Not since the
Elizabethans
has such a
mastery of words been reached in English .
mastery of words been reached in English .
Amy Lowell - Chinese Poets
_ A stone-paved courtyard.
It has no roof
and is raised in the centre. On great
occasions, such as weddings, birthdays,
and so on, it can be roofed and floored,
thus being made a part of the house.
Trees and flowers are not planted in this
court, but are set about in pots.
_No. 10. _ _T'ing. _ A courtyard. In this second courtyard, to
which steps lead down, trees and flowers
are planted, making of it an inner garden.
_No. 11. _ _Tso Ma Loa. _ Running Horse Two-Story Apartments.
This is the _Kuei_ so often spoken of, the
Women's Apartments. It is a building in
which the rooms surround a courtyard,
and are connected by verandahs running
round the court upstairs and down. The
space in the centre is known as _T'ien
Ching_ or Heaven's Well. There are
eighteen rooms in the upper story, and
eighteen in the lower. The wife uses the
front rooms; the daughters, the back.
_No. 12. _ _Hou T'ing. _ Back Court. It is bounded by a "flower
wall," or brick trellis, through which
flowers can twine, and is used by the
inmates of the _Kuei_ as a garden.
_No. 13. _ _Nü Hsia Fang. _ Women's Lower House. A house for the
women servants. As in the house for men
servants, No. 18, the floor is actually on a
lower level than those of the master's
apartments.
_No. 14. _ _Fo Lou. _ Buddhist Two-Story Apartments. In the
upper story, images of Buddhas, and of
Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, are kept.
As a rule, it is locked, and only people who
have washed carefully and put on clean
clothes may enter.
_No. 15. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. In this house, poor
relations may live. The concubines who
do not enter the _Kuei_ except on invitation
also live here. Guests do not go further
into the house than to the wall bounding
this building on the South.
_No. 16. _ _Tung Hua T'ing. _ Eastern Flower Hall.
_No. 17. _ _Tui T'ing. _ Opposite Hall. This and No. 16 are used
for theatrical entertainments. The guests
are seated in No. 16, facing South, and the
stage faces North in No. 17. A cloth
covering is stretched over the courtyard,
and a wall divides the two _T'ing_
from the rest of the house.
_No. 18. _ _Nan Hsia Fang. _ Men's Lower House. A house for men
servants divided as far as possible from the
quarters of the women servants, also placed
conveniently near the Great Gate where
guests enter.
_No. 19. _ _Ta Shu Fang. _ Great Book Room. This room is used as a
library and study, and in it the teacher
instructs the sons of the family.
_No. 20. _ _Hsi Hua T'ing. _ Western Flower Hall. Here guests are
entertained at meals. Flower gardens are
placed on either side, and also walls which
prevent either the study or the women's
rooms from being seen from it.
_No. 21. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. A building used by
the ladies of the house as a study or
boudoir, where they embroider, paint, or
write. The light is very good, whereas in
the _Kuei_, on account of most of the
windows opening on the court ("Heaven's
Well"), it is apt to be poor.
_No. 22. _ _Ch'u Fang. _ Kitchen. This is placed conveniently near
to No. 20, where the men of the family
dine, and No. 21, the dining-room of the
ladies.
_No. 23. _ _Ch'ü Lang. _ Passage-of-Many-Turnings. The superstitious
belief in regard to the difficulty
experienced by evil spirits in going round
sharp corners governs the planning of this
strangely shaped passage.
_No. 24. _ _Shu Chai. _ "Books Reverenced. " The study, or students'
room.
_No. 25. _ _Hsien. _ A Side-room or Pavilion. This is a long,
low, outdoor passage, where guests sit and
amuse themselves.
_No. 26. _ _Ma Fang. _ Stable. The stable is placed as far as
possible from the house. The horses,
however, are kept saddled near the Great
Gate for a large part of the day, in order
to be in readiness should they be needed.
_No. 27. _ _Hua Yüan. _ Flower Garden. The gardens are arranged
with hills, water, and rockeries, to look as
much like natural scenes as possible.
_No. 28. _ _Ssŭ So. _ Privy.
TABLE OF CHINESE HISTORICAL PERIODS
Five Legendary Emperors. 2852-2205 B. C.
Hsia Dynasty. 2205-1766 B. C.
Shang Dynasty. 1766-1122 B. C.
Chou Dynasty. 1122-255 B. C.
Ch'in Dynasty. 255-206 B. C.
