Dark of the Moon/Streets in the Moon

by Sara Teasdale. New York: Macmillan Co. 1926. 12mo. xiv+78 pp. $1.50.

by Archibald MacLeish. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1926. 8vo. xiv+101 pp. $5.00.

Dark of the Moon, by Sara Teasdale, and Streets in the Moon, by Archibald MacLeish, have little in common except the moon and a pervading sadness. Yet even in their resemblances there is a difference. Miss Teasdale is sad with autumn; Mr. MacLeish is sad with spring. And it is difficult to concede the moon to either of these poets. Dark of the Moon is too sentimental a title for a book which is decidedly not sentimental. ‘So Be It,’ a recurrent phrase in Miss Teasdale’s latest volume, would more accurately express its philosophical mood. Streets in the Moon, on the other hand, is tonally pleasant and symbolically provocative— but what, exactly, does it mean?

Sara Teasdale is done with spring. She accepts the dying year with her old gentleness and quietness and lyric simplicity, but she adds to these virtues a hard something which is surely cerebral. The serene singer has become also, after a passage of years, the firm thinker. It is a distinct advance. Dark of the Moon, although less concerned with eager lovers and therefore destined for less popularity, perhaps, than Rivers to the Sea and Flame and Shadow, is nevertheless Sara Teasdale’s most considerable volume. She has lived longer. She has looked deeper. ‘The Crystal Gazer’ expresses not so much an intention as an achievement: —

Not that Dark of the Moon has much range. Miss Teasdale plays sweetly and monotonously on her three or four notes. ‘February Twilight,’ ‘Arcturus in Autumn,’ ‘Winter Night Song’ — these are typical titles. Falling leaves, the everlasting stars, the surety of love proven, the blessedness of memories held in the heart — these are typical themes. Once in a while, not often, the subject matter seems too slight to warrant a separate poem. ‘So This Was All’ has been written a hundred times. ‘Appraisal’ lacks unity. ‘The Fountain’ uses images which fail to impress with great sharpness or great loveliness the dubious truth that

But ninety per cent of the volume maintains the high level of excellence which Sara Teasdale has resolutely set for herself. American poetry is definitely enriched by poems like

and the fine ‘Effigy of a Nun,’ which begins, —

and that noble statement of a woman’s soul: —

The ways of the heart are simple. The ways of the mind are devious.

Streets in the Moon divides itself, technically, into three parts: experimental verse, unexperiimental verse, and a fusion of the two types. The chaotic first group, in the fashion of T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings, is indifferently good or downright bad. The ordered second group is usually good. The ‘fusions,’ or third group, are tremendous and sure. There are, of course, sharp exceptions to these generalities. ‘ Corporate Entity,’ although conglomerate and ‘modern,’ is electric in its effect. ‘The End of the World,’ although typographically conventional, juxtaposes its octave and sestet in such a way that its last line comes with the impact of a revelation.

‘ Ars Poetica’ practically discards punctuation, but succeeds in being, majestically, what it insists all poems should be.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea —

The full-statured poems in this book are innumerable: ‘Eleven,’ ‘Memorial Rain,’ ‘The Too-Late Born,’ ‘Le Secret Humain.’ They completely compensate for an occasional irritation like ‘Hearts’ and Flowers’.’

But Archibald MacLeish is less interesting as an experimentalist in verse forms than as a mystic and metaphysician. The first three lines of his ‘Prologue’ say it all: —

He is forever searching out the fourth dimension of the spirit. The Why is forever on his lips. The unknown troubles him. The first and final mystery of existence will not let him be. He interrogates the stones: —

This absorption in metaphysics — or poetaphysics —surcharges much of his work with a meaning beyond the meaning. Not ‘Einstein,’ the longest and most ambitious metaphysical poem iu Streets in the Moon. It is too abstract. Poetry is, and will always be, concrete.

In conclusion. If there is another young American poet who writes more melodiously and profoundly than Archibald MacLeish, we are unacquainted with the name. What do we care if he is indebted to T. S. Eliot for tricks of manner and method? He is improving upon his master.

VIRGINIA MOORE