I don't believe in God
I do believe in avenging gods
Who plague us for sins we never sinned
But who avenge us.
That's why I'll never have a child,
Never shut up in a chrysalis in a match-box
For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.
Alfred Kreymborg is also very free, and only sometimes musical, but he hammers in his images with a vengeance. But of all the new Americans, Vachel Lindsay's jolly fantasies, with a slightly heard banjo accompaniment, are the most fascinating and least tiresome of all the New.
When one has wallowed for a time with the Imagists and carefully examined the vers librists, with the aid of a catalogue and explanations, one turns to the "Collected Poems" of Walter de la Mare. Come, now! Listen to this:
When slim Sophia mounts her horse
And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
She paces to.
Each narrow hoof is lifted high
Beneath the dark enclustering pines,
A silver ray within his bit
And bridle shines.
His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,
And streams upon the shadowy air,
The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,
His mistress' hair.
Her habit flows in darkness down,
Upon the stirrup rests her foot,
Her brow is lifted, as if earth
She heeded not.
'Tis silent in the avenue,
The sombre pines are mute of song,
The blue is dark, there moves no breeze
The boughs among.