Han Dynasty. 206 B. C. -A. D. 25
Eastern Han Dynasty. A. D. 25-221
Later Han Dynasty. A. D. 221-264
Chin Dynasty. A. D. 264-420
Period of Unrest, Six Short-lived Dynasties. A. D. 420-618
T'ang Dynasty. A. D. 618-906
The Five Dynasties: A. D. 906-960
Posterior Liang.
Posterior T'ang.
Posterior Chin.
Posterior Han.
Posterior Chou.
Sung Dynasty. A. D. 960-1277
Yüan Dynasty. A. D. 1277-1368
Ming Dynasty. A. D. 1368-1644
Ch'ing Dynasty. A. D. 1644-1912
Min Kuo (Republic of China). A. D. 1912
The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A
The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author
Books by AMY LOWELL
PUBLISHED BY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
_Poetry_
LEGENDS
PICTURES OF THE FLOATING WORLD
CAN GRANDE'S CASTLE
MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS
SWORD BLADES AND POPPY SEED
A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS
(IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORENCE AYSCOUGH) FIR-FLOWER TABLETS: POEMS
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE
_Prose_
TENDENCIES IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY
SIX FRENCH POETS: STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Can Grande's Castle
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fourth edition_
"The poems In 'Can Grande's Castle' are only four in number, but two of
them . . . touch magnificence. 'The Bronze Horses' has a larger sweep than
Miss Lowell has ever attempted; she achieves here a sense of magnitude
and time that is amazing. . . . Not in all contemporary poetry has the
quality of balance and return been so beautifully illustrated. "--LOUIS
UNTERMEYER in _The New Era in American Poetry_.
"'Can Grande's Castle' challenges, through its vividness and contagious
zest in life and color, an unreluctant admiration . . . its rare union of
vigor and deftness, precision and flexibility, imaginative grasp and
clarity of detail. "--PROFESSOR JOHN LIVINGSTON LOWES in _Convention and
Revolt in Poetry_.
"'Sea-Blue and Blood-Red' and 'Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings'
. . . are such a widening of barriers they bring into literature an
element imperceptible in poetry before . . . the epic of modernity
concentrated into thirty pages. . . .
Not since the Elizabethans has such a
mastery of words been reached in English . . . one had never surmised such
enchantment could have been achieved with words. "--W. BRYHER in _The Art
of Amy Lowell. A Critical Appreciation_. London.
"The essential element of Miss Lowell's poetry is vividness, vividness
and a power to concentrate into a few pages the spirit of an age. She
indicates perfectly the slightest sense of atmosphere in a period or a
city. . . . But the spirit of these poems is not the fashioning of
pictures, however brilliant, of the past; it is the re-creation of epic
moments of history made real as this present through her own
individuality and vision. "--_The London Nation. _
"We have come to it--once Poe was the living and commanding poet, whose
things were waited for. . . . Now we watch and wait for Amy Lowell's poems.
Success justifies her work. . . . Each separate poem in 'Can Grande's
Castle' is a real and true poem of remarkable power--a work of
imagination, a moving and beautiful thing. "--JOSEPH E. CHAMBERLAIN in
_The Boston Transcript_.
"'Can Grande's Castle' is, in the opinion of the present reviewer, not
only the best book which Miss Lowell has so far written, but a great
book per se. . . . It is a frank and revealing book. It deals with
fundamentals. . . . In 'Sea-Blue and Blood-red' we have the old story of
Nelson and 'mad, whole-hearted Lady Hamilton' retold in a style that
dazzles and excites like golden standards won from the enemy passing in
procession with the sun upon them. "--_The New York Times Book Review. _
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Legends
BY AMY LOWELL
_Second Printing_
"I read 'Legends' last night, and again this morning. I like them the
best of all your poems. . . . I like best _Many Swans_, which I have read
twice and which I feel really speaks inside my unexplained soul. I
should not like to try to explain it, because of the deep fear and
danger that is in it. But it isn't a myth of the sun, it is something
else. All the better that we can't say offhand what. That means it is
true. It rings a note in my soul. "--D. H. Lawrence.
"The subjects fit the poet like a glove. . . . The book is highly original,
immensely interesting, and in its choice of themes, of the first
significance. "--Prof. John Livingston Lowes in _The New York Evening
Post_.
"These clever dramatic tales are so brilliantly successful that we can
only hope for more of their kind. Here is a canvas broad enough for the
strokes of that untiring brush! Both in subject-matter and technique
Miss Lowell has surpassed herself in these legends. "--John Farrar in
_The Bookman_.
