POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
Beyond dispute his command of the sheer mechanics of quantitative verse can be looked on with nothing but envy. I have a grave respect for any man who is restless and persistent in the study and honor of his craft.
There are two poems in his last book which it is better to quote than to comment on. The first shows well what he has won from untiring practice of quantitative metres, and from, I should think, the reading of Middle-English. It is as follows:
THE FLOWERING TREE
What fairy fann'd my dreams
while I slept in the sun?—
As if a flowering tree
were standing over me:
Its young stem strong and lithe
went branching overhead,
And willowy sprays around
fell tasseling to the ground,
All with wild blossom gay
as is the cherry in May
When her fresh flaunt of leaf
gives crowns of golden green.
The sunlight was emmesh'd
in the shifting splendor
And I saw through on high
to soft lakes of blue sky:
Ne'er was mortal slumber
so lapt in luxury.
Rather—Endymion—
would I sleep in the sun
'Neath the trees, divinely,
with day's azure above,
When my love of beauty
is met by beauty's love.
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