Title : Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913
Editor : William Stanley Braithwaite
Release date
: September 22, 2020 [eBook #63265]
Most recently updated: October 8, 2022
Language : English
Credits
: Produced by hekula03, Charlie Howard, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)
Transcriber’s Note
Table of Contents added by Transcriber.
Including the Magazines
and the Poets
*
*
*
A Review
BY
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
Author of “The House of Falling Leaves,”
“The Book of Elizabethan Verse,” etc.
* * *
ISSUED BY
W. S. B.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
COPYRIGHT 1913, BY
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
Thomas Todd Co., Printers
14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
TO THE POETS OF AMERICA
SINGING TODAY
THE SOUL OF THEIR COUNTRY
TRUTH, BEAUTY, BROTHERHOOD
THEIR NAMES ARE TORCHES
v
Page | |
Introduction | v |
Hymn to Demeter, by Louis V. Ledoux | 1 |
Over the Wintry Threshold, by Bliss Carman | 2 |
In April, by Margaret Lee Ashley | 3 |
May Is Building Her House, by Richard Le Gallienne | 3 |
In a Forgotten Burying-ground, by Ruth Guthrie Harding | 4 |
Wind, by Fannie Stearns Davis | 5 |
The Speckled Trout, by Madison Cawein | 5 |
Trees, by Joyce Kilmer | 7 |
In the Hospital, by Arthur Guiterman | 7 |
Love of Life, by Tertius van Dyke | 8 |
God’s Will, by Mildred Howells | 8 |
On the Birth of a Child, by Louis Untermeyer | 9 |
To a Child Falling Asleep, Robert Alden Sanborn | 9 |
A Roman Doll, by Agnes Lee | 12 |
Sappho, by Sara Teasdale | 13 |
Of Moira Up the Glen, by Edward J. O’Brien | 16 |
Morning Glories, by John G. Neihardt | 17 |
Lest I Learn, by Witter Bynner | 18 |
Later, by Willard Huntington Wright | 18 |
The Old Maid, by Sara Teasdale | 19 |
Departure, by John Hall Wheelock | 20 |
An Adieu, by Florence Earle Coates | 20 |
Heart’s Tide, by Ethel M. Hewitt | 21 |
Waiting, by Charles Hanson Towne | 22 |
Desiderium, by Richard Le Gallienne | 22 |
Human, by Richard Burton | 23 |
The Ghost, by Hermann Hagedorn | 23 |
A Mountain Gateway, by Bliss Carman | 24 |
Perugia, by Amelia Josephine Burr | 25 |
Ghosts, by Marguerite Mooers Marshall | 27 |
St. John and the Faun, by George Edward Woodberry | 28 |
School, by Percy MacKaye | 30 |
The Marvelous Munchausen, by William Rose Benét | 34 |
Train-mates, by Witter Bynner | 38 |
The Kallyope Yell, by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay | 39 |
Thanksgiving For Our Task, by Shaemas OSheel | 43 |
A Likeness, by Willa Sibert Cather | 46 |
The Field of Glory, by Edwin Arlington Robinson | 48 |
Rich Man, Poor Man—, by Francis Hill | 49 |
The Sin Eater, by Ruth Comfort Mitchell | 50 |
Night-sentries, by George Sterling | 52 |
The Swordless Christ, by Percy Adams Hutchison | 54 |
What of the Night?, by Willard Huntington Wright | 55 |
A Threnody, by Louis V. Ledoux | 57 |
November, by Mahlon Leonard Fisher | 61 |
Salutation, by Ruth Sterry | 62 |
Here Lies Pierrot, by Richard Burton | 62 |
List of “Distinctive Poems,” Their Authors, and the Magazines in Which They Appeared | 64 |
The “Best Poems” Chosen from the “Distinctive” List | 69 |
Titles and Authors of All Poems Appearing in the Seven Magazines For 1918 | 71 |
Index of First Lines | 99 |
Poetry is one of the realities that persist. The façade and dome of palace and temple, the monuments of heroes and saints, crumble before the ruining breath of time, while the Psalms last. So when another year passes and we sum up our achievements, there is no achievement more vital in registering the soul of a people than its poetry. But in all things that men do, their relationship is objective except those things in which art, religion, love, and nature express their influence through the private thoughts and feelings of men. These four things are the realities, all the others are symbols. And the essence of art, as well as religion and love and nature, is a conscious and mysterious thing, called Poetry. And men will find, if they will only stop to look, that at the bottom of all this poetry, no matter what the theme or the particular artistic shaping, there is something with which they are familiar, because in their own souls there has been an unceasing mystery which they find named in the magic utterance of some lonely and neglected maker of verses.
