AMERICAN POETRY:THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY

VOLUME ONEHenry Adams to Dorothy Parker

T H E L I B R A R Y O F A M E R I C A

Contents ,

ANONYMOUS BALLADSWhite House Blues, iCasey Jones, 2Claude Allen, 4Midnight Special, 5The Titan tic, 6

HENRY ADAMS (1838-1918)Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres, 7

CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD (1852-1944)from The Poet in the Desert, 13

LlZETTE WOODWORTH REESE (1856-1935)Crows, 16Fog, 16Wind, 17 ;

The White Fury of the Spring, 17

HARRIET MONROE (1860-1936)Radio, 18

EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937)Terminus, 19

FRANCES DENSMORE (1867-1957)from Chippewa Music '

I Am Walking, 22The Sound Is Fading Away, 22The Song of Butterfly, 22A Song of Spring, 22The Sky Will Resound, 23My Love Has Departed, 23I Have Found My Lover, 23

MARY AUSTIN (1868-1934)The Grass on the Mountain, 24

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)The Song of the Smoke, 25A Litany at Atlanta, 26

xi

Xli CONTENTS

EDGAR LEE MASTERS (1868-1950)

from Spoon River AnthologySerepta Mason, 30Amanda Barker, 30Constance Hately, 30Benjamin Pantier, 31Mrs. Benjamin Pantier, 31Reuben Pantier, 32Emily Sparks, 32Trainor, the Druggist, 33Minerva Jones, 33"Indignation" Jones, 34Doctor Meyers, 34Mrs. Meyers, 35"Butch" Weldy, 35Flossie Cabanis, 36Margaret Fuller Slack, 36Justice Arnett, 37A. D. Blood, 38Editor Whedon, 38Ralph Rhodes, 39Oscar Hummel, 39Archibald Higbie, 40Harry Wilmans, 40Willie Metcalf, 41Webster Ford, 42

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869-1935)

Isaac and Archibald, 44Calverly's, 55Shadrach O'Leary, 56How Annandale Went Out, 56Miniver Cheevy, 57For a Dead Lady, 58Cassandra, 58Hillcrest, 60Eros Turannos, 62The Unforgiven, 63The Poor Relation, 65The Mill, 67Souvenir, 68Mr. Flood's Party, 68

CONTENTS X1U

The Sheaves, 70Karma, 70Why He Was There, 71

GEORGE STERLING (1869-1926)

The Black Vulture, 72

ARTHUR GUITERMAN (1871-1943)

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness, 73

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871-1938)

Lift Every Voice and Sing, 74O Black and Unknown Bards, 75To America, 76The White Witch, 77Sunset in the Tropics, 78Brer Rabbit, You's de Cutes' of 'Em AU, 79The Creation, 80The Judgment Day, 83

EDWIN FORD PIPER (1871-1939)

Big Swimming, 86Indian Counsel, 86

LEONORA SPEYER (1872-1956)

Witch!, 87To a Song of Sappho Discovered in Egypt, 88

W. C. HANDY (1873-1958)St. Louis Blues, 89Beale Street Blues, 91

LOLA RIDGE (1873-1941)

from The Ghetto, 93The Fifth-Floor Window, 96Kerensky, 98

ELSA VON FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN (1874-1927)

A Dozen Cocktails—Please, 99Klink-Hratzvenga (Deathwail), 100Cafe du Dome, 102

ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)

The Pasture, 103Storm Fear, 103Mowing, 104

Xiv CONTENTS

The Tuft of Flowers, 104Mending Wall, 106The Death of the Hired Man, 107Home Burial, 112After Apple-Picking, 116The Wood-Pile, 117The Road Not Taken, 118An Old Man's Winter Night, 119Hyla Brook, 119The Oven Bird, 120Bond and Free, 120Birches, 121Putting in the Seed, 123The Sound of Trees, 123'Out, Out—', 124A Star in a Stone-Boat, 125The Witch of Coos, 127Nothing Gold Can Stay, 131Fire and Ice, 132Dust of Snow, 132Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, 132For Once, Then, Something, 133The Onset, 133To Earthward, 134The Need of Being Versed in Country Things, 135Spring Pools, 136The Freedom of the Moon, 137Once by the Pacific, 137A Minor Bird, 138Berefit, 138Tree at My Window, 139Acquainted with the Night, 139West-Running Brook, 140The Investment, 142Two Tramps in Mud Time, 143A Drumlin Woodchuck, 145Desert Places, 146The Strong Are Saying Nothing, 147Neither Out Far Nor In Deep, 148Design, 148Unharvested, 149

