Eighteen Poems
By
ADMIRERS of James Boyd will welcome this collection of his few poems. When the war came, he turned to poetry as an outlet for emotions which no other medium could express. Mr. Boyd brought to this last phase of his writing the same high artistic integrity that distinguished his novels. But he brought also skepticism. Doubt mingles with his hope that the horror of this war will not have been in vain. The poems have immediacy and Mr. Boyd speaks eloquently for the many whose minds are uneasy about the future world.
The collection is first and last fine poetry. With some of the magic of de la Mare, Mr. Boyd weaves a wonderful atmosphere of night and sleep in the unforgettable “Song for the Silent” that moves to a powerful and unexpected end. It is a poem which might well be read and pondered by all makers of the peace. “To a Butterfly,” far from being pretty lyricism, tells of the young scientist who discovered a new butterfly and who now lies buried on a coral atoll. The usual scientific language in which the young man told of his discovery reminds the poet of the platitudes we give “our tall boys” as they go out to die. If their fate be in vain, then once more the world will be back where millenniums ago the butterfly fluttered in a world without men. Scribner, $1.75.
ELFORD CAUGHEY