their craft simply because other fields of writing re-
ceive more popular acclaim. It has impelled others
to suppress their natural poetic manner in favor of
other manners more fashionable at the moment.
Although there are few places in which the proletar-
ian writer can be printed, the eagerness to discover
new talents has inflated the reputations of several
young poets-followed
by inevitable deflation;
in
one or two recent cases we have even witnessed the
disheveled appearance of a first book of verse, thrown
together without careful selection and rewriting.
I wonder if it has to be remarked that these
negative influences are in no sense intrinsic to prole-
tarian literature;
on the contrary,
they are largely
the result of empiric practices opposed to Marxian
esthetics and to the very fundamentals
of Com-
munist theory.
Nevertheless,
revolutionary
critics
must accept some share of the blame-for
not warn-
ing against these evils and occasionally for encourag-
ing them. Of course, from another angle, the fault
lies primarily with the poet himself, who must have
the toughness of mind and the sense of moralbal-
ance, the stamina and the fortitude,
to overcome
such influences.
In his new book, MacLeish has been more suc-
cessful than the younger poets in riding the issues
which harass the revolutionary poet today. He has
steered his course just far enough to the port side
to throw his poetry into focus with his new subject-
matter: in
Public Speech
his personal experience and
poetic equipment are synchronized perfectly with his
new political direction.
But, to continue this nautical allegory, MacLeish
did not always have such easy sailing. For a long
period he was becalmed upon the idle ocean of the
expatriate mood;
among other things he had to
throw his ventriloquistic cargo overboard without
capsizing his poetic craft. He succeeded in doing this
by the time he reached
New
Found Land,
where his
caustic temper was mellowed by a soft autumnal
beauty. But no sooner did he depart from its shores
then he was assailed by the waves and winds of
social upheaval,
and cast adrift. His odyssey of con-
fusion and bewilderment,
recorded in
Frescoes
and
surrounding poems, was interpreted by some critical
lighthouse-keepers as a trip toward reaction.
Yet even in his wanderings MacLeish passed
through the mainstream of his time. To step up our
nautical figure one last notch, his barometer
has
always been extremely sensitive to the central ele-
ments of his age. Unlike Mr. Eliot's instruments,
which were put out of commission more than a
decade ago-causing him to turn into treacherous
channels-MacLeish's
compass has enabled him to
move ahead. If
Public Speech
indicates the direc-
tion and the skill of its navigator,
then MacLeish
is on the way towards a significant major poetry.
PARTISAN
REVIEW
These Dead
These are the dead. I number them in sleep:
Whose fath<:rs shaped these hills,
cut down each needed tree
and cleared a field
nor ever swung an axe
where meaning lacked or need
and all that they have done and all
their dreams are gone.
What houses they contrived
to hold the smaller sun
of winter night,
these too are crumbled now
and what was beautiful
gone with the death of dreams as they
are also gone.
No beauty left nor good
save to the men whose wish
for death is strong,
stronger than blood grown thin
within their rotted veins
who now are dead as those whom death
and dust have claimed.
But death to them and dream
came in the flood of time
and cut them down
and was no cancer borne
within the rotted flesh
of their beginnings as is that
of these too dead.
These are the dead
I
number now in sleep
and the cut flowers,
cool in bowls on glass
that clouds not to their breath but one must come
a dust cloth in her hand. Oh, these are truly dead
'who cut the living tree for hills beyond,
turn field to lawn, spread lilies on a pool
and wrap in wool the pleasures of their kind,
and bind a woman's feet before all men
and set no limit to the good that they
would render useless to their barren pride.
A nd still fear lives within their sightless eyes
who know that those who shaped the dream have died
and
ao
not know what end awaits the man
who lives but on the drying husks of dreams
that are not his, and have been long outworn.
Oh, may their fears grow quiet, may they learn
'what little need there is to kill the dead!
We will go carefully, be almost tender.
For only one thing must they be prepared:
when the clean plow cuts through the rotten soil
THE DEAD
GO
UNDER.
EDWARD ]. FITZGERALD
21
