WAR AND PEACE This war is a terrible thing," he said, "With its countless numbers of needless dead; A futile warfare it seems to me, Fought for no principle I can see. Alas, that thousands of hearts should bleed For naught but a tyrant's boundless greed!" Said the wholesale grocer, in righteous mood, As he went to adulterate salable food. Spake as follows the merchant king: It doesn't seem that it can be true. We ought to be grateful we've no war here." "Six a week❞—to a girl—“That's flat! I can get a thousand to work for that." THE RICH MAN The rich man has his motor-car, His country and his town estate. And jeers at Fate. He frivols through the livelong day, Yet though my lamp burns low and dim, THOSE TWO BOYS When Bill was a lad he was terribly bad. He'd lie and he'd swear and pull little girls' hair; At play and in school he would fracture each ruleIn mischief from autumn to spring; And the villagers knew when to manhood he grew He would never amount to a thing. When Jim was a child he was not very wild; He was honest and bright and the teacher's delight- All the neighbors were sure that his virtue'd endure, That his life would be free of a spot; They were certain that Jim had a great head on him And that Jim would amount to a lot. And Jim grew to manhood and honor and fame While Bill is shut up in a dark prison cell- John G. Neihardt John Gneisenau Neihardt was born at Sharpsburg, Illinois, January 8, 1881. He completed a scientific course at Nebraska Normal College in 1897 and lived among the Omaha Indians for six years (1901-7), studying their customs, characteristics and legends. Although he had already published two books, A Bundle of Myrrh (1908) was his first volume to attract notice. It was full of spirit, enthusiasm and an insistent virility—qualities which were extended (and overemphasized) in Man-Song (1909). Neihardt found a richer note and a new restraint in The Stranger at the Gate (1911); the best of the lyrics from these three volumes appearing in The Quest (1916). Neihardt meanwhile had been going deeper into folk-lore, the results of which appeared in The Song of Hugh Glass (1915) and The Song of Three Friends (1919). The latter, in 1920, divided the annual prize offered by the Poetry Society, halving the honors with Gladys Cromwell's Poems. These two of Neihardt's are detailed long poems, part of a projected epic series celebrating the winning of the West by the pioneers. What prevents both volumes from fulfilling the breadth at which they aim is the disparity between the author's story and his style; essentially racy narratives are recited in an archaic and incongruous speech. Yet, in spite of a false rhetoric and a locution that considers prairies and trappers in terms of "Ilion," "Iseult," Clotho," the "dim far shore of Styx," Neihardt has achieved his effects with no little skill. Dramatic, stern, and conceived with a powerful dignity, his major works are American in feeling if not in execution. 66 WHEN I AM DEAD When I am dead and nervous hands have thrust I think the grave cannot suffice to hold Yea, I shall be, because I love you so, The speechless spirit of all things that grow. I shall be patient in the common grass A loving spirit 'round the life of you. When your soft cheeks by perfumed winds are fanned, CRY OF THE PEOPLE 1 Tremble before thy chattels, Lords of the scheme of things! Ours is the might of kings! 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company, from The Quest by John G. Neihardt. Guided by seers and sages, The world's heart-beat for a drum, Lend us no ear that pities! We are the workers and makers. We are no longer dumb! Tremble, O Shirkers and Takers! Sweeping the earth-we come! Marching into the day! The night is gone and the sword is drawn LET ME LIVE OUT MY YEARS 1 Let me live out my years in heat of blood! 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company, from The Quest by John G. Neihardt. |