And I object to the idiom in which the passion is
expressed. For example:
_To prove I mean love, I'd burn in Hell._
Or:
_You touch the cup_
_With one slim finger.... I'll drink it up,_
_Though it be blood._
We are all quite certain that the lover would not willingly burn in Hell
to prove his love, and that if he drank blood he would be sick. The idiom
is outworn. That J. Marjoram should employ it is a sign, among others,
that he has not yet quite got over the "devout lover" stage in his mood
towards women. He makes a pin say: "She dropped me, pity my despair!"
which is in the worst tradition of _Westminster Gazette_ "Occ. Verse." He
is somewhat too much occupied with this attitudinization before women or
the memory of women. It has about as much to do with the reality of sexual
companionship as the Lord Mayor's procession has to do with the municipal
life of Greater London. Still, J. Marjoram is a genuine poet. In "Fantasy
of the Sick Bed," the principal poem in the book, there are some really
beautiful passages. I would say to him, and I would say to all young
poets, because I feel it deeply: Do not be afraid of your raw material,
especially in the relations between men and women. J. Marjoram well and
epigrammatically writes:
_Yet who despiseth Love_
_As little and incomplete_
_Learns by losing Love_
_How it was sweet!_
True.
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