1915 - Songs From The Clay

And It Was Windy Weather
The Rivals
The Messenger
The Daisies
To Be Continued
A Song For Lovers
The Horned Moon
In Woods and Meadows
Deirdre
The Petal of a Rose
Sweet Apple
The Red-Haired Man
The Satyr
The Goat Paths
In The Night
The Earth Gods
Hesperus
A Tune of a Reed
The Market
Independence
The Wild Man
The Twins
The Waste Places
Washed In Silver
The Voice of God
The Centaurs
The Lark
The Snare
The Cage
Barbarians
The Masterless Man
The Buds
Green Boughs
An Evening Falls
Blue Stars and Gold
The Imp
The Nodding Stars
The Crown of Thorns
The Ancient Elf
The King of the Fairy Men
Irony
The Four Old Men
Women Shapes
The Clouds
The Way of Winter
Etched in Frost
When the Leaves Fall
In Green Ways
At The Edge of the Sea
Dark Wings
The Liar
The Tramp's Dream
The Road
A Reply
The Holy Time

1915.

Printer:

MacMillan And Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London

Dedication:

None

Here is a review of the book by Harriet Monroe for Poetry, Vol. 6, No. 2 (May, 1915), pp. 93-95

Songs From The Clay, by James Stephens. Macmillan.

There are various kinds of enchantment in this brief volume. First, an elfin glee that shivers with delight, that finds an unexpected vigor and beauty by simply nosing around underneath the obvious. The tremor of wildness in nature, the glint of unseen wings, the beat of fairies' feet, the tune on the wind, the terror in the void—it is perhaps the special privilege of the Celt to discern these things; but few even of the Celts have presented them with such witty brevity, such choice felicity of phrase, as Mr. Stephens commands from his happy muse. Whatever he says one believes, no matter what the miracle may be:

I was there all alone in the night,

With the moon, and we talked for a while,

And her face was a wonder of light,

And her smile was a beautiful smile.

She leaned down and X nearly went mad,

(And she was as frightened as me),

But I got the kiss that she had

Intended to give to the sea.

Who would doubt this moon-magic? Or who can fail to see this "satyr creeping through the wood"?

He peeped about, he minced upon the ground,

He put a thin hand up to hide a grin;

He doubled up and laughed without a sound

The very bodiment of happy sin.

Also tragic intensities of mystery are stated with the same high simplicity, the same convincing austerity of phrase. For example, In The Night:

There always is a noise when it is dark;

It is the noise of silence and the noise

Of blindness.

The noise of silence and the noise of blindness

Do frighten me;

They hold me stark and rigid as a tree!

These frighten me,

These hold me stark and rigid as a tree!

Because at last their tumult is more loud

Than thunder.

Because at last

Their tumult is more loud than thunder:

They terrify my soul,

They tear my heart asunder!

The poet's intimacies are not alone with sprites and elfin mysteries, however; he has a deep human tenderness for grass and flowers, singing birds and suffering animals. The Snare is in the same class with Burns' To a Field Mouse, and the resemblance of the trapped rabbit to sufferers higher in the social scale is not the less poignant for not being stated.

I hear a sudden cry of pain!

There is a rabbit in a snare:

Now I hear the cry again,

But I cannot tell from where.

But I cannot tell from where

He is calling out for aid;

Crying on the frightened air,

Making everything afraid.

Making everything afraid,

Wrinkling up his little face,

As he cries again for aid

And I cannot find the place!

And I cannot find the place

Where his paw is in the snare:

Little one! O little one!

I am searching everywhere.

This linking of stanzas together by the repetition of the last line is a device employed by Mr. Stephens with rare discretion. By this and other repetitions, and by the extreme simplicity of his diction, he aids his own conviction to convince us. Let me recommend this modern Irishman to the numerous poets of the O thou school who search the chronicles and dictionaries for antique subjects and Elizabethan phrases. We rarely believe them for an instant, whereas we never question the truth of whatever Mr. Stephens chooses to summon out of nothingness in lithe and naked beauty.

H. M.