Some Imagist Poets
George Lane
Somemonths ago, in these pages, Mr. Witter Bynner pointed out that “Imagism” was derived from a Japanese poetical form, the name of which Mr. Bynner regretted that he had forgotten. This name is “Hokku,” and undoubtedly the Japanese Hokku poetry was the model upon which much of the work in the first Imagist Anthology was formed, notably the contributions of Mr. Ezra Pound. There was Greek influence, too, in that first collection. But the whole volume showed a remarkable desire towards perfection and clarity of utterance, and a delicate perception of beauty.
There were few poetry lovers who did not taste its fine, astringent flavour, but its qualities were at once its faults. It was beautiful work, but too tenuous ever to become a great art, said the objectors. It was incapable of embracing many of the elements of life and poetry. The Imagists must remain side-tracked, and therefore, clever though they were, they could not be of real importance.
But it seems that Imagism was more virile, more capable of growth, than was supposed. The jejune maledictions and assertions of their chief spokesman, Mr. Pound, have done so much to make the group ridiculous that it is with a feeling of surprise that we find this volume a great advance upon its predecessor.
Here is the work of six poets, four of whom were represented in the first anthology. In an interesting preface they state their poetical theories, which are much the same as those printed so often inPoetry. But here the tenets are soberly and sensibly presented, and the whole preface is dignified and worthy of consideration. Clearly the Imagists are growing up.
It is hardly necessary to rehearse here the Imagist creed. It has been discussed, with more or less hostility, in many reviews. But certainly, in reading this preface, the hostility suddenly vanishes, and the reviewer finds himself wondering if perhaps, after all, this movement is not one of most unusual significance.
Briefly, these poets call themselves Imagists because their object is to present an “image”; they believe “that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous”;they desire “to use the language of common speech,” and “to employ always theexactword, not the nearly exact, nor the merely decorative word.” They wish “to produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite”; and, finally, they are convinced that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry.”
Brave words, excellent aims and hard enough of attainment. Again, these poets agree to allow absolute freedom of subject, and, with a little dig at some of their contemporaries, they say, “It is not good art to write badlyabout aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911.”
That is a wholesome point of view, but indeed the Imagists have hardly erred on the side of too great a preoccupation with modern life. In fact this volume is noteworthy as showing a more personal, a less literary, outlook on life.
The first Imagist Anthology contained the work of ten poets. Some were represented by a number of poems, some by only one. In this new volume only four of those poets are represented. But what is remarkable is that they are not all the one poem authors. On the contrary, Richard Aldington and H. D. had more poems in the first anthology than anyone else in the volume, yet here are Richard Aldington and H. D. subscribing to an arrangement which gives each poet approximately the same amount of space. “Also,” says the preface, “to avoid any appearance of precedence, they (the poets included) have been put in alphabetical order.” So art is to come before self-advertisement. Happy omen! With such ideals the group should go far. Six young poets with so much talent, devotion, and singleness of purpose, is a phenomenon to be noticed.
Perhaps this is the key to the “differences of taste and judgment” which have divorced these poets from the others of the first anthology. They go on to say that “growing tendencies are forcing them along different paths.” We can only guess at the tendencies, as the poems in this book show them, and it is not our business to probe farther into a schism which is touched upon so lightly and quietly in this admirable preface.
The six poets of this little anthology are: Richard Aldington, H. D., John Gould Fletcher, F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. It is quite easy to see why “mutual artistic sympathy” binds these young people together. But how extraordinarily individual they are, just the same! From the exquisite, gem-like poems of H. D., to the organ music of Amy Lowell inThe Bombardment, with the graceful, tender, often humorous work of Richard Aldington and the tragic earnestness of D. H. Lawrence, set off by the rich imagination of John Gould Fletcher, and the poetic realism, touched with a charming intimateness, of F. S. Flint.
Richard Aldington’s contributions begin withChildhood, a study of a lonely little boy in a horribly dull English town. It is full of wistfulness, for the little boy is very real, and the detail is admirably managed. The little boy is shut up in the ugly town, like a chrysalis in a matchbox:
I hate that town; ...There were always clouds, smoke, rainIn that dingy little valley.It rained; it always rained.I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—And then it was too late;Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
I hate that town; ...There were always clouds, smoke, rainIn that dingy little valley.It rained; it always rained.I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—And then it was too late;Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
I hate that town; ...There were always clouds, smoke, rainIn that dingy little valley.It rained; it always rained.I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—And then it was too late;Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
I hate that town; ...There were always clouds, smoke, rainIn that dingy little valley.It rained; it always rained.I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—And then it was too late;Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
I hate that town; ...
