New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-03-11
CRITICISM
AND BOOK NEWS
John Maseheld's New Book-Recent Verse by
American Singers-Mrs Bianchi's Trans
lations from the Russian.

Take. for example, the sonnet
II Beauty be at all, if, beyond sense,
There be q wisdom piercing into
brains,
Why should the glory wait on impo-
Biding its time till blood Is in the
veins2
There is no beauty, but, when thought
is quick,
Out of the noisy sickroom Of our
selves
Some nattery comes TO try 70 cheat the
sick,
Some drowsy drug is CROPPED for on
the shelves.
And, for the rest, we play upon a scene
Beautiful with the blood OF living
things;
We move and speak and wonder and
have been,
Upon the dust as dust, not queens
and kings;
We know no beauty, nor does beauty
For us. this dust, that men make
everywhere.
There is here more than a first
glance obscurity. Shakespeare SON
net is obscure in the sense that one
In the end every word tells. and the
structure stands solid. In Masefeld's
the phrase "wait on impotence" Tor
example, is not only stumbling block;
IL is q permanent blemish. One can
not say "wat on impotence" for wait
on power" or "potence," any more than
one can say wait on your displeasure"
when one means wait on your pleas
ure"; and to put 1t so is sheer loss.
This, however, Is merely small care
lessness. A fault which Is both funda-
mental and more typical lies In the
vague use, here and elsewhere, Of the
word Beauty" Ii is used with un-
sparing frequency and mutabilityi
sometimes il seems 70 be equivalent 10
spirit. sometimes TO wisdom, sometimes
to divinity, sometimes TO aesthetic or
religious emotion, sometimes las on
page 1907 TO God. OF course, the diff
ferent meanings are all more or less
excusable If one grants the poet his
pantheism: TO the pantheist there are
no disparate beings or qualities, but
page vy)
We. who breathe the air,
Are God ourselves, and touch God
everywhere.
Even so, however, even II one becomes
IGCOUClltu
m all but all-inclusive sense, still one
cannot but feel that the most beauti-
full Of the sonnets are those In which
abstract Beauty has no place-among
them the last one, with its lovely melan-
choly (philosophic, but simple, and
this perfect capitalization of happy
fancy;
Ia there a great green commonwealth
of Thought
Which ranks the yearly pageant, and
decides
How Summers royal progress shall be
wrought
By secret stir which in each plant
abides?
Does rocking dafrodil consent that she,
The snowdrop of wet winters, shall
be first?
Does spotted cowslip with the grass
To hold her pride before the rattle
burst?
And in the hedge what quick agree
ment goes,
When hawthorn blossoms redden TO
decay.
That Summers pride shall come, the
Summers rose,
Before the flower be on the bramble
sprayf
Or is it, as with US, unresting strife,
And each consent lucky gasp for
life7
The play, Good Friday" deals with
the Crucifxion, or rather with the atti-
tudes of various types of people toward
it and the effect of the scene upon
them. II Is interesting, and has fine
simplicity and terseness Of expression,
but somehow or other fails 10 strike
fire. II is less 70 be priced, we think,
than the sonnets.
We would add in passing that If we
have been critical Of Masefeld we
have been SC in all reverence. He is
the greatest Of our living poets, and
he challenges comparison with the
great ones Of the past. Nor would we
wish Gas might possibly be conjectured
from our remarks) to confne him TO