CONTENTS XV

Provide, Provide, 149 :On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep, 150The Silken Tent, 150All Revelation, 151Come In, 151The Most of It, 152Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same, 153The Subverted Flower, 153Directive, 155A Cliff Dwelling, 157Choose Something Like a Star, 157A Cabin in the Clearing, 158One More Brevity, 160The Draft Horse, 162Questioning Faces, 162

AMY LOWELL (1874-1925)

The Pike, 163Patterns, 163Thompson's Lunch Room—Grand Central'Station, 166Spring Longing, 168Vernal Equinox, 168Venus Transiens, 168Bright Sunlight, 169The Weather-Cock Points South, 170Shore Grass, 170Lilacs, 171Meeting-House Hill, 174Katydids, 175New Heavens for Old, 175Dissonance, 176

GERTRUDE STEIN (1874-1946)

from Tender Buttons: Objects, 177Susie Asado, 191from Lifting Belly: Lifting Belly Is So Kind, 191Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson, 210from Stanzas in Meditation, 214from The World Is Round, 216

ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH (1875-1937)

The Monk in the Kitchen, 217

XVI CONTENTS

In the Beginning Was the Word, 220from Sonnets from a Lockbox, 224

SHERWOOD ANDERSON (1876-1941)

American Spring Song, 226

SARAH N . CLEGHORN (1876-1959)

Comrade Jesus, 228The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill, 229

WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD (1876-1944)

from Two Lives, 230

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Fishmonger, 232"Lapping of waters," 232Wingaersheek Beach, 233What Have We All—A Soliloquy of Essences, 233West Pitch at the Falls, 234This Crusty Fragment, 235Indian Point, 236As the Buck Lay Dead, 237

WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG (1878-1954)

Voyage a l'lnfini, 238Ing, 239Arithmetical Progression of the Verb "To Be," 239Axiom, 240Theorem, 241

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY (1878-1914)

November Night, 242Release, 242Triad, 242Snow, 242Anguish, 243Trapped, 243Moon-Shadows, 243Susanna and the Elders, 243The Guarded Wound, 244Night Winds, 244Arbutus, 244Amaze, 244The Warning, 245

CONTENTS XVU

Niagara , 245

On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees, 245The Sun-Dial, 245Song, 246The Witch, 246The Lonely Death, 247Fragment, 247To a Hermit Thrush, 247

D O N MARQUIS (1878-1937)

from the coming of archy, 248the song of mehitabel, 249aesop revised by archy, 251archy confesses, 254

CARL SANDBURG (1878-1967)

Chicago, 255The Harbor, 256Mag, 256Mamie, 257Fog, 258Under a Hat Rim, 258Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard, 258Window, 259Harrison Street Court, 259Languages, 259Sunset from Omaha Hotel Window, 260Adelaide Crapsey, 261Bilbea, 261Portrait of a Motor Car, 262Cool Tombs, 262Galoots, 262Manual System, 263Cahoots, 263from The People, Yes, 264On a Flimmering Floom You Shall Ride, 269

JOE H I L L (1879-1915)

The Preacher and the Slave, 270

VACHEL LINDSAY (1879-1931)

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven, 272The Eagle That Is Forgotten, 274

XV111 CONTENTS

The Congo, 275Factory Windows Are Always Broken, 280Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, 280Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress, 282Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, 283The Daniel Jazz, 290

WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955)

Sunday Morning, 293Peter Quince at the Clavier, 296Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, 299Nomad Exquisite, 301Infanta Marina, 301Domination of Black, 302The Snow Man, 303Tea at the Palaz of Hoon, 304The Emperor of Ice-Cream, 304Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock, 305To the One of Fictive Music, 305The Death of a Soldier, 306Sea Surface Full of Clouds, 307The Idea of Order at Key West, 310The Sun This March, 312Meditation Celestial & Terrestrial, 312A Postcard from the Volcano, 313Autumn Refrain, 314Poetry Is a Destructive Force, 314The Poems of Our Climate, 315Study of Two Pears, 316The Man on the Dump, 317Landscape with Boat, 318Phosphor Reading by His Own Light, 320Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, 320God Is Good. It Is a Beautiful Night, 344The Motive for Metaphor, 345Men Made Out of Words, 345The Auroras of Autumn, 346Large Red Man Reading, 354. ;