There were always clouds, smoke, rain
In that dingy little valley.
It rained; it always rained.
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—
And then it was too late;
Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
That is very vivid. So, too, is the description of the contents of the large tin box in the attic. But Mr. Aldington never allows the descriptions to usurp the poem; he keeps them properly subordinated to his theme, the loneliness of the child.
Fine as this poem is, it seems more experimental than Mr. Aldington’s shorter work. Long poems require a different technique from short poems, and perhaps Mr. Aldington has not yet become quite master of it. It is in the short poems that he is so eminently successful.
The Poplaris an almost perfect poem of its kind. A complete “image,” and with that fine, poetic imagination which is the hall-mark of Mr. Aldington’s best work. What could be more beautiful than this:
I know that the white wind loves you,Is always kissing you and turning upThe white lining of your green petticoat.The sky darts through you like blue rain,And the grey rain drips on your flanksAnd loves you.And I have seen the moonSlip his silver penny into your pocketAs you straightened your hair;And the white mist curling and hesitatingLike a bashful lover about your knees.
I know that the white wind loves you,Is always kissing you and turning upThe white lining of your green petticoat.The sky darts through you like blue rain,And the grey rain drips on your flanksAnd loves you.And I have seen the moonSlip his silver penny into your pocketAs you straightened your hair;And the white mist curling and hesitatingLike a bashful lover about your knees.
I know that the white wind loves you,Is always kissing you and turning upThe white lining of your green petticoat.The sky darts through you like blue rain,And the grey rain drips on your flanksAnd loves you.And I have seen the moonSlip his silver penny into your pocketAs you straightened your hair;And the white mist curling and hesitatingLike a bashful lover about your knees.
I know that the white wind loves you,Is always kissing you and turning upThe white lining of your green petticoat.The sky darts through you like blue rain,And the grey rain drips on your flanksAnd loves you.And I have seen the moonSlip his silver penny into your pocketAs you straightened your hair;And the white mist curling and hesitatingLike a bashful lover about your knees.
I know that the white wind loves you,
Is always kissing you and turning up
The white lining of your green petticoat.
The sky darts through you like blue rain,
And the grey rain drips on your flanks
And loves you.
And I have seen the moon
Slip his silver penny into your pocket
As you straightened your hair;
And the white mist curling and hesitating
Like a bashful lover about your knees.
The Poplaris, on the whole, the best poem of Mr. Aldington’s in the book, butThe Faun Sees Snow for the First Timeruns it close. And here we have that divine gift of poetical humor which is another of Mr. Aldington’s rare qualities. Space alone prevents me from quoting it. But if I put these two first, where shall I putRound-Pond, with its sun “shining upon the water like a scattering of gold crocus-petals”?
Mr. Aldington has advanced in his art. In spite of theFaunandLemures, he has sloughed off much of the Greek mannerism which marred his work in the first anthology. The training which his Greek studies have given him, is here put to excellent and individual use. One looks for much from him in the future.
H. D.’s poems are undoubtedly the most perfect in the book. There is nothing broad, nothing varied about her attempts, but what she tries for she succeeds in doing, absolutely. But in her work, too, we find a grateful change going on. The stage properties are no longer exclusively Greek. In fact, only one poem of her seven has anything obviously Greek about it. There is nothing specifically inartistic in this transplanting of the imagery of another place and time into one’s work. But when an English poet fills every poem full of Greek names and Greek devices, the result is intense weariness on the part of the reader. The poems may be beautiful, but this foreign flavour gives them a sort of chilling quality. One cannot help feeling that the poet is straining after a poetical effect, and that stands in the way of a complete sympathy between poet and reader.
H. D. is too much of an artist not to have realized this, and in these new poems (with the exception I have mentioned), there is no hint of direct preoccupation with the Greek in title or text. Yet the poems are so completely Greek that they might be translations from some newly-discovered papyrus. And still, in reading them, one feels that the sincerity of the artist is not to be questioned. Here is no striving after effect, but a complete saturation of a personality in a past mode. If one believed in reincarnations, one could say, and be certain, that H. D. was the reincarnation of some dead Greek singer. The Greek habit sits upon her as easily as a dress, loosened by constant wear. It is undubitably hers. To adopt another speech would be an unpardonable artificiality. Realizing this, and not making the mistake that so many reviewers have done in considering her a copyist, we must admit that H. D.’s poems attain a perfection which is not to be found in the work of any other modern poet. This garland of sea flowers is a masterpiece of pure beauty. I have only space to quote one of these poems, but it shall be quoted entire.
