Part 11

I went to the dances at Chandlerville, And played snap-out at Winchester. One time we changed partners, Driving home in the moonlight of middle June, And then I found Davis. We were married and lived together for seventy years, Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, Eight of whom we lost Ere I had reached the age of sixty. I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick, I made the garden, and for holiday Rambled over the fields where sang the larks, And by Spoon River gathering many a shell, And many a flower and medicinal weed— Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys. At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all, And passed to a sweet repose. What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you— It takes life to love Life.

ANNE RUTLEDGE[24][25]

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!

SILENCE[26]

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence for which music alone finds the word, And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths Of what use is language? A beast of the field moans a few times When death takes its young. And we are voiceless in the presence of realities— We cannot speak.

A curious boy asks an old soldier Sitting in front of the grocery store, “How did you lose your leg?” And the old soldier is struck with silence, Or his mind flies away Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. It comes back jocosely And he says, “A bear bit it off.” And the boy wonders, while the old soldier Dumbly, feebly lives over The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, The shrieks of the slain, And himself lying on the ground, And the hospital surgeons, the knives, And the long days in bed. But if he could describe it all He would be an artist. But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds Which he could not describe. There is the silence of a great hatred, And the silence of a great love, And the silence of a deep peace of mind, And the silence of an embittered friendship, There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life. And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech, There is the silence of defeat. There is the silence of those unjustly punished; And the silence of the dying whose hand Suddenly grips yours. There is the silence between father and son, When the father cannot explain his life, Even though he be misunderstood for it.

There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. There is the silence of those who have failed; And the vast silence that covers Broken nations and vanquished leaders. There is the silence of Lincoln, Thinking of the poverty of his youth. And the silence of Napoleon After Waterloo. And the silence of Jeanne d’Arc Saying amid the flames, “Blesséd Jesus”— Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope. And there is the silence of age, Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it In words intelligible to those who have not lived The great range of life.

And there is the silence of the dead. If we who are in life cannot speak Of profound experiences, Why do you marvel that the dead Do not tell you of death? Their silence shall be interpreted As we approach them.

_Stephen Crane_

Stephen Crane, whose literary career was one of the most meteoric in American letters, was born at Newark, New Jersey, November 1, 1871. After taking a partial course at Lafayette College, he entered journalism at sixteen and, until the time of his death, was a reporter and writer of newspaper sketches. When he died, at the age of thirty, he had ten printed volumes standing to his credit, two more announced for publication, and two others which were appearing serially.

Crane’s most famous novel, _The Red Badge of Courage_ (1895), was written when he was twenty-two years old. What is even more astonishing is the fact that this detailed description of blood and battlefields was written by a civilian far from the scene of conflict. This novel (Crane’s second) was an instantaneous and international success. _The Atlantic Monthly_ pronounced it “great enough to set a new fashion in literature”; H. G. Wells, speaking of its influence in England, said Crane was “the first expression of the opening mind or a new period ... a record of an intensity beyond all precedent.”

Crane’s other books, although less powerful than _The Red Badge of Courage_, are scarcely less vivid. _The Open Boat_ (1898) and _The Monster_ (1899) are full of an intuitive wisdom and a sensitivity that caused Wells to exclaim “The man who can call these ‘brilliant fragments’ would reproach Rodin for not ‘completing’ his fragments.”

At various periods in Crane’s brief career, he experimented in verse, seeking to find new effects in unrhymed lines, a new acuteness of vision. The results were embodied in two volumes of unusual poetry, _The Black Riders_ (1895) and _War Is Kind_ (1899), lines that strangely anticipated the Imagists and the epigrammatic free verse that followed fifteen years later.

Besides his many novels, short stories and poems, Crane was writing, at the time of his death, descriptions of the world’s great battles for _Lippincott’s Magazine_; his droll _Whilomville Stories_ for boys were appearing in _Harper’s Monthly_ and he was beginning a series of similar stories for girls. It is more than probable that this feverish energy of production aggravated the illness that caused Crane’s death. He reached his refuge in the Black Forest only to die at the journey’s end, June 5, 1900.

I SAW A MAN

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. “It is futile,” I said, “You can never”—

“You lie,” he cried, And ran on.

THE WAYFARER

The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds. “Ha,” he said, “I see that no one has passed here In a long time.” Later he saw that each weed Was a singular knife. “Well,” he mumbled at last, “Doubtless there are other roads.”

HYMN

A slant of sun on dull brown walls, A forgotten sky of bashful blue.