To an Old Philosopher in Rome, 355Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour, 358The Rock, 358A Discovery of Thought, 361

CONTENTS

The Course of a Particular, 362The Plain Sense of Things, 363The Planet on the Table, 364The River of Rivers in Connecticut, 364Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself, 365Reality Is an Activity of the Most August Imagination, 366Of Mere Being, 366

ANGELINA W E L D GRIMKE (1880-1958)

Dawn, 367Dusk, 367Grass Fingers, 367Tenebris, 368A Mona Lisa, 368Epitaph on a Living Woman, 369

FRANKLIN P. ADAMS (1881-1960)

I f - , 37o

WITTER BYNNER (1881-1968)

Opus 2 (Emanuel Morgan), 372Opus 17 (Emanuel Morgan), 372The Wave, 373The Wall, 374Lightning, 374Horses, 374A Sigh, 374The Moon, 375Tiles, 375Wistaria, 375Donald Evans, 376Driftwood, 377Drinking Alone with the Moon, 377Lovers, 378A Foreigner, 378Idols, 378Defeat, 380The Titanic, 380from New Poems i960

"All tempest," 381"Any other time would have done," 381"But for these apertures," 381

XX CONTENTS

ABBIE H U S T O N EVANS (1881-1983)

Juniper, 382The Old Yellow Shop, 383Under Cover, 384Fringed Gentians, 385Martian Landscape, 385

JOHN G. NEIHARDT (1881-1973)

from The Song of the Messiah, 386

ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS (1881-1941)

Evening Song, 388The Song of the Dove, 388An Old Love in Song, 389Disconsolate Morning, 390

M I N A LOY (1882-1966)Songs to Joannes, 391Poe, 405Apology of Genius, 405Lunar Baedeker, 406Der Blinde Junge, 408Brancusi's Golden Bird, 409Gertrude Stein, 410On Third Avenue, 411

ANNE SPENCER (1882-1976)

At the Carnival, 413Lines to a Nasturtium, 415

BADGER CLARK JR. (1883-1957)

A Border Affair, 416

MAX EASTMAN (1883-1969)To John Reed, 418To Genevieve Taggard Who Called Me Traitor in a Poem, 418

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE (1883-1945)

Opus 118 (Anne Knish), 421Opus 131 (Anne Knish), 421

ALFRED KREYMBORG (1883-1966)

The Tree, 423

CONTENTS XXI

Ants, 423Culture, 424Improvisation, 424Tiger Lily, 425

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883-1963)The Young Housewife, 426Pastoral, 426Chicory and Daisies, 427Dawn, 428Spring Strains, 428Sympathetic Portrait of a Child, 429January Morning, 430Romance Moderne, 433The Desolate Field, 436Thursday, 437Queen-Anne's-Lace, 437The Widow's Lament in Springtime, 438The Lonely Street, 439from Spring and All, 439Young Sycamore, 456Hemmed-in Males, 456On Gay Wallpaper, 458"There are no perfect waves—," 458"The moon, the dried weeds," 459This Is Just To Say, 460Flowers by the Sea, 460The Yachts, 461

Perpetuum Mobile: The City, 462Paterson: Episode 17, 468These, 472Between Walls, 473The Last Words of My English Grandmother, 473The Predicter of Famine, 475A Sort of a Song, 475Paterson: The Falls, 476The Dance, 477Burning the Christmas Greens, 477The Descent, 480To Daphne and Virginia, 481To a Man Dying on His Feet, 485The World Contracted to a Recognizable Image, 486

xxii CONTENTS

DONALD EVANS (1884-1921)

En Monocle, 487In the Vices, 487

ARTURO GIOVANNITTI (1884-1959)

The Walker, 488

WILBERT SNOW (1884-1977)

Advice to a Clam-Digger, 494

SARA TEASDALE (1884-1933)

The Shrine, 497The Look, 497At Night, 498Moods, 498I Shall Not Care, 498Enough, 499Summer Night, Riverside, 499After Love, 500Night Song at Amalfi, 500Jewels, 501Wood Song, 501The Broken Field, 502"A Little While," 502"There Will Come Soft Rains," 502 •-.The Unchanging, 503The Sanctuary, 503"I Shall Live To Be Old," 504Moon's Ending, 504Lines, 504

EZRA POUND (1885-1972)

De Aegypto, 505Sestina: Altaforte, 506Planh for the Young English King, 508The Seafarer, 509The Return, 512Portrait d'une Femme, 512Of Jacopo del Sellaio, 513The Garden, 514A Pact, 514In a Station of the Metro, 514

