POETS AND POETRY.
WHEELS, 1921.*
I DO not think that this Sixth Cycle of Wheels is as attractive as usual. Mr. Aldous Huxley's " Picture by Goya "—a scene of murder elegant as some Dejeuner Sur 1'Herbe, exquisite in its remoteness—is effective in its morbid, languid way. Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell's " Parade Virtues for a Dying Gladiator " is excessively obscure and contains a good many of the usual
properties—stilts, trumpets and so on.
Mr. Augustine Rivers essays the Dunciad vein in a poem called " The Death of Mercury." The goddesses Dullness and Mediocrity are progressing slow and magnificent to their thrones : " And as, in state, they to their temples go, They hymn : ' Praise Squire from whom all blessings flow, Oh, may he prosper I May his brood increase, And death to all who are not Dull as he is !
Up from glad Earth the chorus swells again : ' Praise Squire, Praise Squire 1 ' we hear the swift refrain That leaps like fire from every school and college, From stately London home or Cotswold cottage Wherever poet meets a poet brother (Or makes an income by reviewing each other).
The echo alters to : We never tire Of hearing Squire on Shanks and Shanks on Squire."
The goddesses (pursues the satirist) are indeed merely showing a proper sense of gratitude. For it was for them that Mr. Squire cast aside " the gift of parody his only art," for them that in secret lair he fashioned " the gummy, muddy, ` Lily of Malud.' "
He and his " four-square " henchmen, Freeman, Turner, Graves, Shanks and " reckless Rickward," are eternally vowed to her service, and so on. None of it is quite as well-polished, either in point of satire, manners, or of versification, as it ought to be.
Messrs. Turner and Graves, for example, may have faults : they might be accused of being unduly obscure, mystic and rhapsodical, but to lump them all together as dull reminds us of the angry aimlessness of the Bandarlog: From this rather crude ill-temper there is no very marked relief in the book, though Mr. Sacheverell and Miss Edith Sitwell are both at least urbane, and Mr. Sacheverell has some pleasant lines in a poem called " An Imitation of George Peale." But they can all write so well and be so decorative and so amusing ! Why have they suddenly become so dreary ? Why is there nothing in the mood of " The Jealous Goddess," which we publish in this issue ? Where is Miss Sitwell's gaiety ?
A. WILLIABE3-FT Tag.
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