Excerpt from A Critical Fable

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 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: "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. "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, 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. 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, 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 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. 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 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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; 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 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, 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 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 To vanish unnoticed. My poetess had flown.