The herald., 1895-12-22
INA COOLBRlTH, AUTHOR OF "SONGS
FROM THE GOLDEN GATE"

wide range of work. With three ex-
ceptions the contents of the present
volume might be divided into poems
of description and poems OF moods. 1t
is the latter class that pred dominates
and gives ooloring to the whole. In
short poem, entitled "Today's Sing
ing" occur the lines:
Weave me rhyme today.
No pleasant roundelay,
But some vague, restless yearning OF the
Shaped with but little art
To broken numbers, that shall flow
Most dreamily and slow,
| think no merry fancy should belong
To this days song.
II is III the mood thus expressed that
Miss Cooibrlth nas done most Of her
singing, but she has shown how to Car
ry that mood through thousand
varieties, and the vague, restless yearn-
Ing OF the heart has not always been
revealed lightly and with little art, but
at times deeply and seriously, with the
finest and truest artistic elaboration.
1t is worth noting that the moods are
never morbid. Always healthful and
pure, they are associated with senti-
ments of wholesome cheerfulness and
lofty faith, SO that we may say in
these verses are realized Swinourne's
dream of stair passions and bountiful
pities and love without STAIN"
A helpful and cheering philosophy
underlies all these Songs from the
Golden Gate. The winds that come in
from the ocean are not more free from
depressing influences. They give
bright glimpses of earth; they help to
solve problems of pain and sorrow;
they make life pleasanter as we'll as
more earnest for all who read them.
In all this sweetness and cheerfulness,
however, there is no trace of super
fetal gayety or an absence of knowl-
edge Of the "mystery and the burden
of the intolerable world" There is, on
the other hand, an evident will power
exerted to master the mystery by faith
and to bear the burden bravely with a
strong heart. In the poem Marah oc-
ours "a protest against the demand that
all songs should be gay, and while for
the right enjoyment of it the whole
should be read, it will suffice to show
the argument and the answer to quote
here the first verse and the last:
The song were sweeter and better,
If only the thought we're glad.
BE hldden the cnaIe Oh Tue ietter,
The scars of the wound you have had;
Be silent of strife and endeavor,
But shout of the victory won.
You may sit in the shadow forever,
If only you'll sing of the sun.
To the weary in LIES wildernesses
The soul of the singer belongs;
Small need in your green, sunny places
Glad dwelIers, have you of my songs.
For you the bithe birds in the meadow
Trill silverly sweet, every one;
But cannot sit in the shadow
Forever and sing of the sun.
In all these songs Of sentiment
whether the mood be light or serious
whether the treatment is carefully
elaborated or "shaped with but little
art to broken numbers" there is 6
felicity of word and phase, a lyric grace
of sweetness and rythm, and that sub
tie epirit of beauty which infuses into
the form Of verse the life that makes il
poetry. Where there is so much OIL
good it is difficult to make selections
and we shall not attempt it. Nor shall
we venture upon much in the way oil
quotation from the descriptive poems
These are not inferior to the lyrics ir
excellence of poetic workmanship
though they are less interesting, be-
cause they lack the personal human
| element that breathes through every
line of the others. As Keith's illustra
lions add much to the charm of thu
! volume and ably supplement several o
the descriptive poems, the lines which