Book Discussion
Irradiations: Sand and Spray, by John Gould Fletcher. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Thereis considerable diversity in Mr. Fletcher’sIrradiations, but one soon discovers that he has not encrimsoned himself with the standard passions of poetry. He does not display the usual contortions of love, hate, grief, and fear. Some persons have, therefore, found him aloof, oversubtle, and lacking in emotional force. This intimation that Mr. Fletcher’s art is etiolated is an admission of the reader’s incompleteness. Vitality does not depend on subject; nor is subtlety necessarily weakness. But the notion strangely persists that a poet must clothe his emotions in samite and dance with them around a blood-red fire to the plangent accompaniment of drums and trumpets.
To say that Mr. Fletcher has entwined himself with nature would unfairly give an impression of Wordsworthian insipidity. Yet Mr. Fletcher in many of his poems is a part of the rain, of the sand and wind, of the clouds and sky. But he is never merely descriptive. He has the power of conveying a mood in the terms of nature without intruding himself upon the reader. Let me illustrate with one of the best of his poems which has been much quoted elsewhere:
Flickering of incessant rainOn flashing pavements;Sudden scurry of umbrellas;Bending recurved blossoms of the storm.The winds came clanging and clatteringFrom long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits;They strew upon the city gusty wafts of apple-blossom,And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves.Uneven tinkling, the lazy rainDripping from the eaves.
Flickering of incessant rainOn flashing pavements;Sudden scurry of umbrellas;Bending recurved blossoms of the storm.The winds came clanging and clatteringFrom long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits;They strew upon the city gusty wafts of apple-blossom,And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves.Uneven tinkling, the lazy rainDripping from the eaves.
Flickering of incessant rainOn flashing pavements;Sudden scurry of umbrellas;Bending recurved blossoms of the storm.The winds came clanging and clatteringFrom long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits;They strew upon the city gusty wafts of apple-blossom,And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves.Uneven tinkling, the lazy rainDripping from the eaves.
Flickering of incessant rainOn flashing pavements;Sudden scurry of umbrellas;Bending recurved blossoms of the storm.
Flickering of incessant rain
On flashing pavements;
Sudden scurry of umbrellas;
Bending recurved blossoms of the storm.
The winds came clanging and clatteringFrom long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits;They strew upon the city gusty wafts of apple-blossom,And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves.
The winds came clanging and clattering
From long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits;
They strew upon the city gusty wafts of apple-blossom,
And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves.
Uneven tinkling, the lazy rainDripping from the eaves.
Uneven tinkling, the lazy rain
Dripping from the eaves.
Our tread-mill versifiers will shrink and mumble in the presence of Mr. Fletcher’s clean new poetry. They who have inherited the dead mottled skin of old poetic form with its incrustation of ancient allusions, symbols, and yellowed figures, will not feel the alluring freshness of a poem such as this:
It is evening, and the earthWraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.Afar there clink the polychrome points of the stars,Indefatigable after all these years!Here upon earth there is life, and then death,Dawn, and later nightfall,Fire, and the quenching of embers:But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world,If the idea fits my fancy?Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns;You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening;I light my pipe to salute you,And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.
It is evening, and the earthWraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.Afar there clink the polychrome points of the stars,Indefatigable after all these years!Here upon earth there is life, and then death,Dawn, and later nightfall,Fire, and the quenching of embers:But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world,If the idea fits my fancy?Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns;You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening;I light my pipe to salute you,And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.
It is evening, and the earthWraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.Afar there clink the polychrome points of the stars,Indefatigable after all these years!Here upon earth there is life, and then death,Dawn, and later nightfall,Fire, and the quenching of embers:But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world,If the idea fits my fancy?Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns;You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening;I light my pipe to salute you,And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.
It is evening, and the earthWraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.Afar there clink the polychrome points of the stars,Indefatigable after all these years!Here upon earth there is life, and then death,Dawn, and later nightfall,Fire, and the quenching of embers:But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world,If the idea fits my fancy?Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns;You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening;I light my pipe to salute you,And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.
It is evening, and the earth
Wraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.
Afar there clink the polychrome points of the stars,
Indefatigable after all these years!
Here upon earth there is life, and then death,
Dawn, and later nightfall,
Fire, and the quenching of embers:
But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world,
If the idea fits my fancy?
Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns;
You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening;
I light my pipe to salute you,
And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.
In his preface Mr. Fletcher says the use of rhyme is in its essence barbarous; yet he himself uses it not infrequently together with such devices as assonance, onomatopoeia, and alliteration. He is not inconsistent, however, for he admits that rhyme used intelligently will add to the richness of effect. It does:
The wind that drives the fine dry sandAcross the strand:The sad wind spinning arabesquesWith a wrinkled hand.Labyrinths of shifting sand,The dancing dunes!I will arise and run with the sand,And gather it greedily in my hand:I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.I will lie curled up, sleeping,And the wind shall chase meFar inland.My breath is the music of the mad wind;Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,The fluttering, tattered broidery flungOver the dunes’ steep escarpments.The fine dry sand that whistlesDown the long low beaches.
