But at the falling of the tide The golden birds still sing and gleam. The Atlanteans have not died, Immortal things still give us dream.
The dream that fires man's heart to make, To build, to do, to sing or say A beauty Death can never take, An Adam from the crumbled clay.
Wonderful, wonderful it is that in the hearing of our own generation, one great voice after another has called and sung to the world from the midst of the sea-mists of England. From the poetry of Swinburne, of Rudyard Kipling, of John Masefield immortal things still give us dream.
Among the poems of this new book, more than one appear as incarnations of the beauty Death can never take. Of these, perhaps, none is more characteristic of the poet, nor will any more fittingly evince his volume's quality than Truth.
Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail, Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.
Life's city ways are dark, Men mutter by, the wells Of the great waters moan. O death, O sea, O tide, The waters moan like bells. No light, no mark, The soul goes out alone On seas unknown.
Stripped of all purple robes, Stripped of all golden lies, I will not be afraid. Truth will preserve through death; Perhaps the stars will rise, The stars like globes. The ship my striving made May see night fade.
Edith Wyatt
Présences, par P. J. Jouve: Georges Crès, Paris.
I take pleasure in welcoming, in Monsieur Jouve, a contemporary. He writes the new jargon and I have not the slightest doubt that he is a poet.