"Miss Lowell builds--or composes--her poems as well as a painter of the
first rank. . . . Her verse becomes increasingly supple. . . . I cannot say
pompously that this latest volume contains Miss Lowell's best work, but
it contains her work that I like best. . . . She is, at any rate, one of
the three graces or nine muses upon whom our poetry stands or
falls. "--Malcolm Cowley in _The Dial_.
"There is no writer in America to-day, of either prose or poetry, who
can manage such brilliant color effects in description. . . . In 'Legends'
she has produced weirdly beautiful work that could never by any
possibility be mistaken for the work of anyone else. "--William Rose
Benét in _The Yale Review_.
"'Legends' is, I think, Miss Lowell's best book . . . the book that
achieves the idiom, the convention that makes her work integral. "
--Padraic Colum in _The Freeman_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
_OPINIONS OF LEADING REVIEWERS_
"Against the multitudinous array of daily verse our times produce this
volume utters itself with a range and brilliancy wholly remarkable. I
cannot see that Miss Lowell's use of unrhymed _vers libre_ has been
surpassed in English. Read 'The Captured Goddess,' 'Music' and 'The
Precinct. Rochester,' a piece of mastercraft in this kind. A wealth of
subtleties and sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects
(as many of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out. The things of
splendor she has made she will hardly outdo in their kind. "--JOSEPHINE
PRESTON PEABODY, _The Boston Herald_.
"For quaint pictorial exactitude and bizarrerie of color these poems
remind one of Flemish masters and Dutch tulip gardens; again, they are
fine and fantastic, like Venetian glass; and they are all curiously
flooded with the moonlight of dreams. . . . Miss Lowell has a remarkable
gift of what one might call the dramatic-decorative. Her decorative
imagery is intensely dramatic, and her dramatic pictures are in
themselves vivid and fantastic decorations. "--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, _New
York Times Book Review_.
"Such poems as 'A Lady,' 'Music,' 'White and Green,' are wellnigh
flawless in their beauty--perfect 'images. '"--HARRIET MONROE, _Poetry_.
"Her most notable quality appears in the opening passage of the volume.
The sharply etched tones and contours of this picture are characteristic
of the author's work. . . . In 'unrhymed cadence' Miss Lowell's cadences
are sometimes extremely delicate, as in 'The Captured Goddess. '"--ARTHUR
DAVISON FICKE, _Chicago Dial_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Tendencies in Modern American Poetry
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fourth Printing, illustrated_
"I have no hesitation in insisting that Miss Amy Lowell's 'Tendencies in
Modern American Poetry' is one of the most striking volumes of criticism
that has appeared in recent years. "--CLEMENT K. SHORTER in _The Sphere_,
London.
"In her recent volume, 'Tendencies in Modern American Poetry,' Miss
Lowell employs this method (the historical) with excellent results. . . .
We feel throughout a spirit of mingled courage, kindness, and
independence illuminating the subject, and the result is the note of
personality that is so priceless in criticism, yet which, unhoneyed on
the one hand or uncrabbed on the other, is so hard to come by . . . her
latest book leaves with the reader a strong impression of the most
simple and unaffected integrity. "--HELEN BULLIS KIZER in _The North
American Review_.
"A new criticism has to be created to meet not only the work of the new
artists but also the uncritical hospitality of current taste. . . . That is
why a study such as Miss Amy Lowell's on recent tendencies in American
verse is so significant. . . . Her very tone is revolutionary. . . . Poetry
appears for the first time on our critical horizon . . . as a sound and
important activity of contemporary American life. "--RANDOLF BOURNE in
_The Dial_.
"Its real worth as criticism and its greater worth as testimony are
invaluable. "--O. W. FIRKINS in _The Nation_.
"The feeling she has for poetry is so genuine and catholic and
instructed, and her acquaintance with modern activity so energetic, that
she is one of the most interesting and illuminating persons with whom to
visit the new poets, led by the hand. "--_New Republic_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Men, Women, and Ghosts
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
". . . In the poem which gave its name to a previous volume, 'Sword Blades
and Poppy Seed,' Miss Lowell uttered her Credo with rare sincerity and
passion. Not since Elizabeth Barrett's 'Vision of Poets' has there been
such a confession of faith in the mission of poetry, such a stern
compulsion of dedication laid upon the poet. And in her latest work we
find proof that she has lived according to her confession and her
dedication with a singleness of purpose seldom encountered in our fluid
time.
