The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-11-03
AN ERRAT GENIUS WAS RICHARD REALF, POET
Once Newspaper Man, the Writer of Some of the
Most Brilliant Poems in American Litera-
ture Died Suicide.

And wolflike hunger of the fam
ishing heart;
For not until my sundering fibres
crack,
And my torn limbs from their wren
chcd sockets start,
Oh. darling, darlng' VIII I yield me
To that lone hell whence. studder
through and through
With one wild tigerleap | sprang to
you
The antithcsis OF this is in The
Children," whose first verse is quoted;
DO you love me, little children?
O, Sweet blossoms that arc curled
U.ifc's tender morning -gloriesD
Round the easement of the world.
DO your hearts climb up toward me,
AS my heart bends to you,
In the beauty OF your dawning
And the briGh,ness OF your dew
Here are two verses from a poem
called "Nanlcless which is the ut
tcrance of black despair:
Judge | plead guilty; he speaks the
truth:
am what he saws, and what you see.
So old in damned unhallOwcd youth
That your wrinkied years seem
young to me,
Don't preach-dont lecture. | know it
The easy canting the fluent words
The solemn drivel OF text from Paul,
And Il mangled phrase or two or
tho Lords.
And Something mocks you when you
laugh,
And Something jeers you when you
weep;
And hell-fire turks in the wine you
uuaff,
Ana a fiend grins at you in your
sleep;
And coiling horror sucks you down
Through a black and bottomless
abyss.
Judge. do you think your legal trOWn
Can auger punishment worse than
this"
In "a Voice from City Cellar"
"Song Of the Outcast,' and Song Of
the Seamstress" are embodied that
protest against the injustice Of the
present social system which strikes a
contemporary note, and shows the
catholicity of Realf's sympathies.
A strange poem called "Hashish,"
affects to tell the effect of drugs on
the imagination and is filled with a
weird fascination, and yet the same
poet could write, in "Indrection"-
his best known poem
Fair are the flowers and the children,
but their subtle suggestion is
fairer;
Rare is the rosebud of dawn, but the
secret that clasps it is rarnr;
Sweet the exultance of song, but the
strain that precedes it is sweet
And never was poem yet writ. but the
meaning mastered the meter.
Space is nothing to spirit, the deed is
outdone by the doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but
warmer the heart of the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiv-
err, and up from the heights
where those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim star
ward. and the essence of life is
divine"
These are fragmentary and perhaps
not entirely representative Of the
most superlataive of Realf's poetic
gifts but they will serve to illustrate
his versatility in expression.
Rcalf can only be an object of COM
miseration. His was a turbulent exis-
tence--torn with the beauty and pas
sion of life, hurled back and forth be-
tween the extremes of eXaltatiOn and
despair, the prey of his own volatile
, emotions, rent by his vision Of the
truth and his knowledge of his fail
ure to embody it in his spiritual and
physical fabric --ohseSsed with his
poetic art--he is pitiable figure.
But beyond every consideration he
was a man to whom had been reveal
.I tho IF p,outy