THE FANATIC Well, here it is: you call for me: I come, That pleased the saints upon their faggot throne. You see them smiling in the cruel flame That exqusitely licks their willing limbs, And so I come: and though I go, be sure The littleness that is so great in you. I am the weakling of that helpless strength Babette Deutsch Babette Deutsch, one of the most promising of the younger poet-critics, was born September 22, 1895, in New York City. She received her B.A. at Barnard College in 1917, doing subsequent work at the new School for Social Research. Since 1916, a year before she took her degree, Miss Deutsch has been contributing poems and critical articles to The New Republic, The Dial, The Yale Review, etc. Banners (1919) is the title of her remarkable first book. The rich emotional content is matched by the poet's intellectual skill. Unusually sensitive, most of these lines strive for-and attaina high seriousness. THE DEATH OF A CHILD 1 Are you at ease now, Do you suck content From death's dark nipple between your wan lips? Now that the fever of the day is spent And anguish slips From the small limbs, And they lie lapped in rest, The young head pillowed soft upon that indurate breast. No, you are quiet, And forever, Tho for us the silence is so loud with tears, We loved so, How you lie, So strangely still, unmoved so utterly O, you 1 From Banners by Babette Deutsch. George H. Doran Co., Publishers. Copyright, 1919. IN A MUSEUM Here stillness sounds like echoes in a tomb. Warm blood was spent for this unwindowed stone We lean upon the glass, our curious eyes Alter Brody Alter Brody was born at Kartúshkiya-Beróza, Province of Grodno, Russia, November 1, 1895. He came to New York City at the age of eight and, after a cursory schooling, wrote translations for certain Jewish and American newspapers. His first poems appeared in The Seven Arts in 1916-17. In A Family Album (1918) one sees the impress of a tense and original mind, of imagination that is fed by strengthening fact, of sight that is sharpened by insight. Many of Brody's lines are uncouth and awkward; what music he achieves is mostly fortuitous, the melody accidental. And yet his pages are filled with a picturesque honesty and uncompromising beauty. Much of this work is an interpretation of the moder world against a background of old dreams: young America seen through the eyes of old Russia. It is a romantic realism that uplifts such poems as Kartúshkiya-Beróza" (a record of boyhood which is one of Brody's finest achievements though, unfortunately, too long to quote), "A Row of Poplars: Central Park," "Ghetto Twilight" and the poignant "Lamentations." It is, to be more accurate, a romanticism that springs from reality and, after a fantastic flight, settles back with a new vision. Timidly A CITY PARK Against a background of brick tenements Some trees spread their branches Skyward. They are thin and sapless, They are bent and weary Tamed with captivity; And they huddle behind the fence Like a group of panicky deer Caught in a cage. SEARCHLIGHTS Tingling shafts of light, Like gigantic staffs Brandished by blind, invisible hands, Cross and recross each other in the sky, Frantically Groping among the stars-stubbing themselves against the bloated clouds Tapping desperately for a sure foothold In the fluctuating mists. Calm-eyed and inaccessible. The stars peer through the blue fissures of the sky, GHETTO TWILIGHT An infinite weariness comes into the faces of the old tenements, As they stand massed together on the block, Tall and thoughtfully silent, In the enveloping twilight. Pensively, They eye each other across the street, Through their dim windows With a sad recognizing stare; Watching the red glow fading in the distance, At the end of the street, Behind the black church spires; Watching the vague sky lowering overhead, Purple with clouds of colored smoke; From the extinguished sunset; Watching the tired faces coming home from work— Like dry-breasted hags Welcoming their children to their withered arms. |