KENTUCKY POEMS

CONTENTS


PROLOGUE

FOREST AND FIELD

SUMMER

TO SORROW

NIGHT

A FALLEN BEECH

A TWILIGHT MOTH

THE GRASSHOPPER

BEFORE THE RAIN

AFTER RAIN

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

OCTOBER

INDIAN SUMMER

ALONG THE OHIO

A COIGN OF THE FOREST

CREOLE SERENADE

WILL O' THE WISPS

THE TOLLMAN'S DAUGHTER

THE BOY COLUMBUS

SONG OF THE ELF

THE OLD INN

THE MILL-WATER

THE DREAM

SPRING TWILIGHT

A SLEET-STORM IN MAY

UNREQUITED

THE HEART O' SPRING

'A BROKEN RAINBOW ON THE SKIES OF MAY'

ORGIE

REVERIE

LETHE

DIONYSIA

THE NAIAD

THE LIMNAD

INTIMATIONS

BEFORE THE TEMPLE

ANTHEM OF DAWN

AT THE LANE'S END

THE FARMSTEAD

A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS

THE FEUD

LYNCHERS

DEAD MAN'S RUN

AUGUST

THE BUSH-SPARROW

QUIET

MUSIC

THE PURPLE VALLEYS

A DREAM SHAPE

THE OLD BARN

THE WOOD WITCH

AT SUNSET

MAY

RAIN

TO FALL

SUNSET IN AUTUMN

THE HILLS

CONTENT

HEART OF MY HEART

OCTOBER

MYTH AND ROMANCE

GENIUS LOCI

DISCOVERY

THE OLD SPRING

THE FOREST SPRING

TRANSMUTATION

DEAD CITIES

FROST

A NIGHT IN JUNE

THE DREAMER

WINTER

MID-WINTER

SPRING

TRANSFORMATION

RESPONSE

THE SWASHBUCKLER

SIMULACRA

CAVERNS

THE BLUE BIRD

QUATRAINS

ADVENTURERS

EPILOGUE




INTRODUCTION


Since the disappearance of the latest survivors of that graceful and
somewhat academic school of poets who ruled American literature so long
from the shores of Massachusetts, serious poetry in the United States
seems to have been passing through a crisis of languor. Perhaps there is
no country on the civilised globe where, in theory, verse is treated
with more respect and, in practice, with a greater lack of grave
consideration than America. No conjecture as to the reason of this must
be attempted here, further than to suggest that the extreme value set
upon sharpness, ingenuity and rapid mobility is obviously calculated to
depreciate and to condemn the quiet practice of the most meditative of
the arts. Hence we find that it is what is called 'humorous' verse which
is mainly in fashion on the western side of the Atlantic. Those rhymes
are most warmly welcomed which play the most preposterous tricks with
language, which dazzle by the most mountebank swiftness of turn, and
which depend most for their effect upon paradox and the negation of
sober thought. It is probable that the diseased craving for what is
'smart,' 'snappy' and wide-awake, and the impulse to see everything
foreshortened and topsy-turvy, must wear themselves out before cooler
and more graceful tastes again prevail in imaginative literature.

Whatever be the cause, it is certain that this is not a moment when
serious poetry, of any species, is flourishing in the United States. The
absence of anything like a common impulse among young writers, of any
definite and intelligible, if excessive, _parti pris_, is immediately
observable if we contrast the American, for instance, with the French
poets of the last fifteen years. Where there is no school and no clear
trend of executive ambition, the solitary artist, whose talent forces
itself up into the light and air, suffers unusual difficulties, and runs
a constant danger of being choked in the aimless mediocrity that
surrounds him. We occasionally meet with a poet in the history of
literature, of whom we are inclined to say, Charming as he is, he would
have developed his talent more evenly and conspicuously,--with greater
decorum, perhaps,--if he had been accompanied from the first by other
young men like-minded, who would have formed for him an atmosphere and
cleared for him a space. This is the one regret I feel in contemplating,
as I have done for years past, the ardent and beautiful talent of Mr.
Cawein. I deplore the fact that he seems to stand alone in his
generation; I think his poetry would have been even better than it is,
and its qualities would certainly have been more clearly perceived, and
more intelligently appreciated, if he were less isolated.