Famous Poems from Bygone Days

by Martin Gardner (ed)

  Over the river, and through the wood—

  When grandmother sees us come,

  She will say, Oh dear

  The children are here,

  Bring a pie for every one.

  Over the river, and through the wood—

  Now grandmother’s cap I spy!

  Hurra for the fun!

  Is the pudding done?

  Hurra for the pumpkin pie!

  SARAH NORCLIFFE CLEGHORN

  (1876–1959)

  SARAH CLEGHORN was a democratic socialist who wrote vast quantities of verse for U.S. magazines. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, she spent most of her life in Manchester, Vermont. At age 35 she became active in the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas. For the remainder of her life she was an ardent pacifist, worker for prison reform and vigorous opponent of child labor and vivisection.

  Cleghorn, who never married, divided her verse into what she called her “sunbonnet” poems about country life, and her “burning” poems of social protest. They were much admired by her fellow Vermont poet Robert Frost. Many of her poems, such as “Ballad of Gene Debs,” were first issued as pamphlets. She also wrote a novel, The Spinster (1916), and coauthored a novel (Fellow Captains, 1916) and a play (Understand Betsy) with Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Her 1936 autobiography, Threescore, was reprinted by Ayer in 1980.

  All of Cleghorn’s poetry has vanished into oblivion except for “The Golf Links.” Only four lines long, it ranks with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Cry of the Children” as one of the most effective verse attacks on child labor. I am told that it first appeared in 1915 in Franklin P. Adams’s newspaper column, and later in Cleghorn’s collection of poems, Portraits and Protests (1917). Her Poems of Peace and Freedom was published in 1945.

  It is difficult to believe, but “The Golf Links,” a passionate protest against child labor, turns up in several anthologies of light and humorous verse.

  The Golf Links

  The golf links lie so near the mill

  That almost every day

  The laboring children can look out

  And see the men at play.

  EDMUND VANCE COOKE

  (1866–1932)

  ALL I COULD learn about Cooke was from a brief entry in Who Was Who in America. He was born in Port Denver, Canada, but settled in Cleveland, where he died. A dozen books of his verse are listed.

  “How Did You Die?” is from Impertinent Poems (1903) but surely was published earlier in a newspaper or magazine. Another of his popular poems, found in anthologies, is “Rags,” a heart-rending account of a faithful dog who gets lost and ends up on a vivisection table. Who should be carving him open but the dog’s previous owner, now studying medicine! Rags recognizes him, wags his tail, licks the young medic’s hands and dies. The last two stanzas are:

  Well! I’ve seen men go to courageous death

  In the air, on sea, and land!

  But only a dog would spend his breath

  In a kiss for his murderer’s hand.

  And if there’s no heaven for love like that,

  For such four-legged fealty—well!

  If I have any choice, I tell you flat,

  I’ll take my chance in hell.

  How Did You Die?

  Did you tackle that trouble that came your way

  With a resolute heart and cheerful?

  Or hide your face from the light of day

  With a craven soul and fearful?

  Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,

  Or a trouble is what you make it.

  And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,

  But only how did you take it?

  You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?

  Come up with a smiling face.

  It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,

  But to lie there—that’s disgrace.

  The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;

  Be proud of your blackened eye!

  It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;

  It’s how did you fight and why?

  And though you be done to death, what then?

  If you battled the best you could;

  If you played your part in the world of men,

  Why, the Critic will call it good.

  Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,

  And whether he’s slow or spry,

  It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,

  But only, how did you die?

  HUGH ANTOINE D’ARCY

  (1843–1925)

  I KNOW NOTHING about d’Arcy’s life except the dates of his birth and death, and I’m not even sure of those.

  “The Face Upon the Floor,” usually titled “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” is said to have first appeared in the New York Dispatch in 1887. In 1890 a small book of poems by d’Arcy was published in Brooklyn, titled The Face Upon the Floor and Other Ballads. The author states in a short preface to a later edition (1912) that he wrote the poem in 1887, and was astonished by how quickly it caught on. It was a favorite recitation of Maurice Barrymore, father of Ethel, John and Lionel. The first speaker’s anthology to include it was probably Standard Recitations (New York, 1889).

  Among several false claimants, one John Henry Titus made the most racket. He insisted he wrote the poem as a boy in Jefferson, Ohio, and that it appeared in the Jefferson Sentinel in 1872, although he never supplied the exact date or produced a copy. His version of the poem is so markedly inferior that there is no doubt he wrote it after d’Arcy’s poem appeared. Titus also claimed he wrote the post office motto about rain, snow and sleet—a translation of a sentence by Herodotus.

  The reference to the sou in the fourth stanza suggests that the painter came from France, but stanza ten says he sold a painting for fifteen hundred pounds, implying a life in England. His English residence is strengthened by the twelfth stanza, in which he likens Madeleine’s eyes to the Koh-i-noor—a famous diamond from India with a violent history. Since 1849 it has been one of England’s crown jewels.

