Thought.—Helen Jackson is, perhaps, the most gifted of American women poets. Emily Dickinson is more imaginative, but her utter scorn of form in composition makes her work, unique as it is, less satisfying. Mrs. Jackson was a favorite with Emerson, and he is said to have liked best among her poems this sonnet, "Thought."
On a Bust of Dante.—Parsons, one of the best of American poets, is one of the most neglected. Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of Dante" the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254).
The Port of Skips.—In a recent review of American Literature in the London Athæneum occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller."
Evening Song.—No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality.
A Woman's Thought.—The striking reality and directness of this lyric, its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,—these are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one of the most remarkable poems in the book.
The White Jessamine.—One of the most charming of Father Tabb's lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he—
"From the sterile womb of stone,
Raised children unto God."
Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship; it is more thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main, a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert.
The Battle-field.—Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message, more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of phrase,—she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) an intense imagination.
Fertility.—This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title of "A Prelude."