Earth Dieties and Other Rhythmic Masques

There is some charming work in "Earth Deities and Other Rhythmic Masques," by Bliss Carman and Mary Perry King. "The Dance Diurnal," in which Night, Day, Shine, and Shadow weave their figures to mark the eternal successions of light and darkness, is full of happy descriptive fancy, and "Earth Deities," in which visions of Vertumnus, Iris, Syrinx, Fauna, Psyche, Beroe, Ceres, Bacchante, Pomona, and Daphne reward the rapt student of Nature, is saturated with the old classic pagan spirit, and expressed with all the verbal felicity, perceptive imagination, and melodic grace characteristic of Mr. Carman's verse. The delicacy of the lines relating to Daphne contrasts admirably with the rattling roll and "frenzied thro" of the Bacchic lines. The "Pas de Trois," for Pierrot, Pierrette, and Columbine, to the accompaniment furnished by an organ man, is a delightful and ingenious jingle. - The Nation , Volume 101 [1915]