Page:The Dial vol. 15 (July 1 - December 16, 1893).djvu/53

1893.] We select the following lines from the introductory "Legend," as well representing the charm of the work in its more poetical passages:

There is a legend, the low-breathing wind In Spring-time whispers to the trees and flowers, That some good gift on every flower and tree A guardian god or goddess once bestow'd. Pan made the reed melodious: Artemis With mystic influence fill'd the moon-fern: Zeus The cypress, Cybelè the pine, endow'd With solemn grace: blithe Dionysus pour'd The strength of his indomitable mirth Into the sweet orbs of the cluster'd vine: Ethereal azure from Athenè's eyes The dim veins of the violet imbued With pensive beauty: Cythereia's kiss Crimson'd the balmy bosom of the rose: Leaf of unfading lustre Phœbus gave To the green laurel: washt in Herè's milk, White shone the immaculate lily: and the ripe corn Demeter robed in oriental gold."

"The Eloping Angels" is entirely unworthy of Mr. Watson's talents. That the author of "Wordsworth's Grave" should have wasted his time in the composition of a skit like this is simply amazing, and that he should have been willing to give it publication is still more amazing. The piece is evidently intended to he semi-humorous, but the humor is elephantine, and the author's wit nearly always misses fire. Humor that does not warm and wit that does not illuminate, are things " most tolerable and not to be endured." The best comment upon the work is provided by its own text:

"This sort of prank, to me, is rather tame."

Mr. Watson's good work is so very good that it is doubly a pity that he should publish anything so far below the level of his better self.

Mr. T. E. Brown, the author of "Old John and Other Poems," is at least no imitator of other men's work. His manner, freakish to eccentricity, is all his own, although a superficial view might find it to resemble the manner of Browning. Much of his verse is too utterly formless to deserve serious consideration, and yet there often emerges from the seeming chaos some ethical message that is startling in its directness and its force. We also note in his work a vein of mysticism that is not without impressiveness. As an illustration of the author's more eccentric manner, we may take some very original verses from a poem which preaches upon a frequently recurring theme that of the need of man's soul to get back to nature, to escape from the coil of a complex civilization and the sophistications of art.

"The main purport of our earthly station, Which is to permeate One soul with fullest freight Of constant natural forms, not factual complication.

Else were our life both frivolous and final. A mere skiomachy, Not succulent of growth, not officinal To what shall after be, But Fortune's devilry Of Harlequin with smirk theatro-columbinal."

"Israel and Hellas" is the title of one of the finer poems in the collection. It contrasts the two civilizations much as Matthew Arnold was wont to do, although our later poet half doubts if the contrast were as great as it appears to us. We quote four stanzas that embody the central thought of the poem.

And was it possible for them to hold
 * A creed elastic in that lightsome air,

And let sweet fables droop in flexile fold
 * From off their shoulders bare,

Loose-fitting, jewel-clasped with fancies rare?

For not as yet intense across the sea
 * Came the swart Hebrew with a fiery haste;

In long brown arms entwined Euphrosyne,
 * And round her snowy waist

Fast bound the Nessus-robe, that may not be displaced.

Yes, this is true; but the whole truth is more;
 * This was not all the burning Orient gave;

Through purple partings of her golden door
 * Came gleams upon the wave,

Long shafts that search the souls of men who crave;

And probings of the heart, and spirit-balm,
 * And to deep questionings the deep replies

That echo in the everlasting calm—
 * All this from forth those skies,

Beside Gehenna fire and worm that never dies."

There is a large philosophy of life embodied in some of Mr. Brown's pieces, the stanzas to "Pain" offering a notable illustration. They open thus:

The man that hath great griefs I pity not;
 * 'Tis something to be great
 * In any wise, and hint the larger state,

Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot!

Moreover, while we wait the possible,
 * This man has touched the fact,
 * And probed till he has felt the core, where, packed

In pulpy folds, resides the ironic ill."

This is the close of the poem:

But tenfold one is he, who feels all pains
 * Not partial, knowing them
 * As ripples parted from the gold-beaked stem

Wherewith God's galley onward ever strains.

To him the sorrows are the tension-thrills
 * Of that serene endeavor
 * Which yields to God forever and forever

The joy that is more ancient than the hills."

This is the deeper optimism that we find in Browning, or in Carlyle's doctrine that not happiness but blessedness is the true aim of life. Enough has been said to show that Mr. Brown's work will repay study, that within its husks there may be found a sweet and nutritious kernel.

The past year has brought many contributions of verse to its central Columbian theme, verse that has ranged all the way from the wooden epics of Mr. Kinahan Cornwallis to the lyrical measures of Miss Monroe's "Commemoration Ode." Mr. Louis James Block is the latest contributor to this Columbian literature, and his work takes the form of a sort of versified Culturgeschichte, having the discovery of America for its main episode. In spite of a few defects—a defective line now and then or an imperfect rhyme, an archaism or a verbal license that occasionally goes beyond the limits of the admissible, a mysticism and a vagueness of -