New-York tribune., 1918-04-07
What Yeats Has Done for
English Poetry
His Art Is Pure, Not Applied. Through
out His Work Passion Is Mingled With
"UnutterabIe Reverence"

BILE reverence. 1t is unlike much moder,
love poetry in its spiritual exaltation. Jns.
as manners have become more free. and
intimacies that once took months ia do
velop now need only minutes SO nuch
contemporary verse tribute to women ,s 60
detailed, bold, cocksure that tba
elaborate compliments only half conceal
sneer. In all such work love is born ~
desire-its sole foundaton-and hence j.
equally short-lived and feeting In fra
poems of Mr.. Yeats, desire seems to follow
rather than to precede love. Love TINS
takes on, as it ought to, something of tho
beauty of holiness.
"In mysticism, in symbolism. and in ths
quality of his imagination. Mr. Yeats Of
course reminds us of Maeterlinck. He ha,
the same twilight atmosphere, peopled With
elusive dream footed figures, that make No
more noise than the wings of an owl. He
is of imagination all compact. lie is neither
teacher nor n prophet; he seems 70 turn
away from the real sorrows OF life, YES
even from its real joys, to dwell in a world
Of his own creation. He invites US thither
IL we care to go and ii we go not we can
But if we wander with him in the shadow
darkness. like the lonely man in titanic
alleys accompanied only by Psyche, we
shall see strange visions. We may be led
to the door of legended tomb; we may he
led along the border of dim waters; but
we shall live for time in the realm of
beauty and be the better for the cxpe-
rience, even though it resemble nothing in
the town and country that we know
GGNNR. YEATS, like Browning, write,
1vA both lyrical poems and dramas;
but he is at the opposite remove fron
Browning in everything except the gift Of
song Browning was so devoted to the
dramatic aspect of art that he carried the
drama even into its seemingly contradic.
tory form, the lyric. Every lyric is a little
one-act play, and lie called them dramatic
lyrics. Mr.. Yeats, on the other hand, is 80
essentially lyric poet that instead Ct
writing dramatic lyrics he writes lyric
dramas. Even his stage-plays are pri-
marly lyrical.
"Those who are interested in Mr. Yeats's
theory of speaking, recting. or chanting
poetry to the psaltery should read his book,
ideas of Good and Evil which contains
some Of his most significant articles #
faith. written in limpid and beautiful prose-
Mr. Yeats cannot write on any subject with
out Illuminating it by the light of his own
Imagination; and find his essays in criti-
cism full of original thoueht-the result Of
years Of brooding reflection. In these
short pieces his genius is as clear as it IS
in his poems.
II admire his absolute devotion to the art
Of poetry He knows that politicians and
practical men at the Very best reeard him
a harmless dreamer: for TO them he
seems to be talking in his sleep just when
he ought to be wide awake. But more re-
gard him as worse than harmless for they
cannot understand how, in tho midst of po-
litical excitement, he can calmly 20 on writ
ing poems and lyrical dramas. But he will
not apologize. Nor will he use his poetic
genius for any purpose excent for the crea.
ton Of beauty and the Interpretation OF
life.
"He will not turn Pegasus into dray
horse, and make him haul cart loads of po-
litical or moral propaganda In his fine
apologize, The Cutting of an Agate he
states and rostates his creed: Literature
decays when it 10 longer makes more beau
tiful, or more vivid, the language which
untes it to all life. and when ore finds the
criticism Of the student. and the purpose Of
the refcrmer, and the logic Of the man of
science, where there should have been The
rcvorles of the common heart onnobled into
some raving Lear or unabashed Don Quixote.
have been reading through bun
die OF German plays, and have found every
where a desire not to express hopes and
alarms common to every man that ever
came into the world, bu. politics or social
passion, veiled or open propaganda.
If Homer were alive to-day he
would only resist, after a deliberate strug-
gle, the temptation to find his subject not
IN Helen's beauty that every man mas de-
sired. nor in the wisdom and endurance
OF Ddysseus t;lct has been the desire Of
every woman thai has come into the world,
but IN what somebody would describe. per-
haps as the inevitable contest arising
out of economic causes. between the coun-
tsy places and small towns. on the one hand,
and, upon the other, the great city of Troy,
representing one knows not what tendency
to centrali2ation.'
I'm other words, if understand him cor
rectly. Mr.. Yates believes that in writing
pure rather than applied poetry he IS not
turning his back on great issues to do
tiilgree work, but is merely turning aside
from questions of temporary import 10 tina:
which is fixed and eternal, life ITSELF