Part 9
My heritage draw I from these—I love tho’ I leave them behind; But shall I not speak for the dumb, and lift up my sight for the blind? I am kin to the least that inhabits the air, the waters, the clod; They wist not what bond is between us, they know not the Indwelling God! For under my hands alone the charactered Past hath He laid, One moment to scan ere it fall like a scroll into ashes and fade! Enough have I read to know and declare—my ways He willkeep, If onward I go, or again in a fold of His garment I sleep!
There is no internal evidence in these strongly phrased and stirring lines that a woman’s hand penned them; their vigor, grasp, and resonant freedom of measure would do credit to Browning; and here one may pause to observe the adaptability of Miss Thomas’ style to her thought. In certain poems demanding the delicate airy touch, such as, “Dew-Bells,” Titania herself could scarcely speak in lighter phrase, nor could a tenderer, sweeter note be infused into a poem than has been put into the lines: “The soul of the violet haunts me so,” or into the poem incident to the query, “Is it Spring again in Ohio?”—but when the thought demands virility of word and measure Miss Thomas has a vivid energy of style, masculine in its force. One may argue that there is no sex in poetry, that, coming close home for illustration, a woman’s hand might have fashioned the work of Longfellow and Whittier; but what of Lowell, Whitman, and Emerson? These names alone prove sex-evidence in art; nor is any disparagement meant to Longfellow and Whittier that their characteristic notes were of the gentler, sweeter sort. We know they could be sufficiently robust upon occasion, particularly the latter; but, in general, art obeys a temperamental polarity giving evidence of the masculine or feminine mind that produced it. Miss Thomas’ work in the main proves the woman, and the typical woman, who has lived, suffered, joyed; drank, indeed, the brimming beaker from the foam to the lees; but on her more philosophical and intellectual side, in such poems as “The Voice of the Laws,” or “The Flutes of the Gods” and in many others, she has all a man’s virility. It is partly for this reason that her style is too varied to be identified by a random poem, the temperamental differences in the work are so marked, and the style changes so entirely with them, as to elude classification under one head.
For one of her heartening notes and quick-step measures take “Rank-And-File” from her last volume, _The Dancers_:
You might have painted that picture, I might have written that song: Not ours, but another’s, the triumph, ’Tis done and well done—so ’long!
You might have fought in the vanguard, I might have struck at foul Wrong: What matters whose hand was the foremost? ’Tis done and well done—so ’long!
So ’long, and into the darkness, With the immemorial throng— Foil to the few and the splendid: All’s done and well done—so ’long!
Yet, as we pass, we will pledge them— The bold, and the bright, and the strong, (Ours was never black envy): All’s done and well done—so ’long!
Miss Thomas is very keen to see what may be termed the subjectively dramatic side of life,—all the subtlety of motive and impulse working out of sight to shape the destiny, she sees with acute divination; but constructively she lacks the dramatic touch. In “A Winter Swallow,” her one definite incursion into this field, it cannot be said that she has done such work as would represent her at her real value either in the literary beauty of the lines, or in the insight displayed in the characterization.
So short a dramatic effort, however, could scarcely do more than indicate the likelihood or unlikelihood of Miss Thomas’ success in a more sustained plot; and while a theme having in itself warmer elements of sympathy would doubtless create for itself a more moving and vital art, there is very little to indicate that the effort would be wisely spent. One is inclined more fully to this opinion by the lack of dramatic impulse in Miss Thomas’ narrative poem turning upon the story of Genevra of the Amieri, she who woke by night from the death-trance to find herself entombed in the powerful vault of her ancestors, and, being spurned from her father’s and her husband’s doors, as a haunting spirit, took refuge at that of her former lover, to whom, being adjudged by the law as dead, she was reunited.
The mere skeleton of this story is palpitant with life; but in Miss Thomas’ cultivated and beautiful recital, wherein the well-rounded, suave pentameter falls never otherwise than richly on the ear, all the vibrant, thrilling, terrifying elements of the story have been refined away. When Genevra wakens in the tomb, and touches in the darkness the human skeletons about her, and struggles to free herself from the entangling cerements, and beats with superhuman strength at the gratings until they yield to her hand, and to the outer stone until it unseals at her terrified touch,—there are dramatic materials which even history has infused with red blood; but either Miss Thomas does not conceive the situation as having thrills and terrors, or has not been able to impart them to her record, for she sums the matter up in these two stanzas, illustrating, apparently, the Gentle Art of Being Buried Alive:
And now she dreams she lies in marble rest Within the Amieri’s chapel-tomb, With hands laid idly on an idle breast. How sweetly can the carven lilies bloom, As they would soften her untimely doom…. Nay, living flowers are these that brush her cheek! She starts awake amid the nether gloom, From out dead swoon returning faint and weak; No voice hath she, but none might hear her, could she speak.
