[Illustration: THE CITY BEYOND
FROM THE PRIZE PICTURE OF MR. NORMAN S.
WOOLDRIDGE, WITH HIS PERMISSION
Copyright by N. S. Wooldridge]
Songs
FROM THE SMOKE
BY
MADELEINE SWEENY MILLER
(VASSAR COLLEGE, A.B.)
INTRODUCTION BY
SIMON N. PATTEN, Ph.D., LL.D.
ILLUSTRATED
THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN
NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1914, by
MADELEINE SWEENY MILLER
TO THOSE WHO HAVE MADE
IT POSSIBLE THIS BOOK IS
LOVINGLY DEDICATED.
E. B. S.
G. B. S.
J. L. M.
CONTENTS
PART I
SONGS FOR THE BROTHERS WHO TOIL
PAGE
A Pittsburgh River 17
Wayside and Highway in Autumn 18
Snuffed Out 19
An Interrupted Worker's Revelation 21
Rain at the Mill 22
Your To-Morrow 24
Hymn of Cooperation 25
Immigrant Motherhood 26
The Man of the Air 27
Out from the Smoke 28
God of My Brother 30
The Delivery Boy 31
Hymn for Humanity 32
April in Fourth Avenue 34
PART II
SONGS FOR THE EVENING HOUR
The Spirit of Evening 37
A Beacon Face 38
The Voice from the Field 39
The Burning of Chambersburg 40
The Wedding at Panama 42
A Ballad of Eugenics 43
Immortality 44
Sonnet to Nemesis, Goddess of Remorse 45
Thoughts of God 46
Two Monologues 47
Inland Waves 49
Soul of the World 50
PART III
SONGS FOR THE SEASONS
Creation Morn 53
Thanksgiving 54
On Easter Day 55
A Christmas Carol 56
The Message of the Chimes 57
A Winter Lullaby 58
Rainy Day Fun 60
Apples in Winter 61
The Birth of Spring 62
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
A Pittsburgh musician whose fame as a composer is widely established
confessed to me recently that he had been for years trying to catch the
spirit of the Steel City with a view of representing it in music, but
up to the present time had failed to grasp anything tangible enough for
expression. This failure on his part, however, and on the part of all
musicians, by no means proves the absence of a very real _genius loci_.
Pittsburgh has a very vivid personality. Mr. John Alexander succeeded in
holding the elusive spirit captive long enough to put her image on canvas
in his remarkable friezes in the Carnegie Library, portraying the ranks
of labor, and now in this volume of verse I offer to the people at large
the songs I have found in the various moods of the smoke. “Songs for the
Brothers Who Toil” have come in moments spent watching the giant stacks
along the river fronts breathe forth their mighty energy; “Songs for the
Evening Hour” were born when the breeze from the hills lifted and shifted
the smoke, bringing lyric reveries of voices from the silent battlefield,
and embers from the burning town; and following the changing tides of
years, “Songs for the Seasons” have come.
The background and inspiration of most of these songs is industrial
Pittsburgh; industrial Pittsburgh, however, is essentially American in the
broadest sense. Some of the lyrics are addressed to the laborer, others
to the dreamer and scholar; some to the mother and child, but all of them
to that noble army made up of those who are everywhere striving to bring
a measure of idealism into what is of necessity sordid and unlovely.
MADELEINE SWEENY MILLER.
INTRODUCTION
THE TREND OF CURRENT POETRY
Among earnest social workers poetry is gaining a recognition that few
anticipated. The reformer of the past was an orator who preferred the
longer sentences of the pulpit to the concise expression of the poet.
Oratory is in the mouth of the speaker; rimes in the heart of the singer.
The one must be constantly repeated to be effective; the other, living in
its own right, soon gets beyond the control of its maker, and creates a
perpetual harvest wherever it is blown. This revival of poetry has been
encouraged by The Survey, which recently printed a collection of social
hymns. The same tendency is everywhere visible, and means a return to
older modes of emotional expression combined with intense modern feelings.
