RHYTHM

London, England

July 1912

(Page 70)

REVIEWS.

The Triumph of Pan. By Victor B. Neuburg. Thomas Burleigh 155 Victoria Street, S.W. 5s. net.

Victor Neuburg has written some poems. He has something of the poet’s vision in simplicity and sensuality which is born of passionate admiration. The best poems in this book, “The Triumph of Pan,” are these—“Sleep in the Hills,” “The Little Prince,” “Gipsy Tom”—and of these three, the first is undeniably the most successful.

There is peace on the hills to gather,

There a sad, proud soul may sleep;

Gold gorse and green purple heather

Hold the tears that the salt winds weep,

And we will lie down together.

“The Little Prince” is a poem of imagination and charm.

Under the trees I love to lie,

Watching the cloudlets over the sky,

And the green sward down to the river;

The little green leaves prate of the spring,

And the wild geese all are on the wing,

And the shy little branches quiver.

And in “Gipsy Tom” the metre has something of the terror of slow-dropping hidden water.

Star by star

Gleams down there by the hill;

They follow, follow on to the bar

That lies by the foaming mill.

Tom lies dead in the water chill,

With a wreath of bubbles about him still.

But there is another side to the poetry of Victor Neuburg. He appears to take strange delight in mysticism, which is never anything but second-hand. Mysticism is perverted sensuality; it is “passionate admiration” for that which has no reality at all. It leads to the annihilation of any true artistic effort. It is paraphernalia of clichés. It is a mask through which the true expression of the poet can never be discerned. If he rejects this Mask Mr. Neuburg may become a poet.

K.M.