Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/270

POETRY: A Magazine of Verse outworn romanticism of a feudal society for the slow conquests—those "meaner wars" again—of their rights by the common people, the workers of the world. It may be, as this poet says in one of his wiser moments, that the world will have war until it deserves peace—that men will fight until they really love one another; but again are not the struggles of peace, rather than the slaughter of war, the means by which "truth advances an imperceptible degree?"

In short I would say that Mr. Colcord's thinking is soft, emotional, and quite incapable of logical analysis—a restatement of many oft-exploded platitudes of the militaristic ideal, with its usual evasions and omissions. If as a philosopher Mr. Colcord is negligible, what then of Mr. Colcord as a poet? Does his poem transcend thought? Is there a magic in it which may make men mad, or a truth beyond thinking which may inspire and exalt them?

If he is a poet, right or wrong, we may not brush him aside. What of Nietzsche, for example? It may he that the world is afire today because of the fierce power of his vision and the incomparable beauty of his prose-poetry rhythms. It is not wine alone that makes men drunk.

I must admit that I think Mr. Colcord a poet. Though much of his Whitmanesque verse is merely prose argument or eloquence, he rises at times to a powerful chanting rhythm, which, inspired as it is by a high spiritual sincerity, sweeps across one's questions with its affirmation of beauty. This rhythm is scarcely to be judged by brief extracts; it needs