Part 8

have the hard ring, the thick-packed consonantal beauty of stirring Greek.

_Dauber_ will have value to American poetry-readers if only from its mere power of revealing that poetry is not alone the mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells, though it be that also, but may have music of innumerable kinds.

_Biography_, the next poem in the book, sings with a different voice and sees from a different point of view, the difficulty of re-creating in expression--here expression through words, not through colors--

This many-pictured world of many passions.

_Biography_, too, rises from the invisible root of friendship and bears with wonderfully vivid arborescence an appreciative tale of the fine contribution of different companionships to a life.

Among the two-score shorter lyrics of the collection are songs of the sea or of the country-side; chants of coast-town bells and ports, marine ballads, and love-poems. This is, however, the loosest entitling of their kinds; nothing but the work itself in its entirety, can ever tell the actual subject of any true poem. Of these kinds it is not to the marine ballads that one turns back again and again, not to the story of "Spanish Waters" nor to any of the jingling-gold, the clinking-glass, the treasure-wreck verses of the book. Their tunes are spirited, but not a tenth as spirited as those of "The Pirates of Penzance." Indeed, to the conventionally villainous among fictive sea-faring persons of song, Gilbert and Sullivan seem to have done something that cannot now ever be undone.

The poems in the volume one does turn back to again and again are those with the great singing tones, that pour forth with originality, with inexpressible free grace and native power. Again and again you will read _A Creed_, _C. L. M._, _Born for Nought Else_, _Roadways_, _Truth_, _The Wild Duck_, _Her Heart_, and--

But at the falling of the tide The golden birds still sing and gleam. The Atlanteans have not died, Immortal things still give us dream.

The dream that fires man's heart to make, To build, to do, to sing or say A beauty Death can never take, An Adam from the crumbled clay.

Wonderful, wonderful it is that in the hearing of our own generation, one great voice after another has called and sung to the world from the midst of the sea-mists of England. From the poetry of Swinburne, of Rudyard Kipling, of John Masefield immortal things still give us dream.

Among the poems of this new book, more than one appear as incarnations of the beauty Death can never take. Of these, perhaps, none is more characteristic of the poet, nor will any more fittingly evince his volume's quality than _Truth_.

Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail, Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.

Life's city ways are dark, Men mutter by, the wells Of the great waters moan. O death, O sea, O tide, The waters moan like bells. No light, no mark, The soul goes out alone On seas unknown.

Stripped of all purple robes, Stripped of all golden lies, I will not be afraid. Truth will preserve through death; Perhaps the stars will rise, The stars like globes. The ship my striving made May see night fade.

_Edith Wyatt_

_Présences_, par P. J. Jouve: Georges Crès, Paris.

I take pleasure in welcoming, in Monsieur Jouve, a contemporary. He writes the new jargon and I have not the slightest doubt that he is a poet.

Whatever may be said against automobiles and aeroplanes and the modernist way of speaking of them, and however much one may argue that this new sort of work is mannered, and that its style will pass, still it is indisputable that the vitality of the time exists in such work.

Here is a book that you can read without being dead sure of what you will find on the next page, or at the end of the next couplet. There is no doubt that M. Jouve sees with his own eyes and feels with his own nerves. Nothing is more boresome than an author who pretends to know less about things than he really does know. It is this silly sort of false naïveté that rots the weaker productions of Maeterlinck. Thank heaven the advance guard is in process of escaping it.

It is possible that the new style will grow as weak in the future in the hands of imitators as has, by now, the Victorian manner, but for the nonce it is refreshing. Work of this sort can not be produced by the yard in stolid imitation of dead authors.

I defy anyone to read it without being forced to think, immediately, about life and the nature of things. I have perused this volume twice, and I have enjoyed it.

_E. P._

THE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Poetry Society of America, organized in 1910, was a natural response, perhaps at the time unconscious, to the reawakened interest in poetry, now so widely apparent.

There seemed no reason why poetry, one of the noblest of the arts, should not take to itself visible organization as well as its sister arts of music and painting, since it was certain that such organization contributed much to their advancement and appreciation. Poetry alone remained an isolated art, save through the doubtful value of coteries dedicated to the study of some particular poet. In the sense of fellowship, of the creative sympathy of contact, of the keener appreciation which must follow the wider knowledge of an art, poetry stood alone, detached from these avenues open from the beginning to other arts.

The Society was therefore founded, with a charter membership of about fifty persons, which included many of the poets doing significant work to-day, together with critics and representatives of other arts, the purpose from the outset being to include the appreciators of poetry as well as its producers. It has grown to nearly two hundred members, distributed from coast to coast, and eventually it will probably resolve itself into branch societies, with the chief organization, as now, in New York. Such societies should have a wide influence upon their respective communities in stimulating interest in the work of living poets, to which the Poetry Society as an organization is chiefly addressed.

