The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-27
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
Robert Underwood Johnson's Poems.

many who will recall the pleasure afforded
by Mr.. Johnsons first book. The Winter
Hour" of just ten years ago, and these
are found repeated here, practically as they
were first published-and this in a man of
Mr.. Johnson's exacting, critical methods. is
significant The qualities most manifest in
Mr.. Johnsons poems are sobriety and
restraint, which. it might truly be said
are the equivalent of taste of the highest
order. His imagination carries him far,
but never with unbridled exuberance. His
outlook on life is steady and serious. His
muse is the familiar of quiet gardens, often
of the old world. and yet ventures upon
the paven ground of cities and is eager TO
show sympathetic interest with the labors
of those who strive to uplift man.
1t is complaint frequently heard that
the poets of to-day do not strike the great
chords, but very often this is from critics
who have never recovered from their child
hood awe of the alpine majesty OF the
epics. Life is viewed with closer scrutiny
now than it ever was before-in science and
in all the arts. Poets rarely attempt the
great canvasseS any more, but they nave
gained wonderfully in the keenness and IN
tentness of their percepuon-ln their AFFINITY
TO discover the subtler emotions, the inner
of the great elders of song. There is a
vast bulk of English verse that is eminent
ly respectable, and yet which is, as stu
dents say TO themselves every day, un1n-
teresting To be embarrassing these days,
whether in poetry prose, is to be unread
Poets like Mr.. Aldrich, Mr.. Glider, Mr..
Riley, Mr.. Johnson, Miss Thomas and Pro-
fessor Woodbury. have learned how To
write of things that interest, and with a
brevity that does not dismay the reader.
Mr.. johnson feels life freshly, and there
is constant interest, in turning his tempt
ing pages, to Iinger over his expression
of some fine delicate thing which has here
tofore baffied those who may have known
exactly the same experience or mood; as
witness this stanZa from THE Wistful
Days.
Let youth go daily with the spring,
Cali her the dear, the fair, the young;
And all her graees ever sung
Let him, once more, rehearsing sing.
They know, who keep broken tryst,
Till something from the spring be missed
We have not truly known the spring.
italy was made for the poets, and there
Is certainly nothing better in this volume
than Mr.. Johnson's pieces on Italian sub
jectS. The interlude, Love in Italy,, in
1.-The Winter Hour is charming In
Browning at Asolo," Mr.. Johnson has
consciously relinquished his more careful
stroke for the less measured manner of
Browning himself And one of the latest
of the poems Cor. we infer so, from its
having been recently printed in the At
lantic) the italian Rhapsody" which was
IT y
chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa of William
and Mary College, is one of the best new
poems we have seen in many day. The
form is in itself difficult, but ii is managed
with deftest skill, the seventh line often de-
tanning the thought lest it hurry too quickly
TO the climax. There is over it all the touch
and suggestion of man of deep cultiva-
tion, whom it is pleasant to meet in the
fields of his own choosing:
Fount Of Romance whereat our Shakespeare
drank
Through him the loves of all are linked 10
BY Romeos ardor. Juliet's constancy
He sets the peasant in the royal rank;
Shows under mask and paint
Kinship of knave and saint,
And plays stolid man with Prospero's wand
and Ariels prank.
In other moods the poet turns to child
hood and its perpleXities, as in I'm the
Dark which seems to perfect poem
| These few stanzas only hint at the beauty
Of the whole:
AT dusk when SIumber's gentle wand
/ Beckons 10 quiet fields my boy,
And day, whose welcome was so fond.
Is sighted like a rivaled toy
when fain to follow fain to stay.
Toward nights dim border-line he peers.
Is it the inner dark he fears 90
Upon the shoals Of my poor creed.
His plummet falls, but cannot rest;
To sound the soundess is his need.
To md the primal soul his quest"
Lord, if there be. wise spake.
No death, but only Fear of Death.
And when Thy temple to shake
IT'S but the shaking Of breath
! Whether by day or night we see
Clouds where Thy winds have driven none,
Let unto unto Thee
The darkness and the light be one"
Mr.. Johnson has hardly done so we'll il
! his blank verse, though it may be
the subjects that are at fault II
seems to us that the prose essay is
/ a better medium than verse for pro-
noting the amity OF nations, though
Across Sea" There are men among oul
| great who seem poor subjects for poetry
! even though IL be so good verse as Mr.
JohnsO9s Voice Of Webster Webster Mr. John
thunder would rouse us 'in the dull
and coward times of peace" but such
/ is not really the case. great though Webste
was. He is not often invoked, TO tell thu
! truth about il, but we are glad that Mr.
Johnson has given us such lines as:
When Hayne arose twas sumter's gun wa
When Webster closed twas Appomattox field"
| And again,
! ''As Discord grasped again her rusted harp
And struck new terror from the raveled strings
In a day when so much verse it toe
| studied and too lacking in the human not,
! II Is real pleasure to come upon poem
so touched with fine feeling as An Englisl
Mother or those two quatrains in mem
| Dry of Herbery Mapes, in which there il
| heartache in every line.
The poem which Mr.. Johnson wrote 70
the occasion of a dinner given here at In
} dianapolis in 1883, in honor of Mr. Riley
should be better known in Indiana thai
! it is, for IL expresses most happily the dis
| tinguishing quality of our own poets work
We have in Mr.. Johnson a poet VIII
| touches life on many sides; who is capabl
| of a vigorous ballad on Dewey at Manila
| and yet writes with nice discrimination
| in the sonnet form, of Amiel and Salvini
| and who, on the side of good citizenship
cast prophetic eye upon Theodore Roose
! welt con Candidate Accused of Youth
so long ago as 1885, and who has not over
! looked the high worth of our obscure
American heroes, like Colonel Warning. w
have been over these poems many times
! and with increasing pleasure in them. T
| know them is 10 know beauty in man
! novel and moving forms and to experienc
contact with a spirit that is concerned wit
| the best that man is capable of feeling an
doing. New York: The Century Com
| pany.
| The kentons.
No novelist can compare with Mr. VIII
liam Dean Howells in the portrayal of tn
everyday life OF commonplace American
people. Those who complain that there
not action or adventure enough in his sto