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"The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. The Project Gutenberg EBook of American Poetry, 1922, by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: American Poetry, 1922 A Miscellany Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay Robert Frost Release Date: June 23, 2008 [EBook #25880] [Date last updated: January 2, 2009] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN POETRY, 1922 *** Produced by David Starner, Huub Bakker, Stephen Hope and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Pg i] AMERICAN POETRY 1922 A MISCELLANY NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY -1- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. [Pg ii] 1922, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY, N. J. [Pg iii] A FOREWORD When the first Miscellany of American Poetry appeared in 1920, innumerable were the questions asked by both readers and reviewers of publishers and contributors alike. The modest note on the jacket appeared to satisfy no one. The volume purported to have no editor, yet a collection without an editor was pronounced preposterous. It was obviously not the organ of a school, yet it did not seem to have been compiled to exploit any particular phase of American life; neither Nature, Love, Patriotism, Propaganda, nor Philosophy could be acclaimed as its reason for being, and it was certainly not intended, as has been so frequent of late, to bring a cheerful absence of mind to the world-weary during an unoccupied ten minutes. Again, it was exclusive not inclusive, since its object was, evidently, not the meritorious if impossible one of attempting to be a compendium of present-day American verse. But the publisher’s note had stated one thing quite clearly, that the Miscellany was to be a biennial. Two years have passed, and with the second volume it has seemed best to state at once the reasons which actuated its contributors to join in such [Pg iv]a venture. In the first place, the plan of the Miscellany is frankly imitative. For some years now there has been published in England an anthology entitled Georgian Poetry. The Miscellany is intended to be an American companion to that publication. The dissimilarities of temperament, range and choice of subjects are manifest, but the outstanding difference is this: Georgian Poetry has an editor, and the poems it contains may be taken as that editor’s reaction to the poetry of the day. The Miscellany, on the other hand, has no editor; it is no one person’s choice which forms it; it is not an attempt to throw into relief any particular group or stress any particular tendency. It does disclose the most recent work of certain representative figures in contemporary American literature. The poets who appear here have come together by mutual accord and, although they may invite others to join them in subsequent volumes as circumstance dictates, each one stands (as all newcomers also must stand) as the exponent of fresh and strikingly diverse qualities in our native poetry. It is as if a dozen unacademic painters, separated by temperament and distance, were to arrange to have an exhibition every two years of their latest work. They would not pretend that they were the only painters worthy of a public showing; they would maintain that their work was, generally speaking, most interesting to one another. Their gallery would necessarily be limited; but it would be flexible [Pg v] enough to admit, with every fresh exhibit, three or four new members who had achieved an importance and an idiom of their own. This is just what the original contributors to the Miscellany have done. -2- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. The newcomers—H. D., Alfred Kreymborg, and Edna St. Vincent Millay—have taken their places with the same absence of judge or jury that marks any "society of independents." There is no hanging committee; no organizer of "position." Two years ago the alphabet determined the arrangement; this time seniority has been the sole arbiter of precedence. Furthermore—and this can not be too often repeated—there has been no editor. To be painstakingly precise, each contributor has been his own editor. As such, he has chosen his own selections and determined the order in which they are to be printed, but he has had no authority over either the choice or grouping of his fellow exhibitors’ contributions. To one of the members has been delegated the merely mechanical labors of assembling, proof-reading, and seeing the volume through the press. The absence of E. A. Robinson from this year’s Miscellany is a source of regret not only to all the contributors but to the poet himself. Mr. Robinson has written nothing since his Collected Poems with the exception of a long poem—a volume in itself—but he hopes to appear in any subsequent collection. It should be added that this is not a haphazard anthology of picked-over poetry. The poems that follow are new. They are new not only in the sense [Pg vi] that (with two exceptions) they cannot be found in book form, but most of them have never previously been published. Certain of the selections have appeared in recent magazines and these are reprinted by permission of The Century, The Yale Review, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The New Republic, Harper’s, Scribner’s, The Bookman, The Freeman, Broom, The Dial, The Atlantic Monthly, Farm and Fireside, The Measure, and The Literary Review. Vachel Lindsay’s "I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry" is a revised version of the poem of that name which was printed in The Enchanted Years.[Pg vii] CONTENTS A Foreword AMY LOWELL Lilacs Twenty-four Hokku on a Modern Theme The Swans Prime Vespers In Excelsis La Ronde du Diable ROBERT FROST Fire and Ice The Grindstone The Witch of Coös A Brook in the City Design CARL SANDBURG 25 26 29 37 38 3 8 13 16 17 18 20 iii -3- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. And So To-day California City Landscape Upstream Windflower Leaf VACHEL LINDSAY In Praise of Johnny Appleseed I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry JAMES OPPENHEIM Hebrews ALFRED KREYMBORG Adagio: A Duet Die Küche Rain Peasant Bubbles Dirge Colophon SARA TEASDALE Wisdom Places Twilight (Tucson) Full Moon (Santa Barbara) Winter Sun (Lenox) Evening (Nahant) Words for an Old Air Those Who Love Two Songs for Solitude The Crystal Gazer The Solitary LOUIS UNTERMEYER Monolog from a Mattress Waters of Babylon The Flaming Circle Portrait of a Machine Roast Leviathan JOHN GOULD FLETCHER 41 49 51 52 55 66 75 [Pg viii] 79 80 81 83 85 87 88 91 92 97 98 99 103 110 112 114 115 -4- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. A Rebel The Rock Blue Water Prayers for Wind Impromptu Chinese Poet Among Barbarians Snowy Mountains The Future Upon the Hill The Enduring JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER Old Man Tone Picture They Say— Rescue Mater in Extremis Self-Rejected H. D. Holy Satyr Lais Heliodora Toward the Piræus Slay with your eyes, Greek You would have broken my wings I loved you What had you done If I had been a boy It was not chastity that made me cold CONRAD AIKEN Seven Twilights The ragged pilgrim on the road to nowhere Now by the wall of the ancient town When the tree bares, the music of it changes [Pg x] "This is the hour," she says, "of transmutation" Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds Heaven, you say, will be a field in April 127 128 129 130 131 [Pg ix] 132 133 134 136 137 141 142 143 144 146 147 151 153 156 161 171 -5- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. In the long silence of the sea Tetélestai EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Eight Sonnets When you, that at this moment are to me What’s this of death, from you who never will die I know I am but summer to your heart Here is a wound that never will heal, I know What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 [Pg 1] 193 184 [Pg 2] AMY LOWELL LILACS -6- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. Lilacs, False blue, White, Purple, Color of lilac, Your great puffs of flowers Are everywhere in this my New England. Among your heart-shaped leaves Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing Their little weak soft songs; In the crooks of your branches The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs Peer restlessly through the light and shadow Of all Springs. Lilacs in dooryards Holding quiet conversations with an early moon; Lilacs watching a deserted house Settling sideways into the grass of an old road; Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom Above a cellar dug into a hill. You are everywhere. You were everywhere. You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon, [Pg 4] And ran along the road beside the boy going to school. You stood by pasture-bars to give the cows good milking, You persuaded the housewife that her dish-pan was of silver And her husband an image of pure gold. You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms Through the wide doors of Custom Houses— You, and sandal-wood, and tea, Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks When a ship was in from China. You called to them: "Goose-quill men, goose-quill men, May is a month for flitting," Until they writhed on their high stools And wrote poetry on their letter-sheets behind the propped-up ledgers. Paradoxical New England clerks, Writing inventories in ledgers, reading the "Song of Solomon" at night, So many verses before bedtime, Because it was the Bible. The dead fed you Amid the slant stones of graveyards. Pale ghosts who planted you Came in the night time And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems. You are of the green sea, [Pg 5] And of the stone