The poetry in the magazines for this past year has been of a general high standard. The long poems have been well sustained, and there has been a larger quantity of pure lyric pieces than in the past two or three years. The influence of Masefield has shown itself in American verse, notably in the two long poems by Harry Kemp, “The Harvest vi Hand” and “The Factory.” One of the noblest poems of the year is Henry van Dyke’s “Daybreak in the Grand Cañon of Arizona,” which breathes a fine national spirit, full of reverence for the greatness with which the American destiny is symbolized in the natural grandeur of our country. Mr. Markham has a long narrative in “The Shoes of Happiness,” full of his visionary and spiritual promptings. And in “The Vision of Gettysburg” Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson reflects also the national spirit with particular significance.
The poetry of the year in volumes has not been as ample as last year. The three poets who have aroused most discussion are the Bengali poet Tagore, who brought to the Western world in “Gitanjali” a spiritual message full of mystic but exalted idealism; Francis Thompson, the great Catholic poet, because of the publication of his collected works; and Robert Bridges, who, by his appointment to the English laureateship, became known to a large number of readers who had hitherto been unfamiliar with his very perfect and delicate gift of lyric beauty. Of American poets the volumes by Fannie Stearns Davis, William Rose Benét, Josephine Preston Peabody, Margaret Root Garvin, and George Edward Woodberry are the most significant. The most important book of poems of the year by an American poet, however, is that of Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, “General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems.” Here is a man with a big vision, with a fine originality, and an art that is particularly his own. There has been no “Lyric Year” this autumn, but a little vii volume that serves in some sense its purpose is Miss Jessie B. Rittenhouse’s “Little Book of Modern Verse,” which is intended to represent the quality of contemporary American verse.
I want to call attention to a poet who has not yet presented himself except through an occasional magazine piece, but who has written two of the finest sonnets in American poetry. Last year I reprinted, in my annual summary, Mr. Mahlon Leonard Fisher’s “As an Old Mercer,” and pronounced that an achievement which could hardly be surpassed. But in the sonnet “November,” which is reprinted in this book, Mr. Fisher has done, I believe, something that is even greater. It must rank with Lizette Woodworth Reese’s “Tears” and Longfellow’s “Nature” as the best sonnets that have been accomplished by American poets. I have known one competent judge and lover of poetry to declare that not since Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and Miss Reese’s “Tears” has there appeared so fine a sonnet in English poetry. The man who has written “November” has added something to American poetry that cannot be too highly estimated.
Another poet who has enriched the magazines this year, after a period of silence, is Mr. Edwin Arlington Robinson, and in “The Field of Glory” we are under the spell once more of that characteristic magic with which he is endowed alone among American poets.
As in former years, in my annual summary in the Boston Transcript , I have examined the contents of the leading American monthly magazines. viii I originally started, nine years ago, when the first summary appeared, with these six: The Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Lippincott’s, and McClure’s. Later I turned to The Forum. The poetry in McClure’s during the two years previous to the beginning of the present year had fallen off; the magazine would reprint occasionally verses from the books of accomplished but little known English and Irish poets, which, with the small amount of space that it devoted to verse, left but little chance of encouragement to native singers. This year I have included The Smart Set, which, under the new editorship of Mr. Willard Huntington Wright, himself a poet of considerable attainment, has been the means of offering the public a high and consistent standard of excellence in the verse it printed.
To the six magazines, namely, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Forum, Lippincott’s, and The Smart Set, I have added this year a weekly, The Bellman. West of New York it is the best edited and most influential periodical published. Indeed, it is widely read in the East. In its pages three of the younger American poets of distinctive achievement have been presented. Though the late Arthur Upson had published some two or three books of verse before The Bellman was established, yet it was practically the first American magazine to print his work. Amelia J. Burr made her first considerable poetic appearance in The Bellman, and the best work, the sonnets that have placed Mr. Mahlon Leonard Fisher in the forefront of contemporary American, or English, sonnet writers, appeared in ix this same publication. As last year, I have winnowed from other magazines distinctive poems for classification and notice, one each from The Outlook, The Independent, the North American Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; three from the Poetry Journal and three from the Yale Review.
