Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell,
Who went to battle forth and always fell.
Roy Helton
Roy Helton was born at Washington, D. C., in 1886. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1908. He studied art—and found he was color-blind. He spent two years at inventions—and found he had no business sense. After a few more experiments, he became a schoolmaster in West Philadelphia.
Helton’s first volume, Youth’s Pilgrimage (1915), is a strange, mystical affair, full of vague symbolism with a few purple patches. Outcasts in Beulah Land (1918) is entirely different in theme and treatment. This is a much starker verse; a poetry of city streets, direct and sharp.
IN PASSING
Through the dim window, I could see
The little room—a sordid square
Of helter-skelter penury:
Piano, whatnot, splintered chair....