Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/694

 WILLIAM D. HOWELLS. William D. Howells was bom at Martinsville, Belmont county, Ohio, in the year 1837. His father being a printer and publisher, he learned the printing business in the paternal office at Hamilton, Butler county, whither his parents moved in 1840. Mr. Howells has been recognized as a writer about six years. He has been editorially connected with the Cincinnati Gazette, and with the Ohio State Journal, and has con- tributed poems to the Atlantic Monthly magazine, and to the Saturday Press, New York, and is now a regular correspondent of the Ohio Farmer. Some of his prose sketches are quite equal in grace of conception and individuality of treatment to any of his poems. His characteristics as a poet are so well described in a notice of the volume previously mentioned in these pages — " Poems of Two Friends " — in the Sat- urday Press, that we quote it : Mr. Howells is a man of genius. We do him justice ; we do not pay him a compliment. His genius is not, indeed, of the highest order ; but it is genius, nevertheless. A striking indication of genius in this poet, is the intense compression of his style. In his better poems there is no laborious detail — nothing of the agony of inefficient art. Knowing that the best clothing for a beautiful thought is nudity, he has ordained his thought to be more than its expression. This is the imperial attitude of genius. His pictures are drawn with few strokes. He says all in few words — vivid, direct. Along the chain of his thought play keen lightning-jets of poetic passion, which illumine the dark places of the human heart, as lightning illumines the midnight sky. DRIFTING AWAY. As one whom seaward winds beat from the shore, Sees all the land go from him out of sight, And waits with doubtful heart the stoop- ing night, In some frail shallop without sail or oar, Drifting away ! I ride forlorn upon the sea of life. Far out and farther into unknown deeps, Down the dark gulfs and up the dizzy steeps, Whirled in the tumult of the ocean strife. Drifting away ! Like faint, faint lights, I see my old be- liefs Fade from me one by one, and shine no more; Old loves, old hopes lie dead upon the shore, Wept all about by ghosts of childhood griefs, Drifting away ! never more the happy land shall glow With the fair light of morning on mine eyes ; Upon its loftiest peak the sunset dies. And night is in the peaceful vales below, Drifting away ! (678)