The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-09-08
BY EDWARD NJ. TEALL.


TINE "sonnet sequence" in good hands
l. is very high art, and less capably
managed it can get pretty low. Ella
Wheeler Wilcox's Sonnets of Sorrow at
tain lofty level-the paradox is harmless
in plumbing the depths Of hearts de-
spair. Her Sonnets Of Triumph, continu-
ing the paradox, are on much lower
plane of art in measuring the sad souls
upward recovery.
The sorrow, if not more genuine than
the joy, is at least better founded; for it
rests upon the universal experience of the
bereft, while the joy springs from the thin
soil of spiritualism. The collection of
poems not all of them sonnets-has true
logical consequence, and that is major
merit. The individual poems have Ger
tain characteristic and easily recognizable
ellawheelerwilcoxian defects of technique.
Equally characteristic is the mixture of
easy sentiment and cheap hyperbole with
truly noble feeling and phraseology. A
line here and there:
"And the tide of joy in the heart runs
lower,
And seldom covers the reefs of care"
"As on each sword Of memory I fall"
ooh, my first words, when death has set
me free,
Will be this cry: THE key, dear God, the
keyr"
"If, till we met, no Maker had existed,
If life was finite and man but a clod,
This flaming love of ours has so persisted
Its very glory would have made god"
God needs must make new ecstacies in
To pay for this last anguish He has
given!"
Though science sneer and school and
church condemn
Your dead dwell near-you may commune
with them"
Frederic Manning, author of Eidola, is
recorder of impressions. His carefully
worked lines are the shadows of shadows
Though they vary in length from one word
or two to a dozen or score, there is in the
rhymeless compositions a long, flowing
meter that is much more pleasant than the
jagged outlines of those free versifers who
ought to be deprived of their freedom if
ever their product showed signs of the
possession of power sufficient for the
corruption of the common mind.
But Mr.. Manning's style is not right for
reference to the soldiers necessary cam
paign against coolies! Fortunately he
seldom obeys the impulse to take up such
topics. While there are so many rugged
rhymesters ready and able to celebrate this
phase of the sufferings of world at war,
the more delicate pens should set flowing
no stream but that of beautiful thought.
A proper regard for the apportionment of
columnar space restricts quotation to
short pieces, which are not always the
most truly representative; but these two
bits, Past and Blue and Gold, exemplify
the rhymed and the rhymeless forms:
1--WE played in this garden, long ago,
Long ago! Wind stirs the young grasses;
Petals drift from the apple boughs,
Like snow, that covers up everything.
Everything!"
"Blue and gold are April days,
All the wealth of spring unrolled
Down the wet, bird haunted ways
Blue and gold.
In their rapture uncontrolled,
From the trees the blackbirds raise
Songs of triumph, clear and bold;
And the distance is blue haze,
Where the hills the fields enfOld
Like still seas in sheltered bays
Blue and gold"
There's a Tilt in Cathal O'Byrne's
verses; a rollicking lit sometimes; at
other times sentimental one. The die
tionary is deficient when it makes lit
exclusively gay, for the Gaelic spirit can