes  Lee 


[73] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

FROM  THE  DAY-BOOK  OF  A  FORGOTTEN 
PRINCE 

My  father  is  happy  or  we  should  be  poor. 
His  gateway  is  wide,  and  the  folk  of  the  moor 
Come  singing  so  gaily  right  up  to  the  door. 

We  live  in  a  castle  that's  dingy  and  old; 
The  casements  are  broken,  the  corridors  cold, 
The  larder  is  empty,  the  cook  is  a  scold. 

But  father  can  dance,  and  his  singing  is  loud. 
From  meadow  and  highway  there's  always  a  crowd 
That  gathers  to  hear  him,  and  this  makes  him  proud. 

He  roars  out  a  song  in  a  voice  that  is  sweet — 
Of  grandeur  that's  gone,  rare  viands  to  eat, 
And  treasure  that  used  to  be  laid  at  his  feet. 

He  picks  up  his  robe,  faded,  wrinkled  and  torn, 
Though  banded  in  ermine,  moth-eaten  and  worn, 
And  held  at  the  throat  by  a  twisted  old  thorn. 

He  leaps  in  the  air  with  a  rickety  grace, 

And  a  kingly  old  smile  illumines  his  face, 

While  he  fondles  his  beard  and  stares  off  into  space. 

The  villagers  laugh,  then  look  quickly  away, 
And  some  of  them  kneel  in  the  orchard  to  pray. 
I  often  hear  whispers:   "The  old  king  is  fey." 

[74] 


Jean  Starr  Untermeyer 

But  after  they're  gone,  we  shall  find,  if  you  please, 
White  loaves  and  a  pigeon,  and  honey  and  cheese, 
And  wine  that  we  drink  while  I  sit  on  his  knees. 

And,  while  he  sups,  he  will  feed  me  and  tell 

Of  Mother,  whom  men  used  to  call  "The  Gazelle," 

And  of  glorious  times  before  the  curse  fell. 

And  then  he  will  fall,  half-asleep,  to  the  floor; 
The  rafters  will  echo  his  quivering  snore.  .  .  . 
I  go  to  find  cook  through  the  slack  oaken  door. 

My  father  is  happy  or  we  should  be  poor. 
His  gateway  is  wide,  and  the  folk  of  the  moor 
Come  singing  so  gaily  right  up  to  the  door. 

Jean  Starr  Untermeyer 


A  FILLET  OF  THORN 

Tell  me,  how  can  I  sing 

Who  have  not  tasted  pain  ? — 

Who,  having  grieved  an  hour, 
Laugh  and  am  glad  again? 

It  will  take  a  winter  of  frost, 
Aching  and  storm-filled  years, 

Before  I  am  lord  of  life, 
Before  I  am  king  of  tears. 

Anita  Grannis 

[75] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 
THE  WAGES  OF  SIN 

God  the  Inscrutable 

Looked  on  complacently 

The  while  young  Denison 

Slipped  all  his  debts  by  careful  insolvency, 

Broke  his  wife's  heart,  and  ruined  the  serving  girl. 

But  Lobster  Salad  and  Iced  Watermelon — 

That  was  too  much  for  even  a  godhead: 

"I'll  smite  him  for  that,"  quoth  God  the  Inscrutable. 

And  the  wretch  died  in  torment 

At  two  in  the  morning. 

Jessica  Nelson  North 


FOG 

The  sea  is  a  meadow,  pale  meadow  of  silence 
Where  flowers  are  blooming,  white  flowers  of  sound. 
And  deep  in  the  petals,  the  pale  listless  petals, 
Lost  ships  fumble  grumbling,  with  blindness  half  crazy. 

Does  He  muse,  the  Creator,  as  He  peers  in  the  vapor  ?- 
"So  bumble  bees  trouble  the  heart  of  the  daisy." 

Kathryn  White  Ryan 


[76] 


GEYSER 

Presto!— 

A  crystal  dancer 

Shimmers  into  the  air, 

Waving  veils  of  mist. 

Stricken, 

She  quivers — 

Sinks — 

Falling  upon  herself, 

Dead. 

John  R.  C.  Peyton 

GARGOYLE 

Your  tongue  hangs  out, 

You  gloat 

And  shout, 

You  leer  a  ribald  sophistry 

At  me, 

From  where, 

Half  goat, 

You  stare 

And  lean  in  horizontal  glee. 

Kate  Buss 


[77] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

DON  JUAN  IN  PORTUGAL 

At  every  pelhourinho's  ledge 
Faces  to  set  my  teeth  on  edge — 
Gray  gossips,  like  a  dusty  hedge, 
Whisper  and  crackle. 

I  lean  at  Alcobaca,  dim 

With  fig-leaves  twisted  round  its  rim. 

Pauses  a  slim 

Tall  maid.     Her  name? — A  Latin  hymn, 

Gloria  da  Madre  de  Deus; 

A  white-rose  face  dipped  tremulous — 

A  profile  carved  as  nobly  clear 

As  love-child  of  Aurelius. 

White-clad,  barefoot  and  straight  she  stood, 
Vase-bearing  nymph  ripe  to  be  wooed 
In  some  delicious  interlude. 


What  need  now  to  remember  more? — 
The  tiled  and  twisted  fountain's  pour, 
The  vase  forgotten  on  the  floor, 
The  white  street  ending  in  her  door; 

Her  head,  a  dark  flower  on  a  stem; 

Her  diadem 

Of  heavy  hair,  the  Moorish  low  estalegem; 

[78] 


Florence  Wilkinson 

Outside,  the  stillness  and  white  glare 
Of  Alcobaca's  noonday  square; 
My  hands  that  dare — 
The  beauty  of  her  loosened  hair: 

White  shift,  white  door,  the  white  still  street; 
Her  lips,  her  arms,  her  throat,  her  feet; 
After  a  while — the  bread  and  meat, 

A  dewy  jar  of  cool  red  wine, 
Olives  that  glisten  wet  with  brine. 
White  rose  of  Alcobaca — mine — 
We  kiss  again  above  the  wine! 

The  red  wine  drunk,  the  broken  crust, 

We  parted  as  all  lovers  must. 

Madre  in  gloria,  be  thou  just 

To  that  frail  glory — 

A  white  rose  fallen  into  dust! 

Florence  Wilkinson 


[79] 


POETRY:    A  Magazine  of  Verse 
THE  PASSERS-BY 

THE    PARADE 

Faces,  laughing  and  torch-lit, 

Passing  and  passing — 

Laughing  and  torch-lit  and  passing! 

Voices,  crying  and  shouting, 

Dying  and  dying — 

Crying  and  shouting  and  dying! 

Drums,  beating  and  thumping, 

Retreating,  retreating — 

Beating  and  thumping,  retreating! 

Gone!     There  remains  but  the  heat 
Of  the  August  night-wind 
Blowing  a  leaf  down  the  street. 

TO    THE    HILLS    AROUND    NORTHAMPTON 

Little  New  England  hills, 

How  tenderly 

You  gather  in  this  bit  of  world 

To  comfort  me, 

Encircling  all  I  love 

As  I  would  do 

Had  arms  the  reach  of  heart ! 

Small  hills  of  blue, 


Dorothy  Butts 

If,  having  grown  to  be 

More  tall  than  you, 

I  shall  be  forced  to  see 

The  farther  view, 

How  shall  I  feel 

The  solace  of  your  rounded  form  against  the  sky, 

Unless  I  kneel? 

A    VANITY 

It  is  a  vanity  to  make 

The  little  waves  on  my  small  lake 

Speak  from  their  "deep  spring  depths." 

What  can  they  have  to  say, 

Blown  down  the  winking  bay 

The  first  half  of  the  day, 

Blown  back  all  afternoon? 

See — in  the  early  moon, 

Wind-driven  home,  they  leap 

And  scramble  on  the  shore — 

And  sleep. 

AUDIENCE 

Of  what  account  the  leafing  trees — 

Dead  leaves  in  autumn  ?     What  were  these, 

Were  there  no  poet's  heart  to  please? 

Of  you  and  me  what  can  be  said, 
Who  are  not,  are,  and  then  are  dead — 
Without  a  poet  overhead? 

[81] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

LISTENING 

Into  the  night  I  sent  my  call 
For  you,  and  hung  my  head 
When  there  was  no  reply. 

Tonight  the  singing  sky 

Is  calling  me  instead — 

Cry  upon  ringing  cry. 

Although  I  do  not  hear  your  voice, 

My  head  is  high. 


MAY    BASKET 

I  love  you,  dear; 

And  all  the  little  world 

Loves  my  simplicity. 

For  in  my  love 

There  are  no  passions  whirled 

In  wild  complexity. 

No  mystery 

Of  "Does  she  love?"  and  "Whom?" 

Needs  fathoming. 

I  gather  love, 

And  ever  find  more  room 

For  gathering. 

[82] 


Dorothy  Butts 

Will  you  take  this  basketful  today, 
Of  old  love  and  new  flowerets,  and  say, 
"This  much  she  loved  me  during  May?" 

THE    TRANSIENT 

Dear,  take  my  love  and  do  not  hesitate. 

You  think  that  I  shall  always  wait, 

I  am  so  calm. 

(It  is  to  reassure,  and  to  inspire 

New  confidence  in  you.) 

Quick,  take  my  love  before  it  is  too  late ! 

Here  are  my  hands  held  out  to  give  to  you 

Their  treasures — some  old,  some  new, 

All  dear  to  me. 

Oh,  do  not  agonize  me  by  delay, 

And  musing  which  to  take! 

Quick! — say  I  gave  them  to  you,  passing  through. 

DIFFERENCE 

If  you  will  wander,  so  shall  I — 

In  opposite  directions  ply 

Our  irresistible  two  ways 

Into  the  nights,  into  the  days. 

The  east  and  west  shall  draw  apart, 

Like  magnets,  your  heart  from  my  heart. 

t83] 


POETRY:   A  Magazine  of  Verse 

How  vain  our  tears  now  we  have  seen 
That  east  and  west  have  common  lures. 
You  were  my  magnet — I  was  yours, 
With  all  the  world  between. 

PLEASE 

Give  me  the  old  familiar  things, 

Though  they  be  very  plain: 

The  quaint  old  tune  Joanna  sings, 

The  small  house  in  a  lane, 

Whose  fragrance  meets  the  open  door; 

The  faded  carpet  on  the  floor, 

The  patient  peace  of  furniture — 

Familiar  things  I  can  endure. 

I  have  been  brave  a  long,  long  while, 

Heard  praise,  and  scorning  afterward; 

I  have  met  eyes  that  did  not  smile, 

And  now  I  ask  for  my  reward. 

I  know  the  panoramic  strand 

Of  happiness,  and  griefs  sequence. 

Rough  grains  have  scratched  my  venturous  hand. 

I  beg  no  tribute  nor  defence; 

I  only  ask  familiar  things — 

The  quaint  old  tune  Joanna  sings. 

Dorothy  Butts 


POEMS 

GARGOYLES    OF    NOTRE    DAME 

I  watch  them  shuttle  and  weave  and  run 

Like  dust  before  a  scolding  wind: 

Boats  on  the  water, 

Leaves  on  the  bank, 

And  men  on  the  streets  and  square. 

Leaves  and  snow  and  leaves  again, 

And  men. 

Boats  to  the  sea, 

Leaves  to  the  wind, 

Men  to  gibbet  and  wheel — 

To  thrones, 

To  bed, 

To  Pere  Lachaise. 

Muddy  tracks  in  the  snow, 

And  blood  on  the  wheel, 

And  rotting  leaves  on  the  tiles — 

The  wind  and  rain  will  sweep  them  away 

As  a  soft  curled  plume  might  sweep 

Flecks  from  a  silken  gown. 

Shuttle  and  weave  and  run — 

Boats  to  the  sea, 

Leaves  to  the  wind 

And  men  to  Pere  Lachaise. 

[85] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

EDGES 

Edges  are  more  beautiful  than  anything — 

Edges 

Where  the  quiet  deep  shallows  into  loveliness, 

Where  the  clouds  feather  to  wavering  silver, 

And  color  kisses  its  brighter  self. 

Life  is  most  whitely  light 

Where  its  low  edge 

Melts  in  the  still  pool  of  death, 

As  the  sky-rim  sinks 

In  a  moon-filled  sea. 

LULLABY 

Tears  for  your  pink,  curled  hands — 
They  must  strain  to  hold 
The  smoke-thin  garments  of  a  dream. 

Tears  for  your  still  eyes — 
They  must  be  pierced 
By  the  keen  blades  of  beauty. 

Tears  for  your  flower  feet — 

They  must  bloom  like  first  spring 
On  wintry  plains. 

Tears,  tears  for  your  eyes, 
And  pink,  curled  hands, 
And  blossom  feet — tears! 

[86] 


Henry  Eellamann 


PEAKS 

Quiet  faces, 

That  look  in  faith 

On  distance, 

I  will  come  to  you 

And  gaze  upon  that  peace. 

I  cannot  tell 
If  it  be  wind  you  see 
Across  the  summer  grain, 
Or  the  shaken  agony 
Of  driven  seas. 

GOD 

I  often  spend  week-ends  in  heaven, 

And  so  I  know  him  well. 

Most  times  he  is  too  busy  thinking  things 

To  talk; 

But  then,  I  like  his  still  aloofness 

And  superior  ease. 

I  can't  imagine  him  in  armor,  or  in  uniform, 

Or  blowing  like  a  windy  Caesar 

Across  the  fields  of  Europe, 

Or  snooping  in  my  mind 

To  find  what  I  am  thinking, 

Or  being  jealous  of  the  darling  idols 

I  have  made. 

If  ever  that  slim  word — aristocrat — 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Belonged  to  anyone,  it  is  to  God. 
You  should  see  him  steadying  the  wings 
Of  great  thoughts  starting  out 
On  flight- 
Very  like  a  scientist  trying  a  machine. 
Patrician,  cool,  in  a  colored  coat 
Rather  like  a  mandarin's; 
Silver  sandals — quite  a  picture! 
I  can't  see  him 
Fluttering  in  wrathful  haste, 
Or  dancing  like  a  fool. 

I  don't  go  there  often — 

Only  when  I'm  at  my  best. 

I  save  up  things: 

Pictures  of  the  sea  wild  with  white  foam, 

Stories  of  engines  beating  through  the  clouds, 

News  of  earth  in  storm  and  sun, 

Some  new  songs — the  best. 

He's  fond  of  being  entertained 
With  what  I  choose  to  tell  him  of  myself—- 
Very kind  about  tomorrow, 
Indifferent  of  yesterday. 

He's  like  that— 

God  in  his  heaven — alone. 

I  know,  for  I  made  him,  put  him  there 

Myself. 

[88] 


Henry  Eellamann 


THE    ARTIST 


What  would  you  do — 

If  you  had  ear  and  brain  attuned  superbly 

To  all  the  iridescent  humming-birds  of  faint 

And  delicate  overtones 

That  play  like  spirit  flames 

Above  the  music? 

Suppose  your  eyes  could  see 

What  mine  see  when  a  little  wind  passes, 

And  all  the  garden  is  suddenly  barred  and  starred 

With  flying  color. 

Suppose  the  tilting  planes  of  dogwood  bloom, 

In  the  green  spring  mist  of  young  leaves, 

Caught  your  breath  as  though  a  hand 

Held  your  throat — 

Or  that  the  red  haw  veiling  herself  in  May 

Kept  you  awake  at  nights 

Remembering  her  bridal  look. 

Oh,  suppose  this  world  of  nuances, 

Opal-soft  and  frail  and  swift, 

Were  for  you  a  reality  more  hard 

Than  things  you  call  reality, 

And  you  lived  always  among  the  deaf  and  blind — 

What  would  you  do? 

Henry  Eellamann 


[89] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
COMMENT 

FROM    QUEEN    ANNE    TO    GEORGE    THE    FIFTH 

THE  death  of  Austin  Dobson  early  in  September  com- 
pelled us  all  to  turn  and  count  the  milestones.  Was  it 
possible  that  he  had  lived  till  yesterday — this  artist  in 
triolets — lived  to  bridge  over,  with  his  trim  little  silver- 
silken  foot-path,  the  depth  on  depth  and  height  on  height 
of  wild  and  thunder-echoing  change  which  lie  between  his 
time,  his  mood,  and  ours?  Was  it  possible  that  a  poet 
who  reached  backward  even  from  Victoria  to  light  his 
little  candle  at  the  wax  taper  of  Queen  Anne,  that  such 
an  one  could  have  lived  through  impressionists  and 
futurists,  through  fin-de-siecle  lassitude  and  Celtic  revolt, 
through  imagists,  vers-libristes,  aeroplanes,  submarines, 
Russian  revolutions  and  the  world  war — lived  unper- 
turbed in  his  eighteenth-century  garden,  a  loyal  citizen  of 
an  extinct  world! 

However,  in  the  seventies  and  eighties  Austin  Dobson 
was  a  "new  movement."  Swinburne  had  been  showing 
what  might  be  done  with  English  rhythmics;  now  Dob- 
son,  only  three  years  younger,  would  open  a  fresh  chapter 
by  following  the  footsteps  of  Theodore  de  Banville  in 
adapting  to  modern  uses  the  old  French  forms  of  those 
fifteenth-century  rhymers  Marot  and  Villon.  His  art  was 
of  a  neatness,  a  nicety;  and  all  the  circumstances  of  his 
life  encouraged  and  developed  its  precision,  its  good- 
mannerly  grace.  A  comfortable  little  government  office, 

[90] 


From  £fueen  Anne  to  George  the  Fifth 

with  three-fourths  of  his  salary  continuing  on  retirement 
at  sixty;  a  comfortable  pension  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  for  his  services  to  literature;  a  comfortable  home 
and  family  and  "troops  of  friends";  and  a  comfortable 
by-gone  period  to  retire,  into  out  of  this  troublesome 
modern  world.  Too  comfortable  perhaps — apparently  a 
bit  enervating;  for  his  books  of  verse  and  prose  all  ante- 
date his  retirement  from  office  at  the  turn  of  the  century. 
Through  the  last  twenty  eventful  years  this  poet  has  had 
little  to  say. 

A  master-miniaturist? — perhaps  not  quite,  because  his 
eighteenth-century  portraits,  ballads,  dialogues  are 
scarcely  the  real  thing  after  all,  any  more  than  the  "period 
rooms"  which  our  master-decorators  create  today.  They 
were  done  with  zest,  but  not  with  the  eighteenth-century 
faith — their  fragile  artificiality  lacks  the  true  DuBarry 
bloom.  A  master  of  vers  de  soci'et'e? — possibly  again  not 
quite,  because  the  master,  even  in  that  genre,  always 
makes  you  believe,  or  at  least  suspect,  that  he  is  really 
in  love,  or  in  joy,  or  in  grief,  in  some  wistful  corner  of  his 
gay  but  battered  heart;  whereas  Dobson  merely  plays 
with  pretended  emotions — he  is  always  frankly  in  cos- 
tume. And  as  is  the  way  with  masqueraders,  he  usually 
makes  too  many  bows  and  gestures,  he  slightly  over-acts 
the  role. 

The  poems  in  French  forms  also — the  ballades,  villa- 
nelles,  rondeaux,  though  done  with  superlative  deftness, 
remain  literary  exercises. 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Always  in  costume,  did  I  say?  Before  Sedan  is  a  poem 
of  simplicity  and  sincerity,  with  no  superfluous  words  to 
mar  the  sad  little  story.  And  in  this  briefer  poem,  The 
Cradle ',  there  is  a  quietly  restrained  feeling: 

How  steadfastly  she'd  worked  at  it! 

How  lovingly  had  dressed 
With  all  her  would-be-mother's  wit 

That  little  rosy  nest! 

How  longingly  she'd  hung  on  it! — 

It  sometimes  seemed,  she  said, 
There  lay  beneath  its  coverlet 

A  little  sleeping  head. 

He  came  at  last,  the  tiny  guest, 

Ere  bleak  December  fled; 
That  rosy  nest  he  never  pressed — 

Her  coffin  was  his  bed. 

In  the  best  of  the  gayer  poems  also  one  may  find  a 
hint  of  feeling,  a  kind  of  artistic  sincerity,  as  in  an  idyl  by 
Boucher  or  Fragonard;  that  is,  behind  the  shepherdess 
symbol  is  a  certain  wistfulness  of  dream.  We  all  remem- 
ber The  Ladies  of  St.  James — here  is  the  first  of  its  seven 

stanzas : 

The  ladies  of  St.  James's 

Go  swinging  to  the  play; 
Their  footmen  run  before  them, 

With  a  "Stand  by!    Clear  the  way!" 
But  Phyllida,  my  Phyllida! 

She  takes  her  buckled  shoon, 
When  we  go  out  a-courting 

Beneath  the  harvest  moon. 

This  poem  seems  to  me  Dobson's  high-water  mark — I 

[92] 


From  Queen  Anne  to  George  the  Fifth 

cannot  find  any  other  in  his  two  volumes  of  quite  so  fine  a 
quality.  The  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade,  Une  Marquise,  and 
some  of  the  Proverbs  in  Porcelain,  are  as  lightly  touched 
off,  but  their  artificiality  is  less  skilfully  disguised. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  many  of  the  muse's  gayer 
fashions  of  the  last  half-century  were  set  by  Dobson. 
First,  the  old  French  forms,  which  soon  became  a  fever,  a 
mania,  until  every  magazine  poet  in  two  continents  was 
writing  rondels  and  villanelles — a  trick  easily  learned,  and 
tiresome  unless  turned  off  with  the  rarest  grace.  Then 
the  library  fashion  of  bookish  poems,  including  the 
Horation  fashion  of  light-winged  tributes,  imitations  or 
free  translations  in  the  manner  of  the  Augustan  bard — 
fashions  so  effectively  followed  in  Chicago  by  Eugene 
Field  and  B.  L.  T.  of  happy  memory,  and  still  pursued, 
often  afar  off,  by  every  "colyumist"  in  the  land.  Indeed, 
most  of  the  journalist-poets  would  confess  that  they  had 
gone  to  school  to  Dobson,  and  that  on  the  whole  the 
discipline  had  been  salutary. 

The  name  of  another  venerable  English  poet  leaps  to 
one's  mind  by  way  of  contrast — a  poet  also  born  in  1840, 
and  now  still  sturdy  in  his  eighty-second  year.  Thomas 
Hardy's  mind,  from  youth  to  age,  has  looked  forward, 
never  back.  He  lit  his  torch  at  truth's  camp-fire,  and  he 
has  carried  it  ablaze  toward  the  new  age — no  abyss  or 
peak  of  change  could  find  him  unready  or  afraid. 

Hardy,  in  his  youth  a  man  of  our  time  or  beyond; 
Dobson,  in  his  old  age  a  contemporary  of  Pope  and  Gay — 

[93] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

was  there  ever  a  sharper  sting  of  difference  ?  The  differ- 
ence between  a  great  soul  and  a  little  one,  between  a  seer 
and  an  entertainer.  However,  each  in  his  own  way  has 
been  true  to  his  vision.  One  may  grant  to  each  the 
epitaph  Dobson  begged  for  himself— 

Saying,  "He  held  his  pen  in  trust 
To  Art,  not  serving  shame  or  lust." 

But  one  must  grant  to  Hardy  also  some  more  heroic 
line.  H.  M. 

REVIEWS 

DRINKWATER    AS    POET   AND    PLAYWRIGHT 

Pawns  (four  one-act  plays),  by  John  Drink  water.    Hough- 
ton  Mifflin  Co. 

Mary  Stuart,  by  John  Drinkwater.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Poems,  by  John  Drinkwater.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Does  Mr.  Drinkwater,  poet,  use  his  prose  material  for 
his  plays  ?  Is  it  not  the  duty  of  a  poet  to  continue  being  a 
poet  in  the  theatre?  Mr.  Drinkwater  should  suspend 
business  temporarily,  take  an  inventory,  and  separate  his 
art  material  from  his  merchandise.  Strong  speeches, 
prompted  by  fearless  thinking,  project  themselves  through 
the  mass  of  his  work,  but  they  are  in  great  danger  of  being 
engulfed  in  heavy  waves  of  conventional  mediocrity. 
Indeed,  the  proportion  of  poor  stuff  is  so  great  that  one 
becomes  prejudiced  against  the  whole  unless  one  reads 
carefully. 

[94] 


Drinkwater  as  Poet  and  Playwright 

In  Pawns,  a  volume  of  one-act  plays,  The  Storm  de- 
mands some  consideration  because  of  its  theme  and  a 
small  section  of  its  dialogue.  It  is  reminiscent  of  Synge's 
Riders  to  the  Sea,  and  of  course  it  suffers  by  comparison. 
However,  in  this  bit  of  the  opening  dialogue  he  has  caught 
the  quality  and  rhythm  of  the  Irishman,  and  it  leads  one 
to  believe  that  Mr.  Drinkwater  could  write  if  he  would 
orientate  himself: 

Alice.     I  have  prayed  these  hours,  and  now  I'm  tired  of  it. 
He  is  caught  in  some  grip  of  the  rock,  and  crying  out, 
And  crying,  and  crying;  and  none  can  hear  him  cry 
Because  of  this  great  beastliness  of  noise. 

Sarah.     Past  crying  now,  I  think. 

Joan.  There,  take  no  heed 

Of  what  she  says — it's  a  rusty  mind  she  has, 
Being  old,  and  wizened  with  bad  luck  on  the  hills. 

But  he  fails  to  sustain  this  simplicity  of  speech  and  the 
atmosphere  of  the  storm,  or  to  develop  the  tragic  theme 
with  power.  The  speeches  drag  out  archaically.  The 
Stranger,  one  of  the  characters,  states: 

I  was  a  dream, 

A  cold  monotony  suddenly  thrust 
Into  a  waking  world  of  lusty  change, 
A  wizened  death  elected  from  the  waste 
To  strive  and  mate  with  eager  lords  of  tumult. 
Beauty  was  winged  about  me,  darkling  speed 
Took  pressure  of  earth  and  smote  against  my  face; 
I  rode  upon  the  front  of  heroic  hours. 

And  through  the  remainder  of  the  volume  Mr.  Drink- 
water  does  not  attempt  to  pull  himself  out  of  archaism. 
In  the  other  plays  he  adds  rhyme,  which  doesn't  help  any. 

[95] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  title  The  God  of  Quiet  sounds  like  Lord  Dunsany, 
and  it  is  possible  that  Lord  Dunsany  might  have  dis- 
guised the  triteness  of  the  theme.  The  theme — the  return 
to  quiet,  to  peace  after  war,  the  futility  of  war,  the 
ineffectual  result  of  fighting,  the  planting  of  revenge 
which  instigates  the  eternal  round  of  war,  peace,  war — 
must  antagonize  the  artist.  Weak  propaganda  for  peace  is 
a  just  cause  for  inciting  belligerency,  and  this  play  is  full 
of  it. 

Old  Beggar.     It  is  the  quiet  mind  that  keeps 

The  tumults  of  the  world  in  poise. 
Soldier.    It  is  the  angry  soul  that  sleeps 

Where  the  world's  folly  is  and  noise; 
King.     For  anger  blunts  us  and  destroys. 
Citizen.    We  are  little  men  to  be  so  proud. 
Young  Beggar.     We  are  fools:  what  was  so  long  to  build 

We  break. 

With  the  padding  and  piling  of  long  speeches  on  the 
same  theme,  one  feels  that  Mr.  Drinkwater  should  have 
followed  the  trail  of  his  King: 

You  god  of  quiet,  some  day  shall  men  have  spent 
All  the  wild  humorous  blood  of  argument. 

A  Night  of  the  Trojan  War  is  a  tragic  episode  and  a  good 
theme,  but  one  is  reminded  of  a  better  handling  of  it  by 
Henri  Barbusse  in  one  of  his  short  stories.  Cophetua^  the 
last  play  in  the  volume,  must  have  been  written  in  the 
author's  salad  days. 

If  one  may  continue  to  suggest  other  authors  for  the 
handling  of  Mr.  Drinkwater 's  ideas,  James  Joyce  would 

[96] 


Drinkwater  as  Poet  and  Playwright 

be  a  good  bet  to  develop  the  theme  in  Mary  Stuart.  Not 
that  Mr.  Drinkwater  is  incapable  of  handling  it — the 
following  speeches  lead  one  to  believe  in  him.  If  such 
speeches  could  grip  him  and  control  him  to  the  end  of  a 
play,  we  should  have  something  to  reckon  with: 

Mary.  My  love  is  crazed,  a  turbulence,  without  direction.  It  was 
made  to  move  in  long  deep  assonance.  I  who  should  be  love,  may 
but  burn  and  burn  with  the  love  that  I  am  not. 

Mary.  Darnley,  Riccio,  Bothwell — there's  a  theme  for  a  great  heart  to 
play!  And  there's  so  much  to  do.  I  have  talent — as  rare  as  any  in 
Europe.  It  should  be  my  broad  road — that  and  my  love.  And  I 
cannot  use  it,  for  my  love  is  beaten  up  like  dust,  blinding  me.  To  be 
troubled  always  in  desires — that's  to  be  cursed,  not  wanton.  Little 
frustrations — and  it  should  be  the  wide  and  ample  movement  of  life. 

Certain  speeches  have  the  depth  and  sweep  of  drama, 
they  have  the  flesh  and  blood  of  drama;  but  they  should 
be  incorporated  in  another  play. 

The  prologue  is  in  modern  dialogue,  but  without  distinc- 
tion; and  it  does  not  insinuate  itself  into  the  "dream." 
The  dream  is  lugged  in  on  a  dray.  It  fails  to  win  you 
with  its  spell  because  there  is  no  magic.  The  modern 
characters  in  the  prologue  argue  a  theme  old  in  point 
of  time,  but  modern  because  it  has  yet  to  be  developed 
and  established.  As  if  afraid  of  its  modernity,  these 
characters  thrust  it  back  into  an  old  story  with  conven- 
tional manners,  dialogue,  and  wit.  Whereas  the  vitality 
of  the  theme  could  break  old  molds,  and  precipitate  itself 
without  apology  into  a  great,  free,  modern  expression. 

The  play  ends  with  the  voices  coming  back  out  of  the 

[97] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

"dream."  This  is  handled  effectively,  it  has  the  glamour 
of  hallucination;  but  Mary's  spirit's  answer  to  Hunter's 
real  question  breaks  the  spell.  It  would  be  more  dramatic 
and  in  better  taste  to  let  the  play  end  with  Hunter's 
"My  God! — What's  that?"  and  leave  Mary's  answer  to 
the  imagination  of  the  audience. 

We  seem  to  be  passing  through  the  phase  of  "sightless 
thought"  in  the  theatre — the  gathering  of  material  from 
history,  from  industrial,  psychological  or  sociological 
problems,  and  making  copybook  sketches  of  life  instead 
of  evoking  the  unseen  through  the  magic  of  art.  Because 
the  art-theatres  are  endeavoring  to  reserve  the  theatre  for 
works  of  the  imagination,  they  are  branded  high-brow. 
As  a  matter  of  truth,  the  recorders  of  facts,  the  chroniclers 
of  the  literal,  are  the  high-brows,  the  remote  ones.  As 
Mr.  Drinkwater  says  in  his  poem  History ,  feeling,  beauty, 
fancy — 

Such  are  the  things  remain 

Quietly  and  forever  in  the  brain, 

And  the  things  that  they  choose  for  history-making  pass. 

The  book  of  poems  opens  with  Reciprocity,  which  com- 
mends itself  to  the  reader's  good-nature.  It  is  pleasing, 
and  springs  from  feeling.  The  poem  History  beckons 
with  so  pleasant  a  smile,  and  is  really  so  charming,  that 
one  trips  gaily  over  the  trite  poems  which  follow,  until 
one  receives  a  nasty  bump  in  Reverie.  After  reading — 

And  only  beautiful  can  be 
Because  of  beauty  is  in  me — 

[98] 


Drinkwater  as  Poet  and  Playwright 

it  is  hard  to  press  on.  But  if  one  is  to  be  a  critic  one  must 
have  the  unflinching  endurance  of  M.  Jules  Lemaitre — 
"What  if  I  were  perchance  doing  my  part  in  killing  a 
masterpiece!" 

The  book  of  poems  has  many  pages.  We  have  a  large 
group  in  the  folk-song  manner,  two  sonnets  (we  swing 
into  their  familiar  melody  with  indifference),  a  group  of 
love-poems  tempered  with  pastoral  coolness — songs  fash- 
ioned circumspectly  without  unchaperoned  passions. 

The  long  poem,  The  Fires  of  God,  goes  the  way  of  too 
many  long  poems — limping,  strutting  and  striding. 
Seven-league  boots  would  compass  the  same  journey  in  a 
few  powerful  steps.  However,  the  ambling  in  Travel  Talk 
is  pleasant  and  restful,  as  ambling  in  relaxed  moods 
always  is.  And  The  Carver  in  Stone,  another  too  long 
poem,  has  beauty  and  an  insinuating  subtlety  in  its 
development.  The  Building  is  full  of  nice  suggestions,  and 
significant  repetitions  which  give  heft  to  its  balance  and 
harmony. 

Mr.  Drinkwater,  in  both  his  plays  and  his  poems,  has 
many  moments  of  clear  thinking,  but  when  he  summons 
his  naked  truth  and  meets  it  face  to  face  one  feels  that  he 
is  inadequate.  However,  some  of  his  thought  digs  so 
deep,  and  has  such  power  that  one  hopes  sincerely  that 
his  prayer  will  be  answered — 

Give  us  to  build,  above  the  deep  intent, 
The  deed. 

Laura  Sherry 

[99] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

OF    DREAMS    AND    STITCHES 

Curtains^  by  Hazel  Hall.     John  Lane  Co. 

Comes  Hazel  Hall  with  her  little  book,  every  word  and 
emotion  of  which  is  poignantly  authentic.  The  usual  first 
book  of  verse  is  conglomerate,  and  leaves  its  reader  with 
the  confused  sense  of  having  listened  outside  the  tower  of 
Babel.  But  this  is  the  crystallization  of  a  personality- 
one  emerges  from  it  as  though  one  had  sat  opposite  the 
woman  sewing  in  her  little  room,  plying  her  needle  or 
stopping  to  thread  it,  and  talking  in  a  voice  at  once  sad 
and  indomitable. 

Her  judgment  of  the  world  is  keen  and  impartial.  She 
knows  it  by  its  footfalls.  The  step  tells  more  than  the 
chiselled  expressionless  face: 

They  pass  so  close,  the  people  on  the  street! 
Philosophy  comes  in  through  the  open  window.    Inevi- 
tably, 

Only  one  sound  drifts  up  to  me, 
The  blend  of  every  tread  in  one, 
Impersonal  as  the  beat  of  the  sea. 

Often  the  poet's  strength  suggests  itself  even  more  in 
rhythm  than  in  word,  as  in  the  three  lines  quoted  above, 
and  again: 

The  beat  of  life  is  wearing  me 

To  an  incomplete  oblivion, 

Yet  not  to  the  certain  dignity 

Of  death. 

In  Curtains  >  which  is  Part  I  of  the  little  book,  a  certain 
wistfulness  pervades,  something  compounded  half  of  sad- 

[100] 


Of  Dreams  and  Stitches 

ness  and  half  of  hope.     She  is  never  bitter — even  from 
Defeat  she  wrenches  power: 

Time's  soft  fingers  gently  close 
Over  my  outstretched  hand,  and  in 
Their  certain  touch  I  feel  repose. 

In  Part  II:  Needlework  her  touch  is  even  surer,  even 
more  deft.  I  know  nothing  more  definitely  and  delicately 
of  woman  than  this  handful  of  pages. 

Every  poem  in  the  little  volume  is  quotable.  We  have 
selected  The  Long  Dayy  one  of  the  less  familiar,  for  beauty 
of  form  as  well  as  for  its  representativeness: 

I  am  sewing  out  my  sorrow, 

Like  a  thread,  wearing  it  thin; 
It  will  be  old  and  frayed  tomorrow. 

Needle,  turn  out;  needle,  turn  in. 

Sorrow's  thread  is  a  long  thread. 

Needle,  one  stitch;  needle,  two. 
And  sorrow's  thread  is  a  strong  thread, 

But  I  will  wear  it  through. 

Then  not  only  will  sorrow 

Be  old  and  thin  and  frayed; 
But  I  shall  have  tomorrow 

Something  sorrow  has  made. 

There  is  something  in  these  poems  as  personal  as  the 
warm  and  vibrantly  sympathetic  touch  of  a  hand.  The 
poet  has  given  of  herself  with  generosity,  and  she  leaves 
one  with  the  sense  of  being  near  and  intimate.  More  as  a 
confidant  than  as  some  strange  reader,  one  listens  with 
wonder  to  her  fragile  fancies,  so  musically  given  forth,  and 
weeps  at  her  isolation.  Pearl  Andelson 

[wi] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
CORRESPONDENCE 

POET   AND    COMPOSER   AS    ALLIES 

Dear  Miss  Monroe:  As  a  writer  of  both  music  and  verse, 
your  discussion  of  Poetry  and  the  Allied  Arts  in  the  October 
issue  of  your  magazine  has  an  especial  interest  for  me. 

You  quote  Mr.  Case  as  to  the  difficulty  of  arranging  a 
program  of  American  songs  possessing  sufficient  variety  of 
mood  and  treatment.  I  believe  one  reason  for  this,  in  the 
case  of  the  individual  composer,  is  that  a  publisher  be- 
comes accustomed  to  a  certain  style  from  a  certain  musi- 
cian, and  when  the  musician  changes  his  idiom  the  pub- 
lisher waggles  a  disapproving  head.  It  is  difficult  to 
break  away  from  old  patterns  and  be  received  as  the 
weaver  of  new,  and  often  one's  best  work  is  a  long  time 
finding  itself  in  print. 

One  of  the  reasons  operating  against  poet  and  musician 
combining  more  freely  is  the  scant  recognition,  even 
obliteration,  often  accorded  the  poet-member  of  the 
partnership.  I  am  moved  to  a  comment  not  pleasant  to 
make,  concerning  as  it  does  my  own  kinsmen.  Obser- 
vation has  forced  the  conclusion  that  many  musicians  are 
a  somewhat  insular  folk;  or  should  one  say  indifferent? 
Surely  not  ignorant — at  any  rate,  something  that  begins 
with  I.  They  are  apt  to  have  a  kind  of  unilateral  art- 
sense,  a  squint-view,  as  it  were,  at  creative  .expression,  a 
proneness  to  feel  not  only  that  music's  the  thing,  but  the 
whole  thing.  It  is  a  not  uncommon  experience  to -see  the 

[102] 


Poet  and  Composer  as  Allies 

text  of  a  long  work  printed  in  a  program  headed  by  the 
name  of  the  artist  who  has  set  it  to  music,  the  poet's  name 
appearing  not  at  all.  Time  and  again  song-poems  are 
anonymously  printed,  singly  and  in  groups,  in  the  original 
or  in  translation;  and  the  reader  is  left  to  infer — if  he 
give  it  a  thought — that  the  words  had  "jes*  growed." 
There  is  small  doubt  that  the  verse  yoked  to  music  is 
often,  one  may  say  usually,  of  negligible  inspiration;  but 
if  it  be  given  the  dignity  of  program-printing,  certainly 
the  authorship  should  be  acknowledged.  I  look  forward 
to  the  time  when  the  poet,  in  his  association  with  music 
will  be  considered  worthy  of  his  hire,  be  that  hire  nothing 
more  than  recognition  of  authorship;  to  the  time  when  all 
programs  shall  print,  between  the  title  of  a  song  and  the 
name  of  its  composer,  the  bracketed  name  of  the  poet;  and 
when  all  music  critics,  not  merely  the  distinguished  few, 
know  something  of  the  fellow-arts  as  well  as  of  music. 

Music-publishers  have  done  much  to  accent  the  value 
of  the  text  by  giving  it  separate  printing  in  song  publica- 
tions. William  Arms  Fisher,  a  composer  of  songs  and  the 
editor  of  an  eastern  music  house,  takes  the  broad  view  that 
in  a  song  the  words  are  of  chief  import. 

The  creative  publisher  of  sweeping  vision  and  the  will  to 
dramatize  those  visions,  can  do  much  toward  bringing  to- 
gether poet  and  musician  and  all  allied  artists.  My 
collaboration  with  Henry  Hadley  in  the  writing  of  an 
oratorio,  Resurgam,-  to  which  you  referred,  was  originally 
due  to  the  initiative  of  Mr.  Fisher.  He  asked  me  for  the 

[103] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

text  for  a  cantata,  and,  following  his  usual  method  of  pre- 
senting his  wishes  infectiously  and  with  a  large  measure  of 
faith,  launched  the  undertaking  almost  coincidentally 
with  the  reading  of  the  letter.  When  the  text  was  finished 
he  invited  Mr.  Hadley  to  make  the  music.  Thus  was  a 
happy  unity  established:  music,  poetry,  opportunity — for 
certainly  the  editor  or  publisher  stands  for  opportunity. 
After  the  production  of  the  cantata  and  one  other  piece, 
Mr.  Hadley  wrote  proposing  that  we  do  an  oratorio  to- 
gether. He  said  he  had  "always  wished  to  express  in 
music  the  sombre  passing  of  mortal  life  and  the  glory  of 
immortality.'*  Upon  completion  of  the  text  I  urged  him 
to  make  suggestions,  and  while  he  was  at  work  on  the  third 
section  he  asked  for  the  interpolation  of  a  contrasting 
mood.  Certainly  the  text  was  improved  by  the  suggested 
addition.  I  was  kept  in  touch  with  the  music  from  time 
to  time,  being  told  for  what  voices  in  solo,  chorus,  etc., 
the  various  parts  of  the  poem  were  scored. 

There  is  no  question  in  my  mind  that  co-labor  between 
artists  increases  the  joy  which  should  be  the  well-spring, 
and  not  a  by-product,  of  art-creation. 

Louise  Ayres  Garnett 

REACTIONARY   COMPOSERS 

Dear  Editor:  It  has  occurred  to  me  many  times,  and 
with  even  greater  force  since  reading  your  Comment  in 
October's  POETRY,  that  the  present  unalliance  in  America 

[104] 


Reactionary  Composers 

between  modern  poetry  and  modern  music  is  primarily 
due  to  the  complacency  of  the  reactionaries  of  the  musical 
world.  By  this  I  mean  not  only  the  reactionaries  among 
the  composers  and  critics,  but  those  in  the  audiences 
themselves,  who  insist,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
that  our  operatic,  song  and  orchestral  compositions 
should  remain  more  than  a  little  antiquated,  scented 
with  lavender,  while  the  contemporary  arts  are  keeping 
pace  with  the  complexities  of  civilization. 

I  am  aware  that  the  thought  which  must  be  uppermost 
in  the  convictions  of  the  conservative-minded  person  is 
that  a  torrent  has  swept  into  modern  art,  literature, 
poetry,  sculpture,  and  even  into  the  drama;  something 
a  little  ribald,  lacking  in  dignity  and  beauty  as  he  has 
known  it.  And  it  is  perfectly  proper,  doubtless,  for 
those  who  are  so  inclined  to  hold  back  a  bit  before  plung- 
ing into  the  swirl  of  this  new  movement.  There  is, 
of  course,  always  the  possibility  that  each  apparent  step 
forward  is  in  reality  merely  a  mood  which  has  taken 
possession  of  the  reasoning  faculties  among  the  free 
spirits  of  the  generation,  and  which  will  prove  in  time 
to  be  just  a  slight  stumble,  possibly  in  the  right  direction, 
occurring  before  the  next  legitimate  step  of  progress  is 
finally  achieved. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  as  true  that  unless  there 
is  a  tendency  in  the  arts  to  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  age — 
unless  they  are  vividly  interpretive,  it  is  evident  that 
they  are  without  constructive  value. 

[105] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

From  this  hypothesis  let  X  equal  progress  plus  logical 
development,  and  behold  we  have  those  who  would  solve 
the  problem!  Sherwood  Anderson  is  the  forerunner  of 
one  group,  Amy  Lowell  of  another;  then  there  are  the 
followers  of  Picasso  and  Brancusi,  of  Maurice  Browne, 
and  countless  others.  Whether  or  not  they  gain  a  foot- 
hold is  as  much  our  concern  as  theirs,  for  they  are  our- 
selves, our  explanation,  the  story  which  the  future 
generations  shall  read  of  us.  And  meanwhile  music 
stands  like  a  Boston  bas-bleu,  her  skirt  a  little  shortened 
because  of  the  influence  of  Korsakov  and  Dvorak,  but 
still  wearing  her  New  England  rubbers. 

This,  perhaps,  is  the  explanation  of  the  answer  I  have 
so  often  received  in  talking  with  American  song-writers. 
I  have  asked  them  why  they  do  not  set  such  and  such  a 
poem  to  music,  and  the  inevitable  answer  is  given  to  me: 
"It  isn't  adaptable."  Adaptable  to  what?  Certainly 
not  adaptable  to  the  music  of  fifty  or  twenty-five  years 
ago;  no,  even  not  adaptable  to  the  song-music  that  we 
loved  last  year.  It  must  be  something  so  splendidly 
new  that  modern  music  will  be  able  to  touch  the  out- 
stretched hand  of  modern  poetry.  Kay  Boyle 

Note  by  the  editor:  A  word  of  encouragement  comes  to  us  from  an 
enthusiast  who  has  worked  for  years  toward  a  closer  alliance  between 
American  poetry  and  music — Eleanor  Everest  Freer,  a  Chicago  com- 
poser who  has  used  effectively  many  fine  modern  poems  as  the  text  for 
songs.  Mrs.  Freer  has  urged  especially  that  operas  and  concert  numbers 
should  be  sung  in  the  English  language  and  has  inaugurated  the  Opera- 
in-our-language  Foundation  to  that  end. 

[106] 


ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  AWARDS 

For  the  ninth  time  the  editors  and  advisory  committee 
of  POETRY  face  the  agreeable  but  difficult  duty  of  awarding 
our  annual  prizes.  Nine  years  ago  prizes  in  this  art  were 
practically  unheard-of  in  America,  although  many  annual 
prizes  and  scholarships  in  painting,  sculpture,  architecture 
and  music  had  been  liberally  endowed  in  perpetuity- 
awards  now  ranging  in  value  from  one  hundred  dollars  to 
two  thousand  or  more,  even  to  the  richest  of  all,  the  three- 
year  scholarship  of  the  American  Academy  in  Rome, 
which  carries  studio,  board  and  lodging,  and  a  liberal 
income. 

From  the  beginning  we  have  believed  in  such  awards, 
as  both  a  stimulus  to  artists  and  a  kind  of  advertisement 
to  the  public;  and  have  argued  that  they  are  as  well 
deserved,  and  as  effective  for  these  purposes,  in  poetry  as 
in  the  other  arts.  We  rejoice  that  the  tide  is  beginning  to 
turn,  and  hope  that  it  may  prove  strong  and  high.  The 
Dial's  announcement  of  an  annual  purse  of  two  thousand 
dollars  to  be  given  to  some  one  of  its  contributors  is  not 
aimed  at  poets  exclusively,  but  poets  at  least  have  a 
chance  at  it;  and  the  five  hundred  dollars,  with  which  the 
Poetry  Society  of  America  has  of  late  annually  crowned 
some  book  of  American  verse,  has  an  air  of  permanency 
although  not  yet  permanently  endowed. 

In  his  letter  Concerning  Awards  in  our  September 
number,  Mr.  Aldis  asked  the  following  question,  which 

[107] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

the  editor  promised  to  answer,  or  at  least  discuss,  in 
November: 

Could  you  devise  and  suggest  some  plan  by  which  prizes  would  not 
be  awarded  for  an  individual  poem,  but  based  on  broader  considerations 
of  personal  production  and  talent,  youth  and  need? 

In  reply  we  would  suggest  that  magazine  editors  and 
other  publishers  of  verse  are  usually  so  well  informed  as 
to  the  "talent,  youth  and  need"  of  their  younger  contrib- 
utors that  they  would  have  no  difficulty  in  awarding  on 
that  basis  as  many  scholarships  or  "encouragement 
prizes"  as  they  might  be  entrusted  with.  Every  year 
POETRY  has  observed  this  rule  in  awarding  its  young 
poet's  prize,  always  wishing  it  had  eight  or  ten  such 
prizes,  instead  of  one,  wherewith  to  aid  a  little  with  honor 
and  money  a  few  young  poets  on  their  stern  and  rock- 
bound  path. 

The  difficulty  is  not  here — it  lies  not  in  making  the 
award,  but  in  getting  the  money  for  it.  And  patrons  of 
the  arts  are  not  wholly  to  blame  for  omitting  poets  from 
such  annual  endowments,  because  this  art  has  as  yet  few 
permanent  institutions  to  which  people  of  wealth  might 
give  or  bequeath  such  a  fund  in  trust.  The  Poetry  Society 
of  America  would  accept  such  a  trust  with  joy,  but  it  is 
too  strongly  localized  in  New  York,  and  too  academic  in 
its  present  tendencies,  to  inspire  strong  hope  of  its  exercis- 
ing a  progressive  influence.  Still  less  confidence  could  be 
felt  in  the  National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters,  or  its 
sacred  inner  circle  the  Academy,  whose  leadership  is  so 

[108] 


Announcement  of  Awards 

hopelessly  old-fashioned  that  it  has  not  yet  recognized  the 
fellowship  of  women  in  the  modern  arts. 

POETRY  of  course  would  rejoice  to  become  the  dispenser 
or  initiator  of  such  a  fund,  and  would  engage  to  satisfy 
any  possible  donor  as  to  its  disposition  both  during  and 
after  the  continuance  of  the  magazine.  Some  trust 
company  of  repute  should  be  custodian,  the  interest  to  be 
paid  annually  by  direction  of  the  committee  of  award. 
In  choosing  this  committee,  the  first  rule  should  be  that 
none  but  poets,  poets  of  recognized  standing  and  au- 
thority, should  be  eligible;  and,  second,  this  committee  of 
poets  should  be  instructed  that  the  original  and  experi- 
mental work  is  to  be  honored  rather  than  the  conservative 
and  assured. 

The  first  committee  of  award  might  be  chosen  by  the 
editor  and  donor,  aided  by  such  expert  advice  as  they 
might  call  in.  This  committee — say  of  three,  or  possibly 
five  poet-members,  to  be  chosen  from  widely  separated 
localities — should  be  self-perpetuating,  but  under  a  time 
restriction:  that  is,  every  three  or  five  years  one  member 
should  drop  out  on  the  election  of  a  new  one. 

Such  a  committee  of  award  would  not  derive  from 
POETRY,  and  the  possible  discontinuance  of  the  magazine 
would  not  interrupt  it  in  the  least.  However,  if  the  donor 
should  happen  to  like  POETRY  and  wish  to  endorse  its 
policy,  its  editor  might  become  ex  officio  a  member  of  the 
committee. 

Another  method  of  selecting  a  committee  of  award  was 

[109] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

suggested  by  a  lawyer  of  my  acquaintance.  Let  the 
presidents  of  three  widely  separated  institutions — say,  the 
Universities  of  California  and  Illinois,  and  the  Poetry 
Society  of  America;  or  Harvard,  the  University  of  Chicago, 
and  the  Poetry  Society  of  South  Carolina;  or  any  other 
representative  three — let  such  a  group  of  colleges  or 
societies  be  requested  each  year  by  the  custodian  of  the 
fund  (the  trust  company)  to  appoint  each  a  member  of 
the  committee  of  awards,  such  committee-member  to  be  a 
poet  of  high  repute,  one  not  a  member  of  their  faculty  or 
board  of  officers.  And  let  this  committee  bestow  the 
award. 

Either  of  these  methods  would  seem  to  promise  as  much 
progressiveness  and  fluidity,  and  freedom  from  local 
prejudice,  as  any  artistic  endowment  in  perpetuity  can  be. 
It  would  be  for  the  donor  to  decide  whether  his  gift  or 
bequest  should  be  used  for  scholarships — that  is,  student 
awards  to  young  poets;  or  for  awards  of  honor,  so  to  speak, 
to  poets  who  have  done  high  service  in  the  art.  If  the 
award  should  be  generously  large,  the  honor  would  become 
correspondingly  conspicuous,  and  this  fact  would  be  a 
strong  influence  toward  the  worthy  disposal  of  it,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Nobel  Prize. 

We  strongly  hope  that  some  man  or  woman  of  sufficient 
wealth  may  be  moved  to  follow  this  suggestion — someone 
who  would  like  to  turn  out  of  the  beaten  paths  with  his 
gift  or  bequest,  and  do  something  original  and  construc- 
tive and  inspiring. 

