Feel death as though it were
A shadowy caress;
And win and wear a frail
Archaic wistfulness."
Mrs. Seiffert and her alter ego "Elijah Hay" unequally divide A Woman of Thirty. The concluding section reveals the least-known of the Spectrists in some of his (her) most awkward postures.
"Once night was a lion,
No, years ago, night was a python
Weaving designs against space
With undulations of his being—
Night was a siren once.
O sodden, middle-aged night!"
Or, more succinctly, this
EPITAPH
"Courage is a sword,
Honour, but a shield . . .
Here lies a turtle."
The accents of "Elijah Hay" are unfortunately not confined to the last fourteen poems. They disturb even when they do not dominate Mrs. Seiffert's more natural and genuinely imaginative verses. The trouble with A Woman of Thirty is its lack of synthesis. Colour and a free movement, subtleties of thought and rhythm are here, but they have not been integrated; they ravel out into many unconnected loose ends. Love lyrics, studies for decorations, designs from Japanese prints, impeccable nature poems, introspective analyses, originality blurred by moth-eaten phrases and adjectives as outworn as "alien"—Mrs. Seiffert's volume is a curious mixture but not a blend of new tendencies and old echoes. One waits to hear more. Hers, at least, is a bitter-sweetness and her light touch does not pretend to reveal the Light.
