AMERICAN POETRY THE TWENTIETH CENTURY VOLUME TWO E. E. Cummings to May Swenson THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA Contents E. E. CUMMINGS (1894-1962) "All in green went my love riding," 1 "in Just- / spring when the world is mud-," 2 "Tumbling-hair / picker of buttercups," 3: "Humanity i love you," 3 "O sweet spontaneous," 4 "stinging / gold swarms," 5 ' "between green / mountains," 6 "Babylon slim / -ness of," 6 "ta / ppin / g / toe," 7 "Buffalo Bill 's / defunct," 7 "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls," 8 "god pity me whom(god distinctly has)," 8 "Dick Mid's large bluish face without eyebrows," 9 "Spring is like a perhaps hand," 9 POEM,OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL, 10 "she being Brand," 12 "on the Madam's best april the," 13 MEMORABILIA, 14 "next to of course god america i," 15 "lis / -ten // you know what i mean when," 15 "my sweet old etcetera," 16 "Among / these / red pieces of," 17 "in spite of everything," 18 "since feeling is first," 18 "i sing of Olaf glad and big," 18 "twi- / is :Light bird," 20 _ "a clown's smirk in the skull,of a baboon," 20 "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond," 21 "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r," 22 "the boys i mean are not refined," 22 "as freedom is a breakfastfood," 23 "anyone lived in a pretty how town," 24 "my father moved through dooms of love," 25 "plato told," 27 "pity this busy monster,manunkind," 28 "a grin without a," 29 xi xii CONTENTS H. L. DAVIS (1894-1960) Proud Riders, 30 ROLEE HUMPHRIES (1894-1969) Europa, 31 Test Paper, 32 From the Green Book of Yfan, 33 EUGENE JOLAS (1894-1952) Mater Dolorosa, 35 H. PHELPS PUTNAM (1894-1948) Words of an Old Woman, 36 Hasbrouck and the Rose, 37 Bill Gets Burned, 39 CHARLES REZNIKOFF (1894-1976) "On Brooklyn Bridge* I saw a man drop dead," 42 "I met in a merchant's place," 42 "The shopgirls leave their work," 42 "How shall we mourn you who are killed and wasted," 42 "My work done, I lean on the window-sill," 43 "In the shop, she, her mother, and grandmother," 43 The Idiot, 43 "She who worked patiently," 43 Epidemic, 43 "Her work was to count linings—," 43 "The house-wreckers have left the door and a staircase," 44 Aphrodite Vrania, 44 April, 44 "Out of the hills the trees bulge," 44 "How difficult for me is Hebrew," 44 "I have learnt the Hebrew blessing before eating bread," 44 "After I had worked all day at what I earn my living," 44 "The Hebrew of your poets, Zion," 45 "Though our thoughts often, we ourselves," 45 "Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies," 45 Epitaphs, 45 Millinery District ["The clouds . "], 46 "A dead gull in the road," 47 "I like this secret walking," 47 Rainy Season, 47 "Of course, we must die," 48 CONTENTS Xlll My grandfather, dead long before I was born," 48 "A grove of small trees, branches thick with berries," 48 Millinery District ["Many fair hours . "], 48 Similes, 49 Epitaph, 49 Free Verse, 49 from Early History of a Writer, 50 BESSIE SMITH (1894-1937) Empty Bed Blues, 57 GENEVIEVE TAGGARD (1894-1948)1 Everyday Alchemy, 59 Thirst, 59 To One Loved Wholly Within Wisdom, 59 To Mr. Maunder Maunder, Professional Poet, 60 To the Powers of Desolation, 61 To the Natural World: at 37, 61 Try Tropic, 62 , . All Around the Town, 63 Bounding Line, 64 Hymn to Yellow, 64 The Weed, 65 Fructus, 66 JEAN TOOMER (1894-1967) Reapers, 68 ' Cotton Song, 68 Georgia Dusk, 69 Nullo, 70 Evening Song, 70 •. 