The New York herald., 1922-04-23

of the written word he has no claim
to be considered a poet? What.
for example. do you make Of this?
No tonic and ambitious irritant
OF increase or of want
Has made an otherwise insensate
waste
OF ages overthrown
A ruthless, yelled. implacable FORE
taste
OF other ages that are still to be
Depleted and rewarded variously
Because a few, by fate's economy
Shall seem to move the world the
way it goes;
No soft evangel OF equality.
Safe-cradled in a communal repose
That huddles into death and may at
last
Be covered well with equatorial
And all for what. the devil only
knows
Will aggregate an inkling to confirm
The credit Of sage or of a worm,
Or tell us why one man in five
Should have a care to stay alive
While in his heart he feels no
violence
Laid on his humor and intelligence
When infant Science makes a pleas
ant face
And waves again that hollow toy.
ehC iedSC-
The more carefully you study this
the stronger viii be your feeling that
he who made it wrought more care
fully still. He did not say implacable
to fill the meter. nor depleted and re-
todrded to balance the phrase. nor
fdte's economy to find the rhyme.
Such an expression as equatorial
snotcs at first slips by melodiously
unnoticed; then suddenly it seems
nonsense; then at last, very far from
suddenly, the light within it lxindles
and brightens, Illuminating more and
more. The style is curiously like the
later style of Shakespeare. in its in
tense compression and figurative use
of distractions. 1t only appears dry
because the words have the last drop
of meaning wrung out OF them. Here
is another case equally characters
tic:
THE COMPANION.
Let him answer as he will,
Or be lightsome as he may.
Now nor after shall he say
Worn-out words enough to kill,
Or to lull down by their craft,
Doubt, that was born yesterday,
When he lied and when she
laughed.
Let him find another name
For the starlight on the snow,
Let him teach her till she know
That all seasons are the same,
And all sheltered ways are fair
Still, wherever she may go,
Doubt will have a dwelling there.
Specifically nothing could-be sim
pier. There is not word that might
not be used in a popular song. But
who are this He and She. and what,
concretely. is the matter between
them? 1t is all perfectly clear ex-
cept what it is all about. The thing
has the maddening simplicity OF q
child puzzles you. Only one may
be sure that the meaning here Is
something far from childish.
1 dwell upon this matter of OBJ
scurity not to emphasize a fault, but
to describe an artist. The fault may
! be our own; but it is exactly and
wholly characteristic Of him. II 1t be
defect. at least it is the defect of his
precise quality. To study it is to un-
| derstand the man and his manner OF
working. Mr.. Robinson does not
write for the general public or for
any public: he does not write for the
few; nor for posterity. He writes for
himself and to himself. He has OBJ
served or has imagined something
| To set down the most accurate men,
orandum of that thing. to define by a
hairs breadth and illuminate by the
exquisite precision of a tint the very
form and color of his idea-for this
! he will endure and expend the ut
most ability that is in him. But when
ttat is done. when his own words are
fa' hioned as nearly as possible to his
| ovI1 mind why. then the work is