120
PARTISAN REVIEW
U
My end"; and aging eagles know
That
1912
was long ago.
Today the women come and go
Talking of T.
S.
Eliot.
The word goes round the English Departments that this is the equal
of "The Lost Leader," and perhaps it is-though Professor Limpkin has
acutely suggested that its allusive qualities (it is almost entirely built
of cryptic references to Western Culture) may make it somewhat tire–
some to the average undergraduate.
The best poems in this volume-including, on one opmlOn, "To
be Sung," "Again, Again," "The Planted Skull," "Homecoming" and
"Saga"- are quite good poems, perhaps a little light in weight. That
they are
great
poems, that they constitute in any sense a revolution in
the art (a return to this or revival of that) , that they are particularly
new or original or fresh, I submit that I doubt.
Now it is doubtless
not nice
to speak slightingly of a volume con–
taining, say, half a dozen witty and ingenious poems which have given
me pleasure, and I do not so speak merely because this volume con–
tains also a relatively large amount of mediocre verse, fallen epigrams
and jotted-down opinions, as well as a relatively staggering amount of
simple blank space. But I feel (and feel I may as well express the
feeling) a resistance to the pretension involved in the terms on which
this verse is supposed to be taken-as "the present hope of poetry"
(Robert Frost), "real magic" (Van Wyck Brooks ), "conscientious
skill ... that makes much contemporary poetry look like the shabbiest
free association" (David Daiches), "a break with the Eliot-dominated
past" (Selden Rodman), "The modernist revolt has ended . . . "
(Anthony Harrigan). These citations are from the dust-jacket of
The
First Morning,
and though I have not quoted them in full the distinctive
thing about them, as about so many favorable opinions of this poet, is
visibly that it seems nearly impossible to praise Mr. Viereck except
by way of taking a swipe at someone else; the ax-grinders seem to
find him handy; uplifting Mr. Viereck seems to be the equal and op–
posite reaction generated by people standing on Mr. Eliot's head and
jumping up and down. This suggests a certain expedient quality to
the exaltation. When Mr. Harrigan, whom I quoted above, described
Peter Viereck as "the principal standard-bearer of the tradition of
humanistic democracy in this country," the battle-lines are drawn,
one mayor may not shudder for humanistic democracy, but in any
event the poetry has been left to one side-as perhaps it should be,
for I do not believe it will stand the strain of the program that is be-
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