[no] 


Announcement  of  Awards 

With  this  rather  long  preliminary,  we  now  proceed  to 
award  POETRY'S  three  prizes  for  poems  printed  in  its  pages 
during  its  ninth  year — October  1920  to  September  1921. 
As  usual,  poems  by  members  of  the  jury  are  withdrawn 
from  competition — in  this  case  That  Year,  by  Marion 
Strobel,  a  group  of  seven  poems  in  the  February  number; 
and  Eunice  Tietjens'  translations,  from  the  French  of 
Antonin  Proust,  of  Modern  Greek  Popular  Songs,  printed  in 
November  of  last  year.  Indeed,  no  translations  are  con- 
sidered for  prizes. 

We  are  enabled  once  more,  through  the  liberality  of 
Mrs.  Edgar  Speyer,  of  New  York,  to  award  the  "young 
poet's  prize,"  which  for  the  past  four  years  has  been 
given,  "as  a  mark  of  distinction  and  encouragement,  to 
the  young  poet,  comparatively  unknown  as  yet,  who,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  jury,  most  deserves  and  needs  the 
stimulus  of  such  an  award." 

Hoping  that  our  contributors  and  readers  will  grant  to 
the  members  of  the  jury  honesty  of  judgment,  and  will  not 
demand  infallibility,  we  now  announce  the  awards: 

The  HELEN  HAIRE  LEVINSON  PRIZE  'of  two  hundred 
dollars,  for  a  poem  or  group  of  poems  by  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  is  awarded  to 

LEW  SARETT 

of  Evanston,  Illinois,  for  his  poem,  The  Box  of  Gody  pub- 
lished in  the  April  number. 

This  prize  was  founded  in   1913  by  Mr.  Salmon  O. 

[mi 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Levinson  of  Chicago.  Previous  awards  have  been  as 
follows : 

1914 — Carl  Sandburg,  for  Chicago  Poems. 

1915 — Vachel  Lindsay,  for  The  Chinese  Nightingale. 

1916 — Edgar  Lee  Masters,  for  All  Life  in  a  Life. 

1917 — Cloyd  Head,  for  Grotesques. 

1918 — J.  C.  Underwood,  for  The  Song  of  the  Cheechas. 

1919 — H.  L.  Davis,  for  Primapara. 

1920 — Wallace  Stevens,  for  Pecksniffiana. 

The  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars,  offered  by  an  anony- 
mous guarantor  for  a  poem,  or  group  of  poems,  without 
distinction  of  nationality,  is  awarded  to 

FORD  MADOX  HUEFFER 

of  London,  England,  for  his  poem,  A  House,  published  in 
the  March  number. 

This  prize,  or  other  prizes  similar  in  intent,  have  been 
previously  awarded  as  follows: 

1913 — Vachel  Lindsay,  for  General  William  Eooth  Enters 
into  Heaven. 

1915 — Constance  Lindsay  Skinner,  for  Songs  of  the 
Coast-dwellers . 

1915— "H.  D.,"  for  Poems. 

1916 — John  Gould  Fletcher,  for  Arizona  Poems. 

1917 — Robert  Frost,  for  Snow. 

1918 — Ajan  Syrian,  for  From  the  Near  East. 

1919 — Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert,  for  The  Old  Woman. 

1920 — Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay,  for  The  Beanstalk. 

[112] 


Announcement  of  Awards 

The  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars,  offered  by  Mrs. 
Edgar  Speyer,  under  conditions  noted  above,  for  good 
work  by  a  young  poet,  is  awarded  to 

HAZEL  HALL 

of  Portland,  Oregon,  for  her  group  of  seven  poems, 
Repetitions,  published  in  the  May  number. 

Six  other  special  prizes,  usually  of  one  hundred  dollars 
each,  have  been  previously  awarded:  to  Louise  Driscoll, 
for  Metal  Checks,  as  the  best  poem  of  the  war  received  in 
competition  and  printed  in  our  War  Number  of  Novem- 
ber, 1914;  to  Wallace  Stevens,  for  Three  Travellers  Watch 
a  Sunrise,  adjudged  the  best  one-act  poetic  play  received 
in  a  prize  contest — July,  1916;  and  four  times  to  young 
poets,  viz. : 

1916— Muna  Lee,  for  Foot-notes— HI,  IV,  VII. 

1918 — Emanuel  Carnevali,  for  The  Splendid  Common- 
place. 

1919 — Mark  Turbyfill,  for  poems  of  1917-18-19. 

1920 — Maurice  Lesemann,  for  A  Man  Walks  in  the 
Wind. 

Besides  the  above  three  awards,  the  following  poems 
receive  honorable  mention: 
Boys  and  Girls,  and  The  Way  Things  Go,  by  Genevieve 

Taggard  (June  and  February). 
Down  the  Mississippi,  by  John  Gould  Fletcher  (October, 

1920). 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

A  Hymn  J or  the  Lynchers,  by  Isidor  Schneider  (October, 

1920). 

Gallery  of  Paintings,  by  Marjorie  Allen  Seiffert  (July). 
Swift's  Pastoral,  by  Padraic  Colum  (January). 
Under  the  Tree,  by  Elizabeth  Madox  Roberts  (July). 
The  Heart  Knoweth  its  own  Bitterness,  by  Aline  Kilmer 

(May). 

Poems,  by  Yvor  Winters  (December). 
A  Song  for  Vanished  Beauty,  and  An  Old  Tale,  by  Marya 

Zaturensky  (September). 

Sappho  Answers  Aristotle,  by  Maxwell  Bodenheim  (May). 
Twenty-four  Hokku  on  a  Modern  Theme,  by  Amy  Lowell 

(June). 

Tanka,  by  Jun  Fujita  (June). 
In  Maine,  by  Wallace  Gould  (November). 
Still  Colors,  by  Elinor  Wylie  (April). 
Advent,  and  The  Cornfield,  by  Charles  R.  Murphy  (August, 

and  October  1920). 

Cape  Helles,  by  Morris  Gilbert  (June). 
Without  Sleep,  and   The  Poet  at  Nightfall,  by  Glenway 

Wescott  (September). 
Communion,  by  Hildegarde  Planner  (February). 

(The  editor  regrets  that  the  extreme  length  of  the 
poems  by  Mr.  Sarett  and  Mr.  Hueffer  makes  it  impossible 
for  us  to  reprint  the  prize  poems  of  this  year.  We  must 
refer  our  readers  to  our  April,  March  and  May  numbers.) 


OUR  CONTEMPORARIES 

A  NEW  "YOUTH" 

We  welcome  the  advent  of  a  new  monthly — Youth:  A 
Magazine  of  the  Arts — and  wish  it  high  inspiration  and 
long  life.  The  editors  are  H.  C.  Auer,  Jr.,  and  Sam 
Putnam,  the  business  manager  is  Henry  Drews,  and  the 
place  of  publication  is  70  East  Elm  Street,  Chicago.  The 
first  number,  October,  which  appears  as  we  go  to  press, 
contains  prose  and  verse  by  Ben  Hecht,  Elsa  Gidlow, 
Emanuel  Carnevali,  John  McClure,  Pierre  Loving,  Henry 
Bellamann,  Jun  Fujita,  Oscar  Williams  and  others;  and 
pictures  by  Wallace  Smith,  Steen  Hinrichsen  and  Fred- 
erick Dalrymple.  The  list  of  contributors,  present  and 
future,  looks  promising,  and  the  size  and  format  are  con- 
venient and  in  good  taste. 

NOTES 

Mr.  Edwin  Curran,  who  is  a  telegrapher  in  Zanesville,  Ohio,  has 
published  privately  two  small  books  of  verse,  First  Poems  and  Second 
Poems,  since  his  first  appearance  in  POETRY  in  March,  1918.  In  spite 
of  their  modest  backing  and  poor  typography,  these  have  attracted  a 
good  deal  of  notice  from  critics  of  authority. 

Agnes  Lee  (Mrs.  Otto  Freer),  of  Chicago,  is  the  author  of  several 
books  of  verse,  the  latest  being  The  Sharing  (Sherman,  French  &  Co.) 

Jean  Starr  Untermeyer,  (Mrs.  Louis  U.),  is  the  author  of  Growing 
Pains,  published  in  1918  by  B.  W.  Huebsch;  and  a  new  book  of  later 
poems  will  soon  appear. 

Florence  Wilkinson  (Mrs.  Wilfred  Muir  Evans),  of  New  York,  is 
the  author  of  The  Ride  Home  (Houghton  Mifflin  Co.),  and  of  a  number 
of  novels  and  plays. 

[115] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Mr.  Henry  Bellamann,  who  is  at  the  head  of  a  music  school  in  Colum- 
bia, S.  C.,  has  written  verse  and  prose  for  the  special  magazines  and 
music  journals.  His  first  book  of  verse,  A  Music-Teacher  s  Note-book, 
was  issued  in  1920  by  the  Lyric  Society. 

Miss  Kate  Buss,  of  New  York,  is  the  author  ofjevons  Block  (McGrath- 
Sherrill  Press,  Boston). 

Mr.  John  R.  C.  Peyton  is  a  young  poet  of  Chicago. 

The  other  poets  of  this  number  are  new  to  our  readers. 

Miss  Dorothy  Butts,  a  native  of  San  Francisco,  but  now  resident  in 
New  York,  graduated  last  June  from  Smith  College. 

Kathryn  White  Ryan  (Mrs.  Edward  Ryan),  went  to  New  York  from 
Denver  two  years  ago,  and  has  since  published  a  few  poems  and  prose 
sketches  in  some  of  the  magazines. 

Miss  Jessica  North,  who  is  the  private  secretary  of  President  Judson 
of  the  University  of  Chicago,  has  also  published  poems  in  magazines. 

Miss  Anita  Grannis,  of  New  York,  divides  her  time  "between  the 
University  of  New  York  and  Richmond  Hill  House,  an  East  Side  settle- 
ment in  the  congested  Italian  colony." 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Out  of  Misty  by  Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter.     Boni  &  Liveright. 
The  Golden  Darkness,  by  Oscar  Williams.     (The  Yale  Series  of  Younger 

Poets.)     Yale  University  Press. 
Selected  Poems,  by  Yone  Noguchi.     Four  Seas  Co. 
Rhymes  and  Ramblings,   by  H.  W.   Stewart.     Alexander  McCubbin, 

Melbourne,  Australia. 
Mexican    Moonlight,    by    Russell    Meriwether    Hughes.     Richard    G. 

Badger. 

New  England  Days,  by  Hellyn  George.     Four  Seas  Co. 
Songs  for  Parents,  by  John  Farrar.     Yale  University  Press. 
Yuletide  and  You,  by  Henry  E.  Harman.     Stone  Publishing  Co.,  Char- 
lotte, N.  C. 

ANTHOLOGIES: 

Irish  Poets  of  Today,  compiled  by  L.  D'O.  Walters.     E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 
New  Voices  (New  Edition,  Revised  and  with  New  Material},  by  Marguerite 

Wilkinson.     Macmillan  Co. 

[116] 


Mr.  Ford  Madox  Hueffer,  the  distinguished  English  poet,  novelist  and  critic,  wrote  \  '  :> 
us  last  July: 

If  American  periodical  literature  has  today  a  little  peak,  a  little  group  of 
journals,  raising  it  to  the  level  of  the  best  of  European  cosmopolitanism,  or  at  any 
rate  in  that  direction,  it  is  because  you  and  your  small  paper  showed  how,  editor- 
ially and  economically,  it  could  be  done. 

Vol.  XIX  No.  Ill 

POETRY  for  DECEMBER,  1921 

PAGE 

Resurgam Louise  Ayres  Garnett     117 

I:  Birth— II:  Life— III:  Death— IV:  Re-birth 

The  Hostage Walter  de  la  Mare     124 

Supernal  Dialogue Harriet  Monroe     125 

Two  Negro  Spirituals Fenton  Johnson     128 

A  Dream — The  Wonderful  Morning 

Handful  of  Ashes Dorothy  Dow     130 

The  Captive — Waiting — Futility — Bound 

From  a  Bay-window Pearl  Andelson     133 

Autumn  Rain — Steeples — Portrait  of  an  Old  Lady — To  a 
Dead  Love — To  Felix — April  Snow — Solace — Beach  Song — 
Song  on  Death — Out  of  a  Cavalcade  of  Dust 

Grey  Crust Laurence  Vail    136 

Two  Poems Henry  Saul  Zolinsky     137 

Will  Power— Pain 

Arpeggio Winifred  Waldron     138 

Semper  Eadem Paul  Tanaquil    138 

Neuriade Emanuel  Carnevali     139 

Lake  —  Sleep  —  Aubade  —  Encounter  —  Sermon  —  Hope  — 
Insomnia  —  Smoke  —  Funeral  March  —  Italian  Song  —  Old 
Accustomed  Impudent  Ghost — Invocation  to  Death 

Renewal  of  Youth H.  M.     146 

Alexander  Blok Glenway  Wescott     149 

Reviews: 

A  Flourish  of  Trumpets Marion  Strobel    151 

Fletcherian  Colors Laura  Sherry     155 

Minor  Chords Isidor  Schneider    158 

Post-martial  Emotion Baker  Browne!!    162 

Color  Sonatas Nelson  Antrim  Crawford    165 

The  Prematurity  of  Immaturity  .  .  .  .  Isidor  Schneider  167 
Correspondence : 

The  Allied  Arts  Again  I Charles  Albert  Case     169 

The  Allied  Arts  Again  II Bertha  Wardell    171 

Notes  and  Books  Received 173,  174 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self-addressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1921,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.     All  rights  reserved. 


VOL.  XIX 
No.  Ill 

A  Magazine  of  \fersc 


DECEMBER  1921 


RESURGAM* 

I!     BIRTH 

OUT  of  the  dust  Thou  hast  raised  me,  God  of  the 
living; 
Out  of  the  dust  Thou  hast  raised  me  and  brought  me  to 

the  light  of  morning. 

My  eyes  are  full  of  the  wonders  of  creation, 
And  my  spirit  leaps  within  me. 
I  behold  Thy  glory  lifted  into  mountains, 
Thy  kindness  deepened  into  valleys, 
Thy  hospitable  mercies  poured  unmeasured  in  the  seas. 
In  plenteous  ways  Thou  hast  devised  the  telling  of  Thy 

dreams, 

Entreating  beauty  from  the  clay, 
And  quickening  man  from  out  his  dusty  silence. 

^Copyright,  1921,  by  Louise  Ayres  Garnett.    All  rights  reserved. 

[117] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

Thou  floatest  flakes  of  color  in  the  air,  and,  breathing  on 

them, 

Wingest  them  to  life; 
Thou  callest  the  dazed  leviathan  up  from  the  watery 

reaches, 

And  summonest  vasty  creatures  who  come  lumbering  past, 
Astonished  at  their  being. 
Who  am  I,  Lord  of  Creation,  that  Thou  shouldst  think 

upon  me? 
Beside  a  mountain  or  a  soaring  bird,  what  am  I  that  Thou 

shouldst  give  me  place? 

I  can  praise  Thee,  O  God ! 

I  can  praise  Thee  to  the  summit  of  my  singing; 

With  the  flesh  of  me,  with  the  breath  of  me,  with  the 

height  of  me ! 

Increase  my  stature  even  as  the  trees, 
Increase  my  stature  till  I  pass  the  oak  and  glimpse  the 

towers  of  heaven ! 
With  the  waters  of  gratitude  I  brim  my  cup  and  pour  it 

at  Thy  feet; 
For  thou  hast  shared  the  gift  of  life,  and  my  spirit  sings 

within  me! 


n:   LIFE 

Into  the  noon  of  labor  I  go  forth  that  I  may  reap  my 
destiny. 

[118] 


Louise  Ayres  Garnett 

Sorrow  is  my  lot,  and  labor  my  achievement, 
The  beauty  of  God's  handiwork  my  compensation. 
Something  within  me  springs  like  a  fountain  and  urges  me 

to  joy; 

Sorrow  is  as  beauty  and  labor  as  reward. 
Thou  art  become  a  greater  God,  O  God,  because  of  my 

endeavor. 

Listen  through  my  ears,  Thou  of  my  singing  sanctuary, 
Listen  through  my  ears  that  I  hear  Thy  silent  music; 
Look  through  my  eyes  that  I  vision  the  unseen; 
Speak  through  my  lips  that  I  utter  words  of  gladness. 
Walk  Thou  with  me,  work  Thou  through  me,  rest  Thou 

in  me, 

That  I  may  make  Thee  manifest  in  all  my  ways. 
I  will  praise  Thee,  praise  Thee  with  the  labor  of  my  hands 
And  with  the  bounty  of  my  spirit! 


m:   DEATH 

Into  the  valley  land  my  feet  descend,  and  man  may  not 
go  with  me; 

But  Thou,  O  God,  companion  me  in  love  that  I  be  un- 
afraid. 

The  dream  of  death  has  flowered  in  my  soul  and  sounds  of 
earth  fall  dimly  on  my  ears. 

Slowly  the  sun  goes  westering  in  the  hills,  and  the  crimson 
pageant  of  my  passing  hour 

[119] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Flames  in  their  deeps  and  moves  across  the  sky. 
Something  within  me  reaches  back  to  birth  and  fills  me 

with  exulting. 
As  the  waters  of  a  river,  sweep  the  wonders  of  creation 

through  my  being, 
And  life  and  death  are  so  inseparate  I  know  not  each  from 

each. 

And  yet  a  mighty  fearing  falls  upon  me. 

Shadows  descend  and  blur  the  crimson  hills. 

A  wind  flung  from  a  womb  of  ice 

Blows  from  the  shores  of  nothingness. 

The  shadows  shed  their  shoes  of  stealth; 

They  run  in  naked  swiftness  from  the  hills 

Calling  the  hosts  of  darkness. 

The  winds  sing  a  song  of  fury, 

The  winds  arise  and  shout  their  passion  down  the  world. 

Drained  in  a  pitiless  draught 

Are  the  splendors  of  the  skies. 

Towers  of  cypress  touch  the  heights; 

Even  in  a  battlement  of  gloom 

The  towers  of  cypress  overwhelm  the  heavens. 

My  peace  is  perished, 

My  dreams  are  fallen  from  me. 

Into  the  night  no  planet  speeds  its  glory; 

The  stars  are  drowned. 

Lonely  the  hulk  of  a  broken  moon 

Lifts  its  bloody  sail. 

[120] 


Louise  Ayres  Garnett 

Merged  into  rushing  torrents  are  the  shadows  and  the 

winds; 

The  shadows  and  the  winds  plunge  high  upon  the  shore 
And  swallow  all  the  world. 

Why  hast  Thou  hidden  Thyself,  O  God? 

Why  hast  Thou  turned  Thy  face  aside 

And  burdened  me  with  night? 

Where  is  my  dream  of  death, 

And  where  its  sanctuary? 

The  heat  of  hell  assails  me; 

I  am  consumed  in  bitterness  and  pain. 

Reveal  Thyself,  O  unforgetting  Spirit! 

Reveal  Thyself  that  I  may  be  enshrined 

In  the  beauty  of  Thy  presence. 

Drive  forth  this  mocking  counterfeit  of  Death, 

For  it  is  Thou  who  art  my  Death,  O  living  God, 

It  is  Thou  who  art  my  Death,  and  only  Thou! 

My  fearing  passes  from  me: 

As  a  heavy  mantle  falling  from  tired  shoulders, 

My  fearing  slips  away. 

Candles  are  set  at  my  feet  that  I  be  not  lost  forever. 

Thou  hast  heard  my  cry,  O  Great  Bestower ! 

Thou  hast  heard  my  cry,  Thou  hast  lifted  me  up, 

Thou  hast  delivered  me! 

Now  does  the  hush  of  night  lie  purple  on  the  hills. 
The  moon  walks  softly  in  a  trance  of  sleep; 

[121] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Her  whiteness  cools  the  passion  of  the  skies. 

I  hang  my  quiet  lute  upon  her  curve 

And  let  the  night  winds  chant  my  requiem. 

Waters  of  peace  arise  and  drift  me  down  the  spaciousness 

of  silence  and  of  sleep; 
God  lights  H  s  solemn  watch-fires  overhead  to  keep  the 

vigil  of  man's  mystery. 

In  the  triumph  of  surrender  I  take  Thy  gift  of  sleep. 
Lean  low,  Thou  Shepherd  of  my  dreams;  lean  low  to  meet 

me  as  I  lift  on  high 
The  chalice  of  my  dying. 


iv:    RE-BIRTH 

I  feel  my  spirit  stir  and  half  awake, 

Then  look  in  bright  bewilderment  at  dawn. 

O  waking  past  all  dreaming! 

0  Love  Imperious  that  hast  called  me  forth  from  out  my 

valley's  shadow! 

A  mighty  whirlwind,  breath  of  the  living  God, 

Sweeps  from  beyond  the  barricades  of  night,  and,  stooping 

low, 
Lifts  me. from  out  my  dust  and  sets  me  free. 

1  feel  the  Power  that  moors  me  to  Itself; 
That  keeps  the  rhythmic  pattern  of  the  stars; 
That  spins,  like  a  fiery  plaything  in  the  air, 

[122] 


Louise  Ayres  Garnett 

The  earth  that  was  my  home. 

My  hour  is  great  with  leisure; 

My  day  is  manifest. 

O  clamorous  world! — thy  wasting  fires 

Have  burned  themselves  to  ashes. 

0  foolish  pomp! — thy  futile  stride 

As  an  image  in  a  glass  has  passed  away. 
Time's  mystery  and  menace  are  resolved: 
The  Now  of  Man  is  God's  Forevermore. 

My  heart  is  as  a  forest  treed  with  wonder. 

The  cymbals  of  my  joyance  make  a  stirring  sound, 

My  singing  shakes  the  day. 

1  know  myself  at  last: 

Thou,  glorious  One,  hast  revealed  me  to  myself. 

As  new-born  planets  sang  in  ecstasy, 

So  sing  the  voices  of  my  thankfulness. 

I  praise  Thee! 

I  glorify  Thee! 

Thou  art  the  Singer,  man  Thy  Song; 

My  spirit  on  its  summit  shouts  Thy  name! 

0  Singer,  Who  hast  sent  me  forth, 

1  am  returned  to  Thee! 

Louise  Ayres  Garnett 


[123] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

THE  HOSTAGE 

In  dead  of  dark  to  his  starry  North 

Saint  Nicholas  drew  near — 

He  had  ranged  the  world  this  wintry  night, 

His  elk-bells  jangling  clear. 

Now  bitter-worn  with  age  was  he, 

And  weary  of  mankind,  for  few 

Had  shown  him  love  or  courtesy. 

His  sacks  lay  empty — all  save  one; 

And  this  to  his  affright 

Stirred  as  he  stooped  with  fingers  numb, 

Ablaze  with  hoar-frost  bright. 

Aghast  he  stood.     Showed  fumbling  thumb, 

Small  shoulder,  a  wing — what  stowaway 

Was  this,  and  whence  was  't  come? 

And  out  there  crept  a  lovely  Thing — 

Half  angel  and  half  child: 
"I,  youngest  of  all  Heaven,  am  here,  to  be  thy  joy,"  he 

smiled. 
"O  Nicholas,   our  Master  Christ  thy  grief  hath  seen; 

and  He 
Hath  bidden  me  come  to  keep  His  tryst,  and  bring  His 

love  to  thee: 
To  serve  thee  well,  and  sing  Nowell,  and  thine  own  son 

to  be." 

Walter  de  la  Mare 

[124] 


SUPERNAL  DIALOGUE 

Two  beings 

Stood  on  the  edge  of  things — 
Their  breath  was  space  > 
And  their  eyes  were  suns. 

I      It  was  this  way  he  passed — 
I  know  the  sound. 

//    More  worlds — 

He  can  not  forbear — 

I      Look  down  this  lane — 
It  was  dark  till  he  passed. 
Do  you  see — anything? 

//    Seeds  of  light — glowing,  whirling — 
A  handful. 

/      Separating  now. 

//    Fierce  fire-balls — 

So  many — so  many.    Will  he  get  what  he  wants — 
The  perfect  flower? 

/      Flower  of  delight — to  bloom  beside  his  throne  ? 
Sometime  he  will. 
{A  pause} 

I      Look — that  little  one — 
Burning,  aching — 
Trailing  its  tiny  orbs — 

[125] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

II    Which  one? 

7      See — scarlet — oh,  alive! 

Deep  in  that  right-hand  cluster  near  the  dark. 

//    With  tiny  trailers — will  it  be  one  of  them? 
That  clouded  one,  maybe? 

/      Look — it  foams  down. 
The  clouds  lift- 
There  are  seas — 

II    Lands — a  creeping  green — 
Sounds  of  air  moving. 

/      Hush — oh,  whisper! — do  you  see 
Dark  specks  that  crawl? 
And  wings  that  flash  in  the  air? 

//    Spawn — immeasurably  minute. 

What  does  he  mean,  the  fecund  one,  creating  without 
reason  or  mercy? 

/      He  must — life  is  his  song. 
He  dreams — he  wills. 

//    Watch  now — they  change,  those  atoms. 

They  stand  on  end — they  lay  stone  on  stone — 
They  go  clad — they  utter  words. 

/      Proud — they  take  their  spoil. 
Kings — and  slaves. 


Harriet  Monroe 

II    Oh  queer — ingenious !     They  gather  in  towns, 

They  filch  our  fires  to  carry  them  over  land  and  sea. 

/  They  measure  the  stars — they  love — they  dream. 

//  But  war — pain — obliterative  war  and  pain. 

/  So  brief — each  one  a  tiny  puff — and  out. 

//  Grotesque ! 

/      A  few  look  up — salute  us  before  they  fall. 
A  few  dare  face  him. 

//    Is  it  enough? 

{A  pause} 

I      It  cools  down — their  whirling  world. 
It  is  silent — cold. 

//    Has  he  lost  again?     Can  he  fail? 

/      Who  are  we  to  question?    Though  he  fail  again  and 
again— 

//    Yes,  who  are  we? 

/      He  must  go  on — he  must  get  the  flower. 

Two  beings 

Stood  on  the  edge  of  things — 
Their  breath  was  space, 
And  their  eyes  were  suns. 

Harriet  Monroe 

[127] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
TWO  NEGRO  SPIRITUALS 

A    DREAM 

I  had  a  dream  last  night,  a  wonderful  dream. 
I  saw  an  angel  riding  in  a  chariot — 
Oh,  my  honey,  it  was  a  lovely  chariot, 
Shining  like  the  sun  when  noon  is  on  the  earth. 
I  saw  his  wings  spreading  from  moon  to  earth; 
I  saw  a  crown  of  stars  upon  his  forehead; 
I  saw  his  robes  agleaming  like  his  chariot. 
I  bowed  my  head  and  let  the  angel  pass, 
Because  no  man  can  look  on  Glory's  work; 
I  bowed  my  head  and  trembled  in  my  limbs, 
Because  I  stood  on  ground  of  holiness. 
I  heard  the  angel  in  the  chariot  singing: 

"Hallelujah  early  in  the  morning! 

I  know  my  Redeemer  liveth — 

How  is  it  with  your  soul?" 

I  stood  on  ground  of  holiness  and  bowed; 

The  River  Jordan  flowed  past  my  feet 

As  the  angel  soothed  my  soul  with  song, 

A  song  of  wonderful  sweetness. 

I  stooped  and  washed  my  soul  in  Jordan's  stream 

Ere  my  Redeemer  came  to  take  me  home; 

I  stooped  and  washed  my  soul  in  waters  pure 

As  the  breathing  of  a  new-born  child 


Fenton  Johnson 


Lying  on  a  mammy's  breast  at  night. 
I  looked  and  saw  the  angel  descending 
And  a  crown  of  stars  was  in  his  hand: 
"Be  ye  not  amazed,  good  friend,"  he  said, 
"I  bring  a  diadem  of  righteousness, 
A  covenant  from  the  Lord  of  life, 
That  in  the  morning  you  will  see 
Eternal  streets  of  gold  and  pearl  aglow 
And  be  with  me  in  blessed  Paradise." 

The  vision  faded.     I  awoke  and  heard 
A  mocking-bird  upon  my  window-sill. 


THE    WONDERFUL    MORNING 

When  it  is  morning  in  the  cornfield 
I  am  to  go  and  meet  my  Jesus 

Riding  on  His  white  horse. 
When  it  is  morning  in  the  cornfield 
I  am  to  be  there  in  my  glory. 

Shout,  my  brethren !     Shout,  my  sisters ! 
I  am  to  meet  the  King  of  Morning 

Way  down  in  the  cornfield. 

Fenton  Johnson 


[129] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
HANDFUL  OF  ASHES 


THE    CAPTIVE 


Beauty  that  shakes  in  lights, 
Beauty  that  gleams  in  mists, 

Loveliness  of  still  nights, 
Gold  of  the  stars  that  twists, 

Ribbon-like,  into  the  sea  . 

Beauty  is  calling  me. 

Delicate  crimson  flames, 
Jewels  with  long  histories, 

Mysterious  oft-said  names, 
Blossoms  beneath  great  trees, 

Melodies  deep  and  low, 

Call  me.     I  can  not  go. 

Heliotrope,  jasmine,  rose; 

Lovers,  at  crumbling  gates; 
Silence,  when  eyelids  close; 

Cliffs,  where  the  sea-bird  mates 
Beauty  holds  these  for  me 
Whose  eyes  are  too  blind  to  see. 

Beauty,  when  sunbeams  blur, 
Calls  me  again  and  again. 

I  can  not  answer  her. 

Beauty  shall  call  me  in  vain, 

[130] 


Dorothy  Dow 


Sadly,  from  year  to  year  .  .  , 
Passion  has  chained  me  here. 


WAITING 

If  you  should  walk  in  the  park  and  not  find  me, 

Or  go  in  the  market-place  and  not  see  me, 

Would  you  not  search  further? 

Does  not  your  heart  tell  you  I  am  somewhere? 

Go  out  on  the  long  roads — I  may  be  at  the  end  of  one. 

The  sea  to  the  ship, 
The  river  to  the  little  boat, 
The  cloud  to  the  swallow — 
One  for  the  other,  always. 
And  I,  for  you,  forever. 

FUTILITY 

The  nights  grow  long  and  the  days  cold — 

I  dream  of  you  and  love. 

The  dead  leaf,  falling  from  the  tree, 

Is  not  more  sad  than  memory; 

Nor  is  the  rising  wind  as  bold 

As  were  your  lips  on  me.  .  .  . 

(What  are  you  thinking  of?) 

The  streets  and  trees  and  people  pass 
Like  words  beneath  my  pen; 

[131] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Symbols,  below  a  painted  sky— 
I  have  no  part  in  them.     I  lie 
Futile  as  footsteps  on  the  grass. 
Wind-torn,  storm-drenched;  I  long  to  die. 
(You  might  remember  .  .  .  then.) 

BOUND 

Take  away  the  magic 

You  have  put  on  me: 
I  am  held  by  whispers — 

I,  who  would  be  free. 

I  who  would  be  free  and  false, 

Why  must  I  be  true? 
I  fear  to  move,  for  hurting 

The  clinging  thoughts  of  you. 

So  the  sunny  branches 

Beckon  me  in  vain: 
I,  beside  the  hearth-fire, 

Huddle  to  my  pain. 

Dorothy  Dow 


FROM  A  BAY-WINDOW 

My  world  is  a  pane  of  glass.    These  only 

Of  the  shadowy  without  are  mine: 

They  that  pass; 

The  gray  birds  fluttering  by; 

The  cloud  that  sometimes  sails 

Over  the  chimney-bitten  sky. 

When  all  else  fails. 

AUTUMN    RAIN 

To  eyes  hollow 
With  the  gray  distress 
The  passing  swallow 
Is  all  but  a  caress. 

STEEPLES 

They  gaily  pass 

Within 

Who  would  be  freed  (en  masse} 

Of  sin. 

PORTRAIT   OF   AN    OLD    LADY 

Up  flutters  a  hand  to  caress — 
Midway  in  the  prayer — 
Her  Sabbath  dress, 
The  frail  gray  of  her  hair. 

[133] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine     of    Verse 

TO    A    DEAD    LOVE 

Why,  O  love, 

Shall  I  not  sing, 

Who  above  her  child 

Would  plant  a  flowering  thing? 

TO  FELIX 

Clear  as  water  pooled  in  a  cup 

I  hear  your  thoughts 

Through  all  the  spaciousness  of  my  unrest. 

You  have  no  place 

For  the  white  bird  at  my  breast, 

Or  the  face  your  hands  lift  up. 

APRIL  SNOW 

Oh,  your  words  are  bitter  to  me 
As  these  last  flakes  of  snow  are 
To  the  little  shining  buds;  but  no  bud 
That  glistens  like  a  raindrop  on  a  tree 
Is  so  fresh  with  love. 


SOLACE 


Knock  at  my  pane 
With  your  finger-tips, 
O  rain. 


[134] 


Pearl  Andelson 


BEACH    SONG 


What  are  they  weaving  under  the  water? 
They  make  sheer  laces  and  drag  them  down. 
They  ruffle  a  lawn  with  a  great  grieving. 
What  are  they  making — what  manner  of  gown  ? 

What  are  they  weaving,  caught  here, 
Caught  there,  on  the  thin-washed  blue? 
Who  is  to  be  married  or  who  is  to  be  buried, 
Under  the  water,  under  the  water? 

SONG    ON    DEATH 

Death  comes  inexorably.     His  pale  deft  hand 
Is  never  still.     Swift  and  impalpable 
He  comes,  taking  what  he  will.     Life  is  a  circle 
Which  has  gone  its  round.     He  tarries 
Where  old  women  sit,  peering  at  the  ground. 

OUT  OF  A  CAVALCADE  OF  DUST 

In  such  a  white  procession, 

In  such  a  guise, 

The  dead  might  return 

With  pantomime  of  lips  and  eyes. 

Pearl  Andelson 


[135] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
GREY  CRUST 

I  am  weary,  unto  desire  of  death, 

Of  the  thought  fretting  in  my  body, 

Of  the  body  wrapped  round  my  thought. 

They  go — 

The  curious  panting  creatures  I  would  be — 

Along  the  grey  crust  of  the  street. 

I  would  be  fused  into  her — 
Girl  going  whither  I  know  not! 
I  would  have  her  shrill  eager  breasts — 
Gusts  of  storm  driving  the  sail  of  her  blouse; 
Her  round  polished  knees,  rising,  moving  like  pendulums- 
Engines  urging  the  sail  of  her  skirt; 
Her  sharp  bird-like  head  cleaving  the  sail  of  the  wind. 
I  would  have  the  curious  blood  of  her, 
I  would  have  her  dream. 

I  would  be  fused  into  him — 
Child  carried  in  the  arms  of  a  mother, 
Child  carried  whither  he  knows  not! — 
I  would  have  the  gurgling  mirth 
Emanating  from  gay-colored  baubles; 
The  shiver,  the  sweat  and  the  nightmare 
Emanating  from  dark  wrangling  shadows: 
I  would  have  his  untinted  history, 

[136] 


Laurence  Vail 

And  the  hunger 

To  seize  the  whole  world  by  the  mouth. 

I  would  be  fused  into  anyone  going  new  ways. 

Laurence  Vail 


TWO  POEMS 

WILL    POWER 

I  would  rather  grind  my  teeth  to  powder, 

I  would  rather  tread  barefoot  on  thin,  sharp  stones, 

I  would  rather  let  the  blood  of  my  veins  freeze  to  red  ice, 

And  the  muscles  of  my  legs  stiffen  to  cold  stone, 

Than  be  drawn  by  the  warm  breath 

Of  transient  things. 

I  would  rather — 

But  ...  yet  ... 

I  am  being  drawn  ...  I  am  being  drawn  .  . '. 

PAIN 
It  is 

The  hush  that  falls 
When  screaming  chords,  drawn  taut, 
Break  with  a  sudden  snap! — and  then 
Recoil. 

Henry  Saul  Zolinsky 

[137] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

ARPEGGIO 

September 

The  bamboo  stalks  quiver — 

Only  one  sways  toward  the  moon  face. 

October 

Spider  telegraph  wires 
Flash  from  oak  to  sage! 

November 

Blackbirds  printed  on  the  sky. 
Quick! — erase  them  for  another  print! 

December 

Tumble-weeds  rolling  'cross  lots, 

And  tumble-weed  clouds  on  the  mountain ! 

Winifred  Waldron 


SEMPER  EADEM 

Cheeks  that  are  sunk  and  ashen, 
Eyes  that  weep  in  vain: 
Always  the  same  passion 
In  the  same  futile  fashion, 
And  the  same  pain — 
Forever  begun  again. 

Paul  Tanaquil 

[138] 


NEURIADE 

LAKE 

Sitting  on  a  bench  facing  God's  beautiful  lake, 
A  poem  to  God  beautiful. 

Lake  Michigan, 

The  love  a  poor  sick  body  held 

(Sifted  by  the  sift  of  a  hundred  nights  of  pain), 

A  poor  sick  body  gave  it  all  to  you. 

Your  absinthe 
Has  intoxicated  me. 

Having  risen  out  of  your  waters, 

In  front  of  my  great  eyes  now 

There  is  a  mad  blur  of  sunlight, 

And  the  City  spread  out  before  me  calling  from  a  great 

curve : 
"Come,  enter,  conquistador!" 

The  line  of  your  horizon,  pure  and  long,  hitched  to  the 

infinite  both  ways, 
Where  the  mist  lies  like  Peace. 

Swimming,  I  flirted  with  Death; 
Saw  death  running  over  the  shadow-laced  ripples; 
And  turned  around,  as  you  threw  water  in  my  eyes, 
And  laughed  at  Death,  as  Death's  brother,  the  devil, 
would. 

[139] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

You  slammed  open  the  doors  of  the  sky, 
And  there  stood  the  tremendous  sun. 

Lake,  gilded  in  the  morning, 

I  have  come  out  of  you, 

A  fresh-water  Neptune; 

And  the  water  rang  little  bells 

Trickling  down 

Along  my  flesh. 

Lake,  garden  of  the  colors, 

Sweet-breathing  mouth  of  Chicago, 

Words  die  in  the  fingers  of  a  sick  man, 

As  children  dying  on  a  poor  father. 

Take  my  promise,  lake. 

SLEEP 

At  the  bottom  of  the  abyss  of  sleep 

A  black  cradle  rocks. 

Pain,  slight,  with  evanescent  fingers 

Pushes  it. 

Under  the  cradle  is  earth, 

To  cover  and  stifle  you. 

AUBADE 

The  morning  now 
Is  a  white  corpse — 
The  nightmares 

[140] 


Emanuel  Carnevali 


Killed  her. 
Vainly  the  breeze 
Wafts  a  terrible  sadness 
Over  her  body. 


ENCOUNTER 

Little  grey  lady  sitting  by  the  roadside  in  the  cold, 
My  fire  is  to  warm  you,  not  to  burn  you  up. 

Little  grey  lady  in  your  little  grey  house  in  the  warmth, 
Your  warmth  is  to  loosen  my  frozen  arms  and  tongue, 
Not  to  drowse  me. 


SERMON 

Chao-Mong-Mu  freely  laid  his  hands  over  the  sky: 
You  do  not  know  how  to  lay  your  hands  over  the  breasts 
of  your  beloved. 

Chao-Mong-Mu  made  the  tree  dance  at  his  will: 
You  do  not  know  how  to  hug  a  rough  tree  and  say 
"darling"  to  it. 

Chao-Mong-Mu  magnificently  ran  a  shaft  of  sunlight  to 

smash  against  the  treetops: 
You  walk  carefully,  carefully,  and  fend  off  the  sunlight 

with  your  grey  clothes,  although  you're  very  poor. 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Chao-Mong-Mu  painted  a  sky  that  was  a  pink-fleshed 
vase;  then  he  became  a  very  small  thing  and  hid  in 
the  vase : 

You  build  yourselves  immense  houses  to  live  in,  and  you 
are  afraid  even  there. 


HOPE 

Tomorrow  will  be  beautiful, 

For  tomorrow  comes  out  of  the  lake. 


INSOMNIA 

For  a  year  his  desperate  hands  beat  the  darkness.  Then 
out  of  their  rhythm  a  monster  was  created: 

Three  claws  on  his  breast,  so  that  he  could  not  with 
facility  heave  it; 

Three  claws  on  his  skull,  so  that  he  had  waking  night- 
mares the  year  long. 

When  at  last  his  hands  dropped,  the  monster  stooped 
over  him,  and  with  his  yellow  beak  plucked  out  his 
white  heart. 

SMOKE 

All  the  smoke  of  the  cigarettes  of  dreamers  went  over 
to  the  sky,  and  formed  that  blue  vault  you  see  up 
there. 


Emanuel  Carnevali 

FUNERAL    MARCH 


The  great  corpse 
Is  the  crowd. 

A  whole  day 

It  takes  to  bury  it. 

In  the  morning 
They  begin; 

Not  at  night, 
For  they're  afraid. 

I'm  here  for  ... 

Oh,  to  wail  a  great  goodbye, 


ITALIAN    SONG 


Until  your  lips  be  red, 
Until  the  winter-time, 
Until  the  money  be  gone, 
Until  God  see  us: 
Until  God  see  us. 

Until  old  age  come,  girl, 
Until  the  other  man  come, 
Until  the  jettatura  get  me, 
Until  God  see  us: 
Until  God  see  us. 


[143] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

OLD    ACCUSTOMED    IMPUDENT    GHOST 

That  morning  the  dawn  arose  from  the  sodden  grey  city 

pavements, 

And  it  was  a  sick  grey  breath. 
I  had  spent  myself  asking  the  night  for  sleep. 

Broken  in  pieces  I  was — only  the  evil  spirit  was  whole 

in  me; 

There  was  a  curse  on  my  bitten  bloody  lips.  .  .  . 
And  then  .  .  . 

Oh,  then  the  old  accustomed,  impudent  ghost  came  in: 
He  wore  my  bagged,  ragged  pants,  and  was  unshaven; 
And  his  face  was  the  one  I  had  seen  in  the  mirror 
Too  many  times. 

INVOCATION    TO    DEATH 

Let  me 

Close  my  eyes  tight. 

Still  my  arms, 

Let  me 

Be.       . 

Then, 

Come! 

Let  me  be  utterly  alone: 

Do  not  let  the  awful  understanding  that  comes  with 

The  thought  of  Death 

Bother  me. 

[144] 


Emanuel  Carnevali 

Your  love  was  not  strong  enough  to  hold  me. 

Death  takes  things  away: 

I  have  them  here  in  my  hands, 

The  rags. 

I  do  not  understand  the  cosmic  humor 
That  lets  foolish  impossibilities,  like  me,  live. 

I  have  made  a  mess  of  it, 
But  I  am  no  debtor. 

It's  the  yearning  of  a  nervous  man, 
The  yearning  for  peace, 
The  curiosity  for  a  word: 
Forever. 

If  She  would  only  come  quietly, 

Like  a  lady — 

The  first  lady  and  the  last. 

Just  not  to  hear  any  longer 

The  noise  swelling  from  the  morning  streets, 

Nor  the  two  desperate  sparrows  chirruping; 

Just  not  to  fear  any  longer 

The  landlady. 

Emanuel  Carnevali 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 

RENEWAL    OF    YOUTH 

THE  Christmas  season,  winter-clad  as  it  is,  always 
utters  the  prophecy  of  youth.  Celebrating  the  birth 
of  a  great  renewer  of  life,  it  rings  the  first  far-away  bell, 
waves  the  first  red-and-green  banner,  to  usher  in  the 
springtime.  It  reminds  us  of  the  perennial  miracle,  the 
unconquerable  hope  and  joy  forever  freshly  blooming  in 
the  new  life  of  this  earth. 

The  passage  of  the  generations — that  is  the  great 
poem.  The  long  epic  of  birth,  growth  and  decay — the 
struggle  of  life  to  assert  its  dominion  over  destructive 
forces,  the  momentary  conquest  and  the  final  defeat — 
this  is  the  universal  story  of  which  all  lesser  tales  are 
mere  chapters  and  paragraphs.  Absorbed  in  our  small 
affairs,  singing  our  individual  little  solos,  we  too  often 
miss  the  immense  chorus  vibrating  grandly  through  the 
ages — a  chorus  which  accepts  and  harmonizes  the  whir 
of  the  cricket  and  the  long  drum-roll  of  the  stars. 

Life's  bitter  and  unceasing  fight  is  against  the  forces 
of  decay:  when  it  lapses,  and  turns  to  fight  the  forces  of 
growth,  the  result  is  confusion  and  disaster.  Through 
the  battering  by  young  minds  alone  may  each  generation 
forget  to  grow  old;  therefore  let  youth  be  free  and  strong, 
let  it  have  room  for  its  race  and  its  shout,  lest  bars  and 
shackles  enslave  the  next  age. 

[146] 


Renewal  of  Youth 

The  battering  by  young  minds — perhaps  an  editor's 
office,  especially  a  poetry-editor's  office,  is  the  place 
most  accessible  of  all  to  such  battering,  the  place  where 
some  of  the  freest  and  strongest  of  young  minds  love  to 
put  up  their  first  stiff  fight  against  the  forces  of  decay. 
Too  often  they  find  these  forces  entrenched  in  the  editorial 
chair,  so  that  the  battlefield  is  conveniently  narrowed 
down  and  the  issue  personified.  And  the  editor,  if  he 
waives  all  advantage  of  position,  age,  experience,  etc., 
will  have  to  put  up  the  best  fight  he  is  capable  of,  and 
often  come  out  second-best  at  the  end  of  it. 

A  recent  article  on  This  Youngest  Generation  by  Malcolm 
Cowley  (New  York  Evening  Post  Literary  Review  of 
October  I5th)  shows  with  what  a  simple  gesture  the  young 
mind  can  throw  away  the  immediate  past — at  least  of 
its  own  race  and  language.  Youth  must  avenge  itself, 
not  on  the  honored  dead,  but  on  the  too-much-honored 
living;  and  so  we  find  Shaw  and  Wells  and  Mencken  and 
all  the  Georgian  poets  and  prosers — and,  oh  yes,  Chester- 
ton and  Schnitzler  and  Nathan — cast  into  the  discard, 
while  youth  is  reading  Flaubert  and  Laforgue  and  Huys- 
mans,  diving  deeper  into  the  past  toward  Swift  and 
Defoe,  Racine,  Moliere,  even  Marlowe,  Ben  Jonson  and 
Shakespeare,  and  then  coming  up  again  to  salute  Remy 
de  Gourmont  and  certain  new  groups  of  French  poets 
to  whom  he  showed  the  way.  Through  all  this  the 
young  writers  are  shaping  their  own  ideals:  there  is  to  be 
"a  new  interest  in  form,"  "a  simplification  of  current 

[147] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

life  into  something  rich  and  strange";  "our  younger 
literature  will  be  at  least  as  well  composed  as  a  good 
landscape — it  may  even  attain  to  the  logical  organization 
of  music.'* 

Form,  simplification,  strangeness,  respect  for  literature  as  an  art 
with  traditions,  abstractness — these  are  the  catchwords  that  are  repeated 
most  often  among  the  younger  writers.  They  represent  ideas  that  have 
characterized  French  literature  hitherto,  rather  than  English  or  Amer- 
ican. They  are  the  nearest  approach  to  articulate  doctrine  of  a 
generation  without  a  school  and  without  a  manifesto. 

Le  rot  est  mort,  but  he  has  prepared  the  people  for  the 
new  reign: 

The  great  advantage  of  this  generation  is  the  fact  that  a  public  has 
been  formed.  It  has  been  formed  exactly  by  those  inchoate  realists, 
like  Dreiser,  and  by  those  anti-Puritanical  critics,  like  H.  L.  Mencken, 
against  whom  this  youngest  generation  is  in  revolt.  But  gratitude 
is  not  a  literary  virtue. 

Yes,  here  as  elsewhere  gratitude  is  the  rarest  of  the — 
shall  we  say,  not  virtues,  but  graces?  It  is  an  education 
in  a  still  rarer  virtue,  and  grace — humility,  to  note  how 
easily  the  rising  generation  puts  the  risen  one  in  its  place. 
Shaw,  Mencken,  Dreiser — how  they  pawed  the  ground 
and  trod  the  air  not  so  long  ago!  What  rebels,  icono- 
clasts they  were  as  they  leapt  all  barriers  toward  the 
glamourous  goal  of  art!  Now  conquering  youth  is 
mounted — soon  he  will  ride  them  down  with  joy.  Le  rot 
est  mort — for  what  happy  heir  shall  we  soon  be  shouting, 
"  Vive  le  roil"? 


[148] 


Renewal  of  Youth 

Yes,  the  wave-movement  of  the  arts  is  one  phase  of 
the  universal  epic.  Birth,  growth,  decay;  new  birth, 
fresh  growth,  and  yet  at  last  decay — the  rule  is  for  you 
and  me  as  well  as  another,  and  in  each  of  us  it  is  proved. 
So  hail  to  conquering  Youth — even  to  sacred  Infancy 
in  its  mother's  arms!  May  the  newly  risen  or  newly 
born  solve  the  riddles  and  sing  the  songs  of  the  world! 
May  he  rid  the  earth  of  war  and  disease,  of  poverty  and 
ignorance — famine  of  body  and  soul!  May  he  complete 
nature's  beauty  with  the  beauty  of  art,  and  nature's 
truth  with  the  truth  of  the  spirit,  and  lead  on  the  mil- 
lennium to  which  we  all  aspire!  H.  M. 

ALEXANDER    BLOK 

Alexander  Blok's  death  in  the  late  summer  is  a  loss 
not  only  to  Russia  but  to  world-literature.  He  was 
forty-one  years  of  age,  and  had  achieved  international 
fame  only  during  the  last  two  years  through  the  circula- 
tion of  his  revolutionary  lyric,  The  Twelve.  He  was  the 
first  distinguished  Russian  writer  to  espouse  openly  the 
Bolshevist  cause,  and  was  one  of  the  few  first-rate  imagina- 
tions which  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently  nourished 
upon  the  black  bread  of  revolution.  In  his  youth  he 
was  a  writer  of  intense  and  remote  lyrics,  full  of  mystic 
vision  and  the  pungent  odor  of  the  flowers  of  evil.  The 
translators  point  out  that  Blok  "owed  a  cultural  allegiance 
to  the  old  order."  But  he  had  from  the  first,  like  the 

[149] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

typical  Russian  peasant,  adored  the  Christ  hanging  in 
tormented  effigy  at  the  wind-raked  cross-roads,  and 
marching  before  the  poor,  their  Brother  of  compassion; 
and  it  was  inevitable  that  Blok  should  not  despair  of 
the  blind,  violent,  but  spiritual  people,  discovering  in 
their  wild  fury  the  elements  of  redemption. 

For  the  world  of  intellectual  irony  seemed  to  him 
rotten  and  ready  for  destruction.  The  nineteenth 
century,  he  wrote,  "has  cast  upon  the  living  face  of  man 
a  blinding  mask  of  mechanics,  positivism,  and  economic 
materialism,  and  has  drowned  the  human  voice  in  the 
rumble  and  roar  of  machinery."  As  to  whether  Blok 
felt  before  he  died  that  the  administrators  of  this  revolu- 
tion were  betraying  their  ideal,  "loving  Her  in  heaven 
and  betraying  Her  on  earth,"  opinions  seem  to  differ. 
Certainly  there  is  little  likeness  between  the  cold,  dedi- 
cated Cromwellian  executives  who  now  direct  the  Soviet 
government,  and  the  twelve  mystic  roisterers  of  Blok's 
The  Twelve,  writen  in  1918. 

This  poem,  the  Russian  edition  of  which  exceeded 
two  million  copies,  was  recently  translated  by  Miss 
Deutsch  and  Dr.  Yarmolinsky.  It  portrays  the  pro- 
cession, through  the  streets  of  Red  Petrograd,  of  twelve 
holy  ruffians,  looting,  killing,  singing.  The  scheme  of 
the  poem  is  bold  and  flexible,  including  revolutionary 
songs,  an  episode  of  low  passion  and  jealousy  terminated 
by  murder,  and  penetrating  lyric  passages  with  a  move- 
ment like  the  folk-song.  There  is  occasional  convincing 

[150] 


Alexander  Blok 

symbolism,  as  when  the  old  order  is  personified  by  a 
mangy  cur:  "Beatings  are  the  best  you'll  get."  Behind 
all  the  lurid  light  and  noise  is  the  huge  bare  vision,  the 
flat  endless  unmoved  steppe: 

Hutted  Russia 
Thick-rumped  and  solid — 
Russia,  the  stolid. 

In  the  storm  and  cold  the  blackguards  stumble  on,  like 
disciples  of  a  starved  gray-bearded  introspective  Dionysus. 
At  the  end  of  the  poem,  they  meet  their  master,  in- 
scrutable, pitying,  crowned  with  flowers — the  white 
untouched  Christ,  bearing  the  red  flag: 

In  mist-white  roses  garlanded, 

Christ  marches  on.    The  twelve  are  led. 

