Evening star., 1924-10-23
THIS AND THAT.
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee
wrong,
Az. dsrkly painted on the crimson sky.
Thy figure floats along.
seek'st thou the plashy brink
ofweedy lake, or marge OF river wide,
Or where the rocking pillows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean sidef
There is a Power whose care
M Teaches thy way along that painless coast,
The desert and illmitabIe afr
Long wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have famed.
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toll shall end;
Soon shalt thou find 4 Summer homo and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall
Soon. DER thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone. the abyss Of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet. on my
heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given.
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through. the boundless sky thy certain
In the long way that must tread alone
Will lead my steps Alright.
X 4 u
That Is the poem sneered at be-
cause 1t "presents the reader with
moral upon a silver platter"
Aye, a golden moral on a pure
silver platter! II a free verse" poet
had written 1t he would have painted
the flight of the bird. given Il pic
ture' In words and let it go at that
1t would have run something like
this:
Bird,
Where va going
Va shrimp?
Roseate, like a new moon,
Coming up out the ocean,
On Mary's cupid-bow mouth
You made q tine target
For Bill Jones
And his new az
But cheer up, old fellow.
You are due
Along home on the 6:l5,
Where "a can hitch up the old radio set,
Tune In KDKA on your Swsmpodyne and let
Mrs. Waterfowl and the kids enjoy
Themselves.
Maybe that is not exactly fair to
the newer poets. who have done some
mighty good things. but 1t Is the way
1 feel about II. There is music in
Bryant's version, and he had the abil-
ity TO paint a picture-and draw q
moral, too. Drop these last two
stanzas out, you have ruined the
poem.
Thousands have seen the same
thing, marveled at the birds-then
forgot about it. Only Bryant, of all
of us, did not forget. He put in lyric,
singing words the heart Of all true
religion.
There is no theology there, just
religion.
\ x 4
The other unforgettable lyric by
Bryant is ITO a F'ringed Gentian," q
perfect thing of its kind, rivaling the
music Of Poe. The melancholy Edgar
might have written it-only he did
not. Bryant did.
The third outstanding piece Is that
tour de force written at the age of 16
the acme Of blank verse. ''Thanatop-
sis"
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall
take
His chamber In the silent hall Of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
scourged to his dungeon. but, sustained and
By an unfaltering trust. approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
Around him and lies down to pleasant dreams
So wrote the fatalistic young man.
but when he got older, and wiser
they do not necessarily go together
he came to the conclusion set forth
in his Waterfowl" and in his Cen
tian:"
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eve
Look through its frnges to the sky,
Blue-blue as II that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.
I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour Of death draw to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
lrrnE IN hos