Adelaide Crapsey

[Dark Muse]

Adelaide Crapsey is the inventor of the cinquain form. I really like the dark aspect of her poetry


The Lonely Death

IN the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them aflame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.

November Night

LISTEN . . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.

Dirge

NEVER the nightingale,
Oh, my dear,
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;
Though dusk and the morning still
Tap at thy window-sill,
Though ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear.

Moon Shadows

STILL as
On windless nights
The moon-cast shadows are,
So still will be my heart when I
Am dead.

The Warning

JUST now,
Out of the strange
Still dust . . . as strange, as still . . .
A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown
So cold?

[Dark Muse]

To the Dead in the Grave-Yard Under My Window
Written in a Moment of Exasperation

HOW can you lie so still? All day I watch
And never a blade of all the green sod moves
To show where restlessly you toss and turn,
And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees
Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;
I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth
To take its freedom of the midnight hour.
Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?
The very worms must scorn you where you lie,
A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk,
Meek habitants of unresented graves.
Why are you there in your straight row on row
Where I must ever see you from my bed
That in your mere dumb presence iterate
The text so weary in my ears: "Lie still
And rest; be patient and lie still and rest."
I'll not be patient! I will not lie still!
There is a brown road runs between the pines,
And further on the purple woodlands lie,
And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom;
And I would walk the road and I would be
Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach
The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds.
My eyes may follow but my feet are held.
Recumbent as you others must I too
Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness
With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod?
And if the many sayings of the wise
Teach of submission I will not submit
But with a spirit all unreconciled
Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars.
Better it is to walk, to run, to dance,
Better it is to laugh and leap and sing,
To know the open skies of dawn and night,
To move untrammel'd down the flaming noon,
And I will clamour it through weary days
Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp,
Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips
Of resignation, sister to defeat.
I'll not be patient. I will not lie still.

And in ironic quietude who is
The despot of our days and lord of dust
Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop
Grim casual comment on rebellion's end:
"Yes; yes . . . Wilful and petulant but now
As dead and quiet as the other are."
And this each body and ghost of you hath heard
That in your graves do therefore lie so still.

[JBI]

Just so you know, Adelaide was a woman, not a man.

These contain some interesting things, though I am not convinced enough to buy a book, I'm afraid. Perhaps giving us a little more personal reflection/response on the work?

[Dark Muse]

Oh sorry, thank you for correcting me. I will go and fix that.

I really do not know that much about her, clearly, considering that horrid mistake I made. I just happend upon her poetry and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would share.

I am a bit tied up right now, but when I have more time, I will return and perhaps talk more indepthly about some of the poems

[Dark Muse]

One of the things which really stuck me about her work, is that it rang with an almost spiritual note to me. I loved the way in which she apporached nature in a lot of her poems. And though many of them to surround around the idea of death. I see death, and darkness as being a part of the balance that is nature. And she brings a certain beauty to what one might view as the "dark-half" of nature. Her words speak to me upon a deep level.

She combines two of the things of which I am most drawn to in her work. Darkness and nature. Her work just really strikes a cord within me.

[Jozanny]

To the Dead in the Grave-Yard Under My Window
Written in a Moment of Exasperation

HOW can you lie so still? All day I watch
And never a blade of all the green sod moves
To show where restlessly you toss and turn,
And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees
Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;
I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth
To take its freedom of the midnight hour.

Dark, I know nothing of Crapsey but love this; it is almost a precursor to my own narrative elegy. I will do some research and perhaps offer more critique later. Thank you so.