The Second Book of Modern Verse
J >>
Jessie B. Rittenhouse >> The Second Book of Modern Verse
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12
With all the fairest angels nearest God,
The ineffable true of heart around the throne,
There shall I find you waiting when the flown
Dream leaves my heart insentient as the clod;
And when the grief-retracing ways I trod
Become a shining path to thee alone,
My weary feet, that seemed to drag as stone,
Shall once again, with wings of fleetness shod,
Fare on, beloved, to find you! Just beyond
The seraph throng await me, standing near
The gentler angels, eager and apart;
Be there, near God's own fairest, with the fond
Sweet smile that was your own, and let me hear
Your voice again and clasp you to my heart.
Afterwards. [Mahlon Leonard Fisher]
There was a day when death to me meant tears,
And tearful takings-leave that had to be,
And awed embarkings on an unshored sea,
And sudden disarrangement of the years.
But now I know that nothing interferes
With the fixed forces when a tired man dies;
That death is only answerings and replies,
The chiming of a bell which no one hears,
The casual slanting of a half-spent sun,
The soft recessional of noise and coil,
The coveted something time nor age can spoil;
I know it is a fabric finely spun
Between the stars and dark; to seize and keep,
Such glad romances as we read in sleep.
Pierrette in Memory. [William Griffith]
Pierrette has gone, but it was not
Exactly that she died,
So much as vanished and forgot
To tell where she would hide.
To keep a sudden rendezvous,
It came into her mind
That she was late. What could she do
But leave distress behind?
Afraid of being in disgrace,
And hurrying to dress,
She heard there was another place
In need of loveliness.
She went so softly and so soon,
She hardly made a stir;
But going took the stars and moon
And sun away with her.
The Three Sisters. [Arthur Davison Ficke]
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.
Song. [Adelaide Crapsey]
I make my shroud, but no one knows --
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows,
I make my shroud, but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.
The Unknown Beloved. [John Hall Wheelock]
I dreamed I passed a doorway
Where, for a sign of death,
White ribbons one was binding
About a flowery wreath.
What drew me so I know not,
But drawing near I said,
"Kind sir, and can you tell me
Who is it here lies dead?"
Said he, "Your most beloved
Died here this very day,
That had known twenty Aprils
Had she but lived till May."
Astonished I made answer,
"Good sir, how say you so!
Here have I no beloved,
This house I do not know."
Quoth he, "Who from the world's end
Was destined unto thee
Here lies, thy true beloved
Whom thou shalt never see."
I dreamed I passed a doorway
Where, for a sign of death,
White ribbons one was binding
About a flowery wreath.
Cinquains. [Adelaide Crapsey]
Fate Defied
As it
Were tissue of silver
I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.
Night Winds
The old
Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?
The Warning
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . . as strange, as still . . .
A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown
So cold?
The Lonely Death. [Adelaide Crapsey]
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them aflame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.
Exile from God. [John Hall Wheelock]
I do not fear to lay my body down
In death, to share
The life of the dark earth and lose my own,
If God is there.
I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet might
Of color and sound, --
His tangible loveliness and living light
That robes me 'round.
If to His heart in the hushed grave and dim
We sink more near,
It shall be well -- living we rest in Him.
Only I fear
Lest from my God in lonely death I lapse,
And the dumb clod
Lose him; for God is life, and death perhaps
Exile from God.
Loam. [Carl Sandburg]
In the loam we sleep,
In the cool moist loam,
To the lull of years that pass
And the break of stars.
From the loam, then,
The soft warm loam,
We rise:
To shape of rose leaf,
Of face and shoulder.
We stand, then,
To a whiff of life,
Lifted to the silver of the sun
Over and out of the loam
A day.
Hills of Home. [Witter Bynner]
Name me no names for my disease,
With uninforming breath;
I tell you I am none of these,
But homesick unto death --
Homesick for hills that I had known,
For brooks that I had crossed,
Before I met this flesh and bone
And followed and was lost. . . .
And though they break my heart at last,
Yet name no name of ills.
Say only, "Here is where he passed,
Seeking again those hills."
The Last Piper. [Edward J. O'Brien]
Dark winds of the mountain,
White winds of the sea,
Are skirling the pibroch
Of Seumas an Righ.
The crying of gannets,
The shrieking of terns,
Are keening his dying
High over the burns.
Grey silence of waters
And wasting of lands
And the wailing of music
Down to the sands,
The wailing of music,
And trailing of wind,
The waters before him,
The mountains behind, --
Alone at the gathering,
Silent he stands,
And the wail of his piping
Cries over the lands,
To the moan of the waters,
The drone of the foam,
Where his soul, a white gannet,
Wings silently home.