Since the passing of the nineteenth-century poets, the art of poetry, like the art of painting, has taken on new forms and become the vehicle of a new message. The poet of to-day speaks through so different a medium, his themes are so diverse from those of the elder generation, that he cannot hope to find his public in their lingering audience. He must look to his contemporaries, to those touched by the same issues and responsive to the same ideals. To aid in creating this atmosphere for the poet, to be the nucleus of a movement for the wider knowledge of contemporaneous verse, the Poetry Society of America took form and in its brief period has, I think, justified the idea of its promoters.

Its meetings are held once a month at the National Arts Club in New York, with which it is affiliated, and are given chiefly to the reading and discussion of poetry, both of recently published volumes and of poems submitted anonymously. This feature has proved perhaps the most attractive, and while criticism based upon one hearing of a poem cannot be taken as authoritative, it is often constructive and valuable.

The Society is assembling an interesting collection of books, a twentieth century library of American poetry. Aside from its own collection, it is taking steps to promote a wider representation of modern poets in public libraries.

_Jessie B. Rittenhouse._

NOTES

"THAT MASS OF DOLTS"

Mr. Pound's phrase in his poem _To Whistler, American_, has aroused more or less resentment, some of it quite emphatic. Apparently we of "these states" have no longing for an Ezekiel; our prophets must give us, not the bitter medicine which possibly we need, but the sugar-and-water of compliment which we can always swallow with a smile.

Perhaps we should examine our consciences a little, or at least step down from our self-erected pedestals long enough to listen to this accusation. What has become of our boasted sense of humor if we cannot let our young poets rail, or our sense of justice if we cannot cease smiling and weigh their words? In certain respects we Americans are a "mass of dolts," and in none more than our huge stolid, fundamental indifference to our own art. Mr. Pound is not the first American poet who has stood with his back to the wall, and struck out blindly with clenched fists in a fierce impulse to fight. Nor is he the first whom we, by this same stolid and indifferent rejection, have forced into exile and rebellion.

After a young poet has applied in vain to the whole list of American publishers and editors, and learned that even though he were a genius of the first magnitude they could not risk money or space on his poetry because the public would not buy it--after a series of such rebuffs our young aspirant goes abroad and succeeds in interesting some London publisher. The English critics, let us say, praise his book, and echoes of their praises reach our astonished ears. Thereupon the poet in exile finds that he has thus gained a public, and editorial suffrages, in America, and that the most effective way of increasing that public and those suffrages is, to remain in exile and guard his foreign reputation.

Meantime it is quite probable that a serious poet will have grown weary of such open and unashamed colonialism, that he will prefer to stay among people who are seriously interested in aesthetics and who know their own minds. For nothing is so hard to meet as indifference; blows are easier for a live man to endure than neglect. The poet who cries out his message against a stone wall will be silenced in the end, even though he bear a seraph's wand and speak with the tongues of angels.

* * * * *

One phase of our colonialism in art, the singing of opera in foreign languages, has been persistently opposed by Eleanor E. Freer, who has set to music of rare distinction many of the finest English lyrics, old and new. She writes:

In the Basilikon Doron, King James I of England writes to his son: "And I would, also, advise you to write in your own language; for there is nothing left to be said in Greek and Latin already--and besides that, it best becometh a King to purify and make famous his own tongue." Might we add, it best becometh the kings of art in America and England to sing their own language and thus aid in the progress of their national music and poetry?

* * * * *

Messrs. Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner belong to the younger group of American poets, both having been born since 1880, the former in Davenport, Iowa, and the latter in Brooklyn. Both were graduated from Harvard early in this century, after which Mr. Ficke was admitted to the bar, and Mr. Bynner became assistant editor of McClure's.

Mr. Ficke has published _From the Isles_, _The Happy Princess_, _The Earth Passion_ and _The Breaking of Bonds_; also _Mr. Faust_, a dramatic poem, and a series of poems called _Twelve Japanese Painters_, will be published this year. Mr. Bynner has published _An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems_, and _An Immigrant_. His play, _His Father's House_, was recently produced in California.

The March number of _Poetry_ will contain _The Silent House_, a one-act play, by Agnes Lee, and poems by Alice Meynell, Alfred Noyes, Fannie Stearns Davis and others.

BOOKS RECEIVED

_Bugle Notes of Courage and Love_, by Althea A. Ogden. Unity Publishing Co. _Altar-Side Messages_, by Evelyn H. Walker. Unity Publishing Co. _Dream Harbor_, by J. W. Vallandingham. Privately printed. _Hopeful Thoughts_, by Eleanor Hope. Franklin Hudson Publishing Co. _The Youth Replies_, by Louis How. Sherman, French & Co. _Songs of the Love Unending_, A Sonnet Sequence, by Kendall Banning. Brothers of the Book. _William Allingham_, The Golden Treasury Series. The Macmillan Co. _Idylls Beside the Strand_, by Franklin F. Phillips. Sherman, French & Co. _The Minstrel with the Self-Same Song_, by Charles A. Fisher. The Eichelberger Book Co. _The Wife of Potiphar_, with Other Poems, by Harvey M. Watts. The John C. Winston Co. _A Scroll of Seers_, A Wall Anthology. Peter Paul & Son.

