Part 23

Margaret Widdemer was born at Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and began writing in her childhood. After graduating from Drexel Institute Library School in 1909, she became a contributor of poems and short stories to various magazines—her first published poem (“The Factories”) being widely quoted. She married Robert Haven Schauffler, the author, in August, 1919.

Miss Widdemer’s poetic work has two distinct phases. In the one mood, she is the protesting poet, the champion of the down-trodden, the lyricist on fire with angry passion. In the other, she is the writer of well-made, polite and popular sentimental verse. Her finest poems are in _Factories with Other Lyrics_ (1915), although several of her best songs are in _The Old Road to Paradise_ (1918), which divided, with Sandburg’s _Cornhuskers_, the Columbia Poetry Prize in 1918.

Miss Widdemer is also the author of two books of short stories, four novels and several books for girls.

FACTORIES

I have shut my little sister in from life and light (For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair), I have made her restless feet still until the night, Locked from sweets of summer and from wild spring air; I who ranged the meadowlands, free from sun to sun, Free to sing and pull the buds and watch the far wings fly, I have bound my sister till her playing time was done— Oh, my little sister, was it I? Was it I?

I have robbed my sister of her day of maidenhood (For a robe, for a feather, for a trinket’s restless spark), Shut from love till dusk shall fall, how shall she know good, How shall she go scatheless through the sun-lit dark? I who could be innocent, I who could be gay, I who could have love and mirth before the light went by, I have put my sister in her mating-time away— Sister, my young sister, was it I? Was it I?

I have robbed my sister of the lips against her breast, (For a coin, for the weaving of my children’s lace and lawn), Feet that pace beside the loom, hands that cannot rest— How can she know motherhood, whose strength is gone? I who took no heed of her, starved and labor-worn, I, against whose placid heart my sleepy gold-heads lie, Round my path they cry to me, little souls unborn— God of Life! Creator! It was I! It was I!

THE TWO DYINGS

I can remember once, ere I was dead, The sorrow and the prayer and bitter cry When they who loved me stood around the bed, Watching till I should die:

They need not so have grieved their souls for me, Grouped statue-like to count my failing breath— Only one thought strove faintly, bitterly With the kind drug of Death:

How once upon a time, unwept, unknown, Unhelped by pitying sigh or murmured prayer, My youth died in slow agony alone With none to watch or care.

THE MODERN WOMAN TO HER LOVER

I shall not lie to you any more, Flatter or fawn to attain my end— I am what never has been before, Woman—and Friend.

I shall be strong as a man is strong, I shall be fair as a man is fair, Hand in locked hand we shall pass along To a purer air:

I shall not drag at your bridle-rein, Knee pressed to knee we shall ride the hill; I shall not lie to you ever again— _Will you love me still?_

_Alan Seeger_

Alan Seeger was born in New York, June 22, 1888. When he was still a baby, his parents moved to Staten Island, where he remained through boyhood. Later, there were several other migrations, including a sojourn in Mexico, where Seeger spent the most impressionable years of his youth. In 1906, he entered Harvard; became one of the editors of the _Harvard Monthly_; returned to New York in 1910 and in 1913 set off for Paris—“a departing point,” wrote William Archer, “which may fairly be called his Hegira, the turning point of his history.” 1914 came, and the European war had not entered its third week when, along with some forty of his fellow-countrymen, Seeger enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. He was in action almost continually, serving on various fronts. On July 1, 1916, a new advance began; a few days later the Legion was ordered to clear the Germans out of the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. On the fourth of July, Seeger advanced in the first rush and his squad was practically wiped out by hidden machine-gun fire. Seeger fell, mortally wounded, and died the next morning.

Seeger’s literary promise was far greater than his poetic accomplishment. With the exception of his one famous poem, there is little of importance though much of charm in his collected _Poems_ (published, with an Introduction by William Archer, in 1916). His letters from the front (published in 1917) show a more powerful touch, a keener sense of perception. Had he lived a few years more, he might have been a valuable recorder of a changed and changing world.

“I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH”[58]

I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear ... But I’ve a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

_Willard Wattles_

Willard (Austin) Wattles was born at Bayneville, Kansas, July 8, 1888. He received his A.B. at the University of Kansas in 1909 and, since 1910, has divided his time between teaching English and harvesting wheat.

His first book was an anthology, _Sunflowers: A Book of Kansas Poems_ (1914), to which he also contributed. _Lanterns in Gethsemane_ (1918) consists, almost entirely, of mystical and religious poems. There is, however, little of the sermonizing unction and less cant in these fresh pages. There is an unusual vibrancy here; a warm buoyance that glows against its theological background. Many of Wattles’s verses have the peculiar grace of a parable joined to a nursery rhyme; “The Builder,” “Jericho” and a few others seem like scraps of the Scripture rendered by Mother Goose.

THE BUILDER[59]

Smoothing a cypress beam With a scarred hand, I saw a carpenter In a far land.

Down past the flat roofs Poured the white sun; But still he bent his back, The patient one.