The  Twelve  is  a  stirring  battle-song  which  will  not  soon 
be  dissociated  from  the  history  of  these  mysterious 
blood-dripping  days.  The  translation,  while  it  gives 
little  impression  of  beauty  as  English  verse,  permits 
the  smoky  fire  of  the  original  to  shine  through. 

Glenway  Wescott 

REVIEWS 

A    FLOURISH    OF   TRUMPETS 

Second  April,   by  Edna  St.   Vincent  Millay.     Mitchell 

Kennerley. 

If  I  could  only  sound  a  fanfare  in  words!  If  I  could 
get  up  on  some  high  place  and  blow  trumpets,  and  shout 

[151] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

and  wave  my  hands  and  throw  my  hat!  If,  too,  I  could 
gather  together  all  those  of  my  dear  friends  who  have 
said:  "Oh  yes,  I  like  poetry  well  enough — Longfellow, 
and  Byron  and  those;  of  course  I  admit  I  can't  under- 
stand this  modern  stuff!"  And  if  I  could  gather  together 
all  the  shrugging  shoulders,  all  the  supercilious  smiles, 
and  all  those  brows  which  have  knitted  at  the  mention 
of  poetry,  and  could  read  to  them — or  get  Edna  St. 
Vincent  Millay  to  read  to  them,  if  it  were  only  possible! — 
her  latest  book,  Second  April!  And  then  if  I  could  give 
it  to  all  those  hungry  people  who  have  not  the  money 
for  beauty,  and  give  it  to  children — even  be  generous 
with  it! — and  let  it  lie  on  the  library  table  of  the  fashion- 
able house,  beside  the  Golden  Treasury •,  where  it  might 
be  picked  up  by  the  casual  caller  so  that  he  would  get 
drunk  in  a  new  way!  And  later,  after  the  shy  emotions 
and  the  jaded  ones  have  had  their  dance  in  the  sun,  if 
I  could  get  away  to  some  deserted  place  of  beauty,  and 
hold  a  solitary  revel,  an  orgy  of  poetry! 

And  yet  even  if  the  copies  of  Second  April  rained  down 
like  manna,  I  suppose  there  would  still  be  some,  among 
the  most  needy,  to  spurn  the  fare,  some  who  would  look, 
and  look  in  vain,  for  intricacies  of  form,  for  startling 
words,  for  grotesque  similes,  for  splashing  impressionistic 
phrases.  And  there  would  be  those  who  would  think 
an  occasional  sonnet  indecent,  because  it  flings  high, 
unashamed,  the  joy  of  living! 

Not  with  libation,  but  with  shouts  and  laughter 


A  Flourish  of  Trumpets 

We  drenched  the  altars  of  Love's  sacred  grove, 
Shaking  to  earth  green  fruits,  impatient  after 
The  launching  of  the  colored  moths  of  Love. 
Love's  proper  myrtle  and  his  mother's  zone 
We  bound  about  our  irreligious  brows, 
And  fettered  him  with  garlands  of  our  own, 
And  spread  a  banquet  in  his  frugal  house. 
Not  yet  the  god  has  spoken;  but  I  fear, 
Though  we  should  break  our  bodies  in  his  flame, 
And  pour  our  blood  upon  his  altar,  here 
Henceforward  is  a  grove  without  a  name — 
A  pasture  to  the  shaggy  goats  of  Pan, 
Whence  flee  forever  a  woman  and  a  man. 

Perhaps,  there  would  be  some  to  belittle  the  group  of 
memorial  poems,  each  one  of  which  is  so  childlike  in  its 
simplicity — so  utterly,  utterly  poignant: 

Heap  not  on  this  mound 
Roses  that  she  loved  so  well; 
Why  bewilder  her  with  roses, 
That  she  cannot  see  or  smell? 
She  is  happy  where  she  lies 
With  the  dust  upon  her  eyes. 

And  the  stark  tragedy  of  the  Chorus: 

Give  away  her  gowns, 
Give  away  her  shoes; 
She  has  no  more  use 
For  her  fragrant  gowns. 
Take  them  all  down — 
Blue,  green,  blue, 
Lilac,  pink,  blue — 
From  their  padded  hangers. 
She  will  dance  no  more 
In  her  narrow  shoes; 
Sweep  her  narrow  shoes 
From  the  closet  floor. 

[153] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  there  would  be  the  happy  young  girl  who  confided 
to  me  that  she  could  not  see  anything  particularly  wonder- 
ful or  apt  in  the  sentence,  "Life  in  itself  is  nothing — an 
empty  cup,  a  flight  of  uncarpeted  stairs." 

To  what  purpose,  April,  do  you  return  again  ? 

Beauty  is  not  enough. 

You  can  no  longer  quiet  me  with  the  redness 

Of  little  leaves  opening  stickily. 

I  know  what  I  know. 

The  sun  is  hot  on  my  neck  as  I  observe 

The  spikes  of  the  crocus. 

The  smell  of  the  earth  is  good. 

It  is  apparent  that  there  is  no  death. 

But  what  does  that  signify? 

Not  only  under  ground  are  the  brains  of  men 

Eaten  by  maggots. 

Life  in  itself 

Is  nothing — 

An  empty  cup,  a  flight  of  uncarpeted  stairs. 

It  is  not  enough  that  yearly,  down  this  hill, 

April 

Comes  like  an  idiot,  babbling  and  strewing  flowers. 

Yet  in  spite  of  them  all,  and  I  believe  there  could  only 
be  a  few — the  meticulous,  the  unfortunates  whose  emo- 
tions have  irretrievably  atrophied — in  spite  of  them, 
and  right  in  their  faces,  I  would  shout  aloud,  blow 
trumpets,  wave  hands,  and  scatter  Edna  St.  Vincent 
Millay's  Second  April  over  the  world! 

Marion  Strobel 


[154] 


Fletcherian  Colors 


FLETCHERIAN    COLORS 

Breakers  and  Granite,  by  John  Gould  Fletcher.     Mac- 

millan  Co. 

This  volume  of  poems,  while  not  a  definite  attempt  to 
comprehend  and  express  the  spirit  of  America,  by  com- 
bining various  groups  leaves  a  general  impression.  The 
spirit  which  speaks  loudest,  however,  is  a  universal  one, 
although  our  ardent  patriotism  usually  leads  us  to  confine 
it  to  America. 

It  is  a  palimpsest  which  no  one  reads  or  understands,  which  none  has 
time  to  heed,  a  loom-frame  woven  over  with  interspersed  entangled 
threads,  of  which  the  meaning  is  lost,  from  which  the  pattern  is  not  yet 
freed. 

They  are  a  great  shallow  sea,  crinkling  uneasily  as  if  some  giant's 
body  were  wallowing  beneath. 

The  shuttles  clatter  and  clamor  and  hammer  at  the  woof  of  day  and 
night.  But  the  being — the  thing  that  will  master  all  the  ages — still 
refuses  to  be  born. 

One  does  not  squeeze  this  essence  from  the  book, 
but  finds  it  imbedded  in  long  descriptions,  externally 
conceived;  often  with  the  eye  of  a  decorator  nicely 
designed,  more  often  with  the  hand  of  an  artisan  who 
labors  over  his  pile  of  adjectives  and  colors  and  leaves 
a  jumble. 

Down  the  Mississippi  is  the  best  group.  It  has  a 
sculptural  quality  in  spite  of  certain  passages  which, 
with  their  natural  southern  heat,  threaten  to  melt  the 
modeling  into  a  mass.  But  it  is  an  excellent  group.  A 

[155] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

fine  conception  of  a  great  river,  moulded  and  colored 
by  sensitive  hands,  guided  by  sympathetic  eyes. 

Of  his  prose  poems — The  Building  of  Chicago^  The  Old 
South  and  The  Song  of  the  Wind— The  Old  South  is  the 
most  completely  satisfying.  It  has  quality  and  cadence 
and  flavor.  It  charms  and  saddens,  and  leaves  a  stagnant 
pool  in  the  spirit.  The  other  prose  poems  in  the  volume 
work  out  of  inspiration  hours.  There  are  some  interest- 
ing photographs,  some  historical  descriptions.  An  effort 
is  made  at  times  to  heighten  them  to  the  point  of  poetry 
by  the  use  of  the  names  of  strong  colors,  but  the  words 
are  cold,  they  do  not  flush  from  within.  The  lines  are 
sterile,  and  hanging  decorations  on  them  does  not  make 
them  burgeon. 

In  New  York,  this  sentence  begins  well: 

Ivory  and  gold,  heart  of  light  petrified,  bold  and  immortally  beauti- 
ful, lifts  a  tower  like  a  full  lily-stalk. 

Then  it  grows  hysterical: 

With  crammed  pollen-coated  petals,  flame-calyx  fretted  and  carven, 
white  phoenix  that  beats  its  wings  in  the  light,  shrill  ecstasy  of  leaping 
lines  poised  in  flight,  partaken  of  joy  in  the  skies,  mate  of  the  sun. 

We  frequently  encounter  this  violent  use  of  language, 
but  for  the  most  part  the  poet's  carousals  in  the  names 
of  colors  fail  to  intoxicate  him. 

In  The  Grand  Canyon  of  The  Colorado 

Yellow,  red,  grey-green,  purple-black  chasms   fell   swiftly   below 
each  other — 

and 

[156] 


Fletcherian  Colors 

hammered  from  red  sandstone,  purple  granite,  and  gold — 
fail  in  their  purpose,  while 

It  was  hidden 

Behind  layers  of  white  silence 

paints  a  picture. 

Again,  take  from  The  Well  in  the  Desert, 


The  desert  below  him  seems  burning:  ashen-yellow, 
red-yellow,  faint  blue  and  rose-brown — 


and 


At  the  horizon 

The  heat  rose  and  fell, 

Sharp  flickering  arpeggios  .  .  . 

Not  a  cloud-flake  breaks  with  its  shadow  the  great  space 
of  sky  and  of  earth. 

The  last  two  are  Japanese  prints,  while  the  first  is  a 
colored  photograph. 

Mr.  Fletcher's  use  of  colors  makes  one  feel  their  limita- 
tions; only  occasionally  does  one  feel  their  infinite  variety. 

The  poems  to  the  eye  seem  unrestrained,  but  there 
is  not  the  flamboyant  coloring  of  youth  in  these  pages. 
Taking  the  volume  as  a  whole,  one  feels  a  prodigal  use 
of  words  of  color  but  a  paucity  of  colored  words.  If 
the  Japanese  prints,  a  few  of  which  it  undoubtedly 
possesses,  were  selected  from  the  whole  we  should  have 
a  slimmer  volume  but  a  more  rarely  beautiful  collection. 

Laura  Sherry 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

MINOR    CHORDS 

Bluestone^  by  Marguerite  Wilkinson.     Macmillan  Co. 
Selected  Poems ^  by  Lady  Margaret  Sackville.    E.  P.  Button 

&Co. 

These  two  books  have  no  likeness  of  matter  or  manner 
that  innately  justifies  their  being  written  about  together. 
My  apology  is  that  the  authors  of  both  are  women,  and 
that  the  books  are  both  provided  with  prefaces  so  pro- 
vocative that  they  stimulate  attention  perhaps  more  than 
the  poetry  itself. 

Marguerite  Wilkinson's  preface  is  autobiographical,  like 
her  verses.  It  invites  us  into  her  workshop,  as  in  her 
poems  she  invites  us  candidly  into  her  homely  house  of 
life — into  the  kitchen  and  living-rooms  and  the  empty 
nursery — to  show  us  the  vistas  she  likes,  her  porch  and 
garden,  her  big  husband,  to  chat  a  little  about  her  ances- 
tors and  the  poor  and  the  weather,  and  to  confide  the 
mournful  secret  of  her  childlessness.  In  her  workshop  she 
lets  us  stand  by  while,  between  the  stages  of  her  demon- 
stration of  lyric-making,  she  gives  an  informal  lecture. 

To  report  the  lecture  briefly,  for  a  summary  may  be 
made  in  a  sentence — the  poet  may  help  himself  by  finding 
the  tune  which  exists  for  each  expression,  and  building 
them  up  together.  She  says: 

What  happens  is  simply  this:  While  I  am  making  a  lyric,  after  the 
mood  becomes  clear,  after  the  idea  and  image  emerge  from  consciousness, 
I  sing  it,  and  sometimes  slowly,  sometimes  quite  rapidly,  the  words  take 
their  places  in  lines  that  carry  a  tune  also.  I  am  not  giving  conscious 

[158] 


Minor  Chords 

effort  to  the  tune;  nor  am  I  making  an  intellectual  effort  to  combine 
words  and  music  to  get  a  certain  effect.  I  am  not  thinking  about  the 
music.  I  am  making  a  single-hearted  and  strong  endeavor  to  say  or 
sing  what  is  felt  or  thought. 

This  leaves  one  well  elbowed  for  reflection.  Is  this  the 
way  epics  and  folk-songs  were  written — did  the  bards  and 
skalds  and  troubadours  make  their  resonant  verses  thus? 
Is  it  analogous  to  the  activities  of  any  other  poet — say 
Kreymborg,  or  Vachel  Lindsay,  in  their  somewhat  readier 
improvisation  ? 

As  for  the  poems  themselves,  they  are  individually 
undistinguished.  But  a  full  sequential  reading  of  them 
makes  one  aware  of  a  bright,  impulsive,  open  temper- 
ament, a  small  clear  voice  singing  a  small  clear  soul.  It  is 
frank  and  personal  in  the  way  that  women  are  frank  and 
personal,  not  a  challenge  but  a  confidence.  It  is  auto- 
biography as  self-concerned  and  intimate,  in  its  demure 
scale,  as  that  of  Benvenuto  Cellini. 

Mrs.  Wilkinson  writes  most  stridently,  most  rhetor- 
ically, when,  as  in  the  title-poem,  she  invokes  ancestors. 
Songs  from  beside  Swift  Rivers  is  a  pleasant,  energetic 
group,  although  it  contains  the  worst  thing  in  the  book, 
The  Really  Truly  Twirly-whirly  Eel.  In  Preferences,  Long 
Songs,  Songs  of  an  Empty  House,  Songs  of  Laughter  and 
Tears,  Whims  for  Poets  and  California  Poems  she  does 
better  work.  These  in  a  certain  way  satisfy  if  they  do 
not  thrill  us;  they  are,  if  not  original,  personal.  Here  she 
is  busy  on  her  autobiography;  she  tells  a  small  old  story, 
offers  a  bright  comment. 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine     of     Verse 

The  closing  poem,  however,  The  Page  ant  >  is  to  my  mind 
the  finest  of  the  book.  It  is  almost  the  only  impersonal 
poem.  It  is  not  new  or  profound;  but  it  is  a  conceit  such 
as  comes  coolly  from  the  hands  of  women  whereas  men's 
hands  mold  sweatily  and  hard;  also  men's  eyes  are  sneer- 
ingly  careless  while  women's  are  maternally  watchful.  I 
will  quote  the  second  stanza,  and  take  my  leave  of  a  book 
pleasant  but  not  upsetting,  containing  some  singularly 
inept  verses  which,  however,  may  help  in  the  final  witnessing 
of  an  unheroic,  untormented  and  engaging  personality: 

Forever  is  a  broad  road  where  have  met  together 
Brave  Deeds  in  red  robes  and  Deeds  of  golden  fire; 
Grave  Deeds  in  silver  gowns,  quaint  Deeds  in  motley, 
Quiet  Deeds  in  homely  gray  that  only  saints  admire; 
Gentle  Deeds  that  love  the  green  raiment  of  the  summer; 
Pure  Deeds  in  very  white  without  the  chill  of  snow; 
Squalid  Deeds  in  dull  rags,  pitiful  and  ugly: 
Down  the  broad  highway  they  go. 

The  testimonial  to  Lady  Margaret  Sackville's  Selected 
Poems  is  written  by  no  less  a  doctor  than  Wilfrid  Scawen 
Blunt.  It  is  short  and  perfunctory,  having  the  familiar 
sound  of  the  literary  ballyhoo.  It  begins  by  calling  her 
ladyship  the  best  of  England's  woman  poets.  Being  quite 
ignorant  of  the  poetry  young  Britannia  is  writing,  I  can- 
not enter  into  controversy.  But  I  remember  some  sharp 
work  by  the  feminine  Sitwell;  and  some  interesting  percep- 
tions in  quotations  from  Charlotte  Mew;  and  even  though 
the  women  of  talent,  like  the  men,  are  diluting  their  poetry 
in  the  traditional  English  schooner,  the  novel — Virginia 
Wolf,  May  Sinclair,  Dorothy  Richardson,  E.  M.  Delafield 

[160] 


Minor  Chords 

and  others — there  must  be  women  who  are  writing  poetry 
less  pallid  and  Hellenic,  and  more  original  than  this. 

Mr.  Blunt,  like  other  comfortable  people,  is  waiting  for 
the  world  to  quiet  down  to  "its  ancient  bourgeois  ways  of 
peace,  prosperity,  romance,  and  beauty."  We  may  look 
for  the  blooming  of  an  art  that  will  cover  the  ruins,  a 
peaceful  bourgeois  poetry  written  in  the  benignant, 
lattice-tempered  "daylight  of  sound  rhyme,  metre  and 
melody/'  like  Lady  Sackville's.  It  will  even  be  free  from 
the  rhetorical  independence  of  blank  verse,  which  is  "not 
really  verse  at  all  even  in  master-hands;  say,  rather,  a 
dignified  kind  of  prose  pompous  in  recitation  and,  for 
common  reading,  dull." 

Mr.  Blunt  is  sure  it  will  emerge  from  the  bewildered 
forms  of  the  "delirium" — such  profound,  powerful,  deny- 
ing poetry  as  is  being  written  by  D.  H.  Lawrence,  the 
imagists,  the  Sitwells  and  Aldous  Huxley.  I  gather  that 
Mr.  Blunt  means  them  although  he  mentions  no  names. 
Their  work  is  a  delirium  to  him  because  their  subject- 
matter  is  not  the  Greek  hash  served  up  by  a  muse  whom 
people  have  made  a  slavey,  but  fresh  fodder  pungently 
spiced  that  gives  savor  and  nourishment;  because  their 
measures  are  ungentle,  and  their  language  cleaned  and 
filtered  of  the  debris  of  overlapping  preciosities. 

In  spite  of  this  survivor  of  the  nineties,  such  feeble  voices 
as  Lady  Sackville's  will  inevitably  be  silenced  by  the 
"delirium."  True  it  is  a  voice  of  some  subtle  cadences;  of 
a  tone  pleasing  and  serene.  It  even  murmurs  some 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

exquisite  lyrics,  offers  some  sonorous  recitations,  makes  a 
shy  jest.  But  it  observes  all  the  politeness  of  conven- 
tional rhyming;  it  never  leaves  its  orderly  park  of  culti- 
vated flower-beds  exhaling  a  luxurious  odor,  with  nymphs 
and  fauns  pensive  among  the  trees,  fastened  forever  in  the 
postures  of  elegantly  sylvan  courtship. 

There  is  a  staid,  deliberate  and  wise  sentiment  in  the 
war  poems.  They  are  not  poignant  or  biographical,  but 
they  are  pitying,  even  querulous,  comments  upon  an 
organized  cataclysm.  They  are  bright  bits  of  emotion, 
like  bright  colors  against  an  elegant  but  monotonous 
background. 

Lady  Sackville's  poetry  has  none  of  the  impulse  and 
swing  of  Marguerite  Wilkinson's.  It  is  impersonal  and 
detached,  and  does  not  leave  us  as  a  palpable  presence. 
But  it  has  greater  delicacy,  mellower  polish,  maturer 
choice  of  material.  One  can  see  in  these  books  an  analogy; 
for  England  and  America,  if  England  did  not  have  its  own 
r  voltes  and  America  its  bland  traditionalists. 

Isidor  Schneider 

POST-MARTIAL    EMOTION 

Aurelia  and  Other  Poems,   by   Robert  Nichols.     E.   P. 

Button  and  Co. 

From  the  ardors  and  endurances  of  war  this  poet,  like 
many  another,  has  retired  into  his  sensibilities.  It  is 
a  luxury  no  doubt  justified  in  one  who  suffered  so  severe 
a  war  experience  as  Robert  Nichols,  but  it  is  a  disappoint- 


Post-martial  Emotion 

ment  to  many  who  read  his  first  book.  From  this  earlier 
book  there  were  two  courses  possible:  one,  to  retain  the 
war  experience,  if  not  its  incidents,  as  a  structural  fact 
in  his  future  work;  the  other,  to  throw  it  away  as  one 
would  a  soiled  and  bloody  shirt  and  return  to  the  cool, 
sterile  delicacies  of  his  domestic  experience.  With  the 
exception  of  the  beautifully  reminiscent  Yesterday,  the 
poet  in  this  book  has  returned  frankly  to  pre-war  psy- 
chology and  subject  matter.  The  book  as  a  whole, 
including,  Four  Idylls,  Encounters,  twenty-seven  Elisa- 
bethan  Sonnets  to  Aurelia,  The  Flower  of  Flame,  has 
assumed  in  manner,  emotion  and  subject  the  conventional 
limitations  of  the  finely  wrought  but  minor  poetry  of 
academic  England. 

If  war  came  without  welcome,  a  thick  and  bulging 
episode  in  his  experience,  its  subsidence  at  any  rate  has 
not  left  the  poet  voiceless.  The  transition  from  his 
engravings  on  the  crude  steel  of  war  to  their  continuation 
on  the  ivory  of  peace  is  no  doubt  appropriate  to  this  type 
of  poet.  Three  strains  of  interest,  none  of  them  asso- 
ciated with  warlike  violence,  may  be  noted:  A  con- 
templative and  introspective  interest,  as  in  Night 
Rhapsody: 

How  beautiful  to  wake  at  night, 

Within  the  room  grown  strange,  and  still,  and  sweet, 

And  live  a  century  while  in  the  dark 

The  dripping  wheel  of  silence  slowly  turns; 

To  watch  the  window  open  on  the  night, 

A  dewy  silent  deep  where  nothing  stirs, 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And,  lying  thus,  to  feel  dilate  within 

The  press,  the  conflict,  and  the  heavy  pulse 

Of  incommunicable  sad  ecstasy. 

An  interest  in  nature  observation,  as  in  From  the  Budded 
Branch: 

Below  a  beetle  on  a  stalk  of  grass 

Slowly  unharnesses  his  shuttered  wings, 
His  tiny  rainbow  wings  of  shrivelled  glass. 

He  leaps!    He  whirs  away.     The  grass-blade  swings. 

An  interest  in  personal  emotion,  as  in  the  tritely  facile 
Sonnets  to  Aurelia: 

Whatever  substances  of  love  may  dwell 

Within  the  passionate  heart  of  such  as  I, 
Whatever  waters  of  pure  pity  well 

In  the  dark  orb  of  a  most  loving  eye, 
I  have  yielded  you.     Whatever  were  the  pain 

If  power  within  me  so  to  do  did  live, 
I,  at  your  need,  had  made  these  yours  again, 

But  now  I  know  I  have  no  more  to  give. 

But  the  weaver  of  these  has  not  yet  a  certain  hand. 
His  imaginative  facility,  his  ability  to  subordinate  the 
crude  image  to  the  structural  idea  of  his  poem  without 
diminishing  its  vividness,  his  technical  excellence  in 
poetic  detail,  do  not  save  him  from  casualness  in  the 
larger  principles  of  his  work. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  Robert  Nichols  should  have 
only  the  poised  and  static  culture  of  his  particular  English 
group  to  support  him.  Rarely  if  ever  does  he  break 
over  the  narrow  boundaries  of  self-centered  sophistication, 


Post-martial  Emotion 

of  fagged  and  too  mature  emotion.  Mr.  Nichols  and 
his  group  seem  to  be  too  little  in  literary  touch  with  the 
massive  energies  of  contemporary  life  to  be  moved  by 
any  great  or  unifying  poetic  idea.  The  environment  is 
luxuriously  sweet  to  the  minor  poet,  but  its  very  gracious- 
ness  undermines  stronger  men.  It  is  too  small  a  pot  for 
great  broth.  In  the  gratuitous  energy  of  great  poetry 
this  book  is  lacking.  Baker  Browne/! 

COLOR    SONATAS 

Poems,  by  Iris  Tree.     John  Lane  Co. 

An  organ  exists  which  plays  in  color  instead  of  in  tone 
and  pitch.  Its  invention  was  a  recognition  of  the  synes- 
thetic  power  which  every  artist  to  some  extent  possesses 
—the  power  to  translate  images  received  through  one 
sense  into  terms  of  another  sense. 

If  one  could  carry  the  principle  of  synesthesia  invent- 
ively several  steps  farther  than  the  color  organ,  and  pro- 
duce a  device  that  would  interpret  sound  in  terms  of 
fragrance,  and  color  in  terms  of  odor,  and  so  on,  one  would 
have  something  very  like  Iris  Tree's  book.  It  is,  to  quote 
her  own  words,  "a  kaleidoscope  of  roaring  color,"  using 
the  word  "color"  itself  in  a  rather  synesthetic  sense.  Such 
figures  as  "scarlet  rhapsodies  and  beryl-cold  sonatas," 
"The  pale  smell  of  their  falling  blossoms,"  and  "Its  scent 
is  sweeter  than  ghostly  music,"  are  characteristic. 

Rebecca  West,  I  believe,  once  referred  to  the  works  of 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Compton  Mackenzie  as  not  precisely  novels  but  brilliantly 
colored  cushions.  I  have  somewhat  the  same  feeling 
about  Iris  Tree's  volume — it  does  not  seem  exactly  a  book. 
It  is  not  a  cushion;  sometimes  it  seems  a  tapestry,  at 
other  times  a  bouquet  of  highly  perfumed  flowers,  and 
still  again  a  series  of  ariettes.  This  is  nothing  against  it; 
anybody  can  make  a  book  that  seems  like  a  book,  but 
few  can  make  a  book  that  seems  like — well,  perhaps  "a 
kaleidoscope"  is  the  most  inclusive  term.  The  author, 
in  her  own  words,  opens  wide 

the  violet-petalled  doors 
Of  every  shy  and  cloistered  sense 
That  all  the  scent  and  music  of  the  world 
May  rush  into  the  soul. 

The  poems  are  dazzling,  arresting,  with  imagery  now 
a  bit  Keatsian  in  suggestion,  but  more  often  altogether 
modern.  Verses  like  these  represent  the  author's  method: 

Moonlit  lilacs  under  the  window, 

And  the  pale  smell  of  their  falling  blossoms, 

And  the  white  floating  beams  like  luminous  moths 

Fluttering  from  bloom  to  bloom. 

Sprays  of  lilac  flowers 

Frothing  at  the  green  verge  of  midnight  waves, 

Frozen  to  motionless  icicles. 

Moonlight  flows  over  me, 

Full  of  illicit,  marvelous  perfumes 

Wreathed  with  syringa  and  plaited  with  hyacinths; 

Hair  of  the  moonlight  falling  about  me, 

Straight  and  cool  as  the  drooping  tresses  of  rain. 

The  spiritual  interpretations  which  the  author  makes 
are  as  unvivid  as  her  imagery  is  vivid.  Neither  "the  dim 

[166] 


Color  Sonatas 

psychic  crystals"  of  her  soul  nor  her  wish  that  she  were 
"God  in  a  colored  globe"  moves  one  to  more  than  casual 
interest.  Perhaps  this  is  partly  because  one  looks  for 
sensuous  instead  of  spiritual  beauties  in  a  kaleidoscope. 
Illustrations  and  decorations  usually  spoil  a  book  of 
poems.  In  this  case  the  decorations,  done  by  Curtis 
Moffatt,  the  author's  husband,  have  the  same  quality  as 
the  verses  and  add  to  their  flavor. 

Nelson  Antrim  Crawford 

THE  PREMATURITY  OF  IMMATURITY 

Hidden  Path,  by  Ned  Hungerford.     Privately  printed. 

It  is  hard  to  call  this  the  poetry  of  a  young  man.  There 
is  feeling  and  experience  in  it;  it  is  immature  not  in  knowl- 
edge of  life  but  in  the  mechanics  of  expression,  in  the 
practice  of  poetic  craftsmanship.  Where  other  poets  can 
amble  and  even  trip  gaily  and  gracefully,  in  well  trodden 
and  frequented  ways,  Mr.  Hungerford  plods  lonely  and 
stumbling.  He  presents  almost  pathetically  the  figure 
of  a  man  desperately  concerned  with  self-expression,  not 
as  a  necessity  born  with  him  but  out  of  some  troubling 
circumstance.  I  feel  that  things  are  maddeningly  dull 
for  Mr.  Hungerford,  wherever  he  is;  that  he  has  an  insup- 
pressible  desire  to  find  a  kinder  environment. 

That  is  why  opening  his  book  gave  me  the  thrill  that  a 
man  might  feel  if  he  picked  up  a  stray  message  from  a  lost 
man — say,  something  in  a  bottle,  or  between  the  halves 
of  a  fruit.  There  is  a  distracting  personal  interest  in 

[167] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

every  poem  that  makes  its  status  as  poetry  unimportant. 
And  the  regrettable  element  in  the  matter  is  that  the 
author  deliberately  aims  to  achieve  this  effect.  He  writes 
in  his  introductory  poem: 

Reader  .    . 

That  these  poems  are  now  in  your  hands 

Is  proof  that  they  are  meant  for  you. 

Whatever  your  race,  color,  or  creed,  you  are  brother 

To  him  who  wrote  them, 

And  to  him  who  placed  them  in  your  hands. 

It  is  the  old  plea  of  the  beginner  not  sure  of  his  audience, 
the  old  futile  defiance  of  criticism,  futile  because  of  its  un- 
conscious confession  of  a  lack  of  technique.  Somewhere 
else  in  the  book,  he  makes  the  stock  challenge: 

O  ready  condemners, 

Isn't  it  just  possible 

You  and  I  are  thinking  of  something 

Entirely  different? 

The  persistent  illusion  of  being  misunderstood  (when 
one  is  merely  ignored),  the  illusion  that  others  in  his  plight 
may  take  heart  from  his  avowals,  is  the  inspiration  of  a  good 
many  of  these  poems.  Throughout,  the  reader  is  left  with 
the  consciousness  of  listening  to  a  muddled  eager  man, 
who  can  hardly  resist  the  temptation  to  buttonhole  his 
few  auditors.  The  very  titles  of  this  and  a  previous  book 
— Hidden  Pathy  Uncertain  Trail — give  Mr.  Hungerford's 
own  estimate  of  his  literary  journey. 

If  Ned  Hungerford  is  comparatively  young,  he  may 
find  out  eventually  whither  he  is  bound,  in  which  case  he 

[168] 


The  Prematurity  of  Immaturity 

will  regret  publishing  this  misgiven  itinerary.  If  he  is 
not  a  young  man  and  is  bogged  fast  in  bewildering  cross- 
roads, the  book  will  be  one  more  of  the  crowded  minor 
fatalities  on  the  literary  front.  From  any  standpoint  it 
is  premature;  it  may  have  satisfied  momentarily  a  crav- 
ing to  appear  in  print,  but  already  it  must  have  obliterated 
that  satisfaction  by  coming  back  in  all  its  gruesome  im- 
maturity to  haunt  its  author.  It  would  have  been  passed 
over  in  silence;  but  as  it  is  typical  of  many  books  of  verse 
sent  out  in  quest  of  reviews,  the  above  remarks  may  serve 
as  a  hint  to  other  self-deceived,  and  often  embittered, 
would-be  poets.  Isidor  Schneider 


CORRESPONDENCE 

THE    ALLIED    ARTS    AGAIN 
I 

Dear  Editor:  It  was  with  great  interest  that  I  read 
in  POETRY  for  October,  your  comments  upon  my  Musical 
America  article.  I  am  glad  to  have  the  opportunity 
and  the  invitation  to  express  an  opinion  I  have  long  held. 

I  believe  we  should  have  something  in  the  nature  of 
a  National  Committee  for  the  Protection  of  the  Native 
Lyric  from  the  Distortions  Practised  by  Incompetent 
Composers.  Poets,  when  asked  for  permission  to  make 
"settings'*  of  their  words,  often  grant  it  graciously  and 
trust  to  luck.  What  a  writer  ought  to  do  is  to  tell  the 

[169] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

composer  to  make  a  setting  and  submit  it  to  him  for 
approval.  But  as  few  poets  are  willing  to  profess  expert- 
ness  in  musical  judgments,  the  writer  usually  has  to 
submit  to  whatever  outrageous  interpretation  the  com- 
poser may  perpetrate.  I  see  no  reason  why  a  poet  should 
not  say  to  a  composer:  "Yes,  you  may  make  a  setting 
of  my  poem,  provided  that,  before  publishing  it,  you 
will  submit  it  to  a  committee  on  which  both  poetry  and 
music  are  represented."  Such  a  committee  would  be  a 
step  toward  establishing  a  standard,  and  perhaps  it 
might  do  a  great  deal,  in  ways  other  than  censorship, 
to  stimulate  the  progress  of  American  song. 

One  other  thing  might  be  spoken  of  as  a  possible  reason 
why  there  is  not  greater  co-operation  among  poets  and 
musicians:  often  of  late  the  poet  talks  business  and  pro- 
poses a  division  of  royalty,  whereupon  the  negotiations 
are  soon  at  an  end.  There  are  different  reasons  in 
different  cases,  but  usually  this  happens  because  the 
composer  knows,  if  he  has  ever  published  anything,  that 
the  royalty  will  be  too  small  to  divide — a  fact  which  he 
dislikes  to  confess,  even  to  a  fellow-artist.  And  he  does 
not  want  to  be  forced  to  keep  books  and  mail  out  each 
month  a  cheque  which  would  probably  fluctuate  between 
two  dollars  and  six.  If  there  is  money  in  music-publish- 
ing, the  music-publisher  must  get  most  of  it. 

Referring  again  to  your  editorial,  you  express  doubt 
whether  I  have  taken  the  trouble  to  get  acquainted 
with,  or  try  to  understand,  contemporary  poets.  But 

[170] 


The  Allied  Arts  Again 

I  can  plead  guilty  only  in  part — I  have  not  been  able 
to  keep  pace  with  all  our  American  poets,  it  is  true,  but 
I  have  known  some  of  them,  and  I  am  eager  to  meet 
others  and  try  to  understand  their  art. 

Instead  of  citing  Carpenter's  settings  of  the  Tagore 
things  in  your  editorial,  you  might  more  fitly  have  men- 
tioned his  use  of  The  Heart's  Country ,  by  Florence  Wilkin- 
son; or  the  delightful  song  Henry  Hadley  made  last 
year  out  of  When  I  Go  Away  from  You,  by  Amy  Lowell. 

Please  let  me  say  in  conclusion  that  I  never  have  said 
there  were  not  fine  American  songs.  But  they  are 
remarkably  few,  and  remarkably  hard  to  place  effectively 
in  a  recital  programme.  Charles  Albert  Case 

Northampton,  Mass. 

ii 

Dear  POETRY:  To  all  serious  students  of  the  dance,  the 
first  sentence  in  your  October  article,  "POETRY  would  like 
to  celebrate  its  ninth  birthday  by  inaugurating  a  closer 
affiliation  with  the  allied  arts  of  music  and  the  drama — 
perhaps  also  the  dance"  is  encouraging.  That  "perhaps" 
is  deserved:  only  those  who  come  in  daily  contact  with 
the  too-popular  belief  that  the  door  to  real  achievement 
may  be  kicked  open  by  a  perfectly  pointed  toe,  can 
realize  how  far  the  dance  has  traveled  from  its  dignified 
origin.  In  alliance  with  that  music  and  poetry  to  which 
the  dance  really  gave  birth  lies  her  only  hope.  Music 
and  poetry  give  the  dancer  a  reason  for  existence. 

[171] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

We  had  the  pleasure  of  working  with  Alfred  Kreymborg 
in  the  summer  of  1920,  and  not  only  felt  that  we,  as 
dancers,  had  profited,  but  we  gained  an  insight  into,  and 
a  feeling  for,  the  rhythm  of  modern  poetry  that  nothing 
but  the  actual  bodily  expression  of  it  could  have  given  us. 
We  have  been  fortunate  also  in  being  associated  with  a 
musician  who  has  used  pieces  of  Sara  Teasdale's,  Vachel 
Lindsay's,  Bliss  Carman's,  and  other  moderns,  as  themes 
for  dance-music. 

Certainly  poets,  musicians  and  dancers  need  not  fear 
to  join  forces.  They  have  the  fundamentals  in  common. 
With  such  different,  yet  harmonious,  outward  manifesta- 
tions of  those  fundamentals,  surely  the  result  will  not  be 
unworthy  of  poetry  or  music,  and  will  surely  be  of  infinite 
value  to  the  dance  in  its  reinstatement  among  the  arts. 

We  so  often  fail  to  say  the  pleasant  things  we  think. 
POETRY  is  a  monthly  refreshment.  It  is  like  a  breath 
from  freshly  opened  flowers,  or  a  drink  of  mountain  water. 

Bertha  Wardell 

Los  Angeles^  Cal. 

Note  by  the  Editor:  Another  correspondent  reminds  us  that  Rupert 
Hughes,  well  known  both  as  novelist  and  composer,  has  used  a  number 
of  modern  lyrics:  for  example,  one  of  the  editor's  own,  /  Love  my  Life, 
originally  published  in  POETRY;  and  quite  recently  Evening  in  the  West, 
or  better  The  Ivory  Moment^  by  John  Drury,  from  the  new  Los  Angeles 
monthly,  The  Lyric  West.  Schirmer  &  Co.  are  Mr.  Hughes'  publishers. 


[172] 


NOTES 

Mr.  Lew  Sarett,  of  Chicago,  or  rather  of  her  neighbor-city  Evanston, 
has  consented  to  act  henceforth  as  a  member  of  the  Advisory  Committee 
of  POETRY.  Mr.  Sarett  is  the  author  of  Many  Many  Moons;  and  the 
award  of  last  month  to  his  poem,  The  Box  of  God,  makes  him  the  latest 
winner  of  the  Helen  Haire  Levinson  Prize.  He  has  been,  for  the  last 
year,  in  the  Public  Speaking  Department  of  Northwestern  University. 

In  our  advertising  pages  the  Poetry  Society  of  South  Carolina  makes 
an  announcement  of  great  interest  to  poets.  A  prize  of  $250,  donated 
by  W.  Van  R.  Whitall,  Esq.,  of  Pelham,  N.  Y.,  is  to  be  awarded  an- 
nually, under  the  Society's  auspices,  for  the  best  poem  sent  in  competi- 
tion before  Jan.  ist  of  each  year.  Mr.  Pelham  makes  sure  of  a  com- 
petent choice  this  year  by  appointing  Miss  Amy  Lowell  to  the  honor 
of  initiating  the  award  by  acting  as  the  first  judge. 

Louise  Ayres  Garnett  (Mrs.  Eugene  H.),  of  Evanston,  111.,  wrote 
the  poem  Resurgam  as  the  text  of  an  oratorio  for  which  Mr.  Henry  Had- 
ley  is  now  composing  the  music.  In  our  November  Correspondence 
Mrs.  Garnett  told  the  story  of  this  collaboration;  and  the  complete  work, 
which  will  soon  be  published,  may  be  regarded  as  an  essay  in  that 
closer  alliance  between  poetry  and  music  which  the  editor  has  pleaded 
for  in  recent  numbers  of  POETRY. 

Mrs.  Garnett  has  published,  through  Rand,  McNally  &  Co.,  three 
books  of  verse  for  children;  and  she  wrote  both  words  and  music  of 
Creature  Songs  (Oliver  Ditson  Co.).  The  Macmillan  Co.  published 
her  play  Master  Will  of  Stratford,  and  The  Drama  has  printed  two  or 
three  of  her  plays  for  children. 

Mr.  Walter  de  la  Mare,  the  well  known  English  poet,  is  the  author 
of  numerous  books  of  verse  for  adults  and  children;  and  his  Collected 
Poems — /po/-/p/<?  were  published  in  a  two-volume  edition  by  Henry 
Holt  &  Co.  in  1920. 

Mr.  Fenton  Johnson,  of  Chicago,  who  stands  facile  princeps  among 
living  poets  of  his  race,  is  the  author  of  three  small  privately  printed 
books  of  verse,  the  latest  being  Songs  of  the  Soil  (1916).  He  founded, 
and  edited  for  some  time  The  Champion,  a  magazine  for  Negroes,  and 
he  has  been  on  the  staff  of  The  Favorite  Magazine. 

[173] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Mr.  Emanuel  Carnevali,  of  Chicago,  has  contributed  verse  and  prose 
to  most  of  the  special  magazines,  but  has  not  yet  published  a  volume. 
In  1918  he  received  a  Young  Poet's  Prize  from  POETRY. 

Miss  Winifred  Waldron,  of  North  Glendale,  Cal.,  has  printed  poems 
in  various  magazines.  "Paul  Tanaquil"  is  a  pseudonym. 

Of  the  poets  who  have  not  hitherto  appeared  in  POETRY: 

Miss  Pearl  Andelson,  of  Chicago,  was  until  recently  a  member  of  the 
Poetry  Club  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  which  has  been  a  good  training- 
school  for  a  number  of  young  poets. 

Miss  Dorothy  Dow,  of  Winchester,  111.,  has  published  little  as  yet. 

Mr.  Laurence  Vail  lives  in  New  York. 

Ditto  Mr.  Henry  Saul  Zolinsky,  who,  although  only  seventeen,  has 
already  been  newsboy,  bell-boy,  office-boy,  electrician,  shoe-salesman 
and  ad-solicitor;  and  who  hopes  to  become  a  student  again  some  day 
and  finish  his  interrupted  course  at  college. 


BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Poems,  by  Claude  Colleer  Abbott.     Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford,  Eng. 
Missing  Links  and  Other  Things,  by  Thomas  F.  McCarthy.     Journal 

Publishing  Co.,  Devil's  Lake,  N.  D. 
A  Brochure  of  Verse,  by  Ralph  S.  Woodworth.     Privately  printed, 

Elkhart,  Ind. 
The  Infant  in  the  News-sheet:     An  Ode  Against  the  Age,  by  Herman 

George  Scheffauer.     Overseas  Pub.   Co.,  Hamburg,  Germany. 
Pagan  Love  Lyrics,  by  Alfred  Bryan.     Privately  printed. 
Little  Visits,  by  Raymond  E.  Manchester.     F.  W.  Orth  Co.,  Cuyahoga 

Falls,  O. 
Memorial   Poems,    by    Henry    Polk    Lowenstein.     Privately    printed, 

Kansas  City. 

Every  Day  Poems,  by  George  Elliston.     Stewart  Kidd  Co.,  Cincinnati. 
Golden  Mud,  by  Glenn  M.  Coleman.     Privately  printed,  Mt.  Vernon,  la. 
Scattered  Leaves,   (3rd  ed.),  by  Edward  C.  Wentworth.     The  Book- 
fellows,  Chicago. 
Shadows,  by  Susan  Baker.     Privately  printed,  Chicago. 

(Other  books  received  will  be  listed  next  month.) 

[174] 


Mr.  Ford  Madox  Hueffer,  the  distinguished  English  Poet,  novelist  and  critic,  wrote 
us  last  July: 

If  American  periodical  literature  has  today  a  little  peak,  a  little  group  of 
journals,  raising  it  to  the  level  of  the  best  of  European  cosmopolitanism,  or  at  any 
rate  in  that  direction,  it  is  because  you  and  your  small  paper  showed  how,  editor- 
ially and  economically,  it  could  be  done. 

Vol.  XIX  No.  IV 

POETRY  for  JANUARY,  1922 

PAGE 

The  Witch  of  Coos Robert  Frost  175 

Songs  of  Night Marjorie  Meeker  182 

Ode  to  Myself  Trying  to  Sleep — In  Darkness — By  a  Window 

— Song  for  a  May  Night — Color  of  Water — Lonely  Sky  and 

Sea — Comrades 

First  Snow Esther  Louise  Ruble  1 86 

Songs  of  the  Plains Glenn  Ward  Dresbach  187 

Two  Poems Grace  Fallow  Norton  190 

I  Shall  Remember — Shy  Perfect  Flower 

To  Sappho Julia  R.  Reynolds  191 

Irish  Song Helen  Coale  Crew  192 

On  the  Wing Dorothy  Keeley  193 

Four  Poems Ernest  Walsh  194 

I  Ask  for  a  Friend — Sonnet — The  Fickle  Lover — Collapse 

Tableaux Ellen  Margaret  Janson  196 

Scherzo — Tryst — Incense  Smoke — Night  in   the  City — The 

Unknown 

Poems William  Carlos  Williams  200 

Wild   Orchard — The   Lonely   Street — Spouts — The   Widow's 

Lament  in  Springtime 

The  Hope  of  Peace H.  M .  204 

Must  Art  Be  Interesting? Baker  Browne!/  206 

Reviews: 

A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore H.  M.  208 

A  Mystic  Warrior Dorothy  Dudley  216 

Mrs.  Wylie's  Poems H.  M.  220 

Thoughtful  Measures H.  M.  222 

Our  Contemporaries: 

New  International  Magazines 224 

Various  Prizes •     .  227 

Correspondence: 

A  Letter  from  Paris 228 

Notes  and  Books  Received .     232,  233 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self -ad  dressed  envelope. 

Inclusive  yearly  subscription  rates.  In  the  United  States,  Mexico,  Cuba  and 
American  possessions,  $3.00  net;  in  Canada,  $3.15  net;  in  all  other  countries  in  the 
Postal  Union,  $3.25  net.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  Nov.  15,  1912,  at  the 
post-office,  at  Chicago,  111.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879. 

Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copright  1921,  by  Harriet  Monroe.    All  rights  reserved. 


POETRY  asks  its  friends  to  become 
Supporting  Subscribers  by  paying 
ten  dollars  a  year  to  its  Fund.  The 
art  of  poetry  requires,  if  it  is  to 
advance,  not  only  special  sympathy 
from  a  discriminating  public,  but 
also  endowment  similar  to  that 
readily  granted  to  the  other  arts. 
All  who  believe  in  the  general  pur- 
pose and  policy  of  this  magazine, 
and  recognize  the  need  and  value 
of  such  an  organ  of  the  art,  are  in- 
vited  to  assist  thus  in  maintaining 
it. 


VOL.  XIX 
No.  IV 
A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


JANUARY  1922 


THE  WITCH  OF  COOS 

Circa  1922 

I  STAID  the  night  for  shelter  at  a  farm 
Behind  the  mountain,  with  a  mother  and  son, 
Two  old-believers.    They  did  all  the  talking. 

The  Mother 

Folks  think  a  witch  who  has  familiar  spirits 
She  could  call  up  to  pass  a  winter  evening, 
But  won'fy  should  be  burned  at  the  stake  or  something. 
Summoning  spirits  isn't  "Button,  button, 
Who's  got  the  button,"  you're  to  understand. 

The  Son 

Mother  can  make  a  common  table  rear 
And  kick  with  two  legs  like  an  army  mule. 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  Mother 

And  when  I've  done  it,  what  good  have  I  done? 
Rather  than  tip  a  table  for  you,  let  me 
Tell  you  what  Ralle  the  Sioux  Control  once  told  me. 
He  said  the  dead  had  souls,  but  when  I  asked  him 
How  that  could  be — I  thought  the  dead  were  souls, 
He  broke  my  trance.     Don't  that  make  you  suspicious 
That  there's  something  the  dead  are  keeping  back? 
Yes,  there's  something  the  dead  are  keeping  back. 

The  Son 

You  wouldn't  want  to  tell  him  what  we  have 
Up  attic,  mother? 

The  Mother 

Bones — a  skeleton. 

The  Son 

But  the  headboard  of  mother's  bed  is  pushed 
Against  the  attic  door:  the  door  is  nailed. 
It's  harmless.     Mother  hears  it  in  the  night 
Halting  perplexed  behind  the  barrier 
Of  door  and  headboard.    Where  it  wants  to  get 
Is  back  into  the  cellar  where  it  came  from. 

The  Mother 
We'll  never  let  them,  will  we,  son?    We'll  never! 

The  Son 

It  left  the  cellar  forty  years  ago 
And  carried  itself  like  a  pile  of  dishes 
Up  one  flight  from  the  cellar  to  the  kitchen, 
Another  from  the  kitchen  to  the  bedroom, 

[176] 


Robert  Frost 

Another  from  the  bedroom  to  the  attic, 

Right  past  both  father  and  mother,  and  neither  stopped 

it. 

Father  had  gone  upstairs;  mother  was  downstairs. 
I  was  a  baby:  I  don't  know  where  I  was. 
The  Mother 

The  only  fault  my  husband  found  with  me — 
I  went  to  sleep  before  I  went  to  bed, 
Especially  in  winter  when  the  bed 
Might  just  as  well  be  ice  and  the  clothes  snow. 
The  night  the  bones  came  up  the  cellar-stairs 
Toffile  had  gone  to  bed  alone  and  left  me, 
But  left  an  open  door  to  cool  the  room  off 
So  as  to  sort  of  turn  me  out  of  it. 
I  was  just  coming  to  myself  enough 
To  wonder  where  the  cold  was  coming  from, 
When  I  heard  Toffile  upstairs  in  the  bedroom 
And  thought  I  heard  him  downstairs  in  the  cellar. 
The  board  we  had  laid  down  to  walk  dry-shod  on 
When  there  was  water  in  the  cellar  in  spring 
Struck  the  hard  cellar  bottom.    And  then  someone 
Began  the  stairs,  two  footsteps  for  each  step, 
The  way  a  man  with  one  leg  and  a  crutch, 
Or  little  child,  comes  up.     It  wasn't  Toffile: 
It  wasn't  anyone  who  could  be  there. 
The  bulkhead  double-doors  were  double-locked 
And  swollen  tight  and  buried  under  snow. 
The  cellar  windows  were  banked  up  with  sawdust 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  swollen  tight  and  buried  under  snow. 

It  was  the  bones.     I  knew  them — and  good  reason. 

My  first  impulse  was  to  get  to  the  knob 

And  hold  the  door.     But  the  bones  didn't  try 

The  door;  they  halted  helpless  on  the  landing, 

Waiting  for  things  to  happen  in  their  favor. 

The  faintest  restless  rustling  ran  all  through  them. 

I  never  could  have  done  the  thing  I  did 

If  the  wish  hadn't  been  too  strong  in  me 

To  see  how  they  were  mounted  for  this  walk. 

I  had  a  vision  of  them  put  together 

Not  like  a  man,  but  like  a  chandelier. 

So  suddenly  I  flung  the  door  wide  on  him. 

A  moment  he  stood  balancing  with  emotion, 

And  all  but  lost  himself.     (A  tongue  of  fire 

Flashed  out  and  licked  along  his  upper  teeth. 

Smoke  rolled  inside  the  sockets  of  his  eyes.) 

Then  he  came  at  me  with  one  hand  outstretched, 

The  way  he  did  in  life  once;  but  this  time 

I  struck  the  hand  off  brittle  on  the  floor, 

And  fell  back  from  him  on  the  floor  myself. 

The  finger-pieces  slid  in  all  directions. 

(Where  did  I  see  one  of  those  pieces  lately? 

Hand  me  my  button-box — it  must  be  there.) 

I  sat  up  on  the  floor  and  shouted,  "Toflile, 
It's  coming  up  to  you."     It  had  its  choice 
Of  the  door  to  the  cellar  or  the  hall. 


Robert  Frost 

It  took  the  hall  door  for  the  novelty, 

And  set  off  briskly  for  so  slow  a  thing, 

Still  going  every  which  way  in  the  joints,  though, 

So  that  it  looked  like  lightning  or  a  scribble, 

From  the  slap  I  had  just  now  given  its  hand. 

I  listened  till  it  almost  climbed  the  stairs 

From  the  hall  to  the  only  finished  bedroom, 

Before  I  got  up  to  do  anything; 

Then  ran  and  shouted,  "Shut  the  bedroom  door, 

Toffile,  for  my  sake!"    "Company,"  he  said, 

"Don't  make  me  get  up;  I'm  too  warm  in  bed." 

So  lying  forward  weakly  on  the  handrail 

I  pushed  myself  upstairs,  and  in  the  light 

(The  kitchen  had  been  dark)  I  had  to  own 

I  could  see  nothing.    "Toffile,  I  don't  see  it. 

It's  with  us  in  the  room,  though.     It's  the  bones." 

"  What  bones ? "    "The  cellar  bones — out  of  the  grave." 

That  made  him  throw  his  bare  legs  out  of  bed 

And  sit  up  by  me  and  take  hold  of  me. 

I  wanted  to  put  out  the  light  and  see 

If  I  could  see  it,  or  else  mow  the  room, 

With  our  arms  at  the  level  of  our  knees, 

And  bring  the  chalk-pile  down.    "I'll  tell  you  what — 

It's  looking  for  another  door  to  try. 

