Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/82

 64 Later Poets between man and God is carried out with impressive power. Still, it cannot be denied that the other dramas are vague and inchoate, lacking the lucidity and impact of the true classic, and that, therefore, even if Moody might have improved the trilogy later, his actual accomplishment is, at best, splendidly tentative and grandiose. Possibly the lyrics contained in these dramas are the best part of them ; and it is in the lyric, unquestionably, that Moody did his most important work. Dainty lyricism was beyond his sober touch; and the commonplace theme never appealed to him, any more than the commonplace mode of expression. Given a substantial conception, however, he could use his in- tellectual power and his large emotional reservoirs in such a manner as to repel the plain man and delight the lover, say, of Shelley and Browning. Such poems as Gloucester Moors, with its vivid sense of the earth sailing through space like a gallant ship with a dubious crew (a conception previously used more than once by Sill), and The Menagerie, with its grimly humor- ous description of the evolutionary ancestors of "A little man in trousers, slightly jagged, " are of a kind unmatched in Ameri- can poetry. They have the sophisticated, questioning spirit of the new century. Closer to tradition are his patriotic poems, the Ode in Time of Hesitation, written in 1900 when the relation of the United States to the former Spanish colonies was in question, and the lines On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines, with its desolating sense of a dishonourable cause. These poems appeared when the public was warmly debating the questions they deal with. To that fact, and to their beauty and assured tone, is owing the thrill that welcomed them, as if a new Lowell had come to voice our conscience in memorable verse. But they form a tiny group ; and indeed the total bvdk of Moody's lyrics is inconsiderable. What he might have done had he not been cut off at the height of his powers it is vain to wonder. Moody brings us to the new century, in years and in spirit. In his work is a turbulence unknown in the facile and edif5nng poetry of our "albuminous" Victorian era, a passionate dis- content with old forms, old themes, old thoughts. In the twentieth century our poets have more and more believed that, if their work was to be vital, they must return to