Dreams and Dust: Don Marquis in a Grave Mood
A collection of poems that swings between war reportage, metaphysical doubt and mannered ornament, rewarding patience more than casual reading.
Don Marquis is remembered by many readers for lighter, comic work, so the seriousness of Dreams and Dust may surprise anyone who comes to it expecting quick amusement. This is a collection of verse arranged in forty short sections, some of them single lyrics, others numbered movements of a longer sequence. The subjects range widely: a king in Montenegro, drowned men and their ghosts, the making and unmaking of gods, and small ornamented offerings written for particular occasions.
The shape of the book
There is no single narrative holding these poems together. The book reads as a gathering rather than a designed whole, and the tone shifts sharply from one piece to the next. A grim historical portrait sits near a poem of mist and murdered sailors, which in turn sits near a piece of playful jewel-cataloguing. The reader who wants a steady mood will find the collection uneven; the reader who enjoys watching a poet try several registers will find more to hold onto.
The best of Marquis here is direct and hard. In the poem on Nicholas of Montenegro he gives the old king a plain, defiant speech that lands without decoration:
"For I paid in blood for the town I took, The blood of my brave men slain,— And if you covet the town I took You must buy it with blood again!"
NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO
The texture of the prose
Marquis works in strict rhyme and metre throughout, and he is fond of heavy sound effects. The sea-and-ghost sections lean on repetition and internal rhyme so insistently that the lines almost chant themselves aloud, piling "reeling, wheeling, to and fro" on top of "whirling fast or swaying slow." Read a page at a time this is hypnotic; read for long stretches it can feel airless, the machinery of the verse louder than what it carries.
His most interesting thinking comes in the poems of religious doubt. The Seeker turns over the human habit of building and destroying gods, and states its argument with real economy:
They fling their icons to the sod, And having trampled down a god They seek a god again!
THE SEEKER
That plain-spoken clarity is the collection at its strongest. It shows a mind that trusts the idea to carry the line, without the ornamental clutter that weighs down some of the shorter pieces.
What dates it, what does not
Some of this verse is very much of its period. A Christmas Gift is built entirely from a heaped-up list of gems, and the archaic diction is thick: "Deep sapphine and pale amethyst," "Sardonyx and chalcedony." The elaborate old spellings and the inverted grammar mark the book as belonging to an older poetic fashion, and a modern reader will need some tolerance for it. What does not date is the plainer material: the doubt, the defiance, the fear of the sea. When Marquis drops the ornament, the poems still speak.
Who it will reward, who it will bore
- Readers who enjoy formal, rhymed verse and do not mind old-fashioned diction will find much to admire.
- Readers drawn to poems of religious doubt and human striving will find the strongest work here.
- Readers who came to Marquis for comedy will be surprised, and possibly disappointed, by the graver mood.
- Readers impatient with heavy repetition and archaic spelling will find several pieces slow going.
Dreams and Dust is best approached a few poems at a time rather than read straight through. Taken that way, its unevenness matters less, and its finest lines have room to register.
The book, free to read
More from the reading desk
Browse all →
An Introduction to Oscar Wilde
A guide to the Irish playwright, poet and essayist for readers meeting his work for the first time, with a suggestion on where to begin.
William Ernest Henley's Poems: A Reader's Orientation
A poetry collection whose long opening sequence is set inside a hospital, followed by songs, sketches, and a run of ballades.
Seven Books from the Poetry Shelf
A reading list of seven poetry collections and long poems from the XtreamFm Library, from Shakespeare's narrative verse to Eliot's fragmented modern city.
Empire, Settlement, and Self-Government: A Reading List for Independence Day
Eight books from the collection, read in a line that runs from the machinery of empire to the arguments a new nation makes for itself.