Out of a struggle - into strife; Girt with the fragile armor of Youth, Child, you must ride into endless wars, With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth, And a banner of love to sweep the stars. About you the world's despair will surge; Be to the hopeless years, a hope! Be to the darkened world, a flame; STAND WITH ME HERE Stand with me here and listen. Close your lips. Stand where the sun strokes the contented turf, Of bees among the buckwheat, the consoling Bluster of winds. Let this grave-bosomed cloud Press through your anger till the proud Passions that rend are crumbled down and pass Into the humble pride of grass. Your fire need not be smothered; you will learn How to preserve that flame and burn Quietly as the unaffected glow Of partridge-berries in the snow. Here is fulfilment. This old mullein stalk Has more of life than all our talk; And here, poised on this windy poplar tree, Mocking our insecurity, Is-plain as milk and bolder than belief The confident laughter of a leaf. Open your lips again. The wordy wars PRAYER God, though this life is but a wraith, Ever insurgent let me be, Make me more daring than devout; From sleek contentment keep me free, And fill we with a buoyant doubt. Open my eyes to visions girt With beauty, and with wonder lit But let me always see the dirt, And all that spawn and die in it. Open my ears to music; let Me thrill with Spring's first flutes and drums But never let me dare forget The bitter ballads of the slums. From compromise and things half-done, And when, at last, the fight is won, Jean Starr was born at Zanesville, Ohio, May 13, 1886, and educated at the Putnam Seminary in the city of her birth. At sixteen, she came to New York City, pursuing special studies at Columbia. In 1907 she married Louis Untermeyer and, although she had written some prose previous to the poetic renascence, her first volume was published more than ten years later. Growing Pains (1918) is a thin book of thirty-four poems, the result of eight years' slow and self-critical creation. Perfection is almost a passion with her; the first poem in the book declares: I would rather work in stubborn rock All the years of my life; And make one strong thing And set it in a high, clean place, To recall the granite strength of my desire. But it is not only her keen search for truth and an equally keen eye for the exact word that make these poems distinctive. A sharp color sense, a surprising whimsicality, a translation of the ordinary in terms of the beautiful, illumine such poems as "Sinfonia Domestica" and "Autumn." Her purely pictorial poems establish a swift kinship between the most romantic and the most prosaic objects. Dreams Out of Darkness (1921) and Steep Ascent (1927) reveal an intensification and ripening of this author's powers with a richer musical undercurrent. This increase of melody is manifest on every page, possibly most obvious in the persuasive music and symbolism of “Lake Song." As in the case of Kreymborg and other writers of free verse, practically all of Mrs. Untermeyer's later poetry is in rhyme and a definitely regular rhythm. AUTUMN (To My Mother) How memory cuts away the years, There was our back-yard, So plain and stripped of green, With even the weeds carefully pulled away From the crooked red bricks that made the walk, Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air. Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles, Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch, And, in the very center of the yard, You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper, Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down Like jolly monks in a drunken dance. And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load, Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers. Such feathery whiteness -to come to kraut! And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust, Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire; And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance But were bitter to taste. And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces, And long string beans floating in pans of clear water Like slim, green fishes. And there was fish itself, Salted, silver herring from the city. And you moved among these mysteries, I like to think of you in your years of power LAKE SONG The lapping of lake water The lake falls over the shore So do we ever cry, A soft, unmutinous crying, When we know ourselves each a princess The lapping of lake water ONE KIND OF HUMILITY Shall we say heaven is not heaven Since golden stairs are rugged and uneven? Or that no light illuminates a star Deny with soured breath enduring God No. Cleanse with weeping, fasting and with prayer. Praise God. Look starward. Mount the stair! |