1 Portrait in Georgia, 71 Seventh Street, 71 Storm Ending, 72 Her Lips Are Copper Wire, 72 Gum, 73 The Gods Are Here, 74 MARK VAN DOREN (1894-1972) This Amber Sunstream, 75 Axle Song, 75 The Near House, 76 ' ' Midland, 77 Xiv CONTENTS So Simple, 77 . ,-,..- Where I Saw the Snake, 77 . .• . The First Poem, 78 , ALTER BRODY (1895-1979) Lamentations, 79 Winter Nocturne: The Hospital, 80 ' BABETTE DEUTSCH (1895-1982) "To an Amiable Child," 81 . Creatures in the Zoo, 82 • • ABRAHAM LINCOLN GILLESPIE (1895-1950) A Purplexicon of Dissynthegrations, 84 OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II (18957-1960), , . Ol' Man River, 87 LORENZ HART (1895-1943) Little Girl Blue, 89 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, 90 ROBERT HILLYER (1895-1961) Dead Man's Corner, 92 EDMUND WILSON (1895-1972) Epitaphs, 93 A House of the Eighties, 94 • , . The Omelet of A. MacLeish, 95 JOHN DOS PASSOS (1896-1970) • - Newsreel LIII, 99 THOMAS HORNSBY FERRIL (1896-1988) Waltz Against the Mountains, 101 Something Starting Over, 104 Noon, 106 " ., • IRA GERSHWIN (1896-1983) I Can't Get Started, 107 They All Laughed, 109 RAMON GUTHRIE (1896-1973) Elegy for Melusine from the Intensive Care Ward, in Red-Headed Intern, Taking Notes, 113 Scene: A Bedside in the Witches' Kitchen, 113 CONTENTS XV E. Y. HARBURG (1896-1981) Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?; 115 ISIDOR SCHNEIDER (1896-1977) Insects, 117 A History of the Caesars, 117 LOUISE BOGAN (1897-1970) Medusa, 119 Knowledge, 120 Women, 120 The Alchemist, 121 My Voice Not Being Proud, 121 Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom, 122 Sub Contra, 122 ' Cassandra, 123 Winter Swan, 123 Dark Summer, 123 Late, 124 Song, 124 Short Summary, 125 Roman Fountain, 125 Evening-Star, 126 Baroque Comment, 126 Kept, 127 Heard by a Girl, 127 Several Voices Out of a Cloud, 128 Musician, 128 Zone, 129 Night, 129 Morning, 130 The Dragonfly, 131 EMANUEL CARNEVALI (1897-1942?) Sermon, 132 Serenade, 132 Kiss, 133 Almost a God, 134 BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON (1897-1929) Long Distance Moan, 135 XVI CONTENTS WALTER LOWENFELS (1897-1976) from Elegy in the Manner of a Requiem in Memory of D. H. Lawrence, 137 DAVID MCCORD (1897-1997) Waiter, 140 History of Education, 140 JOHN WHEELWRIGHT (1897-1940) Slow Curtain, 141 Why Must You Know?, 141 Would You Think?, 142 Fish Food: An Obituary to Hart Crane, 143 Come Over and Help Us, 144 Anathema. Maranatha!, 147 In the Bathtub, to Mnemosyne, 148 Esprit d'Escalier, 149 Cross Questions, 149 STEPHEN VINCENT BENET (1898-1943) from John Brown's Body, 150 American Names, 154 Cotton Mather, 156 Daniel Boone, is6 Metropolitan Nightmare, 157 MALCOLM COWLEY (1898-1989) Winter Tenement, 160 Ernest, 161 HARRY CROSBY (1898-1929) Vision, 162 Photoheliograph, 165 HORACE GREGORY (1898-1982) from Chorus for Survival, 