The  uncommonly  deep  snow  has  made  him  think 

Of  his  old  song,  The  Wild  Colonial  Boy, 

He  always  used  to  sing  along  the  tote-road. 

[179] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

He's  after  an  open  door  to  get  out-doors. 
Let's  trap  him  with  an  open  door  up  attic." 
Toffile  agreed  to  that,  and  sure  enough, 
Almost  the  moment  he  was  given  an  opening, 
The  steps  began  to  climb  the  attic  stairs. 
I  heard  them.    Toffile  didn't  seem  to  hear  them. 
"Quick!"     I  slammed  to  the  door  and  held  the  knob. 
"Toffile,  get  nails."    I  made  him  nail  the  door  shut, 
And  push  the  headboard  of  the  bed  against  it. 

Then  we  asked  was  there  anything 

Up  attic  that  we'd  ever  want  again. 

The  attic  was  less  to  us  than  the  cellar. 

If  the  bones  liked  the  attic,  let  them  like  it, 

Let  them  stay  in  the  attic.    When  they  sometimes 

Come  down  the  stairs  at  night  and  stand  perplexed 

Behind  the  door  and  headboard  of  the  bed, 

Brushing  their  chalky  skull  with  chalky  fingers, 

With  sounds  like  the  dry  rattling  of  a  shutter, 

That's  what  I  sit  up  in  the  dark  to  say — 

To  no  one  any  more  since  Toffile  died. 

Let  them  stay  in  the  attic  since  they  went  there. 

I  promised  Toffile  to  be  cruel  to  them 

For  helping  them  be  cruel  once  to  him. 

The  Son 
We  think  they  had  a  grave  down  in  the  cellar. 

The  Mother 
We  know  they  had  a  grave  down  in  the  cellar. 

[180] 


Robert  Frost 

The  Son 

We  never  could  find  out  whose  bones  they  were. 
The  Mother 

Yes,  we  could  too,  son.     Tell  the  truth  for  once. 

They  were  a  man's  his  father  killed  for  me. 

I  mean  a  man  he  killed  instead  of  me. 

The  least  I  could  do  was  help  dig  their  grave. 

We  were  about  it  one  night  in  the  ce  lar. 

Son  knows  the  story:  but  'twas  not  for  him 

To  tell  the  truth,  suppose  the  time  had  come. 

Son  looks  surprised  to  see  me  end  a  lie 

We'd  kept  up  all  these  years  between  ourselves 

So  as  to  have  it  ready  for  outsiders. 

But  tonight  I  don't  care  enough  to  lie — 

I  don't  remember  why  I  ever  cared. 

Toffile,  if  he  were  here,  I  don't  believe 

Could  tell  you  why  he  ever  cared  himself.  .  .  . 

She  hadn't  found  the  finger-bone  she  wanted 
Among  the  buttons  poured  out  in  her  lap. 

I  verified  the  name  next  morning:  Toffile. 
The  rural  letter-box  said  Toffile  Barre. 

Robert  Frost 


[181] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
SONGS  OF  NIGHT 

ODE    TO    MYSELF   TRYING   TO    SLEEP 

Draw  in  the  threads  of  thought — 

Each  delicate  filament, 

Reaching  into  too  many  places, 

Finding  forgotten  faces  .  .  . 

Draw  in  the  long  twisting  thoughts  you  have  sent. 

Strange,  that  you  lie  here  wondering 

About  things  that  don't  matter; 

Strange,  that  you  lie  here  pondering  .  .  . 

And  outside,  the  raindrops  patter, 

A  fog  is  on  the  town, 

And  over  the  river 

The  drenched  lights  cross  and  quiver, 

And  the  far  harsh  rumble  of  trams  goes  up  and  down. 

Once,  like  a  wind,  beauty  swept  through  you; 

Once,  like  a  small  song  that  sings  and  sings, 

Happiness  crept  through  you; 

Once,  love  seemed  the  reason  for  things; 

And  once  you  thought 

Peace  had  come  upon  you  .  .  . 

And  then  all  came  to  naught. 

Draw  in  the  threads  of  thought — 
Each  delicate  filament, 

[182] 


Marjorie  Meeker 

Quivering  and  bright; 

Draw  in  the  long  twisting  thoughts  you  have  sent. 

Cast  all  the  tangled  old  dreaming  and  groping 

To  the  still,  deep, 

Strange  heart  of  Night 

(Gentle  forever  to  all  grieving  and  hoping) — 

And  sleep. 

IN    DARKNESS 

Deep  in  the  heart  of  darkness  I  am  lying, 

Alone  and  still; 
And  all  the  winds  of  darkness  and  of  silence 

Work  their  will, 

Blowing  about  me  through  the  awful  spaces 

Of  night  and  death; 
Nor  all  immensity  can  touch  or  thrill  me 

To  thought  or  breath. 

Deep  in  the  heart  of  darkness  I  am  dreaming, 

Quiet,  alone, 
Careless  alike  of  tender  words  or  cruel — 

Even  your  own. 

BY    A    WINDOW 

The  owl  and  the  bat 
Are  alone  in  the  night — 

[183] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

What  are  they  at 

By  the  dead  moon's  light? 
Hush!    How  the  wings  of  the  black  bat  whir! 
(Oh  hush,  for  the  sleepers  moan  and  stir!) 

The  moon  is  bleak, 

Like  a  monk  in  a  cowl  .  .  . 
What  do  they  seek, 

The  bat  and  the  owl? 
What  danger  brews  in  the  night,  what  sin? 
(But  hush,  for  the  sleepers  dream  within.) 


SONG    FOR    A    MAY    NIGHT 

Heigho! 

Many  mysterious  things  I  know! 

I  know  why  the  moon  is  like  a  moth — 

Do  you? 
I  know  why  stars  are  many,  and  suns 

Are  few. 

I  know  a  place  where  a  star  fell  down, 
And  made  a  hole  in  the  middle  of  town, 
And  all  the  people  jumped  in.     And  so — 

Heigho ! 

Other  mysterious  things  I  know! 


Marjorie  Meeker 


COLOR    OF    WATER 

You  will  be  the  color  of  water; 

Your  voice  will  be  like  the  wind; 
You  will  go  where  the  dust  goes; 

None  will  know  you  have  sinned. 

None  will  know  you  are  quiet, 
Or  fluent,  or  bound,  or  free; 

None  will  care  you  are  nothing; 
You  will  be  nothing  to  me. 

Except  a  scarlet  remembrance  .  .  . 

As  if,  in  a  dream  of  pride, 
A  poppy  had  flaunted  her  petals 

One  day  to  the  sun,  and  died. 


LONELY    SKY   AND    SEA 

O  lonely,  lonely  sky  and  sea — 

Where  time  is  a  wind  that  plays  between, 
Blowing  the  colored  centuries  by, 

Tiny  tragedies,  quaint  and  mean — 

Why  are  you  waiting?     What  have  you  heard? 

What  majestic  thing  have  you  known, 
That  you  watch  each  other,  listening, 

So  long,  so  long  alone? 

[185] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

COMRADES 

Time  sweeps  through  me  like  a  wind; 

Space  engulfs  me  like  a  sea. 
Time  and  Space  are  at  me  always— 

They  will  not  let  me  be. 

•I  am  weary,  weary  with  years, 

Troubled  by  immensity. 
With  eternities  around  me, 

How  can  I  be  free? 

Marjorie  Meeker 


FIRST  SNOW 

The  night  was  hiding  a  secret 

When  it  stole 

Through  the  red  gates  of  sunset, 

Coming  so  silently. 

We  heard  it  whispering 

To  the  bare  trees. 

And  while  we  wondered, 

The  white  souls  of  the  autumn  leaves 

Came  softly  back, 

Drifting,  drifting. 

Esther  Louise  Ruble 

[186] 


SONGS  OF  THE  PLAINS 


There's  no  hiding  here  in  the  glare  of  the  desert- 
If  your  coat  is  sham  the  sun  shines  through. 

Here  with  the  lonely  things  and  the  silence 
There  is  no  crowd  for  saving  you. 

When  hearts  love  here  the  love  lasts  longer, 
And  hate  leaves  here  a  heavy  scar. 

But  we,  with  the  desert's  beauty  of  distance, 
Are  always  dreaming  of  places  far! 

If  you  have  come  to  start  a  kingdom — 
Our  eyes  have  looked  on  Rome  and  Tyre ! 

But  if  you  come  with  dreams  for  baggage, 
Sit  with  us  by  the  cedar  fire! 

ii 

The  sultry  sudden  darkness, 

Like  some  black  mantle  thrown 
From  shoulders  of  a  giant 

On  children  left  alone, 
Falls  over  us;  and,  stilled  with  fear, 
In  dark  we  see,  in  silence  hear! 

Then  rain ! — a  sudden  pounding 
Of  unformed  maddened  things, 

[187] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Pounding,  splashing — stubborn 

As  vultures'  heavy  wings 
That  pound  the  air,  too  sure  to  hate, 
In  hunger,  and  move  low,  and  wait! 


in 

Four  old  trees  stand  tall  on  a  hill. 
Wind  swirls  around  them,  never  still; 
And  their  heads  together  bow  and  sway 
As  if  in  talk  of  a  game  they  play. 
Sometimes  they  laugh  and  sometimes  sigh; 
And  there  beneath  a  low  gray  sky 
I've  seen  them  drop  their  leaves  when  thins 
The  gold  and  crimson,  as  near  dawn 
Wise  gamblers  drop  their  cards  upon 
The  table,  saying  kindly,  "Why 
Quarrel  with  a  game  that  no  one  wins!" 


IV 

The  wood  was  so  old  that  I  thought 

I'd  hear  it  saying  its  prayers 
In  the  aisles  like  cloisters  wrought; 

But  I  came  on  it,  unawares, 
Chuckling — like  old  men  mellow  grown — 
Talking  of  youth  on  a  hill  alone ! 

[188] 


Glenn  Ward  Dresbach 


The  birds  love  you  too, 

Calling,  "Sweet,  sweet,  sweet !" 
In  the  windy  lane 

Where  the  tree-tops  meet. 

But  I  love  you  best, 

Since  my  lips  let  pass 
No  song  lest  I  miss 

Your  steps  on  the  grass. 


VI 

I'll  go  where  willows  quicken 

Their  dances  in  the  glow 
Of  morning,  and  the  wild  brooks 

Make  music  down  below; 
For  I  am  weary  seeking 

The  things  I  may  not  know. 

And  I  shall  feel  the  silver 

Of  willow  leaves,  and  hold 
A  drop  of  water  winking 

With  rainbows  yet  unsold. 
What  more  may  all  the  world  find 

Now  all  its  dreams  are  old! 

Glenn  Ward  Dresbach 

[189] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of     Verse 
TWO  POEMS 

I    SHALL    REMEMBER 

Open  to  me  the  door  of  heaven 

For  an  hour,  an  hour! 
Let  me  pace  the  floor  of  heaven, 

Let  me  pluck  one  flower! 

Forever  and  forever  heaven 

Will  live  upon  my  lips. 
I  shall  remember.     Never  heaven 

Shall  fail  my  seeking  ships. 

I  shall  be  shod  and  swathed  with  heaven- 

Ah,  the  blue  filmy  veil — 
Because  for  an  hour  I  bathed  in  heaven 

Whose  winds  hurt  and  heal. 

I  shall  remember.     Songs  of  heaven, 

I  shall  sing  them  still; 
Like  the  silver  throngs  of  heaven 

I  shall  have  heaven's  will. 

So  open  to  me  the  door  of  heaven 

For  an  hour,  an  hour! 
Let  me  breathe  the  air  of  heaven, 

Let  me  pluck  one  flower! 

[190] 


Grace  Fallow  Norton 


SHY    PERFECT    FLOWER 

Shy  perfect  pearl-white  flower,  blooming  alone 

In  northern  woods  where  snow  has  sown 

Its  myriad  seed — shy  perfect  flower, 

Fragrant,  alone — 

Your  dark  leaves  cluster  close  to  hide  you  the  more. 

I  part  them  and  remember  bright  poppies  on  the  plain. 

They  run  in  the  wind,  a  ragged  gypsy  train; 

They  fling  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  golden  grain — 

When  it  is  slain  they  too  are  slain. 

Their  life  is  a  cry!    Their  life  is  a  sudden  scarlet  stain! 

Their  dream-dark  seeds  have  fearful  power. 

And  you,  shy  perfect  pearl-white  flower? 

Grace  Fallow  Norton 


TO  SAPPHO 

Torn  fragments  of  your  woven  words  I  read; 
And  less  their  throbbing  cry  has  power  to  stir 
My  passion  than  to  soothe  me  to  strange  peace, 
Remembering  the  long  silence  fallen  on  you. 

Julia  R.  Reynolds 

[191] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
IRISH  SONG 

Where  the  highway  steps  along 

(In  Donegal,  in  Donegal!) 

I  gave  my  feet  the  choice  o'  way,  wherever  they  would 

roam. 
They   might    have   marched    to    Londonderry,    Belfast, 

Dublin  .  .  . 
The  foolish,  eager  feet  o*  me,  they  marched  straight  home ! 

The  little  gown  o*  blue  you  wore 

(In  Donegal,  in  Donegal!) 

Cried  out  to  me,  Come  in!   Come  in!    Your  apron  it  said, 

Stay! 

The  tying  o'  the  plaid  shawl  across  the  warm  heart  o'  you 
Tied  in-along  the  heart  o'  me — I  couldn't  get  away. 

I  took  off  my  wander-shoes, 

(In  Donegal,  in  Donegal!) 

The  highway  stepped  along  alone,  until  it  slipped  from 

view. 

I  laid  aside  my  dusty  dreams,  hung  up  my  ragged  lifetime, 
And  rested  feet  and  heart  o'  me  before  the  sight  o'  you! 

Helen  Coale  C  -ew 


[192] 


ON  THE  WING 

A  wind  that  blows  from  the  sea,  and  smells 

Of  spring  and  fall  together, 
Runs  racing  up  the  yellow  fields 

Into  the  autumn  weather. 

And  I  run  too,  for  I  am  young 

And  breathless  with  all  living — 
The  trees  are  shouting  as  we  pass, 

The  asters  singing  in  the  grass. 

In  half  an  hundred  years  from  now, 

When  all  my  songs  are  sung, 
I'll  not  be  old  and  crossly  sage, 
I'll  love  the  bright  hill  of  my  age 

Under  its  winter  sun, 
And  wave  the  gayest  hand  I  know 

To  everything  that's  young. 

Dorothy  Keeley 


[193] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
FOUR  POEMS 

I   ASK    FOR   A    FRIEND 

I  ask  a  girl,  for  a  friend — a  playmate 

Full  of  May-blown  dreams;  and  lilac  in  her  hair; 

With  boyish  ankles,  intimately  strange 

And  hands  forever  busy  with  applause; 

And  mothering,  lash-screened,  virgin  eyes; 

And  a  slim-breasted  body  made  of  joy. 

Her  coming  would  mean  spring  to  my  heart; 
We'd  give  our  souls  a  holiday,  cut  loose, 
Arrange  a  rendezvous  with  Love  somewhere — 
And  forget  to  keep  it,  being  good  friends. 

I  ask  a  girl,  for  a  friend — a  playmate 

Full  of  May-blown  dreams;  and  lilac  in  her  hair. 

SONNET 

When  Love  unveiled  her  body  to  my  sight 
And  in  my  heart  a  strange  unquiet  grew, 
As  soft  winds  stir  the  bosom  of  the  night 
And,  after,  spill  their  tears  as  drops  of  dew — 
When  first  Love  laid  aside  her  woven  dress 
Of  silken-tissued  dreams  and  scented  stuff, 
And  fastened  my  young  eyes  with  loveliness 
Until  I  thought  one  world  was  scarce  enough 
To  hold  such  utter  happiness  and  pain — 

[194] 


Ernest  Walsh 

I  begged  the  god  of  love  to  strike  me  blind, 
And  seal  Love's  image  up  within  my  brain, 
Queen  of  my  thoughts  the  kingdom  of  my  Mind! 
But  when  I  took  Love's  body  to  my  breast, 
Her  lips  were  bitter,  and  her  face  a  jest. 

THE    FICKLE    LOVER 

I  have  made  Life  my  mistress;  built  temples 
Of  song  to  her  in  my  heart;  paraded 
Before  her  enemy,  Death.    And  smiling, 
Have  kissed  Life  before  Death's  envious  eyes; 
Proud  in  my  lust,  gay  in  my  strength,  love-wise. 

But  often  in  my  dreams  I've  wished  to  touch 
The  cool  sophisticated  lips  of  Death. 

COLLAPSE 

As  an  old  tree  bent  by  ages  of  winds, 
So  I  am  tired; 

As  an  oak-leaf  blown  out  upon  the  sea, 
I  am  lonely; 

As  a  storm-conceived  adventurous  wave 
Divides  before  its  thousand  lonely  deaths 
On  alien  shores, 

My  life  shall  end. 

Ernest  Walsh 

[195] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
TABLEAUX 

SCHERZO 

My  soul  is  a  dancer — 

A  dancer  under  shimmering  willows  in  the  sunlight. 

The  wind  draws  a  bow  across  his  violin. 

He  plays  a  scherzo — 

Rippling  notes  on  strings  of  silver. 

Play  faster,  wind! 

My  feet  are  more  swift  than  the  leaves  of  the  willow- 
Shimmering,  shimmering — 
Amber  shadows  in  the  sunlight. 
My  feet  are  more  swift  than  the  laughter  of  waters. 
Play  faster,  wind! 

TRYST 

I  will  wear  my  gown  of  dusk-blue  silk, 

And  in  my  hair 

A  crescent  moon,  curved  like  a  petal. 

From  the  rim  of  the  shadowy  pool 
I  will  pluck  an  iris — 
Dusk-blue,  shading  to  purple, 
Faint-scented  as  the  breath  of  sandalwood. 

Softly 

I  will  come  through  the  drooping  willows. 

[196] 


Ellen  Margaret  Janson 

The  leaves  will  catch  at  my  gown, 

Dusk-blue 

In  the  purple  shadows. 

The  grasses  will  whisper,  sighing, 

As  if  they  knew. 

Down  at  the  wall 

I  will  wait  alone  in  the  darkness; 

And  close  my  eyes, 

Dreaming  that  I  hear  your  voice. 

INCENSE    SMOKE 

One  stick  I  lit  in  the  bronzen  image. 

The  smoke  curls  upward — lazily — between  his  lips; 

Ivory,  and  the  frail  blue  of  shadows. 

The  image  is  speaking — 

Words  of  lazy  dream-blue  smoke 

Carved  like  ivory: 

"Do  you  remember? — 

The  priests  wore  dragons,  great  jeweled  dragons  on  their 

robes. 

They  sang  dreamily 
To  the  god  of  the  dim  temple — 
Chanting,  chanting 

Through  the  twisted  smoke  of  incense. 
But  the  god  did  not  stir. 
His  eyes  were  like  opals,  veiled  with  lost  mystery!" 

[197] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  smoke  curls  upward — drowsily — 

Between  his  lips; 

Mist-gray,  and  the  amber  of  shadows. 

The  image  is  speaking. 

Words  of  dim  gray-gold  smoke 

Graven  like  amber: 

"Do  you  remember 

The  offering  you  burned  alone  at  dawn 

To  one  who  did  not  answer? 

Across  the  ashes 

You  saw  the  sea-mist  rising — rising — 

Like  the  smoke  of  incense, 

And  cried  out  with  the  pain  in  your  heart." 

The  smoke  curls  upward — dreamily — 

Between  his  lips; 

Ivory,  and  the  lost  blue  of  shadows. 

NIGHT   IN    THE    CITY 

/ 

I  hear  them  pass  by  the  wall  of  my  garden — 

The  swift  whisper  of  silk, 

And  laughter — 

Tinkling  like  the  wind-bells  on  the  shadowy  terrace, 

Tinkling  and  calling. 

Their  lanterns  form  a  necklace 
Of  gems, 


Ellen  Margaret  Janson 

Low-strung  across  the  dusk. 

Their  laughter  dies  away  past  the  wall  of  my  garden. 

In  the  willow 

The  echo  lingers — 

The  echo  of  laughter,  failing 

Into  sudden  weariness. 

THE    UNKNOWN  i 

I  am  the  stir  of  garments  that  you  heard 

Pass  by  you  in  the  wood. 
I  am  the  lips  that  smile,  but  speak  no  word 

For  evil  or  for  good. 

I  am  the  voice  that  whispered  in  the  long 

Sweet  twilights  of  the  spring. 
I  am  the  haunting  music  of  the  song 

I  would  not  let  you  sing. 

I  am  the  finger  beckoning  in  the  street; 

The  strife,  and  the  reward; 
The  quivering  joy  that  stabbed  you  with  its  sweet 

Sharper  than  any  sword. 

I  am  the  dream  that  shines — a  light  apart, 

When  other  lights  are  spent. 
I  am  the  pain  that  grips  and  breaks  your  heart 

To  save  it  from  content! 

Ellen  Margaret  Janson 

[199] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
POEMS 

WILD    ORCHARD 

It  is  a  broken  country, 
the  rugged  land  is 
green  from  end  to  end; 
the  autumn  has  not  come. 

Embanked  above  the  orchard 
the  hillside  is  a  wall 
of  motionless  green  trees, 
the  grass  is  green  and  red. 

Five  days  the  bare  sky 
has  stood  there  day  and  night. 
No  bird,  no  sound. 
Between  the  trees 

stillness 

and  the  early  morning  light. 

The  apple  trees 

are  laden  down  with  fruit. 

Among  blue  leaves 
the  apples  green  and  red 
upon  one  tree  stand  out 
most  enshrined. 

Still,  ripe,  heavy, 
spherical  and  close, 

[200] 


William  Carlos  Williams 


they  mark  the  hillside. 
It  is  a  formal  grandeur, 

a  stateliness, 
a  signal  of  finality 
and  perfect  ease. 
Among  the  savage 

aristocracy  of  rocks 
one,  risen  as  a  tree, 
has  turned 
from  his  repose. 

THE    LONELY    STREET 

School  is  over.     It  is  too  hot 

to  walk  at  ease.     At  ease 

in  light  frocks  they  walk  the  streets 

to  while  the  time  away. 

They  have  grown  tall.    They  hold 

pink  flames  in  their  right  hands. 

In  white  from  head  to  foot, 

with  sidelong,  idle  look — 

in  yellow,  floating  stuff, 

black  sash  and  stockings — 

touching  their  avid  mouths 

with  pink  sugar  on  a  stick — 

like  a  carnation  each  holds  in  her  hand- 

they  mount  the  lonely  street. 

[201] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

SPOUTS 

In  this  world  of 

as  fine  a  pair  of  breasts 

as  ever  I  saw, 

the  fountain  in 

Madison  Square 

spouts  up  of  water 

a  white  tree, 

that  dies  and  lives 

as  the  rocking  water 

in  the  basin 

turns  from  the  stone  rim 

back  upon  the  jet 

and  rising  there 

reflectively  drops  down  again. 

THE    WIDOW'S    LAMENT   IN    SPRINGTIME 

Sorrow  is  my  own  yard 

where  the  new  grass 

flames  as  it  has  flamed 

often  before,  but  not 

with  the  cold  fire 

that  closes  round  me  this  year. 

Thirty-five  years 

I  lived  with  my  husband. 

[202] 


William  Carlos  Williams 

The  plum  tree  is  white  today 

with  masses  of  flowers. 

Masses  of  flowers 

load  the  cherry  branches 

and  color  some  bushes 

yellow  and  some  red, 

but  the  grief  in  my  heart 

is  stronger  than  they, 

for  though  they  were  my  joy 

formerly,  today  I  notice  them 

and  turn  away  forgetting. 

Today  my  son  told  me 

that  in  the  meadows, 

at  the  edge  of  the  heavy  woods 

in  the  distance,  he  saw 

trees  of  white  flowers. 

I  feel  that  I  would  like 

to  go  there 

and  fall  into  those  flowers 

and  sink  into  the  marsh  near  them. 

William  Carlos  Williams 


[203] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 


THE    HOPE    OF    PEACE 

ALL   the  movements  of  the  day — all  the  isms  and 
schools  and  drives — fade  into  insignificance  compared 
with  the  movement  to  get  rid  of  war.    This  movement  is 
not  out  of  place  in  these  pages — in  fact,  it  is  immediately 
the  poet's  business. 

I  am  tempted  to  repeat  now  an  editorial  from  POETRY 
for  September,  1914.  In  the  first  white  heat  of  those 
terrible  first  battles,  I  wrote  this  page  on  The  Poetry  of 
War: 

Poets  have  made  more  wars  than  kings,  and  war  will  not  cease  until 
they  remove  its  glamour  from  the  imaginations  of  men. 

What  is  the  fundamental,  the  essential  and  psychological  cause  of 
war?  The  feeling  in  men's  hearts  that  it  is  beautiful.  And  who  have 
created  this  feeling?  Partly,  it  is  true,  kings  and  their  "armies  with 
banners";  but,  far  more,  poets  with  their  war-songs  and  epics,  sculptors 
with  their  statues — the  assembled  arts  which  have  taken  their  orders 
from  kings,  their  inspiration  from  battles.  Kings  and  artists  have 
united  to  give  to  war  its  glamour,  to  transmute  into  sounds  and  colors 
and  forms  of  beauty  its  savagery  and  horror,  to  give  heroic  appeal  to 
its  unreason,  a  heroic  excuse  to  its  rage  and  lust. 

All  this  is  of  the  past.  The  race  is  beginning  to  suspect  those  old 
ideals,  to  give  valor  a  wider  range  than  war  affords,  to  seek  danger  not 
at  the  cannon's  mouth  but  in  less  noisy  labors  and  adventures.  When 
Nicholas  of  Russia  and  William  of  Germany,  in  solemn  state  the  other 
day,  invoked  the  blessing  of  God  upon  their  armies,  the  emotion  that 
went  round  the  world  was  not  the  old  thrill,  but  a  new  sardonic  laughter. 

As  Cervantes  smiled  Spain's  chivalry  away,  so  some  poet  of  the  new 
era  may  strip  the  glamour  from  war.  Tolstoi's  War  and  Peace  and  many 
lesser  books  are  chapters  of  the  new  revelation,  and  modern  science, 

[204] 


The  Hope  of  Peace 

modern  invention,  have  aided  the  race  in  its  half-conscious  effort  to 
unveil  the  bitter  hideousness  of  the  war-god's  visage.  But  the  final 
word  has  not  been  said;  the  feeling  that  war  is  beautiful  still  lingers  in 
men's  hearts,  a  feeling  founded  on  world-old  savageries — love  of  power, 
of  torture,  of  murder,  love  of  big  stakes  in  a  big  game.  This  feeling  must 
be  destroyed,  as  it  was  created,  through  the  imagination.  It  is  work  for 
a  poet. 

There  will  be  a  new  poetry  of  war. 

The  time  for  that  poetry  is  now.  It  must  be  written  in 
peace,  for  when  war  begins  there  is  nothing  to  do  but 
fight.  War  is  no  more  inevitable  between  nations  than 
between  individuals:  as  duelling  was  outlawed  long  ago  in 
all  civilized  states,  and  its  elaborate  and  long-accepted 
code  of  honor  relegated  to  the  scrap-heap,  so  shall  war  be 
outlawed  by  the  assembled  nations  of  the  world,  and  its 
elaborate  and  long-accepted  code  of  international  law 
become  a  dusty  byword  of  history.  War  is  an  absurd 
anachronism  in  this  closely  connected  talking  and  trading 
world;  and  modern  science  has  made  it  an  anachronism 
poisonous  and  murderous  beyond  the  maddest  dreams  of 
the  darkest  devils  of  hell.  It  must  end  if  the  white  race 
is  to  preserve  its  numbers,  its  supremacy,  its  creative 
energy  and  power,  and  the  proud  fabrics  of  its  civilization. 

We  face  a  war  to  the  death  on  war,  and  none  can  afford 
to  be  a  slacker  in  it.  In  this  ultimate  war  the  deadliest 
weapon  is  the  germ  of  thought  in  human  brains.  Only 
the  poet  can  spawn  that  germ,  and  send  it  flying  forth 
by  invisible  millions  to  mature  in  the  minds  of  men. 
Cervantes  wrote  Don  Quixote,  and  suddenly  a  rotten 

[205] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

thing,  long  ready  for  death,  was  dead.  Let  some  poet — 
or  perhaps  a  number  of  poets  in  a  number  of  arts — stab 
with  laughter  or  scorch  with  tears  the  rotten  hulk  of  war, 
and  suddenly  the  world  will  know  that  war  is  dead. 

H.M. 

MUST   ART    BE    INTERESTING? 

Implicitly  all  interesting  things  have  beauty,  and  the 
most  interested  person  is  no  doubt  the  most  esthetic. 
Such  a  thesis  is  not  hard  to  support  on  the  ground  that 
interest  can  relate  only  to  things  of  immediate  worth  and 
beauty.  But  to  travel  from  this  rather  nervous  doctrine 
of  values  to  the  position  that  beauty  is  determined  by  the 
interest  it  arouses  is  another  and  more  complex  matter. 
Though  Ford  Madox  Hueffer  in  his  recent  Thus  to  Revisit 
reiterates  charmingly,  and  with  convincing  disregard  for 
the  logical  responsibilities  of  his  theme,  that  art  must  be 
interesting,  the  shadow  of  an  unsolved  problem  rather 
obscures  the  result.  He  rests  his  proposition,  it  is  true, 
on  human  impulse,  not  on  philosophical  consideration; 
but  the  question  is  not  easily  confined.  In  that  spec- 
ulative periphery  of  art  where  beauty  dissolves  into 
metaphysics  no  problem  is  more  persistent. 

As  a  weapon  against  the  absolutism  in  art  which  makes 
no  compromise  with  the  public  taste  the  book  will  be 
effective.  It  undermines  this  stern  and  puritan  dogma 
with  the  suggestion  that  final  values  in  art  as  well  as  in 
other  fields  of  human  experience  lie  after  all  in  human 

[206] 


Must  Art  be  Interesting? 

nature  itself.  It  abandons  the  rigorous  heaven  reserved 
by  the  absolutists  for  the  saved  few,  and  returns  frankly 
to  popular  interest  for  its  standard.  To  their  ascetic 
practice  in  casting  off  mundane  and  popular  interests  it 
can  oppose  the  Protagorean  formula,  "Man  is  the  measure 
of  all  things."  But  in  liberating  art  from  these  moralisms 
Mr.  Hueffer  imposes  another  moralism  in  his  repeated 
dictum,  "Art  must  be  interesting.'*  Why  after  all  must 
these  highly  complex  things,  art  and  interest,  always  be 
associated?  That  interesting  things,  as  a  matter  of 
descriptive  fact,  are  in  a  measure  beautiful  does  not  imply 
that  art,  as  a  matter  of  moral  or  artistic  imperative,  must 
be  interesting.  Mr.  Hueffer  rather  increases  than  dimin- 
ishes the  speculative  difficulties  and  enticements  of  the 
problem. 

Overburdened  beauty  carries  many  theories  on  its  back. 
All  of  them,  from  absolutist  to  pragmatist,  aim  in  some 
way  to  find  a  functional  value  of  beauty  in  the  social 
system.  The  mere  act  of  erecting  a  rational  theory  about 
it  indicates  an  effort  to  organize  beauty  into  a  system  of 
human  relationships.  There  remains  to  remark,  no  doubt, 
that  beauty  is  not  a  theory,  that  it  is  not  subject  to 
theorizing,  that  it  needs  and  possesses  no  justification  in 
the  social  order.  But  that  too  in  its  way  is  incorrect.  In 
this  field  rich  with  questions  Mr.  Hueffer's  interesting 
book  quite  appropriately  asks  what  it  cannot  answer. 

Baker -Browne!/ 


[207] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 
REVIEWS 

A    SYMPOSIUM    ON    MARIANNE    MOORE 

Poems,  by  Marianne  Moore.     Egoist  Press,  London. 

Such  contrary  opinions  of  this  provocative  little  pam- 
phlet have  reached  us  that  perhaps  the  most  suggestive 
review  will  be  a  more  or  less  questioning  rehearsal  of 
them.  Miss  Moore's  steely  and  recondite  art  has  long 
been  a  rallying-point  for  the  radicals.  Although  her  first 
appearance  was  in  POETRY — in  May,  1915,  most  of  the 
entries  in  these  twenty-four  closely  printed  pages  date 
from  Others  and  The  Egoist,  a  few  from  The  Dial  and 
Contact.  Rumor  has  hinted  that  the  selection  and  publica- 
tion were  made  by  certain  friends  of  the  author  without 
her  knowledge. 

If  one  were  to  accept  the  challenge  of  the  title,  and  of 
the  geometrical  verse-designs  which  frame  these  cryptic 
observations,  one  might  be  led  straight  to  the  ancient  and 
rather  futile  inquiry,  What  is  poetry?  Poetry  is  evidently 
a  matter  of  individual  definition.  H.  D.,  surely  a  critic 
of  authority,  calls  Miss  Moore  a  poet,  and  a  number  of 
young  radicals  are  eager  to  pronounce  her  "  a  very  great 
poet,"  as  Yvor  Winters  did  in  a  recent  letter.  "With  the 
exception  of  Wallace  Stevens,"  he  wrote,  "she  is  about 
the  only  person  since  Rimbaud  who  has  had  any  very 
profound  or  intricate  knowledge  and  command  of  sound; 
and  I  am  not  sure  but  I  think  her  about  the  best  poet  in 
this  country  except  for  Mr.  Stevens." 

[208] 


A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore 

A  more  moderate  admirer,  Miss  Winifred  Bryher,  sends 
us  the  following  estimate  from  England: 

This  volume  is  the  study  of  a  Marco  Polo  detained  at  home.  It  is 
the  fretting  of  a  wish  against  wish  until  the  self  is  drawn,  not  into  a 
world  of  air  and  adventure,  but  into  a  narrower  self,  patient,  dutiful  and 
precise.  Those  Various  Scalpels  is  sharper  than  a  diamond.  It  is  as 
brilliant  a  poem  as  any  written  of  late  years,  and  yet  it  is  but  a  play 
with  the  outside  of  substances  and  the  inside  of  thoughts  too  tired  to 
feel  emotion.  And  Dock  Rats  again,  or  England,  are  wrought  as  finely  as 
the  old  Egyptians  wrought  figures  from  an  inch-high  piece  of  emerald; 
but  they  lack  the  one  experience  of  life  for  which  life  was  created. 

The  temperament  behind  the  words  is  not  a  passive  one,  however 
much  environment  may  have  forced  meditation  upon  it  as  a  form  of 
"protective  coloration."  The  spirit  is  robust,  that  of  a  man  with  facts 
and  countries  to  discover  and  not  that  of  a  woman  sewing  at  tapestries. 
But  something  has  come  between  the  free  spirit  and  its  desire — a 
psychological  uneasiness  that  is  expressed  in  these  few  perfect  but  static 
studies  of  a  highly  evolved  intellect. 

Technically  it  is  a  triumphant  book.  There  are  scenes  which  are  a 
joy  to  remember;  the  shifting  color  of 

wade 

through  black  jade 

of  the  crow-blue  mussel  shells — 

And  the  vivid  beauty  of  The  Talisman: 

Under  a  splintered  mast, 
torn  from  ship  and  cast 
near  her  hull, 

a  stumbling  shepherd  found 
embedded  in  the  ground, 
a  sea-gull 

of  lapis  lazuli, 

a  scarab  of  the  sea, 

with  wings  spread — 

[209] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

curling  its  coral  feet, 
parting  its  beak  to  greet 
men  long  dead. 

Miss  Moore  has  preferred,  to  date,  to  express  simply  the  pictorial 
aspect  of  the  universe,  and  she  has  fulfilled  perfectly  each  self-imposed 
task.  Her  Poems  are  an  important  addition  to  American  literature,  to 
the  entire  literature  of  the  modern  world.  Only,  Marco  Polo,  your 
sword  is  ready  and  your  kingdoms  wait.  May  it  soon  please  you  to 
leave  the  fireside  and  ride  forth. 

But  Miss  Moore's  admirers  don't  have  it  all  their  own 
way.  Here  is  the  point  of  view  of  one  of  POETRY'S 
associate  editors,  Marion  Strobel: 

Even  a  gymnast  should  have  grace.  If  we  find  ourselves  one  of  an 
audience  in  a  side-show  we  prefer  to  see  the  well-muscled  lady  in  tights 
stand  on  her  head  smilingly,  with  a  certain  nonchalance,  rather  than 
grit  her  teeth,  perspire,  and  make  us  conscious  of  her  neck  muscles. 
Still,  we  would  rather  not  see  her  at  all. 

Just  so  we  would  rather  not  follow  the  contortions  of  Miss  Moore's 
well-developed  mind — she  makes  us  so  conscious  of  her  knowledge! 
And  because  we  are  conscious  that  she  has  brains,  that  she  is  exceedingly 
well-informed,  we  are  the  more  irritated  that  she  has  not  learned  to 
write  with  simplicity. 

The  subject-matter  of  her  poems  is  inevitably  dry;  the  manner  of 
expression  pedantic.  She  shouts  at  our  stupidity:  "Literature  is  a 
phase  of  life; "  "  Words  are  constructive  when  they  are  true — the  opaque 
allusion,  the  simulated  flight  upward,  accomplishes  nothing."  And  we 
yawn  back  at  Miss  Moore's  omniscience. 

And  another  poet-critic,  Pearl  Andelson,  says: 

Marianne  Moore  has  much  the  Emily  Dickinson  type  of  mind,  but 
where  Emily  Dickinson's  not  infrequent  obscurities  arise  out  of  an 
authentic  mysticism,  Marianne  Moore's  are  more  likely  the  result  of  a 
relentless  discipline  in  the  subtler  "ologies"  and  "osophies."  She  is 
brilliant  at  times  to  the  point  of  gaudiness,  although  one  feels  that  in 

[2IO] 


A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore 

her  brilliance  she  is  most  herself.  As  to  form,  the  fact  that  she  wavers 
between  prose  and  poetry  is  not  disguised  by  the  breath-taking  line- 
formation.  Indeed,  I  should  say  the  incongruous  effect  was  heightened, 
rather  than  diminished,  by  occasional  rhyming.  The  same,  for  the 
most  part,  may  be  said  of  content  as  of  form.  Such  poems  as  Picking 
and  Choosing  and  Poetry  are  hybrids  of  a  flagrantly  prose  origin. 

Well,  let  us  turn  to  the  book — without  prejudice  one 
way  or  the  other.  In  the  first  place,  the  lady  is  delight- 
fully independent;  she  says  in  Black  Earth: 

Openly,  yes, 

with  the  naturalness 

of  the  hippopotamus  or  the  alligator 

when  it  climbs  out  on  the  bank  to  experience  the 

sun,  I  do  these 

things  which  I  do,  which  please 

no  one  but  myself.     Now  I  breathe  and  now  I  am  sub- 
merged; the  blemishes  stand  up  and  shout  when  the  object 

in  view  was  a 

renaissance;  shall  I  say 

the  contrary?     The  sediment  of  the  river  which 
encrusts  my  joints  makes  me  very  gray,  but  I  am  used 

to  it,  it  may 

remain  there;  do  away 

with  it  and  I  am  myself  done  away  with,  for  the 
patina  of  circumstance  can  but  enrich  what  was 

there  to  begin 

with.     This  elephant  skin 

which  I  inhabit,  fibred  over  like  the  shell  of 

the  cocoanut,  this  piece  of  black  glass  through  which  no  light 

can  filter — cut 

into  checkers  by  rut 

upon  rut  of  unpreventable  experience — 

it  is  a  manual  for  the  peanut-tongued  and  the 

[211] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of     Verse 

hairy-toed.     Black 

but  beautiful,  my  back 

is  full  of  the  history  of  power,     Of  power?     What 
is  powerful  and  what  is  not?     My  soul  shall  never 

be  cut  into 

by  a  wooden  spear. 

And  so  on  for  about  forty  more  lines,  which  develop  and 
elaborate  the  elephantine  symbol,  and  then  drop  it,  as  it 
were,  in  mid-career,  with  a  quizzical  trunk-flourish.  As 
Black  Earth  is  admirably  representative  of  its  author's 
thought  and  style,  it  may  serve  as  the  text  for  a  few 
inquiries. 

Meditative  self-confession  is  no  novelty  in  English 
poetry — we  have  countless  examples  in  as  many  different 
patterns.  Hamlet's  soliloquies,  Gray's  Elegy,  Pope's  Essay 
on  Man,  Byron's  Childe  Harold,  Whitman's  Song  of 
Myself,  many  sonnets  by  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Keats  and 
other  supreme  sonneteers — these  are  but  a  few  of  the 
numerous  high  precedents  in  English  poetry  for  more  or 
less  imaginative  and  more  or  less  metrical  meditation. 
And  one  may  not  deny  imaginative  power  to  the  mind 
which  can  create  and  round  out  and  energize  so  effectively 
the  grotesque  image  which  appears  when  she  holds  up  the 
mirror  to  her  soul.  Neither  may  one  refuse  any  poet  the 
right  to  attempt  new  metrical  patterns;  since  only  through 
such  attempts  does  any  achievement  become  possible — 
any  enrichment  of  the  English  prosodic  scheme. 

So  it  remains  to  attempt  to  estimate  the  validity  of 
Miss  Moore's  processes  and  the  degree  of  her  achievement. 

[212] 


A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore 

Unquestionably  there  is  a  poet  within  the  hard,  deliber- 
ately patterned  crust  of  such  soliloquies  as  Black  Earth, 
Those  Various  Seal-pels,  Pedantic  Literalist,  Reinforce- 
ments— almost  any  of  these  titles — though  a  poet  too 
sternly  controlled  by  a  stiffly  geometrical  intellectuality. 
Miss  Moore  is  in  terror  of  her  Pegasus;  she  knows  of  what 
sentimental  excesses  that  unruly  steed  is  capable,  and  so 
her  ironic  mind  harnesses  down  his  wings  and  her  iron 
hand  holds  a  stiff  rein.  This  mood  yields  prose  oftener 
than  poetry,  but  it  wrings  out  now  and  then  the  reluctant 
beauty  of  a  grotesque,  or  even,  more  rarely,  such  a  lyric 
as  Talisman. 

No  amount  of  line-patterning  can  make  anything  but 
statement  and  argument  out  of  many  of  the  entries  in  this 
book — for  example,  Picking  and  Choosing,  which  begins: 

Literature  is  a  phase  of  life:  if 

one  is  afraid  of  it,  the  situation  is  irremediable;  if 
one  approaches  it  familiarly, 

what  one  says  of  it  is  worthless.    Words  are  constructive 
when  they  are  true;  the  opaque  illusion — the  simulated  flight 

upward — accomplishes  nothing.    Why  cloud  the  fact 

that  Shaw  is  self-conscious  in  the  field  of  sentiment  but  is  otherwise  re- 
warding? that  James  is  all  that  has  been 

said  of  him  but  is  not  profound?     It  is  not  Hardy 
the  distinguished  novelist  and  Hardy  the  poet,  but  one  man 

"interpreting  life  through  the  medium  of  the 
emotions." 

If  the  mood  instinctively  flouts  the  muse,  what  of  the 
method?  If  the  mood  may  rarely  yield  more  than  the 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

hard  reluctant  beauty  of  a  grotesque,  is  the  method 
inevitable  and  right,  fitting  words  musically,  magically  to 
the  motive,  as  in  all  the  masterpieces  of  the  art?  Well,  let 
me  confess  that  I  do  not  find  the  divine  shapeliness  and 
sound-richness  which  Mr.  Winters  referred  to  in  his 
letter.  What  I  do  find  in  certain  poems  is  a  brilliant  array 
of  subtly  discordant  harmonies  not  unlike  those  of  certain 
ultra-modern  composers,  set  forth  in  stanza-forms  purely 
empirical  even  when  emphasized  by  rhyme,  forms  which 
impose  themselves  arbitrarily  upon  word-structure  and 
sentence-structure  instead  of  accepting  happily  the 
limitations  of  the  art's  materials,  as  all  art  must.  When 
Miss  Moore  uses  the  first  syllable  of  accident  as  a  whole 
line  to  rhyme  with  tack,  or  the  article  a  as  a  line  to  rhyme 
with  the  end  of  Persia;  when  she  ends  a  stanza  in  a  split 
infinitive,  or  in  the  middle  of  the  swift  word  very — indeed, 
anywhere  in  the  middle  of  words  or  sentences,  she  is 
forcing  her  pattern  upon  materials  which  naturally  reject 
it,  she  is  giving  a  wry  twist  even  though  her  aim  is  a 
grotesque;  and  when  her  aim  is  more  serious,  such  verbal 
whimsicalities  strike  at  once  the  intensely  false  note  of 
affectation.  And  as  she  takes  her  own  way  in  these 
details  of  style,  so  she  gives  little  heed  to  the  more  general 
laws  of  shapeliness;  each  poem  begins  as  it  ends  and  ends 
as  it  begins — a  coruscating  succession  of  ideas,  with  little 
curve  of  growth  or  climax. 

What   I   do  find   throughout   this   book  is   wit  —  wit 
fundamental   and  instinctive  which  expresses  itself  not 


A  Symposium  on  Marianne  Moore 

only  in  words,  phrases,  rhymes,  rhythms,  but  in  ideas, 
emotions.  The  grim  and  haughty  humor  of  this  lady 
strikes  deep,  so  deep  as  to  absorb  her  dreams  and  possess 
her  soul.  She  feels  immense  incongruities,  and  the 
incongruity  of  her  little  ego  among  them  moves  her  art 
not  to  grandeur  but  to  scorn.  As  a  satirist  she  is  at  times 
almost  sublime — what  contrary  devil  balks  her  even  at 
those  moments,  tempting  her  art  to  its  most  inscrutable 
perversities  ? 

Youth  is  sometimes  penetrating  in  self-diagnosis.  I 
am  tempted  to  recall  the  first  poem  Miss  Moore  ever 
published — That  Harp  You  Play  So  Well,  from  the  1915 
group  in  POETRY: 

O  David,  if  I  had 

Your  power,  I  should  be  glad — 

In  harping,  with  the  sling, 

In  patient  reasoning! 

Blake,  Homer,  Job,  and  you, 
Have  made  old  wine-skins  new. 

Your  energies  have  wrought 

Stout  continents  of  thought. 

But,  David,  if  the  heart 
Be  brass,  what  boots  the  art 

Of  exorcising  wrong, 

Of  harping  to  a  song? 

The  sceptre  and  the  ring 

And  every  royal  thing 

Will  fail.     Grief's  lustiness 
Must  cure  the  harp's  distress. 

"If  the  heart  be  brass  .  .  .  every  royal  thing  will  fail." 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of     Verse 

It  is  not  this  reviewer  who  says  that,  or  invokes  for  this 
poet  "grief's  lustiness."  May  even  grief  soften  a  heart  of 
brass?  And  is  a  deep  resistless  humor  like  Miss  Moore's 
the  most  subtly  corrosive  destroyer  of  greatness? 

H.  M. 

A    MYSTIC    WARRIOR 

The  Mystic  Warrior >  by  James  Oppenheim.  A.A.Knopf. 
We  might  count  as  art  every  cross-country  flyer  cutting 
its  shriek  into  a  black  sky  or  a  blue  sky;  every  sky-scraper 
flinging  windows,  light,  smoke  into  an  incredulous  sky; 
every  unimpeachable  bath-room  trinity;  the  giant  torsos 
of  boilers  and  bellies  of  gas-tanks;  the  bird-like  or 
fish-like  aeroplane;  the  architecture  of  the  farm — silo, 
granary  and  barn;  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  fields  of 
grain  themselves,  the  vain  prodigal  orchards.  It  is  in 
the  air  to  do  this.  Out  of  such  industrial  shapes  men  are 
making  violent  tragic-comic  drama,  ruled  as  in  art  by  the 
mathematics  of  the  elements.  So  the  analogy  is  close 
and  tempting,  and  we  can  point  that  way  to  America  as 
rich  in  self-expression.  Or  we  may  follow  another  trend 
of  fashion — an  import  out  of  French  dadaism  or  a  mood 
synchronous  with  it — and  abandon  the  word  art  altogether 
as  an  obsolete  and  paupered  notion.  A  composer  of  genius 
was  recently  heard  to  bandy  the  idea  of  an  anti-art 
society,  where  he  said,  lightly  but  seriously,  any  artist  of 
consequence  belonged.  Ben  Hecht  in  his  first  work  of 
size  follows  his  apparently  biographic  hero  to  say  it  is  not 

[216] 


A  Mystic  Warrior 

"art"  he  wants,  "art  is  something  he  can  spit  out  in 
conversation."  In  a  foreword  to  an  exhibition  of  his 
photographs  Alfred  Stieglitz  formally  junks  the  word 
along  with  a  number  of  abstractions.  Yet  it  was  a  word 
concrete  enough  to  artists,  not  so  long  dead  either — 
Cezanne,  Degas,  Rodin,  Whistler — to  whom  the  living 
still  pay  homage. 

People  may  be  wiped  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  but  art  is. 

And  there  are  still  those  who  echo  this  as  a  hard  truth, 
in  whose  eyes  even  the  machine  has  been  unable  to  break 
the  essential  sequence  of  things.  They  have  need  of  this 
word  to  name  the  one  human  reality  running  so  close  to 
all  reality  as  to  far  outstrip  that  vanity,  self-expression; 
as  to  make  shapes  more  intentional,  more  delicate,  more 
potent  than  any  American  industry  has  yet  made.  In 
the  pages  of  The  Mystic  Warrior,  an  analysis  of  himself, 
James  Oppenheim  writes  himself  down  as  one  of  these. 
His  sense  of  the  relentless  absolutes  of  art,  his  denial  of 
himself  as  an  absolute,  instil  this  poem  with  a  deep 
candor,  a  kind  of  darkened  tranquillity — virtues  rare 
enough  today  to  mean  in  themselves  distinction: 

The  artist,  finally  the  artist? 

America  shuns  him,  cutting  herself  off  from  her  own  greatness: 

But  he  comes  nevertheless  ...  he  is  Walt  riding  on  top  a  bus,  and  Poe 

dreaming  of  stars  in  a  cottage  with  his  wife  dying, 
And  Emerson,  absent-minded,  minded  of  the  Oversoul,  in  Concord 

woods, 
And  Hawthorne  moody  in  sad  Puritanism, 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  Mark  Twain  smoking  cigars  in  bed,  sweating  and  groaning  over 

Huckleberry  Finn, 
And  giant-like  tearful  Dreiser,  and  Sandburg  sitting  in  a  newspaper 

office, 

And  Vachel  Lindsay  jazzing  in  Paradise  (or  is  it  Springfield,  Illinois?) 
And  Masters  among  all  souls  in  strange  Spoon  River. 

So  I  speak  for  the  artist  .  .  . 

But  also  I  speak  for  the  multitude  like  myself,  with  equal  struggles  and 

the  same  yearnings, 
The  same  sorrows,  joys  and  lamenting, 
But  no  gift:  inarticulate,  frustrated,  America's  victims. 

There  is  the  argument,  in  the  unfolding  of  which  per- 
haps Oppenheim  does  not  quite  go  the  length  of  candor. 
For  his  indecisions  and  his  failures  he  can't  resist  blaming 
America  more  than  the  mere  fact  that  the  inevitable 
image,  word,  phrase  come  seldom  to  him.  You  enjoy  the 
drift  of  the  book,  but  you  have  to  ignore  more  than  one 
lapse  of  taste — that  unerring  instinct  for  the  word  and  the 
place.  Perhaps  too  breathless  an  awe  has  sometimes 
defeated  him.  There  is  a  hint  of  this  in  the  picture  of  a 
meeting  with  "our  most  powerful  novelist" — Theodore 
Dreiser,  one  is  led  to  suppose: 

So  we  walk,  we  talk. 

And  here  is  the  Hudson,  the  North  River,  with  shouting  gold  of  sunset 

and  smokes  of  the  tugboats, 

Shadows  of  cliffs,  like  the  spacious  threshold  of  a  spiritual  universe; 
And  I  grow  tense  with  the  wonder  of  it  and  feel  the  artist's  despair  of 

setting  it  down  in  words  .  .  . 

So  I  turn  to  him:  "Just  look,"  I  say,  "could  you  describe  that?" 
He  speaks  carelessly: 
"Oh,  yes — that  or  anything." 