"'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a book greatly and strenuously imagined. . . .
Miss Lowell is a great romantic. . . . She belongs to the few who, in every
generation, feel that poetry is a high calling, and who press
undeviatingly toward the mark. They are few, and they are frequently
lonely, but they lead. "--_New York Times Book Review_.
". . . 'The Hammers' is a really thrilling piece of work; the skill with
which it is divided into different moods and motifs is something more
than a tour de force. The way the different hammers are characterized
and given voice, the varying music wrung from them (from the ponderous
banging of the hammers at the building of the 'Bellerophon' to their
light tapping as they pick off the letters of Napoleon's victories on
the arch of the Place du Carrousel), the emphasis with which they reveal
a whole period--these are the things one sees rarely. "--LOUIS UNTERMEYER
in the _Chicago Evening Post_.
". . . Beautiful . . . poetry as authentic as any we know. It is individual,
innocent of echo and imitation, with the uniqueness that comes of
personal genius. . . . Miss Lowell strives to get into words the effects of
the painter's palette and the musician's score. And life withal. Does
she succeed? I should say she does, and the first poem in this book,
'Patterns,' is a brilliant, æsthetic achievement in a combination of
story, imagism, and symbolism. 'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a volume that
contains beautiful poetry for all readers who have the root of the
matter in them. "--_Reedy's Mirror_, St. Louis.
"The most original of all the young American writers of to-day. "--_The
New Age_, London.
"Brilliant is the term for 'Men, Women, and Ghosts'--praise which holds
good when the book is put to the test of a third reading. "--EDWARD
GARNETT in _The Atlantic Monthly_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
"These poems arouse interest, and justify it by the result. Miss Lowell
is the sister of President Lowell of Harvard. Her art, however, needs no
reflection from such distinguished influence to make apparent its
distinction. Such verse as this is delightful, has a sort of personal
flavour, a loyalty to the fundamentals of life and nationality. . . . The
child poems are particularly graceful. "--_Boston Evening Transcript_,
Boston, Mass.
"Miss Lowell has given expression in exquisite form to many beautiful
thoughts, inspired by a variety of subjects and based on some of the
loftiest ideals.
and is raised in the centre. On great
occasions, such as weddings, birthdays,
and so on, it can be roofed and floored,
thus being made a part of the house.
Trees and flowers are not planted in this
court, but are set about in pots.
_No. 10. _ _T'ing. _ A courtyard. In this second courtyard, to
which steps lead down, trees and flowers
are planted, making of it an inner garden.
_No. 11. _ _Tso Ma Loa. _ Running Horse Two-Story Apartments.
This is the _Kuei_ so often spoken of, the
Women's Apartments. It is a building in
which the rooms surround a courtyard,
and are connected by verandahs running
round the court upstairs and down. The
space in the centre is known as _T'ien
Ching_ or Heaven's Well. There are
eighteen rooms in the upper story, and
eighteen in the lower. The wife uses the
front rooms; the daughters, the back.
_No. 12. _ _Hou T'ing. _ Back Court. It is bounded by a "flower
wall," or brick trellis, through which
flowers can twine, and is used by the
inmates of the _Kuei_ as a garden.
_No. 13. _ _Nü Hsia Fang. _ Women's Lower House. A house for the
women servants. As in the house for men
servants, No. 18, the floor is actually on a
lower level than those of the master's
apartments.
_No. 14. _ _Fo Lou. _ Buddhist Two-Story Apartments. In the
upper story, images of Buddhas, and of
Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, are kept.
As a rule, it is locked, and only people who
have washed carefully and put on clean
clothes may enter.
_No. 15. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. In this house, poor
relations may live. The concubines who
do not enter the _Kuei_ except on invitation
also live here. Guests do not go further
into the house than to the wall bounding
this building on the South.
_No. 16. _ _Tung Hua T'ing. _ Eastern Flower Hall.
_No. 17. _ _Tui T'ing. _ Opposite Hall. This and No. 16 are used
for theatrical entertainments. The guests
are seated in No. 16, facing South, and the
stage faces North in No. 17. A cloth
covering is stretched over the courtyard,
and a wall divides the two _T'ing_
from the rest of the house.
_No. 18. _ _Nan Hsia Fang. _ Men's Lower House. A house for men
servants divided as far as possible from the
quarters of the women servants, also placed
conveniently near the Great Gate where
guests enter.
