Review: "Artemis to Actæon," in "Some Springtime Verse." | ||
The title-poem of Mrs. Wharton's Artemis to Actaeon takes a very different but equally modern view of the same goddess [as Mr. Hewlett's]. Her Artemis slays Actaeon not in anger, but in grace, recognising in him who dared to look upon her a soul too great for the little uses of the world, worthy of that immortality which is death. Now, there are two ways of handling mythological material: one may simply retell the old stories vividly, for the sheer beauty that is in them; or one may seek out some latent meaning, some new idea whereof the myth will form a fitting incarnation. The trouble with these present examples of the second method is that they do violence to the spirit of the myth. The vigorous and original mentality which has done so much for Mrs. Wharton as a novelist stands somewhat in her light as a poet. It is not that a poem can be too intellectual, but that it must not be more intellectual than emotional; and Mrs. Wharton's thought sometimes absorbs her feeling and leaves her language dry.
Where the implacable dim warder sate,
Besought for parley with a shade within,
Dearer to him than life itself had been,
Sweeter than sunlight on Illyrian sea . . .
Smells in the dark the cold odor of earth—
Eastward he turns his eyes, and over him
A dreadful freshness exquisitely breathes—
Nay, rather, Lord, between my past and present,
Thy Margaret and that other's—whose she is
By right of salvage—and whose call should follow
Thine? Silent still— Or his who stooped to her,
Not Thine? Then his?
Ah, Christ—the thorn-crowned Head
Bends . . . bends again . . . down on your knees, Fra Paolo!
If his, then Thine!
Kneel, priest, for this is heaven . . .
Review: "Artemis to Actæon," in "Some Springtime Verse." | ||