If this movement in poetic expression did not have a double trend, it
might be left to work out its own salvation; but the contrast between
the two tendencies is too marked not to arrest attention. What is poetry,
after all? Merely a survival, a relic of older modes of thought, something
seeking expression only when deep-seated passions are occasionally
revived; or is it a living, present force, an effective weapon of social
reform? Few people can resist the impulse to write verse. Does this
tendency and the interest it reflects indicate the presence of a concealed
giant who could pull loads, or is it a mere survival of an old habit, like
looking at a new moon over the shoulder to see what the luck is to be?
A question will help to make the issue clear. Is the function of poetry
to create the emotion by which the day's work is done, as well as to
serve as a relaxation for tired reformers when work is ended? Should we
read poetry upon rising to get heart, or only at eventide to relax the
tired mind? Is poetry to be put in the class with golf and solitaire, or
with dynamos and rapid-firing guns? Ornamental art belongs in one class,
functional art in the other. Poets who continue to describe Amazons and
mermaids and bring us “news from nowhere” should write at night to relieve
the monotony of the day, and what they write will have effect only by the
relaxation it makes possible. But truly functional poetry shoots farther
than any gun and cuts deeper than the sharpest knife. It goes ahead of
the reformer and wakes the world to an appreciation of what he is doing.
It works while he sleeps and enters a thousand minds into which his dry
details and monotonous lament could find no entrance. And in this sense is
not effectiveness of thought a beauty as well as its form? As we decide
this question we take sides not only in poetry but in every field where
thought and life are striving for expression.
The dominance of the older view is plain. Millions of dollars are given
to preserve old relics and meaningless pictures, but scarcely a cent for
the artist whose soul throbs with American life. When new buildings are
erected the old conventions are used; no attempt is made to picture the
new. The decorations of the public library of Boston, for example, are
a mass of symbols to be deciphered only by the initiated. The one object
that can be recognized without the aid of a guidebook is a telegraph pole.
In the Congressional Library at Washington the principal figures of the
mural decorations are short-skirted damsels, who flit along the wall, such
as War, Peace, and other creatures of artistic fancy.
When will this epoch end, and art become related to the day's work,
furnishing a motive for further output of energy? Not for a long time,
possibly, in decoration; but there is no reason why its passing should
be delayed in song-making. Here the motive for new expression is strong,
and the avenues for reaching a public so many, that no force can prevent
good poetry from reaching its audience. All virile thought, whether poetic
or not, is at first functional with a meaning and an end. Only when this
thought is expressed and other advances are being made, does its treatment
become a mere avocation for those left behind in the march of events.
Conventional art is too often merely a medley of distorted, unusable
concepts, whose only harmony is that they make a good color scheme.
Poetry formed in the same manner becomes a collection of mere platitudes,
whose main virtue is that they roll in the mouth. In the drama the same
spirit shows all sorts of paths toward degeneration, but few by which
men can rise. Are color schemes, word pictures, frontal architecture,
and pathological plays all there is to art? If so, art is a paradise for
the lame and the lazy. But to find a beauty in what one is doing makes it
a virile function in social movements. True art comes when we are doing
our best; when we are in earnest; when we throw aside hindrances and make
every word, color, view, or line count. Today cathedrals are ugly because
they have no use, and art galleries are dreary because artists think only
of color, legs, and weak-faced Madonnas. The day of metaphor and word
pictures is gone; but the day of song has not passed. The new poet must be
more concise in expression and more social in thought than his long-winded
predecessors. Song is the only means of appealing to the love of musical
harmony that is deep in every breast.
There is no door to the soul so good as poetry. This approach may be used
by the reformer if he will write poetry because he loves and needs it,
and not because his leisure hours are hard to fill. His sentences must not
merely roll along, but must hit some object or arouse some deep emotion.