[218] 


A  Mystic  Warrior 

Yet  this  reverence  for  great  vision,  great  craft,  has  had 
its  reward,  the  reward  of  concentration — workmanship.  If 
this  writer  were  a  house-painter,  you  might  not  always 
like  the  colors  he  mixed,  but  his  surfaces,  his  finish  would 
be  scrupulous.  So  The  Mystic  Warrior  contains  pictures, 
— indelible  pictures,  snatches  of  rhythm,  voices:  pictures 
of  childhood  in  New  York  schools  and  brownstone  houses; 
pictures  of  a  death  and  a  funeral: 

I  am  a  tailor:    I  am  cutting  and  sewing  a  pair  of  pants  for  my  little 
brother: 

My  little  grandmother  comes  in,  walks  softly,  inaudibly  by  me  .... 
She  carefully  pulls  down  the  shades,  making  the  room  yellow  .  .  . 
I  confront  her:  "Why  do  you  pull  down  the  shades,  grandma?" 

She  says  there  is  too  much  sunlight  .  .  . 

Then  she  looks  at  me,  hesitates,  takes  me  by  the  arm, 

Whispers  in  my  ears,  "James,  your  father  is  dead." 

I  smell  flowers — lilies,  roses,  violets — I  shall  never  forget  that  smell  .  .  . 
I  am  taken  down  in  the  long  parlor  .  .  . 

There  are  people  there:  uncles  and  aunts,  grandpa,  grandma  .  .  . 
There  are  camp-stools,  and  a  black-cloth  coffin  smothered  in  flowers  .  .  . 

And  now  my  infancy  is  ended  .  .  . 

For  this  is  death;  I  have  come  face  to  face  with  my  enemy,  death  .  .  . 

Servant-girls  soothed  me,  saying,  "He  is  an  angel  now."  .  .  . 

Vivid  portraits  of  people;  pictures  of  offices,  wharves, 
homes;  pictures  of  a  Jewish  bourgeoisie  in  New  York, 
redolent  of  the  race,  recalling  the  riches  Rembrandt  made 
of  the  same  theme  in  Amsterdam  centuries  ago;  and  the 
breath  of  countless  streets: 

Old  days  on  the  West  Side, 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

Old  nights. 

Summer  nights  when  there  was  a  faint  Coney  Island  stir  down  electric- 
lit  Eighth  Avenue  .  .  . 
A  moth-stir,  flame,  shadow,  Bagdad. 

There  is  unction  in  The  Mystic  Warrior,  but  almost  no 
sham,  no  bunk.  At  its  best  the  tenor  of  it  is  curiously 
dark  and  steady — a  suggestion  of  slow  night  rain,  or  a  ship 
at  anchor  in  night  waters.  The  poem  succeeds  in  being  a 
distillation,  in  contrast  to  the  brew  made,  it  seems,  after 
the  recipe:  "To  hell  with  work,  novelty  will  provide  the 
kick."  Oppenheim,  you  feel,  has  earned  the  right  to  say: 

In  the  grey  air  we  walk,  in  the  glister  of  the  dying  year; 
And  my  soul  goes  down  to  roots,  and  the  roots,  like  a  tree's,  are  deep  in 
the  earth. 

Acknowledging  this,  you  are  even  willing  to  ignore  the 
abstract  use  of  the  word  "soul."  Dorothy  Dudley 

MRS.  WYLIE'S  POEMS 

Nets  to   Catch  the  Wind,   by   Elinor   Wylie.     Harcourt, 

Brace  &  Co. 

A  lyric  voice  slight,  but  clear  and  fine,  may  be  heard  in 
this  book,  the  voice  of  a  free  and  lightly  ranging  spirit. 
The  sound  of  it  is  now  gay,  now  grave,  but  always  it  holds 
a  little  aloof — one  detects  that  something  "austere, 
immaculate"  for  which  the  poet  herself  holds  her  Puritan 
ancestry  responsible.  In  a  number  of  poems  her  mood  is 
thoughtfully  admonitory,  as  The  Eagle  and  the  Mole, 
Madman  s  Song,  or  Say  Not  of  Beauty  she  is  Good: 

[220] 


Mrs.  Wylies  Poems 

Oh,  she  is  neither  good  nor  bad, 

But  innocent  and  wild. 
Enshrine  her  and  she  dies,  who  had 

The  hard  heart  of  a  child. 

Again,  it  is  meditative  or  descriptive,  or,  as  in  Valentine^ 
self-searching.  But  always  the  emotion  is  shy  and  deli- 
cate, as  of  a  cool  small  wild-flower  growing,  by  some 
whim  of  Nature,  not  in  the  woods,  but  in  the  protected 
area  .of  a  garden.  The  flower  is  very  simple  and  of  quiet 
color,  but  it  has  an  individual  vitality  nevertheless. 

The  Eagle  and  the  Mote,  urging  toward  the  high  or  the 
profound  as  against  a  safe  "middle-of-the-road"  policy,  is 
perhaps  the  most  temptingly  quotable  poem  in  the  book. 
But  as  it  has  already  gone  the  rounds,  and  as  POETRY  has 
printed  Velvet  Shoes  and  certain  others,  we  prefer  to  offer 
The  Prinkin1  Leddie  as  an  example  of  pure  and  irresistible 
gayety — a  mood  extremely  rare  in  modern  art: 

"The  Hielan'  lassies  are  a'  for  spinnin' 
The  Lowlan'  lassies  for  prinkin'  and  pinnin'; 
My  daddie  w'u'd  chide  me,  an'  so  w'u'd  my  minnie 
If  I  s'u'd  bring  hame  sic  a  prinkin'  leddie." 

Now  haud  your  tongue,  ye  haverin'  coward, 
For  whilst  I'm  young,  I'll  go  flounced  an'  flowered, 
In  lutestring  striped  like  the  strings  o'  a  fiddle, 
Wi'  gowden  girdles  aboot  my  middle. 


My  silks  are  stiff  wi'  patterns  o'  siller, 
I've  an  ermine  hood  like  the  hat  o'  a  miller, 
I've  chains  o'  coral  like  rowan  berries, 
An'  a  cramoisie  mantle  that  cam'  frae  Paris. 


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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

When  the  skies  are  low  an'  the  earth  is  frozen, 
Ye'll  be  gay  an*  gled  for  the  leddie  ye've  chosen, 
When  ower  the  snow  I  go  prinkin'  and  prancin' 
In  my  wee  red  slippers  were  made  for  dancin'. 

It's  better  a  leddie  like  Solomon's  lily 
Than  one  that'll  run  like  a  Hielan'  gillie 
A-linkin'  it  ower  the  leas,  my  laddie, 
In  a  raggedy  kilt  an'  a  belted  plaidie! 

An  unusually  interesting  first  book.  H.  M. 

THOUGHTFUL    MEASURES 

Out  of  Mist,  by  Florence  Kilpatrick  Mixter.     Boni  & 

Liveright. 

Carefully  studied,  delicately  wrought,  are  these  poems — 
this  sequence  of  twenty-nine  sonnets  followed  by  as  many 
other  poems.  If  they  are  in  a  sense  too  studied  and  de- 
liberate, they  yet  express  genuine  emotion  in  grave  and 
thoughtful  measures  of  modern  straightness  and  sim- 
plicity— there  is  no  pretense  in  the  feeling,  and  rarely  a 
trace  of  rhetoric  or  palaver  in  the  style.  The  best  of 
them  rise  to  a  quiet  beauty  and  distinction — Lullaby, 
which  was  in  POETRY  last  summer,  is  a  fine  lyric;  and  this 
one,  To  a  Young  Girl,  is  almost  as  quotable,  though  the 
word  holocaust  is  a  bit  melodramatic: 

I  had  forgotten  there  were  hearts  so  young 

As  yours,  tonight, 
Whose  voice,  now  echoing  with  songs  unsung, 

Fills  me  with  strange  delight. 

I  had  forgotten  there  were  eyes  so  swift 
Of  April  mirth, 

[222] 


Thoughtful  Measures 

Flashing  as  though  with  some  invisible  gift 
From  Heaven  to  Earth. 

I  had  forgotten  there  were  lips  that  pray, 

Like  a  gray-winged  dove, 
For  one  more  hour  of  laughter  and  of  play 

Before  the  holocaust  of  love. 

The  sonnet  sequence  hints  at  the  story  of  a  youthful 
love  affair  finished  by  autocratic  death.  We  follow  it  a 
little  apart,  watching  "out  of  mist,"  through  translucent 
veils,  an  experience  not  unusual,  not  strongly  individual- 
ized, but  for  that  very  reason  of  wide  appeal.  Many  a 
first  love-story  appears  here  in  thoughtful  reminiscence, 
its  joy  and  sadness  real,  but  softened  by  time  and  change. 
In  sonnet  XXVII  we  have  the  climax  of  it: 

In  memory  I  sit  beside  your  bed 

And  see  again  the  smile  that  lit  your  face; 

Nor  do  the  slow  forgetful  years  erase 

A  syllable  of  those  last  words  we  said. 

For,  through  my  tears,  seeing  your  brightness  fled 

Because  of  them,  I  pled  with  Heaven  for  grace 

To  make  you  smile  once  more,  while  with  quick  pace 

I  heard  night  passing  that  would  leave  you  dead. 

Swiftly  I  took  your  hand  and  held  it  tight, 

Then  told  in  words  that  choked  me  ever  after 

Some  foolish  trifling  thing.     And  though  the  light 

That  came  with  your  brave  laugh  was  gone  thereafter, 

Yet,  as  a  rocket  fills  the  quiet  night 

With  falling  stars,  I  hear  again  your  laughter. 

Cradle  Song,  Dressing  Up,  Elegy,  and  The  Candle  use 
the  familiar  four-line  measure  to  present  emotions  of 
flower-like  grace.  PL  M. 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
OUR  CONTEMPORARIES 

NEW    INTERNATIONAL    MAGAZINES 

Three  magazines  which  aim  at  international  authority 
and  circulation  send  us  their  first  numbers  from  Rome, 
London  and  New  York.  All  three  appear  in  a  luxury  of 
format  and  typography  more  easily  attained  abroad  than 
here;  attainable  here,  indeed,  only  at  a  cost  so  high  as 
to  be  almost  prohibitive.  We  have,  first,  The  Broom, 
described  as  "an  international  magazine  of  the  arts 
published  by  Americans  in  Italy"  (at  18  Trinita  dei 
Monti),  and  edited  by  Harold  A.  Loeb  and  Alfred 
Kreymborg,  with  Giuseppe  Prezzolini  as  associate  editor; 
second,  Fanfare,  "a  musical  causerie  issued  on  the  first 
and  fifteenth  of  the  month,"  edited  by  Leigh  Henry  and 
published  by  Goodwin  &  Tabb,  Ltd.,  at  34  Percy  Street, 
London;  and,  third,  we  have  the  resuscitated  Little 
Review,  issued  as  a  seven-dollar-a-year  "quarterly  of  arts 
and  letters,"  in  an  initial  autumn  number,  from  27  West 
Eighth  Street,  New  York,  the  "administration"  consisting 
of  Margaret  Anderson,  "jh,"  Ezra  Pound  and  Francis 
Picabia. 

In  The  Broom  Alfred  Kreymborg  shows  once  more  his 
ability  as  an  editor,  but  the  new  paper  does  not  "start 
something,"  nor  arouse  the  excitement  of  anticipation,  to 
the  degree  that  the  first  number  of  Others  did  in  July,  1915. 
There  is  much  variety  in  the  contents,  which  range  from 

[224] 


New  International  Magazines 

a  strictly  correct  sonnet  by  Walter  de  la  Mare  to  phan- 
tasmagoric designs  in  black  and  white  and  gray  from 
paintings  in  the  most  approved  cubistic  manner  by 
Albert  Gleizes  and  Juan  Gris. 

We  see  many  familiar  names  among  the  fifteen  or  so 
literary  contributors:  Lew  Sarett  has  a  Maple-sugar  Song 
of  the  Chippewas;  Amy  Lowell  offers  a  three-page  chant 
in  praise  of  Lilacs — 

Your  great  puffs  of  flowers 

Are  everywhere  in  this  my  New  England. 

Lola  Ridge  sings  of  Hospital  Nights;  Wallace  Gould  offers 
a  prose-poem  narrative  about  Marnia.  The  only  other 
verse-entries  are  some  Chinese  poems  of  J.  Wing,  trans- 
lated by  E.  Powys  Mathers,  and  a  twelve-line  rhymed 
poem,  Lake,  by  Bayard  Boyeson,  which  opens  the  number. 
Other  poets  appear  in  prose:  James  Stephens  with  a 
tragic  Dublin  story,  Hunger,  as  ruthless  and  terrible  in  its 
deliberate  detail  as  the  title  implies;  James  Oppenheim 
with  a  quite  wonderful  study  of  a  sanely  insane  mind; 
Haniel  Long  with  a  whimsical  sketch.  Conrad  Aiken, 
Louis  Untermeyer  and  Emmy  Sanders  offer  certain 
critical  inquiries  concerning  poets  and  their  art,  and  the 
invasion  of  Europe  by  America.  In  short,  almost  every- 
one appears  except  the  over-modest  Mr.  Kreymborg. 

The  magazine  has  a  beautifully  printed  page  about  five 
by  seven  inches,  set  sumptuously  in  hand-made  large- 
paper  measuring  nearly  nine  by  thirteen. 

[225] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Fanfare ',  which  is  primarily  musical,  blows  a  gay  trumpet 
as  it  enters: 

Fanfare — does  not  the  word  suggest  something  stirring,  brilliant, 
joyous,  exciting — something  which  preludes  adventure?  .  .  .  We  are 
the  heralds  of  the  new  era,  sounding  the  fanfare  for  its  union  with  new 
beauty.  Such  union  calls  for  revelry;  hence  our  Fanfare  will  be  merry. 
.  .  .  We  set  forth  boldly,  our  trumpets  bright  to  reflect  sunlight,  our 
Fanfare  ringing  truly  alike  for  ritual,  ceremony,  battle,  joust,  forlorn 
hope,  festival,  triumph  or  masquerade. 

This  paper,  although  a  musical  periodical,  believes,  like 
POETRY,  in  a  closer  alliance  of  the  arts.  Its  editor  thinks 
that  musicians  are  too  narrowly  trained — therefore 

Fanfare  will  deal  with  literature,  drama,  painting,  sculpture,  and  theatre- 
craft,  as  matters  a  knowledge  of  which  forms  a  necessary  complement  to 
musical  culture. 

So  we  have  two  or  three  clever  drawings  and  a  poem  by 
John  Gould  Fletcher  among  the  musical  entries  within 
the  gaily  decorative  cover  of  Fanfare's  first  number. 

The  Little  Review  is  larger  than  of  yore — an  hundred 
and  twelve  pages  measuring  more  than  seven  inches  by 
nine.  It  aims  at  the  very  latest  thing,  and  achieves,  as 
its  piece  de  resistance,  a  fifty-page  poem  by  Jean  Cocteau, 
translated  by  Jean  Hugo,  The  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Having 
read  half  of  it,  and  being  still  in  a  state  of  innocence,  I 
commend  the  rest  to  those  who  can  watch  "the  dangerous 
hallucinations  continue." 

On  the  way  to  Cocteau,  we  have  Ezra  Pound  on  Bran- 
cusi,  illustrated;  some  Fumigations  by  Picabia,  a  phi- 

[226] 


New  International  Magazines 

losophy  of  Psycho-democracy  set  forth  by  Mina  Loy, 
poems  in  French  by  Paul  Morand  and  in  German  by 
Ivan  Goll.  Also  there  are  some  rather  outspoken  tales, 
and  Ezra  Pound  tells  us  all  of  our  sins  in  a  Historical 
Survey. 

It  is  said  that  Mr.  Pound  readopted  The  Little  Review 
because  of  its  editor's  brave  fight  against  the  suppression 
of  James  Joyce's  Ulysses.  Well,  it  was  a  brave  fight — any 
fight  against  the  censor's  gag-laden  fist  takes  bravery. 
The  trouble  is,  The  Little  Review  never  knows  when  to 
stop.  Just  now  it  seems  to  be  headed  straight  toward 
Dada;  but  we  could  forgive  even  that  if  it  would  drop 
Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  on  the  way. 

VARIOUS    PRIZES 

The  Dial's  first  award  of  its  annual  prize  of  two  thousand 
dollars,  for  one  of  its  contributors,  was  announced  Decem- 
ber first.  It  goes  to  Sherwood  Anderson,  of  Chicago,  the 
distinguished  author  of  a  number  of  novels  and  short 
stories,  and  of  Mid-American  Chants,  poems  in  free  verse, 
of  which  a  group  first  appeared  in  POETRY  for  September, 
1917. 

This  is  the  most  generous  literary  prize  as  yet  awarded 
in  this  country;  an  admirable  example  which  should  have 
a  train  of  followers.  Although  Mr.  Anderson's  contribu- 
tions to  The  Dial  have  been  in  prose,  his  being  a  poet  as 
well  gives  POETRY  the  opportunity  to  congratulate  him, 

[227] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of     Verse 

and   also  the  staff  of  the  magazine  which   honors  him. 

The  Poetry  Society  of  America  announces  the  award 
of  two  prizes,  each  of  five  hundred  dollars: 

First,  the  prize  offered  for  the  best  book  of  verse  by 
an  American  poet,  published  in  the  United  States  during 
the  year  1920,  is  divided  equally  between  Heavens  and 
Earthy  by  Stephen  Vincent  Benet,  and  Smoke  and  Steel, 
by  Carl  Sandburg.  The  judges  were  Richard  Le  Gal- 
lienne,  William  Lyon  Phelps  and  Harriet  Monroe. 

Second,  the  prize  offered  in  the  William  Lindsey 
Contest  for  poetic  drama  has  been  awarded  to  Harry 
Lee  for  his  four-act  play,  //  Poverello.  One  hundred  and 
forty-five  plays  were  submitted,  and  the  judges  were 
Stuart  Walker,  George  Arliss,  George  P.  Baker,  Jane 
Dransfield  and  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse. 

The  Friday  Club  of  Chicago,  at  a  recent  meeting  of  its 
board  of  directors,  voted  fifty  dollars  to  POETRY  as  a 
prize  for  a  young  poet  for  the  current  year. 

This  gift  is  acknowledged  with  special  pleasure  as  it  is 
the  first  offer  of  the  kind  which  POETRY  has  received 
from  any  women's  club,  or  indeed  from  any  society.  A 
number  of  clubs,  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere,  have  given 
annual  prizes  to  painters,  sculptors,  and  perhaps  musi- 
cians; we  hope  that  the  Friday  Club's  example  will  remind 
them  that  prizes  to  poets,  being  excessively  rare,  should 
have  the  preference  from  clubs  largely  devoted,  as  most 
of  them  are,  to  the  study  of  literature. 

[228] 


CORRESPONDENCE 

A    LETTER    FROM   PARIS 

My  Dear  POETRY:  Interest  in  American  letters  seems 
to  be  increasing  in  France.  As  one  evidence,  note  that 
the  program  required  for  the  English-teaching  certificate 
contains  Frost's  North  of  Boston.  This  is  due  to  M.  Charles 
Cestre,  the  well-known  professor  of  American  literature  at 
the  Sorbonne.  I  consider  it  a  bold  step  to  admit  in 
University  studies  a  quite  modern  poet  whose  genius  has 
not  yet  been  fully  acknowledged  by  our  critics. 

French  verse  is  still  a  matter  of  discussion.  Yet  Paul 
Valery  seems  to  attract  partisans  from  sundry  corners: 

La  lune  mince  verse  une  lueur  sacree, 

Toute  une  jupe  d'un  tissu  d'argent  leger 

Sur  les  bases  de  marbre  ou  vient  1'ombre  songer, 

Que  suit  d'un  char  de  perles  une  gaze  nacr6e. 

A  scintillating  symphony  of  vowels,  and  a  modern  render- 
ing of  an  old  romantic  theme.  Valery  and  a  few  other 
poets  have  united  to  form  a  "New  Pleiade."  The  original 
French  Pleiade,  you  remember,  was  formed  at  a  moment 
when  the  French  language  needed  clarification  and 
enriching.  What  seems  to  be  the  aim  of  the  actual 
Pleiade  ?  The  names  of  the  members  will  speak  for  them- 
selves: Countess  Mathieu  de  Noailles,  Pierre  Camo, 
Derennes,  Gasquet,  de  Magallon,  Mazade,  Valery — all 
artists  of  classical  or  semi-classical  verse.  It  is  a  protest 
against  the  extremist  and  cryptic  schools  of  art.  The 

[229] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

Countess  is  a  great  favorite  among  women,  tender  youths, 
priests  (if  I  dare  trust  a  friend's  testimony),  and  bourgeois 
readers  in  whose  ears  still  lingers  the  flowing  cadence  of 
our  traditional  verse.  Camo  writes  finely-chiselled  sonnets 
and  odes  in  which  the  modern  notes  blend  exquisitely  with 
fading  reminiscences.  Gasquet  was  a  fiery  artist  of  the 
South,  whose  experiments  in  polyphonic  stanzas,  together 
with  alexandrines,  have  just  been  cut  short  by  death. 
Our  poetical  tradition  has  definitely  acquired  a  pliancy 
which  not  even  the  attempts  at  classic  tragedy  of  the 
official  Comedie  Frangaise  are  able  to  endanger.  Even 
Max  Jacob,  the  sweet  child  of  humor,  who  keeps  apart 
from  any  coterie  with  his  bons  mots  and  new  faith — even 
Max  Jacob  writes  exquisitely  modulated  alexandrines. 
You  see  that  our  extremists,  Dada  excepted  (but  who 
knows  what  they  mean? — not  even  Ezra  Pound),  display 
a  certain  coquetry  towards  our  well  ordered  muse: 

Le  ciel  a  pour  la  mer  des  regards  qui  b6nissent, 
Le  soleil  sur  la  mer  est  un  bateau  qui  glisse, 
Chaque  lame  a  son  or,  chaque  6cume  a  sa  nuit  .  .  . 

What  do  you  think  of  this  gold-and-black  up-to-date 
fabric?- 

Every  wave  has  its  gold;  every  foam  has  its  night. 

More  robust  and  more  thoughtful  has  become  the  muse 
of  Vildrac,  and  of  Remains.  The  Chants  du  Desesp'er'e,  by 
Charles  Vildrac,  ring  with  the  sorrow  of  the  poet's  bruised 
dreams.  Vildrac  bends  over  the  corpse  of  his  friend,  a 

[230] 


A  Letter  from  Paris 

victim  of  the  war;  he  turns  his  clear  eyes  on  his  suffering 
fellow-men;  he  sees  more  ugliness  than  before. 

Jules  Romains  (Le  Voyage  des  Amants)  seems  to  remain 
more  true  to  his  former  philosophy.  A  smiling  fancy, 
direct  sensations  of  Paris  and  the  world,  with  sometimes  a 
cosmic  vista: 

Les  jours  grandissent, 

Chaque  jour  est  un  coup  plus  dur 

Port6  plus  profond  dans  la  nuit; 

Et  la  matiere  des  t6nebres 

Tantot  molle,  tantot  cassante, 

Se  pulverise  ou  s'aplatit. 

The  art  of  the  New  Pleiade  and  of  the  Unanimists 
make  this  a  great  epoch  for  French  poetry.  Alas!  that 
it  should  not  also  be  glorious  for  the  French  drama!  But 
here  we  have  to  deplore  that  our  official  theatres  leave  to 
private  and  too  little  moneyed  initiative  the  production 
of  new,  vigorous  and  audacious  plays.  The  Comedie 
Frangaise  practically  gave  nothing  worth  mentioning 
apart  from  the  classical  repertoire.  La  Mort  Enchaine'e, 
by  Maurice  Magre,  has  won  a  prize  of  a  few  thousand 
francs  for  the  best  new  play,  and  it  is  grievously  accurate 
that  this  heavy  and  obscure  mythological  drama  was 
merely  one  of  the  passable  novelties  of  the  Comedie.  As 
for  the  Odeon,  we  feel  sure  that  the  new  play  by  Paul  Fort 
is  going  to  make  up  for  the  stuff  that  has  been  produced 
there  in  the  course  of  the  few  past  months.  But  of  course 
we  have  our  secondary  stages:  the  Vieux  Colombier, 
the  Theatre  des  Arts;  and  we  have  the  Group  of  the  Six. 

[231] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of     Verse 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  write  you  about  this  young 
group  of  Six  Musicians,  and  about  Jean  Cocteau  as  a  poet. 
Let  me  say  now  that  Les  Maries  de  la  Tour  Eiffel,  played 
at  the  finest  and  most  comfortable  theatre  in  Paris,  the 
Champs  Elysdes,  before  a  smart  audience  and  a  good 
number  of  buoyantly  hostile  traditionalists,  has  not 
proved  a  failure.  It  is  a  farce  mimed  by  dancers  for 
actors,  while  a  phonograph  explains,  in  the  words  of 
Cocteau,  the  progress  of  the  plot.  A  nervous  cerebral 
music,  with  here  and  there  patches  of  sunlight,  has  been 
composed  by  the  Six.  It  is  a  healthy  combination  of 
sound,  color,  and  gesture;  with  no  human  voice,  which 
may  be  deplored,  but  at  least  with  nothing  of  the  thunder- 
ing declamation  of  too  many  comedians.  'Jean  Catel 

NOTES 

•  Mr.  Robert  Frost  has  recently  accepted  an  invitation  from  the 
University  of  Michigan;  and  he  is  now  an  informal  member  of  its 
faculty,  resident  during  the  college  year  at  Ann  Arbor.  His  latest  book 
was  Mountain  Interval,  published  by  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  in  1916. 

Dr.  William  Carlos  Williams,  of  Rutherford,  N.  J.,  will  put  out  very 
soon  a  new  book  of  poems  through  the  Four  Seas  Co.,  which  has  pre- 
viously published  Al  ^ue  Quiere  and  Kora  in  Hell.  Dr.  Williams  and 
Robert  McAlmon  are  editors  of  Contact,  a  magazine  of  which  four 
numbers  have  appeared  during  the  past  year. 

Miss  Grace  Fallow  Norton,  of  New  York,  who  is  now  sojourning  in 
France,  is  the  author  of  The  Sister  of  the  Wind  and  other  books  of  verse 
(Hough ton  Mifflin  Co.). 

1  Mr.  Glenn  Ward  Dresbach,  who  has  recently  removed  from  New 
Mexico  to  El  Paso,  Texas,  is  the  author  of  several  books  of  verse,  the 
latest  being  Morning,  Noon  and  Night  (Four  Seas  Co.).  A  new  one, 
In  Colors  of  the  West,  will  appear  next  spring. 

[232] 


Notes 


Marjorie  Meeker,  who  recently  married  Mr.  Shirley  Wing,  lived 
formerly  in  Columbus,  O.,  but  is  now  travelling  abroad.  She  has  not 
yet  published  a  volume. 

The  other  poets  in  this  number  are  recent  accessions  to  POETRY'S  list: 

Helen  Coale  Crew  (Mrs.  Henry  Crew),  of  Evanston,  111.,  has  published 
verse  and  prose  in  various  magazines. 

Miss  Julia  R.  Reynolds  is  a  young  poet  of  Sumter,  S.  C.;  Miss  Ellen 
Margaret  Janson  of  Seattle,  Wash.;  and  Miss  Dorothy  Keeley  of 
Chicago.  Miss  Esther  Louise  Ruble  was  brought  up  in  Kansas,  and 
is  now  a  student  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Mr.  Ernest  Walsh,  who  was  in  the  aviation  service  during  and  after 
the  War  and  suffered  a  fall,  is  now  in  the  Army  Hospital  at  Camp 
Kearny,  Cal.,  where  there  is  a  group  of  young  men  who  are  much 
interested  in  poetry. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

The  Lifted  Cup,  by  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
The  Fugitive,  by  Rabindranath  Tagore.     Macmillan  Co. 
Red  Poppies  in  the  Wheat,  by  John  Richard  Moreland.    J.  T.  White  &  Co. 
Free  Forms,  by  Simon  Felshin.     Privately  printed,  Paris,  France. 
John  Masterson,  by  Kenneth  Campbell.     Campbell  Press,  San  Diego. 
Collected  Poems,  by  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson.     Macmillan  Co. 
A  Penny  Whistle  Together  with  The  Babette  Ballads,  by  Bert  Leston 

Taylor.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Archways  of  Life,  by  Mercedes  de  Acosta.     Moffat,  Yard  &  Co. 
Quiet  Waters,  by  Blanche  Shoemaker  Wagstaff.     Moffat,  Yard  &  Co. 
Shrines  and  Shadows,  by  John  Rollin  Stuart.     Four  Seas  Co. 
Nets  to  Catch  the  Wind,  by  Elinor  Wylie.     Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co. 
Cross-currents,  by  Margaret  Widdemer.     Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co. 
Saturday  Market,  by  Charlotte  Mew.     Macmillan  Co. 
Varied  Verse,  by  Carter  S.  Cole,  M.  D.     Moffat,  Yard  &  Co. 
Chenar  Leaves — Poems  of  Kashmir,  by  Mrs.  Percy  Brown.     Longmans, 

Green  &  Co. 
The  Pier-glass,  by  Robert  Knopf.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 


[233] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

On  the  Des  Moines,  by  James  Cloyd  Bowman.     Cornhill  Co. 

The  Beggar  s  Vision,  by  Brookes  More.     Cornhill  Co. 

Pieces  of  Eight:     A  Sequence  of  Twenty-four  War-sonnets,  by  John 
Armstrong  Chaloner.     Privately  printed,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. 

Willow  Pollen ,  by  Jeannette  Marks.     Four  Seas  Co. 

We,  the  Musk  Chasers,  by  Loureine  Aber.     Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour. 

England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  by  O.  F.  Christie.     Basil  Blackwell. 

Melodies  and  Mountaineers,  by  Isabella  McLennan  McMeekin.    Strat- 
ford Co. 

The  Return  and  Other  Poems,  by  Margaret  L.  Woods.    John  Lane  Co. 

The  Open  Sea,  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters.     Macmillan  Co. 

Reynard  the  Fox,  or  The  Ghost  Heath  Run,  by  John  Masefield.     Illustrated 
by  G.  D.  Armour  and  Carton  Moorepark.     Macmillan  Co. 

Bethlehem,  by  Elizabeth  Sewell  Hill.     Methodist  Book  Concern,  Cin- 
cinnati. 

Dreams  Out  of  Darkness,  by  Jean  Starr  Untermeyer.     B.  W.  Huebsch. 

Children  of  God  and  Winged  Things,  by  Anne  Moore.     Four  Seas  Co. 

Early  and  Late,  by  Katharine  Warren.     Duffield  &  Co. 
PLAYS: 

Four  Plays  for  Dancers,  by  W.  B.  Yeats.     Macmillan  Co. 

The  Tragedy  of  Nan,  by  John  Masefield.     Macmillan  Co. 

Oliver  Cromwell,  by  John  Drinkwater.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

One  Act  Plays,  by  Alice  Brown.     Macmillan  Co. 

Uriel  Acosta — A  Play,  and  A  Fourth  Group  of  Verse,  by  Charles  Reznikoff. 
Privately  printed,  New  York. 

ANTHOLOGIES  AND  TRANSLATIONS: 

Songs  of  the  Cowboys,  ed.  by  N.  Howard  Thorp.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Oxford  Poetry,  1921,  edited  by  Alan  Porter,  Richard  Hughes  and  Robert 

Graves.     Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford,  England. 
Widsith;  Beowulf;  Finnsburgh;  Waldere;  Deor:    translated  by  Charles 

Scott  Moncrieff;  introd.  by  Viscount  Northcliffe.    E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 
Selected  Poems  and  Ballads  of  Paul  Fort,  translated  from  the  French  by 

John  Strong  Newberry.     Duffield  &  Co. 

PROSE: 

Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  by  Alice  Brown.     Macmillan  Co. 
The  Literature  of  Ecstasy,  by  Albert  Mordell.     Boni  &  Liveright. 

[234] 


Mr.  Ford  Madox  Ilueffer,  the  distinguished  English  poet,  novelist  and  critic,  wrote 
us  last  July: 

If  American  periodical  literature  has  today  a  little  peak,  a  little  group  of 
journals,  raising  it  to  the  level  of  the  best  of  European  cosmopolitanism,  or  at  any 
rate  in  that  direction,  it  is  because  you  and  your  small  paper  showed  how,  editor- 
ially and  economically,  it  could  be  done. 

Vol.  XIX  No.  V 

POETRY  for  FEBRUARY,  1922 

Poems  by  Wang  Wei  PAGE 

.  Translated  by  Witter  Bynner  and  Kiang  Kang-hu  235 
Answering  Vice-prefect  Chang — A  Message  to  P'ai  Ti — 
On  the  Way  to  the  Temple — Mount  Chung-nan — A  View 
of  the  Han  River — In  My  Lodge  at  Wang-Ch'uan — My 
Retreat  at  Chung-nan — Among  Bamboos — Lines — A  Parting 
— A  Song  at  Wei-ch'eng — The  Beautiful  Hsi-shih — Young 
Girls  from  Lo-yang — Harmonizing  a  Poem — A  Green  Stream 

In  Praise  of  Abrigada Leonora  Speyer    242 

An  Old  Woman — I  Complain  in  Passing  .      .      .    Harlow    Clarke    247 

Winter  Dawn Constance  Lindsay  Skinner    248 

From  a  Chicago  "L" Sarah-Margaret  Brown     251 

Fate  I-II Harold  Monro     252 

Hillside  Poems F.  R.  McCreary     255 

Winter  Rain — A  Naked  Maple — Noontime — Judges — Alone 
on  the  Hill 

Incidentals Hi  Simons    258 

Dust  in  the  Road — Taps — The  Star — Portrait  of  an  Old  Roue 

Takfor  Sidst Babette  Deutsch     259 

In  the  Office Gwendolen  Haste    260 

The  Guardians — Aileen 

Motherhood Medora  C.  Addison     261 

The  Lover Paul  Tanaquil    261 

Fire Eunice  Tietjens    262 

The  Utterance  of  Poetry H.  M.     266 

Translating  Wang  Wei Witter  Bynner    272 

Reviews: 

A  Cool  Master Yvor  Winters    278 

Mr.  Yeats'  Plays Cloyd  Head    288 

Notes  and  Books  Received 292-293 

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Copyright  1922,  by  Harriet  Monroe.     All  rights  reserved. 


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VOL.  XIX 
No.  V 
A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


FEBRUARY  1922 


POEMS  BY  WANG  WEI 

ANSWERING    VICE-PREFECT    CHANG 

AS  the  years  go  by,  give  me  but  peace, 
Freedom  from  ten  thousand  matters. 
I  ask  myself  and  always  answer, 
What  can  be  better  than  coming  home? 
A  wind  from  the  pine-trees  blows  my  sash, 
And  my  lute  is  bright  with  the  mountain-moon. 
You  ask  me  about  good  and  evil  ?  .  .  . 
Hark,  on  the  lake  there's  a  fisherman  singing! 

BOUND    HOME    TO    MOUNT    SUNG 

The  limpid  river,  past  its  bushes 
Flowing  slowly  as  my  chariot, 

[235] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Seems  a  fellow-voyager 

Returning  with  the  evening-birds. 

A  ruined  city-wall  overtops  an  old  ferry, 

Autumn  sunset  floods  the  peaks.  .  .  . 

Far  away,  beside  Mount  Sung, 

I  shall  rest  and  close  my  door. 

A    MESSAGE    TO    P*AI    TI 

Cold  and  blue  now  are  the  mountains 
From  autumn-rain  that  beat  all  day. 
By  my  thatch-door,  leaning  on  my  staff, 
I  listen  to  cicadas  in  the  evening  wind. 
Sunset  lingers  at  the  ferry, 
Cooking-smoke  floats  up  from  the  houses.  .  .  . 
Oh,  when  shall  I  pledge  Chieh-yu  again, 
And  sing  a  wild  poem  at  Five  Willows! 

ON    THE    WAY    TO    THE    TEMPLE 

Not  knowing  the  way  to  the  Temple  of  Heaped  Fragrance, 

I  have  roamed,  under  miles  of  mountain-cloud, 

Old  woods  without  a  human  track. 

But  far  on  the  height  I  hear  a  bell, 

A  rillet  sings  over  winding  rocks, 

The  sun  is  tempered  by  green  pines.  .  .  r 

At  twilight,  close  to  an  emptying  pool, 

I  lie  and  master  the  Passion-dragon. 

[236] 


Witter  Eynner  and  Kiang  Kang-hu 

MOUNT    CHUNG-NAN 

The  Great  One's  height  near  the  City  of  Heaven 
Joins  a  thousand  mountains  to  the  corner  of  the  sea. 
Clouds,  when  I  look  back,  close  behind  me; 
Mists,  when  I  enter  them,  are  gone. 
A  central  peak  divides  the  wilds 
And  weather  into  many  valleys.  .  .  . 
Needing  a  place  to  spend  the  night, 
I  call  to  a  wood-cutter  over  the  river. 

A    VIEW    OF   THE    HAN    RIVER 

With  its  three  Hsiang  branches  it  reaches  Ch'u  border 

And  with  nine  streams  touches  the  gateway  of  Ching: 

This  river  runs  beyond  heaven  and  earth, 

Where  the  color  of  mountains  both  is  and  is  not. 

The  dwellings  of  men  seem  floating  along 

On  ripples  of  the  distant  sky.  .  .  . 

O  Hsiang-yang,  how  your  beautiful  days 

Make  drunken  my  old  mountain-heart! 

IN    MY    LODGE    AT    WANG-CH*UAN 
AFTER    A    LONG    RAIN 

The  woods  have  stored  the  rain,  and  slow  comes  the  smoke 
As  rice  is  cooked  on  faggots  and  carried  to  the  fields; 
Over  the  quiet  marshland  flies  a  white  egret, 
And  mango-birds  are  singing  in  the  full  summer  trees. 

[237] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

1  have  learned  to  watch  in  peace  the  mountain  morning- 
glories, 

To  eat  split  dewy  sunflower-seeds  under  a  bough  of  pine, 
To  yield  the  place  of  honor  to  any  boor  at  all.  .  .  . 
Why  should  I  frighten  sea-gulls  even  with  a  thought  ? 

MY    RETREAT   AT    CHUNG-NAN 

My  heart  in  middle  age  found  the  Way, 

And  I  came  to  dwell  at  the  foot  of  this  mountain. 

When  the  spirit  moves,  I  wander  alone 

Where  beauty  is  known  only  to  me. 

I  will  walk  till  the  water  checks  my  path, 

Then  sit  and  watch  the  rising  clouds, 

And  some  day  meet  an  old  woodcutter, 

And  talk  and  laugh  and  never  return. 

IN  A  RETREAT  AMONG  BAMBOOS 

Alone  I  am  sitting  under  close  bamboos, 
Playing  on  my  lute,  singing  without  words. 
Who  can  hear  me  in  this  thicket?  .  .  . 
Bright  and  friendly  comes  the  moon. 

LINES 

You  who  arrive  from  my  old  country, 

Tell  me  what  has  happened  there! 

Did  you  see,  when  you  passed  my  silken  window, 

The  first  cold  blossom  of  the  plum  ? 

[238] 


Witter  Bynner  and  Kiang  Kang-hu 


A    PARTING 


Friend,  I  have  watched  you  down  the  mountain 
Till  now  in  the  dark  I  close  my  thatch-door.  .  . 
Grasses  return  again  green  in  the  spring, 
But,  O  Wang  Sun,  will  you  return? 


The  morning  rain  settled  the  dust  in  Wei-ch'eng; 
In  the  yard  of  the  tavern  green  willows  revive.  . 
Oh,  wait  to  empty  one  more  cup ! 
West  of  Yang  Gate — no  old  friends! 


THE    BEAUTIFUL    HSI-SHIH 

Since  beauty  is  honored  all  over  the  empire, 

How  could  Hsi-shih  remain  humbly  at  home? 

At  dawn  washing  clothes  by  a  lake  in  Yueh; 

At  dusk  in  the  Palace  of  Wu,  a  great  lady! 

Poor,  no  rarer  than  the  others — 

Exalted,  everyone  praising  her  rareness. 

But  above  all  honors,  the  honor  was  hers 

Of  blinding  with  passion  an  emperor's  reason. 

Girls  who  had  once  washed  silk  beside  her 

Now  were  ordered  away  from  her  carriage.  .  .  . 

Ask  them,  in  her  neighbors'  houses, 

If  by  wrinkling  their  brows  they  can  copy  her  beauty. 

[239] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

A    SONG    OF    YOUNG    GIRLS    FROM    LO-YANG 

There  are  girls  from  Lo-yang  in  that  door  across  the  street, 

Some  of  them  fifteen  and  some  a  little  older. 

While  their  master  rides  a  rapid  horse  with  jade  bit  and 

bridle, 

Their  handmaid  brings  them  codfish  on  a  golden  plate. 
On  the  painted  pavilions,  facing  their  red  towers, 
Cornices  are  pink  and  green  with  peach-bloom  and  with 

willow; 

Canopies  of  silk  awn  their  seven-scented  chairs; 
Rare  fans  shade  them  home,  to  their  nine-flowered  cur- 
tains. 

Their  lord,  with  rank  and  wealth  and  in  the  green  of  life, 
Exceeds,  for  magnificence,  even  Chi-lun; 
He  favors  girls  of  lowly  birth  and  teaches  them  to  dance, 
And  he  gives  away  his  coral-trees  to  almost  anyone. 
The  wind  of  dawn  just  stirs  when  his  nine  soft  lights  go  out, 
Those  nine  soft  lights  like  petals  in  a  flying  chain  of 

flowers. 
From  play  to  play  they  have  barely  time  for  singing  over 

the  songs; 
No  sooner  are  they  dressed  again  than  incense  burns  before 

them. 

Those  they  know  in  town  are  only  the  rich  and  the  lavish, 
And  day  and  night  they're  visiting  the  homes  of  Chao  and 

Li.  ... 

Who  cares  about  a  girl  from  Yueh,  face  jade-white, 
Humble,  poor,  alone,  by  the  river,  washing  silk ! 

[240] 


Witter  Bynner  and  Kiang  Kang-hu 

HARMONIZING   A   POEM    BY   PALACE-ATTENDANT   KUO 

High  beyond  the  thick  wall  a  tower  shines  with  sunset, 
Where  peach  and  plum  are  blooming  and  willow-cotton 

flies. 

You  have  heard  it  in  your  office,  the  court-bell  of  twilight: 
Birds  discover  perches,  officials  head  for  home. 
Your  morning-jade  will  tinkle  as  you  thread  the  golden 

palace, 
You  will  bring  the  word  of  heaven  from  the  closing  gates 

at  night. 

And  I  should  serve  there  with  you;  but,  being  full  of  years, 
I  have  put  aside  official  robes  and  am  resting  from  my  ills. 

A    GREEN    STREAM 

I  have  come  on  the  River  of  Yellow  Flowers, 

Borne  by  the  current  of  a  green  stream 

Rounding  ten  thousand  turns  through  the  mountains 

To  journey  less  than  a  hundred  li. 

Rapids  hum  on  scattered  stones, 

Light  is  dim  in  the  close  pines, 

The  surface  of  an  inlet  sways  with  nut-horns, 

Weeds  are  lush  along  the  banks. 

Down  in  my  heart  I  have  always  been  clear 

As  this  clarity  of  waters. 

Oh,  to  remain  on  a  broad  flat  rock 

And  cast  my  fishing-line  forever! 

Translated  from  the  Chinese 
by  Witter  Bynner  and  Kiang  Kang-hu 

[241] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
IN  PRAISE  OF  ABRIGADA 

I  had  been  told 

A  foolish  tale — 

Of  stone — dank — cold : 

But  you, 

Held  to  wide  winter  storm, 

To  clutch  of  blackening  frost  and  ocean  gale, 

Are  warm! 

I  thought  that  stone  was  silent  too, 

Unmoved  by  beauty, 

Unaware  of  season  or  of  mirth: 

But  I  hear  laughter,  singing,  as  I  lay 

My  face  against  your  gray; 

Surely  I  hear  the  ritual  of  far  waves 

And  scent  their  winging  spray, 

Mixed  with  wild-rose  and  honeysuckle, 

Budding  sassafras, 

And  the  cool  breath  of  pungent,  leafy  bay. 

I  knew  that  walls  were  sheltering 

And  strong; 

But  you  have  sheltered  love  so  long 

That  love  is  part 

Of  your  high  towering, 

Lifting  you  higher  still, 

As  heart  lifts  heart.  .  .  . 

[242] 


Leonora  Speyer 

Hush! 

How  the  whip-poor-will 

Wails  from  his  bush: 

The  thrush 

Grows  garrulous  with  delight ! 

There  is  a  rapture  in  that  liquid  monotone, 

"Bob  White!     Bob-/P£i/<?/" 

Dear  living  stone! 

In  the  great  room  below, 

Where  arches  hold  the  listening  spaces, 

Flames  crackle,  leap  and  gleam 

In  the  deep  fire-places; 

Memories  dream  .  .  . 

Of  other  memories,  perhaps, 

Of  gentle  lives, 

Of  births,  and  of  those  other  births  that  men  call  death, 

Of  voices,  foot-steps  tapping  the  stone  floor, 

And  faces  .  .  .  faces  .  .  . 

Beyond,  the  open  door, 

The  meadows  drowsy  with  the  moon, 

The  faint  outline  of  dune, 

The  lake,  the  silver  magic  in  the  trees: 

Walls,  you  are  one  with  these! 


High  on  the  loggia-roof, 
Under  the  stars  as  pale  as  they, 

[243] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Two  silent  ones  have  crept  away, 
Seeking  the  deeper  silence  lovers  know: 
Into  the  radiant  shadows  of  the  night, 
Into  the  aching  beauty  of  the  night, 
They  dare  to  go ! 

The  moon 

Is  a  vast  cocoon, 

Spinning  her  wild,  white  thread 

Across  the  sky. 

A  thousand  crickets  croon 

Their  sharp-edged  lullaby. 

I  hear  a  murmuring  of  lips  on  lips: 

"All  that  I  am,  beloved! 

Aii!"- 

Lovers'  eternal  cry! 

Lift  them  still  higher,  wall! 

You  stand  serene: 

The  great  winds  linger,  lean 

Upon  your  breast; 

The  mist 

Lifts  up  a  gray  face  to  be  kissed; 

The  east  and  west 

Hang  you  with  banners, 

Flaunt  their  bold  victories  of  dusk  and  dawn; 

Seasons  salute  you  as  they  pass, 

Call  to  you  and  are  gone. 

[244] 


Leonora  Speyer 


Amid  your  meadow-grass 
Lush,  green, 
You  stand  serene. 


Houses,  like  hearts,  are  living,  loving, 

Joyful  or  woeful, 

Forget  or  are  forgot; 

Houses,  like  tired  hearts, 

Sicken  at  last,  and  die, 

Crumble  and  rot: 

But  they  who  know  you,  Abrigada, 

They — and  I — 

Forget  you  not! 

Nor  they  who  stand  on  Abrigada's  roof, 
Glowing,  aloof! 

Come  with  me  now, 

.Climb  with  me,  stand,  look  down 

In  new  content  of  mood, 

Withdrawn  from  clasp  of  crowd 

And  tangle  of  the  town ! 

Climb  swifter  still — 

From  safe  companionship  of  cloud 

The  deeper  to  look  down! 

Not  back! 

Forget  the  thirst,  the  sordid  cup, 

[245] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  plethora,  the  piteous  lack; 

Forget  the  trafficking  in  tears, 

The  arrogance  of  scars. 

Look  up  ... 

To  dream  undaunted  dreams  aloud, 

And  stumble  toward  the  stars! 

This  be  in  praise 

Of  Abrigada; 

In  all  the  ways 

That  come  to  me 

Through  the  wise,  wistful  summer  days. 

In  speech,  in  rhyme  and  rhythm  of  word — 
Call  it  a  poem,  maybe! 

In  song — tuck  the  brown  shining  wood 

Under  my  chin! 

Call  it  my  bird, 

My  heart, 

My  violin! 

In  prayer  .  .  . 

In  dream  .  .  . 

In  silence,  best  of  all, 

Leaning  on  the  beloved  dew-drenched  wall. 

Leaning  and  lifting  .  .  . 

High  .  .  . 

With  Abrigada  s  gesture  toward  the  sky. 

Leonora  Speyer 

[246] 


AN  OLD  WOMAN 

Something  within  her  makes  her  live  so  long — 

It  pays  no  heed  that  all  her  friends  are  dead. 
Her  age  is  moving  as  a  simple  song, 

Wailing  that  happy  days  long  since  are  dead. 
Something  forgets  that  all  her  teeth  have  dropt, 

That  eyes  no  longer  serve  to  see  her  ways. 
Time  seems  not  weary  of  this  weed  uncropt, 

And  draws  her  on  into  these  newer  days. 
She  does  not  know  at  night  if  she  will  rise 

And  wake  again  to  live  another  day. 
Eternity  of  age  now  makes  her  wise — 

A  thing  on  point  of  passing,  hear  her  say: 

"The  moon  outlasts  my  days;  the  sleepless  hounds 
Bark  ever  in  the  night — strange  haunting  sounds." 

I  COMPLAIN  IN  PASSING 

I  am  weary  of  green  in  the  grass, 

Of  green  in  the  trees; 
Of  blue  in  the  sky,  of  white  on  the  clouds, 

And  things  like  these. 
I  pray  for  one  boon  down  the  long  white  day — 

That  I  may  cease; 
For  mountain  and  meadow  and  grove  and  sky 

Leave  me  no  peace. 

Harlow  Clarke 

[247] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

WINTER  DAWN 

The  dark  rolls  back. 

Like  dropped  stars, 

The  willows  shine  on  the  sides  of  the  water-courses: 

Their  ice-blades  clash, 

Making  a  slow  thin  music. 

So  wakes  he,  Tem-Sotetc-Kwi; 

So  comes  he  slowly — like  a  slow  thin  music. 

Ah — ah — hi-i,  brothers !     Lovers  of  trails  and  sea-paths ! 

It  is  the  time  of  sorrow  and  the  time  of  shutting-in: 

For  he  has  come  again — Tem-Sotetc-Kwi — 

With  heavy  winds, 

Like  frozen  ropes  of  cedar,  hoary, 

Uncoiling  from  his  thighs 

To  bind  the  world. 

I  have  seen  his  white  moccasins  upon  the  mountain: 
His  steps  have  hushed  the  waters 
Of  the  great  and  little  falls; 
The  rushing  rivers  are  stopped. 

He  has  fed  the  lake's  watery  breast  to  the  White  Bear 
That  follows  him. 

The  canoes  of  the  Coast-dwellers  are  hung  under  the  roofs 
Like  empty  cradles: 

We  can  no  longer  rock  on  the  wings  of  the  great  Blue 
Heron ! 

The  great  Blue  Heron  has  hidden  herself 

[248] 


Constance  Lindsay  Skinner 

Under  the  thatch  of  her  nest, 

Because  of  his  pale  gray  foxes,  with  white  ears — 

His  hungry  foxes, 

Huddled  about  the  brink  of  her  nest. 

He  has  taken  away  the  brown  fields, 

Where  our  bare  feet  danced  with  Autumn 

At  the  feast  of  berries  and  maize — 

The  bare  brown  fields  that  were  glad 

When  we  drummed  with  our  brown  bare  feet, 

Singing,  "Hoy-mah-ah!  hoy  a-mah!" 

Ai-hi!     The  mats  his  witch- woman  weaves  for  him  are 

thick  and  cold: 

We  have  put  beaver-fur  about  our  feet, 
And  made  us  long,  long  flat  shoes  to  bear  us  up. 
(This  is  our  magic,  wise  men's  magic, 
To  save  us  from  the  White  Bear's  maw!) 
His  great  snowy  owls  fill  all  our  cedars. 
Aii-hi !     The  red  breasts  of  woodpeckers 
No  longer  flicker  in  our  forests. 
His  witch-woman  is  plucking  the  wings  of  the  sky, 
The  air  is  stuffed  with  white  feathers: 
We  no  longer  may  speak  with  the  sun — ai-i! 
Gravely,  with  bowed  hearts,  we  greet  you, 
O  Tem-Sotetc-Kwi,  Snow-chief,  Ice-hunter, 
Priest  of  the  Long  White  Moons ! 

Slowly,  slowly,  like  thin  music, 
Murmur  the  sorrow-chant, 

[249] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Coast-dwellers,  my  brothers: 

For  Tem-Sotetc-Kwi  has  carved  the  death  totem 

Over  Swiya's  house-door — 

Hgulx — se — wag — ila — making  pure ! 

Our  mother  Swiya,  Swiya  our  mother  is  dead. 

Sorrow,  sorrow,  my  tribe,  for  Swiya! 

Much  joy  had  Swiya,  our  mother,  who  loved  three  lovers! 

As  a  maid,  boldly  she  went  forth 

And  met  Spring  among  the  willows; 

He  pierced  her  with  hope. 

Singing  she  entered  the  green  doors  of  Summer; 

Singing  she  came  out,  girdled  with  fragrance. 