  Joseph Morris and St. Clair Adams, in their anthology The Light of the World (1928), introduce d’Arcy’s poem with an account of its origin that may or may not be true. D’Arcy, they say, was a “theatrical man” who one Saturday night was having a drink in a Union Square bar, in Manhattan. A bum who entered the bar was tossed out on the street. D’Arcy left the bar to give the man a drink and some money, and when asked what he did for a living, the man replied that he was an artist. Angry, d’Arcy went home and wrote his poem “as an admonition to all to be kind to the poor derelict.”

  Although d’Arcy’s ballad has nothing to do with the dangers of strong drink, the temperance movement seized on the poem and distributed it far and wide. In 1925 d’Arcy said: “If I thought my poem had done anything to help Prohibition, I would go take a running jump into the Hudson.”

  In 1936 Herndon Davis, a well-known illustrator for the Denver Post, painted Madeleine’s face on the wooden floor of a bar in the Teller House Casino, Central City, Colorado. As historians of the area tell it, an itinerant actor periodically came into the bar to recite d’Arcy’s ballad, then pass the hat. As a joke, Davis slipped into the bar one night and painted on the floor the face of his wife Juanita. Part of the joke was the fact that Juanita was a dedicated prohibitionist. Davis covered the painting with a drop cloth. The next time the actor reached the climax of his recitation, Davis yanked away the cloth.

  Since then “Madeleine” ’s portrait, protected by surrounding posts in what is called the casino’s Face Bar, has become one of the main attractions of this famous, opulent gambling casino (see frontispiece). Central City, in Clear Creek Canyon west of Denver, is one of Colorado’s legendary gold mining “ghost towns.” Every summer the Central City Opera performs “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” a cabaret musical inspired by the poem and by Davis’s haunting picture.

  Hayward Cirker called my attention to
echoes of d’Arcy’s ballad in the song “One For My Baby (And One More For the Road) ”—a song popularized by Frank Sinatra, who recorded it at least three times. Bartender Joe is mentioned in the song, and d’Arcy’s line “Fill her up, Joe” becomes “Set ’em up, Joe,” as the singer bemoans a lost love. The lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer, with music by Harold Arlen, to be sung by Fred Astaire in the 1943 film The Sky’s the Limit.

  Allow me to digress. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Johnny Mercer was one of America’s greatest songwriters. Here are a few among hundreds of well-known Mercer lyrics: “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive,” “And the Angels Sing,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “Blues in the Night,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “I’m an Old Cowhand,” “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” “Jeepers, Creepers,” “Laura,” “Lazybones,” “Moon River,” “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” “Tangerine,” “That Old Black Magic” and “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.” Although unable to read music, Mercer also composed the tunes for many popular songs, and was a featured vocalist with Paul Whiteman’s band and on Benny Goodman’s radio show. In 1942 he founded Capitol Records. Although many of Mercer’s and other songwriters’ lyrics have poetic content, you won’t find them in any anthologies—a convention that unfortunately excludes much good poetry. (I consider Mercer a better poet and a better man than Ezra Pound.)

  The Face on the Barroom Floor

  ’Twas a balmy summer evening, and a goodly crowd was there,

  Which well-nigh filled Joe’s barroom on the corner of the square;

  And as songs and witty stories came through the open door

  A vagabond crept slowly in and posed upon the floor.

  “Where did it come from?” some one said. “The wind has blown it in.”

  “What does it want?” another cried. “Some whiskey, rum or gin. ”

  “Here, Toby, seek him if your stomach’s equal to the work—

  I wouldn’t touch him with a fork, he’s as filthy as a Turk.”

  This badinage the poor wretch took with stoical good grace;

  In fact he smiled, as though he thought he’d struck the proper place.

  “Come, boys, I know there’s burly hearts among so good a crowd,

  To be in such good company would make a deacon proud.

  “Give me a drink—that’s what I want—I’m out of funds you know,

  When I had cash to treat the gang this hand was never slow.

  What? You laugh as though you thought this pocket never held a sou!

  I once was fixed as well, my boys, as any one of you.

  “There, thanks! that’s braced me nicely! God bless you one and all!

  Next time I pass this good saloon I’ll make another call.

  Give you a song? No, I can’t do that; my singing days are past;

  My voice is cracked, my throat’s worn out, and my lungs are going fast.

  “Say! give me another whiskey, and I tell you what I’ll do—

  I’ll tell you a funny story, and a fact, I promise, too.

  That I was ever a decent man not one of you would think;

  But I was, some four or five years back. Say, give me another drink.

