Death
I have always wished to know of death. I have always wondered what became of me when I went back to earth. Today I know.
I have watched a soul die and have heard its pain. Beside it I have stood and listened to its cries. I have watched it sicken and have noted how it struggled.
Life was beautiful to it. There never was so exquisite a soul. It leaped, and burned and danced when it was born. It was so radiant the dark world into which it came grew light.
I have always wished to know of death. Today I know.
It was raining softly and we sat within a room with pictures all about—a woman, fresh and young, and I—and trembled. The beauty and the loveliness of her were dawning in me. And something of myself that had not been took being. I loved. There was nothing as beautiful as her lips. There was nothing as beautiful as her eyes. There was nothing then in all the world as beautiful as she I loved. It was my soul. Restless as a song it reached from day to day to light new moments with its melody. Ever and forever it went singing, “I will live beyond the stars. I will live beyond the mystery of flesh. When the woman who awakened me is turned to dust I will live as now and sing as now.”
I have always wondered what became of me when I went back to earth. Today I know.
It was so precious and so fierce. I loved so. I had but to look on her and taste of immortality.
Beside it I have stood and listened to its cries. I have noted how it struggled. In the night I have repeated its brave words, “Ever and forever.” I have nursed it from her lips. I have given it to feed upon her breast.
It would not live. I loved so, I loved so—and yet I ceased to love.
There is one thing in the world that will not live. There is one thing mortal more than life. It is the beauty of which poets sing. Beauty dies in every moment. It is mortal with the hours. It flashes and it dies. It leaps and dies. It sings and dies.
I loved so and yet I ceased to love.
Her eyes became as nothing. Her lips became as nothing. Her voice became as nothing. Her laughter and her tears, the movement of her body when she walked, the strangeness of her face, the mysteries that made her one apart and glorified her and the radiance that burned in me at her approach—all became as nothing.
Miserable God. False Promiser. I have wished to know of death. I have wondered what became of me when I went back to earth. Today I know.
“The Scavenger.”
Children’s Poems
Alice Oliver Henderson, eight-year-old poet, wrote the following five poems when she was only seven. Her method is to chant them to her mother, Alice Corbin Henderson, who takes them down exactly as they are dictated. Mrs. Henderson thinks their interest lies in the fact that they are the expression of a child’s mind, and so she refuses to change or “improve” them. Besides, it might be difficult to “improve” such lines as “The moon shines against my heart”.... The other poems in the group were written by Percy Mackaye’s children—Arvia’s at the age of ten, and Robin’s at twelve. Mr. Mackaye says that his daughter’s were done while it was still difficult for her to read or write, but that she has always been read aloud to and has learned considerable poetry by heart.