The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century Part 16

He was born in Maine, on the twenty-second of December, 1869, and studied at Harvard University. In 1896 he published two poems, _The Torrent_ and _The Night Before;_ these were included the next year in a volume called _The Children of the Night._ His successive books of verse are _Captain Craig,_ 1902; _The Town Down the River,_ 1910; _The Man Against the Sky,_ 1916; _Merlin,_ 1917; and he has printed two plays, of which _Van Zorn_ (1914) despite its chilling reception, is exceedingly good.

Mr. Robinson is not only one of our best known American contemporary poets, but is a leader and recognized as such. Many write verses today because the climate is so favourable to the Muse's somewhat delicate health. But if Mr. Robinson is not a germinal writer, he is at all events a precursor of the modern advance. The year 1896 was not opportune for a venture in verse, but the Gardiner poet has never cared to be in the rearward of a fas.h.i.+on. The two poems that he produced that year he has since surpa.s.sed, but they clearly demonstrated his right to live and to be heard.

The prologue to the 1897 volume contained his platform, which, so far as I know, he has never seen cause to change. Despite the t.i.tle, he is not an infant crying in the night; he is a full-grown man, whose voice of resonant hope and faith is heard in the darkness. His chief reason for believing in G.o.d is that it is more sensible to believe in Him than not to believe. His religion, like his art, is founded on common sense. Everything that he writes, whether in drama, in lyrics, or in prose criticism, is eminently rational.

There is one creed, and only one, That glorifies G.o.d's excellence; So cherish, that His will be done, The common creed of common sense.

It is the crimson, not the grey, That charms the twilight of all time; It is the promise of the day That makes the starry sky sublime.

It is the faith within the fear That holds us to the life we curse;-- So let us in ourselves revere The Self which is the Universe!

Let us, the Children of the Night, Put off the cloak that hides the scar!

Let us be Children of the Light, And tell the ages what we are!

This creed is repeated in the sonnet _Credo_, later in the same volume, which also contains those rather striking portraits of individuals, of which the most impressive is _Richard Cory_. More than one critic has observed that these dry sketches are in a way forerunners of the _Spoon River Anthology_.

The next book, _Captain Craig_, rather disappointed the eager expectations of the poet's admirers; like Carlyle's Frederick, the man finally turns out to be not anywhere near worth the intellectual energy expended on him. Yet this volume contained what is on the whole, Mr. Robinson's masterpiece--_Isaac and Archibald_. We are given a striking picture of these old men, and I suppose one reason why we recognize the merit of this poem so much more clearly than we did sixteen years ago, is because this particular kind of character-a.n.a.lysis was not in demand at that time.

The figure of the man against the sky, which gives the name to the work published in 1916, does not appear, strictly speaking, till the end of the book. Yet in reality the first poem, _Flammonde_, is the man against the sky-line, who looms up biggest of all in his town as we look back. This fable teaches us to appreciate the unappreciated.

Mr. Robinson's latest volume, _Merlin_, may safely be neglected by students of his work. It adds nothing to his reputation, and seems uncharacteristic. I can find little in it except diluted Tennyson, and it won't do to dilute Tennyson. One might almost as well try to polish him. It is of course possible that Mr. Robinson wished to try something in a romantic vein; but it is not his vein. He excels in the clear presentment of character; in pith; in sharp outline; in solid, masculine effort; his voice is baritone rather than tenor.

To me his poetry is valuable for its moral stimulus; for its unadorned honesty and sincerity; for its clear rather than warm singing. He is an excellent draughtsman; everything that he has done has beauty of line; anything pretentious is to him abhorrent. He is more map-maker than painter. He is of course more than a maker of maps. He has drawn many an intricate and accurate chart of the deeps and shallows of the human soul.

CHAPTER VIII

VACHEL LINDSAY AND ROBERT FROST

Lindsay the Cymbalist--first impression--Harriet Monroe's Magazine--training in art--the long vagabond tramps--correct order of his works--his drawings--the "Poem Game"--_The Congo_--_General William Booth_--wide sweep of his imagination--sudden contrasts in sound--his prose works--his interest in moving pictures--an apostle of democracy--a wandering minstrel--his vitality--a primary man--art plus morality--his geniality--a poet and a missionary--his fearlessness--Robert Frost--the poet of New England--his paradoxical birth--his education--his career in England--his experiences on a farm--his theory of the spoken word--an out-door poet--not a singer--lack of range--interpreter as well as observer--pure realism--rural tragedies--centrifugal force--men and women--suspense--the building of a poem--the pleasure of recognition--his sincerity--his truthfulness.

"But you--you can help so much more. You can help spiritually.