CONTENTS XX111

Les Millwin, 515A Song of the Degrees, 515Tame Cat, 516Liu Ch'e, 516Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord, 516The Study in ^Esthetics, 517Exile's Letter, 517.The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter, 520Lament of the Frontier Guard, 521Papyrus, 522Near Perigord, 522Alba, 528from Homage to Sextus Propertius, 528Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, 532Canto II, 546Canto IV, 550Canto XIII, 553Canto XVII, 556Canto XXXVI, 559Canto XLV, 562Canto XLVII, 563Canto XLIX, 566Canto LXXXI, 568Canto XC, 572Canto CXVT, 576from Notes for Canto CXVII et seq., 578from The Classic Anthology as Defined by

Confucius, 579Choruses from Women of Trakis, 582

ELINOR WYLIE (1885-1928)

Beauty, 584Wild Peaches, 584August, 586Village Mystery, 587Incantation, 587Sonnet, 588Let No Charitable Hope, 589Preference, 589Self-Portrait, 590Now That Your Eyes Are Shut, 590Confession of Faith, 591

XXIV CONTENTS

Parting Gift, 591Green Hair, 592Ejaculation, 593

H.D. [ H I L D A DOOLITTLE] (1886-1961)Orchard, 594Oread, 595Sea Rose, 595Mid-Day, 595Evening, 596Garden, 597Sea Violet, 598Sea Poppies, 599Storm, 599Sea Iris, 600The Pool, 601

Hippolytus Temporizes, 601Fragment 113, 602At Baia, 603Song, 604The Whole White World, 605Egypt, 606Helen, 607Lethe, 608Trance, 608Birds in Snow, 610from Songs from Cyprus, 611from Let Zeus Record, 611Epitaph, 612The Mysteries, 612from Sigil, 618

from The Walls Do Not Fall, 619from Tribute to the Angels, 629from The Flowering of the Rod, 634

JOHN G O U L D FLETCHER (1886-1950)

Blue Symphony, 640

HAZEL H A L L (1886-1924)

Seams, 644The Listening Macaws, 645Light Sleep, 646Woman Death, 646

CONTENTS XXV

ROY HELTON (b. 1886)

Lonesome Water, 648

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON (1886-1966)

I Want To Die While You Love Me, 650

JOYCE KILMER (1886-1918)

Trees, 651

M A RAINEY (1886-1939)Southern Blues, 652

J O H N H A L L WHEELOCK (1886-1978)

The Fish-Hawk, 653Afternoon: Amagansett Beach, 654Earth, Take Me Back, 655

SKIPWITH CANNELL (1887-1957)

The King, 656

ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887-1962)

Salmon Fishing, 658Shine, Perishing Republic, 658Granite and Cypress, 659Birds, 660Haunted Country, 660Apology for Bad Dreams, 661Hurt Hawks, 664Tor House, 666The Bed by the Window, 666The Place for No Story, 667Love the Wild Swan, 667Rock and Hawk, 668Prescription of Painful Ends, 669For Una, 670Advice to Pilgrims, 672Cassandra, 672Animals, 673

The Beauty of Things, 673Carmel Point, 674The Deer Lay Down Their Bones, 674Vulture, 675"I have been warned. It is more than thirty years since I

wrote—," 676

XXVI CONTENTS

ORRICK JOHNS (1887-1946)Salon des Vers, 677Invitation, 677Wild Plum, 678

MARIANNE M O O R E (1887-1972)To an Intra-Mural Rat, 679To a Steam Roller, 679Is Your Town Nineveh?, 680The Past Is the Present, 680"He Wrote die History Book," 681Critics and Connoisseurs, 681To a Chameleon, 682Like a Bulrush, 683The Monkeys, 683Those Various Scalpels, 684The Fish, 686Black Earth, 687Peter, 689

When I Buy Pictures, 691Poetry, 692A Grave, 693Marriage, 695An Egyptian Pulled Glass Botde in the Shape of a

Fish, 702Silence, 703To a Snail, 703Bowls, 704The Steeple-Jack^ 705Smooth Gnarled Crape Myrde, 707Bird-Witted, 709The Pangolin, 711He "Digesteth Harde Yron," 714In Distrust of Merits, 716The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing, 718Tom Fool at Jamaica, 720O To Be a Dragon, 721

