Part 12

_Guy Wetmore Carryl_

Guy Wetmore Carryl, son of Charles Edward Carryl (see page 34), was born in New York City, March 4, 1873. He graduated from Columbia University in 1895, was editor of _Munsey’s Magazine_, 1895–6, and, during the time he lived abroad (from 1897 to 1902), was the foreign representative of various American publications.

As a writer of prose he was received with no little acclaim; his stories _The Transgression of Andrew Vane_ (1902) and _Zut and Other Parisians_ (1903) held the attention of a restless reading public. But it was as a writer of light verse that Carryl was preëminent. Inheriting a remarkable technical gift from his father, young Carryl soon surpassed him as well as all other rivals in the field of brilliantly rhymed, brilliantly turned burlesques. Although he wrote several serious poems (the best of which have been collected in the posthumously published _The Garden of Years_, 1904), Carryl’s most characteristic work is to be found in his perversions of the parables of Æsop, _Fables for the Frivolous_ (1898), the topsy-turvy interpretations of old nursery rhymes, _Mother Goose for Grownups_ (1900) and the fantastic variations on the fairy tales in _Grimm Tales Made Gay_ (1903)—all of them with a surprising (and punning) Moral attached.

This extraordinary versifier died, before reaching the height of his power, at the age of thirty-one, in the summer of 1904.

HOW JACK FOUND THAT BEANS MAY GO BACK ON A CHAP

Without the slightest basis For hypochondriasis A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her flung, And with expression cynical For half the day a clinical Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.

Whene’er she read the papers She suffered from the vapors, At every tale of malady or accident she’d groan; In every new and smart disease, From housemaid’s knee to heart disease, She recognized the symptoms as her own!

She had a yearning chronic To try each novel tonic, Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm; And from a homeopathist Would change to an hydropathist, And back again, with stupefying calm! She was nervous, cataleptic, And anemic, and dyspeptic: Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears. She dwelt with force fanatical Upon a twinge rheumatical, And said she had a buzzing in her ears!

Now all of this bemoaning And this grumbling and this groaning The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored. His heart completely hardening, He gave his time to gardening, For raising beans was something he adored.

Each hour in accents morbid This limp maternal bore bid Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys. She never granted Jack a day Without some long “Alackaday!” Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.

But Jack, no panic showing, Just watched his beanstalk growing, And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole. At all her words funereal He smiled a smile ethereal, Or sighed an absent-minded “Bless my soul!”

That hollow-hearted creature Would never change a feature: No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her talk. She never fussed or flurried him, The only thing that worried him Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!

But then he wabbled loosely His head, and wept profusely, And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears, Exclaimed: “It hasn’t got any!” He found this blow to botany Was sadder than were all his mother’s fears.

_The Moral_ is that gardeners pine Whene’er no pods adorn the vine. Of all sad words experience gleans The saddest are: “It _might_ have beans.” (I did not make this up myself: ’Twas in a book upon my shelf. It’s witty, but I don’t deny It’s rather Whittier than I!)

THE SYCOPHANTIC FOX AND THE GULLIBLE RAVEN

A raven sat upon a tree, And not a word he spoke, for His beak contained a piece of Brie, Or, maybe, it was Roquefort. We’ll make it any kind you please— At all events it was a cheese. Beneath the tree’s umbrageous limb A hungry fox sat smiling; He saw the raven watching him, And spoke in words beguiling: “_J’admire_,” said he, “_ton beau plumage_,” (The which was simply persiflage.)

Two things there are, no doubt you know, To which a fox is used: A rooster that is bound to crow, A crow that’s bound to roost; And whichsoever he espies He tells the most unblushing lies.

“Sweet fowl,” he said, “I understand You’re more than merely natty, I hear you sing to beat the band And Adelina Patti. Pray render with your liquid tongue A bit from ‘Götterdämmerung.’”

This subtle speech was aimed to please The crow, and it succeeded; He thought no bird in all the trees Could sing as well as he did. In flattery completely doused, He gave the “Jewel Song” from “Faust.” But gravitation’s law, of course, As Isaac Newton showed it, Exerted on the cheese its force, And elsewhere soon bestowed it. In fact, there is no need to tell What happened when to earth it fell.

I blush to add that when the bird Took in the situation He said one brief, emphatic word, Unfit for publication. The fox was greatly startled, but He only sighed and answered “Tut.”