The end must dominate the form. It is with these feelings that I have
been looking through the smoke, hoping that some one would come in view to
express what I feel. I think of myself as a wordless poet—one who sees as
a poet should, but whose linguistic power is too limited to express what
I feel. I have said to myself many times, “The coming generation will do
naturally, and do well, what we do with bungling hands.” There are signs
that this prayer will be realized, and that the young are taking their
places on the firing-line with quickening zeal and definite goals. Out of
the rising generation must come not only workers, but also singers; for
who can really work if he does not sing? This thought is the basis of the
hope that the verses of this volume will help us feel, as well as help us
work. The smoke has its charm, as well as the clear sky, and if its song
is less articulate, it is more real. The first poem of Mrs. Miller that I
saw made me feel that we had much in common. The present volume more than
convinces me that she has opened up a new path for our emotions, through
which will come new life for all. May she not only find readers, but may
she be the forerunner of poets who see through the smoke into the future
where all our treasures lie.
SIMON N. PATTEN.
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
March, 1914.
[Illustration: THE READING BLACKSMITH
FROM THE STATUE BY DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH,
NORTH SIDE, PITTSBURGH]
PART I
SONGS FOR THE BROTHERS WHO TOIL
A PITTSBURGH RIVER
Oily and black is my face, I know,
Fire-bleared and sullen am I;
Blood-streaks of ore-dust scar me and show
Where a long barge has gone by.
Yet I reflect many houses of toil
Where the world's work is forged through;
Where flames and muscle bring metal to boil
While Trade is waiting the brew.
No sunset sends its long shadows of gold
Over my dingy old face;
Only a smoke-streaked glow makes bold,
Lighting the driftwood space.
White-coated craft keep aloof from my rush,
Pleasure craft, modish and trim
As dainty women who shrink when they brush
Workmen's coats, rusty and dim.
Yes, I am homely, oily am I,
Hideous, sullen, and bleared,
Yet I have answered my laborer's cry—
Not yet is _my_ conscience seared.
WAYSIDE AND HIGHWAY IN AUTUMN
There they stand, the flowering rods,
Rods of sunshine that are God's,
Captive sunshine held at bay
While the autumn wears away,
Promise of a coming day
When new flowers shall blow that way.
There they stand, the blackening stacks,
Stacks all charred with browns and blacks
Like a nest of black-scaled snakes,
From whose jaws which nothing slakes
Jaggèd tongues of hungry flame
Leap through darkness none dare name;
Burning night, devouring dark,
Hissing, reeling, spewing spark,
Breathing smokes that writhe and twist,
Taunting all that dares exist.
Yet this nest of fiendish flame—
Brood all-worthy Satan's name—
Rises up from God's own mills,
His as much as all the hills,
Where they stand, the flowering rods,
Rods of sunshine, held at bay
While the autumn wears away.
SNUFFED OUT
One day a Toiler walking home among a crowd of men
At sunset viewed a wondrous sight, and called the Other Ten:
“An artist has been here to-day since we went in the mill;
He's made the housetops all aflame, and every window sill
Is shining round the burning glass that glows with brands of fire;
His brush has left a crimson sky and colored every spire;
The grass is painted brighter green, and every dusty leaf
That silent hangs upon the tree is sketched in bold relief.”
“Just hear poor Dan; he's raving mad,” called out the Other Ten.
“We'll see him home, he's gone, all right, he'll not be back again.”
And then they laughed full hideously, and mocking, jeered at him,
Till pale he grew, and scarlet turned, then, as before, was grim:
The Other Ten, whose dusty coats encased ten dusty souls,
Had snuffed the kindling flame of light with jeers and coarse cajoles.
O busy men of mart and mill, O men of shop and street,
May never you their sin commit when you some brother meet
Who, having seen a spark from God, tells forth the wondrous sight,
But finds the soul snatched from his words, and from his spark, the
light.
AN INTERRUPTED WORKER'S REVELATION
O God, I thank Thee for the drenching rain
That beats against my office windowpane
And breaks my self-content.
The lightning's virile slash and crackling spark,
That glorify the clouds though earth be dark,
Remind me there is something still
Which can't be ordered by my master will.
O lightnings uncontrollable
And waters uncommandable,
I thank thee that thou badst me leave my task
And taught me how to tear away my mask,
To see that God, the Master, still presides
And keeps some secrets yet, whose home He hides.