And I paused surprised In that queer place To find an old man With a haunting face.

“Who art thou, carpenter, Of the bowed head; And what buildest thou?” “Heaven,” he said.

CREEDS

How pitiful are little folk— They seem so very small; They look at stars, and think they are Denominational.

_T. S. Eliot_

Thomas Stearns Eliot, one of the most brilliant of the young expatriates, was born at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He received his A.B. at Harvard in 1909 and his A.M. in 1910. Subsequently, he studied at the Sorbonne and at Merton College, Oxford, becoming a teacher and lecturer in London, where he has lived since 1913.

_Prufrock_ appeared in England in 1917. An American edition, including a number of other verses, was published under the title _Poems_ in 1920. Eliot’s early work is the more important; it is curious and sharply original. The exaltation which is the very breath of poetry is seldom present in Eliot’s later lines. A certain perverse brilliance takes its place, an unearthly light without warmth which has the sparkle if not the strength of fire. It flickers mockingly through most of Eliot’s sardonic pictures and shines with a bright pallor out of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Portrait of a Lady.” These two long poems are the book’s main exhibit; they are sensitive and psychologically probing.

Eliot’s ironic rhymed verses, which constitute the bulk of his work, are in his later style. It is this vein that tempts Eliot most—and is his own undoing. For irony, no matter how agile and erudite—and Eliot’s is both—must contain heat if it is to burn. And heat is one of the few things that cannot be juggled by this acrobatic satirist. His lines, for the most part, are a species of mordant light verse; complex and disillusioned _vers de société_.

MORNING AT THE WINDOW

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts An aimless smile that hovers in the air And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

FROM “THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK”

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And, seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

PRELUDE

The winter evening settles down With smells of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about his feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps, And then the lighting of the lamps.

_Conrad Aiken_

Conrad (Potter) Aiken was born at Savannah, Georgia, August 5, 1889. He attended Harvard, receiving his A.B. in 1912, travelled extensively for three years, and since then, he has devoted all his time to literature, living at South Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

The most outstanding feature of Aiken’s creative work is its rapid adaptability and its slow growth. His first volume, _Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in Verse_ (1914), is the Keats tradition crossed, paraphrased (and vulgarized) by Masefield. _Turns and Movies_ (1916) is a complete change; Masefield is exchanged for Masters. But in the less conspicuous half of this book, Aiken begins to speak with his true voice. Here he is the natural musician, playing with new rhythms, haunting cadences. _The Jig of Forslin_ (1916) is an elaboration of his method. In this volume, Aiken goes back to the narrative—or rather, to a series of loosely connected stories—and, reinforced by studies in analytical psychology, explores “the process of vicarious wish fulfilment by which civilized man enriches his circumscribed life.”

_Nocturne of Remembered Spring_ (1917), _The Charnel Rose_ (1918) and _The House of Dust_ (1920) are packed with a tired but often beautiful music. Even though much of it is enlivened by injections of T. S. Eliot’s conversational idiom, the effect is often moony and monotonous. Rain seems to fall persistently through these volumes; dust blows down the street, the shadows blur; everything dissolves in a mist of boredom and forgetfulness. Even the poignance seems on the point of falling asleep.

Often Aiken loses himself in this watery welter of language. In trying to create a closer _liaison_ between poetry and music, he gives, too frequently, so much importance to the rise and fall of syllables that his very excess of music defeats his purpose. His verse, thus, gains greatly on the sensuous side but loses, in its cloying indefiniteness, that vitality and sharpness of speech which is the very blood of poetry.

This weakening overinsistence on sound does not prevent Aiken from attaining many exquisite effects. Primarily, a lyric poet, he frequently condenses an emotion in a few lines; some of his best moments are these “lapses” into tune. The music of the Morning Song from “Senlin” (in _The Charnel Rose_) is rich with subtleties of rhythm. But it is much more than a lyrical movement. Beneath the flow and flexibility of these lines, there is a delightful whimsicality, an extraordinary summoning of the immensities that loom behind the casual moments of everyday. And in “The Fulfilled Dream,” Aiken can divert the stream of the subconscious, whose vague outlines he reproduces so well, to show the dream in its vivid strength.

Besides his varied poetry, Aiken has written a quantity of criticism of contemporary poets, the best of his reviews having been published in _Scepticisms_ (1919), a provocative and valuable series of studies.

CHANCE MEETINGS

In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive, The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves, In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices, I suddenly face you,

Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you, They shine into mine with a sunlit desire, They say an ‘I love you, what star do you live on?’ They smile and then darken,

And silent, I answer ‘You too—I have known you,—I love you!—’ And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight To divide us forever.

THE FULFILLED DREAM

More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed— Great rocks hoisted in air; And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes.... And so he did not mention his dream of falling But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by And the small tree swell beneath him.... He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife, Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,— And so went out.... For once, he forgot his pail.

Something had changed—but it was not the street— The street was just the same—it was himself. Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door The same old black cat winked green amber eyes; The butcher stood by his window tying his apron; The same men walked beside him, smoking pipes, Reading the morning paper....