CHARLIE PATTON (1887-1934)

High Water Everywhere, 722

JOHN REED (1887-1920)

from America in 1918, 725

CONTENTS

IRVING BERLIN (1888-1989)

Slumming on Park Avenue, 727

T. S. ELIOT (1888-1965)The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 728Portrait of a Lady, 732Preludes, 736The Boston Evening Transcript, 738La Figlia Che Piange, 738Sweeney Among the Nightingales, 739Whispers of Immortality, 740Gerontion, 741The Waste Land, 744The Hollow Men, 760Marina, 763Ash-Wednesday, 765Sweeney Agonistes, 772Burnt Norton, 783

FENTON JOHNSON (1888-1958)

Tired, 789Aunt Hannah Jackson, 789The Minister, 790

HANIEL LONG (1888-1956)

Daphnis and Chloe, 791Lightning, 791Cobweb, 791In the Dark World, 792Day and Night, 793A New Music, 793For Tony, Embarking in Spring, 794Our Spring Needs Shoveling, 795

JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888-1974)

Spectral Lovers, 796Bells for John Whitesides' Daughter, 797Here Lies a Lady, 798Judith of Bethulia, 798Nocturne, 800Blackberry Winter, 800Captain Carpenter, 801Philomela, 803

XXV111 CONTENTS

Janet Waking, 804Piazza Piece, 805The Equilibrists, 806Blue Girls, 808Painted Head, 808

ALAN SEEGER (1888-1916)

I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . . , 810

CONRAD AIKEN (1889-1973)

Morning Song of Senlin, 811Tetelestai, 813And in the Hanging Gardens, 816The Room, 818Sea Holly, 819from Preludes for Memnon, 821

H . P. LOVECRAFT (1890-1937)The Well, 825Alienation, 825

CLAUDE MCKAY (1890-1948)The Lynching, 826The Harlem Dancer, 826The Castaways, 827The Tropics in New York, 827Harlem Shadows, 828If We Must Die, 828The White City, 829Dawn in New York, 829Africa, 830Outcast, 830Birds of Prey, 831Subway Wind, 831Jasmines, 832Negro Spiritual, 832

COLE PORTER (1891-1964)

I Get a Kick Out of You, 833Anything Goes, 833Just One of Those Things, 835

DJUNA BARNES (1892-1982)

Portrait of a Lady Walking, 837The Walking-Mort, 837

CONTENTS XXIX

J O H N PEALE BISHOP (1892-1944)

Speaking of Poetry, 838In the Dordogne, 839Young Men Dead, 841Metamorphoses of M, 841The Return, 842

MAXWELL BODENHEIM (1892-1954)

Deatii, 844Interlude, 844Rear Porches of an Apartment Building, 845

ARCHIBALD M A C L E I S H (1892-1982)

Ars Poetica, 846Cinema of a Man, 847Return, 849You, Andrew Mar veil, 849Episde'To Be Left in the Earth, 850Sentiments for a Dedication, 852Voyage West, 853

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892-1950)

Afternoon on a Hill, 854Sorrow, 854Witch-Wife, 855"If I should learn, in some quite casual way," 855Bluebeard, 855God's World, 856First Fig, 856Second Fig, 857Recuerdo, 857"I think I should have loved you presendy," 857"I shall forget you presendy, my dear," 858Spring, 858Eel-Grass, 859Passer Mortuus Est, 859Elegy, 860"Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare," 861"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why," 861The Wood Road, 862Scrub, 862Never May the Fruit Be Plucked, 862Siege, 863

XXX CONTENTS

"I, being born a woman and distressed," 863"Gazing upon him now, severe and dead," 864Winter Night, 864"Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink," 865Rendezvous, 865Menses, 866Sonnet, 868

DONALD DAVIDSON (1893-1968)

Sanctuary, 869

SAMUEL GREENBERG (1893-1917)

The Glass Bubbles, 872Secrecy, 872Etching, 873God, 874African Desert, 874To Dear Daniel, 875

DOROTHY PARKER (1893-1967)

Resume, 876One Perfect Rose, 876Ballade at Thirty-Five, 877Men, 878News Item, 878Observation, 878Symptom Recital, 878The Red Dress, 879Bric-a-Brac, 880

A Pig's-Eye View of Literature, 880Bohemia, 883Coda, 883

Biographical Notes, 887Note on the Texts, 930Acknowledgments, 941Notes, 946Index of Titles and first Lines, 967Index of Poets, 985