Page:The Poetical Works of Jonathan E. Hoag.djvu/18

 ease and swing which, as in Dr. Holmes' best work, is a genuine survival from our local tradition of Byles, Sewell, Freneau, Trumbull, Dwight and Barlow, rather than a pedantic revival of Queen Anne and Georgian piquancy after the manner of the late Austin Dobson. Flexibility, however, is a dominant feature; and leads the poet to adapt his measure to his mood, so that we are occasionally surprised by such variations from the general style as we see in verses like "The Celtic's Dream of his Erin Home." Subtler variations are those which we note between essentially stately pieces, such as the Nature odes and the pensive reminiscences; and the playful pieces, such as the juveniles and the jovial reminiscences. When in the lighter vein, Mr. Hoag manages with unusual success to avoid the insipid, the puerile, and the banal; and achieves a kind of originality resulting from the union of colloquial simplicity with correct diction and images drawn directly from experience. This image-drawing occasionally attains a felicity amounting to sheer genius, for "Scriba" seems to know by instinct just what sort of unhackneyed allusion will best call up in a few words the vivid pictures his theme demands.

Should a critic attempt to decide which of the several fields of Mr. Hoag's work best suits the author's talents, he would find himself involved in much delicate comparison. There are odes to Nature's primal forces which sometimes reach impressive depths, as where in speaking of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado he refers to black caverns where

Then, too, there are elegies and poems of pathos and patriotism where sheer natural feeling seems to animate the lines with a radiance more lasting than that of studied phrases. The juvenile pieces are ineffably appealing, while the legends and brighter Nature poems are full of a quaint and characteristic fascination. But in the end it seems certain that a conscientious analyst would award the palm to those reminiscent idyls in which the writer's own rural childhood is mirrored with such inspired fidelity and selective individuality. It is here that the descriptive and lyrical moods are most perfectly united, and here that the poet's gift of original observation is given freest play. In these studies of Old America we have the convincing touch of one who has lived in the scenes he describes; and who consequently avoids the objectivity, inaccuracy, and false stresses of the newer bards whose outlook is purely detached and antiquarian. He knows what to tell, because he writes from living memories and does not need to rely on stock phrases, images, or situations. Who else, in describing the "little red schoolhouse," would refer to the master's tapping on the window to summon the scholars in from recess? Another poet would drag in the traditional bell—but "Scriba" knows his subject from actual