She  took  the  yellow  harvest-moon  in  her  hands, 

And  waited  in  the  maize-fields  behind  our  village. 

Autumn  clasped  her  there  in  the  fields;  he  crowned  her 

with  maize, 
He  filled  her  pouch  with  berries,  he  gave  her  much  deer's 

meat. 

Autumn,  Feast-maker!    Dearest  was  he  among  her  three 

lovers — 
He  was  the  strong  one:  he  gave  the  most  food;  he  was  the 

last. 
Ai!    great  joy  had  Swiya,  our  mother,  who  loved  three 

lovers, 

And  took  their  gifts. 
All  their  gifts  were  ours:  Swiya,  our  mother,  kept  nothing 

back. 

[250] 


Constance  Lindsay  Skinner 

Now  she  lies  bare,  her  hands  are  empty,  her  face  is  cold; 
Her  eyelids  are  shut,  for  her  eyes  are  in  the  Place  of  Death, 
Under  white  eyelids !    Qulx — se-wag-ila! 
Tem-Sotetc-Kwi  has  carved  the  death-totem  over  Swiya's 

door. 

Slowly,  softly,  like  thin  music,  murmur  the  sorrow-chant 
For  Swiya,  our  mother.     Swiya,  our  mother,  is  dead. 

^ulx — se — Qulx-se-wag-ila  wa! 

Gravely,  with  bowed  hearts,  we  greet  you, 
O  Tem-Sotetc-Kwi,  Snow-chief,  Ice-hunter, 
Priest  of  the  Long  White  Moons! 

Constance  Lindsay  Skinner 


FROM  A  CHICAGO  "L" 

The  great  gray  houses  walk  along 
Sombrely  and  slow, 

Weary  in  the  dusk, 

In  a  dragging  row. 

They  are  very  tired, 

Heart-broken  and  old; 
They  seem  to  shudder  as  they  pass, 
The  winter  wind  is  cold. 

Sarah-Margaret  Brown 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

FATE 

i 

I  have  so  often 

Examined  all  this  well-known  room 

That  I  inhabit. 

There  is  the  open  window; 

There  the  locked  door,  the  door  I  cannot  open, 

The  only  doorway. 

When  at  the  keyhole  often,  often 
I  bend  and  listen,  I  can  always  hear 
A  muffled  conversation. 

An  argument: 

An  angry  endless  argument  of  people 

Who  live  behind; 

Now  loudly  talking, 

Now  dimly  to  their  separate  conflict  moving 

Behind  the  door. 

There  they  seem  prisoned, 

As  I,  in  this  lone  room  that  I  inhabit: 

My  life;  my  body. 

You,  of  the  previous  being, 

You  who  once  made  me  and  who  now  discuss  me, 

Tell  me  your  verdict,  and  I  will  obey  it! 

You,  long  ago, 

[252] 


Harold  Monro 

With  doubting  hands  and  eager  trembling  fingers, 
Prepared  my  room. 

Before  I  came, 

Each  gave  his  token  for  remembrance,  brought  it, 

And  then  retired  behind  the  bolted  door. 

There  is  the  pot  of  honey 

One  left,  and  there  the  jar  of  vinegar 

On  the  same  table. 

Who  poured  that  water 

Shining  beside  the  flask  of  yellow  wine? 

Who  sighed  so  softly? 

Who  brought  that  living  flower  to  the  room  ? 
Who  groaned,  that  I  can  ever  hear  the  echo  ? 
You  do  not  answer. 

Meanwhile  from  out  the  window 

Sounds  penetrate  of  building  other  houses: 

Men  building  houses. 

And  so  it  may  be 

Some  day  I'll  find  some  doorway  in  the  wall — 

What  shall  I  take  them? 

What  shall  I  take  them 

Beyond  those  doorways,  in  the  other  rooms? 

What  shall  I  bring  them, 

That  they  may  love  me? 

[253] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Fatal  question! 

For  all  the  jangling  voices  rise  together; 

I  seem  to  hear: 

"What  shall  he  take  them?"  .  .  . 

Beyond  their  closed  door  there's  no  final  answer. 

They  are  debating. 

ii 

O  Fate!    Have  you  no  other  gift 
Than  voices  in  a  muffled  room? 
Why  do  you  live  behind  your  door, 
And  hide  yourself  in  angry  gloom? 

And  why,  again,  should  you  not  have 
One  purpose  only,  one  sole  word, 
Ringing  forever  round  my  heart, 
Plainly  delivered,  plainly  heard? 

Your  conversation  fills  my  brain 
And  tortures  all  my  life,  and  yet 
Gives  no  result.     I  often  think 
You've  grown  so  old  that  you  forget; 

And  having  learnt  man's  fatal  trick 
Of  talking,  talking,  talking  still, 
You're  tired  of  definite  design, 
And  laugh  at  having  lost  your  will. 

Harold  Monro 

[254] 


HILLSIDE  POEMS 

WINTER    RAIN 

It  is  sad,  this  rain 

Drip-dripping  in  the  night 

Monotonously 

Into  the  snow; 

Dripping  from  the  corners  of  the  house 

And  the  ends  of  black  twigs 

All  night  long  without  change. 

Rain,  rain  soft-fingered, 

Lifting  up  the  white  snow, 

Uncovering  the  clay  beneath; 

Rain,  soft, 

Almost  unwilling — 

The  fingers  of  an  old  woman 

Who  cannot  resist 

Slipping  downstairs  in  the  night 

To  the  front  room, 

And  lifting  the  sheet  for  a  last  look 

At  what  it  conceals. 


A    NAKED    MAPLE 

You  have  put  off  your  leaves. 

You  are  like  a  runner  who  stands  naked  at  the  mark, 

Calm  and  certain  of  victory. 

[255] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

You  are  glorious  in  your  ease, 

Waiting  for  the  first  silver  whistle  of  the  snow; 

And  in  your  sureness 

That  the  yellow  medal  of  a  May  moon  will  be  pinned  to 

your  breast, 
Clothed  again  and  triumphant. 

NOONTIME 

Noontime  and  locusts, 

Locusts  goading  the  heat 

Quivering  over  the  hay-fields; 

Yet  the  men  arise  from  half-eaten  dinners 

And  hood  canvas  over  the  stacks — 

The  full  tawny  breasts  of  the  hayfields — 

For  the  first  dark  finger  of  lust 

Is  pointing  over  a  steeple 

Far  in  the  distance. 


JUDGES 

Between  her  two  brothers, 
Who  argue  of  nations  and  laws 
With  a  neighbor, 
She  stands,  big  with  a  child, 
Watching  the  sunshine; 
Waiting  the  end  of  their  talk, 
Saying  nothing. 

[256] 


Frederick  R.  McCreary 

ALONE    ON    THE    HILL 

Alone  on  the  hill 

In  the  warm  October  noon, 

With  the  woods  below 

And  beyond  their  brilliance  the  sea: 

The  moment  has  come, 

The  rapt  still  instant  of  being, 

When  water  and  wood  are  gone. 

There  is  nothing  now 

But  the  on-running  fluid  of  hours 

Gleaming  with  blue,  yellow,  crimson. 

Now  quick!    Let  me  run  on  sharp  stones, 

Let  me  strangle  in  surf  choked  with  the  bitter  salt-water! 

Let  me  feel  pain,  feel  torture, 

And  the  acid  hunger  of  loneliness ! 

Give  me  self,  self — 

Before  I  am  lost 

In  this  madness  of  space  eternal, 

This  horror  of  dream  triumphant. 

Frederick  R.  McCreary 


[257] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 
INCIDENTALS 

DUST   IN    THE    ROAD 

The  dust 

Is  a  yellow-grey  veil 

Over  the  limbs  of  the  wind. 

And  the  little  breeze  dons  it, 

That  her  fleet  litheness, 

And  the  whirling  torsions  of  her  sprite's  form, 

May  be  apparent 

As  she  gaily  runs  down  the  road 

To  greet  us. 

TAPS 

Out  of  the  night, 

Up  from  the  serene  valley  of  the  Missouri,. 

Over  the  free  forested  Kansas  hills 

Come  notes  of  a  bugle — 

Mincing,  silver-slippered  steps  of  music. 

THE    STAR 

When  the  "screws"  had  made  their  last  round 
And  the  lights  in  the  cells  were  out, 
I  arose  and  peered  out  the  window. 
And  just  over  the  edge  of  the  prison-wall 
I  saw  a  tiny,  twinkling,  yellow  star 

[258] 


Hi  Simons 


Furtively  winking  at  me, 

Like  the  eye  of  the  Infinite; 

Mischievously  happy 

Because  it  had  slipped  me  a  bit  of  joy 

Over  the  wall,  from  "the  outside." 


PORTRAIT   OF   AN    OLD 

The  seeds  of  his  sin 

Thrust  tiny  red  roots 

Among  the  cell-crevices  of  his  face. 

Now  their  minute  purple  tendrils 

Trace,  on  his  cheeks  and  nose, 

Vine-patterns  as  intricately  beautiful 

As  his  fastidious  iniquities. 

Hi  Simons 


TAK  FOR  SIDST 

To  C.  S. 
"Good-bye,"  you  said,  and  your  voice  was  an  echo,  a 

promise. 

You  turned  to  go,  a  grey  iron  ghost. 
The  night  took  you. 
Insubstantial  as  air,  stronger  than  iron, 
You  were  here  and  had  gone. 
Your  voice  was  an  omen,  an  echo. 

Eabette  Deutsch 

[259] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
IN  THE  OFFICE 

THE    GUARDIANS 

Old  men  nodding  over  great  books, 

Always  writing  with  gold  pens, 

Every  morning 

Adding  figures, 

Turning  pages; 

Every  morning 

A  little  grayer, 

A  little  mustier, 

A  little  older. 

Old  men! — do  you  keep  Age 
Hidden  between  your  desks? 
Will  she  catch  me 
If  I  come  down  to  ask  you 
For  the  October  statement? 

AILEEN 

She  goes  through  the  order  of  the  day 

Like  a  nun. 

The  rattle  of  her  typewriter 

Is  the  rustle  of  a  rosary; 

And  she  speaks  in  the  telephone 

With  the  retreated  delicacy 

Of  one  who  murmurs  before  an  altar. 

Gwendolen  Haste 

[260] 


MOTHERHOOD 

Playing  alone  by  the  ocean's  edge, 

Eager  and  unafraid, 
You  are  the  child  I  used  to  be, 

Playing  the  games  I  played. 

Now  I  have  only  a  coward's  heart, 

Finding  you  all  too  dear, 
Learning  at  last  that  love  shall  teach 

The  fearless  how  to  fear. 

You  are  so  little  against  the  sky, 

Laughing  and  undismayed — 
Oh,  little  son  by  the  ocean's  edge, 

I  am  afraid,  afraid! 

Medora  C.  Addis  on 


THE  LOVER 

You  do  not  know  the  wonder  I  will  pour  on  your  name — 
It  will  burst  like  thunder  with  all  heaven  for  a  frame! 
I  will  raise  it  as  a  flame  that  the  wind  blows  under, 
I  will  cast  myself  asunder — to  my  shame,  to  my  blame! 
I  will  make  a  fame,  a  wonder  of  your  name. 

Paul  Tanaquil 

[261] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

FIRE 

Love,  let  us  light 

A  fire  tonight, 

A  wood  fire  on  the  hearth. 

With  torn  and  living  tongues  the  flames  leap. 

Hungrily 

They  catch  and  lift,  to  beat  their  sudden  wings 

Toward  freedom  and  the  sky. 

The  hot  wood  sings 

And  crackles  in  a  pungent  ecstasy 

That  seems  half  pain  of  death,  and  half  a  vast 

Triumphant  exultation  of  release 

That  its  slow  life-time  of  lethargic  peace 

Should  come  to  this  wild  rapture  at  the  last. 

We  watch  it  idly,  and  our  casual  speech 

Drops  slowly  into  silence. 

Something  stirs  and  struggles  in  me, 

Something  out  of  reach 

Of  surface  thoughts,  a  slow  and  formless  thing — 

Not  I,  but  a  dim  memory 

Born  of  the  dead  behind  me.     In  my  blood 

The  blind  race  turns,  groping  and  faltering. 

Desires 

Only  half  glimpsed,  not  understood, 

Stir  me  and  shake  me.     Fires 

[262] 


Eunice  Tietjens 

Answer  the  fire,  and  vague  shapes  pass 
Like  shapes  of  wind  across  the  grass. 

The  red  flames  catch  and  lift, 

Roaring  and  sucking  in  a  furious  blaze; 

And  a  strange,  swift 

Hunger  for  violence  is  in  me.     My  blood  pounds 

With  a  dark  memory  of  age-old  days, 

And  mad  red  nights  I  never  knew, 

When  the  dead  in  me  lived,  and  horrid  sounds 

Broke  from  their  furry  throats. 

In  drunken  rounds, 

Blood-crazed,  they  danced  before  the  leaping  flames. 

While  something  twisted  in  the  fire.  .  .  . 

Now  as  the  flames  mount  higher 

Strange  pictures  pass.     I  cannot  see  them  quite 

And  yet  I  feel  them. 

I  am  in  a  dread 

Dark  temple,  and  I  beat  my  head 
In  maddened  rite, 
Before  the  red-hot  belly  of  a  god 
Who  eats  his  worshippers.  .  .  . 

This  is  a  funeral  pyre 
And  one  lies  dead 

Who  was  my  life.    The  fat  smoke  curls  and  eddies, 
Beckoning  suttee.  .  .  . 

But  the  moment  slips 
To  Bacchanalian  revels — quick  hot  lips 

[263] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  leaping  limbs,  lit  by  the  glare 
Of  human  torches.  .  .  . 

A  sudden  spark 

Goes  crackling  upward,  followed  by  a  shower; 

And  I  am  in  the  hills,  cool  hills  and  dark, 

Primeval  as  the  fire.    The  beacon  flare 

Leaps  in  a  roaring  tower, 

Spattering  in  sparks  among  the  stars 

Tales  of  wild  wars. 

And  on  a  distant  crest 

Its  mate  makes  answer.  .  .  . 

But  the  embers  gleam 

Like  molten  metal  steaming  at  a  forge, 

Where  with  rough  jest 

Great  lusty  fellows 

Ply  the  roaring  bellows, 

And  clang  the  song  of  labor — and  the  dream 

Man  builds  in  metal.  .  .  . 

Now  the  red  flame  steadies. 
Softly  and  quietly  it  burns, 
Purring,  and  its  embers  wear 
A  friendly  and  domestic  air. 

This  is  the  hearth-fire — home  and  peace  at  last. 

Comfort  and  safety  are  attendant  here. 

The  primal  fear 

Is  shut  away,  to  whistle  in  the  blast 

[264] 


Eunice  Tietjens 

Beyond  the  doorway  where  the  shadows  twine. 

The  fire  is  safety,  and  the  fire  is  home, 

Light,  warmth  and  food.     Here  careless  children  come 

Filling  the  place  with  laughter; 

And  after 

Men  make  good  council-talk,  and  old  men  spin, 

With  that  great  quiet  of  the  wise, 

Tales  of  dead  beauty,  and  of  dying  eyes. 

The  fire  is  drooping  now.     A  log  falls  in 

Softly  upon  itself,  like  one  grown  tired 

With  ecstasy.    The  lithe  tongues  sink 

In  ash  and  ember: 

And  something  I  remember 

From  ages  gone — and  yet  I  cannot  think — 

Some  secret  of  the  end, 

Of  earth  grown  old,  and  death  turned  friend, 

And  man  who  passes 

Like  flame,  like  light,  like  wind  across  the  grasses. 

Ah,  what  was  that  ?    A  sudden  terror  sped 
Behind  me  in  the  shadows.     I  am  cold; 
And  I  should  like  your  hand  to  hold 
Now  that  the  fire  is  dead. 
Love,  light  the  lamp,  and  come  away  to  bed. 
Fire  is  a  strange  thing,  burning  in  your  head. 

Eunice  Tietjens 


[265] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 

THE    UTTERANCE    OF    POETRY 

IN  the  Literary  Review  of  a  recent  New  York  Evening 
Post  Lawrence  Mason  tells  whimsically  of  the  tortures 
he  has  endured  in  hearing  poetry  read  aloud.     Listing 
"several  different  methods,"  he  says: 

Some  chant  or  intone  it  in  a  dulcet  sing-song  that  woos  reluctant 
slumber  from  her  lair.  Some  attack  it  with  athletic  vigor,  and  pride 
themselves  upon  the  sheer  speed  of  their  delivery.  Others  find  the 
summum  bonum  in  emphasizing  the  beat  with  the  deadly  regularity  of 
a  metronome.  Still  others  coldly  isolate  and  anatomize  each  line  till 
there  is  no  more  savor  in  it  than  in  a  dried  prune.  Others,  again,  so 
boggle  and  halt  and  garble  and  apologize  and  re-read  that  the  hearer 
is  driven  to  madness,  despair,  or  violent  revolt. 

And  he  refers  to  a  cousin  "whose  method  is  none  of 
these — his  sole  and  sufficient  guiding  principle  is  to  con- 
ceal from  his  unfortunate  hearers  every  evidence  of 
versification." 

Mr.  Mason's  suffering  reminds  me  of  my  own  experience 
with  a  certain  "eminent  dramatic  revelator"  (so  adver- 
tised) who  for  two  seasons  has  given  expensive  recitals 
in  Chicago  under  the  alleged  patronage  of  women  of 
social  prominence,  of  whom  some,  as  I  definitely  ascer- 
tained, had  never  consented  to  the  use  of  their  names, 
and  others  had  consented  in  a  mistaken  impulse  of 
kindliness  while  in  blessed  ignorance  of  the  man  and 
his  "art."  The  revelator,  whose  programs  ranged  from 
Othello  to  Deburau,  followed -the  method  of  Mr.  Mason's 

[266] 


The  Utterance  of  Poetry 

cousin,  but  enriched  it  with  a  kind  of  vocal  gymnastics 
inherited  from  the  elocutionary  school  of  the  eighteen- 
seventies.  While  the  three-dollar-a-head  audience  sat 
in  silence  under  the  infliction,  I  amused  myself,  during 
the  half-hour  or  so  that  a  heroic  sense  of  duty  held  me 
there,  in  certain  speculations  about  the  simple,  but  much 
abused  art  of  reading  poetry  aloud. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  rare  gift — the  beautiful  reading 
of  poetry.  Even  the  poets  themselves  are  often  dis- 
appointing, though  there  is  usually  a  degree  of  beauty 
and  illumination  to  be  gained  from  a  poet's  reading  of  his 
own  verse.  The  poet  instinctively  emphasizes  rhythm, 
sometimes  even  to  the  point  of  intoning  or  chanting  it; 
indeed,  he  rarely  carries  this  too  far.  But  not  all  poets 
have  good  voices,  an  accent  neither  too  local  nor  too 
studiedly  correct,  and  a  simple  effective  delivery. 

Certain  poets,  of  course,  it  is  a  privilege  to  hear — their 
reading  is  as  much  a  work  of  art  as  the  poem,  and  the 
two  fit  together  in  indissoluble  unity.  I  used  to  feel  this 
of  Lindsay,  whose  first  reading  of  The  Congo  at  POETRY'S 
first  banquet — in  March,  1914 — was  a  triumph  in  the 
double  art.  But  of  late  Lindsay  has  acquired  bad  habits 
—his  reading  has  become  too  loud  and  melodramatic. 
John  Masefield's  very  simple  reading  of  his  poems  is 
beautiful  beyond  words,  because  of  that  marvellous  bass 
voice  of  his,  rich  with  all  the  sorrows  of  the  world.  Carl 
Sandburg  also  has  a  deep-toned  organ  in  his  throat  which 
he  uses  with  subtle  simplicity  in  the  proof  of  his  delicate 

[267] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

rhythms.  The  fine  voice  of  William  Butler  Yeats  is 
of  higher  pitch  than  these;  his  quiet  intoning  of  poetry 
nobly  illustrates  its  beauty.  Lew  Sarett's  presentation 
of  his  Indian  poems  is  their  perfect  and  almost  necessary 
completion.  Robert  Frost's  personality  and  voice  also 
fulfil  and  emphasize  the  quality  of  his  poems.  Witter 
Bynner  has  a  rich  voice  and  graceful  delivery,  but  an 
over-precise  utterance  mars  the  effect  of  his  reading 
for  me.  Alfred  Kreymborg,  Carlos  Williams,  Maxwell 
Bodenheim — each  of  these  complements  his  very  per- 
sonal rhythm  in  the  utterance  of  his  poems.  And  Padraic 
Colum  brings  to  us  the  authentic  Celtic  tune — he  is 
even  more  of  an  Irishman  than  Mr.  Yeats. 

I  wish  I  could  say  as  much  for  the  women.  Amy 
Lowell,  Eunice  Tietjens,  Lola  Ridge,  Helen  Hoyt,  Mar- 
jorie  Seiffert,  Florence  Frank,  Jean  Untermeyer — all  these 
read  well,  some  of  them  brilliantly;  all  simply,  and  in 
rhythmic  fulfilment  of  their  poems.  But  none  of  them 
with  quite  the  artistic  beauty  which  some  of  the  men  have 
attained. 

On  the  stage  one  rarely  hears  beautiful  utterance  of 
poetry.  In  all  .my  unusual  experience  of  theatricalized 
Shakespeare,  which,  beginning  with  Edwin  Booth  in 
my  sixth  year,  includes  almost  every  distinguished 
interpreter  since  his  time,  I  have  heard  only  one  whose 
reading  of  the  lines — no,  not  reading,  not  anything  re- 
membered and  recited — whose  spontaneous  utterance  of 
the  lines — seems  to  me  of  such  perfection,  such  strange 

[268] 


The  Utterance  of  Poetry 

and  consummate  beauty,  as  to  be  forever  memorable 
and — alas — incomparable.  This  was  Ada  Rehan:  to 
hear  her  as  Viola  or  Rosalind  was  to  be  moved  by  a  voice, 
deep  and  rich  like  falling  waters,  which  turned  English 
words  into  speech-music  of  transcendent  quality,  music 
that  moved  one  like  Kubelik's  violin  or  Isadora  Duncan's 
dancing. 

Among  women,  Ellen  Terry  was  perhaps  Miss  Rehan's 
closest  rival;  but  her  voice  was  not  quite  so  bitter-sweet, 
and  there  was  a  slight  jerkiness  in  her  delivery  which 
gave  it  vitality  and  picturesqueness  but  detracted  from 
absolute  music.  Mary  Anderson  had  a  voice  like  a  cello, 
of  extraordinary  richness  and  range,  and  a  fine  sense  of 
poetic  cadence;  but  her  delivery,  though  beautiful,  to  be 
remembered  always  with  joy,  was  more  deliberate  and 
studied,  leaning  more  to  the  old  rhetorical  school. 

Booth  was  wonderful,  of  course — my  youth  shone  with 
the  romantic  glamour  of  him.  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Booth  mouthed  his  lines  by  overstressing  his  con- 
sonants, and  that  his  delivery  was  not  the  spontaneous 
utterance  of  perfect  art  but  the  brilliant  recital  of  speeches 
learned.  He  was  a  great  artist  of  his  Victorian  time  and 
his  somewhat  rhetorical  school;  but  he  was  not  an  orig- 
inator, not  one  of  the  genius-illumined  who  strike  out 
new  times,  new  methods. 

Henry  Irving  had  a  more  far-seeing  mind,  but  his  gift 
was  for  the  spectacular.  His  speech  was  gusty  and 
storm-ridden,  his  cadences  churned  and  broken  like  a  bold 

[269] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

skiff  outriding  a  gale.  It  was  an  adventure  to  listen  to 
the  lines  of  his  Shylock — the  poetry  was  so  often  in  danger 
and  so  unexpectedly  triumphant.  He  ranted  early  and 
often,  but  his  ranting  was  always  in  the  picture,  always 
in  the  service  of  a  deliberate  conventionalization,  a 
planned  and  achieved  pattern.  The  modern  poetic  drama 
has  scrapped  his  particular  convention;  but  we  may  still 
envy  him  his  skill,  for  we  cannot  yet  claim  to  have  estab- 
lished our  own  convention. 

If  Booth  and  Irving  ranted  sometimes,  Lawrence 
Barrett  ranted  always;  and  John  McCullough  was  seldom 
above  the  temptation,  although  his  robust  blank  verse 
had  always  a  certain  beauty  of  cadence.  Richard 
Mansfield  came  in  a  time  of  more  simple  Thespian 
manners,  but  he  broke  up  the  lines,  he  had  no  sense  of 
rhythm;  whether  in  Henry  Fifth  or  Beau  Brummel,  he 
spoke  always  prose.  Of  all  the  male  actors  I  have  heard, 
Forbes-Robertson  is  the  most  assured  master  of  poetic 
cadence;  but  his  reading  of  Shakespeare,  though  beautiful, 
is  sophisticated  and  deliberate — it  lacks  the  spontaneity, 
and  also  the  variety,  which  made  Ada  Rehan's,  and  even 
Ellen  Terry's,  a  continual  flaring  of  new  fires. 

The  Irish  Players  are  rhythmically  endowed  beyond  any 
other  company  of  my  remembrance;  which  is  not  strange, 
since  Irish  speech  is  musical  with  poetic  cadence,  and 
these  players  were  trained  by  Synge  and  Yeats  and  Lady 
Gregory,  the  three  poets  who  have  used  it  to  the  highest 
poetic  purpose.  This  beautiful  rhythmic  speech  has  been 

[270] 


The  Utterance  of  Poetry 

the  secret  of  their  charm,  the  one  most  potent  reason  for 
the  effect  of  artistic  unity  and  beauty  in  their  rendition  of 
the  great  plays  of  the  Celtic  renaissance. 

The  subject  has  led  me  to  reminiscence  when  inquiry 
was  intended — we  have  lingered  with  the  masters  instead 
of  seeking  examples  in  common  life.  If  few  actors  read 
poetry  with  due  regard  for  the  rhythm,  still  fewer  public 
readers  have  any  conception  of  the  primary  principles  of 
the  art  they  profess,  even  when  they  have  freed  themselves 
of  the  hideous  old  elocutionary  tradition  which  deliber- 
ately destroyed  poetic  cadence,  broke  up  the  lines,  and 
turned  poetry  into  agonizing  prose. 

This  tradition  is  chiefly  to  blame  for  banishing  from 
modern  life  an  art  which  should  be  at  least  as  common  and 
friendly  a  pleasure  and  solace  as  music.  A  good  voice,  a 
sense  of  rhythm,  simple  unexaggerated  utterance,  all 
showing  respect  for  the  line  and  revealing  the  larger 
cadences  which  overlie  the  basic  pattern — such  a  combina- 
tion may  make  the  reading-aloud  of  poetry,  in  any  house- 
hold or  group  of  friends,  a  joy  as  fine  as  the  excellent 
playing  of  a  musical  instrument. 

More  encouragement  of  this  art  might  reveal  and 
develop  exceptional  talent  in  persons  scarcely  aware  of 
it.  I  remember  an  exquisite  out-door  presentation  of 
Ernest  Dowson's  Pierrot  of  the  Minute  by  two  young 
sisters  who  had  never  realized  their  rare  gift  for  the  most 
delicate  musical  subtleties  of  poetic  dialogue.  And  in  the 
history  department  of  the  University  of  Chicago  hides  a 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

certain  modest  professor  whose  reading  of  the  Ode  to  a 
Nightingale  gives  his  friends  an  experience  as  magnificent 
as  Muratore  ever  offered  with  his  proudest  solo,  or 
Paderewski  in  his  palmiest  days. 

The  reading  of  poetry  should  be  an  easily  accessible 
delight  instead  of  the  bore  which  it  usually  is.  The  defect 
chiefly  to  be  avoided  is  a  certain  high-sounding  rotundity 
which  most  people  assume  like  a  toga  when  they  start  to 
read  poetry  aloud.  Most  voices  need  training,  to  be  sure, 
to  develop  the  latent  beauty  in  them;  every  school  should 
teach  the  proper  use  of  this  delicate  musical  instrument 
within  us.  Given*  a  good  voice  properly  controlled,  an 
ear  for  poetic  rhythm,  and  the  simplest  possible  observance 
of  the  pitches  and  tones  of  poetically  enhanced  speech, 
and  you  have  the  beginning  of  good  reading  of  poetry — a 
beginning  which  practice,  and  the  stimulus  of  emotional 
and  imaginative  intensity,  may  develop  into  high  artistic 
beauty.  //.  M. 

TRANSLATING    WANG    WEI 

Just  as  Tu  Fu  and  Li  Po  are  often  spoken  of  in  conjunc- 
tion by  the  Chinese,  so  are  two  other  great  poets  of  the 
T'ang  Dynasty,  Meng  Hao-jan  and  Wang  Wei.  The 
latter,  who  lived  699-759  A.  D.,  is  distinguished  among  the 
poets  of  China  by  a  deep  and  beautiful  optimism.  The 
melancholy  that  wounded  Tu  Fu  and  Meng  Hao-jan 
seems  not  to  have  touched  Wang  Wei  beneath  the  surface. 

[272] 


Translating  Wang  Wei 

And,  whereas  Li  Po  sought  in  wine  solace  from  the  ills  and 
sorrows  of  life,  Wang  Wei  found  an  abiding  content  in  the 
"green  and  healing  hills"  and  in  the  highly  humbled 
and  attuned  mysticism  of  Lao-tzu's  teaching. 

As  a  young  man,  Wang  Wei  became  Assistant  Secretary 
of  State;  but  at  the  age  of  thirty-one,  when  his  wife  died, 
he  left  his  post  and  retired  to  live  near  Mount  Chung-nan. 
Two  of  his  poems  about  Mount  Chung-nan  are  published 
in  this  number,  both  breathing  the  sober  sweetness  and 
simplicity  of  his  retired  life.  One  of  them  begins  with  the 
line,  "My  heart  in  middle  age  found  the  Way";  the 
Chinese  word  for  the  Way  being  Tao,  the  first  character 
of  the  title  of  Lao-tzu's  book,  Tao-Te-Ching,  which  may 
be  translated  in  whole  as  The  Way  and  the  Exemplification. 
Taoism  appears,  then,  to  have  been  the  consolation  of 
Wang  Wei,  although  Professor  Herbert  M.  Giles,  in  his 
volume  Chinese  Literature,  declares  it  to  have  been 
Buddhism.  We  realize,  not  only  from  the  direct  statement 
in  this  one  poem,  but  from  the  spirit  of  all  his  poems,  that 
he  had  serenely  accepted  the  Way,  the  natural  way  of  the 
universe. 

There  was  for  a  while  a  strong  division  between  the 
followers  of  Lao-tzu  and  the  followers  of  Confucius.  Po 
Chu-yi  ridiculed  Taoist  doctrines  in  the  following  four 
lines,  crisply  translated  by  Professor  Giles: 

"  Who  know  speak  not,  who  speak  know  naught, " 

Are  words  from  Lao-tzu's  lore. 
What  then  becomes  of  Lao-tzu's  own 
Five  thousand  words  or  more? 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

The  answer  is  that  Lao-tzu's  words,  fused  now  with  both 
Buddhism  and  Confucianism,  have  become  an  integral 
part  of  the  religion  of  China.  Here  are  two  characteristic 
quotations  from  his  gospel: 

Follow  diligently  the  Way  in  your  own  heart,  but  make  no  display 
of  it  to  the  world. 

Do  nothing,  and  all  things  will  be  done. 

Among  the  selections  printed  in  this  issue,  note  the  last 
two  lines  of  the  poem,  Answering  Vice-Prefect  Chang:  a 
question  asked  in  terms  of  complicated  morality  and 
answered  in  terms  of  simple  happiness: 

You  ask  me  about  good  and  evil? 

Hark,  on  the  lake  there's  a  fisherman  singing. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  ideal  Taoist  literally  "did 
nothing.'*  As  a  matter  of  fact  Wang  Wei  was  a  physician, 
a  high  government  official,  a  great  poet,  and  also  one  of 
China's  most  illustrious  painters.  (A  scroll  attributed  to 
him  is  on  view  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  in  New 
York.)  His  activities,  however,  were  all  in  flow  with 
universal  forces:  they  sang  like  the  fisherman — there  was 
no  fret,  no  jealousy,  no  self-exaltation,  no  irritated 
struggle;  only  harmony,  humility,  exalted  identity  with 
nature — a  true  and  wide  knowledge  of  values,  making 
him  a  master  of  words,  a  master  of  the  brush,  and  a 
master  of  life.  Yes,  there  was  a  sure  gaiety  in  Wang  Wei, 
instanced  in  his  Message  to  P'ai  TV,  the  fellow-poet  with 
whom  he  longed  to  drink  again  and  to  "sing  a  wild 

[274] 


Translating  Wang  Wei 

poem";  or  in  the  verses  already  mentioned,  My  Retreat  at 
Chung-nan,  in  which  he  happily  anticipated  the  day 
when  he  should  "meet  an  old  wood-cutter,  and  talk  and 
laugh  and  never  return." 

In  the  last  two  lines  of  the  poem  to  P'ai  Ti,  he  addressed 
his  friend,  according  to  a  too  frequent  Chinese  manner,  by 
the  name  of  Chieh-yu,  who  was  a  recluse  of  the  Ch'u 
kingdom,  famous  somewhat  for  drinking,  but  more  for 
stopping  Confucius'  chariot  and  warning  him  against 
politics  with  the  song: 

O  phoenix,  O  phoenix, 

Virtue  is  corrupted! 

What  is  past  is  past  all  counsel, 

What  is  future  may  be  moulded.   .  .  . 

Come  away!  Come  away! 

Politics  are  dangerous! 

And  Wang  Wei's  reference  in  the  final  line  of  this  same 
poem  is  to  the  place  where  he  will  be  drinking  with  his 
friend;  yet  Five  Willows  is  the  place  named,  where  long 
ago  T'ao  Ch'ien  had  lived,  another  famous  recluse  who 
was  both  a  great  writer  and  a  great  drinker. 

The  last  two  lines  of  the  poem  In  my  Lodge  at  Wang- 
Ch'uan  after  a  Long  Rain,  clear  and  significant  as  they  are 
in  themselves,  yet  contain,  for  the  Chinese  reader,  enrich- 
ing allusion  and  connotation.  There  was  once  a  scholar, 
Yang-tzu,  who,  before  he  became  a  student  of  Lao-tzu, 
was  highly  respected  and  honored  by  his  fellow-men. 
Later,  through  the  many  years  of  his  discipleship,  he  lost 
his  prestige,  and  even  a  boor  would  take  precedence  over 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

him;  but  he  was  glad  because  he  had  formerly  been 
proud  and  pretentious.  The  last  line  refers  to  a  hermit 
who  was  fond  of  sea-gulls;  they  followed  him  wherever  he 
went.  His  father  asked  why  they  were  not  afraid  and 
bade  the  son  bring  him  some;  but  next  day,  when  the 
hermit  went  out  intending  to  take  them  to  his  father, 
they  all  flew  away. 

The  poem  in  the  group  most  in  need  of  explanation, 
because  of  its  allusion  to  historic  events  and  personages, 
is  The  Beautiful  Hsi-shih;  and  the  last  two  lines  of 
A  Song  of  Young  Girls  from  Lo-Yang  also  require  the 
following  summary: 

During  the  Chou  Dynasty,  when  the  Yueh  kingdom 
was  conquered  by  the  Wu  kingdom,  the  Yueh  king  still 
held  his  throne  and  plotted  to  throw  off  the  tributary 
yoke.  Aided  by  his  able  minister,  Fan  Li,  he  planned  to 
distract  the  king  of  Wu  with  women.  Fan  Li  searched 
through  the  Yueh  kingdom  for  girls  to  beguile  him  and 
came  upon  Hsi-shih  washing  clothes  by  a  lake.  Conquer- 
ing his  own  love  for  her,  he  fiercely  persuaded  her  to  his 
scheme.  She  remained  at  court  for  some  time;  and  the 
Wu  king,  in  his  infatuation,  forgot  affairs  of  state. 
Weakened  by  this  means,  the  Wu  kingdom  was  overcome 
by  the  Yueh  kingdom;  and  Fan  Li  eventually  accepted 
Hsi-shih  as  his  reward.  The  whimsical  phrasing  of  the 
line  "If  by  wrinkling  their  brows  they  can  copy  her 
beauty"  alludes  to  the  fact  that  she  had  heart  trouble, 
and  it  was  said  that  her  drawn  brows,  her  look  of  gentle- 

[276] 


Translating  Wang  Wei 

ness  in  suffering,  which  the  girls  of  her  time  tried  unsuc- 
cessfully to  imitate,  made  her  more  beautiful. 

One  might  enlarge  upon  references  in  others  of  the 
poems.  For  instance,  the  quatrain  called  Lines  contains 
the  phrase  "my  silken  window."  This  is  not  a  decorative 
adjective.  It  merely  means  that,  before  the  use  of  paper 
or  glass,  windows  in  China  were  of  silk.  The  last  line  of 
the  same  poem  is  made  lovelier  by  knowledge  that  the 
met,  or  plum  blossom,  is  in  China  the  earliest  flower  of 
spring.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  A  Song  at  Wei- 
Cheng,  which  was  written  for  music,  is  still  popular 
through  China  as  a  song  of  farewell,  and  that  to  this  day 
"since  we  picked  willow-branches  at  Wei-Cheng"  means 
"since  we  parted."  The  beauty  of  the  four  lines  called 
A  Parting^  with  its  simple,  profound  expression  of  the 
abiding  presence  of  friendly  nature  and  the  transient 
presence  of  friendly  man,  is  heightened  by  the  reader's 
response  to  the  grace  of  the  name  Wang  Sun,  which  from 
a  dim  and  ancient  origin  still  means  in  China  a  noble- 
hearted  young  scholar,  or  sometimes  lover.  But  on  the 
whole,  these  T'ang  poems  are  so  valid  and  universal  in 
uttering  beauty  that  they  may  vitally  enter  the  poetic 
consciousness  of  a  westerner  still  ignorant  of  the  various 
allusions. 

Translating  the  work  of  Wang  Wei  and  others  in  the 
Three  Hundred  Poems  of  the  T'ang  Dynasty,  Dr.  Kiang  and 
1  have  tried  constantly  to  transfer  the  Chinese  idiom  into 
an  equivalent  idiom  in  English,  rather  than  to  stress  the 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

local  novelty  and  pungency  of  Chinese  phrasing.  It 
would  be  as  erroneous  to  overemphasize  the  component 
radicals  of  a  Chinese  character  as  to  overemphasize  the 
component  meanings  of  such  words  in  English  as  day- 
break, breakfast,  nightfall  or  landscape.  The  delicate 
importance  of  the  translator's  office  lies  in  bringing  from 
one  language  to  another  the  rounded  and  proportioned 
effect  of  a  whole  poem.  And  we,  conscientiously,  have 
tried  to  make  felt,  in  our  translations,  the  high  honesty 
and  wise  humanness  of  poets  who  have  in  many  ways,  and 
in  one  Wei  especially,  lived  closer  to  the  heart  of  life  than 
importunate  passion  brings  the  poets  of  the  West. 

Witter  Eynner 

Note  by  the  Editor:  Mr.  Bynner's  preference  for  the  line  of  four  feet 
and  for  the  four-line  or  eight-line  poem  is  his  tribute  to  the  close  prosodic 
structure  of  Chinese  poetry.  In  the  translator's  opinion  the  form  he 
has  chosen  is  the  closest  approach  to  the  original  which  is  possible  in 
English. 

REVIEWS 

A    COOL    MASTER 

Collected  Poems  of  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson  (with  por- 
trait frontispiece).     Macmillan  Co. 
Near  the  middle  of  the  last  century,   Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,   a  sentimental  philosopher  with   a  genius  for 
a  sudden  twisted  hardness  of  words,  wrote  lines  like: 

Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  days, 
Muffled  and  dumb  like  barefoot  dervishes, 

[278] 


A  Cool  Master 

And  marching  single  in  an  endless  file, 
Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands. 

And  it  was  with  Emerson  that  American  poetry  may  be 
said  to  have  begun.  He  was  slight  enough,  but  at  his 
best  a  master,  and  above  all  a  master  of  sound.  And  he 
began  a  tradition  that  still  exists. 

He  was  followed  shortly  by  Emily  Dickinson,  a  master 
of  a  certain  dowdy  but  undeniably  effective  mannerism, 
a  spinster  who  may  have  written  her  poems  to  keep  time 
with  her  broom.  A  terrible  woman,  who  annihilated  God 
as  if  He  were  her  neighbor,  and  her  neighbor  as  if  he  were 
God — all  with  a  leaf  or  a  sunbeam  that  chanced  to  fall 
within  her  sight  as  she  looked  out  the  window  or  the  door 
during  a  pause  in  her  sweeping: 

And  we,  we  placed  the  hair, 
And  drew  the  head  erect; 
And   then   an   awful  leisure  was, 
Our  faith  to  regulate. 

The  woman  at  her  most  terrible  had  the  majesty  of  an 
erect  corpse,  a  prophet  of  unspeakable  doom;  and  she 
spoke  through  sealed  lips.  She  was  greater  than  Emerson, 
was  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  our  language,  but  was 
more  or  less  in  the  tradition  that  Emerson  began.  She 
and  Emerson  were  probably  the  only  poets  of  any  per- 
manently great  importance  who  occurred  in  this  country 
during  their  period. 

The  tradition  of '  New  England  hardness  has  been 
carried  on  by  Mr.  Robinson,  in  many  ways  may  be  said 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

to  have  reached  its  pinnacle  in  Mr.  Robinson.  This  poet, 
with  a  wider  culture  than  his  predecessors,  has  linked  a 
suavity  of  manner  to  an  even  greater  desperation  than 
that  of  Dickinson's  The  Last  Night — his  hardness  has 
become  a  polished  stoniness  of  vision,  of  mind. 

This  man  has  the  culture  to  know  that  to  those  to 
whom  philosophy  is  comprehensible  it  is  not  a  matter  of 
the  first  importance;  and  he  knows  that  these  people  are 
not  greatly  impressed  by  a  ballyhoo  statement  of  the 
principles  of  social  or  spiritual  salvation.  A  few  times  he 
has  given  his  opinion,  but  quietly  and  intelligently,  and 
has  then  passed  on  to  other  things.  A  man's  philosophical 
belief  or  attitude  is  certain  to  be  an  important  part  of  his 
milieu,  and  as  a  part  of  his  milieu  may  give  rise  to  percep- 
tions, images.  His  philosophy  becomes  a  part  of  his  life 
as  does  the  country  in  which  he  was  born,  and  will  tinge 
his  vision  of  the  country  in  which  he  was  born  as  that 
country  may  affect  his  philosophy.  So  long  as  he  gives 
us  his  own  perceptions  as  they  arise  in  this  milieu,  he  re- 
mains an  artist.  When  he  becomes  more  interested  in 
the  possible  effects  of  his  beliefs  upon  others,  and  expounds 
or  persuades,  he  begins  to  deal  with  generalities,  concepts 
(see  Croce),  and  becomes  a  philosopher,  or  more  than 
likely  a  preacher,  a  mere  peddler.  This  was  the  fallacy  of 
Whitman  and  many  of  the  English  Victorians,  and  this 
is  what  invalidates  nearly  all  of  Whitman's  work.  Such 
men  forget  that  it  is  only  the  particular,  the  perception, 
that  is  perpetually  startling.  The  generality,  or  concept, 

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A  Cool  Master 

can  be  pigeon-holed,  absorbed,  and  forgotten.  And  a 
ballyhoo  statement  of  a  concept  is  seldom  a  concise  one — 
it  is  neither  fish  nor  flesh.  That  is  why  Whitman  is 
doomed  to  an  eventual  dull  vacuum  that  the  intricately 
delicate  mind  of  Plato  will  never  know. 

Much  praise  has  fallen  to  Mr.  Robinson  because  he 
deals  with  people,  "humanity";  and  this  is  a  fallacy  of 
inaccurate  brains.  Humanity  is  simply  Mr.  Robinson's 
physical  milieu;  the  thing,  the  compound  of  the  things,  he 
sees.  It  is  not  the  material  that  makes  a  poem  great,  but 
the  perception  and  organization  of  that  material.  A 
pigeon's  wing  may  make  as  great  an  image  as  a  man's 
tragedy,  and  in  the  poetry  of  Mr.  Wallace  Stevens  has 
done  so.  Mr.  Robinson's  greatness  lies  not  in  the  people 
of  whom  he  has  written,  but  in  the  perfect  balance,  the 
infallible  precision,  with  which  he  has  stated  their  cases. 

Mr.  Robinson's  work  may  be  classified  roughly  in  two 
groups — his  blank  verse,  and  his  more  closely  rhymed 
poems,  including  the  sonnets.  Of  his  blank  verse,  the 
Octaves  in  The  Children  of  the  Night  fall  curiously  into  a 
group  by  themselves,  and  will  be  considered  elsewhere  in 
this  review.  The  other  poems  in  blank  verse  may  be 
called  sketches — some  of  people  the  poet  may  have  known, 
some  of  historical  figures,  some  of  legendary — and  they 
have  all  the  evanescence,  brittleness,  of  sketches.  How- 
ever, there  are  passages  in  many  of  these  poems  that  an- 
ticipate Robert  Frost,  who  in  at  least  one  poem,  An  Old 
Mans  Winter  Night,  has  used  this  method  with  greater 

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POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

effect  than  its  innovator,  and  has  created  a  great  poem. 
Mr.  Frost,  of  course,  leaves  more  of  the  bark  on  his 
rhythms,  achieves  a  sort  of  implied  colloquialism  which 
has  already  been  too  much  discussed.  But  with  Frost  in 
mind,  consider  this  passage  from  Isaac  and  Archibald: 

A  journey  that  I  made  one  afternoon 
With  Isaac  to  find  out  what  Archibald 
Was  doing  with  his  oats.     It  was  high  time 
Those  oats  were  cut,  said  Isaac;  and  he  feared 
That  Archibald — well,  he  could  never  feel 
Quite  sure  of  Archibald.     Accordingly 
The  good  old  man  invited  me — that  is, 
Permitted  me — to  go  along  with  him; 
And  I,  with  a  small  boy's  adhesiveness 
To  competent  old  age,  got  up  and  went. 

The  similarity  to  Frost  is  marked,  as  is  also  the  pleasing 
but  not  profound  quality  of  the  verse.  It  has  a  distinc- 
tion, however,  that  many  contemporaries — French  as  well 
as  English  and  American — could  acquire  to  good  advan- 
tage. 

Ben  Jonson  Entertains  a  Man  from  Stratford,  a  much 
praised  poem,  seems  largely  garrulous,  occasionally 
brilliant,  and  always  brittle;  and  one  can  go  on  making 
very  similar  comments  on  the  other  poems  in  this  form, 
until  one  comes  to  those  alternately  praised  and  lamented 
poems,  Merlin  and  Lancelot.  Remembering  Tennyson, 
one's  first  inclination  is  to  name  these  poems  great,  and 
certainly  they  are  not  inconsiderable.  But  there  are 
long  passages  of  purely  literary  frittering,  and  passages 
that,  while  they  may  possess  a  certain  clean  distinction  of 

[282] 


A  Cool  Master 

manner,  are  dry  and  unremunerative  enough.  But  there 
are  passages  in  these  poems  which  are  finer  than  any  other 
blank  verse  Mr.  Robinson  has  written — dark,  massive 
lines  that  rise  out  of  the  poem  and  leave  one  bitter  and 
empty: 

On  Dagonet  the  silent  hand  of  Merlin 
Weighed  now  as  living  iron  that  held  him  down 
With  a  primeval  power.     Doubt,  wonderment, 
Impatience,  and  a  self-accusing  sorrow 
Born  of  an  ancient  love,  possessed  and  held  him 
Until  his  love  was  more  than  he  could  name, 
And  he  was  Merlin's  fool,  not  Arthur's  now: 
"Say  what  you  will,  I  say  that  I'm  the  fool 
Of  Merlin,  King  of  Nowhere;  which  is  Here. 
With  you  for  king  and  me  for  court,  what  else 
Have  we  to  sigh  for  but  a  place  to  sleep?" 

But  passing  on  from  this  less  important  side  of  Mr. 
Robinson's  work  to  his  rhymed  poems,  one  finds  at  least 
a  large  number  of  perfectly  executed  poems  of  a  sensitive 
and  feline  approach.  What  effect  rhyme,  or  the  intention 
of  rhyme,  has  upon  an  artist's  product,  is  a  difficult  thing 
to  estimate.  The  question  verges  almost  upon  the 
metaphysical.  The  artist,  creating,  lives  at  a  point  of 
intensity,  and  whether  the  material  is  consciously  digested 
before  that  point  is  reached,  and  is  simply  organized  and 
set  down  at  the  time  of  creation;  or  whether  the  point  of 
intensity  is  first  reached  and  the  material  then  drawn  out 
of  the  subconscious,  doubtless  depends  a  good  deal  on  the 
individual  poet,  perhaps  on  the  individual  poem.  The 
latter  method  presupposes  a  great  deal  of  previous 

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POETRY:     A     Magazine     of     Verse 

absorption  of  sense  impressions,  and  is  probably  the  more 
valid,  or  at  least  the  more  generally  effective,  method. 
For  the  rhythm  and  the  "matter,"  as  they  come  into 
being  simultaneously  and  interdependent,  will  be  perfectly 
fused  and  without  loose  ends.  The  man  who  comes  to  a 
form  with  a  definitely  outlined  matter,  will,  more  than 
likely,  have  to  cram  or  fill  before  he  has  finished,  and  the 
result  is  broken.  The  second  method  does  not,  of  course, 
presuppose  rhyme,  but  it  seems  that  rhyme,  as  an  obstacle, 
will  force  the  issue. 

The  best  of  Mr.  Robinson's  poems  appear  to  have 
come  into  being  very  much  in  this  second  fashion.  He 
has  spun  his  images  out  of  a  world  of  sense  and  thought 
that  have  been  a  part  of  him  so  long  that  he  seems  to 
have  forgot  their  beginning — has  spun  these  images  out 
as  the  movement  of  his  lines,  the  recurrence  of  his  rhymes, 
have  demanded  them.  A  basic  philosophy  and  emotional 
viewpoint  have  provided  the  necessary  unity. 

This  method  inevitably  focuses  the  artist's  mind  upon 
the  object  of  the  instant,  makes  it  one  with  that  object, 
and  eliminates  practically  all  individual  "personality"  or 
self-consciousness.  The  so-called  personal  touch  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum  of  technical  habit  that  is  bound  to  accrue  in 
time  to  any  poet  who  studies  his  medium  with  an  eye  to 
his  individual  needs.  The  man  of  some  intelligence  who 
cannot,  or  can  seldom,  achieve  this  condition  of  fusion 
with  his  object,  is  driven  back  to  his  ingenuity;  and  this 
man,  if  he  have  sufficient  intelligence  or  ingenuity, 

[284] 


A  Cool  Master 

becomes  one  of  the  "vigorous  personalities"  of  poetry; 
and  he  misses  poetry  exactly  in  so  far  as  his  personality  is 
vigorous.  Browning,  on  two  or  three  occasions  one  of 
the  greatest  of  all  poets,  is,  for  the  most  part,  simply  the 
greatest  of  ingenious  versifiers.  He  was  so  curious  of  the 
quirks  with  which  he  could  approach  an  object,  that  he 
forgot  the  object  in  admiring,  and  expecting  admiration 
for,  himself.  And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  Mr.  Robinson, 
working  in  more  or  less  the  same  field  as  Browning,  is  the 
superior  of  Browning  at  almost  every  turn. 

And  it  is  for  this  reason  also  that  Mr.  Robinson's  Ben 
Jonson  is  a  failure.  For  the  poet,  while  in  no  wise  con- 
cerned with  his  own  personality,  is  so  intent  upon  the 
personality  of  Jonson,  his  speaker,  that,  for  the  sake  of 
Jonson's  vigor,  he  becomes  talkative  and  eager  of  identify- 
ing mannerism;  and  the  result  is,  that  Shakespeare,  about 
whom  the  poem  is  written,  comes  to  the  surface  only  here 
and  there,  and  any  actual  image  almost  never. 

The  following  stanza  is  an  example  of  Mr.  Robinson's 
work  at  its  best: 

And  like  a  giant  harp  that  hums 
On  always,  and  is  always  blending 
The  coming  of  what  never  comes 
With  what  has  past  and  had  an  ending, 
The  City  trembles,  throbs,  and  pounds 
Outside,  and  through  a  thousand  sounds 
The  small  intolerable  drums 
Of  Time  are  like  slow  drops  descending. 

