Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown –

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind –

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –

A poem should not mean
But be.

From: https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-17972

Date: 1926

By: Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

Hatred by Gwendolyn Bennett Bennett

I shall hate you
Like a dart of singing steel
Shot through still air
At even-tide,
Or solemnly
As pines are sober
When they stand etched
Against the sky.
Hating you shall be a game
Played with cool hands
And slim fingers.
Your heart will yearn
For the lonely splendor
Of the pine tree
While rekindled fires
In my eyes
Shall wound you like swift arrows.
Memory will lay its hands
Upon your breast
And you will understand
My hatred.

From: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/classic-women-authors-poetry/poems-by-gwendolyn-b-bennett/

Date: 1926

By: Gwendolyn Bennett Bennett (1902-1981)

War Commemoration 1925 by Walter Sherard Vines

Today we must recall abysmal follies
That have bequeathed out friends to flies and sour clay
That bent the air with groaning flights of steel
Or sweetened it with a shell’s livid breath,
Turned wholesome plains and gentle lakes to filth,
Tore up our continent in unscavenged belts
Through cross-edged meadows and afforested heights
Where the guns crouched in pits and shouted
Lunatic judgement in dull obedience.

We must remember the weary stand-to
Of millions, pale in corpse-infected mist,
The mad, and those turned monsters, or castrated
In one red, hideous moment; and how, unseen
Dark Mania sat in offices and designed
New schemes for shambles, learning year by year,
Painfully, secretly, to degrade the world.

From: https://allpoetry.com/Sherard-Vines

Date: 1926

By: Walter Sherard Vines (1890-1974)

What Passes and Endures by John Ceiriog Hughes

Still the mighty mountains stand
And the great winds about them roar;
And all around we hear at dawn
The shepherds’ old‑time songs
And daisies growing in cleft and rock
Still thrust and grow and thrive
‘Tis only the shepherds who are new
Among these timeless, mighty hills.

Year succeeds year; the customs change
Old gives place to new.
The generations come and go
Some with gladness, others tears
Freed from storm and stress,
Alun Mabon finds his rest
Yet the old tongue lives on
And the old songs endure.

From: http://www.ballinagree.freeservers.com/arosmaeeng.html

Date: 18?? (original in Welsh); 1926 (translation in English)

By: John Ceiriog Hughes (1832-1887)

Translated by: Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931)

Histrionics by Lola Ridge

–Albert Parsons*
went to his death
singing Annie Laurie;
didn’t another have
a rose in his coat–
or was it a pink–
dramatizing himself–

Blooded rose
stalk
hanging out of an empty
coat lapel,
or was it a pink carnation
rose color soft as sunrise
glimmering upon a gallows,
and streak of silver song
ravelled with the rain
on a filthy Chicago morning in the Eighties–
you shall outlast horizons.

*Albert Parsons (1848-1887), known as one of the Haymarket Martyrs, was convicted of conspiracy following an attack on police in Chicago on 4 May 1886. He was the editor of a weekly anarchist newspaper and a strong supporter of the 8-hour day. He was executed by hanging on 11 November 1887.

From: http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/poetry/histrionics.html

Date: 1926

By: Lola Ridge (1873-1941)

The Taaty Paasty by Morgan Anthony

Now touch your pipe comrades says I
And niver be too hasty,
And I will make a footch to rhyme
about a Tatty-Paasty

There’s mait enuf of iv’ry sort
All fillin like and taasty;
But. For a Carnish miners mait,
Give me a Taaty-Paasty.

Good-Lor-What lots of em I’ve carr’d
To bal when I were little-
Baaked ‘pon the brandis long with furse,
En baaker and en kittle!

Iss slabs es handy, I deer saay-
Theres piles of new things maaken-
But give me Mawther’s baaker, soas!
That theer’s the thing for baaken!

Slabs, kitcheners, and what besides-
I’d fooch awaay them trade;
No pasties iver was sa good
As them that Mather made!

The fire-ook in her hand,
a-footchen ‘bout the burnen sticks,
And doin’ pasties grand!

An then she’d saay, “Tey’er ready, ‘bleeve!”
Jist as the fit would take her,
And slip a knife right in between
The bake-ire and the baaker.

