New Britain herald., 1925-07-11
n THE BOOK SHELF & E
PASTELS
 AND PORTRAITS

PORTRAITS One Of the youngest Of American verse writers ever to achieve fame and certainly one or the three or four real poets alive today is Edna St. Vincent Millay, but few short years ago Nassar undergraduate Miss Millay attracted attention from her first day at college, and she had scarce graduated therefrom when the calbre of her verse won her country wide recognition. And to- day her fame IS international, her place in literature secure, her su- pertors none.
 There is no other poet in America, today who Is quite like Miss Nlillay. There is no one quite as charming; no one more quaint. Her works, virtually all of them, are Of cer- tain distinct nature, all embodiments of a touch distinctly Miss NIiuay's. as they are almost impossible of imi- tation, as impossible of imitation as is the charming and youthful ap- bearing poetess herself.
 Miss Millay has written a consid- orable amount of beautiful poetry. She has been often praised, and 1t was not so long ago that he heard well-known critic declare that he had at last become convinced that Miss Nlillay was the only poet in America. Rather an emphatic trih- Ute, thts, we might say. In 1922 she was awarded the Pulitzer prize for poetry, her offering winning in this great competition being The Harp Weaver" the title poem of her lat est book of verse
 We have just read the Harp Weaver although we confess we should have done so long ago. IL is tyrically Miss Ntillay. as typical as her wondrously charming little poems in "A Few Figs From This .tles,' a thin book of verse which we found to be unsurpassed here, there or anywhere. We did like her ear Her book the better, however, but maybe it is her growing maturity which has confounded us in this later publication. And vet. in "The Harp Weaver" there are several which are better than ever before she has written.
 The title poem merits every bit of praise heaped upon it. We only re- gret that it is too long for a re- printing here, for 1t is a poem that no one protesting a love for poetry can afford to overlook. It is a talo iof mother love and is simple, vivid and tense, great in all these as all great narratives are and should be.
 A certain sonnet in thns volume we have always admired from thc very first time we read it in one of our leading monthlies. It Is writer 10 an old man who Is dying, and |, one of the finest things from the per of Miss Mtllay one of the finest w. have ever read anywhere, from the pen of anyone.
 Your face Is like a chamber where a king
 Dies of his wounds, untended and
 alone.
 Sttfins with a courteous gesture the
 crude moan
 That speaks too loud of mortal
 perishing,
 Rising on elbow in the dark to sinr Some rhyme now out of season but
 well known
 In days when banners fin hls face
 were blown
 And every woman had a rose tc
 fling.
 II Know that through your eyes
 which look on me
 Who stand regarding you with pitt.
 full breath.
 You see beyond the moments pause
 you see
 The sunny sky. the skimming bird
 beneath,
 And, fronting on your windows
 helplessly.
 Black in the noon. the broad es-
 tates of Death.
 Certainly the sonnet above cannot b. improved upon. and there are a i late number in this volume whicf very nearly approach it. Tn fact We can scarce make a choice as tc inst which we prefer. In the from of the book there are number O little poems, fully as charming a. any of her previous efforts. anr these we hold as even more typical ly Miss Millay than the many beau tiful sonnets wA So much admired.
 One of these is entitled The i Pond" and is as follows;
 In this pond of placid water,
 Half a hundred years ago,
 So they say. a farmers daughter,
 tilted by her farmer beau.
 Waded out among the rushes.
 Scattering the blue dragon flies: 1 That dried stick the ripple washes
 Marks the spot, should surmisa Think. so near the public highway Well :reouented even then,
 Can you not conceive the sly wsy,-
 ITNDvt~~