_No. 19. _ _Ta Shu Fang. _ Great Book Room. This room is used as a
library and study, and in it the teacher
instructs the sons of the family.
_No. 20. _ _Hsi Hua T'ing. _ Western Flower Hall. Here guests are
entertained at meals. Flower gardens are
placed on either side, and also walls which
prevent either the study or the women's
rooms from being seen from it.
_No. 21. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. A building used by
the ladies of the house as a study or
boudoir, where they embroider, paint, or
write. The light is very good, whereas in
the _Kuei_, on account of most of the
windows opening on the court ("Heaven's
Well"), it is apt to be poor.
_No. 22. _ _Ch'u Fang. _ Kitchen. This is placed conveniently near
to No. 20, where the men of the family
dine, and No. 21, the dining-room of the
ladies.
_No. 23. _ _Ch'ü Lang. _ Passage-of-Many-Turnings. The superstitious
belief in regard to the difficulty
experienced by evil spirits in going round
sharp corners governs the planning of this
strangely shaped passage.
_No. 24. _ _Shu Chai. _ "Books Reverenced. " The study, or students'
room.
_No. 25. _ _Hsien. _ A Side-room or Pavilion. This is a long,
low, outdoor passage, where guests sit and
amuse themselves.
_No. 26. _ _Ma Fang. _ Stable. The stable is placed as far as
possible from the house. The horses,
however, are kept saddled near the Great
Gate for a large part of the day, in order
to be in readiness should they be needed.
_No. 27. _ _Hua Yüan. _ Flower Garden. The gardens are arranged
with hills, water, and rockeries, to look as
much like natural scenes as possible.
_No. 28. _ _Ssŭ So. _ Privy.
TABLE OF CHINESE HISTORICAL PERIODS
Five Legendary Emperors. 2852-2205 B. C.
Hsia Dynasty. 2205-1766 B. C.
Shang Dynasty. 1766-1122 B. C.
Chou Dynasty. 1122-255 B. C.
Ch'in Dynasty. 255-206 B. C.
Han Dynasty. 206 B. C. -A. D. 25
Eastern Han Dynasty. A. D. 25-221
Later Han Dynasty. A. D. 221-264
Chin Dynasty. A. D. 264-420
Period of Unrest, Six Short-lived Dynasties. A. D. 420-618
T'ang Dynasty. A. D. 618-906
The Five Dynasties: A. D. 906-960
Posterior Liang.
Posterior T'ang.
Posterior Chin.
Posterior Han.
Posterior Chou.
Sung Dynasty. A. D. 960-1277
Yüan Dynasty. A. D. 1277-1368
Ming Dynasty. A. D. 1368-1644
Ch'ing Dynasty. A. D. 1644-1912
Min Kuo (Republic of China). A. D. 1912
The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A
The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author
Books by AMY LOWELL
PUBLISHED BY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
_Poetry_
LEGENDS
PICTURES OF THE FLOATING WORLD
CAN GRANDE'S CASTLE
MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS
SWORD BLADES AND POPPY SEED
A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS
(IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORENCE AYSCOUGH) FIR-FLOWER TABLETS: POEMS
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE
_Prose_
TENDENCIES IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY
SIX FRENCH POETS: STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Can Grande's Castle
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fourth edition_
"The poems In 'Can Grande's Castle' are only four in number, but two of
them . . . touch magnificence. 'The Bronze Horses' has a larger sweep than
Miss Lowell has ever attempted; she achieves here a sense of magnitude
and time that is amazing. . . . Not in all contemporary poetry has the
quality of balance and return been so beautifully illustrated. "--LOUIS
UNTERMEYER in _The New Era in American Poetry_.
"'Can Grande's Castle' challenges, through its vividness and contagious
zest in life and color, an unreluctant admiration . . . its rare union of
vigor and deftness, precision and flexibility, imaginative grasp and
clarity of detail. "--PROFESSOR JOHN LIVINGSTON LOWES in _Convention and
Revolt in Poetry_.
"'Sea-Blue and Blood-Red' and 'Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings'
. . . are such a widening of barriers they bring into literature an
element imperceptible in poetry before . . . the epic of modernity
concentrated into thirty pages. . . .
Not since the Elizabethans has such a
mastery of words been reached in English . . . one had never surmised such
enchantment could have been achieved with words. "--W. BRYHER in _The Art
of Amy Lowell. A Critical Appreciation_. London.
