Part 25

Her work divides itself into two distinct classes: the hackwork which she does for a living and the genuine poetry which she creates for its own sake. Her first volume _The Drums in Our Street_ (1918) was a mixture of loud bombast and quiet beauty, of blatant war-verse and unaffected lyrics. _Youth Riding_ (1919), although as uneven as its predecessor, is simpler and surer. The poems in _vers libre_ are clearly musical, and her eight-line lyrics are particularly wistful and delicate.

THE DAY BEFORE APRIL[62]

The day before April, Alone, alone, I walked in the woods And I sat on a stone.

I sat on a broad stone And sang to the birds. The tune was God’s making But I made the words.

THE APPLE TREE SAID:[63]

My apples are heavy upon me. It was the Spring; And proud was I of my petals, Nor dreamed this thing:

That joy could grow to a burden, Or beauty could be Changed from snow-light to heavy To humble me.

_Winifred Welles_

Winifred Welles was born at Norwich Town, Connecticut, January 26, 1893, and educated in the vicinity of her home.

Her frail and delicately fashioned lyrics are the distinguishing feature of _The Hesitant Heart_ (1920). This first volume, so appropriately named, has a frank tenderness that never grows maudlin, a wistful introspection that never forgets to sing.

FROM A CHINESE VASE

Roaming the lonely garden, he and I Pursue each other to the fountain’s brim, And there grow quiet—woman and butterfly— The frail clouds beckon me, the flowers tempt him.

My thoughts are rose-like, beautiful and bright, Folded precise as petals are, and wings Uplift my dreaming suddenly in flight, And fill my soul with jagged colorings.

The waters tangle like a woman’s hair Above the dim reflection of a face— He thinks those are his own lips laughing there, His own breasts curving under silk and lace.

How shall we know our real selves, he and I, Which is the woman, which the butterfly?

HUMILIATION

How nakedly an animal Lies down on earth to die, Unmindful of the shining air, And unashamed of sky.

But men and women under roofs Draw shades and hush the floor, And furtively they lay their dead Behind a darkened door.

LOVE SONG FROM NEW ENGLAND

In every solemn tree the wind Has rung a little lonesome bell, As sweet and clear, as cool and kind As my voice bidding you farewell.

This is an hour that gods have loved To snatch with bare, bright hands and hold. Mine, with a gesture, grey and gloved, Dismiss it from me in the cold.

Closely as some dark-shuttered house I keep my light. How should you know, That, as you turn beneath brown boughs, My heart is breaking in the snow?

_Herbert S. Gorman_

Herbert S. Gorman was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, January 1, 1893. After attending Technical High School he became an actor for two seasons, deserting the stage for the newspaper. He became assistant literary and dramatic editor of the Springfield Union, reporter on the New York _Sun_ and reviewer for the New York _Post_, _The Freeman_ and other journals.

His first book, _The Fool of Love_ (1920), shows, above an indebtedness to E. A. Robinson, a keen talent and fresh personality.

THE FANATIC

Well, here it is: you call for me: I come, But with an eagerness not quite my own; Propelled by that decisive martyrdom That pleased the saints upon their faggot throne.

You see them smiling in the cruel flame That exquisitely licks their willing limbs, And finding some sad pleasure in the game Not quite embodied in their lusty hymns.

And so I come: and though I go, be sure That I will come again to-morrow, too; And, Love’s fanatic, hasten to endure The littleness that is so great in you.

I am the weakling of that helpless strength That throws this broken body you despise Before your carelessness, to find at length The faith that sleeps behind your faithless eyes.

_Babette Deutsch_

Babette Deutsch, one of the most promising of the younger poet-critics, was born September 22, 1895, in New York City. She received her B.A. at Barnard College in 1917, doing subsequent work at the new School for Social Research. Since 1916, a year before she took her degree, Miss Deutsch has been contributing poems and critical articles to _The New Republic_, _The Dial_, _The Yale Review_, etc.

