Read Ebook: When Winter Comes to Main Street by Overton Grant M Grant Martin

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Ebook has 132 lines and 21521 words, and 3 pages

This is a garden where through the russet mist of clustered trees and strewn November leaves, they crunch with vainglorious heels of ancient vermilion the dry dead of spent summer's greens, and stalk with mincing sceptic steps, and sound of snuffboxes snapping to the capping of an epigram, in fluffy attar-scented wigs ... the exquisite Augustans.

I'm glad our house is a little house, Not too tall nor too wide: I'm glad the hovering butterflies Feel free to come inside.

Our little house is a friendly house, It is not shy or vain; It gossips with the talking trees, And makes friends with the rain.

And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green, Against our whited walls, And in the phlox, the courteous bees, Are paying duty calls.

The American people Were put into the world To assist foreign lecturers. When I visited them They filled crowded halls To hear me tell them Great Truths Which they might as well have read In their own prophet Thoreau. They paid me, for this, Three hundred dollars a night, And ten of their mandarins Invited me to visit at Newport. My agent told me If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform It would be five hundred.

When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: "Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you've got to help her play!"

Every architect will help erect A palace on a lawn of cloud, With rainbow beams and a sunset roof, And a level star-tiled floor; And at your will you may use the skill Of this gay angelic crowd, When a house is made you will throw it down, And they'll build you twenty more.

Michael walks in autumn leaves, Rustling leaves and fading grasses, And his little music-box Tinkles faintly as he passes. It's a gay and jaunty tune If the hands that play were clever: Michael plays it like a dirge, Moaning on and on forever.

While his happy eyes grow big, Big and innocent and soulful, Wistful, halting little notes Rise, unutterably doleful, Telling of all childish griefs-- Baffled babies sob forsaken, Birds fly off and bubbles burst, Kittens sleep and will not waken.

Michael, it's the touch of tears. Though you sing for very gladness, Others will not see your mirth; They will mourn your fancied sadness. Though you laugh at them in scorn, Show your happy heart for token, Michael, you'll protest in vain-- They will swear your heart is broken!

Moonlit woodland, veils of green, Caves of empty dark between; Veils of green from rounded arms Drooping, that the moonlight charms: Tranced the trees, grass beneath Silent ... Like a stealthy breath, Mask and wand and silver skin Sudden enters Harlequin.

Hist! Hist! Watch him go, Leaping limb and pointing toe, Slender arms that float and flow, Curving wand above, below; Flying, gliding, changing feet; Onset merging in retreat.

Not a shadow of sound there is But his motion's gentle hiss, Till one fluent arm and hand Suddenly circles, and the wand Taps a bough far overhead, "Crack," and then all noise is dead. For he halts, and for a space Stands erect with upward face, Taut and tense to the white Message of the Moon's light.

He was listening; he was there; Flash! he went. To the air He a waiting ear had bent, Silent; but before he went Something somewhere else to seek, He moved his lips as though to speak.

And we wait, and in vain, For he will not come again. Earth, grass, wood, and air, As we stare, and we stare, Which that fierce life did hold, Tired, dim, void, cold.

"There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested in these clearly, sardonically etched portraits of a ship's crew. The whimsical humour revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present writer's opinion, of a talent which will probably come to maturity in a very different field. Indeed it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, that these poems are but the early efflorescence of a gift for vigorous prose narrative.

"Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, with engaging promptitude, that a seafaring career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence of Masefield is strong upon him, and some of his verses are plainly derivative. As already hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a voyage to South America, a document remarkable for its descriptive power and a certain crude and virginal candour, one may discover an embryo novelist struggling with the inevitable limitations of youth. But in his simple and na?ve poems, whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic picture of seamen, or depict the charming emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a passion for experiment and humility of intellect which promises well enough for a young man in his teens."

I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem for citation from this book. Perhaps I shall do as well as I can, with only space to quote one poem, if I give you "Vision":

Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang Of sheer delight in perfect visioning? Have I forgotten how the spirit sang When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang? Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling Their naked children to the faery ring Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing In silent silver chords I too could hear? Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear Whenever winds disturbed the lake's repose, Or when in mocking mood they form in rows, And stare up at their parents--so sedate-- Then break up laughing 'neath a ripple's weight?

