"
Last eve, as I was leading the king's children From the pasture where they played,
A fairy bugle sounded from an oak-tree Where tired elves had strayed;
And as it thrilled across the purple uplands And dropped to one soft note,
A golden birdie darted from the branches With white and silver throat.
Last eve, as I was leading the king's children From the pasture where they played,
A fairy bugle sounded from an oak-tree Where tired elves had strayed;
And as it thrilled across the purple uplands And dropped to one soft note,
A golden birdie darted from the branches With white and silver throat.
Contemporary Verse - v01-02
1'
1
A itAA I is
I I it a
!
it,
SONNETS By Samuel Roth
Trifles
The road is clear tonight, and all is still.
I do not mind the stars; the only thing
Alive, the moon, perched full upon her wing, Is drifting languidly over the hill.
I think if the eternal grasp should will
To loose one moment in the iron ring
Of law and place, she too would fall and cling To the dead ashes, and she would not thrill. Nor would I stir to see the death, were't not That in the circle of this very moon
And in this hill's shade sleep my heart and you. Such loves have been, I know, and are forgot, Death comes to all and never comes too soon, Yet in these trifles, dear, let us be true.
If I Should Speak
If I should speak you would not understand. You'd only hear my voice and see my eyes And the remembrance of old ecstasies Awakening within you solemn-grand
Would flood my words; you would forget my hand Lay tremulous on yours, you would arise
And go from me as night when silence dies
And dawn and shouting harrow all the land. How can you understand that this my heart
Is but a sparrow in an eagle's nest?
So far it is from both the sky and land,
It cannot rise, it dare not fall, so lives apart
From fear of conquest and from hope of rest. . . I will not speak; you could not understand.
'4
THE GOOSE GIRL'S SONG By Laura Benet
Last morn as I was bleaching the queen's linen On the moor-grass sere and dry,
A breath of summer breeze it blew my apron To the four parts of the sky;
And as I started up tiptoe with wonder And gazed towards the town,
A little round well opened to my footsteps With water clear and brown.
'
Oh the well sweet, the well deep, the zvell with the water so fine!
"
Last eve, as I was leading the king's children From the pasture where they played,
A fairy bugle sounded from an oak-tree Where tired elves had strayed;
And as it thrilled across the purple uplands And dropped to one soft note,
A golden birdie darted from the branches With white and silver throat.
Oh the bird white, the bird light, the bird with the fairy voice! "
Last night, as I was combing out my tresses In the turret chamber grey,
I saw a fairy ship, a-sailing, sailing, Through the crimson sunset gay;
And common people say it is the new moon, But full well do I ken
It is the sail the pixies are a-speeding To bear me off from men.
Oh tlie moon light, the sail bright thafs coming to me again! "
PINE
By John Russell McCarthy
You must have dreamed a little every year For fifty years: you must have been a child, Shy and diffident with the violets, School-girlish with the daisies, or perhaps
A youthful Indian with the hickory tree;
You must have been a lover with the beech, A wise young father walking with your sons Beneath the maple; then have battled long Grim and defiant with the oak : all these
You must have been for fifty dreaming years Before you may hold converse with the pine.
And then, maybe, if you have dreamed enough, If there are strange old terrors in your eyes
And wild new fancies singing prophecies,
You may bring tribute to the king of dreams; And -he will read your eyes' weird mysteries And give you stranger terrors of your own, And chant you wilder fancies — 'til you know The vague old magic of the haunted wood.
Published monthly at 622 South Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
Subscription rates, one year, $1. 50; single copy, 15 cents.
Edited by James E. Richardson, Charles Wharton Stork and Samuel McCoy. Copyright, 1916, by the editors, trading as CONTEMPORARY VERSE.
