I believe the Mew poem was rather thoroughly discussed in an earlier thread on this forum. With this and another poem in Norton, she is hardly unrecognized, as compared to many equally good or even better poets such as Lionel Johnson, John Davidson, Edith Joy Scovell, May Probyn, Henri Coulette, and Dick Barnes.
If a poet's contribution to our lives be considered, the case of Katherine Lee Bates (1859-1929) seems especially deserving of notice. Does anyone here recognize her name? Does anyone here possess a book of her poems? Selected stanzas from her poem "America the Beautiful" have swelled hundreds of millions of hearts, and not only during upsurges of patriotic feeling such as that following September 11, 2001.
An English literature professor at Wellsley College throughout her long working life, Katherine Bates wrote more than thirty books, including several volumes of poetry. Given the march of feminism,the growing emphasis on gay and lesbian rights, etc., it seems surprising that her life and her work have not attracted more interest in recent times.
Here is an occasionally rhymed, heterometrical poem she wrote following the death of her fellow Wellsley teacher and life partner, Katherine Coman:
Yellow Clover
Must I, who walk alone,
Come on it still,
This Puck of plants
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine slants
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
Which once in parting for a time
That then seemed long,
Ere time for you was over,
We sealed our own?
Do you remember yet,
O Soul beyond the stars,
Beyond the uttermost dim bars
Of space,
Dear Soul who found the earth sweet,
Remember by love's grace,
In dreamy hushes of heavenly song,
How suddenly we halted in our climb,
Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
And gave them as a token
Each to each,
In lieu of speech,
In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet
With a strange dew of tears?
So it began,
This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,
To be our tenderest language. All the years
It lent a new zest to the summer hours,
As each of us went scheming to surprise
The other with our homely, laureate flowers,
Sonnets and odes,
Fringing our daily roads.
Can amaranth and asphodel
Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?
Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,
Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,
Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,
Simplicities of mirth,
Must follow them above
With touches of vague homesickness that pass
Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.
How oft, beneath some foreign arch of sky,
The rover,
You or I,
For life oft sundered look from look,
And voice from voice, the transient dearth
Schooling my soul to brook
This distance that no messages may span,
Would chance
Upon our wilding by a lonely well,
Or drowsy watermill,
Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,
Or where the nightingales of old romance
With tragical contraltos fill
Dim solitudes of infinite desire;
And once I joyed to meet
Our peasant gadabout
A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,
Twinkling a saucy eye
As potentates paced by.
Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame
From friendship's altar fire!
How proudly we would pluck and tame
The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!
How swiftly they were sent
Far, far away
On journeys wide
By sea and continent,
Green miles and blue leagues over,
From each of us to each,
That so our hearts might reach
And touch within the yellow clover,
Love's letter to be glad about
Like sunshine when it came!
My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
Let love then make me brave
To bear the keen hurts of
This careless summertide,
Ay, of our own poor flower,
Changed with our fatal hour,
For all its sunshine vanished when you died.
Only white clover blossoms on your grave.
(The rhythm of this last line invites comparison with the famous last line of Hardy's "During Wind and Rain," does it not?)
Miss Bates' books are nearly all long out of print. I have checked several large libraries and find none of her poetry books.
G.
[This message has been edited by Golias (edited February 25, 2002).]
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