The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-16
Az the Winds VIII.

puDlSntO III the AfHtTiCdn otdltcnlth
series by Houghton, Mitin & Co.
At the Winds VIII.
This collection of Mrs. Louise Chandler
Moulton's poems is I'm three divisions
lyrics. sonnets and miscellaneous verses.
which include rondeaux. quatrains and
translations. Mrs. Moulton never writes
any other than graceful verse. and it is
almost always characterized by a peculiar
spiritual quality. The lyrics in this vol
ume do not lack in these respects, but they
are pervaded in addition by a gentle mel
ancholy which is somewhat depressing in
its effect on the reader. They are. in fact.
almost without exception either expressions
Of dread of the final parting from loved
ones or the hearts cry te the loved who
have gone. Because 1t is the Spring
speaks this feeling:
Shall / be glad because the year is young?
The shy. swift-coming green Is on the
trees.
The jonquirs passion to the wind is flung:
/ catch the May flowers breath upon the
breeze
Shall be glad because the year is young?
Nay; you yourself were young that other
Though sad and low the tender songs you
sung,
MY iOnc nedrt Hedfu ben anu stooo
still to hear.
Can 4 forget the day you said goodbye
And robbed the world and me for alien
Do not know, when wild winds sob and
die,
Your voice is on them. sadder than my
tears?
You come to tell me heaven itself is cold.
The world was warm from which you fed
away
And moon and stars and sun are very old
And you?-oh. you were young I'm last
years May!
Now you, who were the very heart OF
spring,
Are old and share the secrets Of the
But l lack something that nc year will
bring,
Since May no longer greets me with your
eyes.
1t is in the sonnet that Mrs. Moulton is
at her best. She has a remarkable COM
mand OF a form OF verse over which great
er poets than she have sometimes STUN
bled. The spirit OF melancholy was over
Dust" but who woul guess. seeing how
smoothly the lines flow, that the thought
did not naturally and inevitably form
itself into this shape? Who when reading
! it would think of the sonnet as an arti-
fetal, studied mode Of expression?
In the vast realms of unconjectured space.
Where devious paths eternally outspread.
Where farthest stars their nightly
| And unknown suns through unknown sys-
TENS pace,
| What power can give our longing hearts
To follow feet that long ago have fed
Among the thronging populace OF the
dead
Nay. Let the souls throng round us. I
am /,
And you are you. We should not vainly
seek;
| Would you not hear. though faint and far
Nay. were we dust. and had no lips to
speak,
Our very atoms on the winds blown by
Would meet. and cling. whatever might
befall.
There are many OF these sonnets that
tempt to reproduction, but this Newly
Born" must suffice:
Out of the dark into the arms of love
The babe is born, and recks not OF the
His soul has traversed to confront the
Enough for him the face that smiles above,
The ~tireless feet that on his errands move.
The arms that clasp, the tender lips that
The whole dear wealth Of welcome and of
His heirsnip and his sovereignty that
prove. n
So may there be no place for earth's vain
tears -
When heavens great rapture bursts upon
the sight,
Shall not the soul. new born in heavenly
spheres,
Forget the paths It traversed. and the
Light
| 1t journeyed through, and all old hopes and
fears
Caught up into that infinite Great
Light?
Although the burden of the poems is
human bereavement and grief. IL Is not
hopeless grief. The soul looks beyond. and
IL is this attitude of faith that proves the
writer a true poet. Little, Brown & Co.,
| publishers, Boston.