You can help to shape things, give form and thought and poignancy to the most matter-of-fact existence; show people how to think and live and appreciate beauty. What does it matter if some of them jeer at you, or trample on your work? What matters is that those for whom your message is intended will know you by your work."

--STACY AUMONIER, _Just Outside_.

Of all living Americans who have contributed to the advance of English poetry in the twentieth century, no one has given more both as prophet and priest than Vachel Lindsay. His poems are notable for originality, pictorial beauty, and thrilling music. He belongs to no modern school, but is doing his best to found one; and when I think of his love of a loud noise, I call him a Cymbalist.

Yet when I use the word _noise_ to describe his verse, I use it not only in its present, but in its earlier meaning, as when Edmund Waller saluted Chloris with

While I listen to thy voice, Chloris! I feel my life decay; That powerful noise Calls my flitting soul away.

This use of the word, meaning an agreeable, harmonious sound, was current from Chaucer to Coleridge.

My first acquaintance with Mr. Lindsay's poetry began with a masterpiece, _General William Booth Enters into Heaven_. Early in the year 1913, before I had become a subscriber to Harriet Monroe's _Poetry_, I found among the clippings in the back of a copy of the _Independent_ this extraordinary burst of music. I carried it in my pocket for a year. Nothing since Francis Thompson's _In No Strange Land_ had given me such a spinal chill. Later I learned that it had appeared for the first time in the issue of _Poetry_ for January, 1913. All lovers of verse owe a debt of grat.i.tude to Miss Monroe for bringing the new poet to the attention of the public; and all students of contemporary movements in metre ought to subscribe to her monthly magazine; the numbers naturally vary in value, but almost any one may contain a "find"; as I discovered to my pleasure in reading _Niagara_ in the summer of 1917.

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay--Vachel rimes with Rachel--was born at Springfield, Illinois--which rimes with boy--on the tenth of November, 1879. His pen name omits the Nicholas. For three years he was a student at Hiram College in Ohio, and for five years an art student, first at Chicago, and then at New York. This brings us to the year 1905. From that year until 1910 he drew strange pictures, lectured on various subjects, and wrote defiant and peculiar "bulletins." At the same time he became a tramp, making long pilgrimages afoot in 1906 through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and in 1908 he invaded in a like manner some of the Northern and Eastern States. These wanderings are described with vigour, vivacity, and contagious good humour in his book called _A Handy Guide for Beggars_. His wallet contained nothing but printed leaflets--his poems--which he exchanged for bed and board. He was the Evangelist of Beauty, preaching his gospel everywhere by reciting his verses. In the summer of 1912 he walked from Illinois to New Mexico.

To understand his development, one should read his books not according to the dates of formal publication, but in the following order: _A Handy Guide for Beggars_, _Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_, _The Art of the Moving Picture_--these three being mainly in prose. Then one is ready for the three volumes of poetry, _General William Booth Enters into Heaven_ (1913), _The Congo_ (1914), and _The Chinese Nightingale_ (1917). Another prose work is well under way, _The Golden Book of Springfield_, concerning which Mr. Lindsay tells me, "The actual Golden Book is a secular testament about Springfield, to be given to the city in 2018, from a mysterious source. My volume is a hypothetical forecast of the times of 2018, as well as of the Golden Book. Frankly the Lindsay the reviewers know came nearer to existing twelve years ago than today, my ma.n.u.scripts are so far behind my notes. And a thing that has helped in this is that through changing publishers, etc., my first prose book is called my latest. If you want my ideas in order, a.s.sume the writer of the _Handy Guide for Beggars_ is just out of college, of _Adventures While Preaching_ beginning in the thirties, and _the Art of the Moving Picture_ half-way through the thirties.

The Moving Picture book in the last half embodies my main social ideas of two years ago. In mood and method, you will find _The Golden Book of Springfield_ a direct descendant of the general social and religious philosophy which I crowded into the photoplay book whether it belonged there or not. I hope you will do me the favour and honour to set my work in this order in your mind, for many of my small public still think _A Handy Guide for Beggars_ the keynote of my present work. But it was really my first wild dash."

The above letter was written 8 August, 1917.

Like many creative writers, Mr. Lindsay is an artist not only with the pen, but with the pencil. He has made drawings since childhood; drawing and writing still divide his time and energy. The first impression one receives from the pictures is like that produced by the poems--strangeness. The best have that Baconian element of strangeness in the proportion which gives the final touch to beauty; the worst are merely bizarre. He says, "My claim for them is that while laboured and struggling in execution, they represent a study of Egyptian hieroglyphics and j.a.panese art, two most orthodox origins for art, and have no relation whatever to cubism, post-impressionism, or futurism.... I have been very fond of Swinburne all my life, and I should say my drawing is nearer to his ornate mood than any of my writing has been. But that is a matter for your judgment." I find his pictures so interesting that I earnestly hope he will some day publish a large collection of them in a separate volume.

