These are the strings of the Aegean lyre Columns of white thro' which the wind has flung Are strained and dubious, yet in music young They shall not wither back into the land. MT. LYKAION Alone on Lykaion since man hath been Below within the chaos last and least Suck out my heart and on this awful ground NEAR HELIKON By such an all-embalming summer day ELEUSIS Here for a thousand years processional Winding around the Eleusinian bay, The world with drooping eyes has made her way By stair and portal to the sombre Hall. As then the litanies antiphenal Obscurely through the pillars sang away, MT. IDA I long desired to see, I now have seen. Unto that day that never wholly is, That when the momentary sea aroused Flows up in earthquake, still thou mayest rise Sacred above the quivering Cyclades. II Art thou still veiled and ne'er before my sight At sunset, as I yearn to see thee most, Wilt thou appear in crimson robes and lost O travellers abroad the mortal plain By the unspeakable hours, I say: Press on. Hope spangles out the rest and while ye strain. JII As now my ship at midday passes out And, as adoring I look after thee, My eyes see white and in thy place is nought. In the decline and speed of human things It is enough if on the parting sings The certain voice he could not understand— It is enough, it is not yet too late. Trumbull Stickney. THE POETRY OF WILLIAM WATSON. Mr. Watson's position as a poet is, at present, rather unique. This will be seen if we take as typical of the time the three English poets who are probably best known—Mr. Kipling, Mr. Stephen Phillips and Mr. Watson. Each of these represents a particular kind of poetry: Mr. Kipling gives us life with primal strong emotions; Mr. Phillips romantic life with sensuous, more refined emotions; Mr. Watson, quite differently, gives us not life, but a commentary on life, finely critical and sophisticated. Of these three kinds of poetry, by far the most usually attempted is the second; the first few try, and none but Mr. Kipling does well; the third, represented by Mr. Watson, is also rare. To subdivide this third class, let us assume that the commentary on life touches first life as reflected in the actions of men, and, secondly, as reflected in the written thoughts of men. In this second division of the third class I place the greater and better part of Mr. Watson's poetry. Of course so finite a classification is dogmatic, but it best explains my assertion that Mr. Watson occupies rather a unique place. Supposing then that this classification is just, we should expect to find that Mr. Watson's work makes its appeal, not emotionally, but to the intellectual and æsthetic sense. This is true. Supposing again that the appeal is rarely emotional, we should expect to find, since life consists mainly of emotions, great and small, that when Mr. Watson attempts to deal with life direct, he is not over-successful. This is also, in the main, true. We may then disregard that small part of his verse which thus concerns itself, and consider only that larger amount which is a commentary on life reflected through the written thoughts of men. The analogy is directly apparent, therefore, between the poetry of Mr. Watson and that of his immediate predecessor, Matthew Arnold. Arnold, in his day, occupied a unique place very similar to Mr. Watson's; his temperament was likewise finely critical and sophisticated; his poetry took its inspiration from much the same kind of theme. Each owns as his master Words |