Patience Worth — The Poetry
Am I a broken lyre, Who, at the Master’s touch, Respondeth with a tinkle and a whir?
Or am I strung in full And at His touch give forth the full chord?
—PATIENCE WORTH.
As the reader will have observed, the poetry of Patience Worth is not confined to a single theme, nor to a group of related themes.
It covers a range that extends from inanimate things through all the gradations of material life and on into the life of spiritual realms as yet uncharted.
It includes poems of sentiment, poems of nature, poems of humanity; but the larger number deal with man in relation to the mysteries of the beyond.
All of them evince intellectual power, knowledge of nature and human nature, and skill in construction.
With the exception of one or two little jingles, the poems are rhymeless.
Patience may not wholly agree with Milton that rhyme “is the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre,” but she seldom uses it, finding in blank verse a medium that suits all her moods, making it at will as light and ethereal as a summer cloud or as solemn and stately as a Wagnerian march.
She molds it to every purpose, and puts it to new and strange uses.
Who, for example, ever saw a lullaby in blank verse?
It is, I believe, quite without precedent in literature, and yet it would not be easy to find a lullaby more daintily beautiful than the one which will be presented later on.
In all of her verse, the iambic measure is dominant, but it is not maintained with monotonous regularity.
She appreciates the value of an occasional break in the rhythm, and she understands the uses of the pause.
But she declines to be bound by any rules of line measurement.
Many of her lines are in accord with the decasyllabic standard of heroic verse, but in no instance is that standard rigidly adhered to: some of the lines contain as many as sixteen syllables, others drop to eight or even six.
It should be explained, however, that the poetry as it comes from the ouija board is not in verse form.
There is nothing in the dictation to indicate where a line should begin or where end, nor, of course, is there any punctuation, there being no way by which the marks of punctuation could be denoted.
There is usually, however, a perceptible pause at the end of a sentence.
The words are taken down as they are spelled on the board, without any attempt, at the time, at versification or punctuation.
After the sitting, the matter is punctuated and lined as nearly in accord with the principles of blank verse construction as the abilities of the editor will permit.
It is not claimed that the line arrangement of the verses as they are here presented is perfect; but that is a detail of minor importance, and for whatever technical imperfections there may be in this particular, Patience Worth is not responsible.
The important thing is that every word is given exactly as it came from the board, without the alteration of a syllable, and without changing the position or even the spelling of a single one.
As a rule, Patience spells the words in accordance with the standards of today, but there are frequent departures from those standards, and many times she has spelled a word two or three different ways in the same composition.
For example, she will spell “spin” with one n or two n’s indifferently: she will spell “friend” correctly, and a little later will add an e to it; she will write “boughs” and “bows” in the same composition.
On the other hand she invariably spells tongue “tung,” and positively refuses to change it, and this is true also of the word bosom, which she spells “busom.
” There are indications that the poems and the stories are in course of composition at the time they are being produced on the ouija board.
Indeed, one can almost imagine the author dictating to an amanuensis in the manner that was necessary before stenography was invented, when every word had to be spelled out in longhand.
At times the little table will move with such rapidity that it is very difficult to follow its point with the eye and catch the letter indicated.
Then there will be a pause, and the pointer will circle around the board, as if the composer were trying to decide upon a word or a phrase.
Occasionally four or five words of a sentence will be given, then suddenly the planchette will dart up to the word “No,” and begin the sentence again with different and, it is to be presumed, more satisfactory words.
Sometimes, though rarely, Patience will begin a composition and suddenly abandon it with an exclamation of displeasure, or else take up a new and entirely different subject.
Once she began a prose composition thus: “I waste my substance on the weaving of web and the storing of pebbles.
When shall I build mine house, and when fill the purse?
Oh, that my fancy weaved not but web, and desire pricketh not but pebble!
” There was an impatient dash across the board, and then she exclaimed: “Bah, ’tis bally reasoning!
