I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over;—
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying!
House without air! I leave you and lock your door!
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!
_Mary Carolyn Davies_
Mary Carolyn Davies was born at Sprague, Washington, and was
educated in the schools at and about Portland, Oregon. At college
(the University of California) she won the Emily Chamberlin Cook
prize for Poetry in 1912, being the first freshman to win it. In the
same year, she established another precedent by being the first
woman to win the Bohemian Club prize. With the proceeds, the young
poet went to New York, arriving with the remnants of her
fortune—four dollars and eighty-five cents.
The long struggle with the city began. Miss Davies wrote short
stories, two serials, reams of sentimental verses—anything to keep
alive. She turned finally to verse, chiefly because “when the rent
is due there’s no time to write a story, only verse can save one in
time.”
Her work divides itself into two distinct classes: the hackwork
which she does for a living and the genuine poetry which she creates
for its own sake. Her first volume _The Drums in Our Street_ (1918)
was a mixture of loud bombast and quiet beauty, of blatant war-verse
and unaffected lyrics. _Youth Riding_ (1919), although as uneven as
its predecessor, is simpler and surer. The poems in _vers libre_ are
clearly musical, and her eight-line lyrics are particularly wistful
and delicate.