The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-08-01
some Poetry Of the Day.

some Poetry Of the Day.
It is not as a volume Of poetry but
as an event in the poets world hat
SOnnets TO Sidney Lduier. aud other
Lyrics, by CLIFFORD ANDERSON LANiER
CHuebsch). will be greeted. Clifford
was two years younger than Sidney.
They were better friends than broth
ers often choose to be. Both enlisted
In the service of the C~onfcderacy. The
elder brothers confinement in Point
Lookout prison is blamed for his early
death. After the war Clifford. re-
%nouncing his literary aspiration. went
into business to give Sidney greater
freedom and to help their dependent
relatives. The younger brothers &C.
casional remittances OF money TO the
elder were accompanied by those SON.
nets. full of affection and admiration
for both the poet and his art, which
are now collected. This n is en-
tirely characteristic:
Thou magic breather OF the silver flute.
Arion skilful OF our later time.
Enchanting men by thy enchanted lutte.
And driving to thy yoke of lusty rhyme
Wild sea shapes strange and deepes, mys-
terics,
In that all boundiess ocean OF thine art:
who. coming to thy called consistories.
Straight do thy bidding and epouse tiny
part:
So that thou buoyest high upon the wave
To Ravens sweet. IA flames proud glpries
Behold, already thy tanned courSers lave
Their shining figures In flames port OF
rest.
And thou. wave beaten bard. In king y
form,
Art promontoricd high above all storm,
The lyrics are from n little volume,
apollo and Keats" published pri-
vately in 1902. They are the rhymes
of n chivalrous young a somewhat
~diiettantish, affected in phrase and
form by the example of the beloved
tand more gifted) brother. The worst
IL perhaps this Jagged stanza, from
death in Life:
It's eight O'Clock In the morning.
The eliminating moon at west;
A perfect lay from its dawning,
AZ Ger maternal night expressed.
Nature and the seasons inspire here
and there a melodious or technically
excellent line. and such suggestive
pm uoCS az tiS lIll ny iHS VI
death and life Keats was IA star
that "beheld an image in a spring,
His own beams robed in heavenly YES
turing" But when "Out-burned his
fire and faded from the sky" then
Fanny B." who was The clear
earth rill," ''purled on indifferently,"
Clifford drew upon music for imag-
cry. as Sidney did:
We know not the very heart OF the lutte:
We only hear the beat of music's
Love. love alone. in music, NE and art.
Remains the angelic friend guest OF the
heart.
II is with such odd %conceits as
Metric Genesis" that Clifford Lanier
steps out Of the path his circum-
stances marked out for him:
The poet brings not something out OF
naught:
He breathes into q dream: L~o!-Adam-
Thought!
Dumb. lonesome thought for want OF music
weeps,
And NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. as he sleeps.
Whence God does set His seal upon the
pair
NptttN, EutH IL, with Eve ana Alam there.
Perhaps if all the cropping, feeble
definitions Of poetry We're to be fiunS
into n pot, boiled down and reduced
to n single word that word would be
different" Poetry is that which is
nothing else and which nothing else
is, OF this poetry, unmistakable, I'M
disputable, not a little will be found in
The Nan on the HIitOp by Arthur
DAWSON FICKE lMitchell Kennerlcy)
Here is blank verse hat is not stupid
with some lines of the dullest prose;
lyrics that sing themselves-with in
terspersed lines and stan2as of specific
gravity that forbid the soaring with
out which song is no song; and, per-
haps as a sarcastic concession to the
other ne men" among whom Mir.
Ficke shines with promise, "A series of
"e~rotesques" some OF which are silly
and some nave point of sense. The
nineteen elegiac stanzas of Swim
burne' are excellent:
s' grief speaks not with the
tidings poken
That thou art of the dead.
No lamp extinguished when the bowl Is
broken,
No music fed
When the Lutte crumbles. art thou nor shalt
be;
But as a great wave. lifted on the sea.
Surges triumphant toward tho sleeping
shore,
Thou fallest, In soisndor of irradiant rain,
no swap resurhSh. ali the ocean plain
Forevermore.
Here we have sweep and march, the
cumulative power that the elder poets