Poetry VOL. I A Magazine of Verse NO. 6

MARCH, 1913

THE SILENT HOUSE

_David._ [_Re-reading a letter._] How may a letter bring such darkness down-- With this: "She dallied with your love too long!" And this: "It is the word of all the town: "Corinna has no soul, for all her song!"

_Martha._ [_Entering with flowers._] O sir, I bring you flaming bergamot, And early asters, for your window-sill. And where I found them? Now you'll guess it not. I visited the garden on the hill, And gathered till my arms could hold no more.

_David._ The garden of the little silent house!

_Martha._ The city lured her from her viny door. But see, the flowers have stayed!

_David._ They seem to drowse And dream of one they lost, a paler-blown. How fares the house upon the hill?

_Martha._ The blinds Are fast of late, and all are intergrown With weedy havoc tossed by searching winds.

_David._ How somber suddenly the sky! A shower Is in the air.

_Martha._ I'll light the lamps.

_David._ Not yet. Leave me the beauty of the twilit hour.

_Martha._ Hear the wind rising! How the moorings fret! More than a shower is on its way through space. I would not be aboard of yonder barque. [_She goes out._] _David._ Corinna! Now may I recall her face. It is my light to think by in the dark. Yes, all my years of study, all the will Tenacious to achieve, the tempered strife, The victories attained through patient skill, Lie at the door of one dear human life. And yet ... the letter ... Often have I read How love relumes the flowers and the trees. True! For my world is newly garmented: Rewards seem slight, and slighter penalties. Daily companionship is more and more. To make one little good more viable, To lift one load, is worth the heart's outpour. And she--she has made all things wonderful. And yet ... the letter ... O to break a spell Wherein the stars are crumbling unto dust! There never was a hope--I know it well, And struggle on, and love because I must. Never a hope? Shall ever any scheme, Her silence, or alarm of written word, Or voiced asseveration, shake my dream? She loves me! By love's anguish, I have heard! We two from our soul-towers across a vale Are calling each to each, alert, aware. Shall one of us one day the other hail, And no reply be borne upon the air? Corinna, come to light my heart's dim place! O come to me, Belovèd and Besought, O'er grief, o'er gladness,--even o'er death apace,-- For I could greet your phantom, so it brought Love's own reality!... A song of hers Seems striving hither, a faint villanelle Half smothered by the gale's mad roisterers. She used to sing it in the bracken dell. Here is the rain against the window beating In heavy drops that presage wilder storm. The lake is lost within a lurid sheeting; The house upon the hill has changed its form. The melancholy pine-trees weep in rocking. And what's that clamor at the outer door? Martha! O Martha! Somebody is knocking! [_Calling._]

_Martha._ [_Re-entering._] You hear the rills that down the gutters roar.

_David._ And are you deaf? The door--go open it! This is no night to leave a man outside!

_Martha._ [_Muttering and going toward the door._] And is it I am growing deaf a bit, And blind a bit, with other ill-betide! Well, I can see to thread a needle still, And I can hear the ticking of the clock, And I can fetch a basket from the mill. But hallow me if ever I heard knock! [_She throws the door open. David starts up and rushes forward with outstretched arms._] _David._ Corinna! You, Corinna! Drenched and cold! At last, at last! But how in all the rain! Martha! [_Martha stands motionless, unseeing._] Good Martha, you are growing old! Draw fast the shades--shut out the hurricane. Here, take the dripping cloak from out the room; Bring cordial from the purple damson pressed, And light the lamps, the candles--fire the gloom. Why stand you gaping? See you not the guest?

_Martha._ I opened wide the door unto the storm. But never heard I step upon the sill. All the black night let in no living form. I see no guest. Look hard as e'er I will, I see none here but you and my poor self.

_David._ The room that was my mother's room prepare. Spread out warm garments on the oaken shelf-- Her gown, the little shawl she used to wear. [_Martha, wide-eyed, bewildered, lights the lamps and candles and goes out, raising her hands._] _Corinna._ The moments I may tarry fade and press. Something impelled me hither, some clear flame. They said I had no soul! O David, yes, They said I had no soul! And so I came. I have been singing, singing, all the way, O, singing ever since the darkness grew And I grew chill and followed the small ray. Lean close, and let my longing rest in you!

