Part 18

And lo, as he grew ugly, gaunt, And gnarled his way into a man, What wisdom came to feed his want, What worlds came near to let him scan! And as he fathomed through and through Our dark and sorry human scheme, He knew what Shakespeare never knew, What Dante never dared to dream— That Men are one Beneath the sun, And before God are equal souls— This truth was his, And this it is That round him such a glory rolls— For not alone he knew it as a truth, He made it of his blood, and of his brain— He crowned it on the day when piteous Booth Sent a whole land to weeping with world pain— When a black cloud blotted the sun And men stopped in the streets to sob, To think Old Abe was dead. Dead, and the day’s work still undone, Dead, and war’s ruining heart athrob, And earth with fields of carnage freshly spread— Millions died fighting, But in this man we mourned Those millions, and one other— And the States to-day uniting, North and South, East and West, Speak with a people’s mouth A rhapsody of rest To him our beloved best, Our big, gaunt, homely brother— Our huge Atlantic coast-storm in a shawl, Our cyclone in a smile—our President, Who knew and loved us all With love more eloquent Than his own words—with Love that in real deeds was spent....

Oh, to pour love through deeds— To be as Lincoln was!— That all the land might fill its daily needs Glorified by a human Cause! Then were America a vast World-Torch Flaming a faith across the dying Earth, Proclaiming from the Atlantic’s rocky porch, That a New World was struggling at the birth!

O living God, O Thou who living art, And real, and near, draw, as at that babe’s birth, Into our souls and sanctify our Earth— Let down Thy strength that we endure Mighty and pure As mothers and fathers of our own Lincoln-child— Make us more wise, more true, more strong, more mild, That we may day by day Rear this wild blossom through its soft petals of clay; That hour by hour We may endow it with more human power Than is our own— That it may reach the goal Our Lincoln long has shown! O Child, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, Soul torn from out our Soul! May you be great, and pure, and beautiful— A Soul to search this world To be a father, brother, comrade, son, A toiler powerful; A man whose toil is done One with God’s Law above: Work wrought through Love!

NIGHT NOTE

A little moon was restless in Eternity And, shivering beneath the stars, Dropped in the hiding arms of the western hill. Night’s discord ceased: The visible universe moved in an endless rhythm: The wheel of the heavens turned to the pulse of a cricket in the grass.

_Alice Corbin_

Alice Corbin (Mrs. William Penhallow Henderson) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She has been Associate Editor of _Poetry; A Magazine of Verse_ since 1912, co-editing (with Harriet Monroe) _The New Poetry, An Anthology_ (1917). Since 1916 she has lived in New Mexico.

_The Spinning Woman of the Sky_ (1912) contains few hints of originality. It is cast in an entirely different key than Miss Corbin’s later efforts. Her recent verses, many of them uncollected, are much richer; they reveal a close contact with primitive people and native folk-lore. Her southern and far western sketches are particularly colorful; a volume of New Mexico studies, _Red Earth_ (1920), being full of noteworthy and sympathetic records.

ECHOES OF CHILDHOOD

(_A Folk-Medley_)

UNCLE JIM

Old Uncle Jim was as blind as a mole, But he could fiddle Virginia Reels, Till you felt the sap run out of your heels, Till you knew the devil had got your soul—

_Down the middle and swing yo’ partners, Up agin and salute her low, Shake yo’ foot an’ keep a-goin’, Down the middle an’ do-se-do!_

_Mind yo’ manners an’ doan git keerless, Swing yo’ lady and bow full low, S’lute yo’ partner an’ turn yo’ neighbor, Gran’-right-an’-left, and aroun’ you go!_

* * *

DELPHY

Delphy’s breast was wide and deep, A shelf to lay a child asleep, _Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low_; Rocking like a lifted boat On lazy tropic seas afloat, _Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low_.

Delphy, when my mother died, Taught me wisdom, curbed my pride, _Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low_; And when she laid her body down, It shone, a jewel, in His crown, _Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low_.

