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UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
Vol. XXVI.
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, FEBRUARY 5, 1897.
No. 1
i
WHICH?
Tlin sorrow of all the weary world
Is nuver so (lurk and wide.
Tlmt you cannot swell withthe drip of a tear,
Tho sob of its groaning tide.
And the shoreless wastes of tho world's great woe
Arc never so vast and gray
That you cannot ligliton their aching moan
With soothing one pain nwa .
Aha.
The Substance of His House.
If anybody will dispossess himself of
tlio idea that this is in answer to or in
any way inspired by the two reviews
printed in tho Journal and in the Nebras
ka ;Jf ho will smother any" hope that
this is to be a scholarly article, he may
read ahead from this point if he wants
to. I intoud to try nothing more than a
statement of my personal impressions of
Mr. Fryes poems in "The Substance of
His House."
When I first road over these poems I
dosed tho book and said, "Effective but
somehow circumscribod. They do not
ouch all of the sides, not even, I think,
he best sides of human life." I noticed
this tho more because they deal almost
wtiroly with human thought and feeling.
.' Fl'ye fools with almost morbid inten
sity along certain linos. He contrives to
nato us fool what ho fools, makes us feel
10 8Pntanoou8ly but in conscious sym
"thy with him. There is in reading
,so P's always tho consciousness of
wo Poet back of tho poetry. This is my
twierni impression. It does not perhaps
aratol Pm " n reads ihom sep"
The first poem in the book is to mo
G ngest. Second comes "Art
0Wn- In all of tho poems 1 can find
things that are good but these two seem
the most sustained. They leave strong
impressions as wholes; some of the others
do not. Something of the spirit of the
first poem may be guessed from the
opening linos:
"You say you do not love me any more;
And so I may not hold your hand or kiss
Your forhead as I used, for it is wrong
To cling together after love is gone
Exeept for one farewell and final kiss
I will not take it now hut wait a while,
Since one should uevor hurry to an ond,
For the end always hastens of itsolf;
The things wo know are temporal, and love
No matter, let us talk of something elso."
The tone of the poem softens a little
later.
f We often walked,
Sometimes in tho morning when the grass was fresh
And covered by the cobwebs spun by night;
Unruly tit noonday drowsy with the bees
And di.zy with the heat; but frequently
When tho quail whistled all along the upland
Or in tho lover's twilight with tho star
Of evening and the kindling lire flies."
Then there is another change:
it "You say
J was mistnkon,1 or T thought I loved.' "
Lo, I havo given tho substance of my house
For love and it is utterly condemned.
Those are the broad bare walls, the clean -swept floors
The room with all its furniture removed
Thai I made fit for you to occupy.
Oh love, my love, J dread tho winter night
lu the dismantled ruin you have loft.
One feols, though, in reading that there
are some linos that might better be left
out. "I cannot analyze as is so fashion
able now, this love," jars slightly.
"Your voice was like a trumpet of re
treat in a lost battle" gives, to raefcat
loast a martial striding air not perhaps
intended.
Something of the same kind of a drop
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