Page:Poems Elliott.djvu/73

 school days in Tarrytown, surrounded by the rugged beauties of the Hudson. A short period he spent in the New Hampshire hills, again in Southern California, and all these beautiful regions find a place in his poems, at least the influence of their beauty, to which he was so keenly susceptible.

His earlier work, under these influences, is more imaginative, more contemplative, more serene. Under the influence of the last vivid experiences of his life, it grows in strength and in concentration, and loses the imaginative in the real, the abstract in the concrete of every day life, of hardship and suffering, but it is glorified by his pen and by his heroic devotion, till we lose sight of sense in soul, and that the soul of a poet and hero.

He is everywhere sincere, and everywhere true to the best and highest standards of literature and above all scorns the pose of "vers libre," the "art nouveau" of poesy, as he does everything that does not meet the high ideals of the true poet. He writes from the imagination of an idealist and from his own vivid experiences. His love of life was so intense and so real that we are unconsciously inspired and uplifted by it, to a keener feeling than we have known before. He himself says:

We are glad to know that New York City, which must constantly meet the arraignment of lack of heart, and lack of sentiment, has produced so true a genius.

His long residence in Paris, the city of his heart, made fealty to France an impelling desire when the need came.