“Aw, they’re done beautiful!” she’d saay.
“Fauwl wan se burnt a bit-
Well niver mind-‘tes luch I s’pose;
We take what we can git!

Now maidens, taake they paasties up,
An’ put en all you’ve got;
A pass’l o’ hungry grawen booys
Well ait a braa big lot!”

Et may not ba sa very rech,
Nor yit sa very shawy;
But nawthen’s like a pasty, soas,
To feed a grawen booy!

An ‘ then they aren’t like pie or stew,
Or brath, or fish-an-tates,
Or fried petates; for they you must
Have baasins, dishes plates.

An’ knives and farks, an’ spoons an’ things
An’ table, to be sure;
But for a pasty hands an’ jaws
Will do, weth nawthen moore.

Jist drap’n en your handkercher,
Wan carner sticken out;
Then bite an’ chow which way you mind,
You’re right enough, no doubt.

You needn’t have et en no room,
Nor set upon no cheer ;
Jist choose a spat of handy grass
An’ setty down right theer.

Or lean your back agin a hedge,
Or quatty ‘pon a board,
An’ then you wudn, ef you cud,
Chaange denners weth a loor!

So good luck to the pasty, booys,
The aiter, and the maker;
And good luck to the baaken-ire,
The brandis, and the baaker –

Good luck to all the Carnish booys,
That niver yit was baiten;
A pasty may they niver want
Nor Stummick for to ait’n!

From: http://www.cornishdialect.oldcornwall.org/dialect_poetry.htm

Date: 1926 (published)

By: Morgan Anthony (1828-1906)

On Bringing Him Up by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

(to be read solemnly)

Mister Thomas Jones
Said to his son:
”Never swallow bones,
Never point a gun.

Never slam a door,
Never play with flames,
Never shun the poor.”
”Dull old fool!” said James.

From: Cole, William (ed), Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls, 1990, Mammoth: London, p. 15.

Date: 1926

By: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)

The Mower by Sylvia Dryhurst Lynd

The rooks travelled home,
The milch cows went lowing,
And down in the meadow
An old man was mowing.

His shirt rank with sweat,
His neck stained with grime;
But he moved like the cadence
And sweetness of rhyme.

He moved like the heavy-winged
Rooks, the slow cows,
He moved like the vane
On the roof of the house.

The foam of the daisies
Was spread like a sea,
The spikes of red sorrel
Came up past his knee.

The sorrel, the daisies,
The white and the gold —
A man who was dirty
And twisted and old —

But again and again
Like an eddy he was.
He moved like the wind
In his own tasselled grass.

From: http://www.archive.org/stream/sylvialynd00lyndrich/sylvialynd00lyndrich_djvu.txt

Date: 1926

By: Sylvia Dryhurst Lynd

The Ugly Duckling by Edward Davison

At last the cygnet, preening his plumed snow,
Wins the mid-stream. Mark his new beauty well!
Erect, uplit he sails; in the clear flow

Reflected, breast and wing,
And proud beak winnowing
The April air, all carved like a sea-shell.

Out of deformity he grew to this
Divinest form, burgeoning on the stream,
A living water-flower. He scorned the hiss

And cackle in those ranks
That watched him from the banks;
He knew what seed he was: he had his dream.

And the dream raised the seed and moulded him
In its own secret image, secretly:
Refashioned him, curved serpentine and slim

That delicate white neck
Feathered without a fleck,
Taught him his poise, shaped him the thing you see.

O Thou that shepherdest the waddling geese
Upon the flowery banks of Helicon,
Bid the hoarse gabble, the upbraiding, cease,

And guide Thy flock to see
How lonely and leisurely
Sails on this sunny river the young swan.

From: http://www.archive.org/stream/mercurybookofver031179mbp/mercurybookofver031179mbp_djvu.txt

Date: 1926

By: Edward Davison (1898-1970)

Verse For A Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
(For Heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir.
(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
High in young pride you hold your noble head,
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
(Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
Yours the white rapture of a winged soul,
Yours is a spirit like a Mayday song.
(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

“Whatever is, is good” – your gracious creed.
You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed

(Drop it, I tell you- put that kitten down!)
You are God’s kindliest gift of all – a friend.
Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
(Couldn’t you wait until I took you out?)

 From: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/verse-for-a-certain-dog/

 Date: 1926

 By: Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)