_Banners_ (1919) is the title of her remarkable first book. The rich emotional content is matched by the poet’s intellectual skill. Unusually sensitive, most of these lines strive for—and attain—a high seriousness.

THE DEATH OF A CHILD[64]

Are you at ease now, Do you suck content From death’s dark nipple between your wan lips? Now that the fever of the day is spent And anguish slips From the small limbs, And they lie lapped in rest, The young head pillowed soft upon that indurate breast. No, you are quiet, And forever, Tho for us the silence is so loud with tears, Wherein we hear the dreadful-footed years Echoing, but your quick laughter never, Never your stumbling run, your sudden face Thrust in bright scorn upon our solemn fears. Now the dark mother holds you close.... O, you We loved so, How you lie, So strangely still, unmoved so utterly Dear yet, but oh a little alien too.

IN A MUSEUM

Here stillness sounds like echoes in a tomb. The light falls cold upon these antique toys Whereby men sought to turn the scales of doom: Jade gods, a ritual of rigid boys. Warm blood was spent for this unwindowed stone Tinct with the painted pleasures of the dead; For secrets of unwithering flesh and bone— With these old Egypt’s night was comforted.

We lean upon the glass, our curious eyes Staring at death, three thousand years remote. And vanity, the worm that never dies, Feeds on your silver ring and Pharaoh’s coat. And are these heartbeats, then, less perilous? Since death is close, and death is death for us.

_Alter Brody_

Alter Brody was born at Kartúshkiya-Beróza, Province of Grodno, Russia, November 1, 1895. He came to New York City at the age of eight and, after a cursory schooling, wrote translations for certain Jewish and American newspapers. His first poems appeared in _The Seven Arts_ in 1916-17.

In _A Family Album_ (1918) one sees the impress of a tense and original mind, of imagination that is fed by strengthening fact, of sight that is sharpened by insight. Many of Brody’s lines are uncouth and awkward; what music he achieves is mostly fortuitous, the melody accidental. And yet his pages are filled with a picturesque honesty and uncompromising beauty. Much of this work is an interpretation of the modern world against a background of old dreams: young America seen through the eyes of old Russia. It is a romantic realism that uplifts such poems as “Kartúshkiya-Beróza” (a record of boyhood which is one of Brody’s finest achievements though, unfortunately, too long to quote), “A Row of Poplars: Central Park,” “Ghetto Twilight” and the poignant “Lamentations.” It is, to be more accurate, a romanticism that springs from reality and, after a fantastic flight, settles back with a new vision.

A CITY PARK

Timidly Against a background of brick tenements Some trees spread their branches Skyward. They are thin and sapless, They are bent and weary— Tamed with captivity; And they huddle behind the fence Swaying helplessly before the wind, Forward and backward, Like a group of panicky deer Caught in a cage.

SEARCHLIGHTS

Tingling shafts of light, Like gigantic staffs Brandished by blind, invisible hands, Cross and recross each other in the sky,

Frantically— Groping among the stars—stubbing themselves against the bloated clouds— Tapping desperately for a sure foothold In the fluctuating mists.

Calm-eyed and inaccessible. The stars peer through the blue fissures of the sky, Unperturbed among the panic of scurrying beams; Twinkling with a cold, acrid merriment.

GHETTO TWILIGHT

An infinite weariness comes into the faces of the old tenements, As they stand massed together on the block, Tall and thoughtfully silent, In the enveloping twilight. Pensively, They eye each other across the street, Through their dim windows— With a sad recognizing stare; Watching the red glow fading in the distance, At the end of the street, Behind the black church spires; Watching the vague sky lowering overhead, Purple with clouds of colored smoke; From the extinguished sunset; Watching the tired faces coming home from work— Like dry-breasted hags Welcoming their children to their withered arms.

_Stephen Vincent Benét_

Stephen Vincent Benét, the younger brother of William Rose Benét, was born at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in July, 1898. He was educated in various parts of the country, graduating from Yale in 1919.