And  there  is  the  compact,  intensely  contemplated  state- 
ment of  Eros  Turannos,  a  poem  that  is,  in  forty-eight 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

lines,  as  complete  as  a  Lawrence  novel.  And  the  nimble 
trickery  of  Miniver  Cheevey,  as  finished  a  piece  of  bur- 
lesque as  one  can  find  in  English.  A  few  of  us  have 
feared,  in  the  last  few  years,  that  Mr.  Robinson  was 
deteriorating;  but  going  through  this  book  one  is  reas- 
sured. If  there  is  nothing  in  The  Three  Taverns  to  equal 
Eros  Turannos,  there  are  at  least  two  or  three  poems  as 
great  as  any  save  that  one  Mr.  Robinson  has  written;  and 
there  is  nothing  in  these  last  poems  to  preclude  the 
possibility  of  another  Eros  Turannos. 

Mr.  Robinson,  as  probably  the  highest  point  in  his 
tradition,  has  been  followed  by  Frost,  a  more  specialized, 
and  generally  softer  artist.  And  there  is  Gould,  who,  if 
he  belongs  to  the  tradition  at  all,  is  a  mere  breaking-up  of 
the  tradition,  a  fusion  with  Whitman.  But  in  considering 
the  work  of  a  man  of  so  varied  a  genius  as  Mr.  Robinson, 
it  is  interesting,  if  not  over-important,  to  observe  the 
modes  of  expression  that  he  has  anticipated  if  not  actually 
influenced;  even  where  he  has  not  chosen,  or  has  not  been 
able  to  develop,  these  modes. 

The  resemblance  in  matter  and  manner,  save  for  Mr. 
Robinson's  greater  suavity,  of  certain  poems,  especially 
the  sonnets,  in  The  Children  of  the  Night,  to  the  epitaphs  in 
The  Spoon  River  Anthology,  has  been  noted  by  other 
writers;  and  I  believe  it  has  been  said  that  Mr.  Masters 
was  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  these  poems  until  after 
the  Anthology  was  written.  There  is  little  to  be  said  about 
such  a  poem  as  Mr.  Robinson's  Luke  Havergal: 


A  Cool  Master 

No,  there  is  not  a  dawn  in  eastern  skies 
To  rift  the  fiery  night  that's  in  your  eyes; 
But  there,  where  western  glooms  are  gathering, 
The  dark  will  end  the  dark,  if  anything: 
God  slays  Himself  with  every  leaf  that  flies, 
And  hell  is  more  than  half  of  paradise. 
No,  there  is  not  a  dawn  in  eastern  skies — 
In  eastern  skies. 

Out  of  a  grave  I  come  to  tell  you  this, 
Out  of  a  grave  I  come  to  quench  the  kiss 
That  flames  upon  your  forehead  with  a  glow 
That  blinds  you  to  the  way  that  you  must  go. 

And  Mr.  Masters'  satire  has  been  forestalled  and  outdone 
in  these  early  sonnets. 

But  a  more  curious  and  interesting  resemblance  to  a 
later  poet  is  found  in  the  Octaves  in  the  same  volume: 

To  me  the  groaning  of  world-worshippers 
Rings  like  a  lonely  music  played  in  hell 
By  one  with  art  enough  to  cleave  the  walls 
Of  heaven  with  his  cadence,  but  without 
The  wisdom  or  the  will  to  comprehend 
The  strangeness  of  his  own  perversity, 
And  all  without  the  courage  to  deny 
The  profit  and  the  pride  of  his  defeat. 

If  the  actual  thought  of  this  passage  is  not  that  of  Wallace 
Stevens,  nevertheless  the  quality  of  the  thought,  the 
manner  of  thinking,  as  well  as  the  style,  quite  definitely  is. 
To  what  extent  Mr.  Robinson  may  have  influenced  this 
greatest  of  living  and  of  American  poets,  one  cannot  say, 
but  in  at  least  three  of  the  Octaves,  one  phase  of  Mr. 
Stevens'  later  work — that  of  Le  Monocle  de  Mon  Oncle 
and  other  recent  and  shorter  poems — is  certainly  fore- 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

shadowed.  Mr.  Robinson's  sound  is  inevitably  the  less 
rich,  the  less  masterly. 

In  another  of  the  Octaves  there  are  a  few  lines  that 
suggest  the  earlier  poems  of  Mr.  T.  S.  Eliot,  but  the  resem- 
blance is  fleeting  and  apparently  accidental. 

If  the  tradition  of  New  England  seems  to  be  reaching 
an  end  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Frost,  Mr.  Robinson  has  at 
least  helped  greatly  in  the  founding  of  a  tradition  of 
culture  and  clean  workmanship  that  such  poets  as  Messrs. 
Stevens,  Eliot,  and  Pound,  as  H.  D.  and  Marianne 
Moore,  are  carrying  on.  Mr.  Robinson  was,  when  he 
began,  as  much  a  pioneer  as  Mr.  Pound  or  Mr.  Yeats, 
and  he  has  certainly  achieved  as  great  poetry.  While  the 
tradition  begun,  more  or  less,  by  Whitman,  has  deterio- 
rated, in  the  later  work  of  Mr.  Carl  Sandburg,  into  a  sort 
of  plasmodial  delirium;  and  while  the  school  of  mellifluous 
and  almost  ominous  stage-trappings,  as  exemplified  by 
Poe,  has  melted  into  a  sort  of  post-Celtic  twilight,  and 
has  nearly  vanished  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Aiken;  the  work 
of  these  writers  and  a  few  others  stands  out  clear  and  hard 
in  the  half-light  of  our  culture.  I  cannot  forget  that  they 
exist,  even  in  the  face  of  the  desert.  Yvor  Winters 

MR.    YEATS*    PLAYS 

Four  Plays  for  Dancers,  by  William  Butler  Yeats.     Mac- 

millan  Co. 

Mr.  Yeats  is  one  of  the  few  poets  writing  poetic  plays 
who  are  also,  in  exact  meaning,  men  of  the  theatre.  Just 

[288] 


Mr.  Yeats'  Plays 

as  he  is  probably  the  foremost  poet  of  his  generation,  so 
he  shares  with  Gordon  Craig  and  one  or  two  others  the 
distinction  of  having  seen  furthest  into  the  theatre  as  it 
may  become.  That  youth  which  in  the  Irish  temperament 
is  so  old  as  to  be  imperishable  has  retained  for  him  his 
leadership  in  the  poetic  drama  and  in  the  exploration  of 
new  forms.  Four  Plays  for  Dancers,  as  in  its  own  time 
The  Land  of  Heart's  Desire  (written  "without  adequate 
knowledge  of  the  stage"!),  is  the  work  of  a  pioneer  bring- 
ing a  form  to  its  perfection  with  no  apparent  interval  of 
apprenticeship. 

"My  blunder  has  been,"  he  writes,  "that  I  did  not 
discover  in  my  youth  that  my  theatre  must  be  the  ancient 
theatre  that  can  be  made  by  unrolling  a  carpet,  or  marking 
out  a  place  with  a  stick,  or  setting  a  screen  against  a 
wall."  When  he  was  last  in  America  he  told  us  of  such  a 
theatre,  so  intimate  that  its  few  properties  could  be 
carried  by  the  players  in  a  taxicab  and  set  in  a  drawing- 
room,  and  of  how  he  had  found  a  first  model  in  the  Noh 
stage  of  aristocratic  Japan.  Shortly  afterward  The  Only 
Jealousy  of  Emer  was  published  in  POETRY;  and  now, 
with  three  other  plays  similar  in  construction,  it  appears 
in  book  form.  There  are  also  masks  and  costume  plates 
by  Edmond  Dulac  for  At  the  Hawk's  Well,  produced  as 
early  as  1916  in  England,  music  for  the  dances  and  songs 
by  W.  M.  Rummel,  and  suggestive  notes  on  the  plays  and 
their  production. 

Unhesitatingly  one  may  call  this  book  the  most  signifi- 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine     of    Verse 

cant  contribution  to  the  art-theatre  that  has  been  written 
in  a  long  while.  True,  it  is  the  art-theatre  in  its  most 
aristocratic  phase;  but  the  best  in  this  art,  as  in  another, 
must  sometimes,  in  relation  to  audiences,  be  aristocratic. 
What  gives'  to  these  plays  their  significance,  apart  from 
the  almost  ineffable  beauty  with  which  at  least  two  of 
them  are  written,  is  that  he  has  found  a  way  by  which  the 
color,  the  enchantment,  the  distance  and  subtlety  of 
legendary  drama  may  be  projected  intimately  and  by  a 
medium  of  amazing  simplicity.  In  doing  this,  granting 
that  one's  insight  into  the  effect  of  the  plays  in  production 
is  accurate,  he  has  conquered  difficulties  which  would 
seem  insurmountable. 

He  has  secured  the  illusion  of  distance,  not  in  despite 
of,  but  through^  the  intimacy  of  a  small  audience  in  contact 
with  the  players.  Never  before  in  the  western  theatre, 
and  jn  no  other  western  art  except  perhaps  that  of  the 
story-teller  setting  his  tale  directly  in  the  imagination,  has 
such  an  effect  been  possible.  It  is  the  quality  of  his  tech- 
nique, the  unerring  sense  of  the  theatre,  which  seems  to 
make  this  an  authentic  form  both  in  these  individual 
plays  and  as  existing  apart  from  them.  Beside  it  the  arti- 
ficial intimacy  effected  by  Max  Reinhardt  becomes  clap- 
trap. Restricting  himself  to  the  simplest  means,  he  has 
chosen  them  with  the  instinct  of  a  poet,  with  that  same 
instinct  which  made  such  lines  as  these  of  the  Musician: 

I  call  to  the  eye  of  the  mind 

A  well  long  choked  up  and  dry, 

And  boughs  long  stripped  by  the  wind. 

[290] 


Mr.  Yeats'  Plays 

And  I  call  to  the  mind's  eye 

Pallor  of  an  ivory  face, 

Its  lofty  dissolute  air, 

A  man  climbing  up  to  a  place 

The  salt  sea  wind  has  swept  bare. 

"In  literature  if  we  would  not  be  parvenus  we  must  have 
a  model;"  and  as  his  theatre  has  been  modified  until  it 
has  become  independent  of  the  Noh,  so  a  new  poetic 
drama  may  be  liberated  by  his  inspiration. 

As  for  the  plays  in  relation  to  each  other,  we  have 
learned  long  since  to  expect  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Yeats 
the  clarity  and  beauty  of  poetic  content  and  expression 
that  one  finds  in  these  plays.  We  expect  it;  and  it  seldom 
fails  the  anticipation.  If  The  Dreaming  of  the  Bones  and 
Calvary  do  not  seem  quite  to  reach  the  height  of  the 
two  others,  that  is  not  to  deny  that  they  are  rich  in  con- 
tent also.  But  there  is  a  beauty  lacking  in  them,  purity 
of  inspiration  replaced  by  what  is  not  far  from  propa- 
ganda in  the  one  and  from  an  over-subtle  interpretation 
in  the  other.  The  mood  has  flagged  somewhat,  after  the 
splendor  of  utterance  in  At  the  Hawk's  Well  and  The 
Only  'Jealousy  of  Emer.  These  are  incomparable. 

Postcript — to  "Little  Theatres":  These  plays,  when 
you  read  them,  may  not  appear  difficult  to  present,  what 
with  the  elaborate  stage  directions  and  the  photographs. 
But  I  fear  that  you  would  find  them  impossible,  lacking 
a  Yeats,  a  Dulac,  and  a  Michio  Itow,  who  are  indispen- 
sable. And  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  confuse  this  theatre 

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POETRY:     A     Magazine    of    Verse 

in  any  way  with  the  theatre  of  Jacques  Copeau,  which  is 
also  admirable.  Mr.  Yeats  has  not  abandoned  the  mise 
en  scene — he  has  intensified  it.  And,  incidentally,  he  has 
given  us,  when  we  are  ready  for  it,  one  kind  of  synthetic 
theatre,  including  even  the  management  of  light. 

Cloyd  Head 

NOTES 

Wang  Wei,  the  famous  poet-painter  who  lived  in  China  thirteen 
centuries  ago,  interests  Mr.  Bynner  more  than  any  other  Chinese  poet, 
and  is  sufficiently  introduced  by  his  editorial.  For  nearly  three  years 
the  two  translators  have  been  studying  Chinese  poetry  of  the  great 
age  for  the  benefit  of  readers  of  English,  and  their  book  of  translations, 
The  Jade  Mountain,  is  to  be  published  next  autumn  by  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Kiang  Kang-hu,  who  is  a  scholar  in  both  languages,  made  the  literal 
English  versions  which  Mr.  Bynner,  after  close  consultation  over  mean- 
ings and  rhythms,  has  shaped  into  English  poems. 

Eunice  Tietjens  (Mrs.  Cloyd  Head)  of  Chicago,  who  is  a  member  of 
POETRY'S  advisory  committee,  is  the  author  of  two  books  of  verse — 
Profiles  from  China  and  Body  and  Raiment  (Alfred  A.  Knopf). 

Leonora  Speyer  (Mrs.  Edgar  S.),  of  New  York,  is  the  author  of  A 
Canopic  Jar  (E.  P.  Button  &  Co.).  Abrigada  is  not  a  castle  in  Spain, 
but  an  old  house  in  Long  Island  where  the  Speyers  lived  last  summer. 

Miss  Constance  Lindsay  Skinner,  of  New  York,  received,  in  1915, 
one  of  POETRY'S  prizes  for  her  group  of  Indian  poems,  Songs  of  the 
Coast-dwellers.  She  has  not  yet  printed  a  volume  of  her  Indian  inter- 
pretations, but  many  of  them  may  be  found  in  George  W.  Cronyn's 
anthology,  The  Path  on  the  Rainbow  (Boni  &  Liveright). 

Mr.  Harold  Monro,  of  London,  author  of  three  or  four  books  of  verse 
and  editor  of  The  Chap  Book,  will  publish  this  spring,  through  the  Poetry 
Book  Shop,  of  which  he  is  chief,  a  new  book  of  poems,  Real  Property. 

Babette  Deutsch  (Mrs.  A.  Yarmolinsky),  of  New  York,  is  the  author 
of  Banners  (George  H.  Doran  Co.).  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yarmolinsky  together 
translated  from  the  Russian  The  Twelve,  by  the  late  Alexander  Blok> 

[292] 


Notes 

which  was  published  in  1920  by  B.  W.  Huebsch,  with  an  introduction 
by  the  translators;  and  they  have  just  issued,  through  Harcourt,  Brace 
&  Co.,  Modern  Russian  Poetry:  An  Anthology. 

"Paul  Tanaquil"  is  a  cosmopolite  resident  of  Coronado,  Cal. 

The  other  poets  in  this  number  are  new  to  our  readers: 

Medora  C.  Addison  (Mrs.  Charles  Read  Nutter),  of  Concord,  Mass., 
will  soon  publish,  through  the  Yale  Univ.  Press,  her  first  book  of  verse, 
Dreams  and  a  Sword. 

Mr.  F.  R.  McCreary  is  a  young  poet  of  Cambridge,  Mass.  Miss 
Gwendolen  Haste,  a  native  of  Illinois,  is  now  in  business  in  New  York. 
Miss  Sarah-Margaret  Brown  is  a  student  at  Northwestern  University, 
Evanston,  111. 

Mr.  H.  Austin  Simons,  or  "Hi  Simons,"  as  he  prefers  to  be  called, 
was  imprisoned  for  eighteen  months  as  a  conscientious  objector  at  Fort 
Leavenworth,  and  since  his  release  has  been  doing  newspaper  work 
in  Chicago. 

All  trace  of  Mr.  Harlow  Clarke,  except  his  poems,  has  disappeared 
from  this  office — we  shall  be  grateful  for  a  word  from  him. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Dreams  Out  of  Darkness,  by  Jean  Starr  Untermeyer.     B.  W.  Huebsch. 
Explorations,  by  Robert  McAlmon.     Egoist  Press,  London. 
Hymen,  by  H.  D.     Henry  Holt  &  Co. 
Cobblestones,  by  David  Sentner.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Poems:  Second  Series,  by  J.  C.  Squire.     George  H.  Doran  Co. 
The  Secret  Way,  by  Zona  Gale.     Macmillan  Co. 
A  Web  of  Thoughts,  by  Marjorie  Anderson.     Four  Seas  Co. 
With  Star  and  Grass,  by  Anna  Spencer  Twitchell.     Cornhill  Co. 
Mystic  Songs  of  Fire  and  Flame,  by  K.  Arthur-Behenna.     Cornhill  Co. 
Tree-top  Mornings,  by  Ethelwyn  Wetherald.     Cornhill  Co. 
Mid  Light  and  Shade,  by  John  Langdon  Jones.     Duffield  &  Co. 
Anita  and  Other  Poems,  by  Evarts  Scudder.     Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford. 
Eternal  Helen,  by  F.  Pearce  Sturm.     Basil  Blackwell. 
The  Traveller  s  Tale,  by  Clifford  Bax.     Basil  Blackwell. 
Through  a  Glass,  by  Fanny  DeGroot  Hastings.     Priv.  ptd.,  New  York. 

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POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Shadings,  by  Bessie  Glen  Buchanan.     Privately  printed. 

The  Birth  of  the  Poinsettia,  by  Francis  A.  W.  Kendall.     Priv.  ptd. 

Irish  and  Canadian  Poems,  by  Michael  A.  Hargadon.     Modern  Printing 

Co.,  Montreal. 

Pjesme,  by  Vladislav  S.  Pavic.     Stamparija  J.  A.  Omero  Press,  N.  Y. 
Igdrasil,  by  Royall  Snow.     Four  Seas  Co. 
The  Playground  of  the  Gods  and  Other  Poems,  by  Elizabeth  Huntingdon. 

Four  Seas  Co. 
Missouri  and  Other  Verse,  by  Nathaniel  M.  Baskett,  M.  D.     Privately 

printed,  Canton,  Mo. 

Legends  of  Life  and  Other  Poems,  by  Bertha  Oppenheim.     Stratford  Co. 
Mavericks,  by  William  A.  Brewer,  Jr.     Priv.  ptd.,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

PLAYS: 
Plays  of  Edmond  Rostand.     Translated    by   Henderson    Daingerfield 

Norman;  illustrated  by  Ivan  Glidden.     (2  Vols.)     Macmillan  Co. 
Aria  Da  Capo,  by  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay.     Mitchell  Kennerley. 

ANTHOLOGIES  AND  TRANSLATIONS: 

Modern  Russian  Poetry,  chosen  and  translated  by  Babette  Deutsch  and 

Avrahm  Yarmolinsky.     Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co. 
Die  neue  Welt,  eine  Anthologie  juengster  Amerikanischer  Lyric,  heraus- 

gegeben  von  Claire  Goll.     S.  Fischer,  Berlin. 
Fir-flower  Tablets.     Translated  from  the  Chinese  by  Florence  Ayscough; 

English  versions  by  Amy  Lowell.     Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
Some  Contemporary  Poets — fQ2O,  by  Harold  Monro.     Leonard  Parsons, 

London. 
PROSE: 
The  Golden  Fleece  and  the  Heroes  Who  Lived  Before  Achilles,  by  Padraic 

Colum.     Illustrations  by  Willy  Pogany.     Macmillan  Co. 
A  Hasty  Bunch,  by  Robert  McAlmon.     Priv.  ptd.,  Dijon,  France. 
A  Mother's  First  Prayer,  by  Kathryn  Wire  Hammond.     Abingdon  Press, 

New  York. 

The  Poetic  Procession,  by  J.  F.  Roxburgh.     Basil  Blackwell,  Oxford. 
The  Beginning  of  Wisdom,  by  Stephen  Vincent  Benet.     Henry  Holt  &  Co. 
Gray  Wolf  Stories — Indian  Mystery  Tales  of  Coyotes,  Animals  and  Men, 

by  Bernard  Sexton.     Illus.  by  Gwenyth  Waugh.     Macmillan  Co. 
Browningiana  in  Baylor  University,  compiled  by  Aurelia  E.   Brooks. 

Baylor  University  Press,  Waco,  Texas. 

[294] 


How  I  wish  that  some  English  paper  had  anything  like  the  authentic  vitality  of 
POETRY!  Louis  Golding 


Vol.  XIX  No.  VI 

POETRY  for  MARCH,  1922 

PAGE 

Medley  of  Poems Carl  Sandburg  295 

Moon-riders  I-III — Feather  Lights — The  Naked  Stranger — 
Medley — Gypsy  Mother 

Song  Sketches Marion  Strobel  303 

We  Have  a  Day — Spring  Morning — Tonight — The  Silence 
Stirs  Again — The  Night — I  Would  Pretend — Admonition — 
Frightened  Face — Daily  Prayer — L'Envoi 

Working-hour  Songs Ruth  Harwood  310 

The  Shoe  Factory — Making  Little  Clothes — Always  and 
Always 

The  Unloved Alison  Buchanan  313 

Ecclesiastes — A  New  Hampshire  Boy       .      .      .      Morris  Bishop  314 

Roads  . Sarah  Unna  316 

Holiday  Crowd — Winged  Victory  .....  Hortense  Flexner  317 

Monologue  from  a  Mattress Louis  Untermeyer  318 

Newspaper  Verse H.  M.  324 

Reviews: 

Miss  Lowell's  Legends Dorothy  Dudley  330 

Spear-shaft  and  Cyclamen-flower       ....       W.  Bryher  333 

"A  Distinguished  Young  Man  " Yvor  Winters  337 

A  Prize-winner Pearl  Andelson  340 

A  Lute  of  One  String • H.  M.  344 

A  Poet  in  Embryo .      .      .      .      .  H.  M .  345 

Rhetoric  Unashamed H.  M.  346 

Correspondence: 

The  Code  of  Minority Baker  Browne/I  347 

A  New  Poetry  Society F.  P.  351 

Notes  and  Books  Received        .      . 351, 352 

Manuscripts  must  be  accompanied  by  a  stamped  and  self -addressed  envelope. 

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Published  monthly  at  543  Cass  St.,  Chicago,  111. 
Copyright  1922,  by  Harriet  Monroe.     All  rights  reserved. 


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VOL.  XIX 
No.  VI 

A  Magazine  of  \ferse 


MARCH  1922 


MEDLEY  OF  POEMS 


MOON-RIDERS 


WHAT  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning? 
The  earliest  of  the  morning  came  with  moon-mist 
And  the  travel  of  a  moon-spilt  purple : 
Bars,  horse-shoes,  Texas  long-horns, 
Linked  in  night  silver, 
Linked  under  leaves  in  moonlit  silver, 
Linked  in  rags  and  patches 
Out  of  the  ice-houses  of  the  morning  moon. 
Yes,  this  was  the  earliest — 
Before  the  cowpunchers  on  the  eastern  rims 
Began  riding  into  the  sun, 
Riding  the  roan  mustangs  of  morning, 

[295] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Roping  the  mavericks  after  the  latest  stars. 
What  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning? 
Was  there  a  child  face  I  saw  once 
Smiling  up  a  stairway  of  the  morning  moon? 

ii 

"It  is  time  for  work,"  said  a  man  in  the  morning. 
He  opened  the  faces  of  the  clocks,  saw  their  works, 
Saw  the  wheels  oiled  and  fitted,  running  smooth. 
"It  is  time  to  begin  a  day's  work,"  he  said  again, 
Watching  a  bullfinch  hop  on  the  rain-worn  boards 
Of  a  beaten  fence  counting  its  bitter  winters. 
The  clinging  feet  of  the  bullfinch  and  the  flash 
Of  its  flying  feathers  as  it  flipped  away 
Took  his  eyes  away  from  the  clocks — his  flying  eyes. 
He  walked  over,  stood  in  front  of  the  clocks  again, 
And  said,  "I'm  sorry;  I  apologize  forty  ways." 

in 

The  morning  paper  lay  bundled, 

Like  a  spear  in  a  museum, 

Across  the  broken  sleeping-room 

Of  a  moon-sheet  spider. 

The  spinning  work  of  the  morning  spider's  feet 

Left  off  where  the  morning  paper's  pages  lay 

In  the  shine  of  the  web  in  the  summer-dew  grass. 

The  man  opened  the  morning  paper:  saw  the  first  page, 

[296] 


Carl  Sandburg 

The  back  page,  the  inside  pages,  the  editorials; 

Saw  the  world  go  by,  eating,  stealing,  fighting; 

Saw  the  headlines,  date-lines,  funnies,  ads, 

The  marching  movies  of  the  workmen  going  to  work,  the 

workmen  striking, 
The  workmen  asking  jobs — five  million  pairs  of  eyes  look 

for  a  boss  and  say,  "Take  me"; 
People  eating  with  too  much  to  eat,  people  eating  with 

nothing  in  sight  to  eat  tomorrow,  eating  as  though 

eating  belongs  where  people  belong. 

"Hustle,  you  hustlers,  while  the  hustling's  good," 
Said  the  man,  turning  the  morning  paper's  pages, 
Turning  among  headlines,  date-lines,  funnies,  ads. 
"Hustlers  carrying  the  banner,"  said  the  man, 
Dropping  the  paper  and  beginning  to  hunt  the  city; 
Hunting  the  alleys,  boulevards,  back-door  by-ways; 
Hunting  till  he  found  a  blind  horse  dying  alone, 
Telling  the  horse,  "Two  legs  or  four  legs — it's  all  the  same 
with  a  work  plug." 

A  hayfield  mist  of  evening  saw  him 
Watching  the  moon-riders  lose  the  moon 
For  new  shooting-stars.     He  asked, 
"Christ,  what  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning?" 
He  called  up  a  stairway  of  the  morning  moon 
And  he  remembered  a  child  face  smiling  up  that  same 
stairway. 

[297] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

FEATHER    LIGHTS 

Macabre  and  golden  the  moon  opened  a  slant  of  light. 

A  triangle  for  an  oriole  to  stand  and  sing,  "Take  me 
home." 

A  layer  of  thin  white  gold  feathers  for  a  child  queen  of 
gypsies. 

So  the  moon  opened  a  slant  of  light  and  let  it  go. 

So  the  lonesome  dogs,  the  fog  moon,  the  pearl  mist,  came 
back. 

THE    NAKED    STRANGER 

It  is  five  months  off. 

Knit,  stitch,  and  hemstitch: 

Sheets,  bags,  towels,  these  are  the  offerings. 

When  he  is  older,  or  she  is  a  big  girl, 

There  may  be  flowers  or  ribbons  or  money 

For  birthday  offerings.     Now,  however, 

We  must  remember  it  is  a  naked  stranger 

Coming  to  us;  and  the  sheath  of  the  arrival 

Is  so  soft  we  must  be  ready,  and  soft  too. 

Knit,  stitch,  hemstitch,  it  is  only  five  months. 


It  would  be  easy  to  pick  a  lucky  star  for  this  baby 
If  a  choice  of  two  stars  lay  before  our  eyes — 

[298] 


Carl  Sandburg 


One  a  pearl-gold  star  and  one  pearl-silver — 
And  the  offer  of  a  chance  to  pick  a  lucky  star. 

When  the  high  hour  comes 

Let  there  be  a  light  flurry  of  snow, 

A  little  zigzag  of  white  spots 

Against  the  gray  roofs. 
The  snow-born  all  understand  this  as  a  luck-wish. 


MEDLEY 

Ignorance  came  in  stones  of  gold; 
The  ignorant  slept  while  the  hangmen 
Hanged  the  keepers  of  the  lights 
Of  sweet  stars :  such  were  the  apothegms, 
Offhand  offerings  of  mule-drivers 
Eating  sandwiches  of  rye  bread, 
Salami  and  onions. 

''Too  Many  Books,"  we  always  called  him; 

A  landscape  of  masterpieces  and  old  favorites 

Fished  with  their  titles  for  his  eyes 

In  the  upstairs  and  downstairs  rooms 

Of  his  house.    Whenever  he  passed 

The  old-time  bar-room  where  Pete  Morehouse 

Shot  the  chief  of  police,  where 

The  sponge  squads  shot  two  bootleggers, 

[299] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

He  always  remembered  the  verse  story, 

The  Face  on  the  Ear-room  Floor — 

The  tramp  on  a  winter  night, 

Saddened  and  warmed  with  whiskey, 

Telling  of  a  woman  he  wanted 

And  a  woman  who  wanted  him, 

How  whiskey  wrecked  it  all; 

Taking  a  piece  of  chalk, 

Picturing  her  face  on  the  bar-room  floor, 

Fixing  the  lines  of  her  face 

While  he  told  the  story, 

Then  gasping  and  falling  with  finished  heartbeats, 

Dead. 

And  whenever  he  passed  over  the  bridge  at  night 

And  took  the  look  up  the  river  to  smaller  bridges, 

Barge  lights,  and  looming  shores, 

He  always  thought  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 

With  a  load  of  hootch  in  him, 

Going  to  a  party  of  respectable  people 

Who  called  for  a  speech, 

Who  listened  to  Poe  recite  the  Lord's  Prayer, 

Correctly,  word  for  word,  yet  with  lush,  unmistakable 

Intonations,  so  haunting  the  dinner-party  people 

All  excused  themselves  to  each  other. 

Whenever  Too  Many  Books 

Passed  over  the  town  bridge  in  the  gloaming, 


Carl  Sandburg 

He  thought  of  Poe  breaking  up  that  party 

Of  respectable  people.     Such  was  Too  Many  Books — 

We  called  him  that. 


GYPSY   MOTHER 

In  a  hole-in-a-wall  on  Halsted  Street  sits  a  gypsy  woman, 
In  a  garish,  gas-lit  rendezvous,  in  a  humpback  higgling 
hole-in-a-wall. 

The  left  hand  is  a  tattler;  stars  and  oaths  and  alphabets 
Commit  themselves  and  tell  happenings  gone,  happenings 
to  come,  pathways  of  honest  people,  hypocrites. 

"Long  pointed  fingers  mean  imagination;  a  star  on  the 
third  finger  says  a  black  shadow  walks  near." 

Cross  the  gypsy's  hand  with  fifty  cents,  and  she  takes  your 
left  hand  and  reads  how  you  shall  be  happy  in  love, 
or  not,  and  whether  you  die  rich,  or  not. 

Signs  outside  the  hole-in-a-wall  say  so,  misspell  the 
promises,  scrawl  the  superior  gypsy  mysteries. 

A  red  shawl  on  her  shoulders  falls  with  a  fringe  hem  to  a 

green  skirt. 
Chains  of  yellow  beads  sweep  from  her  neck  to  her  tawny 

hands. 
Fifty  springtimes  must  have  kissed  her  mouth  holding  a 

calabash  pipe. 

[301] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

She  pulls  slow  contemplative  puffs  of  smoke.  She  is  a 
shape  for  ghosts  of  contemplation  to  sit  around  and 
ask  why  something  cheap  as  happiness  is  here;  and 
more  besides  than  plain  happiness,  chapped  lips, 
rough  eyes,  red  shawl,  gypsy  perfection  of  offhand 
insolence. 

She  is  thinking  about  somebody  and  something — the  same 
as  Whistler's  mother  sat  and  thought  about  some- 
body and  something. 

In  a  hole-in-a-wall  on  Halsted  Street  are  stars,  oaths, 
alphabets. 

Carl  Sandburg 


[302] 


SONG  SKETCHES 

WE    HAVE    A    DAY 

We  have  a  day,  we  have  a  night 
Which  have  been  made  for  our  delight! 

Shall  we  run,  and  run,  and  run 
Up  the  path  of  the  rising  sun  ? 

Shall  we  roll  down  every  hill, 

Or  lie  still 

Listening  while  the  whispering  leaves 

Promise  what  no  one  believes  ? 

(The  hours  poise,  breathless  for  flight,  and  bright.) 

Only  a  night,  only  a  day — 

We  must  not  let  them  get  away: 

Don  a  foolish  cap  and  bell, 
For  all  is  well  and  all  is  well ! 

Dance  through  woods  a  purple-blue! 
Dance  into 

Lanes  that  are  a  hidden  stem 
Beneath  the  beauty  over  them. 

(The  hours  lift  their  shadow-form,  are  warm.) 

[303] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Why  do  you  still  stand  mute  and  white  ? 
The  day  is  past,  but  there  is  night. 

Turn  your  head,  give  me  your  lips — 
The  darkness  slips!     The  darkness  slips. 

We  could  make  it  hushed  and  still. 
If  you  will 

We  could  hear,  close  to  the  ground 
1  Life — the  one  authentic  sound. 

(The  hours,  as  a  startled  faun,  are  gone.) 


SPRING    MORNING 

O  day — if  I  could  cup  my  hands  and  drink  of  you, 

And  make  this  shining  wonder  be 

A  part  of  me ! 

Oday!    Oday! 

You  lift  and  sway  your  colors  on  the  sky 

Till  I  am  crushed  with  beauty.    Why  is  there 

More  of  reeling  sunlit  air 

Than  I  can  breathe?     Why  is  there  sound 

In  silence?     Why  is  a  singing  wound 

About  each  hour? 

And  perfume  when  there  is  no  flower? 

O  day!    O  day!    How  may  I  press 

Nearer  to  loveliness? 

[304] 


Marion  Strobel 

TONIGHT 

A  flame 
Leaps  high 
In  a  wind: 

I  am  the  same. 

I  go 

My  head 
High.     I  flame 

Red— blue.    Oh, 

Tonight 
The  sky 
Will  be  a 

Cry  of  light — 

Fire! 

Come  swift 

As  wind — come, 

Lift  me  higher! 

THE    SILENCE    STIRS    AGAIN 

The  silence  that  has  lain  so  long  between  us 

Stirs  again:  . 

The  rushes  bend  in  shining  pathways 

To  the  shining  end; 

The  air  is  burdened  with  the  rose  that  is  not  there — 

Always  the  rose. 

[305] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

I  have  no  laughter  now,  no  tears — 
Only  the  silence  grows  big  with  years, 
Only  the  silence  has  a  touch 
That  hurts  overmuch. 

The  rushes  bend 

In  shining  pathways  to  the  shining  end; 

Bend,  and  close. 


THE    NIGHT 

The  night  binds  darkness  round  my  eyes 

And  makes  me  wise. 

The  quiet  hours  beguile — 

Like  maidens  chaste  in  single  file, 

Like  maidens  who  have  said, 

"Be  comforted." 

The  truth  of  day  falls  far  away 

And  far  away  „  .  . 

And  all  the  little  gaieties 

Are  dressed  in  colors  as  I  please; 

And  sadness  has  a  gentle  hand 

I  understand. 

The  night  bound  darkness  round  my  eyes- 
I  was  made  wise. 

[306] 


Marion  Strobel 


I    WOULD    PRETEND 


Now  that  between  us  there  is  nothing  more 
To  say,  I  would  have  loud  and  foolish  speech 
With  you,  I  would  pretend  I  still  adore 
Your  voice:  "Come,  beautiful,  draw  near  and  teach 
The  way  my  hands  should  go  in  a  caress — 
Should  fingers  trail  as  pink  feet  of  a  crane 
That  skim  the  water? — or  should  fingers  press 
Their  weight  heavily?'*     Draw  near  me  again — 
What  does  it  matter  if  the  words  you  say 
Are  lies,  if  they  be  sweet  to  listen  to? 
Your  lips  are  quite  as  cruel,  quite  as  gay 
As  ever;  and  your  eyes  are  honest  blue.  .  .  . 
Oh,  be  sublimely  false  (who  are  not  true) — 
And  I'll  pretend  I  love  you  .  .  .  as  I  do! 


ADMONITION 

Come  quietly,  without  a  word — 
I  am  so  tired  of  the  things  I've  heard. 
I  am  so  tired  of  words  that  tear 
At  beauty  till  the  branch  is  bare: 

Of  words  that  will  not  let  beauty  be 

A  sweet-clustered  mystery. 

As  a  Canterbury  bell 

Purse  your  lips,  but  do  not  tell. 

[307] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

FRIGHTENED    FACE 

Child  of  the  frightened  face, 

Trying  to  understand 
The  little  bit  of  love 

Under  your  hand, 

Holding  the  little  love 

Under  fingers  that  crush 
That  which  is  soft  as  the 

Throat  of  a  thrush, 

Holding  your  hand  upon 

The  wonder  of  the  thing, 
Crushing  out  the  song  that 

Wanted  to  sing: 

Child  of  the  frightened  face, 

Why  do  your  fingers  try 
To  kill  the  little  love? 

Soon  it  would  die. 


DAILY    PRAYER 

And  at  last  when  I  go 
Will  it  be  so? 
Shall  I  find  you  behind 
The  rude  platitude  of  death? 

[308] 


Marion  Strobel 


I  kneel  within  the  certainty 

That  you  are  near  to  me: 

Each  day  I  pray 

That  I  may  follow  through 

To  you. 

Each  day  I  pray. 


The  moments  reach  and  touch  the  hours  gently. 

Each  is  kind, 

Each  is  soothing  as  the  tips 

Of  fingers  held  to  lips. 

The  moments  reach  and  touch  the  hours:  flowers 
Will  bloom  again, 

And  I  shall  pick  fresh  jonquils  for  the  room; 
And  I  shall  pick  fresh  jonquils  in  the  usual  way 
Every  day. 

The  moments  reach  and  touch  the  hours: 
Time  has  no  beginning,  and  no  end, 
Dear  friend. 

Marlon  Strobel 


[309] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
WORKING-HOUR  SONGS 

THE    SHOE    FACTORY 

,  Song  of  the  knot-tyer 

They  told  me 

When  I  came 
That  this  would  be  drudgery, 

Always  the  same 
Thing  over  and  over 

Day  after  day — 
The  same  swift  movement 

In  the  same  small  way. 

Pick  up, 
Place, 
Push, 

And  it's  tied. 
Take  off, 
Cut, 

And  put 
It  aside. 

Over  and  over 

In  rhythmical  beat — 
Some  say  it  is  drudgery 

But  to  me  it  is  sweet. 

[310] 


Ruth  Harwood 


Pick  up, 
Place, 
Push, 

And  it's  tied. 
Out-doors 
The  sky 
Is  so  blue 
And  so  wide! 

It's  a  joyous  song 
Going  steadily  on, 

Marching  in  measures 
Till  the  day  is  gone. 

Pick  up, 
Place, 
Push, 

And  it's  tied. 
Soon  end 
Of  day 

Will  bring  him 
To  my  side. 

Oh,  I  love  the  measures 

Singing  so  fast, 
Speeding  happy  hours 

Till  he  comes  at  last! 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

MAKING    LITTLE    CLOTHES 

Grey  rain  on  the  window-pane, 
And  in  my  heart  grey  rain — 

And  the  ceaseless  whir  of  machines 
Pounding  my  weary  brain. 

He  had  such  a  little  share  of  life, 

And  now  he's  gone. 
And  all  my  heart  went  with  him. 

Yet  I  go  numbly  on, 
Making  little  clothes 

Just  the  size  of  him, 
Little  clothes  for  others 

But  nevermore  for  him. 

Grey  rain  on  the  window-pane, 
And  in  my  heart  grey  rain — 

And  the  endless  grind  of  machines 
Beating  a  dull  refrain. 

ALWAYS    AND   ALWAYS 

Always  and  always 

I  go  out  from  myself 

In  the  silver  morning, 

Out  to  greet  some  new  friend, 

With  my  arms  laden  with  friendship  gifts 

And  a  hundred  little  songs  of  gladness  on  my  lips. 


Ruth  Harwood 

Always  and  always 

I  return  to  myself 

In  the  purple  twilight — 

Back  to  the  comforting  sureness  of  myself, 

To  fill  my  empty  arms  again  with  gifts, 

To  ease  the  little  hurt  my  heart  has  brought. 

Ruth  Harwood 


THE  UNLOVED 

Stephen,  son  of  me, 

You  will  never  be  born,  my  dear. 
Light  of  day  you  will  never  see, 

And  the  earth-sounds  never  hear. 

But  after  I  have  died, 

When  I  come  to  the  courts  of  the  sun — 
Though  husband-love  I  have  never  had, 

And  lovers  never  a  one — 

You  will  stand  with  a  ripple  of  joy 
On  the  lips  that  have  never  smiled, 

And  I  shall  clasp  my  son  at  last — 
My  child,  my  child ! 

Alison  Buchanan 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
ECCLESIASTES 

In  the  smoke-blue  cabaret 

She  sang  some  comic  thing: 
I  heeded  not  at  all 

Till  "Sing!  "she  cried,  "Sing !" 
So  I  sang  in  tune  with  her 

The  only  song  I  know: 
"The  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets, 

And  the  daughters  of  music  brought  low. 

Her  eyes  and  working  lips 

Gleamed  through  the  cruddled  air — 
I  tried  to  sing  with  her 

Her  song  of  devil-may-care. 
But  in  the  shouted  chorus 

My  lips  would  not  be  stilled: 
"The  rivers  run  into  the  sea, 

Yet  the  sea  is  not  filled." 

Then  one  came  to  my  table 

Who  said,  with  a  laughing  glance, 
"If  that  is  the  way  you  sing, 

Why  don't  you  learn  to  dance?" 
But  I  said:     "With  this  one  song 

My  heart  and  lips  are  cumbered — 
'The  crooked  cannot  be  made  straight, 

Nor  that  which  is  wanting,  numbered.' 

[314] 


Morris  Bishop 


"This  song  must  I  sing, 

Whatever  else  I  covet — 
Hear  the  end  of  my  song, 

Hear  the  beginning  of  it: 
'More  bitter  than  death  the  woman 

(Beside  me  still  she  stands) 
Whose  heart  is  snares  and  nets, 

And  whose  hands  are  bands.'" 


A  NEW  HAMPSHIRE  BOY 

Under  Monadnock, 

Fold  on  fold, 
The  world's  fat  kingdoms 

Lie  unrolled. 

Far  in  the  blue  south 
City-smoke,  swirled, 

Marks  the  dwellings 

Of  the  kings  of  the  world. 

Old  kings  and  broken, 

Soon  to  die, 
Once  you  had  little, 

As  little  as  I. 

Smoke  of  the  city, 
Blow  in  my  eyes — 

[315] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Blind  me  a  little, 
Make  me  wise. 

Dust  of  the  city, 

Blow  and  gust — 
Make  me,  like  all  men, 

Color  of  dust. 

I  stand  on  Monadnock, 

And  seem  to  see 
Brown  and  purple  kingdoms 

Offered  to  me. 

Morris  Bishop 


ROADS 

You  who  have  made  the  ancient  road  of  turf, 

That  my  feet  might  pass  over  it 

Into  the  level  evening — 

Make  now  the  ancient  road  of  tears 

That  my  song  may  pass  over  it; 

Make  the  ancient  road  of  song 

That  my  ghost  may  pass  over  it, 

Coming  with  the  new  earth. 

Sarah  Unna 


HOLIDAY  CROWD 

They  do  not  know  they  wear  their  wounds  so  plain, 

These  covered  bodies  swathed  in  cloth  and  fur. 

They  do  not  dream  they  hold  their  naked  pain 

Before  this  show  of  life — the  checkered  stir 

Here  in  the  wintry  sunlight  on  the  street. 

And  yet,  like  martyrs  on  an  old  church  wall, 

They  point  their  wounds — their  bleeding  hands  and  feet, 

The  aching  scars,  and  lips  that  drank  the  gall. 

For  life  has  hurt  them,  though  they  will  not  cry 

"Enough";  shaped  flesh  to  hunger  quick  or  dead, 

Withered  them,  harried,  twisted  bones  awry, 

And  bleached  them  white  beneath  their  flying  red. 

Strange  skeletons  in  merry  dominoes, 

They  do  not  dream  how  plain  the  outline  shows. 

WINGED  VICTORY 

Your  flimsy  dress, 

Out  of  a  bargain  basement, 

Reacts  to  the  wind 

As  the  living  draperies 

Of  the  Victory  of  Samothrace. 

Your  body  also  is  proudly  revealed, 

Cleaving  the  air  as  hers. 

And,  verily,  you  would  do  as  well 

Without  a  head. 

[317] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

MONOLOGUE  FROM  A  MATTRESS 

Heinrich  Heine ,  aetatfd,  loquitur: 

Can  that  be  you,  La  Mouche?     Wait  till  I  lift 

This  palsied  eyelid  and  make  sure.  .  .  .  Ah,  true. 

Come  in,  dear  fly,  and  pardon  my  delay 

In  thus  existing;  I  can  promise  you 

Next  time  you  come  you'll  find  no  dying  poet ! 

Without  sufficient  spleen  to  see  me  through, 

The  joke  becomes  too  tedious  a  jest. 

I  am  afraid  my  mind  is  dull  today; 

I  have  that — something — heavier  on  my  chest, 

And  then,  you  see,  I've  been  exchanging  thoughts 

With  Doctor  Franz.     He  talked  of  Kant  and  Hegel 

As  though  he'd  nursed  them  both  through  whooping-cough ; 

And,  as  he  left,  he  let  his  finger  shake 

Too  playfully,  as  though  to  say,  "Now  off 

With  that  long  face — you've  years  and  years  to  live." 

I  think  he  thinks  so.     But,  for  Heaven's  sake, 

Don't  credit  it — and  never  tell  Mathilde. 

Poor  dear,  she  has  enough  to  bear  already  .  .  . 

This  was  a  month!     During  my  lonely  weeks 

One  person  actually  climbed  the  stairs 

To  seek  a  cripple.     It  was  Berlioz — 

But  Berlioz  always  was  original. 

Come  here,  my  lotus-flower.     It  is  best 

I  drop  the  mask  today;  the  half-cracked  shield 

[318] 


Louis  Untermeyer 


Of  mockery  calls  for  younger  hands  to  wield. 
Laugh — or  I'll  hug  it  closer  to  my  breast! 
So  ...  I  can  be  as  mawkish  as  I  choose 
And  give  my  thoughts  an  airing,  let  them  loose 
For  one  last  rambling  stroll  before — Now  look! 
Why  tears? — you  never  heard  me  say  "the  end". 
Before  .  .  .  before  I  clap  them  in  a  book 
And  so  get  rid  of  them  once  and  for  all. 
This  is  their  holiday — we'll  let  them  run — 
Some  have  escaped  already.     There  goes  one  .  . 
What,  I  have  often  mused,  did  Goethe  mean? 
So  many  years  ago,  at  Weimar,  Goethe  said, 
"Heine  has  all  the  poet's  gifts  but  love." 
Good  God! — but  that  is  all  I  ever  had. 
More  than  enough ! — so  much  of  love  to  give 
That  no  one  gave  me  any  in  return. 
And  so  I  flashed  and  snapped  in  my  own  fires 
Until  I  stood,  with  nothing  left  to  burn, 
A  twisted  trunk,  in  chilly  isolation. 
Ein  Fichtenbaum  steht  einsam — you  recall  ? 
I  was  that  northern  tree  and,  in  the  South, 
Amalia.  ...  So  I  turned  to  scornful  cries, 
Hot  iron  songs  to  save  the  rest  of  me: 
Plunging  the  brand  in  my  own  misery, 
Crouching  behind  my  pointed  wall  of  words — 
Ramparts  I  built  of  moons  and  loreleys, 
Enchanted  roses,  sphinxes,  love-sick  birds, 
Giants,  dead  lads  who  left  their  graves  to  dance, 

[319] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Fairies  and  phoenixes  and  friendly  gods 

A  curious  frieze,  half  renaissance,  half  Greek, 
Behind  which,  in  revulsion  from  romance, 
I  lay  and  laughed — and  wept — till  I  was  weak. 
Words  were  my  shelter,  words  my  one  escape, 
Words  were  my  weapons  against  everything. 
Was  I  not  once  the  son  of  Revolution? — 
Give  me  the  lyre,  I  said,  and  let  me  sing 
My  song  of  battle:  words  like  flaming  stars 
Shot  down  with  power  to  burn  the  palaces; 
Words  like  bright  javelins  to  fly  with  fierce 
Hate  of  the  oily  philistines,  and  glide 
Through  all  the  seven  heavens  till  they  pierce 
The  pious  hypocrites  who  dare  to  creep 
Into  the  Holy  Places.     "Then,"  I  cried, 
"I  am  a  fire  to  rend  and  roar  and  leap; 
I  am  all  joy  and  song,  all  sword  and  flame!" 
H'm — you  observe  me  passionate.     I  aim 
To  curb  these  wild  emotions  lest  they  soar 
Or  drive  against  my  will.     (So  I  have  said 
These  many  years — and  still  they  are  not  tame.) 
Scraps  of  a  song  keep  rumbling  in  my  head  .  .  . 
Listen — you  never  heard  me  sing  before. 

When  a  false  world  betrays  your  trust 
And  stamps  upon  your  fire , 

When  what  seemed  blood  is  only  rust, 
Take  up  the  lyre! 

[320] 


Louis  Untermeyer 


How  quickly  the  heroic  mood 
Responds  to  its  own  ringing; 

The  scornful  hearty  the  angry  blood 
Leap  upward,  singing! 

Ah,  that  was  how  it  used  to  be.     But  now, 

Du  sch°ner  Todesengel,  it  is  odd 

How  more  than  calm  I  am.     Franz  said  he  knew 

It  was  religion,  and  it  is,  perhaps; 

Religion — or  morphine — or  poultices — God  knows, 

I  sometimes  have  a  sentimental  lapse 

And  long  for  saviors  and  a  physical  God. 

When  health  is  all  used  up,  when  money  goes, 

When  courage  cracks  and  leaves  a  shattered  will, 

Christianity  begins.     For  a  sick  Jew 

It  is  a  very  good  religion.  .  .  .  Still 

I  fear  that  I  shall  die  as  I  have  lived, 

A  long-nosed  heathen  playing  with  his  scars; 

A  pagan  killed  by  Weltschmerz.  ...  I  remember, 

Once  when  I  stood  with  Hegel  at  a  window, 

I,  being  full  of  bubbling  youth  and  coffee, 

Spoke  in  symbolic  tropes  about  the  stars. 

Something  I  said  about  "those  high 

Abodes  of  the  blest'*  provoked  his  temper. 

"Abodes?  the  stars?" — he  froze  me  with  a  sneer; 

"A  light  eruption  on  the  firmament." 

"But,"  cried  romantic  I,  "is  there  no  sphere 

Where  virtue  is  rewarded  when  we  die?" 


POETRY:    -A    Magazine    of    Verse 

And  Hegel  mocked:     "A  very  pleasant  whim — 

So  you  demand  a  bonus  since  you  spent 

One  lifetime  and  refrained  from  poisoning 

Your  testy  grandmother!"  .  .  .  How  much  of  him 

Remains  in  me — even  when  I  am  caught 

In  dreams  of  death  and  immortality! 

To  be  eternal — what  a  brilliant  thought! 

It  must  have  been  conceived  and  coddled  first 

By  some  old  shopkeeper  in  Nuremberg, 

His  slippers  warm,  his  children  amply  nursed, 

Who,  with  his  lighted  meerschaum  in  his  hand, 

His  nightcap  on  his  head,  one  summer  night 

Sat  drowsing  at  his  door;  and  mused:  "How  grand 

If  all  of  this  could  last  beyond  a  doubt — 

This  placid  moon,  this  plump  gemiithlichkeit; 

Pipe,  breath  and  summer  never  going  out — 

To  vegetate  through  all  eternity.  .  .  .  " 

But  no  such  everlastingness  for  me! — 

God,  if  he  can,  keep  me  from  such  a  blight. 

Death,  it  is  but  the  long  cool  nighty 
And  life's  a  sad  and  sultry  day. 
It  darkens;  I  grow  sleepy; 

1  am  weary  of  the  light. 

Over  my  bed  a  strange  tree  gleams , 
And  there  a  nightingale  is  loud 

[322] 


Louis  Untermeyer 


She  sings  of  love,  love  only 
I  hear  it,  even  in  dreams. 


My  Mouche,  the  other  day  as  I  lay  here, 

Slightly  propped  up  upon  this  mattress-grave 

In  which  I've  been  interred  these  few  eight  years, 

I  saw  a  dog,  a  little  pampered  slave, 

Running  about  and  barking.     I  would  have  given 

Heaven  could  I  have  been  that  dog;  to  thrive 

Like  him,  so  senseless — and  so  much  alive! 

And  once  I  called  myself  a  blithe  Hellene, 

Who  am  too  much  in  love  with  life  to  live. 

The  shrug  is  pure  Hebraic  ...  for  what  I've  been, 

A  lenient  Lord  will  tax  me — and  forgive. 

Dieu  me  pardonnera — c 'est  son  metier. 

But  this  is  jesting.     There  are  other  scandals 

You  haven't  heard.  .  .  .  Can  it  be  dusk  so  soon? — 

Or  is  this  deeper  darkness  .  .  .  ?     Is  that  you, 

Mother? — how  did  you  come?    And  are  those  candles 

There  on  that  tree  whose  golden  arms  are  filled? — 

Or  are  they  birds  whose  white  notes  glimmer  through 

The  seven  branches  now  that  all  is  stilled? 

