Young Adventure [1]
which many have attempted
to substitute for the older and simpler things, are themselves
the best evidence of disillusion and jaded nerves. There is a weariness
and a disgust in our recent impatience with beauty which indicate too clearly
the exhaustion of our spiritual resources. It may well be that
the rebirth of poetry is to be manifest in a reappearance of the obvious, --
in a love of the sea and of the beauty of clouds, in the adventure of death
and the yet more amazing adventure of living, in a vital love of colour,
whether of the Orient or the drug-shop, in childlike love of melody,
and the cool cleansing of rain, in strange faces and old memories.
This, in the past, has been poetry, and this will be poetry again.
The singer who, out of a full heart, can offer to the world his vision
of its beauty, and out of a noble mind, his conception of its destiny,
will bestow upon his time the most precious gift which we can now receive,
the gift of his healing power.
C. B. T.
Contents
Dedication
Foreword by Chauncey Brewster Tinker
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
II.
Rain after a Vaudeville Show
The City Revisited
Going Back to School
Nos Immortales
Young Blood
The Quality of Courage
Campus Sonnets:
1. Before an Examination
2. Talk
3. May Morning
4. Return -- 1917
Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua
The Breaking Point
Lonely Burial
Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room
The Hemp
Poor Devil!
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum
The White Peacock
Colors
A Minor Poet
The Lover in Hell
Winged Man
Music
The Innovator
Love in Twilight
The Fiddling Wood
Portrait of a Boy
Portrait of a Baby
The General Public
Road and Hills
Elegy for an Enemy
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
Prefatory Note.
This poem received the nineteenth award of the prize offered
by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook to Yale University
for the best unpublished verse, the Committee of Award consisting of
Professors C. F. Tucker Brooke, of Yale University, Robert Frost,
of Amherst College, and Charles M. Gayley, of the University of California.
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
"Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny,
mooning around as usual! He will never make his way."
Letter of George Keats, 18--
Night falls; the great jars glow against the dark,
Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake,
Writhing eternally in smoky gyres,
Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn
Within them. So the Eastern fisherman
Saw the swart genie rise when the lead seal,
Scribbled with charms, was lifted from the jar;
And -- well, how went the tale? Like this, like this? . . .
No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.
One boat toiled noiselessly along the deep,
The thirsty ripples dying silently
Upon its track. Far out the brown nets sweep,
And night begins to creep
Across the intolerable mirror of the sea.
Twice the nets rise, a-trail with sea-plants brown,
Distorted shells, and rocks green-mossed with slime,
Nought else. The fisher, sick at heart, kneels down;
"Prayer may appease God's frown,"
He thinks, then, kneeling, casts for the third time.
And lo! an earthen jar, bound round with brass,
Lies tangled in the cordage of his net.
About the bright waves gleam like shattered glass,
And where the sea's rim was
The sun dips, flat and red, about to set.
The prow grates on the beach. The fisherman
Stoops, tearing at the cords that bind the seal.
Shall pearls roll out, lustrous and white and wan?
Lapis? carnelian?
Unheard-of stones that make the sick mind reel
With wonder of their beauty? Rubies, then?
Green emeralds, glittering like the eyes of beasts?
Poisonous opals, good
to substitute for the older and simpler things, are themselves
the best evidence of disillusion and jaded nerves. There is a weariness
and a disgust in our recent impatience with beauty which indicate too clearly
the exhaustion of our spiritual resources. It may well be that
the rebirth of poetry is to be manifest in a reappearance of the obvious, --
in a love of the sea and of the beauty of clouds, in the adventure of death
and the yet more amazing adventure of living, in a vital love of colour,
whether of the Orient or the drug-shop, in childlike love of melody,
and the cool cleansing of rain, in strange faces and old memories.
This, in the past, has been poetry, and this will be poetry again.
The singer who, out of a full heart, can offer to the world his vision
of its beauty, and out of a noble mind, his conception of its destiny,
will bestow upon his time the most precious gift which we can now receive,
the gift of his healing power.
C. B. T.
Contents
Dedication
Foreword by Chauncey Brewster Tinker
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
II.
Rain after a Vaudeville Show
The City Revisited
Going Back to School
Nos Immortales
Young Blood
The Quality of Courage
Campus Sonnets:
1. Before an Examination
2. Talk
3. May Morning
4. Return -- 1917
Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua
The Breaking Point
Lonely Burial
Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room
The Hemp
Poor Devil!
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum
The White Peacock
Colors
A Minor Poet
The Lover in Hell
Winged Man
Music
The Innovator
Love in Twilight
The Fiddling Wood
Portrait of a Boy
Portrait of a Baby
The General Public
Road and Hills
Elegy for an Enemy
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
Prefatory Note.
This poem received the nineteenth award of the prize offered
by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook to Yale University
for the best unpublished verse, the Committee of Award consisting of
Professors C. F. Tucker Brooke, of Yale University, Robert Frost,
of Amherst College, and Charles M. Gayley, of the University of California.
I.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
"Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny,
mooning around as usual! He will never make his way."
Letter of George Keats, 18--
Night falls; the great jars glow against the dark,
Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake,
Writhing eternally in smoky gyres,
Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn
Within them. So the Eastern fisherman
Saw the swart genie rise when the lead seal,
Scribbled with charms, was lifted from the jar;
And -- well, how went the tale? Like this, like this? . . .
No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.
One boat toiled noiselessly along the deep,
The thirsty ripples dying silently
Upon its track. Far out the brown nets sweep,
And night begins to creep
Across the intolerable mirror of the sea.
Twice the nets rise, a-trail with sea-plants brown,
Distorted shells, and rocks green-mossed with slime,
Nought else. The fisher, sick at heart, kneels down;
"Prayer may appease God's frown,"
He thinks, then, kneeling, casts for the third time.
And lo! an earthen jar, bound round with brass,
Lies tangled in the cordage of his net.
About the bright waves gleam like shattered glass,
And where the sea's rim was
The sun dips, flat and red, about to set.
The prow grates on the beach. The fisherman
Stoops, tearing at the cords that bind the seal.
Shall pearls roll out, lustrous and white and wan?
Lapis? carnelian?
Unheard-of stones that make the sick mind reel
With wonder of their beauty? Rubies, then?
Green emeralds, glittering like the eyes of beasts?
Poisonous opals, good