At seventeen he published a small book containing six dramatic portraits, _Five Men and Pompey_ (1915), a remarkable set of monologues which, in spite of distinct traces of Browning and Alfred Noyes, was little short of astounding, coming from a schoolboy. In Benét’s next volume, _Young Adventure_ (1918), one hears something more than the speech of an infant prodigy; the precocious facility has developed into a keen and individual vigor.

_Heavens and Earth_ (1920), the most representative collection, has a greater imaginative sweep. Like his brother, the younger Benét is at his best in the decoratively grotesque; his fancy exults in running the scales between the whimsically bizarre and the lightly diabolic.

PORTRAIT OF A BOY

After the whipping, he crawled into bed; Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black frayed rag of tattered cloud before In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed, Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor Fat motes danced. He sobbed; closed his eyes and dreamed.

Warm sand flowed round him. Blurts of crimson light Splashed the white grains like blood. Past the cave’s mouth Shone with a large fierce splendor, wildly bright, The crooked constellations of the South; Here the Cross swung; and there, affronting Mars, The Centaur stormed aside a froth of stars. Within, great casks like wattled aldermen Sighed of enormous feasts, and cloth of gold Glowed on the walls like hot desire. Again, Beside webbed purples from some galleon’s hold, A black chest bore the skull and bones in white Above a scrawled “Gunpowder!” By the flames, Decked out in crimson, gemmed with syenite, Hailing their fellows by outrageous names The pirates sat and diced. Their eyes were moons. “Doubloons!” they said. “The words crashed gold. Doubloons!”

_Hilda Conkling_

Hilda Conkling, most gifted of recent infant prodigies, was born at Catskill-on-Hudson, New York, October 8, 1910. The daughter of Grace Hazard Conkling (see page 207), she came to Northampton, Massachusetts, with her mother when she was three years old and has lived there since, a normal out-of-doors little girl.

Hilda began to write poems—or rather, to talk them—at the age of four. Since that time, she has created one hundred and fifty little verses, many of them astonishing in exactness of phrase and beauty of vision. Hilda “tells” her poem and her mother copies it down, arranges the line-divisions and reads it to the child for correction. Conceding a possible half-conscious shaping by Mrs. Conkling, the quality which shines behind all of Hilda’s little facets of loveliness is a straightforward ingenuousness, a childlike but sweeping fantasy.

_Poems by a Little Girl_ (1920), published when Hilda was a little more than nine years old, is a detailed proof of this delightful quality. Every poem bears its own stamp of unaffected originality; “Water,” “Hay-Cock,” and a dozen others are startling in their precision and a power of painting the familiar in unsuspected colors. This child not only sees, feels and hears with the concentration of a child-artist, she communicates the results of her perceptions with the sensitivity of a master-craftsman. She hears a chickadee talking

The way smooth bright pebbles Drop into water.

Everything is extraordinarily vivid and fanciful to her keen senses. The rooster’s comb is “gay as a parade;” he has “pearl trinkets on his feet” and

The short feathers smooth along his back Are the dark color of wet rocks, Or the rippled green of ships When I look at their sides through water.

She observes:

The water came in with a wavy look Like a spider’s web.

It is too early for judgments—even for a prophecy. It is impossible to guess how much Hilda’s vision will be distorted by knowledge and the traditions that will accompany her growth. One can only hold one’s breath and hope for the preservation of so remarkable a talent.

WATER

The world turns softly Not to spill its lakes and rivers. The water is held in its arms And the sky is held in the water. What is water, That pours silver, And can hold the sky?

HAY-COCK

This is another kind of sweetness Shaped like a bee-hive: This is the hive the bees have left, It is from this clover-heap They took away the honey For the other hive!