The Provinces. [Francis Carlin]
~O God that I
May arise with the Gael
To the song in the sky
Over Inisfail!~
Ulster, your dark
Mold for me;
Munster, a lark
Hold for me!
Connaght, a `caoine'
Croon for me;
Lienster, a mean
Stone for me!
~O God that I
May arise with the Gael
To the song in the sky
Over Inisfail!~
Omnium Exeunt in Mysterium. [George Sterling]
The stranger in my gates -- lo! that am I,
And what my land of birth I do not know,
Nor yet the hidden land to which I go.
One may be lord of many ere he die,
And tell of many sorrows in one sigh,
But know himself he shall not, nor his woe,
Nor to what sea the tears of wisdom flow;
Nor why one star is taken from the sky.
An urging is upon him evermore,
And though he bide, his soul is wanderer,
Scanning the shadows with a sense of haste --
Where fade the tracks of all who went before:
A dim and solitary traveller
On ways that end in evening and the waste.
Moth-Terror. [Benjamin De Casseres]
I have killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies
upon the floor.
(O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul
and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!)
My will against its will, and no more will it fly at my night-light
or be hidden behind the curtains that swing in the winds.
(But O who will shatter the Change-Moth that leaves me in rags --
tattered old tapestries that swing in the winds that blow out of Chaos!)
Night-Moth, Change-Moth, Time-Moth, eaters of dreams and of me!
Old Age. [Cale Young Rice]
I have heard the wild geese,
I have seen the leaves fall,
There was frost last night
On the garden wall.
It is gone to-day
And I hear the wind call.
The wind? . . . That is all.
If the swallow will light
When the evening is near;
If the crane will not scream
Like a soul in fear;
I will think no more
Of the dying year,
And the wind, its seer.
Atropos. [John Myers O'Hara]
Atropos, dread
One of the Three,
Holding the thread
Woven for me;
Grimly thy shears,
Steely and bright,
Menace the years
Left for delight.
Grant it may chance,
Just as they close,
June may entrance
Earth with the rose;
Reigning as though,
Bliss to the breath,
Endless and no
Whisper of death.
====
Biographical Notes
[The format of these notes has been slightly altered. Most notably,
dates (hopefully correct, but not entirely certain for the lesser known poets)
have been added -- when available -- in square brackets after each name,
and the number of entries for that author in this anthology is in parentheses.
In some cases there are several short poems under one entry.
These notes (first included in 1920, whereas the selections were made in 1919)
combined with the searchability of electronic texts,
renders the original Indexes of Authors and of First Lines obsolete,
and so both have been dropped. Occasionally, relevant comments follow
in angled brackets. -- A. L., 1998.]
Aiken, Conrad. [1889-1973] (3)
Born at Savannah, Ga., Aug. 5, 1889. Received the degree of A.B.
from Harvard University in 1912 and in August of the same year married
Miss Jessie McDonald, of Montreal, Canada. Mr. Aiken's first volume
of poetry, "Earth Triumphant", was published in 1914, and has been followed
by "Turns and Movies", 1916; "Nocturne of Remembered Spring", 1917;
and "The Charnel Rose", 1918. Mr. Aiken is a keen and trenchant critic,
as well as a poet, and his volume on the modern movement in poetry,
"Skepticisms", is one of the finest and most stimulating contributions
to the subject.
[Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1930 for "Selected Poems".
-- A. L., 1998.]
Akins, Zoe. [1886-1958] (1)
Born at Humansville, Mo., Oct. 30, 1886. Educated at home and at
Monticello Seminary, Godfrey, Ill. Miss Akins began her literary work
by contributing poems and critical articles to `Reedy's Mirror', St. Louis,
and in 1911 published her volume of poems, "Interpretations". The drama,
however, soon began to absorb her, and she has had several plays produced,
including "The Magical City", "Papa", a comedy, and "Declasse",
which won a great success with Ethel Barrymore in the leading role.
Anderson, Margaret Steele. [1867-1921] (2)
Born in Louisville, Ky., and educated in the public schools of that city,
with special courses at Wellesley College. Since 1901 Miss Anderson has been
Literary Editor of the `Evening Post' of Louisville, and is known
as one of the most discriminating critics of the South.
She has published but one volume of verse, "The Flame in the Wind", 1914,
but it is choice in quality. Miss Anderson is also a critic of Art
and is the author of "A Study of Modern Painting".
Arensberg, Walter Conrad. [1878-1954] (2)
Mr. Arensberg has been active in the new movement in poetry and was
one of the group who contributed to the yearly collection called "Others".
