A Head
Her head was a morning in April.
Loose, livid mist arose from cold ground
And revealed two tired shepherds with lanterns,
Standing above the wrinkled red blankets they had lain on...
Then came the morning light—her smile.
The Operation
With eyes of radium, and beard the color of wet sand,
The doctor unlocked his instrument case as carelessly
As a child opens an old box of blocks,
And almost silently whistled something out of “Aida.”
And the nurses—bits of sky with thick clouds—
Chattered about patients and hummed frayed songs.
But when the still body on the little cart came,
The lips of the doctor became stiff and trim
(Bows of ribbon turning to circles of stone)
And the nurses were no longer women:
Were sexless, with tapering fingers and metal eyes...
The doctor made the incision and checked the blood:
And I thought of a miner, half-reverently, half-wearily cutting soft earth,
Picking out lumps of dead silver...
But the picture changed when the doctor sewed up the wound,
And I saw a middle-aged woman gravely mending a limp rag...
The little cart disappeared,
And the doctor locked his instrument case as carelessly
As a child closes an old box of blocks:
And the nurses were once more bits of sky with thick clouds.
Some Imagist Poets
George Lane
Some months ago, in these pages, Mr. Witter Bynner pointed out that “Imagism” was derived from a Japanese poetical form, the name of which Mr. Bynner regretted that he had forgotten. This name is “Hokku,” and undoubtedly the Japanese Hokku poetry was the model upon which much of the work in the first Imagist Anthology was formed, notably the contributions of Mr. Ezra Pound. There was Greek influence, too, in that first collection. But the whole volume showed a remarkable desire towards perfection and clarity of utterance, and a delicate perception of beauty.
There were few poetry lovers who did not taste its fine, astringent flavour, but its qualities were at once its faults. It was beautiful work, but too tenuous ever to become a great art, said the objectors. It was incapable of embracing many of the elements of life and poetry. The Imagists must remain side-tracked, and therefore, clever though they were, they could not be of real importance.
But it seems that Imagism was more virile, more capable of growth, than was supposed. The jejune maledictions and assertions of their chief spokesman, Mr. Pound, have done so much to make the group ridiculous that it is with a feeling of surprise that we find this volume a great advance upon its predecessor.
Here is the work of six poets, four of whom were represented in the first anthology. In an interesting preface they state their poetical theories, which are much the same as those printed so often in Poetry. But here the tenets are soberly and sensibly presented, and the whole preface is dignified and worthy of consideration. Clearly the Imagists are growing up.
It is hardly necessary to rehearse here the Imagist creed. It has been discussed, with more or less hostility, in many reviews. But certainly, in reading this preface, the hostility suddenly vanishes, and the reviewer finds himself wondering if perhaps, after all, this movement is not one of most unusual significance.
Briefly, these poets call themselves Imagists because their object is to present an “image”; they believe “that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous”; they desire “to use the language of common speech,” and “to employ always the exact word, not the nearly exact, nor the merely decorative word.” They wish “to produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite”; and, finally, they are convinced that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry.”
Brave words, excellent aims and hard enough of attainment. Again, these poets agree to allow absolute freedom of subject, and, with a little dig at some of their contemporaries, they say, “It is not good art to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911.”
That is a wholesome point of view, but indeed the Imagists have hardly erred on the side of too great a preoccupation with modern life. In fact this volume is noteworthy as showing a more personal, a less literary, outlook on life.
The first Imagist Anthology contained the work of ten poets. Some were represented by a number of poems, some by only one. In this new volume only four of those poets are represented. But what is remarkable is that they are not all the one poem authors. On the contrary, Richard Aldington and H. D. had more poems in the first anthology than anyone else in the volume, yet here are Richard Aldington and H. D. subscribing to an arrangement which gives each poet approximately the same amount of space. “Also,” says the preface, “to avoid any appearance of precedence, they (the poets included) have been put in alphabetical order.” So art is to come before self-advertisement. Happy omen! With such ideals the group should go far. Six young poets with so much talent, devotion, and singleness of purpose, is a phenomenon to be noticed.
Perhaps this is the key to the “differences of taste and judgment” which have divorced these poets from the others of the first anthology. They go on to say that “growing tendencies are forcing them along different paths.” We can only guess at the tendencies, as the poems in this book show them, and it is not our business to probe farther into a schism which is touched upon so lightly and quietly in this admirable preface.