The wind that drives the fine dry sandAcross the strand:The sad wind spinning arabesquesWith a wrinkled hand.Labyrinths of shifting sand,The dancing dunes!I will arise and run with the sand,And gather it greedily in my hand:I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.I will lie curled up, sleeping,And the wind shall chase meFar inland.My breath is the music of the mad wind;Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,The fluttering, tattered broidery flungOver the dunes’ steep escarpments.The fine dry sand that whistlesDown the long low beaches.
The wind that drives the fine dry sandAcross the strand:The sad wind spinning arabesquesWith a wrinkled hand.Labyrinths of shifting sand,The dancing dunes!I will arise and run with the sand,And gather it greedily in my hand:I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.I will lie curled up, sleeping,And the wind shall chase meFar inland.My breath is the music of the mad wind;Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,The fluttering, tattered broidery flungOver the dunes’ steep escarpments.The fine dry sand that whistlesDown the long low beaches.
The wind that drives the fine dry sandAcross the strand:The sad wind spinning arabesquesWith a wrinkled hand.
The wind that drives the fine dry sand
Across the strand:
The sad wind spinning arabesques
With a wrinkled hand.
Labyrinths of shifting sand,The dancing dunes!
Labyrinths of shifting sand,
The dancing dunes!
I will arise and run with the sand,And gather it greedily in my hand:I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.I will lie curled up, sleeping,And the wind shall chase meFar inland.
I will arise and run with the sand,
And gather it greedily in my hand:
I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.
I will lie curled up, sleeping,
And the wind shall chase me
Far inland.
My breath is the music of the mad wind;Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,The fluttering, tattered broidery flungOver the dunes’ steep escarpments.
My breath is the music of the mad wind;
Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,
The fluttering, tattered broidery flung
Over the dunes’ steep escarpments.
The fine dry sand that whistlesDown the long low beaches.
The fine dry sand that whistles
Down the long low beaches.
Sand and Spray: A Sea-Symphonycomprises the second part of Mr. Fletcher’s volume. This symphony has much of the movement and variety of music. In manner it resembles many of the “Irradiations,” and it is just as well worth reading.
Certainly there will be many who will not like Mr. Fletcher’s work. Dogs will always bark at a new fragrance.
Japanese Lyrics, translated by Lafcadio Hearn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Readers of Lafcadio Hearn will recall the many translations of Japanesehaikaipoetry which are scattered through his writings. Those translations have been collected in the present volume. They are delicate whisps of thought, tantalizingly suggestive, most of them confined to a sentence. Here are some of them:
If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun,—then, perhaps, in the morning, my lord will remain.Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:Even while sleeping, its dream is of play—ah, the butterfly of the grass!Many insects there are that call from the dawn to evening,Crying “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.Even such is my love ....
If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun,—then, perhaps, in the morning, my lord will remain.Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:Even while sleeping, its dream is of play—ah, the butterfly of the grass!Many insects there are that call from the dawn to evening,Crying “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.Even such is my love ....
If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun,—then, perhaps, in the morning, my lord will remain.Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:Even while sleeping, its dream is of play—ah, the butterfly of the grass!Many insects there are that call from the dawn to evening,Crying “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.Even such is my love ....
If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun,—then, perhaps, in the morning, my lord will remain.
If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun,—
then, perhaps, in the morning, my lord will remain.
Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:Even while sleeping, its dream is of play—ah, the butterfly of the grass!
Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:
Even while sleeping, its dream is of play—ah, the butterfly of the grass!
Many insects there are that call from the dawn to evening,Crying “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.Even such is my love ....
Many insects there are that call from the dawn to evening,
Crying “I love! I love!”—but the Firefly’s silent passion,
Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.
Even such is my love ....
The following poem, says the editor, was written more than eleven hundred years ago on the death of the poet’s little son:
As he is so young, he cannot know the way..... To the messenger of the Underworld I will give a bribe,and entreat him, saying: “Do thou kindly take the little one upon thyback along the road.”
As he is so young, he cannot know the way..... To the messenger of the Underworld I will give a bribe,and entreat him, saying: “Do thou kindly take the little one upon thyback along the road.”
As he is so young, he cannot know the way..... To the messenger of the Underworld I will give a bribe,and entreat him, saying: “Do thou kindly take the little one upon thyback along the road.”
As he is so young, he cannot know the way..... To the messenger of the Underworld I will give a bribe,and entreat him, saying: “Do thou kindly take the little one upon thyback along the road.”
As he is so young, he cannot know the way.
.... To the messenger of the Underworld I will give a bribe,
and entreat him, saying: “Do thou kindly take the little one upon thy
back along the road.”
Some discerning persons have asserted that “Imagism” is derived fromhaikaiorhokkupoetry. We shall leave to them the pleasant futility of discussing that theory. They may eventually discover that they are building on the shaky premise that “Imagism” exists other than as a clever word.
The Winnowing Fan, by Laurance Binyon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
My dears, we will tievers librein the garden. Then let us go into the parlor where Mr. Laurence Binyon will pour tea; it will have sugar in it. Mr. Binyon will read to you from his latest bookThe Winnowing Fan. He is a gentleman of taste and culture who is vexed at the Germans. He is meticulously metrical and counts his syllables. He will say nothing unexpected.... Ifvers librehowls in the garden, you may throw rhymes at him.
Mitchell Dawson.