He is the author of "Idols", 1916.
Baker, Karle Wilson. [1878-1960] (2)
Born in Little Rock, Ark., Oct. 13, 1878. Educated in
public and private schools at Little Rock and at the University of Chicago.
Mrs. Baker taught for several years in Virginia and in the High Schools
of Little Rock, but in 1901 took up her residence in Texas,
whither her family had preceded her, and in 1907 was married
to Thomas Ellis Baker, of Nacogdoches, which is her present home.
Mrs. Baker is one of the promising new writers, her first volume of verse,
"Blue Smoke", having been published in 1919, by the Yale Press.
Bates, Katharine Lee. [1859-1929] (1)
Born at Falmouth, Mass., Aug. 12, 1859. Was educated at Wellesley College,
from which she received the degree of A.B., in 1880 and that of A.M. in 1891.
She also had the honorary degree of Litt.D. conferred upon her by
Middlebury College and by Oberlin. She was continuously in educational work,
teaching first at Dana Hall and then in Wellesley College,
where she was professor and head of the English Department.
Miss Bates spent four years in foreign travel and study
and published numerous books in the field of education.
Her best-known volumes of verse are: "America the Beautiful", 1911;
"Fairy Gold", 1916; and "The Retinue", 1918.
Benet, Stephen Vincent. [1898-1943] (1)
Born at Bethlehem, Pa., 1898. Was educated at the Summerville Academy
at Augusta, Ga., and at Yale University, taking the degree of A.B. in 1919
and of A.M. in 1920. His first volume, "Young Adventure", was brought out
by the Yale University Press in 1918 and he also contributed largely
to the "Yale Book of Student Verse", published in 1919.
Mr. Benet is a gifted young writer from whom much may be expected.
[Brother of William Rose Benet. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
in 1929 for "John Brown's Body" and in 1944 (posthumous) for "Western Star".
See note to William Rose Benet. -- A. L., 1998.]
Benet, William Rose. [1886-1950] (2)
Born at Fort Hamilton, N.Y. Harbor, Feb. 2, 1886. Graduated at
the Academy of Albany, N.Y., in 1904, and took the degree of Ph.B.
from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1907.
In 1912 he was married to Teresa Frances Thompson, of San Francisco,
who died in 1919. Mr. Benet was connected for several years
with the `Century Magazine', first as reader and then as assistant editor,
a position which he resigned to enter the Aviation Corps of the Army,
during the World War. He is now one of the literary editors
of the `Evening Post', of New York. His successive volumes of verse are:
"Merchants from Cathay", 1912; "The Falconer of God", 1914;
"The Great White Wall", 1916; "The Burglar of the Zodiac", 1918;
and "Perpetual Light", 1919.
[Brother of Stephen Vincent Benet. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
in 1942 for "The Dust Which Is God". Both were members of a talented family,
in both military and literary affairs, descended from Minorcan settlers
who lived in St. Augustine, Florida. -- A. L., 1998.]
Bradley, William Aspinwall. [1878-1939] (1)
Born at Hartford, Conn., Feb. 8, 1878. Educated at Columbia University
where he received the degree of A.M. in 1900. Married Miss Grace Goodrich
in 1903. From 1900 to 1908 Mr. Bradley was art director and literary advisor
to McClure, Phillips & Co. and the McClure Co. and left them
to become typographical designer and supervisor of printing
at the Yale University Press, where he remained until 1917,
when America entered the World War. He then became connected
with the War Camp Community Service in which he did excellent work
for the period of the war. Mr. Bradley is the author of several
books and brochures upon art and particularly upon prints and etchings,
such as "French Etchers of the Second Empire", 1916.
In poetry, he is the author of "Garlands and Wayfarings", 1917;
"Old Christmas and Other Kentucky Tales in Verse", 1917; "Singing Carr", 1918.
The last two books are based upon Kentucky folk-tales and ballads
gathered by Mr. Bradley among the people of the Cumberland Mountains.
Branch, Anna Hempstead. [1875-1937] (3)
Born at Hempstead House, New London, Conn. Graduated from
Smith College in 1897 and from the American Academy of Dramatic Art,
in New York City, in 1900. While at college she began writing poetry
and the year after her graduation won the first prize offered
by the `Century Magazine' for a poem written by a college graduate.
This poem, "The Road 'Twixt Heaven and Hell", was printed
in the `Century Magazine' for December, 1898, and was followed
soon after by the publication of Miss Branch's first volume,
"The Heart of the Road", 1901. She has since published two volumes,
"The Shoes That Danced", 1902, and "Rose of the Wind", 1910,
both marked by imagination and beauty of a high order.