I plucked a gosling for a goose, and found down enough to pad the parson’s saddle skirts!
” At another time she began: “Rain, art thou the tears wept a thousand years agone, and soaked into the granite walls of dumb and feelingless races?
Now——” There was a long pause and then came this lullaby: Oh, baby, soft upon my breast press thou, And let my fluttering throat spell song to thee, A song that floweth so, my sleeping dear: Oh, buttercups of eve, Oh, willynilly, My song shall flutter on, Oh, willynilly.
I climb a web to reach a star, And stub my toe against a moonbeam Stretched to bar my way, Oh, willynilly.
A love-puff vine shall shelter us, Oh, baby mine;
And then across the sky we’ll float And puff the stars away.
Oh, willynilly, on we’ll go, Willynilly floating.
“Thee art o’erfed on pudding,” she added to Mrs. Curran.
“This sauce is but a butter-whip.
” And now, having briefly referred to the technique of the poems, and explained the manner in which they are transmitted we will make a more systematic presentation of them.
For a beginning, nothing better could be offered than the Spinning Wheel lullaby heretofore referred to.
In it we can see the mother of, perhaps, the Puritan days, seated at the spinning wheel while she sings to the child which is supposed to lie in the cradle by her side.
One can view through the open door the old-fashioned flower garden bathed in sunlight, can hear the song of the bird and the hum of the bee, and through it all the sound of the wheel.
But!
—it is the song of a childless woman to an imaginary babe: Patience has declared herself a spinster.
Strumm, strumm!
Ah, wee one, Croon unto the tendrill tipped with sungilt, Nodding thee from o’er the doorsill there.
Strumm, strumm!
My wheel shall sing to thee.
I pull the flax as golden as thy curl, And sing me of the blossoms blue, Their promise, like thine eyes to me.
Strumm, strumm!
’Tis such a merry tale I spinn.
Ah, wee one, croon unto the honey bee Who diggeth at the rose’s heart.
Strumm, strumm!
My wheel shall sing to thee, Heart-blossom mine.
The sunny morn Doth hum with lovelilt, dear.
I fain would leave my spinning To the spider climbing there, And bruise thee, blossom, to my breast.
Strumm, strumm!
What fancies I do weave!
Thy dimpled hand doth flutter, dear, Like a petal cast adrift Upon the breeze.
Strumm, strumm!
’Tis faulty spinning, dear.
A cradle built of thornwood, A nest for thee, my bird.
I hear thy crooning, wee one, And ah, this fluttering heart.
Strumm, strumm!
How ruthlessly I spinn!
My wheel doth wirr an empty song, my dear, For tendrill nodding yonder Doth nod in vain, my sweet;
And honey bee would tarry not For thee; and thornwood cradle swayeth Only to the loving of the wind!
Strumm, strumm!
My wheel still sings to thee, Thou birdling of my fancy’s realm!
Strumm, strumm!
An empty dream, my dear!
The sun doth shine, my bird;
Or should he fail, he shineth here Within my heart for thee!
Strumm, strumm!
My wheel still sings to thee.
Who would say that rhyme or measured lines would add anything to this unique song?
It is filled with the images which are the essentials of true poetry, and it has the rhythm which sets the imagery to music and gives it vitality.
“The tendrill tipped with sungilt,” “the sunny morn doth hum with lovelilt,” “thy dimpled hand doth flutter like a petal cast adrift upon the breeze”—these are figures that a Shelley would not wish to disown.
There is a lightness and delicacy, too, that would seem to be contrary to our notions of the adaptiveness of blank verse.
But these are technical features.
It is the pathos of the song, the expression of the mother-yearning instinctive in every woman, which gives it value to the heart.
And yet there is a pleasure expressed in this song, the pleasure of imagination, which makes the mind’s pictures living realities.