THE MORAL is: A fox is bound To be a shameless sinner. And also: When the cheese comes round You know it’s after dinner. But (what is only known to few) The fox is after dinner, too.

HOW A CAT WAS ANNOYED AND A POET WAS BOOTED

A poet had a cat. There is nothing odd in that— (I _might_ make a little pun about the _Mews_!) But what is really more Remarkable, she wore A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes. And I doubt me greatly whether E’er you heard the like of that: Pointed shoes of patent-leather On a cat!

His time he used to pass Writing sonnets, on the grass— (I _might_ say something good on _pen_ and _sward_!) While the cat sat near at hand, Trying hard to understand The poems he occasionally roared. (I myself possess a feline, But when poetry I roar He is sure to make a bee-line For the door.)

The poet, cent by cent, All his patrimony spent— (I _might_ tell how he went from _verse_ to _worse_!) Till the cat was sure she could, By advising, do him good. So addressed him in a manner that was terse: “We are bound toward the scuppers, And the time has come to act, Or we’ll both be on our uppers For a fact!”

On her boot she fixed her eye, But the boot made no reply— (I _might_ say: “Couldn’t speak to save its _sole_!”) And the foolish bard, instead Of responding, only read A verse that wasn’t bad upon the whole. And it pleased the cat so greatly, Though she knew not what it meant, That I’ll quote approximately How it went:—

“If I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree”— (I _might_ put in: “I think I’d just as _leaf_!”) “Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough”— Well, he’d plagiarized it bodily, in brief! But that cat of simple breeding Couldn’t read the lines between, So she took it to a leading Magazine.

She was jarred and very sore When they showed her to the door. (I _might_ hit off the _door_ that was a _jar_!) To the spot she swift returned Where the poet sighed and yearned, And she told him that he’d gone a little far. “Your performance with this rhyme has Made me absolutely sick,” She remarked. “I think the time has Come to kick!” I could fill up half the page With descriptions of her rage— (I _might_ say that she went a bit _too fur_)! When he smiled and murmured: “Shoo!” “There is one thing I can do!” She answered with a wrathful kind of purr. “You may shoo me, an’ it suit you, But I feel my conscience bid Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!” (Which she did.)

_The Moral_ of the plot (Though I say it, as should not!) Is: An editor is difficult to suit. But again there’re other times When the man who fashions rhymes Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!

_H. H. Knibbs_

Harry Herbert Knibbs was born at Niagara Falls, October 24, 1874. After a desultory schooling, he attended Harvard for three years when he was thirty-four. “Somebody said I took honors in English,” says Knibbs, “but I never saw them.” He wrote his first book, _Lost Farm Camp_, a novel, as a class exercise.

Half a dozen volumes followed, _Overland Red_ (1914) and _Tang of Life_ (1917) being the most popular. In 1911, Knibbs settled in Los Angeles, California, where he has lived ever since.

In _Riders of the Stars_ (1916) and _Songs of the Trail_ (1920), Knibbs carries on the tradition of Bret Harte and the Pike County Ballads. High-hearted verse this is, with more than an occasional flash of poetry. To the typical Western breeziness, Knibbs adds a wider whimsicality, a rough-shod but nimble imagination.

THE VALLEY THAT GOD FORGOT

Out in the desert spaces, edged by a hazy blue, Davison sought the faces of the long-lost friends he knew: They were there, in the distance dreaming Their dreams that were worn and old; They were there, to his frenzied seeming, Still burrowing down for gold.

Davison’s face was leather; his mouth was a swollen blot, His mind was a floating feather, in The Valley That God Forgot; Wild as a dog gone loco, Or sullen or meek, by turns, He mumbled a “Poco! Poco!” And whispered of pools and ferns.

Gold! Why his, for the finding! But water was never found, Save in deep caverns winding miles through the underground: Cool, far, shadowy places Edged by the mirrored trees, When—Davison saw the faces! And fear let loose his knees.

There was Shorty who owed him money, and Billing who bossed the crowd; And Steve whom the boys called “Sunny,” and Collins who talked so loud: Miguel with the handsome daughter, And the rustler, Ed McCray; Five—and they begged for water, And offered him gold, in pay.

Gold? It was never cheaper. And Davison shook his head: “The price of a drink is steeper out here than in town,” he said. He laughed as they mouthed and muttered Through lips that were cracked and dried; The pulse in his ear-drum fluttered: “I’m through with the game!” he cried.