"The essential element of Miss Lowell's poetry is vividness, vividness
and a power to concentrate into a few pages the spirit of an age. She
indicates perfectly the slightest sense of atmosphere in a period or a
city. . . . But the spirit of these poems is not the fashioning of
pictures, however brilliant, of the past; it is the re-creation of epic
moments of history made real as this present through her own
individuality and vision. "--_The London Nation. _
"We have come to it--once Poe was the living and commanding poet, whose
things were waited for. . . . Now we watch and wait for Amy Lowell's poems.
Success justifies her work. . . . Each separate poem in 'Can Grande's
Castle' is a real and true poem of remarkable power--a work of
imagination, a moving and beautiful thing. "--JOSEPH E. CHAMBERLAIN in
_The Boston Transcript_.
"'Can Grande's Castle' is, in the opinion of the present reviewer, not
only the best book which Miss Lowell has so far written, but a great
book per se. . . . It is a frank and revealing book. It deals with
fundamentals. . . . In 'Sea-Blue and Blood-red' we have the old story of
Nelson and 'mad, whole-hearted Lady Hamilton' retold in a style that
dazzles and excites like golden standards won from the enemy passing in
procession with the sun upon them. "--_The New York Times Book Review. _
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Legends
BY AMY LOWELL
_Second Printing_
"I read 'Legends' last night, and again this morning. I like them the
best of all your poems. . . . I like best _Many Swans_, which I have read
twice and which I feel really speaks inside my unexplained soul. I
should not like to try to explain it, because of the deep fear and
danger that is in it. But it isn't a myth of the sun, it is something
else. All the better that we can't say offhand what. That means it is
true. It rings a note in my soul. "--D. H. Lawrence.
"The subjects fit the poet like a glove. . . . The book is highly original,
immensely interesting, and in its choice of themes, of the first
significance. "--Prof. John Livingston Lowes in _The New York Evening
Post_.
"These clever dramatic tales are so brilliantly successful that we can
only hope for more of their kind. Here is a canvas broad enough for the
strokes of that untiring brush! Both in subject-matter and technique
Miss Lowell has surpassed herself in these legends. "--John Farrar in
_The Bookman_.
"Miss Lowell builds--or composes--her poems as well as a painter of the
first rank. . . . Her verse becomes increasingly supple. . . . I cannot say
pompously that this latest volume contains Miss Lowell's best work, but
it contains her work that I like best. . . . She is, at any rate, one of
the three graces or nine muses upon whom our poetry stands or
falls. "--Malcolm Cowley in _The Dial_.
"There is no writer in America to-day, of either prose or poetry, who
can manage such brilliant color effects in description. . . . In 'Legends'
she has produced weirdly beautiful work that could never by any
possibility be mistaken for the work of anyone else. "--William Rose
Benét in _The Yale Review_.
"'Legends' is, I think, Miss Lowell's best book . . . the book that
achieves the idiom, the convention that makes her work integral. "
--Padraic Colum in _The Freeman_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
_OPINIONS OF LEADING REVIEWERS_
"Against the multitudinous array of daily verse our times produce this
volume utters itself with a range and brilliancy wholly remarkable. I
cannot see that Miss Lowell's use of unrhymed _vers libre_ has been
surpassed in English. Read 'The Captured Goddess,' 'Music' and 'The
Precinct. Rochester,' a piece of mastercraft in this kind. A wealth of
subtleties and sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects
(as many of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out. The things of
splendor she has made she will hardly outdo in their kind. "--JOSEPHINE
PRESTON PEABODY, _The Boston Herald_.
"For quaint pictorial exactitude and bizarrerie of color these poems
remind one of Flemish masters and Dutch tulip gardens; again, they are
fine and fantastic, like Venetian glass; and they are all curiously
flooded with the moonlight of dreams. . . . Miss Lowell has a remarkable
gift of what one might call the dramatic-decorative. Her decorative
imagery is intensely dramatic, and her dramatic pictures are in
themselves vivid and fantastic decorations. "--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, _New
York Times Book Review_.
"Such poems as 'A Lady,' 'Music,' 'White and Green,' are wellnigh
flawless in their beauty--perfect 'images. '"--HARRIET MONROE, _Poetry_.
"Her most notable quality appears in the opening passage of the volume.