Sea IrisWeed, moss-weedroot tangled in sand,sea iris, brittle flower,one petal like a shellis broken,and you print a shadowlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,scented and stinging,rigid myrrh-bud,camphor-flower,sweet and salt—you are windin our nostrils.II.Do the murex-fishersdrench you as they pass?Do your roots drag up colourfrom the sand?Have they slipped gold under you;rivets of gold?Band of iris-flowersabove the waves,you are painted blue,painted like a fresh prowstained among the salt weeds.
Weed, moss-weedroot tangled in sand,sea iris, brittle flower,one petal like a shellis broken,and you print a shadowlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,scented and stinging,rigid myrrh-bud,camphor-flower,sweet and salt—you are windin our nostrils.
Weed, moss-weedroot tangled in sand,sea iris, brittle flower,one petal like a shellis broken,and you print a shadowlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,scented and stinging,rigid myrrh-bud,camphor-flower,sweet and salt—you are windin our nostrils.
Weed, moss-weedroot tangled in sand,sea iris, brittle flower,one petal like a shellis broken,and you print a shadowlike a thin twig.
Weed, moss-weed
root tangled in sand,
sea iris, brittle flower,
one petal like a shell
is broken,
and you print a shadow
like a thin twig.
Fortunate one,scented and stinging,rigid myrrh-bud,camphor-flower,sweet and salt—you are windin our nostrils.
Fortunate one,
scented and stinging,
rigid myrrh-bud,
camphor-flower,
sweet and salt—you are wind
in our nostrils.
Do the murex-fishersdrench you as they pass?Do your roots drag up colourfrom the sand?Have they slipped gold under you;rivets of gold?Band of iris-flowersabove the waves,you are painted blue,painted like a fresh prowstained among the salt weeds.
Do the murex-fishersdrench you as they pass?Do your roots drag up colourfrom the sand?Have they slipped gold under you;rivets of gold?Band of iris-flowersabove the waves,you are painted blue,painted like a fresh prowstained among the salt weeds.
Do the murex-fishersdrench you as they pass?Do your roots drag up colourfrom the sand?Have they slipped gold under you;rivets of gold?
Do the murex-fishers
drench you as they pass?
Do your roots drag up colour
from the sand?
Have they slipped gold under you;
rivets of gold?
Band of iris-flowersabove the waves,you are painted blue,painted like a fresh prowstained among the salt weeds.
Band of iris-flowers
above the waves,
you are painted blue,
painted like a fresh prow
stained among the salt weeds.
H. D. has her limitations, as I said before. They are the most obvious thing about her, except her perfection. But it is so ridiculous to cavil at them,as it would be to deny the loveliness of one of the sea flowers she writes about, because it is not a forest of lofty trees.
To pass from H. D. to Mr. John Gould Fletcher is something in the nature of a shock. It is a good deal like plunging into the ocean from a warm, sunny cliff. One’s ears, and nose, and mouth, are filled with rushing water. One feels in the grasp of an overwhelming power, and one struggles to the surface, breathless, half-drowned, but wholly invigorated.
To drop the figure, these two poems of Mr. Fletcher’s are so full of potentialities, so large in suggestion, that one hardly knows what to say about them. DoesThe Blue Symphonymean life? I confess I do not know. Is it merely a series of pictures? No, there is a vague undercurrent to the poem which makes that impossible. It is the sort of poem which a mystic might ponder over indefinitely and find new meanings every hour. And yet it is all done with the precision and clearness of the Imagist theory.
It is impossible to give any idea of the poem as a whole by quoting bits of it. But little pieces, even divorced from their context, have that succinct epigrammatic quality which is the stamp of genius. Here are three lines:
I have heard and have seenAll the news that has been:Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green!
I have heard and have seenAll the news that has been:Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green!
I have heard and have seenAll the news that has been:Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green!
I have heard and have seenAll the news that has been:Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green!
I have heard and have seen
All the news that has been:
Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green!
It is evident in this poem that Mr. Fletcher has been much influenced by the Japanese.
And now the lowest pine-branchIs drawn across the disk of the sun.
And now the lowest pine-branchIs drawn across the disk of the sun.
