[In the following excerpt, Untermeyer views Reese's poetry as lucid, surprising, and well-crafted.]

Philosophies, fashions, innovations, movements, concern [Lizette Woodworth Reese] not at all; her poetry is bare of social interpretations, problems, almost of ideas. Song, unabashed, actually antiquated song is what she delights in. And out of tunes with little novelty or nuance, she evokes a personal grace that is as fragrant as an old-fashioned flower garden. Miss Reese's realization of this quality finds its fullest expression in the volumes which she has significantly entitled A Branch of May (1887), A Handful of Lavender (1891), A Quiet Road (1896), A Wayside Lute (1909). These volumes, in the chaste reissues printed by Thomas B. Mosher, show Miss Reese as the forerunner of Sara Teasdale, Edna Millay and the new generation to whom simplicity in song is a first essential. Miss Reese thrives within her narrow borders. Her verse is at home behind clipped hedges, among Belleek teacups and delicate Sèvres; I would not be surprised to learn that she writes it in black lace mitts. But it is not only her reticence which gives her work its quality; it is its very excellence of definition. “Spicewood,” “Spinning Tops,” “Bible Stories,” “Driving Home the Cows” are among a score whose very craftsmanship is delightful. There is a lucidity, almost a translucence, in such poems. One can find this limpid color in the sonnets, of which the following is representative.

The east is yellow as a daffodil.
Three steeples—three stark swarthy arms—are thrust
Up from the town. The gnarlèd poplars thrill
Down the long street in some keen salty gust—
Straight from the sea and all the sailing ships—
Turn white, black, white again, with noises sweet
And swift. Back to the night the last star slips.
High up the air is motionless, a sheet
Of light. The east grows yellower apace,
And trembles: then, once more, and suddenly,
The salt wind blows, and in that moment's space
Flame roofs, and poplar-tops, and steeples three;
From out the mist that wraps the river-ways,
The little boats, like torches, start ablaze.

“Sunrise”

Miss Reese's lines are full of happy surprises. She speaks of “daffodils, lighting their candles in the April grass,” in a deserted garden walk, “the lean bush crouching hints old royalty,” she sees that, before the rain, “the poplar shows its white teeth to the gust”; in “Tears,” which is possibly Miss Reese's finest sonnet, she has this vividly suggestive octave.

When I consider Life and its few years—
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street—
I wonder at the idleness of tears.

“The Dust,” “Witch Hazel,” “Ellen Hanging Clothes,” “After,” are among many which reveal this poet's simple illuminations. Frequently she suggests a milder Emily Dickinson—her epigrams are less pointed, her epithets less startling—and there is always, as in the following poem, a living translation of the thing observed.

Towns, lovers, quarrels, bloom—
                    All change from day to day,
But not that steadfast room,
                    Far and far away.
The stiff chairs ranged around;
                    The blue jar flowered wide;
The quick, close racing sound
                    Of poplar trees outside—
I daresay all are there;
                    There still two pictures keep—
The girl so tall and fair;
                    Christ with His foolish sheep.

“The Room”