文档介绍：Young Adventure
Young Adventure
Stephen Vincent
[Stephen Vincent Bene't, American Poet and short-
story writer -- 1898-1943.]
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Young Adventure
Dedication
To W. R. B.
And so, to you, who always were Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot To
me, I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times. Now all those
careless days are not. Of all my heroes, you endure.
Words are such silly things! too rough, Too smooth, they boil up or
congeal, And neither of us likes emotion -- But I can't measure my
devotion! And you know how I really feel -- And we're together. There,
enough, . . . !
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Young Adventure
Foreword by Chauncey Brewster
Tinker
In these days when the old civilisation is crumbling beneath our feet,
the thought of poetry crosses the mind like the dear memory of things that
have long since passed away. In our passionate desire for the new era, it is
difficult to refrain oneself from monplace practice of speculating
on the effects of warfare and of prophesying all manner of novel rebirths.
But it may be well for us to remember that the era which has recently
closed was itself marked by a mad idealisation of all novelties. In the
literary movements of the last decade -- when, indeed, any movement at
all has been perceptible -- we have witnessed a bewildering rise and fall of
methods and ideals. We were captivated for a time by the quest of the
golden phrase and the panying cultivation of exotic emotions; and
then, wearying of the pretty and the temperamental, we plunged into the
bloodshot brutalities of naturalism. From the smooth-flowing imitations of
Tennyson and Swinburne, we passed into a false freedom that had at its
heart a repudiation of all law and standards, for a parallel to which one
turns instinctively to certain recent developments in the political world.
We may hope that the eager search for novelty of form and subject may
have its influence in releasing us from our old bondage to the
commonplace and in broad