Beneath arched brows his deep eyes twinkling bright,
Good dragoman (and eke good Mussulman)
And cried unto him, “May your day be white!”
“And yours, howadji!” came his swift reply,
A smile illumining the words thereof,
(All men are poets ’neath that kindling sky),
“As white as are the thoughts of her you love!”
The Oriental poems cover not only a varied range of subject, but pass in review nearly every important city and shrine in the length and breadth of that storied land, making poetical footnotes to one’s history and filling his memory with pictures.
The second source of Mr. Scollard’s inspiration, doubtless the first in point of time, is his delight in nature. Here, too, the objective side predominates. He is footfaring, with every sense alert to see, to hear, and to enjoy; he slips the world of men as a leash and becomes the fetterless comrade of the vagrant things of earth. He stops to do no philosophizing by the way,—the analogies, the laws, the evolving purposes of nature, are rarely touched upon in his verse; nor is he one of the poet-naturalists, intent to observe and record with infinite fidelity the fact, with its mystic spirit of beauty. He finds in the obvious side of nature such glamour and
magic as suffice for inspiration and delight; and it is this side which enthralls him almost wholly. In other words, his nature vision is rather outlook than insight, though always sympathetic in fancy and delicate in touch. He seems to see only the gladness in the season’s phases, and greets white-shrouded winter with all the ardor that he would bestow upon flower-decked June.