Toward God a mighty hymn, A song of collisions and cries, Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells, Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans, Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair, The unknown appeals of brutes, The chanting of flowers, The screams of cut trees, The senseless babble of hens and wise men— A cluttered incoherency that says to the stars: “O God, save us!”

THE BLADES OF GRASS

In Heaven, Some little blades of grass Stood before God. “What did you do?” Then all save one of the little blades Began eagerly to relate The merits of their lives. This one stayed a small way behind, Ashamed. Presently, God said, “And what did you do?” The little blade answered, “Oh, my Lord, Memory is bitter to me, For, if I did good deeds, I know not of them.” Then God, in all his splendor, Arose from his throne. “Oh, best little blade of grass!” he said.

_Edwin Ford Piper_

Edwin Ford Piper was born at Auburn, Nebraska, February 8, 1871, and literally grew up in the saddle. In 1893 he entered the University of Nebraska, from which he received an A.B. in 1897 and A.M. in 1900. He studied at Harvard (1903–4), was one of the editors of _The Kiote_ (a magazine published from 1898 to 1902 in Lincoln, Nebraska), and, since 1905, has been an instructor of English at the State University of Iowa.

_Piper’s Barbed Wire and Other Poems_ (1918) is saturated with the color of his environment. His later poems are still more vivid and racy. “Sweetgrass Range” (with its self-acknowledged debt to Burns’s “Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie”) and “Bindlestiff” are fresh evidences of this author’s creative interest in ballads and folk-lore.

BINDLESTIFF

_Oh, the lives of men, lives of men, In pattern-molds be run; But there’s you, and me, and Bindlestiff— And remember Mary’s Son._

At dawn the hedges and the wheel-ruts ran Into a brightening sky. The grass bent low With shimmering dew, and many a late wild rose Unrolled the petals from its odorous heart While birds held tuneful gossip. Suddenly, Each bubbling trill and whistle hid away As from a hawk; the fragrant silence heard Only the loving stir of little leaves; Then a man’s baritone broke roughly in:

_I’ve gnawed my crust of mouldy bread, Skimmed my mulligan stew; Laid beneath the barren hedge— Sleety night-winds blew._

_Slanting rain chills my bones, Sun bakes my skin; Rocky road for my limping feet, Door where I can’t go in._

Above the hedgerow floated filmy smoke From the hidden singer’s fire. Once more the voice:

_I used to burn the mules with the whip When I worked on the grading gang; But the boss was a crook, and he docked my pay— Some day that boss will hang._

_I used to live in a six by nine, Try to save my dough— It’s a bellyful of the chaff of life, Feet that up and go._

The mesh of leafy branches rustled loud, Into the road slid Bindlestiff. You’ve seen The like of the traveller: gaunt humanity In stained and broken coat, with untrimmed hedge Of rusty beard and curling sunburnt hair; His hat, once white, a dull uncertain cone; His leathery hands and cheeks, his bright blue eyes That always see new faces and strange dogs; His mouth that laughs at life and at himself.

_Sometimes they shut you up in jail— Dark, and a filthy cell; I hope the fellows built them jails Find ’em down in hell._

_But up above, you can sleep outdoors— Feed you like a king; You never have to saw no wood, Only job is sing._

The tones came mellower, as unevenly The tramp limped off trailing the hobo song:

_Good-bye, farewell to Omaha, K. C., and Denver, too; Put my foot on the flying freight, Going to ride her through._

Bindlestiff topped a hillock, against the sky Showed stick and bundle with his extra shoes Jauntily dangling. Bird to bird once more Made low sweet answer; in the wild rose cups The bee found yellow meal; all softly moved The white and purple morning-glory bells As on the gently rustling hedgetop leaves The sun’s face rested. Bindlestiff was gone.

_Oh, the lives of men, lives of men, In pattern-molds be run; But there’s you, and me, and Bindlestiff— And remember Mary’s Son._

SWEETGRASS RANGE

Come sell your pony, cowboy— Sell your pony to me; Braided bridle and your puncher saddle, And spend your money free.

“If I should sell my pony, And ride the range no more, Nail up my hat and my silver spurs Above my shanty door;

“And let my door stand open wide To the snow and the rain and sun; And bury me under the green sweetgrass Where you hear the river run.”

As I came down the sweetgrass range And by the cabin door, I heard a singing in the early dusk Along the river shore;

I heard a singing to the early stars, And the tune of a pony’s feet. The joy of the riding singer I never shall forget.

_T. A. Daly_

Thomas Augustine Daly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 28, 1871. He attended Villanova College and Fordham University (1889), leaving there at the end of his sophomore year to become a newspaper man. Since 1891 he has been on the staff of various Philadelphia journals, writing reviews, editorials, travel-notes and, most of all, running the columns in which his much-quoted verse originally appeared.