RAIN AT THE MILL
Fog filled with dust,
Rain full of smoke,
Air bearing vapors that stifle and choke;
Odors of must
Drenched with wet steam,
Puffed from the stacks shooting flames of red gleam;
Tricklings of rust,
Leaked through the roof,
Rotting men's garments the warp from the woof.
Then a young face freshly touched by the rain,
Molded in sorrow and sweetened by pain,
Looks shyly in through the wide-open door,
Waiting for father, at work down the floor.
And when he sees her and notes how the boys
Gaze in delight till their staring annoys,
Quickly he goes to the child of his heart,
Hungrily kisses her, bids her depart.
Then walking back with the basket she's brought,
Works with the joy that her coming has wrought;
All is more bright in the mill than before,
When he remembers that smile at the door.
What if the dust,
Odors of must,
Rise from the flames that shoot out their red gleam?
What if the smoke,
Fire-fumes that choke
All afternoon bring their stifling steam?
For he is thinking of home through the rain,
Where a young face at the clear window pane
Watches at evening, as one long before
Watched for the father and smiled at the door.
YOUR TO-MORROW
Who is it walking yonder
With the lunch pail on his arm?
It's the future of your country
And you dare not do him harm.
There are some who call him brother
In a philanthropic mood,
But he looks to many another
Just a wretch from labor's brood.
Will you grant consideration
To this man of dusky brow,
Who is toiling on probation
For the rights that you have now?
Will you grant him honest hire,
With a day to rest and live?
He has reaped you your desire,
Must he cry to you to give?
You can guide him while he's waiting
And establishing his heart,
Teach him courage unabating,
Teach him God will do his part.
Yes, just now he's plain Croatian,
But if you will help him through,
He will some day guide the nation
Which depended once on you.
HYMN OF COOPERATION[1]
(TUNE: “BEATITUDO”)
O God of gifts exceeding rare
To brothers here below,
Accept our grateful, anxious prayer
And make our talents grow;
O take away the unused gift,
The power allowed to drift;
Show us that weak things from above
Gain strength to heal through love.
The truths, O Lord, Thou late hast taught
Have made us clearly see
That when we serve Thee as we ought,
Then only are we free.
Grant that Thy plan of majesty
May let us work with Thee
To change the water into wine,
And grosser things refine.
O God of gifts exceeding rare,
Help us for life prepare,
Till by our striving here below
We feel our manhood grow;
Preserve us gentle in our strength,
And patient with the slow,
Till we deserve such praise at length
As only Thou shalt know.
[1] Copyrighted: “Survey Associates,” 1914.
IMMIGRANT MOTHERHOOD
Down yonder she sits in the half-open door,
'Tis plain she has never had time to before;
Her first little child sleeping there on her breast,
Poor soul, how she feasts on this banquet of rest!
But all is so strange to her, people don't care,
They just pass her by with a questioning stare.
How youthful and brave is the round-molded face,
Still fresh with the blood of her farm-dwelling race.
But O, the keen pain as she sees in her child
A trait of some kinsman at home in the wild,
For here all is strange, and these people don't care
How nearly she's starving for those over there.
Too soon she must leave the wee son of her youth,
To toil in the shops with the bold and uncouth;
To roll fat cigars or to tie willow plumes,
Or stand the day long by the thundering looms,
Where no one is strange, and the bosses don't care,
But all pass her by with a growl or a glare.
Yet, courage to you, little mother of men,
Some day the whole land will protect you, and then
Your pure young blood will freshen our race,
Renewing our life, setting hope in our face,
And you'll find it so strange, how all of us care
Who once passed you by with contempt in our stare.
THE MAN OF THE AIR
O ruddy-faced worker astride the high crane
That rides you aloft over city and plain,
What thoughts are you welding, O Man of the Air?
Is God in your heart, for His love do you care?
His name are you singing
While lithefully swinging
Astride the steel crane, O brave Man of the Air?
It matters so little what language you claim,
For God comprehends every tongue you can name;
It matters so little what land gave you birth,
For God's holy presence inhabits the earth.
O handsome-framed worker, so much of the town
Sweeps under your gaze as you glance boldly down,
Yet all you can see from your perilous height
Shall yield to the claim of your virtuous might
If God's name you're singing
While hammer-blows' ringing
Announce you triumphant, O Man of the Air.
