Publisher's Synopsis
From "The Harvard Graduates' Magazine," Vol. 21:
In a series of poems narrating or rather, suggesting passages in the abortive love affair of a well-born young man and a shop-girl, Mr. Wheelock dramatizes the street life of New York. The merit of his poems lies not so much in their interpretation of the hero and heroine as in the notably vivid and descriptive and poetic treatment of their metropolitan environment. Upon such subjects as Beggars, The Ferry Boat, Street-Cleaners, Old Women, Shop-Girls, A Dance Hall, Mr. Wheelock casts an observing eye and projects a sympathetic and imagining soul; possibly in future work he will reveal a less melancholy affection for what he terms "the dear sensual fact of things." But at any rate he has a distinct gift of expression. As a sample of his quality, his introductory poem is worth quoting:
"I see you stand before me, -
Bizarre, absurd, enchanting, -
(The swinging, silver satchel,
The dear, ridiculous dress),
"A little, dauntless figure,
Half lost in the enormous
Gay picture-hat bowed forward
Across the eager face.
"Its single feather trembles
Against the dusk. Beyond you
The squalid, huddled city
With one red, flaring lamp
"Looms sinister and haunting,
-The wastes that bred and bore you, -
A mockery heartbreaking,
A menace and a joke.
"But you stand all unknowing, -
Glad-hearted, well, and reckless,
Magnanimous and merry,
My lost one, -O my youth."