_Canzoni_ (1906) and _Carmina_ (1909) contain the best known of Daly’s varied dialect verse. Although he has written in half a dozen different idioms including “straight” English (_vide Songs of Wedlock_, 1916), his half-humorous, half-pathetic interpretations of the Irish and Italian immigrants are his _forte_.

Seldom descending to caricature, Daly exhibits the features and foibles of his characters without exploiting them; even the lightest passages in _McAroni Ballads_ (1919) are done with delicacy and a not too sentimental appreciation.

THE SONG OF THE THRUSH

Ah! the May was grand this mornin’! Shure, how could I feel forlorn in Such a land, when tree and flower tossed their kisses to the breeze? Could an Irish heart be quiet While the Spring was runnin’ riot, An’ the birds of free America were singin’ in the trees? In the songs that they were singin’ No familiar note was ringin’, But I strove to imitate them an’ I whistled like a lad. Oh, my heart was warm to love them For the very newness of them— For the ould songs that they helped me to forget—an’ I was glad.

So I mocked the feathered choir To my hungry heart’s desire, An’ I gloried in the comradeship that made their joy my own. Till a new note sounded, stillin’ All the rest. A thrush was trillin’! Ah! the thrush I left behind me in the fields about Athlone! Where, upon the whitethorn swayin’, He was minstrel of the Mayin’, In my days of love an’ laughter that the years have laid at rest; Here again his notes were ringin’! But I’d lost the heart for singin’— Ah! the song I could not answer was the one I knew the best.

MIA CARLOTTA

Giuseppe, da barber, ees greata for “mash,” He gotta da bigga, da blacka mustache, Good clo’es an’ good styla an’ playnta good cash.

W’enevra Giuseppe ees walk on da street, Da peopla dey talka, “how nobby! how neat! How softa da handa, how smalla da feet.”

He raisa hees hat an’ he shaka hees curls, An’ smila weeth teetha so shiny like pearls; O! many da heart of da seelly young girls He gotta. Yes, playnta he gotta— But notta Carlotta!

Giuseppe, da barber, he maka da eye, An’ lika de steam engine puffa an’ sigh, For catcha Carlotta w’en she ees go by.

Carlotta she walka weeth nose in da air, An’ look through Giuseppe weeth far-away stare, As eef she no see dere ees som’body dere.

Giuseppe, da barber, he gotta da cash, He gotta da clo’es an’ da bigga mustache, He gotta da seelly young girls for da “mash,” But notta— You bat my life, notta— Carlotta. I gotta!

BETWEEN TWO LOVES

I gotta lov’ for Angela, I lov’ Carlotta, too. I no can marry both o’ dem, So w’at I gona do?

O! Angela ees pretta girl, She gotta hair so black, so curl, An’ teeth so white as anytheeng. An’ O! she gotta voice to seeng, Dat mak’ your hearta feel eet must Jump up an’ dance or eet weell bust. An’ alla time she seeng, her eyes Dey smila like Italia’s skies, An’ makin’ flirtin’ looks at you— But dat ees all w’at she can do.

Carlotta ees no gotta song, But she ees twice so big an’ strong As Angela, an’ she no look So beautiful—but she can cook. You oughta see her carry wood! I tal you w’at, eet do you good. When she ees be som’body’s wife She worka hard, you bat my life! She never gattin’ tired, too— But dat ees all w’at she can do.

O! my! I weesh dat Angela Was strong for carry wood, Or else Carlotta gotta song An’ looka pretta good. I gotta lov’ for Angela, I lov’ Carlotta, too. I no can marry both o’ dem, So w’at I gona do?

_Paul Laurence Dunbar_

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in 1872 at Dayton, Ohio, the son of negro slaves. He was, before and after he began to write his interpretative verse, an elevator-boy. He tried newspaper work unsuccessfully and, in 1899, Dunbar was given a minor position in the Library of Congress at Washington, D. C.

Although Dunbar wrote several volumes of short stories and two novels, he is most at home in his verse. And even here, his best work is not those straight, “literary English” pieces by which he set such store, but the racy rhymes written in negro dialect, alternately tender and mocking. Dunbar’s first collection, _Lyrics of Lowly Life_ (1896), contains many of his most characteristic poems. In an introduction, in which mention was made of the octoroon Dumas and the great Russian poet Pushkin, who was a mulatto, William Dean Howells wrote, “So far as I could remember, Paul Dunbar was the only man of pure African blood and of American civilization to feel the negro life æsthetically and express it lyrically.... His brilliant and unique achievement was to have studied the American negro objectively, and to have represented him as he found him—with humor, with sympathy, and yet with what the reader must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness.”