Burnet, Dana. [1888-1962] (1)
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 3, 1888. Graduated at
the Woodward High School of Cincinnati and took the degree of LL.B.
at the Cornell University College of Law in 1911.
Married Marguerite E. Dumary, of Brooklyn, in 1913.
Mr. Burnet has been associated with the `Evening Sun', of New York,
since 1911, in various capacities, from that of reporter
to editor of the magazine page. He is the author of "Poems", 1915,
and "The Shining Adventure", 1916.
Burr, Amelia Josephine. [1878-?] (2)
Educated at Hunter College in the City of New York. Miss Burr
has published successively the following books of verse:
"A Roadside Fire", 1913; "In Deep Places", 1914; "Life and Living", 1916;
"The Silver Trumpet", 1918; and "Hearts Awake", 1919. The last two volumes
relate chiefly to the World War.
Burt, Maxwell Struthers. [1882-1954] (1)
Born at Baltimore, Md., Oct. 18, 1882. Early education at private schools,
Philadelphia. Received the degree of A.B. from Princeton University in 1904
and later studied at Merton College, Oxford University.
After two years of teaching at Princeton University,
Mr. Burt took up the life of a rancher at Jackson Hole, Wyo.,
though he usually returns to Princeton for the winter months.
In 1913 he married Katharine Newlin, a writer of fiction.
Mr. Burt is the author of two volumes of verse, "In the High Hills", 1914,
and "Songs and Portraits", 1920; he has also written many short stories.
Bynner, Witter. [1881-1968] (5)
Born at Brooklyn, Aug. 10, 1881. Graduated at Harvard University in 1902.
After his graduation, until 1906, he served as assistant editor
of `McClure's Magazine' and literary editor of McClure, Phillips & Co.
Since that time he has devoted himself exclusively to the writing
of poetry and drama, with the exception of a year spent
as a special lecturer upon Poetry at the University of California.
While at the University, Mr. Bynner's "Canticle of Praise",
written to celebrate peace after the World War, was given in
the open-air Greek Theatre at Berkeley to an audience of 8000 persons.
Mr. Bynner's first volume, "An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems",
was published in 1907, and was followed in 1913 by the poetic drama, "Tiger";
in 1915 by "The New World", amplified from his Phi Beta Kappa Poem
delivered at Harvard in 1911; in 1917 by "The Little King", a poetic drama;
in 1917 also by "Grenstone Poems", a collection of his lyric work to date.
In 1916, in connection with his friend, Arthur Davison Ficke,
Mr. Bynner perpetrated the clever literary hoax of "Spectra",
a volume of verse in the ultra-modern manner, designed to establish
a new "school" of poetry that should outdo "Imagism" and other cults
then in the public eye. These poems, published under the joint authorship
of Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, created much comment, and in spite of
their bizarre features were taken seriously by well-known critics,
who were much discomfited when the truth of the matter was known.
In 1919 Mr. Bynner published "The Beloved Stranger", a volume of `vers libre',
written in a style that grew out of the "Spectra" experiment,
but divested of its extravagant features.
Carlin, Francis (James F. C. MacDonnell). [1881-?] (2)
Born April 7, 1881, at Bay Shore, L.I., N.Y. Educated at
St. Mary's Parochial School, Norwalk, Conn. Author of "My Ireland",
privately printed, 1917 (taken over by Henry Holt & Co.
and republished in the following year), "The Cairn of Stars", 1920.
Mr. Carlin takes his pen-name from that of his grandfather
who was a cottage weaver of linen and a local rhymer in Tyrone, Ireland.
Cleghorn, Sarah N. [1876-1959] (1)
Born in Manchester, Vt. Educated at Burr and Burton Seminary, of Manchester.
Miss Cleghorn is the author of "Portraits and Protests", 1917.
Conkling, Grace Hazard. [1878-1958] (3)
Born in New York City. Graduated at Smith College in 1899,
and later studied music and languages at the University of Heidelberg
and at Paris; was for several years a teacher of English, Latin, and Greek
in Woodstock, Conn., and in the schools of New York City.
In 1905 she married Roscoe Platt Conkling at San Antonio, Texas,
and spent her early married life in Mexico, which inspired
some of her most charming lyrics. Since 1914, Mrs. Conkling
has been teaching in the English Department of Smith College.
She has published "Afternoons in April", 1915, and "Wilderness Songs", 1920.
Mrs. Conkling is a poet of exceedingly delicate and beautiful touch,
and her gift seems to have been transmitted to her daughter, Hilda,
whose poems written, or told, between the ages of five and eight,
and published in a volume in 1920, prove her to be a child
of remarkable poetic talent.
