The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1913-02-04

With toil-twitched limbs he bends:
around his hut
Want, like a hobbiing bag. goes night
and day.
Scolding at windows and a, doors
tight-shut.
Crafts client sister and the daughter
deep
OF Contemplation. she, who spreads
below
A hostile tent soft comfort for her
With eyes OF Jael watching till he
sleep.
The Locust Blossom.
The spirit Spring, in rainy raiment.
The spirit Summer for a moonlit
hour
Sweet from their greeting kisses, warm
and wet
Earth shaped the fragrant purity Of
this flower.
The charge that in narrative and
dramatic poetry Mr.. Cawein is an alb
solute n~onentity appears. at first
glance, to be more difficult to meet
than the other two charges. But here
let me ask "a couple of questions:
w NV oSt VI OUI SO-C1lkCu AIdSSlI~ki
period, except Longfellow alone. ever
accomplished anything in the field Of
sustained poetic narrative? And
American writer, previous to Percy
Mackaye and Josephine Preston Pea
body. ever succeeded in bringing forth
a poetic play which was both literary
and actable? If Madison Cawein is to
be consigned to second rank simply
because he never wrote a paradise
Lost" or a Hamlet" or V G a
"Hiawatha" or a Jeanne Dare"
then Poe, Lowell, and Walt Whitman
: must certainly follow him into the
gloom Of oblivion. But by implication
| have been conceding a point which
in justice to Mr.. CaWein i have no
; right to concede. When / hear a
smart young critic naively state that
/, Madison CaWein never wrote a mar
rative poem, / am filed with Wonder
ment that the critic never read
"~Lynchers.' a piece which beyond the
c semblance of a doubt n with "The
Revenge OF Hamish" and Skipper
e Ireson'S Ride" It requires more thar
q pretty rimester, more than a dainty
? sonneteer. to indite sucn a poem as
his:
e At the moons d~own-going. let it be
r Or the quarry hill with its one gnarlet
y Inc Ico-IOCh IOdu Oh the uIltitE Df ASH
e Where the woman came through tn,
summer hush.
The sumach high, and the elder thick
Where We found the stone and tn
ragged stick.
d Tho trampled road of the thicket. full
OF footprints down to the QUAR-
pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue Q
lead,
d Where We found her lying stark an
.e dead.
The scraggy wood; the negro hut,
le With its doors and windows ocke
and shut. y
he A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp
A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
An oath; a scuffle; a ring Of masks
voice that nswer q voice tha
asks.
A group of shadows; the moons re
s, fieck;
A running moose and a mans bare
neck.
a. swings;
a The lonely night and a bats blac
Y At the moons d~own-going. let it
On the quarry hill with its one snarIe
il tree.
no One more point should be made
H. favor or Madison CIWcln. 1t is
in point which few will be inclined
I'd dispute, but as critics have not give
it nearly the notice they ought
give it. I must mention it here. NJ
cv Cawein has one more than any oths
no American to bring the spirit OF Ell
ch land, the spirit which has lent
H. much Of charm to the poetry OF Col,
r. ridge and Shelley and Keats, into o,
poetry. Our major bards, Poe ar
,r Whitman alone excepted, were Pur
70 tans by blood and by tradition. Ar
It ~ Adi.its u"et. ~ 'aeil "olIu, y
III through Cawein's realm the Oberol
and Pucks and Titanias fit as airil
as gracefully. and as j~oyously as tht
70 did through the woodland haunts
ut Lysander and Hernia. Who can rea
ia children OF the Moon" without Zee
ing hat Madison Cawein is our co
Summate laureate OF Fairyland?