In the poem which follows Patience expresses the feelings of the dreamer who is rudely awakened from this delightful pastime by the realist who sees but what his eyes behold: Athin the even’s hour, When shadow purpleth the garden wall, Then sit thee there adream, And cunger thee from out the pack o’ me.
Yea, speak thou, and tell to me What ’tis thou hearest here.
A rustling?
Yea, aright!
A murmuring?
Yea, aright!
Ah, then, thou sayest, ’tis the leaves That love one ’pon the other.
Yea, and the murmuring, thou sayest, Is but the streamlet’s hum.
Nay, nay!
For wait thee.
Ayonder o’er the wall doth rise The white faced Sister o’ the Sky.
And lo, she beareth thee a fairies’ wand, And showeth thee the ghosts o’ dreams.
Look thou!
Ah, look!
A one Doth step adown the path!
The rustle?
‘Tis the silken whisper o’ her robe.
The hum?
The love-note o’ her maiden dream.
See thee, ah, see!
She bendeth there, And branch o’ bloom doth nod and dance.
Hark, the note!
A robin’s cheer?
Ah, Brother, nay.
’Tis the whistle o’ her lover’s pipe.
See, see, the path e’en now Doth show him, tall and dark, aside the gate.
What!
What!
Thou sayest ’Tis but the rustle o’ the leaves, And brooklet’s humming o’er its stony path!
Then hush!
Yea, hush thee!
Hush and leave me here!
The fairy wand hath broke, and leaves Stand still, and note hath ceased, And maiden vanished with thy word.
Thou, thou hast broke the spell, And dream hath heard thy word and fled.
Yea, sunk, sunk upon the path, They o’ my dreams—slain, slain, And dead with but thy word.
Ah, leave me here and go, For Earth doth hold not E’en my dreaming’s wraith.
In previous chapters I have spoken of the wit and humor of Patience Worth.
In only one instance has she put humor into verse, and that I have already quoted; but at times her poetry has an airy playfulness of form that gives the effect of humor, even though the theme and the intent may be serious.
Here is an example: Whiff, sayeth the wind, And whiffing on its way, doth blow a merry tale.
Where, in the fields all furrowed and rough with corn, Late harvested, close-nestled to a fibrous root, And warmed by the sun that hid from night there-neath, A wee, small, furry nest of root mice lay.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
I found this morrow, on a slender stem, A glory of the morn, who sheltered in her wine-red throat A tiny spinning worm that wove the livelong day,— Long after the glory had put her flag to mast— And spun the thread I followed to the dell, Where, in a gnarled old oak, I found a grub, Who waited for the spinner’s strand To draw him to the light.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
Whiff, sayeth the wind!
I blew a beggar’s rags, and loving Was the flapping of the cloth.
And singing on I went to blow a king’s mantle ’bout his limbs, And cut me on the crusted gilt.
And tainted did I stain the rose until she turned A snuffy brown and rested her poor head Upon the rail along the path.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
I blow me ’long the coast, And steal from out the waves their roar;
And yet from out the riffles do I steal The rustle of the leaves, who borrow of the riffle’s song From me at summer-tide.
And then I pipe unto the sands, who dance and creep Before me in the path.
I blow the dead And lifeless earth to dancing, tingling life, And slap thee to awake at morn.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
There is a vivacity in this odd conceit that in itself brings a smile, which is likely to broaden at the irony in the suggestion of the wind cutting itself on the crusted gilt of a king’s mantle.
Equally spirited in movement, but vastly different in character, is the one which follows: Hi-ho, alack-a-day, whither going?
Art dawdling time away adown the primrose path And wishing golden dust to fancied value?
Ah, catch the milch-dewed air, breathe deep The clover-scented breath across the field, And feed upon sweet-rooted grasses Thou hast idly plucked.
Come, Brother, then let’s on together.
Hi-ho, alack-a-day, whither going?