Corbin, Alice (Mrs. Wm. Penhallow Henderson). [1881-1949] (1)
Born in St. Louis, of Southern parentage. Educated at
the University of Chicago. Since its founding in 1912,
Mrs. Henderson has been associate editor, with Harriet Monroe,
of `Poetry, A Magazine of Verse', and also co-editor, with Miss Monroe,
of "The New Poetry", an anthology of modern English and American poets.
She is the author of "Adam's Dream and Two Other Miracle Plays for Children"
(in verse), and of a collection of poems called
"The Spinning Woman of the Sky".
Cox, Eleanor Rogers. [?-1936(possibly 1931)] (2)
Born at Enniskillen, Ireland. Came with family to the United States
in childhood; citizen; educated at St. Gabriel's High School
and private tuition. Although Miss Cox has lived in America since childhood,
her poetic inspiration has come chiefly from the myths and legends of Ireland,
her mother country, to which she returns at intervals.
Her two volumes of verse, "A Hosting of Heroes", 1911,
and "Singing Fires of Erin", 1916, are instinct with the Celtic spirit.
Miss Cox also lectures upon Irish legendry.
Crapsey, Adelaide. [1878-1914] (3)
Born in Brooklyn, Sept. 9, 1878. Her young girlhood was spent
in Rochester, N.Y., where her father, Algernon S. Crapsey,
was rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. After preparatory work
in Kemper Hall, Kenosha, Wis., she entered Vassar College,
graduating, as a Phi Beta Kappa, in 1901. After two years of teaching
at Kemper Hall, Miss Crapsey went to Italy and became a student
at the School of Archaeology in Rome, at the same time giving lectures
in Italian history. Upon returning to America she taught
history and literature for two years in a private school at Stamford, Conn.,
but gave up her work because of ill health and spent the following two years
in Italy and England, working upon her "Study of English Metrics".
Recovering sufficiently to do so, she returned to this country in 1911
and took a position as Instructor of Poetics at Smith College,
but in 1913 was obliged to resign because of renewed illness
and died on the 8th of October, 1914. After her death,
the Manas Press of Rochester brought out a small volume of her poetry,
and her "Study of English Metrics" was published in 1918 by Alfred Knopf.
Adelaide Crapsey had a rarely beautiful and original poetic gift,
and her early death is greatly to be regretted.
Cromwell, Gladys. [1885-1919] (1)
Born in Brooklyn, but lived the greater part of her life in New York City.
She was educated at private schools in New York, and had a period of study
in Paris, supplemented by extensive foreign travel. At the outbreak
of the World War, Miss Cromwell and her twin sister volunteered for service
in the Red Cross and were actively engaged both in canteen work
and in hospital service. The strain proved too great and induced
a mental depression, which, acting upon the highly sensitive nature
of the sisters, caused them to feel that they had no longer a place in a world
which held no refuge for beauty and quiet thought, and on their way home
from France, in January of 1919, they committed suicide by jumping from
the deck of the steamer Loraine. Three months later they were buried
in France with military honors and the French Government awarded them
the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de Reconnaissance francaise.
The poetry of Gladys Cromwell is deeply thoughtful and almost sculptural
in its chiseled beauty. It shows the reaction of a finely tempered spirit
to a world at variance with it. Had Miss Cromwell lived
she would almost certainly have added some distinguished work to our poetry,
since the lyrics contained in the volume of her verse issued after her death
are of so fine a quality.
Dargan, Olive Tilford. [1869-1968] (1)
Born in Grayson County, Ky., and educated at the University of Nashville
and at Radcliffe College. She became a teacher and was connected with
various schools in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas until her marriage.
Mrs. Dargan's first work was in poetic drama in which
she revealed gifts of a high order. Her dramatic volumes are:
"Semiramis, and Other Plays", 1904; "Lords and Lovers", 1906;
and "The Mortal Gods", 1912. As a lyric poet Mrs. Dargan has done
some beautiful work, most of which may be found in her collection
"Path Flower", 1914, and she has also published a sequence of fine sonnets
under the title of "The Cycle's Rim", 1916.
Davies, Mary Carolyn (Mrs. Leland Davis). [?] (3)
Miss Davies was born and educated in California and came to New York
from her home in that state, where she soon began to attract attention
by the fresh and original quality of her verse, which appeared frequently
in the magazines. In 1918 she married Leland Davis. In the same year
she published "The Drums in Our Street", a book of war verse, and in 1919
brought out a much finer and more characteristic collection of her poems
under the title, "Youth Riding". Miss Davies has also written
several one-act plays, one of which, "The Slave with Two Faces",
has had successful presentation.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12