All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses;
All night from their stalls, the importunate tramping and neighing.
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil,
Thou leadest, O God! all’s well with Thy troopers that follow!
“The Kings” and “The Perfect Hour” are other trumpet notes of Miss Guiney’s, illustrating the individuality of her point of view and the personality of her expression.
A poet’s words may be wind-blown feathers, or they may be flint-tipped arrows singing to a mark. The defect with much of present-day poetry is that it is not aimed, it is content to be a pretty flight of feathers, blown by the breath of fancy, and reaching no vital spot.
To test Miss Guiney’s marksmanship with words, one may separate her at once from the class who are flying airy illusions nowhither, for she concentrates, instead of diffusing, and
has, at the outset, a definite point in view. She works upon the arrow principle, but now and again glances from the mark. In such a poem as “The Recruit,” in “The Wild Ride,” or the “Saint George” quoted from, in her stirring poem “Sanctuary,” beginning,
High above Hate I dwell,