THE OLD BRIDGE

The old bridge has a wrinkled face. He bends his back For us to go over. He moans and weeps But we do not hear. Sorrow stands in his face For the heavy weight and worry Of people passing. The trees drop their leaves into the water; The sky nods to him. The leaves float down like small ships On the blue surface Which is the sky. He is not always sad: He smiles to see the ships go down And the little children Playing on the river banks.

I KEEP WONDERING

I saw a mountain, And he was like Wotan looking at himself in the water. I saw a cockatoo, And he was like sunset clouds. Even leaves and little stones Are different to my eyes sometimes. I keep wondering through and through my heart Where all the beautiful things in the world Come from. And while I wonder They go on being beautiful.

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following twelve volumes deal, in considerable detail, with many of the poets, groups and tendencies considered in this collection. A few treat principally of the period between 1860 and 1890; the majority, however, reflect the shifting course of contemporary poetry. Most of the dozen contain liberal quotations, references, illustrative poems and suggestions for supplementary reading.

AIKEN, CONRAD. _Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry._ Alfred A. Knopf. 1919.

BOYNTON, PERCY H. _A History of American Literature._ Ginn and Company. 1919.

BROOKS, VAN WYCK. _America’s Coming of Age._ (Chapters II and III.) B. W. Huebsch. 1915.

EASTMAN, MAX. _Enjoyment of Poetry._ Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1913.

LOWELL, AMY. _Tendencies in Modern American Poetry._ The Macmillan Company. 1917.

LOWES, JOHN LIVINGSTON. _Convention and Revolt in Poetry._ Houghton Mifflin Company. 1919.

MONROE, HARRIET, and ALICE CORBIN HENDERSON. _The New Poetry—An Anthology._ The Macmillan Company. 1917.

MORRIS, LLOYD R. _The Young Idea (An Anthology of Opinion)._ Duffield and Company. 1917.

PATTEE, FRED LEWIS. _A History of American Literature Since 1870._ The Century Company. 1915.

RITTENHOUSE, JESSIE B. _The Younger American Poets._ (1860 to 1900). Little, Brown and Company. 1904.

UNTERMEYER, LOUIS. _The New Era in American Poetry._ Henry Holt and Company. 1919.

WILKINSON, MARGUERITE. _New Voices._ The Macmillan Company. 1919.

