Bond or Free?

They are still talking about free verse-both pro and con;

although the champions of both sides insist that the dis-

cussion is closed, and the poets continue to do as they please

and get their poems printed. We commend to Mr. Tom

Daly and other fulminators the following contribution to

the controversy from a recent number of the Mercure de

France. It is part of the theatrical review of Dec. 15, 1920,

by Maurice Boissard:

To say that rhyme is poetry, that there is no poetry where there

isn't rhyme, is to express the worst poetic routine. Let's take an

example-José-Maria de Hérédia, if you will. You know the son-

nets of Trophées. God knows that those lines rhyme, but is it

poetry, in the true sense of the word? Not in the least. It is versi-

fication-extremely brilliant, we admit, but still mere versification.

It is made for the eye, for the ear, not for the spirit or the soul.

It is a sequence of tours de force, a show of patience, suggestively

like certain complicated trinkets manufactured with tiny shells by

meticulous maniacs. Do you want a more general argument? You

certainly have read poems by foreign poets translated into French

line by line and without any rhyme because the translator had in

mind only the thought of being faithful to the significance of the

poem itself. Have you felt the penetrating charm of these trans-

lations ?-a charm due solely to the feeling expressed, to the land-

scape described; charm that the lack of rhyme left untouched, or

even increased, by means of those essentially poetic elements: vague-

ness, imprecision, indecision, all that which is poetry itself. Rhyme,

with its dryness, its regularity, its monotony, its mechanical quality

and exterior brilliance, would have left nothing of that beauty;

or at any rate would have decidedly impaired it. Rhyme is nothing

but a poetic make-up, a way to look like poets for people who know

no better than to make verses; and it is high time to follow the

advice Verlaine gave, to tordre enfin le cou à ce bijou d'un sou.

an obstacle to poetry; for its sake the poet falsifies his inspiration.

Probably Mr. Daly's favorite magazine is Scribner's, for

we read in one of its recent advertisements:

The four or more poems contained in a representative number

of Scribner's are joyous, lyrical, and well-conceived. Such themes

as the bird on the bough, summer in Arcady, the little silver strip

of road, are preferred over grave or mournful subjects. Yet all

poems must conform to a high standard of dignity and distinctive-

ness,

CORRESPONDENCE