* * *

(_Underneath the southern moon I was cradled to the tune Of the banjo and the fiddle And the plaintive negro croon._)

MANDY’S RELIGION

I’se got religion an’ I doan care Who knows that God an’ I are square, I wuz carryin’ home my mistis’ wash When God came an’ spoke to me out’n de hush.

An’ I th’ew de wash up inter de air, An’ I climbed a tree to de golden stair, Ef it hadn’t a been fur Mistah Wright I’d had ter stayed dere all de night!

* * *

(_Underneath the southern moon I was cradled to the tune Of the banjo and the fiddle And the plaintive negro croon._)

BETSY’S BOY

Betsy’s boy could shuffle and clog, Though you couldn’t get him to saw a log, Laziest boy about the place Till he started to dance—and you saw his face! It was all lit up like a mask of bronze Set in a niche between temple gongs— For he would dance and never stop Till he fell on the floor like a spun-out top. His feet hung loose from his supple waist, He danced without stopping, he danced without haste. Like Shiva the Hindu his feet were bound In the rhythm of stars and of streams underground:

_Banjo playin’ and de sanded floor, Fiddle cryin’, always callin’ more, Can’t help dancin’ though de preacher says Can’t git to heaven doin’ no sich ways, Can’t help dancin’ though de devil stan’s With a pitch-fork waitin’ in his brimstone han’s; Got—ter—keep—dancin’,—can’t—stop—now, Got—ter—keep—dancin’, I—doan—know—how ..._

_Banjo playin’ and de sanded floor, Fiddle cryin’, always callin’ more, People’s faces lookin’ scared an’ white, Hands a clappin’ an’ eyes starin’ bright. Can’t help dancin’ though de candle’s dyin’, Can’t help dancin’ while de fiddle’s cryin’; Got—ter—keep—dancin’, can’t—stop—now, Got—ter—keep—dancin’,—I—doan—know—how!_

_Lola Ridge_

Lola Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland, leaving there in infancy and spending her childhood in Sydney, Australia. After living some years in New Zealand, she returned to Australia to study art. In 1907, she came to the United States, supporting herself for three years by writing fiction for the popular magazines. She stopped this work only, as she says, “because I found I would have to do so if I wished to survive as an artist.” For several years she earned her living in a variety of ways—as organizer for an educational movement, as advertisement writer, as illustrator, artist’s model, factory-worker, etc. In 1918, _The New Republic_ published her long poem _The Ghetto_ and Miss Ridge, until then totally unknown, became the “discovery” of the year.

Her volume _The Ghetto and Other Poems_ (1918) contains one poem that is brilliant, several that are powerful and none that is mediocre. Her title-poem is its pinnacle; in it Miss Ridge touches strange heights. It is essentially a poem of the city, of its sodden brutalities, its sudden beauties. Swift figures shine from these lines, like barbaric colors leaping out of darkness; images that are surprising but never strained glow with a condensed clarity. In her other poems—especially in “The Song of Iron,” “Faces” and “Frank Little at Calvary”—the same dignity is maintained, though with less magic.

_Sun-Up_ (1920) is less integrated, more frankly experimental. But the same vibrancy and restrained power that distinguished her preceding book are manifest here. Her delineations are sensitive and subtle; she accomplishes the maximum in effects with a minimum of effort.

PASSAGES FROM “THE GHETTO”

Old Sodos no longer makes saddles. He has forgotten how ... Time spins like a crazy dial in his brain, And night by night I see the love-gesture of his arm In its green-greasy coat-sleeve Circling the Book, And the candles gleaming starkly On the blotched-paper whiteness of his face, Like a miswritten psalm ... Night by night I hear his lifted praise, Like a broken whinnying Before the Lord’s shut gate.

* * *

Lights go out And the stark trunks of the factories Melt into the drawn darkness, Sheathing like a seamless garment.

And mothers take home their babies, Waxen and delicately curled, Like little potted flowers closed under the stars....