Vaguely she reaches from her stony bed; The blessed moonbeam, gliding underground, Like angel ministrant from heaven sped, To rescue one in frosty irons long bound, Cheers her new-beating heart, till she has found Recourse of memory and use of will. Then soon her feet are on the ladder-round, The stone above gives way to patient skill; And now the wide night greets her, bright, and lone, and still.
The story of Genevra, as told by Miss Thomas, has often great beauty of phrase, picturesque descriptive passages of Florentine life, delicacy in the scene between the reunited lovers when Genevra seeks Antonio’s gate, and fine pathos in the lines spoken by her father to her supposed spirit returning to haunt him; in short, the poem has all but the dramatic touch. The narrative force is lost in the poetic elaboration.
But although Miss Thomas has not the outward art of the dramatist, she has, as earlier stated, a keenly intuitive sense of the spiritually dramatic in passing life. Upon love she has written with so keen a psychology that certain of the poems probe to the quick of that source of pain; for it is not the lighter phase, already so well celebrated, that she sings, but oftener the fateful, the inexplicable. For illustration, the poem, “They Said,” presents the caprice of love by which (they say), it goes to those who hold it most lightly, spend it most prodigally, flee it to entice it, and yet weave snares to detain it. The thrust of these stanzas is as delicately keen as a rapier point:
Because thy prayer hath never fed Dark Atë with the food she craves; Because thou dost not hate (they said), Nor joy to step on foemen’s graves; Because thou canst not hate, as we, How poor a creature thou must be, Thy veins as pale as ours are red! Go to! Love loves thee not (they said).
Because by thee no snare was spread To baffle Love—if Love should stray, Because thou dost not watch (they said), To strictly compass Love each way: Because thou dost not watch, as we, Nor jealous Care hath lodged with thee, To strew with thorns a restless bed— Go to! Love loves thee not (they said).
Because thy feet were not misled To jocund ground, yet all infirm, Because thou art not fond (they said), Nor dost exact thine heyday term: Because thou art not fond, as we, How dull a creature thou must be, Thy pulse how slow—yet shrewd thy head! Go to! Love loves thee not (they said).
Because thou hast not roved to wed With those to Love averse or strange, Because thou hast not roved (they said), Nor ever studied artful change: Because thou hast not roved, as we, Love paid no ransom rich for thee, Nor, seeking thee, unwearied sped. Go to! Love loves thee not (they said).
Ay, so! because thou thought’st to tread Love’s ways, and all his bidding do, Because thou hast not tired (they said), Nor ever wert to Love untrue: Because thou hast not tired, as we, How tedious must thy service be; Love with thy zeal is surfeited! Go to! Love loves thee not (they said).
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Every contradiction of passion is in this poem, and the very refinement of satire, as well. In “The Domino,” Miss Thomas images, with a pleasant humor, the various disguises under which one meets Love, and symbolizes in “The Barrier” the infallible intuition, the psychic sense, by which one feels a change not yet apparent.
“A Home-Thrust,” wherein the inconstant one betrays himself by his doubt of another’s constancy, and “So It Was Decreed,” are also among the psychological bits of delineation; but for the less penetrative but sweeter and more memorable note, there are two short poems, “Vos Non Vobis,” and “The Deep-Sea Pearl,” tender, human, sufficiently universal to appeal to all and artistically wrought. The first records that,
There was a garden planned in Spring’s young days, Then, Summer held it in her bounteous hand; And many wandered thro’ its blooming ways; But ne’er the one for whom the work was planned. And it was vainly done— For what are many, if we lack the one?
There was a song that lived within the heart Long time—and then on Music’s wing it strayed! All sing it now, all praise its artless art; But ne’er the one for whom the song was made. And it was vainly done— For what are many, if we lack the one?
The whole argument of Art versus Life is summed up in this poem. The second lyric, of eight lines, is as delicate as the symbol it employs, and globes within it, as the drop within the pearl, many a life-history:
The love of my life came not As love unto others is cast; For mine was a secret wound— But the wound grew a pearl, at last.
The divers may come and go, The tides, they arise and fall; The pearl in its shell lies sealed, And the Deep Sea covers all.
It is in such poems as bring from the heart of life a certain poignant strain that Miss Thomas is at her best. She is not a melancholy singer, but her work is too deeply rooted in the pain and unrest of life to be joyous. A certain longing, an almost impalpable sadness, pervades much of her verse. Nevertheless, it is not so emphasized as to be depressing, and, indeed, adds just the touch of personality by which one treasures that which he feels has been fused in experience. This pertains to the more intimate phases of Miss Thomas’ work. Upon death she has written with deep feeling and insight,—feeling all too vital to be analyzed, such as renders Spring the season
When that blithe, forerunning air Breathes more hope than thou canst bear.
