In the deep stillness of his heart convened
The ghosts of all his slain.
Leaves, and ephemera, and stars of earth,
And fugitives of grass,—
White spirits loosed from bonds of mortal birth,
He drew them on the glass.
Fancies as exquisite as this bespeak the true poet. “The Trout Brook” and “The Solitary Woodsman” are other inspirations as individual.
Mr. Roberts’ fifth volume, New York Nocturnes, as its name implies, was a decided departure from his former work, showing his versatility, but what is more to the purpose, his recognition of the dramatic element, the human, vital poetry in the babel of the streets. One could wish that the Nocturnes penetrated more profoundly into the varied phases of life in the great seething city, that, in short, they sounded other deeps than those of love; but Mr. Roberts has succeeded in conveying that sense of isolation in a throng, that heavy loneliness and reaction, throwing one back upon
his own spiritual personality, which belongs to the bewildering city night, and from which the finer companionships of love arise as a refuge and need.
The Nocturnes have the city’s over-soul incarnate in them; for in the last analysis, the commerce, the art, the ambition, the strife, the defeat, that one may term the city’s life, are but as hands and feet to minister to the spirit of love. The first of the Nocturnes suggests this: