Fifth edition
"... In the poem which gave its name to a previous volume, 'Sword Blades and Poppy Seed,' Miss Lowell uttered her Credo with rare sincerity and passion. Not since Elizabeth Barrett's 'Vision of Poets' has there been such a confession of faith in the mission of poetry, such a stern compulsion of dedication laid upon the poet. And in her latest work we find proof that she has lived according to her confession and her dedication with a singleness of purpose seldom encountered in our fluid time.
"'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a book greatly and strenuously imagined.... Miss Lowell is a great romantic.... She belongs to the few who, in every generation, feel that poetry is a high calling, and who press undeviatingly toward the mark. They are few, and they are frequently lonely, but they lead."—New York Times Book Review.
"... 'The Hammers' is a really thrilling piece of work; the skill with which it is divided into different moods and motifs is something more than a tour de force. The way the different hammers are characterized and given voice, the varying music wrung from them (from the ponderous banging of the hammers at the building of the 'Bellerophon' to their light tapping as they pick off the letters of Napoleon's victories on the arch of the Place du Carrousel), the emphasis with which they reveal a whole period—these are the things one sees rarely."—Louis Untermeyer in the Chicago Evening Post.
"... Beautiful ... poetry as authentic as any we know. It is individual, innocent of echo and imitation, with the uniqueness that comes of personal genius.... Miss Lowell strives to get into words the effects of the painter's palette and the musician's score. And life withal. Does she succeed? I should say she does, and the first poem in this book, 'Patterns,' is a brilliant, æsthetic achievement in a combination of story, imagism, and symbolism. 'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a volume that contains beautiful poetry for all readers who have the root of the matter in them."—Reedy's Mirror, St. Louis.
"The most original of all the young American writers of to-day."—The New Age, London.
"Brilliant is the term for 'Men, Women, and Ghosts'—praise which holds good when the book is put to the test of a third reading."—Edward Garnett in The Atlantic Monthly.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
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