114
PAR TISAN REVIEW
sowest is not quickened, except it die.
London at war is the place of mar–
tyrdom
par excellence :
'Never in Rome,
I
so many martyrs fell;
II
not in J erusalem,
I
never in Thebes,
II
so many stood and watched
I
chariot-wheels turning,
II
saw with their very eyes,
1
the battle of the
Titans,
II
saw Zeus' thunderbolts in action
1
and how from giant
hands,
II
the lightning shattered earth
1
and splintered sky, nor fled
II
to hide in caves,
I
but with unbroken will,
II
with unbowed head,
watched / and though unaware, worshipped.... ' (All of which is tear–
ing-the-cat for 'Big raid last night. No, we didn't go to the shelter. It
was interesting, even impressive, to watch.') The gate of death is the
only gateway to life, for mortal life is but 'this temporary eclipse.' This
somewhat battered Platonism is decked out in gauds filched from all
sorts of places : the dominant image of Our Lady is drawn from uneasy
memories of
Ash W ednesday
(even to the turning of the stair!),
The
Blessed Damozel,
and Poe'3
To H elen;
there are altars, candles, cruci–
bles, damasks and figured brocades, Angels, Archangels (including two
whom I h ad never met before: one gets about so little !), Thrones,
Principalities, and Powers-and, rather astonishingly in the midst of this
mediaeval rummage sale, an electric clock with an illuminated dial. Not
that there is anything inherently wrong with this mystical apparatus:
A sh W ednesday,
to gQ no further, has shown us what can be done with
it; but H .D. simply can't make it work. There is no conviction, only a
great deal of pretty gesturing. The passage tha t I have quoted is as suc–
cessful as anything in the poem, but how tired, how perfunctory it is!
These tame allusions to Titans and Thunderbolts, this 'shattered' earth,
this 'splintered' sky! When no such parti cularity is attempted, the verse
degenerates into muddy bombast : images run together, phrases hang
uncompleted, and even the syntax decays. The bold misuse of the comma
--observable above after the words 'eyes' and 'hands'-adds its own
woozy charm to the effect--of what? Of incantation, presumably ; but it
is the incantation of a seer without a vision. High Mass with the Canon
left out. . . . It used to be fashionable to speak of H.D.'s chiselled phrases,
and in many of her early imagist poems she did achieve a certain ele–
gance. But one cannot be Greek by an act of will alone. Her translation
of the
I
on
of Euripides chiselled the text almost out of existence, and
Tribut e to the Angels
presents the unrewarding spectacle of a chiseller
working in lard.
Mr. Paul Engle's sonnet sequence about his little daughter raises
questions of intention and taste that I cannot answer. The Child is one of
those hazardous subjects that automatically release the easiest, as well
as the finest, emotions, and it is to Mr. Engle's credit that he has man–
aged to avoid the stickiest pitfalls. Yet everything about the book, even
its undeniably charming format, seems designed to beguile the reader,
