THOMAS BUCHANAN READ I never heard Read say a word that would indicate that he was a painter, nor-now I come to think of it-a word that would indicate that he was a poet. He might not have cared for his paintings but he must have cared for his poetry". ΧΙ Of his poetry, one critic says: It has many faults and many excellencies. Its chiefest fault is a too frequent use of pretty conceits, fanciful similitudes; its chiefest excellence a dainty picturesqueness. Daintiness in some form or other, in language or thought, in the grouping of objects, -is a marked feature of all Read's poetry. Were I to say what seems to me the weakest point of Read's poetry, and what I would like to * * Characteristics of his Poetry 73 have weeded out of it, it would be fancy,—that seeming help, but real drawback to its beauty. Beauty is always intact in itself-a perfect wholea spiritual thing; fancy is never more than a part, and always belongs to the outward, and consequently diminishes beauty whenever associated with it1. XII Mr. Stoddard says: He wrote from instinct and impulse and not from knowledge, but he wrote easily and carelessly. Attracted to the surface of things he reproduced their surfaces, content with what they revealed, careless of what they concealed, moved by fancy rather than feeling, his verse was often smothered by the fancies with which it was bestrown. The predominance of the fanciful over the imaginative was the poetic vice of the period here, and Read revelled in it, carried away by the example of his master, Longfellow, who was never so much himself as when he was indulging in a profusion of similes. He is not at his best in his ambitious poems, in which the strain of prolonged effort is visible, but in his short swallow-flights, which are graceful and melodious and altogether tender and lovely. I would rather have written the song of his beginning "Give me the juice of the honey fruit" than anything I remember in American poetry. It is as perfect as the best poems of Lovelace or Suckling or Carew, and any poet great or small might be glad to have written it2. * * * XIII A SONG Bring me the juice of the honey fruit, And bring me only such as grew Where fairest maidens tend the bowers, And only fed by rain and dew Which first had bathed a bank of flowers. They must have hung on spicy trees So that the virtues which belong To flowers may therein tasted be, For I would wake that string for thee Which hath too long in silence hung, And sweeter than all else should be The song which in thy praise is sung3. XIV Another poem of his that is often quoted shows the power of description in which he excelled. Two Typical Poems DRIFTING My soul to-day Is far away, Sailing the Vesuvian Bay; My wingéd boat, A bird afloat, Swims round the purple peaks remote :- It sails and seeks Blue inlets and their crystal creeks, A duplicated golden glow. Far, vague, and dim, The mountains swim; While on Vesuvius' misty brim, The gray smoke stands O'erlooking the volcanic lands. Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles; And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates. I heed not, if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff;- My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise. 75 Under the walls Where swells and falls The Bay's deep breast at intervals Blown softly by, A cloud upon this liquid sky. The day, so mild, Is heaven's own child, With Earth and Ocean reconciled ;- Around me steal Are murmuring to the murmuring keel. Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail; The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence. With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies,- She glows and shines Among her future oil and wines. Her children, hid The cliffs amid, Are gambolling with the gambolling kid; Or down the walls, With tipsy calls, Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls. |