Late though I come, at last

The dress I cast

Of my deceit, which hid

Till late

My soiled estate:

All that I did, I did

In secrecy.

Lord, in my secret places cleanse Thou me!

As to the flesh laid bare, the water, led

By its own laws of life, bids cleansing spread
With subtle press and intimate caress:
And with compelling weight,

Doth gravitate

Round all which passively submits thereto,
Leaving untouched no part;

So to my heart,

Stripped of itself, Thine utmost healing do!
So from its falsehood wash it with Thy truth:
And from lust-loving lave it in Thy ruth:
And with pure Waters pitiful, whose art
The virtue bears of an inborn embrace,
Wash Thou the soil of shame from off my

face!

Against all outward secrecy I pray,
Let all such secrecy be put away!
Since Thou in all my secrets seest me,
Thine, not the world's, let all my secrets be!
So, in Thy secret Ear, when they are named,
I shall be naked but yet not ashamed:
And my great gain be this dear privacy-
When I shut out the world, to shut in Thee!

RICHARD HOVEY

A POET of aggressive virility, aggressive Americanism; a devotee of Nature, not in the abstract but in the concrete, keeping all his five senses in close and intimate communion with mother earth; a lover of women, but also a lover of men, to whom comradeship is more than passion, nay, is passion; a eulogist of vagabondage, of the roving life, of the flannel shirt and the slouch hat; a chanter of irregular rhythms and easy-going staves, inclined to rebel against the trammels of metrical no less than of social form-to whom, if not to Walt Whitman, can this description apply? It applies almost as accurately to Mr. Richard Hovey, whom I am therefore fain to regard as the wearer of Whitman's mantle, the continuer of his tradition. Mr. Hovey, for aught I know, may reject with contumely this literary affiliation. Nowhere, that I remember, does he mention Whitman, or show any consciousness of kinship with him. Nevertheless, the resemblance is unmistakable; and, in Mr. Hovey's place, I should glory in it. Whitman's poetical doctrine, or at any rate his practice, is to be followed in the spirit rather than in the letter; but it would be a misfortune and a reproach to America if his influence were to pass idly away, and leave no abiding mark upon her literature.

Let me say at once that it is the spirit rather than the letter of Whitmanism that Mr. Hovey seems to me to represent. He proves his right to throw off the bonds of

strict form by the power and grace with which he comports himself under their constraint. Far from despising rhyme, he makes constant use of it, and may even be called a virtuoso in jingles, now Browningesque, now Gilbertianfor instance, the Jongleurs and Barney McGee of More Songs from Vagabondia. There is no lack of culture, and certainly no contempt for it, in Mr. Hovey's work. He does not, like Whitman, reject tradition, and set up to be a law unto himself; but he brings the spirit of Whitman into line with the traditions of English poetry.

First let me show what Mr. Hovey can do in ordinary stanza form. He has written two lyrics which seem to me conspicuously admirable both in spirit and in rhythm. The first is included by Mr. E. V. Lucas in his delightful anthology The Open Road; but I cannot leave to Mr. Lucas the credit of having been its "discoverer" on this side of the Atlantic; I had quoted it at least a year earlier in the Pall Mall Magazine. It is entitled

THE SEA GIPSY.

I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,

For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!

With the sunset I must be

Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.

Within its limits, this could not be bettered. It is the perfectly musical and imaginative expression of a mood. But there is a larger, deeper inspiration, and a fine individuality of form, in the following lyric from a poem entitled

Comrades, "Read at the Sixtieth Annual Convention of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 18, 1893":

Comrades, pour the wine to-night,

For the parting is with dawn.
Oh, the clink of cups together,

With the daylight coming on!
Greet the morn

With a double horn,

When strong men drink together!

Comrades, gird your swords to-night,
For the battle is with dawn.
Oh, the clash of shields together,
With the triumph coming on!
Greet the foe

And lay him low,

When strong men fight together.

Comrades, watch the tides to-night,

For the sailing is with dawn.
Oh, to face the spray together,
With the tempest coming on!
Greet the Sea

With a shout of glee,

When strong men roam together.

Comrades, give a cheer to-night,

For the dying is with dawn.
Oh, to meet the stars together,
With the silence coming on!
Greet the end

As a friend a friend,

When strong men die together.

This is not only genuine poetry, but highly original in the true sense of the word. Though staves of a similar tenor have been chanted by the score, Mr. Hovey's song rings out clearly from among them with a note that is all its own. It is not an echo, but a new thing, an absolute addition to our

poetical wealth. Good in its way, yet not so good, is the drinking-song in another Dartmouth ode:

Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime

For a life that knows no fear!

Other utterances of the same Viking spirit, if I may call it so, are to be found in The Buccaneers, in the fine lyrical ballad entitled Discovery, and in the song of defeat "There is no escape by the river," quoted at the end of this article.

A good deal of Mr. Hovey's best work is to be found in his college odes. The finest, perhaps, is that entitled Spring, written for a Convention of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity, not at Dartmouth, but at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. This is one of the pieces in which Mr. Hovey's kinship with Whitman comes out most unmistakably. It opens thus:

I said in my heart, "I am sick of four walls and a ceiling.
I have need of the sky.

I have business with the grass.

I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling,

Lone and high,

And the slow clouds go by.

I will get me away to the waters that glass

The clouds as they pass,

To the waters that lie

Like the heart of a maiden aware of a doom drawing nigh

And dumb for sorcery of impending joy.

I will get me away to the woods.

Spring, like a huntsman's boy,

Halloos along the hillsides and unhoods

The falcon in my will.

The dogwood calls me, and the sudden thrill
That breaks in apple blooms down country roads
Plucks me by the sleeve and nudges me away.
The sap is in the boles to-day,

And in my veins a pulse that yearns and goads."