_David._ Dear balm of light, I never thought to win From out the pallid hours for ever throbbing! How did you know the sorrow I was in?

_Corinna._ A flock of leaves came sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.

_David._ O, now I hold you fast, my love, my own, My festival upleaping from an ember! But, timid child, how could you come alone Across the pathless woods?

_Corinna._ Do you remember?-- Over the summer lake one starry, stilly, Sweet night, when you and I were drifting, dear, I frighted at the shadow of a lily! It is all strange, but now I have no fear.

_David._ Your eyes are weary, drooping. Sleep, then, sleep.

_Corinna._ I must go over to the silent house.

_David._ The dwelling stands forsaken up the steep, With never beast nor human to arouse!

_Corinna._ Soon will the windows gleam with many lamps. Hark!--heavy wheels are toiling to the north.

_David._ I will go with you where the darkness ramps.

_Corinna._ Strong arms are in the storm to bear me forth.

_David._ Not in these garments dripping as the trees! Not in these clinging shadows!

_Corinna._ Ah, good-night! Dear love, dear love, I must go forth in these. Tomorrow you shall see me all in white.

_Agnes Lee_

THE ORACLE

(_To the New Telescope on Mt. Wilson_)

Of old sat one at Delphi brooding o'er The fretful earth;--ironically wise, Veiling her prescience in dark replies, She shaped the fates of men with mystic lore. The oracle is silent now. No more Fate parts the cloud that round omniscience lies. But thou, O Seer, dost tease our wild surmise With portents passing all the wealth of yore. For thou shalt spell the very thoughts of God! Before thy boundless vision, world on world Shall multiply in glit'ring sequence far; And all the little ways which men have trod Shall be as nothing by His star-dust whirled Into the making of a single star.

A GARGOYLE ON NOTRE DAME

With angel's wings and brutish-human form, Weathered with centuries of sun and storm, He crouches yonder on the gallery wall, Monstrous, superb, indifferent, cynical: And all the pulse of Paris cannot stir Her one immutable philosopher.

_Edmund Kemper Broadus_

SANTA BARBARA BEACH

Now while the sunset offers, Shall we not take our own: The gems, the blazing coffers, The seas, the shores, the throne?

The sky-ships, radiant-masted, Move out, bear low our way. Oh, Life was dark while it lasted, Now for enduring day.

Now with the world far under, To draw up drowning men And show them lands of wonder Where they may build again.

There earthly sorrow falters, There longing has its wage; There gleam the ivory altars Of our lost pilgrimage.

--Swift flame--then shipwrecks only Beach in the ruined light; Above them reach up lonely The headlands of the night.

A hurt bird cries and flutters Her dabbled breast of brown; The western wall unshutters To fling one last rose down.

A rose, a wild light after-- And life calls through the years, "Who dreams my fountains' laughter Shall feed my wells with tears."

_Ridgely Torrence_

MATERNITY

One wept, whose only babe was dead, New-born ten years ago. "Weep not; he is in bliss," they said. She answered, "Even so.

"Ten years ago was born in pain A child, not now forlorn; But oh, ten years ago in vain A mother, a mother was born."

_Alice Meynell_

PROFITS

Yes, stars were with me formerly. (I also knew the wind and sea; And hill-tops had my feet by heart. Their shaggéd heights would sting and start When I came leaping on their backs. I knew the earth's queer crooked cracks, Where hidden waters weave a low And druid chant of joy and woe.)

But stars were with me most of all. I heard them flame and break and fall. Their excellent array, their free Encounter with Eternity, I learned. And it was good to know That where God walked, I too might go.

Now, all these things are passed. For I Grow very old and glad to die. What did they profit me, say you, These distant bloodless things I knew? Profit? What profit hath the sea Of her deep-throated threnody? What profit hath the sun, who stands Staring on space with idle hands? And what should God Himself acquire From all the aeons' blood and fire?

My profit is as theirs: to be Made proof against mortality: To know that I have companied With all that shines and lives, amid So much the years sift through their hands, Most mortal, windy, worthless sands.

This day I have great peace. With me Shall stars abide eternally!

TWO SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL

MOON FOLLY

I will go up the mountain after the Moon: She is caught in a dead fir-tree. Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl, Like a great pale apple is she.

I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold hands And carry her home in my sack. I will set her down safe on the oaken bench That stands at the chimney-back. And then I will sit by the fire all night, And sit by the fire all day. I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart's delight, Till I gnaw her slowly away.

And while I grow mad with the Moon's cold taste, The World may beat on my door, Crying "Come out!" and crying "Make haste! And give us the Moon once more!" But I will not answer them ever at all; I will laugh, as I count and hide The great black beautiful seeds of the Moon In a flower-pot deep and wide. Then I will lie down and go fast asleep, Drunken with flame and aswoon. But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap: The subtle swift seeds of the Moon.