166 The Cage of Voices, 168 MELVIN B. TOLSON (1898-1966) from Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, 170 from Harlem Gallery, 176 LEONIE ADAMS (1899-1988) April Mortality, 183 Ghostly Tree, 183 CONTENTS XV11 The Rounds and Garlands Done, 184 The Moon and Spectator, 185 Fragmentary Stars, 185 The Horn, 186 The Figurehead, 187 Grapes Making, 187 HART CRANE (1899-1932) Chaplinesque, 189 For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen, 190 Voyages, 194 Repose of Rivers, 199 The Wine Menagerie, 199 At Melville's Tomb, 201 The Bridge, 202 O Carib Isle!, 242 The Broken Tower, 243 THOMAS A. DORSEY (1899-1993) Take My Hand, Precious Lord, 245 HiLDEGARDE FLANNER (1899-1987) Dumb, 246 Moment, 246 Fern Song, 246 Frog Song, 247 True Western Summer, 248 JANET LEWIS (1899-1998) from The Indians in the Woods, 249 Girl Help, 251 The Reader, 252 Winter Garden, 252 Helen Grown Old, 253 For the Father of Sandro Gulotta, 254 The Ancient Ones: Betatakin, 255 Garden Note I, Los Altos, 256 Garden Note II, March, 256 JOSEPH MONCURE MARCH (1899-1977) from The Wild Party, 257 VLADIMIR NABOKOV (1899-1977) from Lolita, 263 On Translating "Eugene Onegin," 265 XV111 CONTENTS LYNN RIGGS (1899-1954) ,\ ... Santo Domingo Corn Dance, 266 ALLEN TATE (1899-1979) Mr. Pope, 269 Ode to the Confederate Dead, 269 The Twelve, 272 Last Days of Alice, 273 The Wolves, 274 Aeneas at Washington, 275 The Ivory Tower, 276 The Mediterranean, 277 Sonnets at Christmas, 279 The Swimmers, 280 EDWARD DAHLBERG (1900-1977) > February Ground, 283 Walt Whitman, 285 r YVOR WINTERS (1900-1968) Two Songs of Advent, 288 '•'••' The Magpie's Shadow, 288 The Solitude of Glass, 291 October, 292 ' ' Vacant Lot, 292 The Cold, 293 " Nocturne, 294 The Barnyard, 294 ., ..-,-• ., - , •.',,. Wild Sunflower, 295 ,.., • (. The Realization, 296 •,.._, , Apollo and Daphne, 296 , The Fable, 297 . • The Fall of Leaves, 297 The Slow Pacific Swell, 298 , • ; . To a Young Writer, 299 By the Road to the Sunnyvale Air-Base, 300 Elegy on a Young Airedale Bitch Lost Two Years Since in the Salt-Marsh, 300 ' ' On Teaching the Young, 301 Time and the Garden, 301 • , . > . • In Praise of California Wines, 302 ; • To the Moon, 303 . .. • • CONTENTS XIX STERLING A. BROWN (1901-1989) Long Gone, 304 Scotty Has His Say, 305 ' Sister Lou, 306 Southern Road, 308 Memphis Blues, 309 Ma Rainey, 311 Slim in Atlanta, 313 • - Children's Children, 314 Chillen Get Shoes, 315 Sporting Beasley, 316 Cabaret, 318 Old Lem, 321 . ROBERT FRANCIS (1901-1987) A Broken View, 323 Onion Fields, 324 Earthworm, 324 • Slow, 325 By Night, 325 The Curse, 326 While I Slept, 326 The Sound I Listened For, 326 As Easily As Trees, 327 Waxwings, 327 Pitcher, 328 Cypresses, 328 Swimmer, 329 Farm Boy After Summer, 329 Museum Vase, 330 LINDLEY WILLIAMS HUBBELL (1901-1994) Ordovician Fossil Algae, 331 Sounds, 331 A student who sat facing me on the Osaka express, 332 Beer Bottles, 332 Waka, 334 , ' LAURA RIDING (1901-1991) An Ancient Revisits, 335 • As Well As Any Other, 335 Prisms, 336 Lucrece and Nara, 336 XX CONTENTS O Vocables of Love, 337 Faith Upon the Waters, 338 Sea, False Philosophy, 339 The Map of Places, 339 Chloe or .