The six poets of this little anthology are: Richard Aldington, H. D., John Gould Fletcher, F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. It is quite easy to see why “mutual artistic sympathy” binds these young people together. But how extraordinarily individual they are, just the same! From the exquisite, gem-like poems of H. D., to the organ music of Amy Lowell in The Bombardment, with the graceful, tender, often humorous work of Richard Aldington and the tragic earnestness of D. H. Lawrence, set off by the rich imagination of John Gould Fletcher, and the poetic realism, touched with a charming intimateness, of F. S. Flint.
Richard Aldington’s contributions begin with Childhood, a study of a lonely little boy in a horribly dull English town. It is full of wistfulness, for the little boy is very real, and the detail is admirably managed. The little boy is shut up in the ugly town, like a chrysalis in a matchbox:
I hate that town; ...
There were always clouds, smoke, rain
In that dingy little valley.
It rained; it always rained.
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—
And then it was too late;
Everything’s too late after the first seven years.
That is very vivid. So, too, is the description of the contents of the large tin box in the attic. But Mr. Aldington never allows the descriptions to usurp the poem; he keeps them properly subordinated to his theme, the loneliness of the child.
Fine as this poem is, it seems more experimental than Mr. Aldington’s shorter work. Long poems require a different technique from short poems, and perhaps Mr. Aldington has not yet become quite master of it. It is in the short poems that he is so eminently successful.
The Poplar is an almost perfect poem of its kind. A complete “image,” and with that fine, poetic imagination which is the hall-mark of Mr. Aldington’s best work. What could be more beautiful than this:
I know that the white wind loves you,
Is always kissing you and turning up
The white lining of your green petticoat.
The sky darts through you like blue rain,
And the grey rain drips on your flanks
And loves you.
And I have seen the moon
Slip his silver penny into your pocket
As you straightened your hair;
And the white mist curling and hesitating
Like a bashful lover about your knees.
The Poplar is, on the whole, the best poem of Mr. Aldington’s in the book, but The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time runs it close. And here we have that divine gift of poetical humor which is another of Mr. Aldington’s rare qualities. Space alone prevents me from quoting it. But if I put these two first, where shall I put Round-Pond, with its sun “shining upon the water like a scattering of gold crocus-petals”?
Mr. Aldington has advanced in his art. In spite of the Faun and Lemures, he has sloughed off much of the Greek mannerism which marred his work in the first anthology. The training which his Greek studies have given him, is here put to excellent and individual use. One looks for much from him in the future.
H. D.’s poems are undoubtedly the most perfect in the book. There is nothing broad, nothing varied about her attempts, but what she tries for she succeeds in doing, absolutely. But in her work, too, we find a grateful change going on. The stage properties are no longer exclusively Greek. In fact, only one poem of her seven has anything obviously Greek about it. There is nothing specifically inartistic in this transplanting of the imagery of another place and time into one’s work. But when an English poet fills every poem full of Greek names and Greek devices, the result is intense weariness on the part of the reader. The poems may be beautiful, but this foreign flavour gives them a sort of chilling quality. One cannot help feeling that the poet is straining after a poetical effect, and that stands in the way of a complete sympathy between poet and reader.
H. D. is too much of an artist not to have realized this, and in these new poems (with the exception I have mentioned), there is no hint of direct preoccupation with the Greek in title or text. Yet the poems are so completely Greek that they might be translations from some newly-discovered papyrus. And still, in reading them, one feels that the sincerity of the artist is not to be questioned. Here is no striving after effect, but a complete saturation of a personality in a past mode. If one believed in reincarnations, one could say, and be certain, that H. D. was the reincarnation of some dead Greek singer. The Greek habit sits upon her as easily as a dress, loosened by constant wear. It is undubitably hers. To adopt another speech would be an unpardonable artificiality. Realizing this, and not making the mistake that so many reviewers have done in considering her a copyist, we must admit that H. D.’s poems attain a perfection which is not to be found in the work of any other modern poet. This garland of sea flowers is a masterpiece of pure beauty. I have only space to quote one of these poems, but it shall be quoted entire.