They seem absolutely simple and sincere, the utterance of a heart too full to hold its emotion—the real lyric cry. That is, the score or more best of them have this beauty, and the best are almost invariably in two or three tetrameter quatrains with alternate rhymes—the simplest tune in the language. In other measures she rarely rises to her highest level, although Broadway and The Lights of New York are good sonnets, and Spring in War Time uses admirably a plaintive little refrain. In free verse she is least at home—it is a pity she tries it.
The poems have a girlish delicacy and all of them express an ardent love of life. They are chiefly love songs, and love songs of nature and the town—keen emotions of joy or wistful longing vividly expressed. But it seems futile to talk about them when they illustrate themselves so much more briefly and happily. We would like to quote seven or eight, but must content ourselves with these two:
APRIL
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree—
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
COME
Come, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,
[149]