The poems published during the year in the seven representative magazines I have submitted to an impartial critical test, choosing from the total number what I consider the “distinctive” poems of the year. From the distinctive pieces are selected eighty-one poems, to which are added five from the other magazines not represented in the list of seven, making a total of eighty-six, which are intended to represent what I call an “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913.”
By a further process of elimination, similar to that of previous years, I have made another selection of forty poems which for one reason or another in the purpose of this estimate seem to stand grouped above the others.
The medium of magazine publication, towards which some critics, and some poets too (a fact which can hardly be justified), and a considerable portion of the reading public have a disparaging opinion, is deserving of better repute for the general high quality of poetic art that is published. Not many years ago it was a favorite exercise of the reviewer, when noticing the average book of verse which happened to include selections reprinted from various magazines, to term the work “magazinable,” or the poet a “magazine poet.” Even poets x who detested being called “minor” poets preferred that rather vague and indiscriminate distinction, rather than the unrespectable “magazinable.”
Quoting what I have written in previous years, to emphasize the methods which guided my selections, the reader will see how impartial are the tests by which the distinctive and best poems are chosen: “I have not allowed any special sympathy with the subject to influence my choice. I have taken the poet’s point of view, and accepted his value of the theme he dealt with. The question was: How vital and compelling did he make it? The first test was the sense of pleasure the poem communicated; then to discover the secret or the meaning of the pleasure felt; and in doing so to realize how much richer one became in a knowledge of the purpose of life by reason of the poem’s message.”
In one hundred and twenty-one numbers of these seven magazines I find there were published during 1913 a total of 506 poems. The total number of poems printed in each magazine, and the number of the distinctive poems are: Century, total 58, 30 of distinction; Harper’s, total 57, 29 of distinction; Scribner’s, total 45, 30 of distinction; Forum, total 53, 27 of distinction; Lippincott’s, total 66, 21 of distinction; The Bellman, total 53, 25 of distinction; The Smart Set, total 169, 49 of distinction.
Following the text of the poems making the anthology in this volume, I have given the titles and authors of all the poems classified as the distinctive, published in the magazines for the year, only excepting those that are included in the an xi thology; in addition I give a list of all the poems and their authors in the one hundred and twenty-one numbers of the magazines examined, for the purpose of a record which readers and students of poetry will find useful.
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and thanks to the editors of Scribner’s Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Forum, The Century Magazine, The Outlook, Lippincott’s Magazine, The Bellman, The Independent, The Smart Set, the Yale Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; and to the publishers of these magazines, including The Poetry Journal, for the permission kindly given to reprint in this volume the text of the poems making the “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913.” To the authors of these poems I am equally indebted and grateful for their willingness to have me reprint their work in this form. Since their appearance in the magazines and before the close of the year when the contents of this volume was made up, two poems herein included appeared in the original volumes of their authors. For the use of William Rose Benét’s “The Marvelous Munchausen” I have also to thank The Century Co., publishers of “Merchants of Cathay,” in which volume it appears. As far as I know, only three of the poems here included are to come out immediately in books by their authors. The last four stanzas of “A Threnody,” by Mr. Louis V. Ledoux, are reprinted by permission of the editor of Scribner’s Magazine, and the rest of the poem is published in advance, by permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, from a volume of Mr. Ledoux’s xii poems, which is also to include the “Hymn to Demeter” from “A Sicilian Idyl,” they are to issue in January, under the title of “The Shadow of Ætna.” The two selections by Mr. Richard Burton, “Here Lies Pierrot” and “Human”; the two by Willard Huntington Wright, “What of the Night?” and “Later”; the one by George Edward Woodberry, “St. John and the Faun”; and the two by Richard Le Gallienne, “May is Building Her House” and “Desiderium” (which while this Introduction is being written has come out in Mr. Le Gallienne’s volume, “The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems,” John Lane Co.), are also being issued immediately in forthcoming volumes. If there are any others I do not know of them, and in which case I would gladly give credit, so I trust any omission of such will be charged to ignorance rather than intention. I wish it to be understood that the privilege extended me so courteously, by both the authors and the magazines, to print the poems in this volume, does not in any sense restrict the authors in their rights to print the poems in volumes of their own.
A significant fact which the poetry in this volume must bring to the reader’s mind in considering American poetry of today is, that these selections have been published for the first time during the current year. Our poetry needs, more than anything else, encouragement and support, to reveal its qualities. The poets are doing satisfying and vitally excellent work, and it only remains for the American public to do its duty by showing a substantial appreciation.
xiii
Lastly, I wish to thank the Boston Transcript for the privilege of reprinting material in this book which originally appeared in the columns of that paper.