16
THE CONTRIBUTORS
Scudder Middleton's poem, 'The Clerk," published in the June number of Contemporary Verse, is ranked in "An Anthology of Magazine Verse" as one of the thirty most distinguished poems published in the United States in 1916. Other previous contributors are Marguerite Wilkin son, John Hall Wheelock, Louis Ginsberg, Fhoebe Hcffman, John Russell McCarthy and Marjorie Allen Seiffert. Jeannette Marks, novelist, as well as poet, is a member of the faculty of Mt. Holyoke College.
1
A itAA I is
I I it a
!
it,
SONNETS By Samuel Roth
Trifles
The road is clear tonight, and all is still.
I do not mind the stars; the only thing
Alive, the moon, perched full upon her wing, Is drifting languidly over the hill.
I think if the eternal grasp should will
To loose one moment in the iron ring
Of law and place, she too would fall and cling To the dead ashes, and she would not thrill. Nor would I stir to see the death, were't not That in the circle of this very moon
And in this hill's shade sleep my heart and you. Such loves have been, I know, and are forgot, Death comes to all and never comes too soon, Yet in these trifles, dear, let us be true.
If I Should Speak
If I should speak you would not understand. You'd only hear my voice and see my eyes And the remembrance of old ecstasies Awakening within you solemn-grand
Would flood my words; you would forget my hand Lay tremulous on yours, you would arise
And go from me as night when silence dies
And dawn and shouting harrow all the land. How can you understand that this my heart
Is but a sparrow in an eagle's nest?
So far it is from both the sky and land,
It cannot rise, it dare not fall, so lives apart
From fear of conquest and from hope of rest. . . I will not speak; you could not understand.
'4
THE GOOSE GIRL'S SONG By Laura Benet
Last morn as I was bleaching the queen's linen On the moor-grass sere and dry,
A breath of summer breeze it blew my apron To the four parts of the sky;
And as I started up tiptoe with wonder And gazed towards the town,
A little round well opened to my footsteps With water clear and brown.
'
Oh the well sweet, the well deep, the zvell with the water so fine!
"
Last eve, as I was leading the king's children From the pasture where they played,
A fairy bugle sounded from an oak-tree Where tired elves had strayed;
And as it thrilled across the purple uplands And dropped to one soft note,
A golden birdie darted from the branches With white and silver throat.
Oh the bird white, the bird light, the bird with the fairy voice! "
Last night, as I was combing out my tresses In the turret chamber grey,
I saw a fairy ship, a-sailing, sailing, Through the crimson sunset gay;
And common people say it is the new moon, But full well do I ken
It is the sail the pixies are a-speeding To bear me off from men.
Oh tlie moon light, the sail bright thafs coming to me again! "
PINE
By John Russell McCarthy
You must have dreamed a little every year For fifty years: you must have been a child, Shy and diffident with the violets, School-girlish with the daisies, or perhaps
A youthful Indian with the hickory tree;
You must have been a lover with the beech, A wise young father walking with your sons Beneath the maple; then have battled long Grim and defiant with the oak : all these
You must have been for fifty dreaming years Before you may hold converse with the pine.
And then, maybe, if you have dreamed enough, If there are strange old terrors in your eyes
And wild new fancies singing prophecies,
You may bring tribute to the king of dreams; And -he will read your eyes' weird mysteries And give you stranger terrors of your own, And chant you wilder fancies — 'til you know The vague old magic of the haunted wood.
Published monthly at 622 South Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
Subscription rates, one year, $1. 50; single copy, 15 cents.
Edited by James E. Richardson, Charles Wharton Stork and Samuel McCoy. Copyright, 1916, by the editors, trading as CONTEMPORARY VERSE.
16
THE CONTRIBUTORS
Scudder Middleton's poem, 'The Clerk," published in the June number of Contemporary Verse, is ranked in "An Anthology of Magazine Verse" as one of the thirty most distinguished poems published in the United States in 1916. Other previous contributors are Marguerite Wilkin son, John Hall Wheelock, Louis Ginsberg, Fhoebe Hcffman, John Russell McCarthy and Marjorie Allen Seiffert. Jeannette Marks, novelist, as well as poet, is a member of the faculty of Mt. Holyoke College.