“I’m through!” And he knelt and fumbled the cap of his dry canteen Then, rising, he swayed and stumbled into a black ravine: His ghostly comrades followed, For Davison’s end was near, And a shallow grave they hollowed, When up from it, cool and clear

Bubbled the water—hidden a pick-stroke beneath the sand; Davison, phantom-ridden, scooped with a shaking hand ... Davison swears they made it, The Well where we drank to-day. Davison’s game? He played it And won—so the town-folk say:

Called it, The Morning-Glory—near those abandoned stamps, And Davison’s crazy story was told in a hundred camps: Time and the times have tamed it, His yarn—and this desert spot, But I’m strong for the man who named it, The Valley That God Forgot.

ROLL A ROCK DOWN

Oh, out in the West where the riders are ready, They sing an old song and they tell an old tale, And its moral is plain: Take it easy, go steady, While riding a horse on the Malibu Trail.

It’s a high, rocky trail with its switch-backs and doubles, It has no beginning and never an end: It’s risky and rough and it’s plumb full of troubles, From Shifty—that’s shale—up to Powder Cut Bend.

Old-timers will tell you the rangers who made it, Sang “Roll A Rock Down,” with a stiff upper lip, And cussed all creation, but managed to grade it; With a thousand-foot drop if a pony should slip.

Oh, the day it was wet and the sky it was cloudy, The trail was as slick as an oil-rigger’s pants, When Ranger McCabe on his pony, Old Rowdy, Came ridin’ where walkin’ was takin’ a chance.

“Oh, Roll A Rock Down!” picks and shovels was clangin’, And Rowdy a-steppin’ that careful and light, When the edge it gave way and McCabe was left hangin’ Clean over the rim—with no bottom in sight.

I shook out a loop—bein’ crowded for throwin’; I flipped a fair noose for a rope that was wet: It caught just as Mac lost his holt and was goin’, And burned through my fingers: it’s burnin’ them yet.

For Ranger McCabe never knuckled to danger; My pardner in camp, on the trail, or in town: And he slid into glory, a true forest-ranger, With: “Hell! I’m a-goin’! Just roll a rock down.”

So, roll a rock down where a ranger is sleepin’ Aside of his horse below Powder Cut Bend: I ride and I look where the shadows are creepin’, And roll a rock down—for McCabe was my friend.

I’ve sung you my song and I’ve told you my story, And all that I ask when I’m done with the show, Is, roll a rock down when I slide into glory, And say that I went like a ranger should go.

THE TRAIL-MAKERS

North and west along the coast among the misty islands, Sullen in the grip of night and smiling in the day: Nunivak and Akutan, with Nome against the highlands, On we drove with plated prow agleam with frozen spray.

_Loud we sang adventuring and lustily we jested; Quarreled, fought, and then forgot the taunt, the blow, the jeers; Named a friend and clasped a hand—a compact sealed, attested; Shared tobacco, yarns, and drink, and planned surpassing years._

Then—the snow that locked the trail where famine’s shadow followed Out across the blinding white and through the stabbing cold, Past tents along the tundra over faces blotched and hollowed; Toothless mouths that babbled foolish songs of hidden gold.

Wisdom, lacking sinews for the toil, gave over trying; Fools, with thews of iron, blundered on and won the fight; Weaklings drifted homeward; else they tarried—worse than dying— With the painted lips and wastrels on the edges of the night.

Berries of the saskatoon were ripening and falling; Flowers decked the barren with its timber scant and low; All along the river-trail were many voices calling, And e’en the whimpering Malemutes they heard—and whined to go.

Eyelids seared with fire and ice and frosted parka-edges; Firelight like a spray of blood on faces lean and brown; Shifting shadows of the pines across our loaded sledges, And far behind the fading trail, the lights and lures of town.

So we played the bitter game nor asked for praise or pity: Wind and wolf they found the bones that blazed out lonely trails.... Where a dozen shacks were set, to-day there blooms a city; Now where once was empty blue, there pass a thousand sails.

Scarce a peak that does not mark the grave of those who perished Nameless, lost to lips of men who followed, gleaning fame From the soundless triumph of adventurers who cherished Naught above the glory of a chance to play the game.

Half the toil—and we had won to wealth in other station; Rusted out as useless ere our worth was tried and known. But the Hand that made us caught us up and hewed a nation From the frozen fastness that so long was His alone.