The magnates of earth waddle under your feet
With all who must walk in the close city street,
While you sit enthroned in your laborer's chair,
Gold-crowned by the sunlight, O King of the Air!
OUT FROM THE SMOKE
[Written in appreciation of the work of the Fresh Air Homes
throughout our land.]
Out from the smoke we have sent them,
Into the sunshine to play,
Out of the darkest of alleys
Into the brightness of day.
Friends they shall find in the orchard,
Butterflies, bird-nests, and cows;
Feasts they shall pluck from the fruit trees,
Palaces build in their boughs.
Voices that whined in a cellar,
Laughing, shall send a clear shout
When they have caught on the brook-bank
Splishety splash! their first trout.
Out of the smoke to protect them,
Mother has gone with her brood,
Glad to forget for the moment
Struggles for stockings and food.
Back to the smoke they'll be coming,
Out from the sunshine and play,
Back to the darkest of alleys,
Out of the brightness of day.
But if the winter bring hunger
And the cold rooms, discontent,
Courage will come as they vision
Summer days heavenly spent.
So from the smoke we must send them,
Into the sunshine to play,
Out of the darkest of alleys
Into the brightness of day.
GOD OF MY BROTHER
Father of Workmen and Giver of Rest,
Smile on Thy sons as they build
Cities and nations who long to be blest,
Craftsmen enrolled in God's Guild.
And to my brother who toils with the rest
Where the shops roar with power,
Grant hardy courage as strong as his breast,
Bared to the task of the hour.
Send him each morning with ardor renewed
Back to his task begun;
Show him Thy face in his goals pursued
And in all work nobly done.
THE DELIVERY BOY
I've noticed that no one has bothered to write
The praise of a poor little shivering mite
Like me in a story or leather-bound book
To read in the glow of a warm ingle nook;
No painter sees art in my wind-blistered cheeks,
Or picturesque poses in me ever seeks;
I'm nothing unusual, nothing sublime,
My gentlest endearment is, “Get here on time.”
I'm never too tired to be sent out at night
At some one's request for fresh thrills of delight;
It may be a dress, or it may be a flower—
Whatever it be, it must come on the hour.
How seldom the voice at the door tells me “Thanks”!
How rarely one heart from the great human ranks
Inquires of my soul, if it be weak or well,
When maybe I'm verging the borders of hell.
For no one has thought me a subject for song,
Or singled me out from the hustling throng;
I'm nothing pathetic, nothing sublime,
I'm only worth while when I “get there” on time.
HYMN FOR HUMANITY
O God, divinely discontent
With men's unmended ways,
How great the love Thou gladly spent
And spendest still, always,
In calling men until they see
Thy perfect world-design
Of Corporate Humanity
With Christ its Head divine!
With Christ its Head divine, supreme,
Connecting every limb
With tender nerves that tangled seem,
Yet all return to Him;
In love directing every part
And sensing every shock
That palpitates the common heart
Till all its chambers rock.
How can the eye offend the hand,
Or tongue revile the arm,
Or foot prefer alone to stand,
Without some mutual harm?
God made us partners, man to man,
And gave us Christ for kin;
Shall we destroy His perfect plan
By selfishness and sin?
O God, make us as discontent
As Thou art with our ways;
Help us to spend the love Thou sent
With Christ, who stays always
To speak with us until we see
Thy perfect world-design,
Of Corporate Humanity
With Christ, its Head divine.
APRIL IN FOURTH AVENUE
The shadowing walls of stone-and-granite gloom
Are damp as with the vapors of a tomb;
They press me in, my very life to crush
And trample under men's convulsive rush.
While out beyond, the laughing gardens bloom
With flowers woven on the magic loom
Of velvet lawns, where leafy lilacs brush
The flirting wings of every dallying thrush.
And there, O God, not here between these walls,
May earth receive me when Thy Spirit calls
My soul to dwell in Spring's eternal Room
Far out beyond, where laughing gardens bloom
With flowers woven on the widening loom
Of endless time that spins no death nor doom.