Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin! Thy too-thick buckwheats and thy tea too thin. And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns, Envoy Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye: Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! A PITCHER OF MIGNONETTE 1 A pitcher of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement,— Is a garden in heaven set, To the little sick child in the basement The pitcher of mignonette, In a tenement's highest casement. 1 Reprinted, by permission, from Poems by H. C. Bunner. Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Lizette Woodworth Reese was born January 9, 1856, at Baltimore, Maryland, where she has lived ever since. After an education obtained chiefly in private schools, she taught English in the Western High School at Baltimore. Her first book, A Branch of May (1887), seems, at first glance, to be merely a continuation of the tradition of English minor verse, pleasant and impersonal. But an undercurrent of emotion, a quiet intensity, makes one go back to these simple lyrics and prepares the reader for the charm of the ensuing volumes. A Handful of Lavender (1891), A Quiet Road (1896) and A Wayside Lute (1909) embody an artistry which, in spite of its old-fashioned contours, is as true as it is tender. A host of the younger lyricists owe much of their technique to her admirable models, and few modern sonneteers have equaled the blended music and symbolism of "Tears." TEARS When I consider Life and its few years- A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears; Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight, Loose me from tears, and make me see aright THE DUST The dust blows up and down Vague, hurrying, dumb, aloof, What cloudy shapes do fleet SPICEWOOD The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky, That whips it all before, and all behind, It is as though the young Year, ere he pass, Horace Traubel, often referred to as "Whitman's Boswell," was born in Camden, New Jersey, December 19, 1858, of mixed Jewish and Christian parentage. His scholastic education was desultory; after leaving school he sold newspapers, worked as an errand boy and helped his father in a stationery store. Later he became a printer's devil, proof-reader, reporter and editorial writer. In 1873 Walt Whitman came to Camden, little dreaming he would spend the remainder of his life there. He was almost friendless, a sick man, helpless and alone. The Traubel household welcomed him in and an extraordinary friendship sprang up immediately between the aging poet and the young boy. Traubel saw Whitman some part of each day for almost twenty years. "As the years fled," says David Karsner in his Life of Horace Traubel, "he catered to Whitman's needs in a hundred different ways. He would bring Old Walt such papers and magazines as he knew would interest him. He ran his errands and assumed the details and responsibilities connected with the publishing of the later editions of Whitman's books." This intimacy is fully recorded in Traubel's chief work, a series of volumes, With Walt Whitman in Camden, a compilation of extraordinary value which has been called "Whitman's unconscious autobiography." It is inevitable that Traubel's own poetry should betray the strong influence of his great friend and hero. And yet in several poems in Optimos (1910) and Chants Communal (1914) Traubel achieves a personal idiom; beneath the wearying length and repetitive phrases, he communicates the fire of the social revolutionist, the insurgent who wrote, "I build no fires to burn anybody up. I only build fires to light up the way." Traubel died at Bon Echo, Ontario, Canada, where he had gone for his health, September 8, 1919. HOW ARE YOU, DEAR WORLD, THIS How are you, dear world, this morning? Clean from my bath of sleep, Warm from the bosom of my mother star, Recharged with the energy of my father self, Restored from all derelict hours to the lawful service of time, I come without gift or doctrine or tethering humor How are you, dear world, this morning? I went to bed last night in the twist and snarl of a problem. Have you awakened me to a revelation? Has some change come upon the face of the earth and the heart of man? Was life still busy while my life slept? Was something done with the dreams of my sorrow and joy to transfigure in man the drag of his daily task? Haye all the prophets who died unfulfilled and all the plain men and women and children who burned or starved from injustice come back to earth to partake of a deferred feast? What is it, dear world, I bring with empty hands to your morning? What is it, dear world, you bring with hands as empty to my bedside? |