New-York tribune., 1920-06-27
ROBERT FROST, the Nec England poet at qvork -Four
me7o poems By Mr.. Frost haze us been published by
Harper's Magazine

| dUJTUCT s
, soms drawback-renerally ono that
Is much worse than stiffness. Brown
ing, and still more Father Gerard Hop
:, kins, often pack SO closely as to lose
all intelligfbility. That never happens
to Frost, who is invariably lucid.
The firm precision, however. which
often characterizes him is, think, q
real defect He has the New England
er's limitations along with the New
Englander's noble gifts. He has
grace but very little glamour. 1t is
the custom in these days to sneer at
glamour, to consider it cheap affair
Let US feed the scoffers upon solid
food, not thin ART" Quite so; still,
without denying the necessity of solid
food, l will assert that glamour has
been the breath of life to English
poetry. | do not say to all poetry,
but to poetry written in English. We
are of the North, and our language
has symbolstic rather than the
theological quality of the Latin Ian
suages of the South Mystery is in
our blood, and without it we would BE-
come anemic
Robert Frost's poverty Of glamour
is to my mind defect; and allied
to it is his feeble capacity for praise.
t There is about him a curious absence
=, ltof
two principal marks of the major poet
) But Robert Frost is beyond any ques
, ton major poet. How then, YOU
ask, can he be that if he has these
specified defects?
That is Robert Frost's secret. In
stead of glamour he has the most
piercing poignancy; for praise he
substitutes irony, for spiritual exalta
ton tender beauty, forever close
to earth and the children of earth.
Let US take examples, and for
beauty commence with this couplet
from "Hyla Brock"
That spouted IN the mist month oco
: Like ghost of sleighbeHs In ohoat oj
sno,C
Ihat has an uncharacteristic touch OF
rhetoric. This is more in his authentic
! manner
"A tree beside the ,raU stands bore.
But leaf that fingered broun,
D'st"roed' / doubt not, by my thought
Comes softly rafting do,vn.
And thia oyo,,;,;+.1,.
ls' may be pondered upon as an instance
OF Frost's austere remuneration o,
S glamour:
dream upon tho opposing Hqhts Of III,
, hour,
Preventing shadoao until tho moon an.
pear
A Cold Landscape
, This leads me to offer the remark
with which l nearly opened my ESSAY
IL had to sum up Frost with worc
, would use the word frost" Winte,
hes over all his landscapes; his brooks
}, are sealed with ice and his hills GOV.
ered with snow. | have not calculated
the exact proportion Of poems which
are pictures of snow, but to make q
rough guess rather more than half
definitely refer to winter. The re.
mainder, with few exceptions, suggest
the winter. His spring poems arc full
OF the remembrance of snow; his
autumn poems are full of the anticipa-
tlon OF snow. 1t is not simply that he
describes snow bound world, like
Whittier. The snow has taken posses.
sion of his mind.
do not believe that I am fancifu]
In offering this explanation of Mr.
FROST. In any case, it is my explana-
, ton. was conscious of winter in read
ing "Mending Wall" that fine poem
the nrse OF Frosts poems that I came
across. There Is no explicit mention of
snow In it. but I felt while reading il
that this spring was early spring. with
keen wind and drifts still unmelted in
hoilows among the mountains. And
have felt the winter present IN almost
every page of his books.
NOW, snow may mean either beauty
or gayety or terror. 1t means evcrv
ono OF these things to Robert Frost
especially terror. With the soft gen.
tleness Of snow fear falls fake by fake
IN many Of his piteous tales. Th.
agony is increased imperceptibly to
the point Of heartbreak. The delicacv
OF the drama prevents it from being
aptly named-as I do not doubt some
have named tt grim Even in sent
cut"--where, just as the bows ais
ter was telling him Supper" the saw
with which no was working cut off his
hand "as II to prove saws know what
supper meant"-the tragedy is saved
from "grimness" by Frost's tenderness
As a teller Of stories Of mood or i'm
pulse this poet has no rival. And hia
master stroke Is that by which he
achieves his subjective result by d.