The Poems Below are by American Author Stephen Crane Published in 1895 (by Copeland & Day) as a Part of His Collection, The Black Riders and Other Lines. The Following Excerpts are from Fifty-Six Short Poems (all of Which Simply go by Number without actual Titles) that comprise ‘The Black Riders’. Crane is Most Recognized as the Author of the Famous American Novel The Red Badge of Courage.
When Crane’s Poems were Published, He was Harshly Criticized for the Unusual Form of His Poems, and that He had Some Nerve in Presenting these “Disjointed Effusions” and Daring to call them Poetry. The First Brutal Reviews Denounced Crane’s The Black Riders as Nothing Short of “Artless and Barbaric.”
In His Correspondence with a Particular Editor of Leslie’s Weekly in 1895, Crane professed that He Preferred The Black Riders to His Iconic American Novel The Red Badge of Courage. Crane Wrote “I, suppose I ought to be Thankful to ‘The Red Badge,’ but I am much Fonder of My little book of poems, ‘The Black Riders’. My Aim was to Comprehend in it the thoughts I have had about Life in General, while ‘The Red Badge’ is a mere Episode in Life, an Amplification.”
Enjoy.
IV.
Yes, I have a thousand tongues,
And nine and ninety-nine lie.
Though I strive to use the one,
It will make no melody at my will,
But is dead in my mouth.
V.
Once there came a man
Who said,
“Range me all men of the world in rows.”
And instantly
There was terrific clamour among the people
Against being ranged in rows.
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who staid in bloody scuffle
Knew not the great simplicity.
IX
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, “Comrade! Brother!”
XIII
If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.
XVII
There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
There was one who sought a new road.
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage.
XIX
A god in wrath
Was beating a man;
He cuffed him loudly
With thunderous blows
That rang and rolled over the earth.
All people came running.
The man screamed and struggled,
And bit madly at the feet of the god.
The people cried,
“Ah, what a wicked man!”
And “Ah, what a redoubtable god!”
XXV
Behold, the grave of a wicked man,
And near it, a stern spirit.
There came a drooping maid with violets,
But the spirit grasped her arm.
“No flowers for him,” he said.
The maid wept:
“Ah, I loved him.”
But the spirit, grim and frowning:
“No flowers for him.”
Now, this is it-
If the spirit was just,
Why did the maid weep?
XXIX
Behold, from the land of the farther suns I returned.
And I was in a reptile-swarming place,
Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces,
Shrouded above in black impenetrableness.
I shrank, loathing,
Sick with it.
And I said to him,
“What is this?”
He made answer slowly,
“Spirit, this is a world;
This was your home.”
XXXII
Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within.
LXVII
God lay dead in heaven;
Angels sang the hymn of the end;
Purple winds went moaning,
Their wings drip-dripping
With blood
That fell upon the earth.
It, groaning thing,
Turned black and sank.
Then from the far caverns
Of dead sins
Came monsters, livid with desire.
They fought,
Wrangled over the world,
A morsel.
But of all sadness this was sad-
A woman’s arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast.
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