And now the lowest pine-branchIs drawn across the disk of the sun.
And now the lowest pine-branchIs drawn across the disk of the sun.
And now the lowest pine-branch
Is drawn across the disk of the sun.
is absolutely Japanese. But strangely enough it is a technique got from a study of Japanese painting rather than from Japanese poetry.
Mr. Fletcher’s versatility is shown by turning fromThe Blue Symphony, to his other poem,London Excursion. Here the note of mysticism ofThe Blue Symphonyis entirely abandoned, and there is no hint of Japanese influence. IfLondon Excursionfollows any lead, it is the lead of the new schools of poetry and painting in France. But I will not insult Mr. Fletcher by suggesting that he is, in any way, a disciple of Marinetti and the Futurists. It is nearer the truth to say that he has realized the vividness of some of their methods, and modified them to his own use.
London Excursionis one of the most interesting poems in this volume. It is a poem of a man going into London in the morning by ’bus, spending the day walking about the streets and going into shops, and coming home at night by train. It sounds simple, but it is really the most amazing expression of light, color, and unrelated impressions that one can conceive. This is his impression of a street from his ’bus-top:
Black shapes bending,Taxicabs crush in the crowd.The tops are each a shining squareShuttles that steadily press through wooly fabricDrooping blossom,Gas-standards overSpray out jingling tumultOf white-hot rays.Monotonous domes of bowler-hatsVibrate in the heat.Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,Down the crowded street.The tumult crouches over us,Or suddenly drifts to one side.
Black shapes bending,Taxicabs crush in the crowd.The tops are each a shining squareShuttles that steadily press through wooly fabricDrooping blossom,Gas-standards overSpray out jingling tumultOf white-hot rays.Monotonous domes of bowler-hatsVibrate in the heat.Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,Down the crowded street.The tumult crouches over us,Or suddenly drifts to one side.
Black shapes bending,Taxicabs crush in the crowd.The tops are each a shining squareShuttles that steadily press through wooly fabricDrooping blossom,Gas-standards overSpray out jingling tumultOf white-hot rays.Monotonous domes of bowler-hatsVibrate in the heat.Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,Down the crowded street.The tumult crouches over us,Or suddenly drifts to one side.
Black shapes bending,Taxicabs crush in the crowd.
Black shapes bending,
Taxicabs crush in the crowd.
The tops are each a shining squareShuttles that steadily press through wooly fabricDrooping blossom,Gas-standards overSpray out jingling tumultOf white-hot rays.
The tops are each a shining square
Shuttles that steadily press through wooly fabric
Drooping blossom,
Gas-standards over
Spray out jingling tumult
Of white-hot rays.
Monotonous domes of bowler-hatsVibrate in the heat.Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,Down the crowded street.The tumult crouches over us,Or suddenly drifts to one side.
Monotonous domes of bowler-hats
Vibrate in the heat.
Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,
Down the crowded street.
The tumult crouches over us,
Or suddenly drifts to one side.
Mr. Flint’s work is always delightful. He has a winning way of taking his reader into his confidence. This, and his love of nature, which he paints with real affection, gains our sympathy at once. It must be admitted that none of Mr. Flint’s seven poems quite equal two of his in the first anthology,London My BeautifulandThe Swan. One feels in these two poems a groping quality, as though the poet were not quite satisfied with them himself. As though the firstélanwith which he adopted thevers libremedium were passing away, and he were beginning to realize that the form has its limitations.
If there is any truth in this, it is evident, however, that Mr. Flint has not yet made up his mind to try anything else. It would be almost a pity if he did, for fewvers libristsunderstand the manipulation of cadence as he does. Perhaps the following is the one of these poems which has most of his characteristic charm:
LunchFrail beauty,green, gold and incandescent whiteness,narcissi, daffodils,you have brought me Spring and longing,wistfulness,in your irradiance.Therefore, I sit hereamong the people,dreaming,and my heart acheswith all the hawthorn blossom,the bees humming,the light wind upon the poplars,and your warmth and your loveand your eyes ...they smile and know me.
Frail beauty,green, gold and incandescent whiteness,narcissi, daffodils,you have brought me Spring and longing,wistfulness,in your irradiance.Therefore, I sit hereamong the people,dreaming,and my heart acheswith all the hawthorn blossom,the bees humming,the light wind upon the poplars,and your warmth and your loveand your eyes ...they smile and know me.