Lights go out ... And colors rush together, Fusing and floating away. Pale worn gold like the settings of old jewels ... Mauve, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples, And burning spires in aureoles of light Like shimmering auras. They are covering up the pushcarts ... Now all have gone save an old man with mirrors— Little oval mirrors like tiny pools. He shuffles up a darkened street And the moon burnishes his mirrors till they shine like phosphorus.... The moon like a skull, Staring out of eyeless sockets at the old men trundling home the pushcarts.

* * *

A sallow dawn is in the sky As I enter my little green room. Without, the frail moon, Worn to a silvery tissue, Throws a faint glamour on the roofs, And down the shadowy spires Lights tip-toe out ... Softly as when lovers close street doors.

Out of the Battery A little wind Stirs idly—as an arm Trails over a boat’s side in dalliance— Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat, And Hester street, Like a forlorn woman over-borne By many babies at her teats, Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day.

NEW ORLEANS

Do you remember Honey-melon moon Dripping thick sweet light Where Canal Street saunters off by herself among quiet trees? And the faint decayed patchouli— Fragrance of New Orleans ... New Orleans, Like a dead tube rose Upheld in the warm air ... Miraculously whole.

WIND IN THE ALLEYS

Wind, rising in the alleys, My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls. You are full of unshaped dreams ... You are laden with beginnings ... There is hope in you ... not sweet ... acrid as blood in the mouth. Come into my tossing dust Scattering the peace of old deaths, Wind rising out of the alleys Carrying stuff of flame.

_Wallace Stevens_

Wallace Stevens, of Hartford, Connecticut, is a poet whose peculiar quality is only exceeded by his reticence. He has scrupulously kept out of the public eye, has printed his poetry only at rare intervals and, though much of his work has been highly praised, has steadfastly refused to publish a volume.

Stevens’s best work may be found in the three _Others_ anthologies, edited by Alfred Kreymborg. Some of it is penetrative, more than a little is puzzling and all of it is provocative. In spite of what seems a weary disdain, Stevens is a more than skilful decorator and, like T. S. Eliot, combines irony and glamour in a highly original idiom.

PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER

I

Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the self-same sounds On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in the elders by Susanna:

Of a green evening, clear and warm, She bathed in her still garden, while The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb In witching chords, and their thin blood Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II

In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay, She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned— A cymbal crashed, And roaring horns.

III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines, Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind— The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body’s beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of Winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden’s choral.

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death’s ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

_Alfred Kreymborg_

Alfred Kreymborg, one of the most original of the younger insurgents, was born in New York City, December 10, 1883. His education was spasmodic, his childhood being spent beneath the roar of the elevated trains. At ten he was an expert chess player, devoting practically all his time to a study of the game. Later, he became a bookkeeper for a few years, but from the ages of seventeen to twenty-five he supported himself by teaching chess and playing exhibition games. His passion, however, was not mathematics but music. He dreamed of extending the borders of poetry into the realms of tonic art, experimented with new systems of notation, technicalities of rhythm. At thirty, he began to turn to the theater as a medium; finding, in this way, fresh contacts that enriched and ripened his later work.

In 1914, he organized that group of radical poets which, half-deprecatingly, half-defiantly, called itself “Others.” (He edited the three anthologies of their work published in 1916, 1917 and 1919.) Meanwhile, he had been working on a technique that was a fresh attempt to rid poetry of its too frequent wordiness and rhetorical non-essentials. _Mushrooms_ (1916) was the first collection in this vein. Here Kreymborg continually sought for simplification, cutting away at his lines until they assumed an almost naked expression. Often he overdid his effects, attaining nothing more than a false ingenuousness, a sophisticated simplicity. Often, too, he failed to draw the line between what is innocently childlike and what is merely childish. One sees him frequently trying to strike curious attitudes, tripping over several of his buffooneries and sprawling ingloriously.

But Kreymborg, for all harlequin gestures, can do something better than tumble and talk with his tongue in his cheek. An elfin fantasy and no little beauty of thought are his when he wants to use them. Surprising whimsicality and passages of bright color distinguish his _Plays for Poem-Mimes_ (1918), in which the principles of modern art are applied to poetry and acting, as well as the more developed _Plays for Merry Andrews_ (1920).

