POETRY CHRONICLE
655
oneself in love. Mr. Robert Pack gives the theme an extraordinary twist
by introducing echoes of the Loathly Lady theme:
I met a monster in a wood:
"It's not my fault!" choked through her cries,
Blowing her nose as loud as she could,
Tears pouring from her bloodshot eyes.
Being practised in the art,
I raised my lance to poke her through;
But I could not play out my part–
Hers was no strategy I knew.
«The ugliest need love the most,
And if you take me home with you,
You'll find at last someone to trust,
For beauty never could be true."
Such a sentiment made me pause,
Though she was not my type a bit;
It seemed against my whole life's cause
To find love and not pity it.
She saw me weaken and she smiled–
I swear she gloated in her grin;
I must confess that got me riled:
I took my lance and did her in.
One remembers how much better Kemp Owyne brought things off
in that wonderful old ballad. Hearing of a female monster with foul
breath whose long hair, twisted thrice around a tree, held the poor
thing prisoner, Kemp sought her out. He must have -been unnerved when
she asked
him
to kiss her. Nevertheless:
He stepped in, gave her a kiss;
The royal brand he brought him wi';
Her breath was sweet, her hair grew short,
And twisted nane about the tree,'
And smilingly she came about,
As fair a woman as fair could be.
Which shows the power of love. But Americans don't share Kemp's
instinctive nature. There is also available to the American poet a kind
of Sherwood Anderson-ish variation on Mr. Pack's solution to the prob–
lem. I shall come back to Mr. Pack's poetry, but I should like to digress