What — Friday  night  again  and  all  my  songs 

Forgotten?     Wait  .  .  .  I  still  can  sing — 

Sh'ma  Yisroel  Adonai  Elohenu, 

Adonai  Echod  .  .  . 

Mouche — Mathilde  .  .  . 

Louis  Untermeyer 

[323] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 
COMMENT 

NEWSPAPER   VERSE 

A  RECENT    editorial    in    the    Washington     Herald 
begins  with  the  following  paragraph: 

Literary  editors  of  newspapers  know  that  some  of  the  best  verse 
brought  out  in  America  first  sees  the  light  of  day  in  the  columns  of  the 
press.  Morocco  binding  and  hand-drawn  initials  don't  insure  ex- 
cellence, nor  have  the  higher-class  magazines  any  monopoly  on  truly 
good  poetry. 

And  corroborative  evidence  is  offered  from  the  Atlanta 
Constitution ,  which  says: 

Some  of  the  best  poetry  written  in  this  country  today  appears  first 
in  the  columns  of  the  daily  or  weekly  press.  The  literary  magazines 
have  never  had  a  monopoly  of  it — and  they  never  will. 

•  In  discussing  newspaper  verse  it  is  hardly  fair  to 
include  the  "weekly  press";  for  our  only  purely  literary 
reviews,  or  reviews  largely  devoted  to  current  literature — 
such  papers  as  The  Literary  Review  of  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  The  Nation,  The  New  Republic,  The  Freeman, 
the  New  York  Times  Magazine — are  weeklies,  and  as  a 
rule  they  are  much  more  progressively  edited,  so  far  as 
modern  poetry  is  concerned,  than  most  of  the  monthlies. 
Reedy* s  Mirror,  for  example,  under  the  editorship  of  a 
remarkable  man,  was  a  much  more  "literary  magazine" 
in  its  day  than  The  Century,  Harper's,  Scribner's,  or  any 
other  alleged  "higher-class  magazine";  and  it  had 
more  "discoveries"  to  its  credit,  in  both  verse  and  prose, 

[324] 


Newspaper  Verse 

than  all  these  New  York  respectables  combined.  In  fact, 
the  weeklies  have  been  more  hospitable  to  modern  poets, 
to  "the  new  movement,"  than  any  of  the  monthlies 
except  The  Dial,  The  Masses  with  its  successor  The 
Liberator,  and  the  magazines  which,  like  POETRY,  are  the 
special  organs  of  the  art. 

Therefore  we  shall  confine  our  part  of  the  present 
discussion  to  newspaper  verse,  to  those  "colyumists"  and 
other  poets — and  poetasters — who  have  got  their  start, 
and  won  their  fame,  through  broad-cast  publication  in 
the  daily  papers.  On  this  basis  let  us  inquire  whether 
"some  of  the  best  verse"  is  thus  introduced. 

The  best  light  verse — yes,  unquestionably.  The  wit- 
tily rhyming  commentator  on  life  and  letters,  appearing 
from  day  to  day  in  Sharps  and  Flats,  A  Line  o  Type  or 
Two,  The  Conning  Tower,  The  Periscope,  and  other 
columns  less  familiar  to  this  editor,  has  added  to  our 
literature  masterpieces  in  this  kind.  Eugene  Field 
began  it  with  poems  like  The  Bibliomaniac's  Prayer  and 
The  Truth  about  Horace,  each  of  which  started  a  fashion. 
Bert  Leston  Taylor  continued  it  with  such  incisive 
satires  as  In  the  Gallery  and  The  Kaiser's  Farewell  to 
Prince  Henry.  And  more  recent  Chicago  philosophers 
are  living  up  to  the  tradition.  Who  could  show  a  nimbler 
wit  or  a  keener  critical  insight  than  Keith  Preston  in 
many  poems  now  reprinted  from  The  Periscope  in  his 
new  book,  Splinters? — for  example,  this  one,  entitled 
Effervescence  and  Evanescence: 

[325] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

We've  found  this  Scott  Fitzgerald  chap 

A  chipper,  charming  child; 

He's  taught  us  how  the  flappers  flap, 

And  why  the  whipper-snappers  snap, 

What  makes  the  women  wild. 

But  now  he  should  make  haste  to  trap 

The  ducats  in  his  dipper — 

The  birds  that  put  him  on  the  map 

Will  shortly  all  begin  to  rap 

And  flop  to  something  flipper. 

And  if  Mr.  Preston  wields  a  rapier,  listen  to  the  blows 
of  Guy  Lee's  bludgeon — in  honor  of  that  noble  animal, 
the  frog,  who  has  to  keep  his  mouth  shut  in  order  to 
breathe.  We  quote  from  a  Chicago  Tribune  of  recent 
date: 

When  I  hear  the  politician  spouting  hot  air  by  the  ton, 
When  I  note  the  silly  twaddle  of  the  genus  Native  Son, 
When  I'm  sentenced  to  a  banquet  where  a  war  of  words  ensues, 
When  a  socialist  gets  near  me  and  begins  to  shout  his  views, 
When  a  bore  essays  a  story  that  has  neither  point  nor  end, 
When  a  highbrow  author's  ego  by  his  voice  starts  to  extend, 
When  a  woman  with  a  grievance  (or  without  one)  launches  out 
On  a  marathon  of  language  o'er  the  conversation  route, 
I  ponder  on  this  habit  of  mankind  to  squeak  and  squawk 
In  a  never-ending  serial  of  talk  and  talk  and  talk; 
And  I  figger,  as  we  flounder  in  the  vocalistic  bog, 
It's  a  pity  human  beings  are  not  fashioned  like  the  frog! 

Such  humor  as  these  things  from  our  newspaper  poets 
is  straight  American  stuff,  expressive  of  our  kind  of  smiling 
common-sense,  our  special  good-natured  chuckle,  over  the 
piffle  and  burble,  the  mawkishness  and  pretense  which 
encumber  our  every-day  life.  Such  wit  from  the  colyum- 

[326] 


Newspaper  Verse 

ists  is  a  shaft  of  sunlight  on  the  breakfast-table — it  clears 
the  air  and  gleams  on  the  sharpened  edge  of  the  mind. 

But  what  about  the  more  serious  verse  of  the  newspaper 
poets?  To  be  sure,  Eugene  Field's  finest  poems — such  as 
Little  Boy  Blue  and  Wynken^  Blynken  and  Nod — first  saw 
the  light  in  his  Sharps  and  Flats;  Frank  Stanton  achieved 
one  now  and  then  in  Atlanta;  and  a  few  slyly  delicate 
poems  by  Bert  Taylor  adorned  the  Line.  But  the 
successors  of  these  men  have  been  less  inclined  to  favor 
the  unsmiling  muse,  or  she  to  favor  them;  and  the  song- 
sters they  admit  to  their  columns  are  usually  about  as 
adventurously  lyric  as  a  chirping  sparrow.  If  "some  of 
the  best  verse  first  sees  the  light  of  day"  in  these  columns 
of  cheer,  the  present  writer  has  missed  it.  Yet  here  may 
be  found,  as  a  rule,  the  best  of  the  newspaper  verse — at 
least  these  column  sparrows  are  honest,  and  their  saltily 
humorous  environment  keeps  them  from  rot  and  reek. 

But  what  shall  be  said  of  certain  other  kinds  of  seriously 
intended  newspaper  verse  —  of  the  placid  rhyming 
journalese  of  Walt  Mason  or  the  syndicated  moralizings 
of  Edgar  Guest?  The  former  may  be  harmless;  his  end- 
less reeling  of  facile  observations  has  sometimes  a  faint 
trace  of  savor — the  tireless  crank  is  turned  by  a  mild  old 
busybody  at  least  humanely  observant.  But  the  stickily 
sugary  Mr.  Guest  is  not  only  a  blight  but  a  menace. 
His  molasses  factory  proves  profitable  in  more  ways  than 
one;  so,  like  other  wide-awake  business-men,  he  spreads 
its  products  over  the  land.  Syndicated  in  hundreds  of 

[327] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

newspapers,  crowded  with  platform  engagements,  this 
favorite  of  fortune,  journeying  to  Denver,  is  met  at  the 
station  by  the  whole  Colorado  legislature,  adjourned  in 
his  honor  and  celebrating  his  greatness  with  a  brass  band. 
And  the  school-children  of  many  cities  are  stimulated  by 
his  example  toward  the  high  rewards,  financial  and  glory- 
coronal,  of  poesy. 

Let  us  examine  Mr.  Guest's  style — here  is  a  recent 
and  typical  example,  entitled  For  the  New  Year: 

This  I  would  like  to  be — braver  and  bolder, 

Just  a  bit  wiser  because  I  am  older, 

Just  a  bit  kinder  to  those  I  may  meet, 

Just  a  bit  manlier  taking  defeat. 

This  for  the  New  Year  my  wish  and  my  plea: 

Lord,  make  a  regular  man  out  of  me. 

This  I  would  like  to  be — just  a  bit  finer, 
More  of  a  smiler  and  less  of  a  whiner; 
Just  a  bit  quicker  to  stretch  out  my  hand 
Helping  another  who's  struggling  to  stand. 
This  is  my  prayer  for  the  New  Year  to  be: 
Lord,  make  a  regular  man  out  of  me. 

This  I  would  like  to  be — just  a  bit  fairer, 
Just  a  bit  better  and  just  a  bit  squarer, 
Not  quite  so  ready  to  censure  and  blame, 
Quicker  to  help  every  man  in  the  game. 
Not  quite  so  eager  men's  failings  to  see — 
Lord,  make  a  regular  man  out  of  me. 

This  I  would  like  to  be — just  a  bit  truer, 
Less  of  the  wisher  and  more  of  the  doer; 
Broader  and  bigger,  more  willing  to  give, 
Living  and  helping  my  neighbor  to  live. 
This  for  the  New  Year  my  prayer  and  my  plea: 
Lord,  make  a  regular  man  out  of  me. 

[328] 


Newspaper  Verse 

What  do  those  Colorado  legislators  think  they  find  in 
such  sermonizing  twaddle  as  this?  Poetry? — if  such  a 
fond  allusion  is  possible,  how  do  they  define  poetry?  In 
what  department  of  their  minds  do  they  receive  its  proud 
appeal?  Wisdom? — if  they  are  honoring  a  sage,  what 
high  truth  is  he  telling  them?  To  what  clear  heights  is  he 
leading  their  souls?  Do  they  discover  beauty  in  this 
cheap  rattle  of  foot-rule  rhymes,  emotion  in  this  sickish 
slobber  of  easy  virtue?  Is  it  this  rhymester  or  them- 
selves they  are  stultifying  when  they  offer  him  public 
homage,  and  thereby  inform  the  rising  generation  that  he 
is  their  ideal  of  a  great  man  of  letters? 

Mr.  Guest  is  not  the  only  one  of  his  kind — alas! — but 
he  is  conspicuous  and  typical.  These  syndicated  rhymers, 
like  the  movie-producers,  are  learning  that  "it  pays  to 
be  good,"  that  one  "gets  by  by  giving  the  people  the 
emotions  of  virtue,  simplicity  and  goodness,  with  this 
program  paying  at  the  box-office."  And  it  pays  very  well. 

B.  L.  T.  hit  off  the  situation  a  decade  or  more  ago, 
saying: 

Lives  of  poets  oft  remind  us 

Not  to  wait  too  long  for  time, 
But,  departing,  leave  behind  us 
Obvious  facts  embalmed  in  rhyme. 

Poems  that  we  have  to  ponder 

Turn  us  prematurely  gray; 
We  are  infinitely  fonder 

Of  the  simple  heartfelt  lay. 

Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass  is  odious, 
Browning's  Ring  and  Book  a  bore. 

[329] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Bleat,  ye  bards,  in  lines  melodious, 
Bleat  that  two  and  two  is  four! 

Today  he  might  have  added: 

Bleat,  ye  bards,  of  home  and  mother, 

Pray  to  be  a  regular  man. 
Treacle  mixed  with  tears  is  golden — 

Pile  the  shekels  while  you  can. 

Let  the  newspaper  poets  be  true  to  the  muse  of  laughter. 
We  need  their  salt  in  our  daily  food,  lest  the  maudlin 
adulterations  of  pseudo-literary  profiteers  poison  our 
in'ards!  H.  M. 


REVIEWS 

MISS  LOWELL'S  LEGENDS 

Legends,  by  Amy  Lowell.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

Too  many  legends  are  getting  lost  and  forgotten.  To 
tell  any  of  them  over  again  and  save  them  from  the  dust 
and  ashes  of  the  dead  is  a  good  thing;  but  even  better  to 
tell  them  so  people  will  listen.  To  most  of  Miss  Amy 
Lowell's  Legends  it  is  not  easy  to  listen  intently — they 
are  too  crowded  with  adjectives,  with  ornament,  with 
imagery;  they  are  obese  with  adornment.  So  they  do  not 
cut  into  you  the  way  even  the  bare  outline  of  a  story  may 
do  in  some  textbook  of  mythology,  or  the  way  voices  of  a 
legendary  day  sometimes  still  reach  you  through  old  men 
and  old  women  bridging  two  epochs. 

[330] 


Miss  Lowell's  Legends 

In  Legends  Miss  Lowell  has  sought  alliance  with  Aztec, 
Cantonese,  Indian,  and  English;  but  has  not,  it  seems, 
become  one  with  any  of  them.  Their  grief  is  not  her 
grief,  their  passion  not  her  passion.  At  their  feasts  and 
funerals  she  revels  more  like  a  tourist  in  the  surprises  of 
intricate  ancient  rites.  She  lays  no  claim,  it  is  true,  to 
accuracy;  she  has  "changed,  added,  subtracted,  jumbled 
several  stories  together,"  she  says,  "at  will  to  suit  her 
particular  vision."  But  she  has  not  made  them  over  with 
a  vision  acute  enough  to  equal  the  origin  of  primitive  lore. 
She  has  not  made  them  with  an  economy  of  means  that 
comes  of  violence. 

As  a  vendor  of  foreign  goods  she  resorts  to  selling-talk, 
with  sometimes  the  taint  of  a  conflicting  code  of  morals 
or  manners  upon  it.  So  in  the  Aztec  story  of  a  fox 
assaulting  the  moon,  the  print  of  a  fox's  paws  on  the  disc 
of  the  moon  is  labeled  as  "obscene."  She  labels  these 
characters,  the  fox  and  the  moon,  instead  of  making  them 
sheerly  exist. 

It  is  a  pity,  the  way  this  book  has  of  calling  things  by 
so  many  names  that  they  cease  to  be  named  at  all.  One 
is  aware  of  passing  by  almost  with  indifference  succinct, 
polished  song  and  picture  which  in  more  spare  surround- 
ings might  make  an  instant  appeal,  a  quick  thrust.  This 
passage  for  one: 

A  stream  flowed  in  a  sunwise  turn  across  the  prairie,  and  the  name  of 
the  stream  was  Burnt  Water,  because  it  tasted  dark  like  smoke. 
The  prairie  ran  out  tongues  of  raw  colors — blue  of  camass,  red  of 
geranium,  yellow  of  parsley — at  the  young  green  grass.  The  prairie 

[331] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

flung  up  its  larks  on  a  string  of  sunshine,  it  lay  like  a  catching-sheet 
beneath  the  black  breasts  balancing  down  on  a  wind,  calling,  "See 
it!  See  it!"  in  little  round  voices. 

If  you  consider  each  legend  in  the  book  as  a  unit  of  art, 
it  is  easy  to  remember  only  the  two  last  poems — Before 
the  Storm  and  Four  Sides  to  a  House.  One  of  these  is  New 
England  legend;  the  other,  not  labeled,  seems  as  real  and 
as  native  to  Miss  Lowell.  The  ghosts  of  a  man  and  child 
driving  a  high  yellow  chaise  and  a  white  horse  before 
wind  and  rain,  unwind,  as  the  wheels  whirl,  a  keen 
impetuous  movie  of  New  England.  Four  Sides  to  a  House 
is  a  beautiful  ballad — the  crying  of  an  old  man,  murdered, 
buried  in  a  well.  Words,  rhymes,  stanzas  fall  into  place; 
the  sound  is  true;  the  design  complete  and  haunting. 
Here  is  one  bead  of  the  ballad  string  quoted  for  the 
pleasure  of  quoting: 

Around  the  house,  and  around  the  house, 

With  a  wind  that  is  North,  and  a  wind  that  is  South, 

Peter,  Peter. 

Mud  and  ooze  and  a  dead  man's  wrist 
Wrenching  the  shutters  apart,  like  mist 
The  mud  and  the  ooze  and  the  dead  man  twist. 

They  are  praying,  Peter. 

This  is  a  poem  with  intangible  quality.  Many  of  the 
others  disobey  the  laws  of  measure  and  contrast,  which  are 
bound  up  with  mysteries,  and  which  rule  that  shadows 
will  be  sure  to  count  against  a  blaze  of  light  or  a  blaze  of 
incident,  that  brilliants  come  to  life  across  a  dark  sky, 
that  a  dance  is  figured  also  by  its  pauses,  and  objects  by 
the  space  they  keep  around  them.  Dorothy  Dudley 

[332] 


Spear-shaft  and  Cyclamen-flower 

SPEAR-SHAFT  AND   CYCLAMEN-FLOWER 

Hymen,  by  H.  D.     Henry  Holt  &  Co. 

It  is  difficult  to  write  an  appreciation  or  criticism 
of  modern  literature  because  words  have  altered  slowly 
during  the  past  century  and  have  lost  their  rightful 
meaning.  Beauty,  wisdom,  life — these  terms  have  come 
to  represent  an  indefinite  standard  of  pedantry  or  the 
washed-out  sentiment  of  some  school -room  text.  Civiliza- 
tion has  rendered  the  states  that  these  words  should 
express  almost  impossible  of  achievement.  So  there  is 
discontent,  a  brooding  rebellion — no  new  forceful  words 
and  the  old  ones  blurred  until  the  same  sentence  may 
evoke  for  different  people  entirely  separate  worlds. 

Thus  it  has  been  said  of  H.  D.'s  earlier  poetry  that  it 
was  perfectly  wrought  but  cold  and  passionless,  and  that 
it  was  concerned  rather  with  the  loveliness  of  a  perished 
age  than  with  the  modern  world  or  everyday  emotions. 
But  is  it  not  simply  the  association  of  Greek  with  scholas- 
ticism, in  the  minds  of  these  critics,  that  has  led  them 
astray  in  their  consideration  of  the  poet's  work? 

Perfectly  wrought  the  poems  are:  the  rhythms  swoop 
in  and  out  of  the  head  as  birds  perch  and  flutter  in  and 
out  of  apple-branches.  Lines  haunt  the  ears  as  the 
sound  of  rain  in  the  South.  The  use  of  some  simple 
but  unexpected  syllable  brings  all  the  fragrance  into  a 
mood  that  the  Ionian  roses  suddenly  awaken,  after  some 
swift  storm.  But  they  are  not  cold,  they  are  not  passion- 
less; and  apart  from  the  color  of  some  Attic  names  how 

[333] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

are  these  songs  anything  but  the  expression  of  the  emo- 
tions and  desires  of  an  extremely  present  age? 

To  people  born  in  England  H.  D.'s  work  is  peculiarly 
American — American  with  a  southern  flavor  and  a  sin- 
gularly native  strength.  Call  Simaetha  any  American 
name  and  nothing  is  lost  but  the  impersonality  of  the 
far-off,  silver-grey  Greek  syllables.  Circe  is  any  woman 
of  intellect  who,  with  the  very  sincerity  of  her  vision, 
turns  lesser  minds  "each  to  his  own  self."  The  children 
in  Hymen  are  strange  in  their  beauty  only  because  the 
restrictions  of  school  have  not  seized  them  too  early 
nor  crushed  them  into  patterns. 

It  is  true  that  H.  D.  is  concerned  with  life,  which 
changes  little  from  epoch  to  epoch,  rather  than  with 
the  exterior  impressions  of  telephones  or  steel  rails.  She 
is  very  sensitive  to  the  visible  world,  but  it  is  not  particu- 
larly Greek;  her  country  is  any  stretch  of  sea-coast  in 
Europe  or  America  where  there  are  sand  and  low  pools 
and  surge  of  heavy  rocks.  Compare  the  Phaedra  and 
the  Hippolytus  series,  which  were  actually  written  in 
Greece,  with  Cuckoo  Song,  Thetis,  or  Evadne.  Apart  from 
an  added  intensity  of  color — the  "lizard-blue"  water, 
the  "red  sands"  of  Crete — they  are  as  independent  as 
the  poems  written  further  north  of  any  definite  landscape. 

Could  anything  be  more  modern  of  mood  than  these 
£ew  lines  from  At  Eaia? 

I  should  have  thought 

In  a  dream  you  would  have  brought 

[334] 


Spear-shaft  and  Cyclamen-flower 

Some  lovely,  perilous  thing — 

Orchids  piled  in  a  great  sheath, 

As  who  would  say  (in  a  dream), 

I  send  you  this 

Who  left  the  blue  veins 

Of  your  throat  unkissed. 

The  song  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full,  but  it  expresses  per- 
haps more  perfectly  than  any  other  recent  poem,  the  dis- 
appointment and  yet  the  sympathy  which  come  when 
some  personality  one  has  admired  fails  to  fulfil  both  its 
promise  and  its  task. 

It  is  not  easy  to  be  true  to  any  faith  in  a  war-torn 
world.  Perhaps  the  most  difficult  test  of  all  is  to  keep 
faith  in  beauty.  But  there  is  no  sentiment  or  weakness 
in  the  lines  which  follow — they  are  stark  as  a  war-chant 
or  as  waves  against  a  prow: 

But  beauty  is  set  apart; 
Beauty  is  cast  by  the  sea, 
A  barren  rock; 
Beauty  is  set  about 
With  wrecks  of  ships 
Upon  our  coasts;  death  keeps 
The  shallows — death  waits 
Clutching  toward  us 
From  the  deeps. 

Beauty  is  set  apart; 
The  winds  that  slash  its  beach 
Swirl  the  coarse  sand 
Upward  toward  the  rocks. 

Beauty  is  set  apart 
From  the  islands 
And  from  Greece. 

[335] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Life  is  a  fact  to  the  poet,  not  a  dream.  But  she  has 
a  trick  of  hiding  a  difficult  thought  under  a  beautiful 
phrase  until  the  eyes  read  the  song  carelessly,  and  only 
with  the  ripening  of  personal  experience  is  the  truth 
uncovered  behind  the  vivid  words.  A  psychological 
state  that  a  scientist  might  take  a  volume  to  describe 
is  crystallized  into  a  couple  of  pages.  And  she  can  turn 
and  write  songs  such  as  the  one  which  follows,  simple 
as  any  Elizabethan  lyric  and  without  the  sixteenth- 
century  mannerisms. 

From  citron-bower  be  her  bed, 
Cut  from  branch  of  tree  a  flower 
Fashioned  for  her  maidenhead. 

From  Lydian  apples,  "sweet  of  husk, 
Cut  the  width  of  board  and  lathe. 
Carve  the  feet  from  myrtle-wood. 

Let  the  palings  of  her  bed 

Be  quince  and  box-wood  overlaid 

With  the  scented  bark  of  yew. 

That  all  the  wood  in  blossoming, 
May  calm  her  heart  and  cool  her  blood 
For  losing  of  her  maidenhood. 

Her  psychology  is  never  once  at  fault.  Thetis,  proud, 
beautiful  and  alone;  Simaetha,  wrecked  by  war;  Phaedra, 
smashed  by  alien  forces — it  is  only  their  names  (perhaps 
their  personal  beauty)  that  differentiate  them  from  the 
individuals  who  struggle  and  suffer  in  this  present  world. 
They  are  not  easily  found,  but  personality  is  rare  in  an 
age  of  standardized  opinions  and  patented  emotions. 

[336] 


Spear-shaft  and  Cyclamen-flower 

And  perhaps  the  essential  characteristic  of  these  poems 
is  their  originality — they  are  cyclamen  flowers  caught 
on  the  spear-point  of  an  analytical  intellect. 

Not  cold,  not  passionless,  but  with  emotion  and  thought 
perfectly  balanced,  Hymen  can  make  even  the  "dis- 
enchanted days"  of  which  the  poet  writes,  bright  with 
beauty.  W.  Bryher 

"A    DISTINGUISHED    YOUNG    MAN" 

The  Living  Frieze,  by  Mark  Turbyfill.  Monroe  Wheeler, 

Evanston,  111. 

Mark  Turbyfill  is  a  young  man,  but  has  already  been 
spoken  of  in  print  and  out,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  con- 
sider his  poems  as  a  whole  in  Mr.  Wheeler's  excellently 
made  book.  One  has  already  heard  so  much  unfortunate 
talk  of  Mr.  Turbyfill's  estheticism,  that  one  is  lucky 
to  have  a  slight  acquaintance  with  his  work  as  it  has 
appeared  in  the  magazines  before  approaching  this  book 
by  way  of  the  reviewers.  When  a  reviewer  in  our  gen- 
eration speaks  of  a  poet  as  an  "esthete"  he  is  generally 
being  sentimental  about  that  poet's  sentimentality;  and 
this  is  a  lamentable  condition  for  a  good  word  to  reach. 
As  for  reviewers,  they  are  largely  static. 

For  Mr.  Turbyfill  can  indeed  be  sentimental,  and 
that  a  good  part  of  the  time,  his  sentimentality  being 
greatly  patterned  after  the  writings  of  that  other  esthete 
of  late  consideration,  Richard  Aldington.  But  it  is  not 

[337] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

for  this  reason  that  he  is  one  of  the  dozen  or  so  living 
Americans  who  have  done  anything  worth  remembering. 
At  his  best,  Mr.  Turbyfill  is  the  master  of  a  certain 
fleeting  precision  that,  like  the  finest  of  needles,  strikes 
deep  into  one's  being  and  is  gone  before  it  can  be  observed. 

I  am  the  surprised  young  man,  light  walker  on  night  lawns, 

he  writes;  and  in  a  recognition  and  fuller  exploitation  of 
this  fact  will  lie  his  greatness  if  he  ever  achieves  it.  This 
one  sentence,  unfortunately,  is  embedded  in  a  long  dis- 
cussion of  a  love-affair  which  has  few  merits;  and  very 
often  Mr.  Turbyfill  spoils  an  excellent  passage  by  not 
knowing  where  to  cut.  Had  this  passage  stood  alone, 
it  had  been  one  of  his  finest  poems. 

Perhaps  his  weakness  is  a  conscience  which  drives 
him  to  do  complete  justice  to  his  friends,  loves  and  admi- 
rations, wherever  they  have  acted  as  the  original  impetus 
of  a  poem.  He  forgets  that  a  poem  is  a  state  of  perfec- 
tion at  which  a  poet  arrives  by  whatever  means;  and  that 
the  poem  has  no  responsibility  of  any  sort  to  ladies  or 
lambrequins.  It  is  a  thing  that  begins  somewhere  and 
ends  in  itself. 

In  such  poems  as  Shapes  and  Fertile  Gesture  Mr. 
Turbyfill  has  remembered,  or  not  needed  to  remember, 
this  fundamental  truth.  I  quote  Shapes  intact,  as  an 
example  of  the  poet  at  his  finest: 

Let  us  deliberately  sit  into  design 
With  th:se  elephant  ears 

[338] 


"A  Distinguished  Young  Man1' 

Stretched  from  the  pot 

Into  green  wax  consciousness. 

Let  us  exert 
Our  unused  selves 
Into  other  static 
Sharpnesses. 

In  what  fleet  gestures 
Have  you  found  eternity? 

His  amber-painted  torso 
A  Persian  dancer 
Has  conceived  into  a  leaf-line, 
The  head  inclined. 

Other  poems  that  one  remembers  are  She  Walks  to 
Pisa,  Fragment  of  Vision,  Carved  Mood,  Burden  of  Blue 
and  Gold,  The  Moments  Halt  a  Little  While  before  the 
Day,  and  End  of  Summer.  There  are  lines  and  passages 
scattered  through  other  poems,  the  finest  of  these  being 
the  sentence  already  quoted,  and  the  third  stanza  of 
The  Intangible  Symphony. 

To  estimate  the  magnitude  of  such  a  poet  as  Mr. 
Turbyfill  is  a  difficult  if  not  impossible  task.  This  despite 
the  fact  that  at  least  one  word  of  magnitude  has  been 
spoken  of  him  in  this  review.  But  one  can  accurately 
say  that  his  five  or  six  finest  poems  are  perfectly  executed, 
and  entirely  achieve  that  which  they  apparently  set  out 
to  achieve.  And  perhaps  this  is  the  fullest  praise  that 
one  can  give  to  any  poet.  Yvor  Winters 


[339] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 


A    PRIZE-WINNER 

Heavens  and  Earth,  by  Stephen  Vincent  Benet.     Henry 

Holt  &  Co. 

(This  book  shared  with  Carl  Sandburg's  Smoke  and 
Steel  the  Poetry  Society's  recent  award  of  five  hundred 
dollars  to  the  best  American  verse  published  in  1920.) 

Not  long  ago  I  heard  Robert  Frost  remark  laughingly 
before  an  audience  that  one  could  practically  place  a 
poet  as  major  or  minor  according  to  the  number  of  times 
he  used  the  word  beauty.  By  that  gauge  Heavens  and 
Earth  is  indeed  a  large  order. 

The  first  section  of  the  book  is  called  Two  Visions  of 
Helen;  it  begins: 

Slowly  blanch-handed  Dawn,  eyes  half  awake, 
Upraised  magnificent  the  silver  urn. 

The  word  morning  appears  in  italics  in  the  margin  to 
print  on  the  mind  a  clear  and  single  image.  One  need 
not  demand  of  Stephen  Benet  that  he  be  either  Carl 
Sandburg  or  J.  V.  A.  Weaver — many  of  the  younger 
poets  are  turning  away  with  tired  eyes  from  the  verities 
of  modern  life.  But  Victoria  is  dead — that,  at  least,' 
has  been  definitely  settled;  it  is  too  late  to  contest  it 
and  futile  to  look  back. 

The  poet  continues : 

Beautiful  monstrous  dreams  they  seemed  as  they  ran, 
Trees  come  alive  at  the  nod  of  a  god  grown  mute! 
Their  eyes  looked  up  to  the  sun  like  a  valiant  man; 
Their  bows  clashed  shrill  on  the  loins  and  limbs  of  the  brute! 

[340] 


A  Prize-winner 

The  second  line  is  quite  plainly  inserted  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  rhyme;  the  rest  plainly  a  compromise  with 
rhyme.  An  ultimate  word  exists  that  will  do  duty  for 
both  sense  and  sound.  Is  not  art  the  pursuit  of  that 
word? 

Laughing,  rejoicing,  white  as  a  naked  birch, 
Slim  as  a  spear  in  a  torrent  of  moving  towers, 
Itys,  the  prince,  ran  gay  in  the  storm  of  their  search 
Silverly  shod  on  feet  that  outstripped  the  Hours! 

Heavens  and  Earth  so  aptly  illustrates  the  vices  of  its 
school  that  the  expos6  may  as  well  be  thorough  now  it 
is  begun.  Was  the  towers  line  added  only  to  rhyme  with 
Hours,  since  white  as  a  naked  birch  conveys  not  only 
color  but  form  ?  For  me  slim  as  a  spear  is,  besides  being 
poor  economy,  confusing;  it  leaves  me  with  the  blurred 
image  of  one  who  has  stared  for  a  long  time  at  the  same 
spot.  Nature  is  admittedly  prolix;  it  is  left  for  that  royal 
combination  of  gift  and  reason  which  determine  the  poet 
to  model  and  trim  beyond  the  possibility  of  confusion. 
Let  the  artist's  scope  be  the  universe,  but  let  the  artist 
hold  the  rein.  It  is  admonitory  to  speculate  on  what 
the  masters  must  have  held  in  reserve  in  prunings  alone,  for 
they  were  all  great  economists.  And  who  does  not  know 
that  one  thought  leads  to  another? 

Stephen  Benet  has  imagination;  otherwise — one  fails 
to  detect  behind  his  art  that  significant  struggle  for  the 
final  syllable,  the  final  image.  Rather  a  quick  acceptance 
of  what  the  tempter,  tradition,  whispers  into  the  ear. 

We  go  on  with  The  First  Vision  of  Helen  and  meet  with 

[341] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

an  interesting  line.  He  dreamed  as  a  dog  dreams^  uneasily; 
and  another,  And  how  she  smoothed  her  hair  back  with  one 
hand,  the  universal  gesture  of  woman.  But  The  Visions 
of  Helen  are  not  successful.  What  is  the  reason,  if  any, 
for  the  long  symphonic  arrangement?  One  has  a  right 
to  expect  that  the  form  a  poet  uses  justify  itself.  Many 
of  Mr.  Benet's  changes  of  movement  differ  only  in  length 
of  line;  otherwise,  the  same  overwrought  design,  the  same 
lameness.  Although  both  the  Helen  stories  have  a 
reasonable  amount  of  inherent  interest,  one  is  left  with 
the  feeling  that  they  might  have  been  done  carefully, 
in  a  page  apiece,  with  more  point. 

Two  at  the  Crossroads  dallies  with  the  delicious  idea 
of  the  meeting  of  one  Palomides  and  a  stranger;  Palo- 
mides  riding  furiously,  his  brain  a  black  pin-wheel.  He 
answers  the  stranger's  inquiry  after  the  sea-road  with  a 
maudlin  account  of  his  love  for  Iseult,  and  rides  madly  on. 
Then,  the  amusing  denouement: 

Palomides  was  far. 

And,  settling  well  his  harp  upon  his  back, 
With  something  of  amusement  in  his  mouth, 
Tristram  rode  southward  to  the  Breton  ships. 

But  Mr.  Benet  is  still  without  identity.  In  this  in- 
stance it  is  a  slightly  chastened  Tennyson.  Many 
moderns  write  for  the  eye  alone.  H.  D.,  William  Carlos 
Williams,  subordinate  the  oral  to  the  visual,  making 
a  form  akin  in  impression  to  the  mural  or  bas-relief. 
The  concern  of  the  present  poet  is  to  grind  out  grand- 

[342] 


A  Prize-winner 

iloquent  Victorian  harmonies.  Fortunately  it  has  been 
proved,  by  Carl  Sandburg  among  others,  that  one  may 
write  primarily  for  the  ear  and  still  retain  the  identity 
both  of  the  individual  and  of  the  age. 

Take  Three  Days'  Ride,  the  old  theme  of  elopement  and 
tragic  outcome,  a  story  which  depends  for  very  existence 
upon  the  unique  style  of  the  artist  and  its  relevancy  to 
period  and  locality.  Certainly  no  man  who  takes  pride 
in  his  modernity  would  have  begun  thus: 

We  had  fled  full  fast  from  her  father's  keep, 
And  the  time  had  come  that  we  must  sleep. 

For  the  rest,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that,  as  we  live  in 
the  age  of  the  superlative,  hyperbole  no  longer  has  force 
behind  it.  To  exaggerate  in  the  hope  of  heightening 
the  effect  of  drama  is  to  frustrate  oneself  in  advance. 
Simple  statement  of  fact  is  more  impressive. 

The  Kingdom  of  the  Mad,  the  last  section,  a  series  of 
sonnets  in  a  less  serious  humor,  is  more  felicitous.  The 
poet  seems  not  quite  so  young  and  chaotic.  He  detaches 
himself  and  begins  to  speak  in  order  with  urbanity. 

"Books  should  be  tried  by  a  judge  and  a  jury  as  though 
they  were  crimes,  and  counsel  should  be  heard  on  both 
sides,"  says  Samuel  Butler  in  his  Note  Books.  On  my 
side,  I  am  left  with  the  unsatisfactory  sense  that  Stephen 
Benet's  verses  are  melodramatic  accidents  of  rhythm 
and  rhyme.  I  look  in  vain  for  volition,  for  image  and 
thought  too  sacred  to  have  been  lightly  changed. 

Pear!  Andehon 

[343] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 


A    LUTE    OF    ONE    STRING 

The  Lifted  Cup,  by  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse.     Hough  ton 

Mifflin  Co. 

This  small  book  of  forty  or  more  very  brief  poems  is  a 
soft-voiced  little  lute  of  one  string.  So  restricted  a  lyric 
range  seems  scarcely  possible  from  a  woman  who  has 
traveled  about  this  varied  world;  and  the  emotional  ex- 
perience it  records  is  too  narrow  to  be  easily  accepted  as 
the  whole  truth.  It  is  rather  an  unconscious  yielding  to 
a  convention — the  presentation  of  a  wistful  and  sensitive 
feminine  type  as  men  and  women  of  richer  experience 
expect  to  find  it.  We  have  it  caught  to  perfection  in  a 
number  of  these  poems,  for  example  The  Door: 

There  was  a  door  stood  long  ajar 

That  one  had  left  for  me, 
While  I  went  trying  other  doors 

To  which  I  had  no  key. 
And  when  at  last  I  turned  to  seek 

The  refuge  and  the  light, 
A  gust  of  wind  had  shut  the  door 

And  left  me  in  the  night. 

Perhaps  the  following  poem  comes  nearer  escaping  the 
convention  than  any  other  in  this  book — has  a  brighter 
bloom.  Its  first  line  is  its  title: 

We  who  give  our  hearts  in  spring, 

Putting  all  the  old  life  by, 
We  shall  start  with  everything 

Keen  and  glad  beneath  the  sky. 
We  shall  know  the  urge  of  grass 
Parting  each  detaining  clod, 

[344] 


A  Lute  of  One  String 

Know  the  one  sweet  day  they  pass — 
Flowers,  the  spirit  of  the  sod. 

We  are  caught  into  the  flame 

Where  the  golden  fire  runs — 
All  its  ardor  is  the  same, 

In  the  flesh  and  in  the  suns. 

H.  M. 


A    POET   IN    EMBRYO 

Archways  of  Life,  by  Mercedes  de  Acosta.     Moffat,  Yard 

&  Co. 

This  book  shows  a  distinct  advance  over  Moods  in 
poetic  technique,  although  most  of  the  poems  still  leave 
much  to  be  desired.  The  author  has  certain  gifts  of  the 
poet — quick  feeling,  a  degree  of  imaginative  insight,  and 
eagerness  to  pour  out  her  soul,  to  express  the  beauty 
and  strangeness  of  life,  to  give  herself  away.  She  says 
what  she  has  to  say  with  a  forthright  simplicity  and  di- 
rectness; and  in  such  poems  as  Platitudes  and  Your  Face 
she  says  a  fine  thing,  with  refreshment  in  it. 

But  she  is  just  beginning  to  learn  her  trade.  She 
shows  a  promising  capacity  to  learn  it  in  three  or  four 
poems — Unreality ,  Poor  Fools,  To  Vouletti — in  which 
there  is  a  suggestion  of  poetic  rhythm.  Sometimes  she 
uses  rhyme — usually  the  irregular,  half-veiled  rhymes  now 
so  much  in  vogue;  but  not  yet  with  quite  the  air  of  an 
adept.  Occasionally  she  should  give  another  thought  to 
such  details  as  grammar:  one  can  stand  will  for  shall — all 
of  us  do  that — but  not  "the  maddest  of  we  three." 

[345] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

However,  one  may  forgive  much  to  a  book  which  re- 
veals a  fresh  and  ardent  personality.  And  one  may  hope 
that  after  a  few  more  experimental  sheaves  the  art  will 
respond  to  the  impulse.  H.  M. 


RHETORIC    UNASHAMED 

Ireland  Unfreed:     Poems  0/1921,  by  Sir  William  Watson. 

John  Lane  Co. 

Rhetoric  here  marches  unashamed  across  the  cluttered 
stage  of  the  world's  affairs — rhetoric,  flaunting  exaggerated 
gestures  under  its  shabby  outworn  toga,  stubbing  the 
toe  of  its  stiff  buskin  against 

rapine  masked  as  order,  his  vast  maw 
With  Vengeance  still  uncloyed. 

Is  it  possible  that  this  kind  of  thing  is  still  masking  as 
poetry? — here  begins  a  sonnet  To  the  Prime  Minister  yet 
again: 

Like  your  renown-clad  namesake,  who  did  slay, 

Far  across  Time  and  its  vast  charnels  drear, 

If  only  with  a  legendary  spear, 

A  fabled  dragon,  you  in  your  midday 

Did  unto  ravening  things  give  battle,  and  they 

Felt  your  light  lance  through  all  their  scales! 

Now,  so  we  are  informed,  that  spear  is  "pointed  at  the 
captive  maiden's  breast" — and  so  on  to  the  end,  reading 
a  bit  out-of-date  today.  May  the  kind  fates  deliver 
Ireland  from  her  friends!  H.  M. 

[346] 


CORRESPONDENCE 

THE    CODE    OF    MINORITY 

Everybody  is  sentimental,  even  Mr.  Yvor  Winters. 
Emily  Dickinson,  he  says,  is  dowdy;  Emerson,  senti- 
mental; Whitman,  an  eventual  dull  vacuum;  Sandburg, 
plasmodial  delirium.  I  am  not  used  to  defending  old 
gods,  or  new  ones;  but  I  can  show,  I  think,  that  these 
adjectives  indicate  a  sentimentalism  that  is  not  only  Mr. 
Winters'  but  the  characteristic  of  the  larger  group  of 
modern  noticeable  poets.  It  is  not  expansive  Germanic 
sentimentality,  to  be  sure;  it  is  protective  sentimentality, 
hard  and  slender.  But  it  is  no  less  sentimental,  for  it  is 
based  on  a  conceit,  on  a  vain  study  of  approach  and 
manner.  Its  mode  is  not  determined  by  content. 

Whether  New  England  hardness,  which  Mr.  Winters 
reviews  in  A  Cool  Master  in  the  February  POETRY,  is 
really  the  hardness  that  Mr.  Winters  is  thinking  about  is 
doubtful.  Whatever  its  hardness,  the  New  England 
idea  is  primarily  earnest — earnest  frankly  in  the  content 
of  poetry — as  Mr.  Winters,  to  judge  from  his  adjectives, 
can  never  be.  When  he  can  say  cleverly,  "This  man  has 
the  culture  to  know  that,  to  those  to  whom  philosophy  is 
comprehensible,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  first  importance; 
and  he  knows  that  these  people  are  not  greatly  impressed 
by  a  ballyhoo  statement  of  the  principles  of  social  and 
spiritual  salvation,"  it  is  clear  that  he  is  not  expounding 
New  England  hardness,  nor  anything  like  it,  but  the 

[347] 


POETRY:     A    Magazine    of    Verse 

assumed  hardness  of  sophisticated  Gallic  reaction. 
Poets — Emerson,  Whitman,  Sandburg — in  whom  the 
idea-content  has  a  burning  importance,  may  well  seem 
to  him  blathering  or  sentimental,  or  beside  the  poetic 
point.  In  them  the  serious  idea  is  not  only  an  intel- 
lectual factor  but  a  definitely  esthetic  component  of 
the  poem.  Nor  does  Mr.  Winters,  in  the  face  of  the 
overwhelming  human  response  to  ideas,  give  any  good 
reason  why  it  should  not  be.  Ideas  have  beauty. 

Whence  this  solemn  authority  that  the  poet  may  tell 
only  what  he  sees,  not  what  he  thinks?  It  comes  from 
a  protective,  contractile  impulse.  Fear  of  the  world 
beyond  the  near  perceptions,  or  failure  to  appreciate, 
is  its  basis.  It  is  "safety  first"  in  poetry.  Blunder  and 
bathos  threaten  the  poet  who  risks  being  bigger  than 
his  sensations,  and  these  too  often  do  overwhelm  him; 
but  the  naive  exposure  that  he  makes  in  extending  him- 
self beyond  protective  certainties  is  necessary.  He  is 
"sentimental"  perhaps,  a  "preacher,"  a  "philosopher," 
a  "peddler,"  because  he  cannot  always  fuse  his  own 
being  with  that  of  his  subject  matter.  He  opens  himself, 
as  Emerson,  Whitman  and  Sandburg  unquestionably 
do,  to  the  sarcasm  of  the  tight,  cool,  hard  poets  who  take 
no  risks,  but  he  also  escapes  their  inevitable  minority. 
As  a  productive  unit,  as  an  initiative,  the  poet  will  never 
be  thus  pigeonholed.  All  that  is  humane  and  interesting 
is  poetic.  All  material  waits  only  the  poet  with  capacity 
and  power  to  use  it. 

[348] 


The  Code  of  Minority 

"A  pigeon's  wing  may  make  as  great  an  image  as  a 
man's  tragedy,"  says  Mr.  Winters.  But  the  profound 
truth  of  the  sentence  is  not  the  theme  that  Mr.  Winters 
is  defending  in  it.  Emerson  and  Whitman,  or  for  that 
matter  the  Vedas,  reiterate  this  truth.  It  is  the  most 
beautiful  of  man's  comprehensions;  and,  as  the  identity 
of  all  things,  is  the  very  being  of  art  and  life.  But  Mr. 
Winters  means  nothing  of  this  sort  by  his  pronouncement. 
That  would  be  to  "sentimentalize,"  to  preach,  and  to 
enter  untastefully  into  the  idea-content  of  poetry.  Mr. 
Winters  means  by  his  sentence  that  greatness  lies  not  in 
those  things  of  which  the  poet  has  written,  "but  in  the 
perfect  balance,  the  infallible  precision,  with  which  he  has 
stated  their  cases." 

I  use  Mr.  Winters  for  illustration  because  he  reveals, 
rather  more  articulately  than  is  usually  considered  good 
taste  in  his  group,  the  ideational  background  of  probably 
the  larger  number  of  modern  poets.  Theirs  is  an  un- 
generous principle  from  which  there  can  be  no  great 
progress.  It  is  an  assumption  for  the  protection  of 
minority.  And  because  these  presumed  limitations  are 
emotionalized  somewhat,  I  am  justified,  I  think,  in  calling 
the  hard,  cool  minorists — the  modern  French,  our  Ameri- 
can expatriates  in  England,  Mr.  Winters,  even  Wallace 
Stevens — protectively  sentimental.  It  is  the  cult  of  the 
craft,  not  of  great  art. 

Let  me  suggest  the  code.  First:  Say  little,  but  say  it 
beautifully.  Second:  Be  delicate;  nicety  is  first.  Third: 

[349] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine  'of    Verse 

Be  fragmentary;  it  indicates  detachment;  a  frail  wisp  of 
fact,  a  plaintive,  inarticulate  thread  of  feeling  is  enough. 
Fourth:  Be  cool;  sympathies  are  vulgar.  Fifth:  Be 
careful;  the  limitations  of  the  poetic  milieu  are  fixed. 
This  is  the  minor  code  or  something  like  it,  the  world 
over.  It  is  not  classical,  for  its  restraint  has  neither 
the  amplitude  nor  the  objectivity  of  the  greater  classic 
school.  It  is  an  introspective  restraint,  the  last  reserve 
of  a  decayed  and  romantic  egoism.  It  is  a  hang-over, 
I  think,  from  ante-bellum  France.  The  indifferentism 
assumed  by  these  poets  is  neither  spiritual  nor  spacious; 
it  is  the  cold  chrysalis  of  individualism  from  which  the 
butterfly  has  flown. 

Devotion,  not  detachment,  is  the  foundation  of  art, 
and  devotion  these  modern  minors  have  not.  They  have 
ignored  the  artistic  value  of  ideas.  They  have  tatted 
gracefully  in  silk,  but  they  have  hammered  no  rhythms  in 
steel.  Ideas— even  moral  ideas,  and  character,  though 
abused  and  betrayed  in  much  Victorian  poetry,  remain 
primary  components  of  great  work.  They  will  remain 
so,  despite  Mr.  Winters  and  his  perceptualists,  simply 
for  the  reason  that  their  Platonic  as  well  as  their  human 
beauty  persists. 

At  least  two  major  poets  are  writing  today.  They 
are  Sandburg  and  Tagore.  Different  as  they  are,  every 
poem  of  theirs,  in  its  fusion  of  great  and  earnest  content 
with  personal  form,  denies  Mr.  Winters'  thesis. 

Baker  Browne// 

[350] 


A  New  Poetry  Society 


A    NEW    POETRY    SOCIETY 

It  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate  the  various  evidences 
of  increasing  public  interest  in  poetry,  of  at  least  a  desire 
to  give  the  art  closer  attention  and  better  appreciation 
than  it  has  had  hitherto.  The  Poetry  Lovers  of  America, 
a  society  inaugurated  last  year  in  Chicago,  is  one  such 
evidence.  Under  the  presidency  of  Mrs.  D.  Harry 
Hammer,  it  has  had  an  auspicious  and  interesting  first 
season,  with  five  or  six  meetings  at  which  modern  poetry 
was  read,  and  discussed  from  various  points  of  view,  the 
history,  traditions  and  technique  of  the  art  being  con- 
sidered as  well  as  its  modern  influences  and  aims.  The 
club's  correspondence  indicates  wide  interest  in  the 
subject,  and  other  groups,  through  the  Middle  West 
especially,  show  a  desire  to  be  affiliated  with  it.  The 
membership,  of  two  hundred  or  more  men  and  women, 
includes  both  professionals  and  amateurs.  F.  P. 

NOTES 

The  April  number  of  POETRY  will  be  a  Southern  Number,  the  con- 
tributors representing  the  south-eastern  section  of  the  country,  whose 
activities  in  poetry  have  been  encouraged  and  stimulated  during  the 
past  year  by  the  Poetry  Society  of  South  Carolina,  centering  in  Charles- 
ton. In  addition  to  the  poems,  an  editorial  by  Messrs.  Du  Bose 
Heyward  and  Hervey  Allen  will  present  the  artistic  point  of  view  of  the 
new-old  South.  These  two  poets  will  contribute  a  group  of  Carolina 
Chansons — ballads  from  the  romantic  history  of  the  region;  Miss 
Beatrice  Ravenel,  also  of  Charleston,  will  be  represented,  Mrs.  Craig 
Barrow  of  Savannah,  Mr.  Marx  G.  Sabel  and  Mrs.  Frances  D.  Pinder 
of  Jacksonville,  and  others. 

[351] 


POETRY:    A    Magazine    of    Verse 

Mr.  Carl  Sandburg,  of  Chicago,  will  publish  his  fourth  book  of  poems 
in  May,  through  Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co. 

Mr.  Louis  Untermeyer,  of  New  York,  also  needs  no  introduction.  His 
new  book  of  poems,  to  be  called  probably  Roast  Leviathan,  will  be  pub- 
lished in  the  late  spring  or  autumn. 

Hor tense  Flexner  (Mrs.  Wyncie  King)  has  recently  removed  from 
Louisville  to  Philadelphia,  her  husband  having  accepted  a  job  as 
cartoonist  for  the  Public  Ledger. 

Mr.  Morris  Bishop,  who  is  now  living  in  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  has  appeared 
in  POETRY  before.  Also  Miss  Sarah  Unna,  now  resident  in  New  York, 
who  was  a  member  of  Mr.  Bynner's  poetry  class  at  the  University  of 
California  three  years  ago. 

Miss  Marion  Strobel,  of  Chicago,  has  been  for  two  years  associate 
editor  of  POETRY. 

Miss  Ruth  Harwood,  a  native  of  Salt  Lake  City  and  now  resident  in 
Oakland,  California,  appears  for  the  first  time  in  POETRY.  Miss  Har- 
wood took  a  poetry  prize  at  the  University  of  Utah  in  1920,  and  the 
Emily  Cook  poetry  prize  at  the  University  of  California  in  1921. 

Alison  Buchanan  is  a  pseudonym. 


BOOKS  RECEIVED 

ORIGINAL  VERSE: 

Sour  Grapes,  by  William  Carlos  Williams.     Four  Seas  Co. 
Verses,  by  Eulalie  Andreas.    Privately  printed,  New  York. 
The  Quiet  Courage  and  Other  Songs  of  the  Unafraid,  by  Everard  Jack 

Appleton.     Stewart  Kidd  Co.,  Cincinnati. 

New  Altars,  by  Ethel  Talbot  Scheffauer.    Wm.  Kupe,  Berlin,  Germany. 
Depths  and  Shallows,  by  Sally  Bruce  Kinsolving.    Norman  Remington 

Co.,  Baltimore. 

Shafts  of  Song,  by  James  Latimer  McLane,  Jr.    Norman  Remington  Co. 
Songs  from  the  Lyric  Road,  by  Ruth  Harwood.     Privately  printed. 
The  World-hoax  and  The  Disillusioned  Genius,  by  C.  A.  Paul  Dachsel. 

Privately  printed,  Portland,  Ore. 

Poems,  by  Eunice  Browning.    Privately  printed,  Sacramento,  Cal. 
Later  Poems,  by  Bliss  Carman.     McClelland  &  Stewart,  Toronto. 
Poems:  New  and  Old,  by  Henry  Newbolt.    E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 

[352] 


NOV  101955 


PS  Poetry 

301 

P6 

v. 18-19 


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