Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,
Morning, and in the crush
Under Paul's dome;
Under Paul's dial
You tighten your rein—
Only a moment,
And off once again;
Off to some city
Now blind in the womb,
Off to another
Ere that's in the tomb.
So it is too with this poet's imagination. It deals perpetually with concrete imagery—as for instance when it pictures Eve:
Picking a dish of sweet
Berries and plums to eat,
or presents her, when the serpent is softly calling her name, as
Wondering, listening,
Listening, wondering,
Eve with a berry
Half-way to her lips.
Moreover, the poet does not in the least mind winging his fancy in a homely phrase. He is not afraid of an idiomatic touch, nor of pithy, vigorous words. His conception is vivid enough to bear rigorous treatment; and in the same poem, "Eve," the serpent is found plotting the fall of humanity in these terms:
Now to get even and
Humble proud heaven and
Now was the moment or
Never at all.
And when his wiles have been successful, Eve's feathered comrades, Titmouse and Jenny Wren, make an indignant 'clatter':
How the birds rated him,
How they all hated him!
How they all pitied
Poor motherless Eve!