INDEX

_Names of Authors are in Capitals. Titles of Poems are in Italics._

_A. E. F._, 204

ADAMS, FRANKLIN P., 237-240

AIKEN, CONRAD, xliii, 358-366

ALDRICH, T. B., 7-10

_Anne Rutledge_, 123

_Apple Tree Said, The_, 385

_At Midnight_, 76

_At the Aquarium_, 285

_At the Crossroads_, 92

_Autumn_, 316, 372

_Bacchus_, 76

_Ballad For Gloom_, 303

_Banty Tim_, 13

_Battle-Song of Failure_, 209

_Beauty_, 339

_Beclouded_, 7

_Before Dawn in the Woods_, 280

_Behold the Deeds of Mrs. Jones!_, 66

BENÉT, STEPHEN VINCENT, 393-394

BENÉT, WILLIAM ROSE, 331-337

_Between Two Loves_, 136

_Bindlestiff_, 130

_Birches_, 189

_Bird and the Tree, The_, 171

_Black Sheep_, 88

_Black Vulture, The_, 107

_Blades of Grass, The_, 129

_Blessing the Dance_, 56

_Blue Island Intersection_, 202

BODENHEIM, MAXWELL, 369-371

BRANCH, ANNA HEMPSTEAD, 157-162

BRODY, ALTER, 390-392

_Builder, The_, 355

BUNNER, H. C., 63-68

BURR, AMELIA J., 209

BURTON, RICHARD, 87-88

_By the Pacific Ocean_, 23

BYNNER, WITTER, 243-248

“_Byron_,” _From_, 25

CABELL, JAMES BRANCH, 213-216

_Caliban in the Coal Mines_, 309

_Canopus_, 101

CARMAN, BLISS, xxvii-xxviii, 82-87

CARRYL, CHARLES EDWARD, 33-37

CARRYL, GUY WETMORE, 142-150

CAWEIN, MADISON, 97-100

_Cemetery, A_, 6

_Chance Meetings_, 360

_Chartless_, 4

_City Park_, 391

CLARK, BADGER, 276-280

_Clean Curtains_, 203

CLEGHORN, SARAH N., 194-195

_Coming to Port_, 284

_Congo, The_, 221

_Conservative, A_, 78

_Cool Tombs_, 198

CONKLING, GRACE HAZARD, 207-209

CONKLING, HILDA, 394-397

_Coquette Conquered_, _A_, 140

CORBIN, ALICE, xli, 258-261

_Coyote, The_, 279

CRANE, STEPHEN, 126-129

CRAPSEY, ADELAIDE, 205-207

_Creeds_, 356

CROMWELL, GLADYS, 298-300

_Crossing the Plains_, 24

_Crowning Gift, The_, 299

CURRAN, EDWIN, 371-373

_Cry of the People_, 241

“D., H.,” xxxviii, 327-330

_Daisies_, 87

DALY, T. A., 133-137

_Dare You?_, 26

_Dark Hills, The_, 119

DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN, 384-385

_Dawn_, 78, 322

_Dawns_, 271

_Day Before April, The_, 384

_Death_, 370

_Death of a Child, The_, 389

_Death of the Hired Man, The_, 181

_Dedication_, 213

_Desert, The_, 54

_Deserted_, 100

DEUTSCH, BABETTE, 388-390

DICKINSON, EMILY, xlv, 3-7

_Discovered_, 141

_Drug Clerk, The_, 291

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE, 137-142

_Dust, The_, 70

_Δωρια_, 305

_Eagle that Is Forgotten, The_, 219

_Earth_, 89

EASTMAN, MAX, 283-286

_Echoes of Childhood_, 258

_Elf and the Dormouse, The_, 90

ELIOT, T. S., 356, 358

“_Enamored Architect of Airy Rhyme_,” 9

ERSKINE, JOHN, 212-213

_Factories_, 350

_Fanatic, The_, 388

FICKE, ARTHUR DAVISON, 273-275

FIELD, EUGENE, xxv, 42-46

FLETCHER, JOHN GOULD, xxxviii, 319-327

_Fog_, 199

_Fragmentary Blue_, 191

_Free Fantasia on Japanese Themes_, 167

_From a Chinese Vase_, 386

FROST, ROBERT, xxxiii-xxxv, xliii, 174-192

_Frost on a Window_, 208

“_Frost To-Night_,” 61

_Frustrate_, 368

_Fulfilled Dream, The_, 360

_Fust Banjo, De_, 58

_Ghetto, From the_, 262

_Ghetto Twilight_, 392

_Gift of God, The_, 112

GILMAN, CHARLOTTE P. S., 78-80

GIOVANNITTI, ARTURO, 286-289

_Girl, A_, 302

_Glory Trail, The_, 276

_God’s World_, 374

_Golden Haired Girl_, _To a_, 229

_Good-Bye and Keep Cold_, 187

GORMAN, HERBERT S., 387

_Grass_, 205

_Grass-Tops_, 244

_Gravedigger, The_, 83

GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN, 80-81

_Halcyon Days_, 236

_Hands_, 312

HARTE, BRET, xviii, xxiv-xxv, xl, 15-21

HAY, JOHN, xviii, xxiv, 10-15

_Hay-Cock_, 396

_Heat_, 329

HELTON, ROY, 346

_Hem and Haw_, 86

_Her Eyes_, 272

HERFORD, OLIVER, 89-90

_High Tide_, 315

_Hours_, 285

HOVEY, RICHARD, xxvii-xxviii, 91-96

_How Are You, Dear World?_, 72

_How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted_, 147

_How Jack Found that Beans May Go Back on a Chap_, 143

_How He Turned Out_, 234

_How to Catch Unicorns_, 336

_Humiliation_, 386

_Hymn_, 128

_“I Have a Rendezvous with Death,”_ 353

_I Keep Wondering_, 397

_Image of Delight, The_, 193

IMAGISTS, THE, xxxvii-xxxix

_Immortal Love_, 62

_Improvisation_, 272

_In a Museum_, 390

_Incentive, The_, 195

_Indian Summer_, 4

_In Passing_, 346

_Interpreter, The_, 348

_I Saw a Man_, 127

_I Shall Go Back_, 382

_I Shall Not Care_, 296

_Ivy_, 77

JENNINGS, LESLIE NELSON, 368

_Jetsam, From_, 103

“_Jim_,” 16

_Jim Bludso_, 11

JOHNS, ORRICK, 348-349

KEMP, HARRY, 281-283

KILMER, JOYCE, 340-343

KNIBBS, H. H., xli, 150-157

KREYMBORG, ALFRED, 269-273

_Lady, A_, 166

_Lake Song_, 318

LANIER, SIDNEY, 27-33

LEONARD, WILLIAM ELLERY, 193-194

_Lethe_, 330

_Let Me Live Out My Years_, 242

_Lincoln_, 323

_Lincoln, A Farmer Remembers_, 245

_Lincoln Child, The_, 252

_Lincoln, The Man of the People_, 51

_Lincoln Walks at Midnight_, 232

LINDSAY, VACHEL, xli-xlii, 217-233

_Little Boy Blue_, 44

_Little Things_, 349

_London Nightfall_, 221

_Long Hill, The_, 296

_Love and Liberation_, 339

_Love in the Winds_, 95

_Love Song from New England_, 387

_Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, From the_, 357

LOWELL, AMY, xxxviii 162-170

_Lucinda Matlock_, 122

_Madonna of the Evening Flowers_, 169

_Man Hunt, The_, 98

_Man with the Hoe, The_, 49

_Maple Leaves_, 9

MARKHAM, EDWIN, xxx, 47-53

MARQUIS, DON, 211

_Marshes of Glynn, From the_, 32

_Martin_, 342

_Master, The_, 114

_Master Mariner, The_, 108

MASTERS, EDGAR LEE, xxxiii, 119-126

_Meeting-House Hill_, 165

_Memory_, 8

_Mending Wall_, 177

_Merchants from Cathay_, 331

_Mia Carlotta_, 135

MILLAY, EDNA ST. V., xliii, 373-383

MILLER, JOAQUIN, xxv, 21-25

_Miniver Cheevy_, 111

_Miracles_, 363

_Modern Woman to Her Lover, The_, 352

_Monk in the Kitchen, The_, 158

MOODY, WILLIAM VAUGHN, xxix, 102-107

MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER, 367

_Morning at the Window_, 357

_Morning Song from “Senlin,”_ 364

MORTON, DAVID, 346-348

_Most-Sacred Mountain, The_, 290

_Mould, The_, 300

_Negro Sermon, A_, 230

NEIHARDT, JOHN G., 240-243

_New Orleans_, 265

_Night_, 335

_Night and Day_, 31

_Night Note_, 257

_Night Song at Amalfi_, 294

_Nirvana_, 340

_Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard_, 205

_November Night_, 206

_O My Dead Comrade_, 74

_Old Age_, 370

_Old Bridge, The_, 396

_Old Manuscript_, 270

_Old Ships_, 347

_Old Story, An_, 117

_On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines_, 105

_One End of Love_, 215

_On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees_, 207

_Onset, The_, 192

OPPENHEIM, JAMES, xlii, 248-258

_Oread_, 328

O SHEEL, SHAEMAS, 344

_Our Two Opinions_, 43

_Outwitted_, 48

_Painted Hills of Arizona, The_, 372

_Pandora’s Song_, 104

_Parting Guest, A_, 41