Daily Kennebec journal., 1921-08-13
Bath Birthplace
Of the Mad Poet
Mcdonald Clarke

1t is now almost exactly q hundred
years since there appeared on the
streets of New York a young man of
singular and vet noble appearance
a man with touZIed hair open and
flowing collar and most sensitive and
! tender eyes, who became known at
once in the little city as the Mad
! Poet, says Listener in the Boston
Transcript. 1t was noted that he
was Intensely and chivalrously de-
voted to women. and particularly to
the most beautiful bellies of the day.
! To them he dedicated ardent strains
of poetic eulogy which were grateful
to them, but his oddities and eccen-
tricities made conventional young la
| dies of the period somewhat careful
! of the way in which they favored
him with their smiles. There was,
however, nothing the matter with
/ his moral conduct. He was without
vices, and was a regular and devout
attendant at the services of Grace
church on Broadway. He began to
pour forth volume after volume of
verses which he seems to have had
no difficulty in getting printed. His
first volume was "A Review of the
Eve of Eternity, and Other Poems"
published in 1920. This gave him a
personal vogue. and it was followed
in 1922 by Tho Elixir of Moonshine,
by the Mad Poet" His name was
Mcdonald Clarke; nobody seems to
have known just where he came
from, but he left behind him frag-
nf nh IN p-b l,n
said: porn in Path. on the kenne-
bee river, State of Maine, 18th June,
1898: first love, Mary H., of New Lon
don; last love, Mary T. of New York;
intermediate SWeetheartS without
number" firing perhaps of New
York publishers, his fifth volume.
| death in Disguise" was issued by a
Boston publisher in 1888 and this
volume contains the only lines of his
that are famous-and they indeed,
are we'll known.
Whilst twilight's curtain spreading
far
Was pinned with a single star.
f! These lines were improved by Mrs.
Childs to read as follows:
Now twilight lets her curtain down
! And pins it with star
And it is in this form that the con-
ceit is nowadays invariably quoted
1t is, Of course, Il very much strained
figure, which does violence to the
simple rules of poetry but it has
greatly pleased the popular fancy.
Clarke, who was one of the original
. temperance reformers, also wrote a
til,
tenth edition of "Bartlett's Familiar
QCotatiOnS:"
"Ha. see where the wild blazing
srog- shop appears.
As the red waves Of wretchedness
swell;
How ii burns on the edge of tenn
peStuous years.
The horrible Light house of He'll"
The phrase lighthouse of hell" be-
came indeed a familiar one in the
temperance agitation. But though
Mcdonald Clarke was never a drunk
ard, he died death that was worthy
of one. In March, 1912. he was found
by a policeman on the street in New
York in helpless and apparently de-
mcnt"d condition and was put in
cell in a city prison, as a place of
temporary refuge and here he was in
some manner drowned by water
pouring from an open faucet
Whether ii has ever been proposed
in Bath. Maine, to raise on it's pub
lie square a statue to Mcdonald
Clarke, the Mad Poet, the Listener
has never heard.
The international Encyclopedia
gives but a brief paragraph to Nc
Donald Clarke, crediting Bath, Maine,
with being his native town and
states that he was born here in 1875
and died in New York City in 1872
It agrees that the Bath man was
called the Mad Poet, but states that
he was ncvei violent and that his un-
SOundness of mind was rather a
boundless egotism rather than absO-
lutte lunacy. He believed that he was
a great poet but produced only a few
lines of real poetry in the midst of an
ocean of trash. Clarke cut quite
figure in New York City for years.
says the paragraph in the Encyclope-
dia and this authority credits him with
some very good lines, among the best
being:
Night drew her mantle Ger her
breast
And pinned it with a star.
This version the Times prefers to
the listeners oUOtati ions of the lines