When Winter Comes to Main Street Part 26

Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang Of sheer delight in perfect visioning?

Have I forgotten how the spirit sang When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang?

Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling Their naked children to the faery ring Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing In silent silver chords I too could hear?

Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear Whenever winds disturbed the lake's repose, Or when in mocking mood they form in rows, And stare up at their parents--so sedate-- Then break up laughing 'neath a ripple's weight?

It seems as if, _The First Person Singular_ having been published, more people now know William Rose Benet as a novelist than as a poet. I cannot help feeling that to be something of a pity. I am not going to quote one of Mr. Benet's poems--indeed all his best work is in quite long and semi-narrative verse--but I will give you what Don Marquis was inspired to write after reading Benet's _Moons of Grandeur_. On looking at it again, I see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight lines, so you shall have your taste of William Rose Benet, the poet, after all!

"Some day, just to please ourself, we intend to make a compilation of poems that we love best; the ones that we turn to again and again. There will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Sh.e.l.ley's 'Adonais'; Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality'; Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso'; William Rose Benet's 'Man Possessed' and very little else.

"We don't 'defend' these poems ... no doubt they are all of them quite indefensible, in the light of certain special poetic revelations of the last few years ... and we have no particular theories about them; we merely yield ourself to them, and they transport us; we are careless of reason in the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do not mean to say that we are in the category with the person who says: 'I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like'--On the contrary, we know exactly why we like these things, although we don't intend to take the trouble to tell you now.

"William Rose Benet has published another book of poems, _Moons of Grandeur_. Here is a stanza picked up at random--it happens to be the opening stanza of 'Gaspara Stampa'--which shows the lyric quality of the verse:

"Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon, The colours of the sunset stream.

Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon So climbs my dream.

Out of the heart's eternal torture fire No eastern phoenix risen-- Only the naked soul, spent with desire, Bursts its prison.

"Was Benet ever in Italy? No matter ... he has Italy in him, in his heart and brain. Italy and Egypt and every other country that was ever warmed by the sun of beauty and shone on by the stars of romance. For the poems in this book are woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is nothing else in the world as depressing as a romantic poem that doesn't 'get there.'

And to us, at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic voice of romance, the genuine utterance of the soul that walks in communion with beauty. _Moons of Grandeur_ is a ringing bell and a glimmering tapestry and a draught of sparkling wine.

"A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes the physical body of Benet's art; when he chooses he can use words as if they were the jewelled particles of a mosaic; familiar words, with his handling, become 'something rich and strange.' Of the spiritual content of his poems, we can say nothing adequate, because there is not much that can be said of spirit; either it is there and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it is not there. There are very few people writing verse today who have the power to charm us and enchant us and carry us away with them as Benet can.

He has found the horse with wings."

_The Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), edited by John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, is an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made up from the poets contributing to a single magazine in eighteen consecutive months. Among those who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, Karle Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda Conkling, John Dos Pa.s.sos, Zona Gale, D. H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sa.s.soon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie.

Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to the example (or examples) of the work of each poet. In his general preface he says:

"Where most anthologies of poetry are collected for the purpose of giving pleasure by means of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give you something of the joy to be found in securing ma.n.u.scripts, in attempting to understand current poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important of all, to present you to the poets themselves as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence."

I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda Conkling, prefacing her poem "Lonely Song"; and then I will quote the poem:

"A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's mother. They live at Northampton, Ma.s.sachusetts, in the academic atmosphere of Smith College where those who know the little girl say that she enjoys sliding down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in New York State, so that she is distinctly of the East. The rhythms which she uses to express her ideas are the result both of her own moods, which are often crystal-clear in their delicate imagery, and of the fact that from time to time, when she was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to her. In fact, her first poems were made before she, herself, could write them down. The speculation as to what she will do when she grows to womanhood is a common one. Is it important? A childhood filled with beauty is something to have achieved."

Bend low, blue sky, Touch my forehead; You look cool ... bend down ...

Flow about me in your blueness and coolness, Be thistledown, be flowers, Be all the songs I have not yet sung.

Laugh at me, sky!

Put a cap of cloud on my head ...

Blow it off with your blue winds; Give me a feeling of your laughter Beyond cloud and wind!

I need to have you laugh at me As though you liked me a little.

This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly serious chapter; but at the end I find I cannot stop without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith Preston's delightful humour and "needle-tipped satire." And his book, _Splinters_, contains all sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, only some inadequate (because solitary) sample. Yet, anyway, here is his "Ode to Common Sense":

Spirit or demon, Common Sense!

Seen seldom by us mortals dense, Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me And teach me art and poetry.

Teach me to chuckle, sly as you, At G.o.ds that now I truckle to, To doubt the New Republic's bent, And jeer each bookish Supplement.

Now, like a thief, you come and flit, You call so seldom, Mother Wit!

Remember? Once when you stood by I found a Dreiser novel dry.

One day when I was reading hard-- What? Amy Lowell, G.o.dlike bard!

You peeped and then at what you saw Gave one Gargantuan guffaw.

Spirit or demon, coa.r.s.e or rude, (Sometimes I think you must be stewed) Brute that you are, I love your powers, But,--drop in after office hours!

Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask, But still respect my critic's task; Molest me not when I'm employed With psychics, s.e.x, vers libre, or Freud.

=ii=

The matter of playwrights is much more difficult than that of poets! A play cannot, as a rule, be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a play which is to be staged there are terrible objections (on the part of the producer) to any excerpts at all appearing in advance. The publication of the text of a play is hedged about by all manner of difficulties, copyrights, warnings and solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will stage at the Times Square Theatre, New York, probably in September, 1922, the new play by W.

Somerset Maugham, _East of Suez_. Pauline Frederick is expected to a.s.sume the princ.i.p.al role. Mr. Maugham's play will be published when it has been produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer one of those changes to which all theatres are subject, will be published anyhow! Shall we say that the setting is Chinese, and that the characters are Europeans, and that Mr.

Maugham has again shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the white man in contact with an alien civilisation? We shall say so. And--never mind! A sure production of the play for the Fireside Theatre is hereby guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed inst.i.tution, has certain merits.

The actors are always ideal and the performance always begins on time, as a letter to the New York Times has pointed out.

Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; _The Love Match_ is merely the latest of them. If I cannot very well quote a scene from _The Love Match_,--on the grounds of length and possible unintelligibility apart from the rest of the drama--I can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of the dialogue:

RUSS (_with calm and disdainful resentment_). You're angry with me now.

NINA (_hurt_). Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I mind who sends you flowers?

RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I didn't happen to be waiting for you.

NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous.

RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will to that footling hospital ball last night, and I only got three hours'

sleep instead of six, and you're angry with me because I yawned after you kissed me.

NINA. You're too utterly absurd!

RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason, either. The real reason is (_firmly_) you're angry with me because you clean forgot it was my birthday today. That's why you're angry with me.

NINA. Well, I think you might have reminded me....

NINA. I like sitting on the carpet.

(_She reclines at his feet._) I wonder why women nowadays are so fond of the floor.

RUSS. Because they're oriental, of course.

NINA. But I'm not oriental, Hughie! (_Looking at him with loving pa.s.sion._) Am I?

RUSS. That's the Eastern question.

NINA. But you like it, don't you?

RUSS. Every man has a private longing to live in the East.