DESERTED The old house leans upon a tree Like some old man upon a staff: The heaven is wrapped in flying clouds The dark is full of whispers. Now A fox-hound howls: and through the night, William Vaughn Toody William Vaughn Moody was born at Spencer, Indiana, July 1, 1869, and was educated at Harvard. After graduation, he spent the remaining eighteen years of his life in travel and intensive study-he taught, for eight years, at the University of Chicago-his death coming at the very height of his creative power. The Masque of Judgment, his first work, was published in 1900. A richer and more representative collection appeared the year following; in Poems (1901) Moody effected that mingling of challenging lyricism and spiritual philosophy which becomes more and more insistent. (See Preface.) Throughout his career, particularly in such lines as the hotly expostulating "On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines" Moody successfully achieves the rare union of poet and preacher. A complete edition of The Poems and Poetic Dramas of William Vaughn Moody was published in 1912 in two volumes. In the summer of 1909 Moody was stricken with the illness from which he never recovered. He died in October, 1910. ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES Streets of the roaring town, Hush for him; hush, be still! Hush! Let him have his state. The grists of trade can wait But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown. Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone. Toll! Let the great bells toll He did what we bade him do. Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good; Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own heart's-blood. A flag for a soldier's bier Who dies that his land may live; O banners, banners here, That he doubt not nor misgive! west way That he heed not from the tomb When the nation robed in gloom With its faithless past shall strive. Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island mark, Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the dark. George Sterling George Sterling was born at Sag Harbor, New York, December 1, 1869, and educated at various private schools in the Eastern States. He moved to the far West about 1895 and has lived in California ever since. Of Sterling's ten volumes of poetry, A Wine of Wizardry (1908) and The House of Orchids and Other Poems (1911) are the most characteristic. THE BLACK VULTURE Aloof upon the day's immeasured dome, His hazards on the sea of morning lie; To make their dream and its fulfillment one, His roads between the thunder and the sun. Edwin Arlington Robinson was born December 22, 1869, in the village of Head Tide, Maine. When he was still a child, the Robinson family moved to the nearby town of Gardiner, which figures prominently in Robinson's poetry as "Tilbury Town." In 1891 he entered Harvard College. A little collection of verse was privately printed in 1896 and the following year marked the appearance of his first representative work, The Children of the Night (1897). Somewhat later, he was struggling in various capacities to make a living in New York, five years passing before the publication of Captain Craig. In 1910, he published a series of short poems, The Town Down the River. The Man Against the Sky, Robinson's fullest and most penetrating work, appeared in 1916. (See Preface.) In all of these books there is manifest that searching for truth; the constant questioning, that takes the place of mere acceptance. As the work of a native portrait painter, nothing, with the exception of some of Frost's pictures, has been produced that is at once so keen and so kindly; in the half-cynical, half-mystical etchings like "Miniver Cheevy," and "Richard Cory"-lines where Robinson's irony is inextricably mixed with tenderness-his art is at its height. His splendid "The Master," one of the finest evocations of Lincoln, is, at the same time, a bitter commentary on the commercialism of the times and the "shopman's test of age and worth." Although he is often accused of holding a negative attitude toward life, Robinson's philosophy is essentially positive; a dogged if never dogmatic desire for a deeper faith, a greater light is his. It is a philosophy expressed in Captain Craig: Take on yourself But your sincerity, and you take on Good promise for all climbing; fly for truth A one-volume edition of Robinson's Collected Poems appeared in 1921, revealing his vigorous intellect and chaste economy of speech, his delicate intuition and dramatic characterizations. MINIVER CHEEVY 1 Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons. Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam's neighbors. Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant. Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one. Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; He missed the mediæval grace Of iron clothing. 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, from The Town down the River by E. A. Robinson. |