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POETRY: A AIagazine of Yerse

point, derivative plot, becomes his strongestwith the

crowd, althoughMr. Phillips took his plots fromold
legend,whileMr. Masefield takeshis fromcurrentpopu
lar convention. Derived plot temptsalmost inevitably
to derived style, and any suggestionof an old familiar
tune.helpswith thecrowd.
POETRYhas opened itshospitabledoor toMr. Mase
field'sadmirersand detractors,presentingin each case
the extremeopinion. Meantime, to themore moderate
view, thispoet seems to be in danger, and TheDaffoddl
Fields is thedangersign. Here his tasteforpopularmelo
drama decoys him into a plot so absurd that it utterly
destroys the poem. And his allegiance to it leaves him
in no mood for such stirringorgan music as that long
descriptionof the ten-days' storm at sea which is the
best ofDauber.
In TheDaffodilFields thispoet, likeMr. Phillips inhis
laterplays, ismerely indulginghisweaknesses.
H. M.

POETIC PROSE AND VERS LIBRE

The essentialdifferencebetween prose and poetry is

in the quality of the rhythmicphrase. The metric
paraphraseof one ofOscar Wilde's prose poems, recently
published in a Chicago paper, gave merely a typograph
ical semblance of poetry. Any attempt to turn the
followingpoem intoprose by omittingthe line divisions
would prove unsuccessful.
[70
 Poetic Prose and Vers Libre
THE POET
Out of the deep and the dark,
A sparkling mystery,a shape,
Somethingperfect,
Comes like the stir.of theday:
One whose breath is an odour,
Whose eyes show the road to stars,
The breeze inhis face,
The gloryofHeaven on his back.
He steps likea visionhung in air,
Diffusingthepassion ofEternity;
His abode is the sunlightofmorn,
The music of eve his speech:
In his sight,
One shall turnfromthedust of thegrave,
And move upward to thewoodland.
Yone Noguchi

Prose rhythmsdifferfrompoetic rhythmsaccording

to the inherent,scientificdivisionsof the rhythmic
wave
lengths. Those of poetry rise to a more concentrative
stress, regularlyor irregularlyrecurrent,and by the
law of balance, make strenuousdemand on the poetic
interval,thepause. The rhythmof prose.has less range
of rise and fall. Its periodicwaves cling ratherclosely
to the horizontal level, thoughpermittingwithin this
range a great amount of subtle variation. It is inter
esting,in thisconnection,tocall attentionto theextremely
limitedscope of conventionalEnglish prosody. A com
parison of iambic pentameter lines taken fromShakes
peare, Milton, Keats, Swinburne, and William Butler
Yeats would reveal how inadequate is the old system
of digitalmensuration.
[ 711
POETRY: A Magazine of J%erse

Robert Louis Stevensonwas one of the firstto call

attentionto therhythmic phrasedivisionofpoetry. Tak
inga linefrom Shakespeare he foundthat,apart fromthe
fiveminor stressedsyllablesof the line, therewere three
major crestsmarking the poetic phrase, and that these
were themore importantof the two, since around these
theminor crestswere grouped in sequence. The musical
analogy to the octave is suggestive,and far less sterile
than the old system of prosody,which is more often
proved false than true.
A. C. II.

REVIEWS

A Boy's Will, by Robert Frost,David Nutt, London

I had withdrawn in forest,and my song
Was swalloweduIp in leaves.

There is another personality in the realmof vers e

anotherAmerican, found,as usual, on this side of the
water,byanEnglishpublisherlongknown as a loverofgood
letters. David Nutt publishesat his own expenseA Boy's
Will, byRobert Frost, the latterhavingbeen longscorned
by the "greatAmerican editors." It is theold story.
Mr. Frost's book is a littleraw,and has initanumberof
underneaththem it has the tangof theNew
infelicities;
Hampshire woods, and it has just this utter sincerity.
It is not post-Miltonic or post-Swinburnianor posf
Kiplonian. This man has the good sense to speak
naturally and to paint the thing, the thingas he sees
[ 72 ]