But one need not linger with these. As we face the other way one poem outranks the rest and ennobles the book. This is The Renascence, said to be by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who, according to the editor, is only twenty years old. This poem is the daring flight of a wide-winged imagination, and the art of it, though not faultless, is strong enough to carry us through keen emotions of joy and agony to a climax of spiritual serenity. Though marred by the last twelve lines, which should be struck out for stating the thesis too explicitly, this poem arouses high hopes of its youthful author.
Among the other live poems—trees, saplings or flowers—are various species. Kisa-Gotami, by Arthur Davison Ficke, tells its familiar story of the Buddha in stately cadences which sustain the beauty of the tale. Jetsam, a "Titanic" elegy by Herman Montagu Donner, carries the dread and dangerous subject without violating its terrors and sanctities with false sentiment or light rhythm. Ridgeley Torrence's Ritual for a Funeral is less sure of its ground, sometimes escaping into vapors, but on the whole noble in feeling and flute-like in cadence. Mrs. Conkling's bird ode has now and then an airy delicacy, and Edith Wyatt's City Swallow gives the emotion of flight above the roofs and smoke of a modern town.
Of the shorter poems who could ignore Harry Kemp's noble lyric dialogue, I Sing the Battle; The Forgotten Soul by Margaret Widdemer, Selma, by Willard H. Wright; Comrades by Fannie Stearns Davis, or Nicholas Vachel Lindsay's tribute to O. Henry, a more vital elegy than Mr. Sterling's? These are all simple and sincere—straight modern talk which rises into song without the aid of worn-out phrases. Paternity, by William Rose Benét, To My Vagrant Love, by Elouise Briton, and Dedication, by Pauline Florence Brower, are delicate expressions of intimate emotion; and Martin, by Joyce Kilmer, touches with grace a lighter subject.
To have gathered such as these together is perhaps enough, but more may be reasonably demanded. As a whole the collection, like the prizes, is too academic; Georgian and Victorian standards are too much in evidence. The ambition of The Lyric Year is to be "an annual Salon of American poetry;" to this end poets and their publishers are invited to contribute gratis the best poems of the year, without hope of reward other than the three prizes. That so many responded to the call, freely submitting their works to anonymous judges, shows how eager is the hitherto unfriended American muse to seize any helping hand.
However, if this annual is to speak with any authority as a Salon, it should take a few lessons from art exhibitions. Mr. Earle's position as donor, editor and judge, is as if Mr. Carnegie should act as hanging committee at the Pittsburg show, and help select the prize-winners. And Messrs. Earle, Braithwaite and Wheeler, this year's jury of awards, are not, even though all have written verse, poets of recognized distinction in the sense that Messrs. Chase, Alexander, Hassam, Duveneck, and other jurymen in our various American Salons, are distinguished painters.
In these facts lie the present weaknesses of The Lyric Year. However, the remedy for them is easy and may be applied in future issues. Meantime the venture is to be welcomed; at last someone, somewhere, is trying to do something for the encouragement of the art in America. Poetry, which is embarked in the same adventure, rejoices in companionship.
H. M.
