Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Veils of Samite
Mr. Miller's name has been familiar to the readers of poetry for a number of years, and the familiarity is largely due to the manner in which his poems have been widely copied following their original publica tion. In this miscellaneous appearance Mr. Miller won an appreciative audience for his verse, an audi ence that now has the opportunity to understand and admire his merit as a singer in this, the first col lection, in which he has brought his work together. It is noted, in turning these pages, how well the sing ing quality is sustained. By way of song Mr. Miller lures the reader temptingly along the paths of his dreams, and into the heart of those secrets which have a fine ?avor of mysticism. I trust it is not out of place, in considering poetry as ad artistic ex pression, to remark that Mr. Miller is a Catholic; and while he is a Catholic poet, in a certain phase of the meaning, he is, I like to think, also a Catholic and a poet. So to describe him is to emphasize his universality. Lhe sings about all tliose mysticalfigures, rituals and symbols, which belong to the Church, but he never narrows the broad basis of life on purely orthodox foundations., human life in its fullness appeals to his imagination, and within the scope of that imagination, he gathers its varied ex periences and its innumberable emotions. We catch his encompassing vision as a poet in such verses to which he gives the significant title of The March of Humanity.
It is not difficult to recommend a poet for the vari ety of his themes, it is difficult to commend a poet for an equal excellence in the variety. One can heartily commend Mr. Miller for his success in this. The felicity with which he paints a bit of nature is matched by the impressive grace with which he sounds the elegiac note; these are two extreme gamuts bet-ween which, with equal success, he sings of love and war, of humanity and the Church. I would like particularly to call attention to such poems as Transformation, Sacrifice, Maximilian Marvel ous. Salve Regina Aeterna! Epicedium (in Memory of America's Dead in This Great War) and The Dead Astronomer, A Tribute to the Mem cry of Percival Lowell, to show something of Mr. Miller's temper with various themes. His enthusi asm is so manifestly pure that the reader, who is notlooking for the bizarre or the exotic, cannot escape the appeal of his spontancity and exulation. He has that most fortunate of all poetic gifts, the ability to turn our common moods and emotional reactions into the common currency of rhythmic expression. Without debasing his facility into the maudlin, as is too often done by the prolific, he pours forth his songs always with the consciousness of his responsi bility as an artist. This collection represents but a small portion of the verse Mr. Miller has written, and so the reader may miss some pieces that have partic ularly pleased him in their fugitive publication. But the collection here gathered, as a premiere, will command him a place among the poets of to-day.
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