The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II (90 page)

S
OURCE:
Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts
(December 1921).

Bantams
in Pine-Woods
(1922)

            
Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan

            
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

            
Damned universal cock, as if the sun

            
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

            
Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.

            
Your world is you. I am my world.

            
You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!

            
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

            
Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,

            
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

S
OURCE:
The Dial
(July 1922).

The
Emperor of Ice-Cream
(1922)

        
Call the roller of big cigars,

        
The muscular one, and bid him whip

        
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

        
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

        
As they are used to wear, and let the boys

        
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

        
Let be be finale of seem.

        
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

        
Take
from the dresser of deal,

        
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

        
On which she embroidered fantails once

        
And spread it so as to cover her face.

        
If her horny feet protrude, they come

        
To show how cold she is, and dumb.

        
Let the lamp affix its beam.

        
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

S
OURCE:
The Dial
(July 1922).

1.
The following version is the “Sunday Morning” as it was first published—cropped and rearranged by the editor of
Poetry Magazine
, Harriet Monroe. Stevens restored the poem in 1923 in
Harmonium
.

WILLIAM
CARLOS WILLIAMS

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was probably the most influential American poet of the twentieth century; his work, so vivid and clear, conveyed image and thought in lightning strokes. For most of his life, Williams was a doctor in Rutherford, New Jersey, and wrote poetry, fiction, and essays in the moments and periods that he wasn't seeing patients.

The
Young Housewife
(1916)

                
At ten
A.M.
the young housewife

                
moves about in négligé behind

                
the wooden walls of her husband's house.

                
I pass solitary in my car.

                
Then again she comes to the curb

                
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands

                
shy, uncorseted, tucking in

                
stray ends of hair, and I compare her

                
to a fallen leaf.

                
The noiseless wheels of my car

                
rush with a crackling sound over

                
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

S
OURCE:
Others: A Magazine of the New Verse
. December 1916.

Pastoral
(“When I was younger”)
(1917)

                
When I was younger

                
it was plain to me

                
I must make something of myself.

                
Older now

                
I walk back streets

                
admiring the houses

                
of the very poor:

                
roof out of line with sides

                
the yards cluttered

                
with old chicken wire, ashes,

                
furniture gone wrong;

                
the fences and outhouses

                
built of barrel-staves

                
and parts of boxes, all,

                
if I am fortunate,

                
smeared a bluish green

                
that properly weathered

                
pleases me best

                
of all colors.

                                    
No one

                
will believe this

                
of vast import to the nation.

S
OURCE:
William Carlos Williams.
Al Que Quiere!
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917.

Apology
(1917)

                            
Why do I write today?

                            
The beauty of

                            
the terrible faces

                            
of our nonentities

                            
stirs me to it:

                            
colored
women

                            
day workers—

                            
old and experienced—

                            
returning home at dusk

                            
in cast off clothing

                            
faces like

                            
old Florentine oak.

                            
Also

                            
the set pieces

                            
of your faces stir me—

                            
leading citizens—

                            
but not

                            
in the same way.

S
OURCE:
William Carlos Williams.
Al Que Quiere!
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917.

Danse
Russe
(1917)

                
If I when my wife is sleeping

                
and the baby and Kathleen

                
are sleeping

                
and the sun is a flame-white disc

                
in silken mists

                
above shining trees,—

                
if I in my north room

                
danse naked, grotesquely

                
before my mirror

                
waving my shirt round my head

                
and singing softly to myself:

                
“I am lonely, lonely.

                
I was born to be lonely,

                
I am best so!”

                
If I admire my arms, my face

                
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

                
against the yellow drawn shades,—

                
who
shall say I am not

                
the happy genius of my household?

S
OURCE:
William Carlos Williams.
Al Que Quiere!
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917.

Smell!
(1917)

        
Oh strong ridged and deeply hollowed

        
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?

        
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,

        
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,

        
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled

        
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth

        
beneath them. With what deep thirst

        
we quicken our desires

        
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!

        
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors

        
for something less unlovely? What girl will care

        
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?

        
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?

        
Must you have a part in everything?

S
OURCE:
William Carlos Williams.
Al Que Quiere!
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917.

Spring
Strains
(1917)

            
In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds

            
crowded erect with desire against

            
the sky—

                            
tense blue-grey twigs

            
slenderly anchoring them down, drawing

            
them in—

                            
two blue-grey birds chasing

            
a third struggle in circles, angles,

            
swift convergings to a point that bursts

            
instantly!

                            
Vibrant
bowing limbs

            
pull downward, sucking in the sky

            
that bulges from behind, plastering itself

            
against them in packed rifts, rock blue

            
and dirty orange!

                                
But—

            
(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)

            
the blinding and red-edged sun-blur—

            
creeping energy, concentrated

            
counterforce—welds sky, buds, trees,

            
rivets them in one puckering hold!

            
Sticks through! Pulls the whole

            
counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,

            
locks even the opaque, not yet defined

            
ground in a terrific drag that is

            
loosening the very tap-roots!

            
On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds

            
two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,

            
at full cry! Now they are

            
flung outward and up—disappearing suddenly!

S
OURCE:
William Carlos Williams.
Al Que Quiere!
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1917.