Is here thy path adown the hard-flagged pave, Where, bowed, the workers blindly shuffle on;
And dumbly stand in gullies bound, The worn, bedogged, silent-suffering beast, Far driven past his due?
And thou, beloved, hast thy burden worn thee weary?
Come, Brother, then let’s on together.
Hi-ho, alack-a-day, whither going?
Hast thou begun the tottering of age, And doth the day seem over-long to thee?
Art fretting for release, and dost thou lack The power to weave anew life’s tangled skein?
Come, Brother, then let’s on together.
The second line of this will at once recall Shakespeare’s “primrose path of dalliance,” and it is one of the rare instances in which Patience may be said to have borrowed a metaphor; but in the line which follows, “and wishing golden dust to fancied value,” she puts the figure to better use than he in whom it originated.
Beyond this line there is nothing specially remarkable in this poem, and it is given mainly to show the versatility of the composer, and as another example of her ability to present vivid and striking pictures.
* * * * * Reference has been made to the love of nature and the knowledge of nature betrayed in these poems.
Even in those of the most spiritual character nature is drawn upon for illustrations and symbols, and the lines are lavishly strewn with material metaphor and similes that open up the gates of understanding.
This picture of winter, for example, brings out the landscape it describes with the vividness and reality of a stereoscope, and yet it is something more than a picture: Snow tweaketh ’neath thy feet, And like a wandering painter stalketh Frost, Daubing leaf and lichen.
Where flowed a cataract And mist-fogged stream, lies silvered sheen, Stark, dead and motionless.
I hearken But to hear the she-e-e-e of warning wind, Fearful lest I waken Nature’s sleeping.
Await ye!
Like a falcon loosed Cometh the awakening.
Then returneth Spring To nestle in the curving breast of yonder hill, And sets to rest like the falcon seeketh His lady’s outstretched arm.
And here is another picture of winter, painted with a larger brush and heavier pigment, but expressing the same thought, that life doth ever follow death: Dead, all dead!
The earth, the fields, lie stretched in sleep Like weary toilers overdone.
The valleys gape like toothless age, Besnaggled by dead trees.
The hills, like boney jaws whose flesh hath dropped, Stand grinning at the deathy day.
The lily, too, hath cast her shroud And clothed her as a brown-robed nun.
The moon doth, at the even’s creep, Reach forth her whitened hands and sooth The wrinkled brow of earth to sleep.
Ah, whither flown the fleecy summer clouds, To bank, and fall to earth in billowed light, And paint the winter’s brown to spangled white?
Where, too, have flown the happy songs, Long died away with sighing On the shore-wave’s crest?
Will they take Echo as their Guide, And bound from hill to hill at this, The sleepy time of earth, And waken forest song ’mid naked waste?
Ah, slumber, slumber, slumber on.
’Tis with a loving hand He scattereth the snow, To nestle young spring’s offering, That dying Earth shall live anew.
How different this from Thomson’s pessimistic, Dread winter spreads his latest glooms And reigns tremendous o’er the conquered year.
This poem seemed to present unusual difficulties to Patience.
The words came slowly and haltingly, and the indications of composition were more marked than in any other of her poems.
The third line was first dictated “Like weary workmen overdone,” and then changed to “weary toilers,” and the eighteenth line was given: “On the shore-wavelet’s breast,” and afterwards altered to read “the shorewave’s crest.
” Possibly it was because the poet has not the same zest in painting pictures of winter that she has in depicting scenes of kindlier seasons, in which she is in accord with nearly all poets, and, for that matter, with nearly all people.
Her pen, if one may use the word, is speediest and surest when she presents the beautiful, whether it be the material or the spiritual.
She expresses this feeling herself with beauty of phrase and rhythm in this verse, which may be entitled “The Voice of Spring.
” The streamlet under fernbanked brink Doth laugh to feel the tickle of the waving mass;
And silver-rippled echo soundeth Under over-hanging cliff.
The robin heareth it at morn And steals its chatter for his song.