The sharply etched tones and contours of this picture are characteristic
of the author's work. . . . In 'unrhymed cadence' Miss Lowell's cadences
are sometimes extremely delicate, as in 'The Captured Goddess. '"--ARTHUR
DAVISON FICKE, _Chicago Dial_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Tendencies in Modern American Poetry
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fourth Printing, illustrated_
"I have no hesitation in insisting that Miss Amy Lowell's 'Tendencies in
Modern American Poetry' is one of the most striking volumes of criticism
that has appeared in recent years. "--CLEMENT K. SHORTER in _The Sphere_,
London.
"In her recent volume, 'Tendencies in Modern American Poetry,' Miss
Lowell employs this method (the historical) with excellent results. . . .
We feel throughout a spirit of mingled courage, kindness, and
independence illuminating the subject, and the result is the note of
personality that is so priceless in criticism, yet which, unhoneyed on
the one hand or uncrabbed on the other, is so hard to come by . . . her
latest book leaves with the reader a strong impression of the most
simple and unaffected integrity. "--HELEN BULLIS KIZER in _The North
American Review_.
"A new criticism has to be created to meet not only the work of the new
artists but also the uncritical hospitality of current taste. . . . That is
why a study such as Miss Amy Lowell's on recent tendencies in American
verse is so significant. . . . Her very tone is revolutionary. . . . Poetry
appears for the first time on our critical horizon . . . as a sound and
important activity of contemporary American life. "--RANDOLF BOURNE in
_The Dial_.
"Its real worth as criticism and its greater worth as testimony are
invaluable. "--O. W. FIRKINS in _The Nation_.
"The feeling she has for poetry is so genuine and catholic and
instructed, and her acquaintance with modern activity so energetic, that
she is one of the most interesting and illuminating persons with whom to
visit the new poets, led by the hand. "--_New Republic_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Men, Women, and Ghosts
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
". . . In the poem which gave its name to a previous volume, 'Sword Blades
and Poppy Seed,' Miss Lowell uttered her Credo with rare sincerity and
passion. Not since Elizabeth Barrett's 'Vision of Poets' has there been
such a confession of faith in the mission of poetry, such a stern
compulsion of dedication laid upon the poet. And in her latest work we
find proof that she has lived according to her confession and her
dedication with a singleness of purpose seldom encountered in our fluid
time.
"'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a book greatly and strenuously imagined. . . .
Miss Lowell is a great romantic. . . . She belongs to the few who, in every
generation, feel that poetry is a high calling, and who press
undeviatingly toward the mark. They are few, and they are frequently
lonely, but they lead. "--_New York Times Book Review_.
". . . 'The Hammers' is a really thrilling piece of work; the skill with
which it is divided into different moods and motifs is something more
than a tour de force. The way the different hammers are characterized
and given voice, the varying music wrung from them (from the ponderous
banging of the hammers at the building of the 'Bellerophon' to their
light tapping as they pick off the letters of Napoleon's victories on
the arch of the Place du Carrousel), the emphasis with which they reveal
a whole period--these are the things one sees rarely. "--LOUIS UNTERMEYER
in the _Chicago Evening Post_.
". . . Beautiful . . . poetry as authentic as any we know. It is individual,
innocent of echo and imitation, with the uniqueness that comes of
personal genius. . . . Miss Lowell strives to get into words the effects of
the painter's palette and the musician's score. And life withal. Does
she succeed? I should say she does, and the first poem in this book,
'Patterns,' is a brilliant, æsthetic achievement in a combination of
story, imagism, and symbolism. 'Men, Women, and Ghosts' is a volume that
contains beautiful poetry for all readers who have the root of the
matter in them. "--_Reedy's Mirror_, St. Louis.
"The most original of all the young American writers of to-day. "--_The
New Age_, London.
"Brilliant is the term for 'Men, Women, and Ghosts'--praise which holds
good when the book is put to the test of a third reading. "--EDWARD
GARNETT in _The Atlantic Monthly_.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_
"These poems arouse interest, and justify it by the result. Miss Lowell
is the sister of President Lowell of Harvard. Her art, however, needs no
reflection from such distinguished influence to make apparent its
distinction. Such verse as this is delightful, has a sort of personal
flavour, a loyalty to the fundamentals of life and nationality. . . . The
child poems are particularly graceful. "--_Boston Evening Transcript_,
Boston, Mass.
"Miss Lowell has given expression in exquisite form to many beautiful
thoughts, inspired by a variety of subjects and based on some of the
loftiest ideals.
