man on the subject of modern English poetry. Other critics have given us purple patches of such discussion; Mr. Stedman alone has woven a continuous web. And his critical writing combines, in nice adjustment, the two elements that are usually represented by different men. It is at once academic in its deference to the recognized æsthetic standards, and subjective in its revelation of the play of poetry upon a receptive and sympathetic mind,- thus escaping formalism upon the one hand, and inconclusiveness upon the other. It need hardly be added that the mind thus trained in both the composition and the criticism of literature brings almost ideal qualifications to the tasks of editor and anthologist, and that Mr. Stedman's work in these fields is no unimportant part of his great services to literature. A more indirect service to the same cause may be made the subject of this closing word. The younger generation of American writers owe Mr. Stedman a debt that is not wholly accounted for by the enumeration of his books. Busy as the exigencies of his twofold life have kept him, he has never been too busy to extend sympathy and the helping hand of personal criticism and counsel to those who have come to him for aid. He has thus given of himself so freely and so generously that it must have proved in the aggregate a heavy tax upon his energies. But he has the reward of knowing that the tribute paid him as poet and critic by his readers is, to an exceptional degree, mingled with the tribute of the personal gratitude that they feel for him as counselor and friend. [All the following poems are copyrighted, and are printed here by permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers.] L THE HAND OF LINCOLN OOK on this cast, and know the hand What Lincoln was,-how large of mold; The man who sped the woodman's team, This was the hand that knew to swing The axe, since thus would Freedom train Her son,—and made the forest ring, Firm hand, that loftier office took, A conscious leader's will obeyed, And when men sought his word and look, With steadfast might the gathering swayed. No courtier's, toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; A chief's, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings of earth were mute! The hand of Anak, sinewed strong, The fingers that on greatness clutch; Yet, lo! the marks their lines along Of one who strove and suffered much. For here in knotted cord and vein I trace the varying chart of years; Again I see the patient brow That palm erewhile was wont to press; Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, Built up from yon large hand, appears; A type that Nature wills to plan But once in all a people's years. What better than this voiceless cast Since through its living semblance passed "Sweet players on the cithern strings, To have you with me therę below," - ARIEL IN MEMORY OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF AUGUST, A. D. 1792 ERT thou on earth to-day, immortal one, WERT How wouldst thou, in the starlight of thine eld, The likeness of that morntide look upon Which men beheld? How might it move thee, imaged in time's glass, Unchanged the face of one who slept Too soon, yet molders not, though seasons come and pass? Has Death a wont to stay the soul no less? And art thou still what SHELLEY was erewhile?— A feeling born of music's restlessness A child's swift smile Between its sobs—a wandering mist that rose The Euganéan hills among; Thy voice, a wind-harp's strain in some enchanted close? Thyself the wild west wind, O boy divine, Thou fain wouldst be the spirit which in its breath Wooes yet the seaward ilex and the pine That wept thy death? Or art thou still the incarnate child of song Who gazed, as if astray From some uncharted stellar way, With eyes of wonder at our world of grief and wrong? Yet thou wast Nature's prodigal; the last Unto whose lips her beauteous mouth she bent An instant, ere thy kinsmen, fading fast, Their lorn way went. What though the faun and oread had fled? A tenantry thine own, Peopling their leafy coverts lone, With thee still dwelt as when sweet Fancy was not dead; Not dead as now, when we the visionless, In Nature's alchemy more woeful wise, Not ours to parley with the whispering June, The shapes that lurk in solitude, The cloud, the mounting lark, the wan and waning moon. For thee the last time Hellas tipped her hills To thee alone. Such rapture thine, and the supremer gift Which can the minstrel raise Above the myrtle and the bays, To watch the sea of pain whereon our galleys drift. Therefrom arose with thee that lyric cry, Sad cadence of the disillusioned soul Wild requiem of the heart whose vibratings, Beat through the century's dying years, [wings. While for one more dark round the old Earth plumes her No answer came to thee; from ether fell No voice, no radiant beam: and in thy youth How were it else, when still the oracle Withholds its truth? We sit in judgment; we above thy page Pale heralds, sped too soon to see The slaves of air and light obeyed afar |