_Lyrics of the Hearthside_ (1899) and _Lyrics of Love and Laughter_ (1903) are two other volumes full of folk-stuff. And though the final _Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow_ (1905) is less original, being crowded with echoes of all kinds of poetry from the songs of Robert Burns to the childhood rhymes of J. W. Riley, it contains a few of Dunbar’s least-known but keenest interpretations.

Dunbar died in the city of his birth, Dayton, Ohio, February 10, 1906.

THE TURNING OF THE BABIES IN THE BED[27]

Woman’s sho’ a cur’ous critter, an’ dey ain’t no doubtin’ dat. She’s a mess o’ funny capahs f’om huh slippahs to huh hat. Ef yo’ tries to un’erstan’ huh, an’ yo’ fails, des’ up an’ say: “D’ ain’t a bit o’ use to try to un’erstan’ a woman’s way.”

I don’ mean to be complainin’, but I’s jes’ a-settin’ down Some o’ my own obserwations, w’en I cas’ my eye eroun’. Ef yo’ ax me fu’ to prove it, I ken do it mighty fine, Fu’ dey ain’t no bettah ’zample den dis ve’y wife o’ mine.

In de ve’y hea’t o’ midnight, w’en I’s sleepin’ good an’ soun’, I kin hyeah a so’t o’ rustlin’ an’ somebody movin’ ’roun’. An’ I say, “Lize, whut yo’ doin’?” But she frown an’ shek huh haid, “Hesh yo’ mouf, I’s only tu’nin’ of de chillun in de bed.

“Don’ yo’ know a chile gits restless, layin’ all de night one way? An’ yo’ got to kind o’ ’range him sev’al times befo’ de day? So de little necks won’t worry, an’ de little backs won’t break; Don’ yo’ t’ink ’cause chillun’s chillun dey haint got no pain an’ ache.”

So she shakes ’em, an’ she twists ’em, an’ she tu’ns ’em ’roun’ erbout, ’Twell I don’ see how de chillun evah keeps f’om hollahin’ out. Den she lif’s ’em up head down’ards, so’s dey won’t git livah-grown, But dey snoozes des’ ez peaceful ez a liza’d on a stone.

W’en hit’s mos’ nigh time fu’ wakin’ on de dawn o’ jedgement day, Seems lak I kin hyeah ol’ Gab’iel lay his trumpet down an’ say, “Who dat walkin’ ’roun’ so easy, down on earf ermong de dead?”— ’T will be Lizy up a-tu’nin’ of de chillun in de bed.

A COQUETTE CONQUERED[28]

Yes, my ha’t’s ez ha’d ez stone— Go ’way, Sam, an’ lemme ’lone. No; I ain’t gwine change my min’; Ain’t gwine ma’y you—nuffin’ de kin’.

Phiny loves you true an’ deah? Go ma’y Phiny; whut I keer? Oh, you needn’t mou’n an’ cry— I don’t keer how soon you die.

Got a present! Whut you got? Somef’n fu’ de pan er pot! Huh! Yo’ sass do sholy beat— Think I don’t git ’nough to eat?

Whut’s dat un’neaf yo’ coat? Looks des lak a little shoat. ’Tain’t no possum? Bless de Lamb! Yes, it is, you rascal, Sam!

Gin it to me; whut you say? Ain’t you sma’t now! Oh, go ’way! Possum do look mighty nice; But you ax too big a price.

Tell me, is you talkin’ true, Dat’s de gal’s whut ma’ies you? Come back, Sam; now whah’s you gwine? Co’se you knows dat possum’s mine!

DISCOVERED[29]

Seen you down at chu’ch las’ night, Nevah min’, Miss Lucy. What I mean? Oh, dat’s all right, Nevah min’, Miss Lucy. You was sma’t ez sma’t could be, But you couldn’t hide f’om me. Ain’t I got two eyes to see! Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.

Guess you thought you’s awful keen; Nevah min’, Miss Lucy. Evahthing you done, I seen; Nevah min’, Miss Lucy. Seen him tek yo’ ahm jes’ so, When he got outside de do’— Oh, I know dat man’s yo’ beau! Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.

Say now, honey, wha’d he say?— Nevah min’, Miss Lucy. Keep yo’ secrets—dat’s yo’ way— Nevah min’, Miss Lucy, Won’t tell me an’ I’m yo’ pal! I’m gwine tell his othah gal,— Know huh, too, huh name is Sal. Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.