Upon reaching my friend -- and let me explain |
That these scenes in the scene all take place in my brain -- |
I began with a few neatly turned words on love |
As the poets' own bourne, and declared that no glove |
5 Ever fitted a hand with less wrinkling and snugger |
Than this theme this poet. Here I noticed her shrug her |
Shoulders a little, which was rather upsetting. |
However, it may have been only coquetting. |
Still I thought it was wise to get on with my tale: |
10 "Our love-poet, par excellence, Sara
Teasdale," |
I said with a flourish. Now that was a whale |
Of a compliment, such things deserve an entail, |
'Twas so brilliantly super even if it were true, |
And I knew very well 'twas but one of a cue. |
15 "This poet," I went on, "is a great
niece of Sappho, |
I know not how many 'greats' laid in a row |
There should be, but her pedigree's perfectly clear; |
You can read it in Magazine Verse for the year, |
She is also a cousin, a few times removed, |
20 Of dear Mrs. Browning, that last can be proved. |
The elder poet hid in a shrouding mantilla |
Which she called Portuguese. Was ever trick sillier? |
Our Sara is bolder, and feels quite at ease |
As herself; in her mind there is nothing to tease. |
25 Dale and valley, the country is hers she traverses, |
She has mapped it all out in a bushel of verses. |
Sara Teasdale she is -- was -- for our minnesinger, |
Behind her front door, is now Mrs. Filsinger. |
A hard question this, for a hand-maid of Muses, |
[68]
|
30 When she's once made a name in cold print which she
loses |
On taking a husband, the law's masculinity |
Would seem to demand a perpetual virginity |
For all married poets of the downtrodden sex. |
To forfeit the sale of a new volume checks |
35 Even marital ardor, to say nothing of checks. |
It's just this sort of thing which so frequently
wrecks |
Himself on his wife when the lady's composing |
Under whatever name, the world grows awarer |
Every year of the prize we have got here in Sara. |
40 She has no colors, no trumpets, no platforms, no skepticisms, |
She has no taste for experiments, and joins in no schisms: |
She just sings like a bird, and I think you'll agree |
This is clearly the place for the china-berry tree -- |
With a difference, the bird in that pleasant, arboreal |
45 Importation had three tones, while her reportorial |
Range is compassed in one, the reflex amatorial. |
She loves in a charming, perpetual way, |
As though it just came when she was distrait, |
Or quite occupied in affairs of the day. |
[69]
|
50 Or else, and I think the remark's more acute |
She lives as the flower above a deep root. |
Like a dedicate nun, she tells bead after bead |
At Matins, Tierce, Vespers. You'd think she'd
be treed |
Just once a while to find something to say. |
55 Not at all, she's a vast catalogue
raisonnée
|
Of the subject. No one's so completely au
fait. |
Her poetry succeeds, in spite of fragility, |
Because of her very remarkable agility. |
There is no single stunt in the style amatory |
60 Which is not included in her category, |
We may as well take that at once a priori. |
So easy to her seems the work of creation |
She might be just jotting down lines from dictation. |
There is nothing green here, each poem's of the
ripest. |
65 The income tax lists her as Cupid's own typist. |
Of course, it is true that she's not intellectual, |
But those poets who are, are so apt to subject you all |
To theories and treatises, the whole galvanometry |
Of the bardling who thinks verse a sort of geometry. |
70 Now Sara's as easy to read as a slip |
On a piece of banana, and there's no need to skip, |
For each poem's so peculiarly like every other |
You may as well say where you are and not bother. |
She's that very rare compost, the dainty erotic; |
75 Such a mixture can't fail to produce a hypnotic |
Effect on the reader, whose keenest sensation |
Will consist in a perfect identification |
Of himself with the poet, and her sorrows and joys |
Become his, while he swings to the delicate poise |
[70]
|
80 Of a primitive passion so nicely refined |
It could not bring a blush to the most squeamish mind. |
Though the poems, I may add, are all interlined |
For the ready perusal of those not too blind. |
For Sara, if singer, is also a woman, |
85 I know of no creature more thoroughly human. |
If woman, she's also a lady who realizes |
That a hidden surprise is the best of surprises. |
She seems a white statue awaiting unveiling, |
But raised on a platform behind a stout railing |
90 Whence she lures and retires, provoking a nearer |
Contact which is promised to be even dearer |
If we find we have courage enough not to fear her." |
I looked at my subject of find she'd departed, |
It's a habit of hers when a party's once
started |
95 To vanish unnoticed. My poetess had flown. |