And oft at quiet-sleeping Of the Spring’s bright day, I wander me to dream along the brooklet’s bank, And hark me to a song of her dead voice, That lieth where the snowflakes vanish On the molten silver of the brooklet’s breast;
And watch the stream, Who, over-fearful lest she lose the right To ripple to the chord of Spring’s full harmony, Doth harden at her heart And catch the song a prisoner to herself;
To loosen only at the wooing kiss Of youthful Winter’s sun, And fill the barren waste with phantom spring.
Or, passing on to autumn, consider this apostrophe to a fallen leaf: Ah, paled and faded leaf of spring agone, Whither goest thou?
Art speeding To another land upon the brooklet’s breast?
Or art thou sailing to the sea, to lodge Amid a reef, and, kissed by wind and wave, Die of too much love?
Thou’lt find a resting place amid the moss, And, ah, who knows!
The royal gem May be thine own love’s offering.
Or wilt thou flutter as a time-yellowed page, And mould among thy sisters, ere the sun May peep within the pack?
Or will the robin nest with thee At Spring’s awakening?
The romping brook Will never chide thee, but ever coax thee on.
And shouldst thou be impaled Upon a thorny branch, what then?
Try not a flight.
Thy sisters call thee.
Could crocus spring from frost, And wilt thou let the violet shrink and die?
Nay, speed not, for God hath not A mast for thee provided.
Autumn, too, is the theme of this: She-e-e!
She-e-e!
She-e-e-e!
The soughing wind doth breathe.
The white-crest cloud hath drabbed At season’s late.
The trees drip leaf-waste Unto the o’erloved blades aneath, Who burned o’ love, to die.
’Tis the parting o’ the season.
Yea, and earth doth weep.
The mellow moon Stands high o’er golded grain.
The cot-smoke Curleth like to a loving arm That reacheth up unto the sky.
The grain ears ope, to grin unto the day.
The stream hath laden with a pack o’ leaves To bear unto the dell, where bloom Doth hide in waiting for her pack.
The stars do glitter cold, and dance to warm them There upon the sky’s blue carpet o’er the earth.
’Tis season’s parting.
Yea, and earth doth weep.
The Winter cometh, And he bears her jewels for the decking Of his bride.
A glittered crown Shall fall ’pon earth, and sparkled drop Shall stand like gem that flasheth ’Pon a nobled brow.
Yea, the tears Of earth shall freeze and drop As pearls, the necklace o’ the earth.
’Tis season’s parting.
Yea, And earth doth weep.
’Tis Fall.
She does not confine herself to the Seasons in her tributes to the divisions of time.
There are many poems which have the day for their subject, all expressive of delight in every aspect of the changing hours.
There is a pæan to the day in this: The Morn awoke from off her couch of fleece, And cast her youth-dampt breath to sweet the Earth.
The birds sent carol up to climb the vasts.
The sleep-stopped Earth awaked in murmuring.
The dark-winged Night flew past the Day Who trod his gleaming upward way.
The fields folk musicked at the sun’s warm ray.
Web-strewn, the sod, hung o’er o’ rainbow gleam.
The brook, untiring, ever singeth on.
The Day hath broke, and busy Earth Hath set upon the path o’ hours.
Mute Night hath spread her darksome wing And loosed the brood of dreams, And Day hath set the downy mites to flight.
Fling forth thy dreaming hours!
Awake from dark!
And hark!
And hark!
The Earth doth ring in song!
’Tis Day!
’Tis Day!
’Tis Day!
The close observer will notice in all of these poems that there is nothing hackneyed.
The themes, the thoughts, the images, the phrasing, are almost if not altogether unique.
The verse which follows is, I am inclined to believe, absolutely so: Go to the builder of all dreams And beg thy timbers to cast thee one.
Ah, Builder, let me wander in this land Of softened shapes to choose.