Kreymborg’s most ambitious volume of poetry, _Blood of Things_ (1920), is, for all the surface oddities, the work not only of an ardent experimenter but a serious thinker. Humor is in these pages, but it is humor lifted to a sort of exaltation. Here, in spite of what seems a persistence of occasional charlatanry, is a rich and sensitive imagination; a fancy that is as wild as it is quick-witted.

OLD MANUSCRIPT

The sky is that beautiful old parchment in which the sun and the moon keep their diary. To read it all, one must be a linguist more learned than Father Wisdom; and a visionary more clairvoyant than Mother Dream. But to feel it, one must be an apostle: one who is more than intimate in having been, always, the only confidant— like the earth or the sea.

DAWNS

I have come from pride all the way up to humility This day-to-night. The hill was more terrible than ever before. This is the top; there is the tall, slim tree. It isn’t bent; it doesn’t lean; It is only looking back. At dawn, under that tree, still another me of mine was buried. Waiting for me to come again, humorously solicitous of what I bring next, it looks down.

HER EYES

Her eyes hold black whips— dart of a whip lashing, nay, flicking, nay, merely caressing the hide of a heart— and a broncho tears through canyons— walls reverberating, sluggish streams shaken to rapids and torrents storm destroying silence and solitude! Her eyes throw black lariats— one for his head, one for his heels— and the beast lies vanquished— walls still, streams still— except for a tarn, or is it a pool, or is it a whirlpool twitching with memory?

IMPROVISATION

Wind: Why do you play that long beautiful adagio, that archaic air, to-night Will it never end? Or is it the beginning, some prelude you seek?

Is it a tale you strum? _Yesterday, yesterday_— Have you no more for us?

Wind: Play on. There is nor hope nor mutiny in you.

_Arthur Davison Ficke_

Arthur Davison Ficke was born at Davenport, Iowa, November 10, 1883. He received his A.B. at Harvard (1904), studied for the law and was admitted to the bar in 1908. In 1919, after two years’ service in France, he gave up his law practice and devoted himself to literature exclusively.

Ficke is the author of ten volumes of verse, the most representative of which are _Sonnets of a Portrait Painter_ (1914), _The Man on the Hilltop_ (1915) and _An April Elegy_ (1917). In these, the author has distilled a warm spirituality, combining freshness of vision with an intensified seriousness.

Having been an expert collector and student of Japanese prints, Ficke has written two books on this theme. His intellectual equipment is reinforced by a strong sense of satire. Writing under the pseudonym “Anne Knish,” he was one of the co-authors (with Witter Bynner) of _Spectra_ (1916), which, caricaturing some of the wilder outgrowths of the new poetry, was taken seriously by a majority of the critics and proved to be a brilliant hoax.

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN

She limps with halting painful pace, Stops, wavers and creeps on again; Peers up with dim and questioning face, Void of desire or doubt or pain.

Her cheeks hang gray in waxen folds Wherein there stirs no blood at all. A hand, like bundled cornstalks, holds The tatters of a faded shawl.

Where was a breast, sunk bones she clasps; A knot jerks where were woman-hips; A ropy throat sends writhing gasps Up to the tight line of her lips.

Here strong the city’s pomp is poured ... She stands, unhuman, bleak, aghast: An empty temple of the Lord From which the jocund Lord has passed.

He has builded him another house, Whenceforth his flame, renewed and bright, Shines stark upon these weathered brows Abandoned to the final night.

THE THREE SISTERS

Gone are the three, those sisters rare With wonder-lips and eyes ashine. One was wise and one was fair, And one was mine.

Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair Of only two, your ivy vine. For one was wise and one was fair, But one was mine.

SONNET

There are strange shadows fostered of the moon, More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day.... Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June, Into the dusk of swooping bats at play; Or go into that late November dusk When hills take on the noble lines of death, And on the air the faint, astringent musk Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath. Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun, Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run, Like petrels of the changing foul or fair; Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him Whose homeland lies past each horizon’s rim....

_Badger Clark_

Badger Clark was born at Albia, Iowa, in 1883. He moved to Dakota Territory at the age of three months and now lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota.