The Little Book of Modern Verse

Title: The Little Book of Modern Verse

Editor: Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Release date: January 1, 1998 [eBook #1165] Most recently updated: April 2, 2015

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1165

Credits: This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light

This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light ([email protected], formerly

[email protected], etc.). To assure a high quality text, the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.

The Little Book of Modern Verse ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse

[Note on text: Italicized lines or stanzas are marked by tildes (~). Other italicized words have capitalized. Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.]

The Little Book of Modern Verse A Selection from the work of contemporaneous American poets

Edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse [Selections made in 1913.]

Foreword

"The Little Book of Modern Verse", as its name implies, is not a formal anthology. The pageant of American poetry has been so often presented that no necessity exists for another exhaustive review of the art. Nearly all anthologies, however, stop short of the present group of poets, or represent them so inadequately that only those in close touch with the trend of American literature know what the poet of to-day is contributing to it.

It is strictly, then, as a reflection of our own period, to show what is being done by the successors of our earlier poets, what new interpretation they are giving to life, what new beauty they have apprehended, what new art they have evolved, that this little book has taken form. A few of the poets included have been writing for a quarter of a century, and were, therefore, among the immediate successors of the New England group, but many have done their work within the past decade and the volume as a whole represents the twentieth-century spirit.

From the scheme of the book, that of a small, intimate collection, representative rather than exhaustive, it has been impossible to include all of the poets who would naturally be included in a more ambitious anthology. In certain instances, also, matters of copyright have deterred me from including those whom I had originally intended to represent, but with isolated exceptions the little book covers the work of our later poets and gives a hint of what they are doing.

I have attempted, as far as possible, to unify the collection by arranging the poems so that each should set the keynote to the next, or at least bear some relation to it in mood or theme. While it is impossible, with so varied a mass of material, that such a sequence should be exact, and in one or two instances the arrangement has been disturbed by the late addition or elimination of poems, the idea has been to differentiate the little volume from the typical anthology by giving it a unity impossible to a larger collection.

Jessie B. Rittenhouse.

Contents

Across the Fields to Anne. [Richard Burton] After a Dolmetsch Concert. [Arthur Upson] Agamede's Song. [Arthur Upson] As I came down from Lebanon. [Clinton Scollard] As in the Midst of Battle there is Room. [George Santayana] The Ashes in the Sea. [George Sterling] At Gibraltar. [George Edward Woodberry] At the End of the Day. [Richard Hovey] The Automobile. [Percy MacKaye] Azrael. [Robert Gilbert Welsh]

Bacchus. [Frank Dempster Sherman] Bag-Pipes at Sea. [Clinton Scollard] Ballade of my Lady's Beauty. [Joyce Kilmer] Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream. [Trumbull Stickney] Black Sheep. [Richard Burton] The Black Vulture. [George Sterling] Da Boy from Rome. [Thomas Augustine Daly] The Buried City. [George Sylvester Viereck]

Calverly's. [Edwin Arlington Robinson] The Candle and the Flame. [George Sylvester Viereck] Candlemas. [Alice Brown] A Caravan from China comes. [Richard Le Gallienne] Chavez. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney] The Cloud. [Josephine Preston Peabody] Comrades. [Richard Hovey] Comrades. [George Edward Woodberry]

The Daguerreotype. [William Vaughn Moody] Departure. [Hermann Hagedorn] The Dreamer. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay] The Dust Dethroned. [George Sterling]

The Eagle that is forgotten. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay] Euchenor Chorus. [Arthur Upson] Evensong. [Ridgely Torrence] Ex Libris. [Arthur Upson] Exordium. [George Cabot Lodge]

A Faun in Wall Street. [John Myers O'Hara] Fiat Lux. [Lloyd Mifflin] The Flight. [Lloyd Mifflin] Four Winds. [Sara Teasdale] "Frost To-Night". [Edith M. Thomas] The Frozen Grail. [Elsa Barker] The Fugitives. [Florence Wilkinson]

Gloucester Moors. [William Vaughn Moody] Golden Pulse. [John Myers O'Hara] "Grandmither, think not I forget". [Willa Sibert Cather] Grey Rocks, and Greyer Sea. [Charles G. D. Roberts] Grieve not, Ladies. [Anna Hempstead Branch]

The Happiest Heart. [John Vance Cheney] Harps hung up in Babylon. [Arthur Colton] He whom a Dream hath possessed. [Shaemas O Sheel] The Heart's Country. [Florence Wilkinson] Here is the Place where Loveliness keeps House. [Madison Cawein] Hora Christi. [Alice Brown] The House and the Road. [Josephine Preston Peabody]

I know not why. [Morris Rosenfeld] I shall not care. [Sara Teasdale] I would I might forget that I am I. [George Santayana] The Inverted Torch. [Edith M. Thomas] The Invisible Bride. [Edwin Markham] Irish Peasant Song. [Louise Imogen Guiney]

The Joy of the Hills. [Edwin Markham] Joyous-Gard. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]

Kinchinjunga. [Cale Young Rice] The Kings. [Louise Imogen Guiney]

Da Leetla Boy. [Thomas Augustine Daly] The Lesser Children. [Ridgely Torrence] Let me no more a Mendicant. [Arthur Colton] Life. [John Hall Wheelock] Lincoln, the Man of the People. [Edwin Markham] Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's. [Grace Fallow Norton] Live blindly. [Trumbull Stickney] Lord of my Heart's Elation. [Bliss Carman] Love came back at Fall o' Dew. [Lizette Woodworth Reese] Love knocks at the Door. [John Hall Wheelock] Love Triumphant. [Frederic Lawrence Knowles] Love's Ritual. [Charles Hanson Towne] Love's Springtide. [Frank Dempster Sherman]

The Man with the Hoe. [Edwin Markham] Martin. [Joyce Kilmer] De Massa ob de Sheepfol'. [Sarah Pratt McLean Greene] The Master. [Edwin Arlington Robinson] May is building her House. [Richard Le Gallienne] A Memorial Tablet. [Florence Wilkinson] Miniver Cheevy. [Edwin Arlington Robinson] Mockery. [Louis Untermeyer] Mother. [Theresa Helburn] The Mystic. [Witter Bynner] The Mystic. [Cale Young Rice]

The New Life. [Witter Bynner] The Nightingale unheard. [Josephine Preston Peabody] Night's Mardi Gras. [Edward J. Wheeler]

An Ode in Time of Hesitation. [William Vaughn Moody] Of Joan's Youth. [Louise Imogen Guiney] On a Fly-Leaf of Burns' Songs. [Frederic Lawrence Knowles] On a Subway Express. [Chester Firkins] On the Building of Springfield. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay] Once. [Trumbull Stickney] Only of thee and me. [Louis Untermeyer] The Only Way. [Louis V. Ledoux] The Outer Gate. [Nora May French]

A Parting Guest. [James Whitcomb Riley] The Path to the Woods. [Madison Cawein] The Poet. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney] The Poet's Town. [John G. Neihardt] The Prince. [Josephine Dodge Daskam]

The Quiet Singer. [Charles Hanson Towne]

The Recessional. [Charles G. D. Roberts] Renascence. [Edna St. Vincent Millay] A Rhyme of Death's Inn. [Lizette Woodworth Reese] The Ride to the Lady. [Helen Gray Cone] The Rival. [James Whitcomb Riley] The Rosary. [Robert Cameron Rogers]

Sappho. [Sara Teasdale] Scum o' the Earth. [Robert Haven Schauffler] The Sea Gypsy. [Richard Hovey] The Sea-Lands. [Orrick Johns] The Secret. [George Edward Woodberry] Sentence. [Witter Bynner] Sic Vita. [William Stanley Braithwaite] Sometimes. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.] Somewhere. [John Vance Cheney] Song. "For me the jasmine buds unfold". [Florence Earle Coates] Song. "If love were but a little thing —". [Florence Earle Coates] Song. [Richard Le Gallienne] A Song in Spring. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.] Song is so old. [Hermann Hagedorn] The Song of the Unsuccessful. [Richard Burton] Songs for my Mother. [Anna Hempstead Branch] Souls. [Fannie Stearns Davis] Stains. [Theodosia Garrison]

Tears. [Lizette Woodworth Reese] The Tears of Harlequin. [Theodosia Garrison] That Day you came. [Lizette Woodworth Reese] There's Rosemary. [Olive Tilford Dargan] They went forth to Battle, but they always fell. [Shaemas O Sheel] The Thought of her. [Richard Hovey] To a New York Shop-Girl dressed for Sunday. [Anna Hempstead Branch] To William Sharp. [Clinton Scollard] To-Day. [Helen Gray Cone] Trumbull Stickney. [George Cabot Lodge] Tryste Noel. [Louise Imogen Guiney]

The Unconquered Air. [Florence Earle Coates] Under Arcturus. [Madison Cawein] The Unreturning. [Bliss Carman] Uriel. [Percy MacKaye]

A Vagabond Song. [Bliss Carman]

Wanderers. [George Sylvester Viereck] Water Fantasy. [Fannie Stearns Davis] We needs must be divided in the Tomb. [George Santayana] A West-Country Lover. [Alice Brown] When I am dead and Sister to the Dust. [Elsa Barker] When I have gone Weird Ways. [John G. Neihardt] When the Wind is low. [Cale Young Rice] Why. [Bliss Carman] The Wife from Fairyland. [Richard Le Gallienne] A Winter Ride. [Amy Lowell] Winter Sleep. [Edith M. Thomas] Witchery. [Frank Dempster Sherman]

Biographical Notes

Sincere thanks are due to my friend Thomas S. Jones, Jr., who, during my absence in Europe, has kindly taken charge of all details incident to putting "The Little Book of Modern Verse" through the press.

The Little Book of Modern Verse

Lord of my Heart's Elation. [Bliss Carman]

Lord of my heart's elation, Spirit of things unseen, Be thou my aspiration Consuming and serene!

Bear up, bear out, bear onward, This mortal soul alone, To selfhood or oblivion, Incredibly thine own, —

As the foamheads are loosened And blown along the sea, Or sink and merge forever In that which bids them be.

I, too, must climb in wonder, Uplift at thy command, — Be one with my frail fellows Beneath the wind's strong hand,

A fleet and shadowy column Of dust or mountain rain, To walk the earth a moment And be dissolved again.

Be thou my exaltation Or fortitude of mien, Lord of the world's elation, Thou breath of things unseen!

Gloucester Moors. [William Vaughn Moody]

A mile behind is Gloucester town Where the fishing fleets put in, A mile ahead the land dips down And the woods and farms begin. Here, where the moors stretch free In the high blue afternoon, Are the marching sun and talking sea, And the racing winds that wheel and flee On the flying heels of June.

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, Blue is the quaker-maid, The wild geranium holds its dew Long in the boulder's shade. Wax-red hangs the cup From the huckleberry boughs, In barberry bells the grey moths sup Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up Sweet bowls for their carouse.

Over the shelf of the sandy cove Beach-peas blossom late. By copse and cliff the swallows rove Each calling to his mate. Seaward the sea-gulls go, And the land-birds all are here; That green-gold flash was a vireo, And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow Was a scarlet tanager.

This earth is not the steadfast place We landsmen build upon; From deep to deep she varies pace, And while she comes is gone. Beneath my feet I feel Her smooth bulk heave and dip; With velvet plunge and soft upreel She swings and steadies to her keel Like a gallant, gallant ship.

These summer clouds she sets for sail, The sun is her masthead light, She tows the moon like a pinnace frail Where her phosphor wake churns bright. Now hid, now looming clear, On the face of the dangerous blue The star fleets tack and wheel and veer, But on, but on does the old earth steer As if her port she knew.

God, dear God! Does she know her port, Though she goes so far about? Or blind astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast, And some sat gorged at mess.

By her battened hatch I leaned and caught Sounds from the noisome hold, — Cursing and sighing of souls distraught And cries too sad to be told. Then I strove to go down and see; But they said, "Thou art not of us!" I turned to those on the deck with me And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be: Our ship sails faster thus."

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, Blue is the quaker-maid, The alder-clump where the brook comes through Breeds cresses in its shade. To be out of the moiling street With its swelter and its sin! Who has given to me this sweet, And given my brother dust to eat? And when will his wage come in?

Scattering wide or blown in ranks, Yellow and white and brown, Boats and boats from the fishing banks Come home to Gloucester town. There is cash to purse and spend, There are wives to be embraced, Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend, And hearts to take and keep to the end, — O little sails, make haste!

But thou, vast outbound ship of souls, What harbor town for thee? What shapes, when thy arriving tolls, Shall crowd the banks to see? Shall all the happy shipmates then Stand singing brotherly? Or shall a haggard ruthless few Warp her over and bring her to, While the many broken souls of men Fester down in the slaver's pen, And nothing to say or do?

On a Subway Express. [Chester Firkins]

I, who have lost the stars, the sod, For chilling pave and cheerless light, Have made my meeting-place with God A new and nether Night —

Have found a fane where thunder fills Loud caverns, tremulous; — and these Atone me for my reverend hills And moonlit silences.

A figment in the crowded dark, Where men sit muted by the roar, I ride upon the whirring Spark Beneath the city's floor.

