How futile are these scales in which we weigh
Pity and passion, and the spirit’s need!
Words—and the veins of desperate peoples bleed!
Words—and a lark, and hedges white with may!
O must this rapture and this grief remain
Uncaptured in our silences? And must
We stand like stones, less lyrical than dust
That flowers beneath the benison of rain?
And if I say, “I love you,” can you know,
Save by the urgent beating of my heart,
The flame that tears my baffled lips apart?
Poor symbols, cracked or broken long ago,
What witness can you bear that we have tried
To utter Beauty when our tongues were tied!
_Maxwell Bodenheim_
Maxwell Bodenheim was born at Natchez, Mississippi, May 26, 1892.
His education, with the exception of grammar school training, was
achieved under the guidance of the U. S. Army, in which Bodenheim
served a full enlistment of three years, beginning in 1910. For a
while he studied law and art in Chicago, but his mind, fascinated by
the new poetry, turned to literature. He wrote steadily for five
years without having a single poem accepted. In 1918, his first
volume appeared and even those who were puzzled or repelled by
Bodenheim’s complex idiom were forced to recognize its intense
individuality.
_Minna and Myself_ (1918) reveals, first of all, this poet’s extreme
sensitivity to words. Words, under his hands, have unexpected
growths; placid nouns and sober adjectives bear fantastic fruit.
Sometimes he packs his metaphors so close that they become
inextricably mixed. Sometimes he spins his fantasies so thin that
the cord of coherence snaps and the poem frays into ragged and
unpatterned ravellings. But, at his best, Bodenheim is as
clear-headed as he is colorful.
In _Advice_ (1920), Bodenheim’s manner—and his mannerisms—are
intensified. There is scarcely a phrase that is not tricked out with
more ornaments and associations than it can bear; whole poems sink
beneath the weight of their profuse decorations. Yet, in spite of
his verbal exaggerations, this poetry achieves a keen if too ornate
delicacy. In the realm of the whimsical-grotesque, Bodenheim walks
with a light and nimble footstep.