One of his latest developments is the idea of the _Poem Game_, which is elaborated with interesting poetic ill.u.s.trations in the volume called _The Chinese Nightingale_. In giving his directions and suggestions in the latter part of this book, he remarks, "The present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager. The Poem Game idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs, its further development to be on their own initiative. Informal parties might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. The whole might be worked out in the spirit in which children play King William was King James's Son, London Bridge.... The main revolution necessary for dancing improvisers, who would go a longer way with the Poem Game idea is to shake off the Isadora Duncan and the Russian precedents for a while, and abolish the orchestra and piano, replacing all these with the natural meaning and cadences of English speech. The work would come closer to acting than dancing is now conceived."

Here is a good opportunity for house parties, in the intervals of Red Cross activities; and at the University of Chicago, 15 February, 1918, _The Chinese Nightingale_ was given with a full chorus of twelve girls, selected for their speaking voices. From the testimony of one of the professors at the university, it is clear that the performance was a success, realizing something of Mr. Lindsay's idea of the union of the arts, with Poetry at the centre.

Among the games given in verse by the author in the latter part of _The Chinese Nightingale_ volume is one called _The Potatoes'

Dance_, which appears to me to approach most closely to the original purpose. It is certainly a jolly poem. But whether these games are played by laughing choruses of youth or only by the firelight in the fancy of a solitary reader, the validity of Vachel Lindsay's claim to the t.i.tle of Poet may be settled at once by witnessing the transformation of a filthy rumhole into a sunlit forest. As Edmond Rostand looked at a dunghill, and saw the vision Of Chantecler, so Vachel Lindsay looked at some drunken n.i.g.g.e.rs and saw the vision of the Congo.

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM, With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision, I could not turn from their revel in derision.

THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.

Then along that river bank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in flies; Then I heard the boom of the blood-l.u.s.t song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong....

A negro fairyland swung into view, A minstrel river Where dreams come true.

The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky.

The inlaid porches and cas.e.m.e.nts shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone....

Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes, Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Canes with a brilliant lacquer s.h.i.+ne, And tall silk hats that were red as wine.

And they pranced with their b.u.t.terfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the ja.s.samine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black-feet.

There are those who call this nonsense and its author a mountebank. I call it poetry and its author a poet. You never heard anything like it before; but do not be afraid of your own enjoyment. Read it aloud a dozen times, and you, too will hear roaring, epic music, and you will see the mighty, golden river cutting through the forest.

I do not know how many towns I have visited where I have heard "What do you think of Vachel Lindsay? He was here last month and recited his verses. Most of his audience were puzzled." Yet they remembered him.

What would have happened if I had asked them to give me a brief synopsis of the lecture they heard yesterday on "The Message of John Ruskin"? Fear not, little flock. Vachel Lindsay is an authentic wandering minstrel. The fine phrases you heard yesterday were like snow upon the desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, is gone.

_General William Booth Enters into Heaven_--with the accompanying instruments, which blare out from the printed page--is a sublime interpretation of one of the varieties of religious experience. Two works of genius have been written about the Salvation Army--_Major Barbara_ and _General William Booth Enters into Heaven_. But _Major Barbara_, with its almost appalling cleverness--Granville Barker says the second act is the finest thing Shaw ever composed--is written, after all, from the seat of the scornful, like a metropolitan reporter at a Gospel tent; Mr. Lindsay's poem is written from the inside, from the very heart of the mystery. It is interpretation, not description. "Booth was blind," says Mr. Lindsay; "all reformers are blind." One must in turn be blind to many obvious things, blind to ridicule, blind to criticism, blind to the wisdom of this world, if one would understand a phenomenon like General Booth.

Booth led boldly with his big ba.s.s drum-- (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)....

Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank, Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale-- Minds still pa.s.sion-ridden, soul-powers frail:-- Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, Unwashed legions with the ways of Death-- (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)....

And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer He saw his Master thro' the flag-filled air.

Christ came gently with a robe and crown For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.

He saw King Jesus. They were face to face, And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

Dante and Milton were more successful in making pictures of h.e.l.l than of heaven--no one has ever made a common conception of heaven more permanently vivid than in this poem. See how amid the welter of crowds and the deafening crash of drums and banjos the individual faces stand out in the golden light.

Big-voiced la.s.sies made their banjos bang, Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang....

Bull-necked convicts with that land make free...

The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world....

Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!

Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean, Rulers of empires, and of forests green!

It is a pictorial, musical, and spiritual masterpiece. I am not afraid to call it a spiritual masterpiece; for to any one who reads it as we should read all true poetry, with an unconditional surrender to its magic, General William Booth and his horde will not be the only persons present who will enter into heaven.