In this dim firmament, the stars Whirl by in blazing files and tiers; Kin meteors graze our flying bars, Amid the spinning spheres.

Speed! speed! until the quivering rails Flash silver where the head-light gleams, As when on lakes the Moon impales The waves upon its beams.

Life throbs about me, yet I stand Outgazing on majestic Power; Death rides with me, on either hand, In my communion hour.

You that 'neath country skies can pray, Scoff not at me — the city clod; — My only respite of the Day Is this wild ride — with God.

The Automobile. [Percy MacKaye]

Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills Billow on billow of umbrageous green Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills And silver-rising storms and dewy stills Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills.

Then all of Nature's old amazement seemed Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man? This plunging, volant, land-amphibian What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed? Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan, The shrill, primeval hawk gazed down — and screamed.

The Black Vulture. [George Sterling]

Aloof upon the day's immeasured dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home — Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam.

And least of all he holds the human swarm — Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one, When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun.

Chavez. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]

So hath he fallen, the Endymion of the air, And so lies down in slumber lapped for aye. Diana, passing, found his youth too fair, His soul too fleet and willing to obey. She swung her golden moon before his eyes — Dreaming, he rose to follow — and ran — and was away.

His foot was winged as the mounting sun. Earth he disdained — the dusty ways of men Not yet had learned. His spirit longed to run With the bright clouds, his brothers, to answer when The airs were fleetest and could give him hand Into the starry fields beyond our plodding ken.

All wittingly that glorious way he chose, And loved the peril when it was most bright. He tried anew the long-forbidden snows And like an eagle topped the dropping height Of Nagenhorn, and still toward Italy Past peak and cliff pressed on, in glad, unerring flight.

Oh, when the bird lies low with golden wing Bruised past healing by some bitter chance, Still must its tireless spirit mount and sing Of meadows green with morning, of the dance On windy trees, the darting flight away, And of that last, most blue, triumphant downward glance.

So murmuring of the snow: "THE SNOW, AND MORE, O GOD, MORE SNOW!" on that last field he lay. Despair and wonder spent their passionate store In his great heart, through heaven gone astray, And early lost. Too far the golden moon Had swung upon that bright, that long, untraversed way.

Now to lie ended on the murmuring plain — Ah, this for his bold heart was not the loss, But that those windy fields he ne'er again Might try, nor fleet and shimmering mountains cross, Unfollowed, by a path none other knew: His bitter woe had here its deep and piteous cause.

Dear toils of youth unfinished! And songs unwritten, left By young and passionate hearts! O melodies Unheard, whereof we ever stand bereft! Clear-singing Schubert, boyish Keats — with these He roams henceforth, one with the starry band, Still paying to fairy call and far command His spirit heed, still winged with golden prophecies.

The Sea Gypsy. [Richard Hovey]

I am fevered with the sunset, I am fretful with the bay, For the wander-thirst is on me And my soul is in Cathay.

There's a schooner in the offing, With her topsails shot with fire, And my heart has gone aboard her For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow! With the sunset I must be Hull down on the trail of rapture In the wonder of the sea.

At Gibraltar. [George Edward Woodberry]

I

England, I stand on thy imperial ground, Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow, I feel within my blood old battles flow — The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found Still surging dark against the Christian bound Wide Islam presses; well its peoples know Thy heights that watch them wandering below; I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound. I turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face. England, 't is sweet to be so much thy son! I feel the conqueror in my blood and race; Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun Startles the desert over Africa!

II

Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas Between the East and West, that God has built; Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt, While run thy armies true with His decrees. Law, justice, liberty — great gifts are these; Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt, Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt, The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease! Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite, Thy blade of war; and, battle-storied, one Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light. American I am; would wars were done! Now westward, look, my country bids good-night — Peace to the world from ports without a gun!

Euchenor Chorus. [Arthur Upson]

(From "The City")

Of old it went forth to Euchenor, pronounced of his sire — Reluctant, impelled by the god's unescapable fire — To choose for his doom or to perish at home of disease Or be slain of his foes, among men, where Troy surges down to the seas.

Polyides, the soothsayer, spake it, inflamed by the god. Of his son whom the fates singled out did he bruit it abroad; And Euchenor went down to the ships with his armor and men And straightway, grown dim on the gulf, passed the isles he passed never again.

Why weep ye, O women of Corinth? The doom ye have heard Is it strange to your ears that ye make it so mournful a word? Is he who so fair in your eyes to his manhood upgrew, Alone in his doom of pale death — are of mortals the beaten so few?