The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-10-18
Poets Who Let Themselves Go.

1OeCS VINO Let themselves 60.
British opinion on American poetry
Is interesting because the genius Of the
two nations drank at the same fount.
Recently the London Times reviewed
the productions of our poets that are
acknowledged at home as the best
work American singers have produced.
OF the origin and inspiration Of dis
tinctly American poetry the reviewer
says:
It Is generally accepted that American
poetry had no youth, being founded not
on spontaneous national song, but on ira
litions (repudiated by American public
op1nion) Of a race which, by the time
seriously, had become an alien and dis
trusted race, traditions which had been
broken for centuries and had to be taken
up again, almost furtively, as a loan, not
as an inheritance. And these borrowed
notes had to be sung not as our Eliza
bethan Wrists sang their borrowed notes,
under summer dawn with all the world
astir to hear them. but under the leaden
sky Of frost bound spring. To Ameri-
can Calvinism American poetry owes
much-its cleanness, its dignity, its high
seriousness: it owes also its timidity,
which often finds expression in senti-
mentality; it's mournfulness, its preoccu-
patton with the moral, it's message Of
brief life and the triviality of mundane
things.
The reviewer insists that greater
work has been produced in the past
than is being delivered now from the
pens of the most exalted of our sing
ers. What we see now is the flicker
ing "smal fire" which is the dying
down Of passionate poetic blaze. This
thought is brought out in the citation
Of the work of individuals. Bryant was
a poet because he resolved to be one,
not having been born a vehicle of the
divine fire. He studied Thomson,
Cowper, Wordsworth, even Byron, yet
be was not their imitator; rather their
brother. But he was timid, cold, mourn
full, dignifed, simple, stately. He lack
ed fire, was never young and never
gay.
Whittier and Longfellow, the Times
says, both wrote poems that have
reached English homes where English
poetry is never read" surely an indi-
cation that they are poems Of more
than local interest. The two poets
rolled into one, the writer declares,
would have made livery great poet
and very American poet" But as be-
tween Whittier and Lowell the author
Of the "Biglow Papers, is declared to
be the 'really representative American
poet.''
Some songs produced by the civil war
have all the fire Of patriotic passion,
"the voice Of people inspired" Here
are recalled the pieces Of Julia Ward
Howe, Randall, Timrod and B. F. Will
son, Baker and others, but the chief
figure of this era is Sidney Lanier, ''the
most fearless and passionate, the wild
est in range, the greatest master Of
melody Of any of the American poets"
He is on fire with his own genius, and
he fires the reader too. AS poet who
'let himself co. Lanier found fellow
in Joaquin Miller, who, like Lanier. is
passionate and brave and, like Whit
tier, "native.''
Touching upon Bret Harte, Hay, Bay
ard Taylor and Richard Henry Stod-
dard, the review says, 1--WE have now
passed the days Of the men who have
won reputation in England" Ameri-
can poets today, like the English, are
''craftsmen rather than prophets The
awakening must come from the heart
Of the people, but "the poetry of the
people is not to be erected at will. It
must grow" Although critical'in tone,
the article is hopeful and hints that
there may be among US at this hour
Of "lamentable extravagances, weak
nesses and lapses from true taste" the
prophet Of an awakening that shall
produce poetry ''worthy Of great ma
ton and Of the greatness of her earlier
poets.''