Cambridge, December, 1913. W. S. B.
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[ Loudly and rapidly with a leader, College yell fashion ]
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PAGE | ||
Aye, down the years, behold, he rides. | ||
Percy Adams Hutchison | 54 | |
Because on the branch that is tapping my pane. | ||
Arthur Guiterman | 7 | |
Did you choose the journey, friend? | ||
Ruth Sterry | 62 | |
Distant as a dream’s flight. | ||
John G. Neihardt | 17 | |
Eternal in the brooding of the old Norwegian spruces. | ||
Ruth Guthrie Harding | 4 | |
Ever as sinks the day on sea or land. | ||
George Sterling | 52 | |
Face in the tomb, that lies so still. | ||
Richard Le Gallienne | 22 | |
For the sake of a weathered gray city set high on a hill. | ||
Amelia J. Burr | 25 | |
God meant me to be hungry. | ||
Mildred Howells | 8 | |
Hark ye! Hush ye! Margot’s dead. | ||
Ruth Comfort Mitchell | 50 | |
Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear. | ||
Mahlon Leonard Fisher | 61 | |
How an image of paint and wood. | ||
Agnes Lee | 12 | |
I know a vale where I would go one day. | ||
Bliss Carman | 24 | |
I saw her in a Broadway car. | ||
Sara Teasdale | 19 | |
I think that I shall never see. | ||
Joyce Kilmer | 7 | |
I thought I had forgotten you. | ||
Ethel M. Hewitt | 21 | |
I thought my heart would break. | ||
Charles Hanson Towne | 22 | |
I went to the place where my youth took birth. | ||
Willard Huntington Wright | 18 86 | |
If I am slow forgetting. | ||
Margaret Lee Ashley | 3 | |
In every line a supple beauty. | ||
Willa Sibert Cather | 46 | |
It’s little that I’d care for the glories of Ireland. | ||
Edward J. O’Brien | 16 | |
Lest I learn, with clearer sight. | ||
Witter Bynner | 18 | |
Lo—to the battle-ground of Life. | ||
Louis Untermeyer | 9 | |
Love you not the tall trees spreading wide their branches. | ||
Tertius van Dyke | 8 | |
May is building her house. With apple blooms. | ||
Richard Le Gallienne | 3 | |
Midnight, and in the darkness not a sound. | ||
Sara Teasdale | 13 | |
O blest Imagination. | ||
George Edward Woodberry | 28 | |
Oh, joy that burns in Denver tavern. | ||
Francis Hill | 49 | |
Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe. | ||
Percy MacKaye | 30 | |
One whom I loved and never can forget. | ||
Hermann Hagedorn | 23 | |
Outside hove Shasta, snowy height on height. | ||
Witter Bynner | 38 | |
Over the dim edge of sleep I lean. | ||
Robert Alden Sanborn | 9 | |
Over the wintry threshold. | ||
Bliss Carman | 2 | |
Proud men. | ||
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay | 39 | |
Sicilian Muse! O thou who sittest dumb. | ||
Louis V. Ledoux | 57 | |
Sorrow, quit me for a while. | ||
Florence Earle Coates | 20 | |
The moon’s ashine; by many a lane. | ||
Richard Burton | 62 | |
The sickle is dulled of the reaping and the threshing-floor is bare. | ||
Shaemas OSheel | 43 | |
The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow. | ||
William Rose Benét | 34 87 | |
The twilight is starred. | ||
John Hall Wheelock | 20 | |
The Wind bows down the poplar trees. | ||
Fannie Stearns Davis | 5 | |
They call you cold New England. | ||
Marguerite Mooers Marshall | 27 | |
War shook the land where Levi dwelt. | ||
Edwin Arlington Robinson | 48 | |
Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus. | ||
Louis V. Ledoux | 1 | |
Weighed down by grief, o’erborne by deep despair. | ||
Richard Burton | 23 | |
What of the night? | ||
Willard Huntington Wright | 55 | |
With rod and line I took my way. | ||
Madison Cawein | 5 |
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling variations were were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Poems are shown here as they appeared in the original book. Some of them appear elsewhere with different words or punctuation.
When it was not clear whether or not new stanzas began on new pages, Transcriber did not add stanza breaks.