Frail beauty,green, gold and incandescent whiteness,narcissi, daffodils,you have brought me Spring and longing,wistfulness,in your irradiance.Therefore, I sit hereamong the people,dreaming,and my heart acheswith all the hawthorn blossom,the bees humming,the light wind upon the poplars,and your warmth and your loveand your eyes ...they smile and know me.
Frail beauty,green, gold and incandescent whiteness,narcissi, daffodils,you have brought me Spring and longing,wistfulness,in your irradiance.
Frail beauty,
green, gold and incandescent whiteness,
narcissi, daffodils,
you have brought me Spring and longing,
wistfulness,
in your irradiance.
Therefore, I sit hereamong the people,dreaming,and my heart acheswith all the hawthorn blossom,the bees humming,the light wind upon the poplars,and your warmth and your loveand your eyes ...they smile and know me.
Therefore, I sit here
among the people,
dreaming,
and my heart aches
with all the hawthorn blossom,
the bees humming,
the light wind upon the poplars,
and your warmth and your love
and your eyes ...
they smile and know me.
Maladystrikes a stronger note than anything of Mr. Flint’s that I have read before. It is excellent psychology, and steadily, astringently done.
It is this constant change and growth which makes the progress of this little group so interesting to watch. Mr. Flint’s work in the first anthologyseemed quite successful and finished. He had done what he had done excellently, and he would go on doing it to the end of the chapter. But here we see Mr. Flint, dissatisfied with mere success, daring a wider horizon. From the point of view of adequacy of technique, his poems suffer, as is natural; but the technique is sure to follow the widened thought, before long.Maladyand the poem calledFragmentshow the direction in which Mr. Flint is moving. His next work will be interesting to see.
Mr. D. H. Lawrence is the best known of the poets in this book, although a newcomer to the anthology. No modern writer is more vigorous than he, and none is more entirely, almost brutally sincere. In Mr. Lawrence’s novels this brutality is sometimes excessively evident, but always one feels that the author inflicts pain upon himself as well as his readers; that he says what he sees and is concerned not to shirk and be a coward for his own comfort.
In his poetry, Mr. Lawrence seems to be more lenient with himself. It is as though he allowed the moralist in him a day out. Not that he ever ceases to be a moralist, really. But he permits himself to lay a slight covering over the stark nakedness of disagreeable facts. This covering is poetry, and very beautiful and original poetry it is.
GreenThe sky was apple-greenThe sky was green wine held up in the sun,The moon was a golden petal between.She opened her eyes, and greenThey show, clear like flowers undone,For the first time, now for the first time seen.
The sky was apple-greenThe sky was green wine held up in the sun,The moon was a golden petal between.She opened her eyes, and greenThey show, clear like flowers undone,For the first time, now for the first time seen.
The sky was apple-greenThe sky was green wine held up in the sun,The moon was a golden petal between.She opened her eyes, and greenThey show, clear like flowers undone,For the first time, now for the first time seen.
The sky was apple-greenThe sky was green wine held up in the sun,The moon was a golden petal between.
The sky was apple-green
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.
She opened her eyes, and greenThey show, clear like flowers undone,For the first time, now for the first time seen.
She opened her eyes, and green
They show, clear like flowers undone,
For the first time, now for the first time seen.
Mr. Lawrence has solved the problem ofvers librefor himself, by writing in a rhymed metre which usually defies all scansion, but which gives a queer, and most satisfactory effect, of elasticity and strength. For this reason, and for its novelty, Mr. Lawrence’s manner is very interesting, but his matter is still more so. ReadThe Mowers, a common tragedy, but put so newly and strikingly that it comes upon one with all its original force.
Fireflies in the CornandA Woman to Her Dead Husbandare new in subject as well as in presentation, and they have a bald reality about them which I have never met in any other poem. But never once does Mr. Lawrence make the mistake of being only a realist; he never ceases to be a poet. InFireflies in the Cornthere are these lines:
And those bright fireflies wafting in betweenAnd over the swaying cornstalks, just aboveAnd all their dark-feathered helmets, like little greenStars, come low and wandering here for loveOf this dark earth.
And those bright fireflies wafting in betweenAnd over the swaying cornstalks, just aboveAnd all their dark-feathered helmets, like little greenStars, come low and wandering here for loveOf this dark earth.
And those bright fireflies wafting in betweenAnd over the swaying cornstalks, just aboveAnd all their dark-feathered helmets, like little greenStars, come low and wandering here for loveOf this dark earth.
