“‘What’s that?’ he said moodily.
“‘To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave,’ she said; ‘to be a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in ice, Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know itself.’”
There will be few who will not find delight in this fairy tale; and there shall be some, even, who will see beyond their illusions for a day and an hour and follow Martin Pippin where his fancy may lead.
W. E. H., JR.
Finders. By J. V. A. Weaver. (Alfred Knopf.)
Dramatic Legends and Other Poems. By Padraic Colum. (Macmillan.)
These two volumes are similar in intention and to a certain extent in method. Padraic Colum is attempting to communicate some of the nuances of Irish character and life, more especially as it is lived in the farms and villages of the countryside. Mr. Weaver, substituting the subway for the lonely roads, is performing the same service for America. Both poets use the language of the people with whom they are dealing, either because they believe it beautiful in itself or because it adds to their effect. The sole but enormous difference between the two men is in the measure of their success. Mr. Weaver, in choosing the American language, was admittedly under great disadvantage at the start. He was forced to assume a defensive attitude and as a result lost sight of most of the important things which constitute poetry. He seemed to think that the fact he was writing in a new language was sufficient, that he need use no fine discretion in the choice of his words in that language, or the manner in which those words were arranged. We imagine he is trying to write in metrical verse, although few of the lines have meter. In short, the novelty of his medium was too much for Mr. Weaver. He was so overcome by the thought of writing in American slang that he forgot the essential elements of poetry. Moreover, if Mr. Weaver fails in his language, there is little other interest to be found in the book. His themes are as sentimental and inconsequential as ever.
But Padraic Colum is primarily a poet and only incidentally the exponent of a new form of expression. He does not take the speech of his people as spoken in the dull hours, but only when it is lifted to eloquence by the vision and poignancy of rare moments. He is a master of the words in his language, their sounds, their colors, their subtle shadings. Furthermore, the things he writes about, however local they might at first appear, have always something permanent and universal in them—death, poverty, thwarted heroes and remembered queens. Perhaps the first lyric, To a Poet, is the most significant in the book, both in its relation to the author and in its expression of the ancient problem of the artist and his race. He is speaking of his own people:
“White swords they have yet, but red songs;
Place and lot they have lost—hear you not?