Current Monthly Poetry Number

The February Monthly contains four sonnets, seven other poems, a story, two other prose articles, two editorials, and a review of a book. At no time in my remembrance have the undergraduates shown a more active interest in writing verse, or written better verse, than they are writing today: yet in this number of the Monthly the verse is more conspicuous for quantity than for quality. Mr. Hillyer's though not his best, is the best in the number. His lines "To a Portrait of Marguerite de Normandie" are in part quite worthy of him; but the second half of the poem is inferior to the first. His "After Parting," which in its first stanza is suggestive of Donne, is pleasing throughout; but, like the first poem, it is better in the first half than in the second. His "Recompense" expresses an old idea with much beauty, and would be satisfying if he had stopped after two stanzas, omitting the final quartrain. Mr. Whittlesey's "Lines" deal gracefully with a familiar form of the pathetic fallacy. Mr. Auslander's "Forsaken" is pretty, but not quite so pretty as it should be, Mr. Simpson's Imitation of the Rubaiyat" is creditable but not valuable. Mr. Allinson contributes two poems, "Die Gotterdammerrung" and a sonnet. The first is chiefly in unrhymed pentameters, with nine-syllabled verses interspersed. Its workmanship is imperfect, and its lines tend to monotony; yet it is impressive in its dignity. His sonnet "Umbra Naturae" again shows either carelessness or radical doctrine as to versification: it begins with a nine-syllables verse (unless we give two syllables to "here"), and ends with what looks like a rough Alexandrine, but may be a badly accented pentameter with two trisyllabic feet:

"Do I weep their sorrow or do they mourn my grief?"

In either case it is not sonorous enough to be self-justifying. Like most undergraduate writers of sonnets, and many older writers, Mr. Allinson is still more or less at the mercy of his form, as the words "all the world is fay" too plainly reveal: unsatisfactory workmanship clogs much of whatever poetic thought the sonnet contains. Mr. Code's sonnet is specific and lively; but it contains a nine-syllabled verse, and an Alexandrine. The latter can scarcely be intentional, since it is not the final verse. The sonnet form is so exacting that it is seriously damaged by stray lines which violate the meter. Mr. Henderson's sonnet exhibits only moderate skill. Of all the sonnets, Mr. Nelson's has the best versification; but it is disappointing in that the thought of the sestet and the relation of the sestet to the octave are not clearly brought out.

The prose is on the whole better than the verse. The anonymous "Note on Carlyle," whether its doctrine is acceptable or not, shows competence and vigor. Mr. Fisher's "Lanky" is an unusually good story, exhibiting in a small space some skill in plot, character, setting and surprise. Mr. Scholle's "Fair at Lausanne," which in its paragraphing recalls the Boston American, is alive with good detail. Mr. Fay's "On Keeping a Diary" gives an impression of quaintness without affection, and abundance without waste. Of the editorials on the proposals of peace, the second is the more striking. The review of "The Backwash of the War" is interesting in its disregard of the important question whether less war now may not mean more war by and by.

This number of the Monthly, whatever its defects, aims high and achieves no small measure of success.