He would not yield, he thought, and walk more slowly, As if he knew for certain he walked to death: But with his usual pace,—deliberate, firm, Looking about him calmly, watching the world, Taking his ease.... Yet, when he thought again Of the same dream, now dreamed three separate times, Always the same, and heard that whistling wind, And saw the windows flashing upward past him,— He slowed his pace a little, and thought with horror How monstrously that small tree thrust to meet him!... He slowed his pace a little and remembered his wife.

Was forty, then, too old for work like this? Why should it be? He’d never been afraid— His eye was sure, his hand was steady.... But dreams had meanings. He walked more slowly, and looked along the roofs, All built by men, and saw the pale blue sky; And suddenly he was dizzy with looking at it, It seemed to whirl and swim, It seemed the color of terror, of speed, of death.... He lowered his eyes to the stones, he walked more slowly; His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves; He thought of the pail.... Why, then, was it forgotten? Because he would not need it?

Then, just as he was grouping his thoughts again About that drug-store corner, under an arc-lamp, Where first he met the girl whom he would marry,— That blue-eyed innocent girl, in a soft blouse,— He waved his hand for signal, and up he went In the dusty chute that hugged the wall; Above the tree; from girdered floor to floor; Above the flattening roofs, until the sea Lay wide and waved before him.... And then he stepped Giddily out, from that security, To the red rib of iron against the sky, And walked along it, feeling it sing and tremble; And looking down one instant, saw the tree Just as he dreamed it was; and looked away, And up again, feeling his blood go wild.

—He gave the signal; the long girder swung Closer upon him, dropped clanging into place, Almost pushing him off. Pneumatic hammers Began their madhouse clatter, the white-hot rivets Were tossed from below and deftly caught in pails; He signalled again, and wiped his mouth, and thought A place so high in the air should be more quiet. The tree, far down below, teased at his eyes, Teased at the corners of them, until he looked, And felt his body go suddenly small and light; Felt his brain float off like a dwindling vapor; And heard a whistle of wind, and saw a tree Come plunging up to him, and thought to himself, ‘By God—I’m done for now; the dream was right....’

MIRACLES

Twilight is spacious, near things in it seem far, And distant things seem near. Now in the green west hangs a yellow star. And now across old waters you may hear The profound gloom of bells among still trees, Like a rolling of huge boulders beneath seas.

Silent as thought in evening contemplation Weaves the bat under the gathering stars. Silent as dew, we seek new incarnation, Meditate new avatars. In a clear dusk like this Mary climbed up the hill to seek her son, To lower him down from the cross, and kiss The mauve wounds, every one. Men with wings In the dusk walked softly after her. She did not see them, but may have felt The winnowed air around her stir; She did not see them, but may have known Why her son’s body was light as a little stone. She may have guessed that other hands were there Moving the watchful air.

Now, unless persuaded by searching music Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind, We guess no angels, And are contented to be blind. Let us blow silver horns in the twilight, And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green, To find perhaps, if, while the dew is rising, Clear things may not be seen.

MORNING SONG FROM “SENLIN”

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet Stand before a glass and tie my tie. Vine-leaves tap my window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror And tie my tie once more. While waves far off in a pale rose twilight Crash on a white sand shore. I stand by a mirror and comb my hair: How small and white my face!— The green earth tilts through a sphere of air And bathes in a flame of space. There are houses hanging above the stars And stars hung under a sea ... And a sun far off in a shell of silence Dapples my walls for me....

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning Should I not pause in the light to remember God? Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable, He is immense and lonely as a cloud. I will dedicate this moment before my mirror To him alone, for him I will comb my hair. Accept these humble offerings, clouds of silence! I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine-leaves tap my window, The snail-track shines on the stones; Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence, Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep. The walls are about me still as in the evening, I am the same, and the same name still I keep. The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion, The stars pale silently in a coral sky. In a whistling void I stand before my mirror, Unconcerned, and tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills Tossing their long white manes, And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk, Their shoulders black with rains.... It is morning, I stand by the mirror And surprise my soul once more; The blue air rushes above my ceiling, There are suns beneath my floor....

... It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where; My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair. There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven, And a god among the stars; and I will go Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak And humming a tune I know....

Vine-leaves tap at the window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones.

_Christopher Morley_

Christopher (Darlington) Morley was born at Haverford, Pennsylvania, May 5, 1890. He graduated from Haverford College in 1910 and was Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, England, 1910-13.

Since 1914 he has been on the staff of various periodicals, coming to New York in 1920 to run his column (“The Bowling Green”) on the New York _Evening Post_.

Morley is the author of ten dissimilar volumes of essays, skits, gossip, travel-notes, light verse and serious poetry. _The Rocking Horse_ (1919) and _Hide and Seek_ (1920) sink too often in their own sentiment; their sweetness is frequently cloying, their charm a little too conscious. But Morley’s vigor energizes his lines and prevents his verses—especially those in the latter volume—from becoming tawdry with oversweetness.

QUICKENING[60]