hills which reach a long distance. You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell kites and marbles, You are of great parks where every one walks and nobody is at home. You cover the blind sides of greenhouses And lean over the top to say a hurry-word through the glass To your friends, the grapes, inside. Lilacs, False blue, White, Purple, Color of lilac, You have forgotten your Eastern origin, The veiled women with eyes like panthers, The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled Pashas. Now you are a very decent flower, A reticent flower, A curiously clear-cut, candid flower, Standing beside clean doorways, Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles, Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight And a hundred or two sharp blossoms. Maine knows you, Has for years and years; New Hampshire knows you, And Massachusetts And Vermont. [Pg 6] Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island; Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea. You are brighter than apples, Sweeter than tulips, You are the great flood of our souls Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts, You are the smell of all Summers, The love of wives and children, The recollection of the gardens of little children, You are State Houses and Charters And the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows. May is lilac here in New England, May is a thrush singing "Sun up!" on a tip-top ash-tree, May is white clouds behind pine-trees Puffed out and marching upon a blue sky. May is a green as no other, May is much sun through small leaves, May is soft earth, And apple-blossoms, And windows open to a South wind. May is a full light wind of lilac From Canada to Narragansett Bay. Lilacs, False blue, White, Purple, [Pg 7] Color of lilac, Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England, Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England, Lilac in me because I am New England, Because my roots are in it, Because my leaves are of it, Because my flowers are for it, Because it is my country And I speak to it of itself And sing of it with my own voice Since certainly it is mine. -7- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. [Pg 8] TWENTY-FOUR HOKKU ON A MODERN THEME I Again the larkspur, Heavenly blue in my garden. They, at least, unchanged. II How have I hurt you? You look at me with pale eyes, But these are my tears. III Morning and evening— Yet for us once long ago Was no division. IV I hear many words. Set an hour when I may come Or remain silent. V In the ghostly dawn I write new words for your ears— Even now you sleep. [Pg 9] VI This then is morning. Have you no comfort for me Cold-colored flowers? VII My eyes are weary Following you everywhere. Short, oh short, the days! VIII When the flower falls The leaf is no more cherished. Every day I fear. IX Even when you smile Sorrow is behind your eyes. Pity me, therefore. X Laugh—it is nothing. To others you may seem gay, I watch with grieved eyes. [Pg 10] XI Take it, this white rose. Stems of roses do not bleed; Your fingers are safe. XII As a river-wind Hurling clouds at a bright moon, So am I to you. XIII Watching the iris, The faint and fragile petals— How am I worthy? -8- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. XIV Down a red river I drift in a broken skiff. Are you then so brave? XV Night lies beside me Chaste and cold as a sharp sword. It and I alone. XVI Last night it rained. Now, in the desolate dawn, Crying of blue jays. [Pg 11] XVII Foolish so to grieve, Autumn has its colored leaves— But before they turn? XVIII Afterwards I think: Poppies bloom when it thunders. Is this not enough? XIX Love is a game—yes? I think it is a drowning: Black willows and stars. XX When the aster fades The creeper flaunts in crimson. Always another! XXI Turning from the page, Blind with a night of labor, I hear morning crows. XXII A cloud of lilies, Or else you walk before me. Who could see clearly? [Pg 12] XXIII Sweet smell of wet flowers Over an evening garden. Your portrait, perhaps? XXIV Staying in my room, I thought of the new Spring leaves. That day was happy. [Pg 13] THE SWANS -9- The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. The swans float and float Along the moat Around the Bishop’s garden, And the white clouds push Across a blue sky With edges that seem to draw in and harden. Two slim men of white bronze Beat each with a hammer on the end of a rod The hours of God. Striking a bell, They do it well. And the echoes jump, and tinkle, and swell In the Cathedral’s carved stone polygons. The swans float About the moat, And another swan sits still in the air Above the old inn. He gazes into the street And swims the cold and the heat, He has always been there, At least so say the cobbles in the square. They listen to the beat Of the hammered bell, And think of the feet Which beat upon their