"Some day, just to please ourself, we intend to make a compilation of poems that we love best; the ones that we turn to again and again. There will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley's 'Adonais'; Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality'; Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso'; William Rose Ben?t's 'Man Possessed' and very little else.

"We don't 'defend' these poems ... no doubt they are all of them quite indefensible, in the light of certain special poetic revelations of the last few years ... and we have no particular theories about them; we merely yield ourself to them, and they transport us; we are careless of reason in the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do not mean to say that we are in the category with the person who says: 'I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like'--On the contrary, we know exactly why we like these things, although we don't intend to take the trouble to tell you now.

"Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon, The colours of the sunset stream. Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon So climbs my dream. Out of the heart's eternal torture fire No eastern phoenix risen-- Only the naked soul, spent with desire, Bursts its prison.

"A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes the physical body of Ben?t's art; when he chooses he can use words as if they were the jewelled particles of a mosaic; familiar words, with his handling, become 'something rich and strange.' Of the spiritual content of his poems, we can say nothing adequate, because there is not much that can be said of spirit; either it is there and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it is not there. There are very few people writing verse today who have the power to charm us and enchant us and carry us away with them as Ben?t can. He has found the horse with wings."

Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to the example of the work of each poet. In his general preface he says:

"Where most anthologies of poetry are collected for the purpose of giving pleasure by means of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give you something of the joy to be found in securing manuscripts, in attempting to understand current poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important of all, to present you to the poets themselves as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence."

I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda Conkling, prefacing her poem "Lonely Song"; and then I will quote the poem:

"A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's mother. They live at Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic atmosphere of Smith College where those who know the little girl say that she enjoys sliding down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in New York State, so that she is distinctly of the East. The rhythms which she uses to express her ideas are the result both of her own moods, which are often crystal-clear in their delicate imagery, and of the fact that from time to time, when she was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to her. In fact, her first poems were made before she, herself, could write them down. The speculation as to what she will do when she grows to womanhood is a common one. Is it important? A childhood filled with beauty is something to have achieved."

Bend low, blue sky, Touch my forehead; You look cool ... bend down ...

Flow about me in your blueness and coolness, Be thistledown, be flowers, Be all the songs I have not yet sung.

Laugh at me, sky! Put a cap of cloud on my head ... Blow it off with your blue winds; Give me a feeling of your laughter Beyond cloud and wind! I need to have you laugh at me As though you liked me a little.

Spirit or demon, Common Sense! Seen seldom by us mortals dense, Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me And teach me art and poetry.

Teach me to chuckle, sly as you, At gods that now I truckle to, To doubt the New Republic's bent, And jeer each bookish Supplement.

Now, like a thief, you come and flit, You call so seldom, Mother Wit! Remember? Once when you stood by I found a Dreiser novel dry.

One day when I was reading hard-- What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard! You peeped and then at what you saw Gave one Gargantuan guffaw.

Spirit or demon, coarse or rude, Brute that you are, I love your powers, But,--drop in after office hours!

Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask, But still respect my critic's task; Molest me not when I'm employed With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud.

RUSS . You're angry with me now.

NINA . Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I mind who sends you flowers?

RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I didn't happen to be waiting for you.

NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous.

RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will to that footling hospital ball last night, and I only got three hours' sleep instead of six, and you're angry with me because I yawned after you kissed me.

NINA. You're too utterly absurd!

RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason, either. The real reason is you're angry with me because you clean forgot it was my birthday today. That's why you're angry with me.

NINA. Well, I think you might have reminded me....

NINA. I like sitting on the carpet.

I wonder why women nowadays are so fond of the floor.

RUSS. Because they're oriental, of course.

NINA. But I'm not oriental, Hughie! Am I?

RUSS. That's the Eastern question.

NINA. But you like it, don't you?

RUSS. Every man has a private longing to live in the East.

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