The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-06-04
quoted. is perhaps his most thought
Iul poem. Here it is.

listened to the CITY, heard the
ground
Echo with human thunder. and the
sound
Go reeling down the streets and dis
appear.
The headlong hours in their wild
career
Shouted and sang until the world
was drowned
With babel-voices, each one more
profound.
All day it surged-but nothing could
I hear.
That night the country neve seemed
SO still
The trees and grasses spoke with
out a word
To stars that brushed them with
their silver wings.
Together with the Q | climbed the
hill
And in the very heart of Silence
heard
The speech and music Of i'm
mortal things.
Scarcely less philosophical than
Voices is Envy" a little poem
from the January Smart Set. In the
sim plest name imaginable this
piece expresses a truth which comes
very near to being as big as the hu-
man race. Who has not at some time
yearned for the other mans lot?
| The willow and the river
Ripple with silver speech,
And one refrain forever
They mOrmuF each to each.
Brook with the silver gravel,
Would that your lot were mine
To wander free, to travel
Where greener valleys shine
Strange ventures, fresh revealipgs
And, at the end-the sea.
Brook with your turns and wheelings,
How rich your life must be-
Tree with the golden rustling,
Would that I were SO blessed,
To cease this stumbling, jostling,
This feverish unrest
[ Join the ocean riot;
You stand song-filled-and free!
Tree with your peace n quiet.
How rich your life must be-"
The willow and the river
Ripple with silver speech,
And one refrain forever
They murmur each to each.
y dltcIlptT ~ oSIy NAAh Ahh'
meyer has his pronounced faults
would be absurd and futile. He Is
not nearly SO finished an artist as
he ought to be, or as [ trust he VII
be one of these days. A hasty com
parison of his work with some OF the
other magazine poetry Of the day VII
show tina there are fully a score OF
young rimesters whose verses are
technically better than Mr.. enter
- hoo IN n hIyNG-
ance. and facility too. In fact, that
is lust the trouble; h has too much
facility at times. If the art Of poetry
were to him more of a sad me
chanic exercise" perhaps he wouit
be more careful to avoid Such rlmes
as "o'erwhe1m-tell," "goddess-bodice,
tongues songs "harried : buried.
, ''bitter-zither." Possibly, too, II l
were not for this same fatal facility
and for the additional fact that some
times like Emerson and Whittier be Il
60 engrossed in what he is saying tina
y he Ices not take time to cons1del
how he says it. he would not ALLOW
himself to offend fastidious ears b,
, palming off such a line as And
living on the grass as a catalectl'
tetrameter. Notice how, in tn
above line, a trochee awkwardly an
harshly follows an iambus)..
!, And while we are making adVers'
criticisms on Mr.. Cntermeyers WORK
it may be we'll to note that IN on
: Of the poems of First Love n
enaaks of the wonder-Stricken night
, ~ingale.'' Just what reason an Amer
: lean poet, in depicting a scene Whlcl
was presumably American-unles
it be that he was desperately in nee
i, of a rime for 'fail"-should .hav
for referring to the famous Euro
mean night-bird it is difficult to con
e lecture
But in comparison to his goo
g Fpoints MIR. Untermeyer's faults are $
few that it would be unfair to v
e on the latter at great length. Ia
me return. therefore, to my or1slna
n proposition hat both as singer an
as nhilosopher Louis Untermeyer oc
lcupies a commanding position anon
t our youngest poets
I am not one Of those pessimist