Category: Digital Anthology

“The Letter” by Amy Lowell

The Letter

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper

Like draggled fly's legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves?

Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

Of blossoming hawthorns,

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness

Beneath my hand.

 

I am tired, Beloved, o f chafing my heart against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the great moon.

 

Amy Lowell's poem "The Letter" was published in the 1915 Some Imagist Poets anthology. Follow the links below to read the poem in a digitized version of this publication:

Archive.org

HathiTrust

The Modernist Journals Project

“Rag-time” by Osbert Sitwell

Rag-time

The lamps glow here and there, then echo down
The vast deserted vistas of the town :—
Each light the echo'd note of some refrain
Repeated in the city's fevered brain.
Yet all is still, save when there wanders past
—Finding the silence of the night too long—
Some tattered wretch who, from the night outcast,
Sings with an aching heart a comic song.

[ . . . ]

Osbert Sitwell's poem "Rag-time" was published in the 1917 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

Librivox audio recording hosted on Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

“Weariness” by Witter Bynner

Weariness

There is a dear weariness of love . . .

Hand relaxed in hand.

Shoulder at rest upon shoulder.

[ . . . ]

Witter Bynner's poem "Weariness" was published in 1920 in the third Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“The Fugitive” by John Freeman

The Fugitive

In the hush of early even

The clouds came flocking over,

Till the last wind fell from heaven

And no bird cried.

 

Darkly the clouds were flocking,

Shadows moved and deepened,

Then paused ; the poplar's rocking

Ceased ; the light hung still

 

Like a painted thing, and deadly.

Then from the cloud's side flickered

Sharp lightning, thrusting madly

At the cowering fields.

 

Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd,

Down the hill slow thunder trembled

Day in her cave grew frightened,

Crept away, and died.

 

John Freeman's poem "The Fugitive" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“Lincoln” by John Gould Fletcher

Lincoln

 

I
Like a gaunt, scraggly pine

Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills;

And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence,

Untended and uncared for, starts to grow.

 

Ungainly, labouring, huge,

The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches;

Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunder-clouds

ring the horizon,

A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade.

 

And it shall protect them all,

Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence;

Until at last one mad stray bolt from the zenith

Shall strike it in an instant down to earth.

 

II
There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow

darkness,

Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor

enter;

A darkness through which strong roots stretched down

wards into the earth

Towards old things;

[ . . . ]

John Gould Fletcher's poem "Lincoln" was published in the 1917 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Hathitrust

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg

“Zeppelins: I” by Iris Tree

Zeppelins: I

The startling thunder bursting from a gun :
How swift runs Fear, quicksilver that is freed !
Now every muscle weakens, every pulse
Is set at gallop-pace, and every nerve
Stretched taut with terror and a mad revolt.
The fear of death, the longing still to live,—
Live in a vain world racked with hundred pains,

[ . . . ]

Iris Tree's poem "Zeppelins: I" was published in the 1916 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Modernist Journals Project

“Primpara: The Valley Harvest” by H.L. Davis

The Valley Harvest

Honey in the horn! I brought my horse from the

water

And from the white grove of tall alders over the

spring,

And brought him past a row of high hollyhocks

Which flew and tore their flowers thin as his mane.

And women there watched, with hair blown over their

mouths;

Yet in watching the oat field they were quiet as the

spring.

[ . . . ]

H.L. Davis' poem "Primpara: The Valley Harvest" was published in Others for 1919. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

 

“Invocation” by Francis Brett Young

Invocation

Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee?

For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing,

And wait on thy appearing,

Lo ! my lips are silent : no words come to me.

 

Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers,

Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle

Alas ! her presence lingers                            fingers ;

No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel

hovers.

[ . . . ]

Francis Brett Young's poem "Invocation" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“Postlude” by William Carlos Williams

Postlude

Now that I have cooled to you
Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,
Temples soothed by the sun to ruin
That sleep utterly.
Give me hand for the dances,
Ripples at Philse, in and out,
And lips, my Lesbian,
Wall flowers that once were flame.

[ . . . ]

William Carlos Williams poem "Interlude" was published in the 1914 Des Imagistes anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Blue Mountain Project (The Glebe)

The Modernist Journals Project (The Glebe)

The Modernist Journals Project (Publisher: Albert and Charles Boni, NY)

The Modernist Journals Project (Publisher: The Poetry Bookshop, London)

“Envious Youth” by Helen Rootham

Envious Youth

I am not old enough to claim the privilege of years,
To sit apart and say to youth—
'Now watch my nodding wisdom;
Pay reverence to that you cannot see
Has any claim to reverence but age.'
I am not old enough to say to youth,
'I too once felt like you. But now the years
Sit heavy on my shoulders—therefore you are wrong.'
I cannot fold my hands, and having lived my life
Count with uneasy eyes the heavy, passing hours,
Nursing each minute with unceasing care,
Lest an unwary movement snatch a few from me.
For I am young, and in my glad young veins
The blood runs freely.
I seize each passing hour
And fling it gaily where its fellows lie,
And care not what old age doth call that heap—
The Past—the Present—or To Be.
Why should I care ? All time is mine,
Or should be.
But wise age has held the world,
And turned it round and round,
Until the sudden death that age avoids with anxious care
Lurks in its every corner, and claims
Not age, but me.

 

Helen Rootham's poem "Envious Youth" was published in the 1916 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

Modernist Journals Project