And those bright fireflies wafting in betweenAnd over the swaying cornstalks, just aboveAnd all their dark-feathered helmets, like little greenStars, come low and wandering here for loveOf this dark earth.
And those bright fireflies wafting in between
And over the swaying cornstalks, just above
And all their dark-feathered helmets, like little green
Stars, come low and wandering here for love
Of this dark earth.
TheBallad of Another Opheliais probably his best poem. In it we see his peculiar style at its very best.
Mr. Lawrence is the singer of truth, the lover of humanity. His inclusion into the Imagist group shows that the school is broad and real enough not to desire to shut itself up in the cupboard of precocity, as in the beginning there was some fear of its doing.
Where Mr. Lawrence gives us the broadest view of Imagism from an English standpoint that this newer, more vital group has offered us, Miss Lowell does the same service for the American side. The qualities that make her work noteworthy are first, a virtuoso command of language that fits itself to the most diverse themes, and second, a sort of fantastic, curious irony that is essentially American. This irony is perhaps at its finest inThe Traveling BearandThe Letter, but these are too long to quote. I choose insteadBullion, which may be taken for a very modern type of love poem, in which love itself becomes a burden:
My thoughtsChink against my ribsAnd roll about like silver hail-stones.I should like to spill them out,And pour them, all shining,Over you.But my heart is shut upon themAnd holds them straitly.Come, You! and open my heart;That my thoughts torment me no longer,But glitter in your hair.
My thoughtsChink against my ribsAnd roll about like silver hail-stones.I should like to spill them out,And pour them, all shining,Over you.But my heart is shut upon themAnd holds them straitly.Come, You! and open my heart;That my thoughts torment me no longer,But glitter in your hair.
My thoughtsChink against my ribsAnd roll about like silver hail-stones.I should like to spill them out,And pour them, all shining,Over you.But my heart is shut upon themAnd holds them straitly.Come, You! and open my heart;That my thoughts torment me no longer,But glitter in your hair.
My thoughtsChink against my ribsAnd roll about like silver hail-stones.I should like to spill them out,And pour them, all shining,Over you.But my heart is shut upon themAnd holds them straitly.
My thoughts
Chink against my ribs
And roll about like silver hail-stones.
I should like to spill them out,
And pour them, all shining,
Over you.
But my heart is shut upon them
And holds them straitly.
Come, You! and open my heart;That my thoughts torment me no longer,But glitter in your hair.
Come, You! and open my heart;
That my thoughts torment me no longer,
But glitter in your hair.
Miss Lowell always looks at things from an angle. Her mind reflects the unusual aspect and that most vividly. As she says of herself:
When night drifts along the streets of the city,And sifts down between the uneven roofs,My mind begins to peek and peer.It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.How light and laughing my mind is,When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,And the city is still!
When night drifts along the streets of the city,And sifts down between the uneven roofs,My mind begins to peek and peer.It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.How light and laughing my mind is,When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,And the city is still!
When night drifts along the streets of the city,And sifts down between the uneven roofs,My mind begins to peek and peer.It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.How light and laughing my mind is,When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,And the city is still!
When night drifts along the streets of the city,And sifts down between the uneven roofs,My mind begins to peek and peer.It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.How light and laughing my mind is,When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,And the city is still!
When night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,
Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is,
When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,
And the city is still!
Miss Lowell has the ability which is rare among present-day poets of recognizing that beauty does not belong to an epoch or a period, but is always the same, under whatever strange form it may present itself.
Doubtless her most remarkable poem is that calledThe Bombardment. Whether the technique adopted here by Miss Lowell is destined to work a revolution in verse-writing remains for the future to settle. But here, at least, it perfectly justifies itself. No one should permit, however, a question of technique to obscure the deep tragedy, the splendid humanity, of this poem.War has only one beauty: that of its terrible destructiveness of all beauty.The Bombardmentis the best statement of this aspect of war I know. It must be read in its entirety, and so I will not attempt piecemeal quotation of this most fitting conclusion to the volume.
This book is so provocative of thought, the poets in it are so suggestive, each one by him—or herself, that each really requires a separate review. But I have said enough to show what an important volume this little book is. We are told that it is to be an annual, and certainly we shall watch its succeeding appearances with great interest.
It is certainly best to separate an artist so far from his work as not to take him as seriously as his work.—Nietzsche.
It is certainly best to separate an artist so far from his work as not to take him as seriously as his work.—Nietzsche.