  “Fill her up, Joe; I want to put some life into my frame—

  Such little drinks to a bum like me are miserably tame;

  Five fingers—there, that’s the scheme—and corking whiskey, too!

  Well, here’s luck, boys! and, landlord, my best regards to you!

  “You’ve treated me pretty kindly, and I’d like to tell you how

  I came to be the dirty sot you see before you now.

  As I told you, once I was a man, with muscle, frame and health,

  And but for a blunder ought to have made considerable wealth.

  “I was a painter—not one that daubs on bricks and wood,

  But an artist, and for my age was rated pretty good.

  I worked hard at my canvas, and was bidding fair to rise,

  For gradually I saw the star of fame before my eyes.

  “I made a picture perhaps you’ve seen, ’tis called ’The Chase of Fame’?

  It brought me fifteen hundred pounds and added to my name.

  And then I met a woman—now comes the funny part—

  With eyes that petrified my brain and sunk into my heart.

  “Why don’t you laugh? ’Tis funny that the vagabond you see

  Could ever love a woman and expect her love for me;

  But ’twas so, and for a month or two her smiles were freely given,

  And when her lovely lips touched mine it carried me to heaven.

  “Did you ever see a woman for whom your soul you’d give,

  With a form like the Milo Venus, too beautiful to live;

  With eyes that would beat the Koh-i-noor, and a wealth of chestnut hair?

  If so, ’twas she, for there never was another half so fair.

  ”I was working on a portrait, one afternoon in May,

  Of a fair-haired boy, a friend of mine, who lived across the way;

  And Madeleine admired it, and, much to my surprise,

  Said that she’d like to know the man that had such dreamy eyes.

  “It didn’t take long to know him, and before the month had flown

  My friend had stolen my darling, and I was left alone;

  And ere a year of misery had passed above my head

  The jewel I had treasured so had tarnished, and was dead!

  “That’s why I took to drink, boys. Why, I never saw you smile!

  I thought you’d be amused, and laughing all the while.

  Why, what’s the matter, friend? There’s a teardrop in your eye!

  Come, laugh, like me; ’tis only babes and women that should cry.

  “Say, boys! if you give me just another whiskey I’ll be glad,

  And I’ll draw right here a picture of the face that drove me mad.

  Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score,

  You shall see the lovely Madeleine upon the barroom floor.”

  Another drink, and with chalk in hand the vagabond began

  To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man;

  Then as he placed another lock upon the shapely head,

  With a fearful shriek he leaped and fell across the picture—dead.

  MARIE RAVENAL DE LA COSTE

  (?–?)

  THIS SENTIMENTAL doggerel about a dying soldier appears in many nineteenth-century anthologies. William Cullen Bryant in his massive Library of Poetry and Song, attributes it to anonymous. Other collections of verse spell De La Coste’s last name as “Caste.” All I could find out about her is the following paragraph in an undated anthology titled What Can a Woman Do, or Her Position in the Business and Literary World, edited by Mrs. M. L. Rayne:

  This exquisite ballad is usually published as anonymous. Like Beautiful Snow, it has had a number of claimants, but no name has remained attached to it until Epes Sargent rescued it in 1880, and published it in his collection, with extracts from letters written by Miss La Caste. The poem was first published, with her name attached, in the Southern Churchman. She was living in Savannah, Georgia, when she published it. She is of French parentage, and dislikes anything like notoriety. She is an attractive lady, accomplished, and of superior mental qualifications, but has no desire to shine in the world of letters.

  I have been unable to check Sargent’s anthology, Harper’s Encyclopedia of British and American Poetry (1881). On Sargent, see his poem “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” included in this volume. I have copied the poem from Bryant’s collection.

  Somebody’s Darling

  Into a ward of the whitewashed walls

  Where the dead and the dying lay—

  Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls—

  Somebody’s darling was borne one day.

  Somebody’s darling! so young and so brave,


  Wearing still on his pale, sweet face—

  Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave—

  The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

  Matted and damp are the curls of gold,

  Kissing the snow of that fair young brow;

  Pale are the lips of delicate mould—

  Somebody’s darling is dying now.

  Back from the beautiful blue-veined face

  Brush every wandering, silken thread;

  Cross his hands as a sign of grace—

  Somebody’s darling is still and dead!

  Kiss him once for Somebody’s sake;

  Murmur a prayer, soft and low;

  One bright curl from the cluster take—

  They were Somebody’s pride, you know.

  Somebody’s hand hath rested there;

  Was it a mother’s, soft and white?

  And have the lips of a sister fair

  Been baptized in those waves of light?

  God knows best. He was Somebody’s love?

  Somebody’s heart enshrined him here;

  Somebody wafted his name above,

  Night and morn, on the wings of prayer.

  Somebody wept when he marched away,

  Looking so handsome, brave, and grand;

  Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay;

  Somebody clung to his parting hand—

  Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,