I don’t feel like posting a poem today, so humor me. Let’s talk about Dutch Schultz instead. Today in 1935, Prohibition-era gangster Dutch Schultz was shot at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, NJ, and died from his wounds after some lengthy and incoherent rambling. His many last words were taken down by a stenographer and even made it into literature 35 years later courtesy of author, William S. Burroughs, and later on Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson found some kind of global conspiracy in the ramblings, as though they weren’t ramblings at all, but some kind of code.
The last words page concludes with these sentiments: “Some say this is everything from the ravings of someone on the brink of death to poetry to secrets of the mob world. You be the judge.”
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I passed along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint without stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had loved not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.
Earlier in the year, I made mention of Robert Frost’s friend, Edward Thomas. Thomas was originally a journalist At Frost’s encouragement, Thomas began to write poetry. Edward Thomas enlisted in World War I in 1915. Two years later, he was killed in action at Arras on the day after Easter. Thomas was married, and a father of 3 children. He could have avoided serving in the war. Perhaps his poem, This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong, explains it:
This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:–
A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two witches’ cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »
E. J. Pratt was a prominent Canadian poet in the early 20th century. Some of his poems are online at The University of Toronto Library.
One of these poems is Silences which starts out with these thought-provoking lines:
There is no silence upon the earth or under the earth like the silence
under the sea;
No cries announcing birth,
No sounds declaring death.
It’s just something that never occurred to me that in the depths of the sea life and death occur in absolute silence, silence that makes you feel as you read the poem that it is just routine, and very frightening to the human mind.
Then the poem moves on to higher forms of life and speculates that two human enemies might begin a friendship after giving passionate voice to their hostilities, and offers this sentiment:
for who would not prefer to be lustily damned than to be half-heartedly blessed?
I stopped to examine that statement since there are people who must live in silence, who cannot hear and/or speak. The poem continues:
No one need fear oaths that are properly enunciated, for they
belong to the inheritance of just men made perfect, and, for all we
know, of such may be the Kingdom of Heaven.
But let silent hate be put away for it feeds upon the heart of the hater.
Words do hurt, though. They can cause some pretty terrible wounds. Words also heal. That’s true, too, but I think I’ll remember this poem the next time I feel like letting loose with a ‘passionate’ oath and keep my mouth shut anyway.
So, yesterday I was talking about the James Whitcomb Riley literary hoax and how even after Riley acknowledged his role in the prank, some people continued to believe that Edgar Allan Poe was the author of Leonanie. After the hoax was admitted, some went to great lengths to show how they ‘knew’ that it could not have been a work by Poe.
While the situation with the poem, The Box, isn’t similar, there does seem to be quite a bit of confusion as to who wrote the poem. Indeed, if you google “who wrote the box,” the number one result is from Yahoo Answers and the best answer (chosen by asker) names Lascelles Abercrombie as the author. I initially attributed it to Abercrombie myself, even though I thought it seemed at odds with his style. A visitor to my site sent me an email identifying Kendrew Lascelles as the author so I revisited the issue, and I’m now convinced that somewhere along the line someone attributed it to Abercrombie and that just kept going.
But decide for yourself. Compare the styles of The Box -and- Vashti and vote for one you think is the true author.