Nature is often, in her verse, as it must be to any sympathetic mind, a keener source of pain than of pleasure, instinct as it is with memories, and flaunting before one’s thwarted dreams the infallible fulfilment of its hopes; yet she has for it an intense passion, and enters into its most delicate and undefined moods with swift comprehension.
“The Soul of the Violet,” previously referred to, is an illustration in point, being a purely subjective treatment of a nature-suggestion. When spring is yet too young for promise of bloom, and only in the first respite from the snow,
The brown earth raises a wistful face— Whenever about the fields I go, The soul of the violet haunts me so!
I look—there is never a leaf to be seen; In the pleachéd grass is no thread of green; But I walk as one who would chide his feet Lest they trample the hope of something sweet! Here can no flower be blooming, I know— Yet the soul of the violet haunts me so!
Again and again that thrilling breath, Fresh as the life that is snatched out of death, Keen as the blow that Love might deal Lest a spirit in trance should outward steal— So thrilling that breath, so vital that blow— The soul of the violet haunts me so!
Is it the blossom that slumbers as yet Under the leaf-mould dank and wet,
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Or is it the flower shed long ago? The soul of the violet haunts me so!
The subjective touch in the final couplet gives the key-note to the poem.
Miss Thomas is indeed so subjective in her conception of some of the profounder and more vital losses of life, the sense of the irrevocable and irreparable is so keenly emphasized to her mind as to communicate almost a hint of fatalism to certain of her poems, such as “Expiation” and “A Far Cry To Heaven.” The latter is such an utterance, in its impassioned tone, as might proceed from the lips of the Angel with the Flaming Sword sent to bar one’s return to his desecrated Eden. The ultimate effect of such a poem, however, is salutary, as the warning outruns the scath, and one reading it will pay closer heed to the import of the “white hour” of his life. On its technical side, the poem has all the ease of an improvisation, and so at one are the metre and thought that line succeeds line with a surge and a rhythm, as wave follows wave to the shore:
What! dost thou pray that the outgone tide be rolled back on the strand, The flame be rekindled that mounted away from the smouldering brand, The past-summer harvest flow golden through stubble-lands naked and sere, The winter-gray woods upgather and quicken the leaves of last year?— Thy prayers are as clouds in a drouth; regardless, unfruitful, they roll; For this, that thou prayest vain things, ’tis a far cry to Heaven, my soul,— Oh, a far cry to Heaven!
Thou dreamest the word shall return, shot arrow-like into the air, The wound in the breast where it lodged be balmed and closed for thy prayer, The ear of the dead be unsealed, till thou whisper a boon once denied, The white hour of life be restored, that passed thee unprized, undescried!— Thy prayers are as runners that faint, that fail, within sight of the goal, For this, that thou prayest fond things, ’tis a far cry to Heaven, my soul,— Oh, a far cry to Heaven!
And cravest thou fondly the quivering sands shall be firm to thy feet, The brackish pool of the waste to thy lips be made wholesome and sweet? And cravest thou subtly the bane thou desirest, be wrought to thy good, As forth from a poisonous flower a bee conveyeth safe food? For this, that thou prayest ill things, thy prayers are an anger-rent scroll; The chamber of audit is closed,—’tis a far cry to Heaven, my soul,— Oh, a far cry to Heaven!
For the strong, but aloe-tinctured draught of this poem, “Sursum Corda” is the antidote. Here we have the same experience that went to the making of the former poem, and touched it with bitterness, turned to sweetness and a fervor of exaltation, when viewed from the hour of illumination at the last. It is throughout a valiant, noble song, of which the following lines show the spirit:
Up and rejoice, and know thou hast matter for revel, my heart! Up and rejoice, not heeding if drawn or undrawn be the dart Last winged by the Archer whose quiver is full for sweeter than thou, That yet will sing out of the dust when the ultimate arrow shall bow.
* * * * *
Now thou couldst bless and God-speed, without bitterness bred in thine heart, Loves, that, outworn and time-wasted, were fain from thy lodge to depart: Though dulled by their passing, thy faith, like a flower upfolded by night, New kindness should quicken again, as a flower feels the touch of new light. Ay, now thou couldst love, undefeated, with ardor instinct from pure Love,— Warmed from a sun in the heavens that knows not beneath nor above, Nor distance its patience to weary, nor substance unpierce by its ray.
* * * * *
Now couldst thou pity and smile, where once but the scourge thou wouldst lay; Now to thyself couldst show mercy, and up from all penance arise, Knowing there runneth abroad a chastening flame from the skies.