tops; But what they think they do not tell. [Pg 14] And the swans who float Up and down the moat Gobble the bread the Bishop feeds them. The slim bronze men beat the hour again, But only the gargoyles up in the hard blue air heed them. When the Bishop says a prayer, And the choir sing "Amen," The hammers break in on them there: Clang! Clang! Beware! Beware! The carved swan looks down at the passing men, And the cobbles wink: "An hour has gone again." But the people kneeling before the Bishop’s chair Forget the passing over the cobbles in the square. An hour of day and an hour of night, And the clouds float away in a red-splashed light. The sun, quotha? or white, white Smoke with fire all alight. An old roof crashing on a Bishop’s tomb, Swarms of men with a thirst for room, And the footsteps blur to a shower, shower, shower, Of men passing—passing—every hour, With arms of power, and legs of power, And power in their strong, hard minds. No need then For the slim bronze men Who beat God’s hours: Prime, Tierce, None. [Pg 15] Who wants to hear? No one. We will melt them, and mold them, And make them a stem For a banner gorged with blood, For a blue-mouthed torch. So the men rush like clouds, They strike their iron edges on the Bishop’s chair And fling down the lanterns by the tower stair. They rip the Bishop out of his tomb And break the mitre off of his head. "See," say they, "the man is dead; He cannot shiver or sing. We’ll toss for his ring." The cobbles see this all along the street Coming—coming—on countless feet. And the clockmen mark the hours as they go. But slow—slow— The swans float In the Bishop’s moat. And the inn swan Sits on and on, Staring before him with cold glass eyes. Only the Bishop walks serene, Pleased with his church, pleased with his house, Pleased with the sound of the hammered bell, Beating his doom. Saying "Boom! Boom! Room! Room!" He is old, and kind, and deaf, and blind, And very, very pleased with his charming moat And the swans which float. [Pg 16] PRIME - 10 - The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. Your voice is like bells over roofs at dawn When a bird flies And the sky changes to a fresher color. Speak, speak, Beloved. Say little things For my ears to catch And run with them to my heart. [Pg 17] VESPERS Last night, at sunset, The foxgloves were like tall altar candles. Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse, my Dear, I should have understood their burning. [Pg 18] IN EXCELSIS You—you— Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver; Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies; Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air. The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun; It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path. As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning. Young horses are not more sudden than your thoughts, Your words are bees about a pear-tree, Your fancies are the gold-and-black striped wasps buzzing among red apples. I drink your lips, I eat the whiteness of your hands and feet. My mouth is open, As a new jar I am empty and open. Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth, Like a brook of water thronged with lilies. You are frozen as the clouds, [Pg 19] You are far and sweet as the high clouds. I dare reach to you, I dare touch the rim of your brightness. I leap beyond the winds, I cry and shout, For my throat is keen as a sword Sharpened on a hone of ivory. My throat sings the joy of my eyes, The rushing gladness of my love. How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart? How have I snared the seas to lie in my fingers And caught the sky to be a cover for my head? How have you come to dwell with me, Compassing me with the four circles of your mystic lightness, So that I say "Glory! Glory!" and bow before you As to a shrine? Do I tease myself that morning is morning and a day after? Do I think the air a condescension, The earth a politeness, Heaven a boon deserving thanks? So you—air—earth—heaven— I do not thank you, I take you, I live. And those things which I say in consequence Are rubies mortised in a gate of stone. [Pg 20] - 11 - The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Poetry, by Various. LA RONDE DU DIABLE "Here we go round the ivy-bush," And that’s a tune we all dance to. Little poet people snatching ivy, Trying to prevent one another from snatching ivy. If you get a leaf, there’s another for me; Look at the bush. But I want your leaf, Brother, and you mine, Therefore, of course, we push. "Here we go round the laurel-tree." Do we want laurels for ourselves most, Or most that no one else shall have any? We cannot stop to discuss the question. We cannot stop to plait them into crowns Or notice whether they become us. We scarcely see the laurel-tree, The crowd about us is all we see, And..."

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