My hand doth reach To catch the mantle cast by lilies whom the sun Hath loved too well.
And at this morrow Saw I not a purple wing of night To fold itself and bask in morning light?
I watched her steal straight to the sun’s Bedazzled heart.
I claim her purpled gold.
And watched I not, at twi-hours creep, A heron’s blue wing skim across the pond, Where gulf clouds fleeted in a fleecy herd, Reflected fair?
I claim the blue and let My heart to gambol with the sky-herd there.
At midday did I not then find A rod of gold, and sun’s flowers, Bounded in by wheat’s betasseled stalks?
I claim the gold as mine, to cast my dream.
And then at stormtide did I catch the sun, Becrimsoned in his anger; and from his height Did he not bathe the treetops in his gore?
The red is mine.
I weave my dream and find The rainbow, and the rainbow’s end—a nothingness.
Almost equally weird is this “Birth of a Song”: I builded me a harp, And set asearch for strings.
Ah, and Folly set me ’pon a track That set the music at a wail;
For I did string the harp With silvered moon-threads;
Aye, and dead the notes did sound.
And I did string it then With golden sun’s-threads, And Passion killed the song.
Then did I to string it o’er— And ’twer a jeweled string— A chain o’ stars, and lo, They laughed, and sorry wert the song.
And I did strip the harp and cast The stars to merry o’er the Night;
And string anew, and set athrob a string Abuilded of a lover’s note, and lo, The song did sick and die, And crumbled to a sweeted dust, And blew unto the day.
Anew did I to string, Astring with wail o’ babe, And Earth loved not the song.
I felled asorrowed at the task, And still the Harp wert mute.
So did I to pluck out my heart, And lo, it throbbed and sung, And at the hurt o’ loosing o’ the heart A song wert born.
That, however, is but a pretty play of fancy upon things within our ken, however shadowy and evanescent she may make them by her touch.
But in the poem which follows she touches on the border of a land we know not: I’d greet thee, loves of yester’s day.
I’d call thee out from There.
I’d sup the joys of yonder realm.
I’d list unto the songs of them Who days of me know not.
I’d call unto this hour The lost of joys and woes.
I’d seek me out the sorries That traced the seaming of thy cheek, O thou of yester’s day!
I’d read the hearts astopped, That Earth might know the price They paid as toll.
I’d love their loves, I’d hate their hates, I’d sup the cups of them;
Yea, I’d bathe me in the sweetness Shed by youth of yester’s day.
Yea, of these I’d weave the Earth a cloak— But ah, He wove afirst!
They cling like petal mold, and sweet the Earth.
Yea, the Earth lies wrapped Within the holy of its ghost.
“’Tis but a drip o’ loving,” she said when she had finished this.
Nearly every English poet has a tribute to the Skylark, but I doubt if there are many more exquisite than this: I tuned my song to love and hate and pain And scorn, and wrung from passion’s heat the flame, And found the song a wailing waste of voice.
My song but reached the earth and echoed o’er its plains.
I sought for one who sang a wordless lay, And up from ’mong the rushes soared a lark.
Hark to his song!
From sunlight came his gladdening note.
And ah, his trill—the raindrops’ patter!
And think ye that the thief would steal The rustle of the leaves, or yet The chilling chatter of the brooklet’s song?
Not claiming as his own the carol of my heart, Or listening to my plaint, he sings amid the clouds;
And through the downward cadence I but hear The murmurings of the day.
One naturally thinks of Shelley’s “Skylark” when reading this, and there are some passages in that celebrated poem that show a similarity of metaphor, such as this: Sounds of vernal showers On the twinkling grass;
Rain-awakened flowers;
All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh Thy music doth surpass.
And there is something of the same thought in the lines of Edmund Burke: Teach me, O lark!
with thee to greatly rise, T’ exalt my soul and lift it to the skies;
To make each worldly joy as mean appear, Unworthy care when heavenly joys are near.