Doubt not thou hast matter for revel, for once thou wouldst cage thee in steel, And, wounded, wouldst seek out the balm and the cordial cunning to heal; But now thou hast knowledge more sovran, more kind, than leech-craft can wield: Never Design sent thee forth to be safe from the scath of the field, But bade thee stand bare in the midst, and offer free way to all scath Piercing thee inly—so only might Song have an outgoing path.
* * * * *
But now ’tis not thine to bestow, to abide, or be known in thy place; Withdraweth the voice into silence, dissolveth the form and the face. Death—Life thou discernest! Enlarged as thou art, thy ground thou must shift! Love over-liveth. Throb thou forth quickly. Heart, be uplift!
The hard-won philosophy of nearly all lives is summed up in these stanzas, pregnant therefore with suggestion to those who have the untrodden way before them, and full of uplift to those who have the course behind them, and view it in retrospect as but “a stuff to try the soul’s strength on.”
Not only in this poem, but throughout her work, the evolution of Miss Thomas’ philosophy of life is marked, had one time to trace its growing significance. She has sounded many stops, touched many keys of feeling and thought, so that one may do no more in a brief comment than suggest the various phases of her widely inclusive song.
IX
MADISON CAWEIN
IN nothing, more than in his attitude toward nature, does the modern betray himself. Ours is the questioning age, the truth-seeking, the scientific age; when, for illustration, Maeterlinck laid his philosophy by to observe with infinite pains the habits of the bee and to record, without the intrusion of too many deductions, the amazing facts as nature passed them in review before his eyes,—he became the naturalist-philosopher, selling days, not for speculations, but for laws. To the poet also has come the desire which came to the philosopher to demonstrate the truth within the beauty; to penetrate to the finer law at the heart of things; in short, there has arisen what one may term the poet-naturalist, and in the recent work of Mr. Madison Cawein we have perhaps the most characteristic illustration among our own poets of the younger school, of this phase of nature-interpretation.
Before considering it, however, one must trace briefly Mr. Cawein’s evolutionary steps through the haunted ways of nature in its imaginative and romantic phases, which enthralled him first, by no means wholly, but predominantly, and of which he has left many records in his volume, _Myth and Romance_. Of the more artistic poems, worthy to be put in comparison with his later work, there are several from the opening group of the collection, as these picturesque lines containing the query:
What wood-god, on this water’s mossy curb, Lost in reflection of earth’s loveliness, Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb? I, who haphazard, wandering at a guess, Came on this spot, wherein, with gold and flame Of buds and blooms, the season writes its name.— Ah me! could I have seen him ere alarm Of my approach aroused him from his calm! As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, Part Faun, lay here; who left the shadow warm As wild-wood rose, and filled the air with balm Of his sweet breath as with ethereal sap.
Or from the same group these charming glimpses of “an unseen presence that eludes”:—
Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling The loamy odors of old solitudes, Who, from her beechen doorway, calls;
* * * * *
Or, haply ’tis a Naiad now who slips, Like some white lily, from her fountain’s glass, While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips, The moisture rains cool music on the grass.
* * * * *
Or now it is an Oread—whose eyes Are constellated dusk—who stands confessed, As naked as a flow’r; her heart’s surprise, Like morning’s rose, mantling her brow and breast: She, shrinking from my presence, all distressed Stands for a startled moment ere she flies, Her deep hair blowing, up the mountain crest, Wild as a mist that trails along the dawn. And is’t her footfalls lure me? or the sound Of airs that stir the crisp leaf on the ground? And is’t her body glimmers on yon rise? Or dog-wood blossoms snowing on the lawn?
Who shall deny both charm and accomplishment to these lines, particularly to the glimpse of the dryad in her “beechen doorway,” but on the next page of the same volume occurs this more realistic apostrophe addressed to the “Rain-Crow,” giving a foretokening hint of his later manner of observation, and who shall say that it has not a truer charm and accomplishment?
Can freckled August,—drowsing warm and blonde Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, In her hot hair the oxeyed daisies wound,— O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed To thee? when no plumed weed, no feather’d seed Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, That gleams like flint between its rim of grasses, Through which the dragonfly forever passes Like splintered diamond.
Drouth weights the trees, and from the farmhouse eaves The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves Limp with the heat—a league of rutty way— Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves— Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, In thirsty heaven or on burning plain, That thy keen eye perceives?
But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true. For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring Brimming with freshness. How their dippers ring And flash and rumble! lavishing dark dew On corn and forestland, that, streaming wet, Their hilly backs against the downpour set, Like giants vague in view.
The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; The bumble-bee, within the last half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed.—But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of the birds,—like August there,— Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, Like some drenched truant, cower.