· · · · · ·

_Loud we sang adventuring and lustily we jested; Quarreled, fought, and then forgot the taunt, the blow, the jeers; Sinned and slaved and vanished—we, the giant-men who wrested Truth from out a dream wherein we planned surpassing years._

_Anna Hempstead Branch_

Anna Hempstead Branch was born at New London, Connecticut. She graduated from Smith College in 1897 and has devoted herself to literature ever since.

Her two chief volumes, _The Shoes That Danced_ (1905) and _Rose of the Wind_ (1910), show a singer who is less fanciful than philosophic. Often, indeed, she weighs down her simple melodies with a heavy intellectuality, but, even more often, she attains a high level of lyricism. Her lines are admirably condensed, rich in personal value as well as poetic revelation; they maintain a high and austere level. A typical poem is “The Monk in the Kitchen,” which, with its spiritual loveliness and verbal felicity, is a celebration of cleanness that gives order an almost mystical nobility.

THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN

I

Order is a lovely thing; On disarray it lays its wing, Teaching simplicity to sing. It has a meek and lowly grace, Quiet as a nun’s face. Lo—I will have thee in this place! Tranquil well of deep delight, All things that shine through thee appear As stones through water, sweetly clear. Thou clarity, That with angelic charity Revealest beauty where thou art, Spread thyself like a clean pool. Then all the things that in thee are, Shall seem more spiritual and fair, Reflection from serener air— Sunken shapes of many a star In the high heavens set afar.

II

Ye stolid, homely, visible things, Above you all brood glorious wings Of your deep entities, set high, Like slow moons in a hidden sky. But you, their likenesses, are spent Upon another element. Truly ye are but seemings— The shadowy cast-off gleamings Of bright solidities. Ye seem Soft as water, vague as dream; Image, cast in a shifting stream.

III

What are ye? I know not. Brazen pan and iron pot, Yellow brick and gray flag-stone That my feet have trod upon— Ye seem to me Vessels of bright mystery. For ye do bear a shape, and so Though ye were made by man, I know An inner Spirit also made, And ye his breathings have obeyed.

IV

Shape, the strong and awful Spirit, Laid his ancient hand on you. He waste chaos doth inherit; He can alter and subdue. Verily, he doth lift up Matter, like a sacred cup. Into deep substance he reached, and lo Where ye were not, ye were; and so Out of useless nothing, ye Groaned and laughed and came to be. And I use you, as I can, Wonderful uses, made for man, Iron pot and brazen pan.

V

What are ye? I know not; Nor what I really do When I move and govern you. There is no small work unto God. He required of us greatness; Of his least creature A high angelic nature, Stature superb and bright completeness. He sets to us no humble duty. Each act that he would have us do Is haloed round with strangest beauty; Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks Of his plainest child he asks. When I polish the brazen pan I hear a creature laugh afar In the gardens of a star, And from his burning presence run Flaming wheels of many a sun. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. When I cleanse this earthen floor My spirit leaps to see Bright garments trailing over it, A cleanness made by me. Purger of all men’s thoughts and ways, With labor do I sound Thy praise, My work is done for Thee. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. Therefore let me spread abroad The beautiful cleanness of my God.

VI

One time in the cool of dawn Angels came and worked with me. The air was soft with many a wing. They laughed amid my solitude And cast bright looks on everything. Sweetly of me did they ask That they might do my common task. And all were beautiful—but one With garments whiter than the sun Had such a face Of deep, remembered grace; That when I saw I cried—“Thou art The great Blood-Brother of my heart. Where have I seen thee?”—And he said, “When we are dancing round God’s throne, How often thou art there. Beauties from thy hands have flown Like white doves wheeling in mid air. Nay—thy soul remembers not? Work on, and cleanse thy iron pot.”

VII

What are we? I know not.

WHILE LOVELINESS GOES BY

Sometimes when all the world seems grey and dun And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry, “Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!” Then my slow burdens leave me one by one, And swiftly does my heart arise and run Even like a child while loveliness goes by— And common folk seem children of the sky, And common things seem shapèd of the sun. Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must So soon perceive their shining garments fade! And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust Their flaming banners sink into a shade! While this earth’s sunshine seems the golden dust Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.

_Amy Lowell_

Amy Lowell was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, February 9, 1874, of a long line of noted publicists and poets, the first colonist (a Percival Lowell) arriving in Newburyport in 1637. James Russell Lowell was a cousin of her grandfather; Abbott Lawrence, her mother’s father, was minister to England; and Abbott Lawrence Lowell, her brother, is president of Harvard University.