Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2088x

The intention is to reproduce all of Heath’s poetry here, perhaps in three groups, his poems, poems of unknown authorship some of which might be his, and poems of known authorship which were in one way or another favorites of Heath’s.

 

 

 

HOT WEATHER

A man will fuss and fight and fume

Because the weather’s hot

And we may very safe presume

That’s all the job he’s got.

A woman frets and gasps and sighs

At all she has to do

And we can make a safe surmise

That she’s an idler too.

The men in foundries, mills and mines,

In harvest field and road,

How seldom one of these repines

That he must bear his load.

The women of the sweatshop’s toil,

In laundry, shop and store,

These have no time the air to spoil

With lamentations sore.

When any man’s or woman’s mind

Is on himself alone

The least discomfort he can find

Will rack him to the bone.

If he’s no worthy work in hand

And craves for naught but ease,

No matter how his future’s planned,

He’ll either burn or freeze.

Spencer Heath,   July, 1911.

 

 

/When Heath was working for the Navy Department in Washington, a perspiring postman came each day and, on delivering the mail, would ask for a glass of ice water. One day Heath prepared the following for him:/

 

He who takes much ice-cold drink

Down his hot esophagus

But hastes the day when he must think

Of Death’s cold sarcophagus

 

 

The Saturday Review of Literature once asked for charades, and Heath responded with the following. It was never published, perhaps lest it seem to be an ad for Palmolive Soap. In a letter to his daughter Lucile, January 14, 1940, he enclosed this saying, “Here’s a travesty on semantics with apologies to Prof. Rudolph Carnap and a tin cup held out to the Colgate Co.”

 

 

     SAPONISEMANTICS

Take my beginning as a constant friend in hand

     And while it lies therein I ask no alm

But that you let one other letter stand,

     And we will be together, palm in palm.

Now take my latter letters and, ignoring nought,

     Go forward and you ever live, nor life depart,

Unless you backward turn; then are you brought

     Through evil to the nothing whence you start.

This central figure of my mystic symbols nine —

     The circle of existence — love and strife —

Unites the earthly tree with life divine,

     Backward to nature’s lap, forward to life.

But, as I live, I am your ultimate demand

     For beauty bathing and assurance calm. —

You find me to your joy and pleasure planned,

     A cleansing spirit and a healing balm.

   PALMOLIVE

 

 

 

Embosomed on the stream of time

The ancient hills of Palestine

Resplendent in the sinking sun

  Drowse golden when the day is done.

 

‘Twas here the old-time sages trod

  Communing intimate with God,

Prophetic of that Promised One

  Whom He would bless, Beloved Son.

 

Remembering stars now lambent gleam

          In Jordan’s dim baptismal stream,

And hills of Palestine still stand,

  Mementos in that Holy Land

And solemn, silent vigil hold

  O’er tragic turmoil as of old,

Yet on the brow of one of them

              Shines an Eternal Diadem.

 

 

 

CONSUMMATION

 

The rift of golden dawn, the blushing of the rose,

Warm sighing winds, the passion of world-bosomed tides,

The glory of the skies, the splendor of the sun —

These rive my heart no more with longing long repressed

Nor leave my soul for beauty questing without rest.

For I have seen a face aglow, all dream-fulfilled,

Its ruby chalice nectar-brimming to be drained,

Eyes deep in ecstacy enswooned, pale cheeks rose-dawned,

And I have been a god to sip divinest sweets —

Infinitude encompassed in one hour of bliss.

 

O, sweet Margot, I did not know

That Heaven itself could bend so low

    Or earth arise so high

 

 

 

 

 

      THE CANDLE LIGHT

 

Throughout the day I make my way,

   In sunlight or in rain,

And dream of things the evening brings

   When we shall meet again.

 

The glint of eyes in glad surprise

   When our return is timed

So that we meet upon the street

   Before the stairs are climbed.

 

Teresa’s cheer when we appear,

   Her winsome welcome bright,

The dainties made, the table laid,

   And then the candle light.

 

The candle light, the candle light,

   It fills my waking dreams,

For in its glow and trembling low

   Dark eyes send lovely beams.

 

They give me joy without alloy

   And lift me as on wings.

O, candle light, bring me tonight

   The bliss that throbs and sings.

 

S. H. Elkridge, Md.

 

 

 

Not clear whether the following is by Heath or modified by him.

 

      EROTECHNIQUE LIMERIQUE

           (A la Mozambique.)

 

There’s an island they call Mozambique

Where the mores are no more unique

   Than the tricks that I mix

   In the limp limericks

Of its erotechnique that I speak

 

First my lay of a gay lady-killer

Whose fine style was a knock-out and thriller;

   Just the way he crawled boldly

   Had his lay-dee stalled coldly,

for this bird was a furred caterpillar.

 

Then the wight with upright elephantis

Whose lady-bug sealed up her pantis,—

  His posturing charmed her

  Until he disarmed her —

This bug was the smug praying mantis.

 

There’s the tale of the birds of a feather,

Inexperienced, in inclement weather,

   Their nether between them,

   The feather to screen them,

They flocked up beneath it together

 

But I grieve for the gentleman actor

Who was geared like a caterp’l’r tractor,

   For his falling and crawling

   Made his kiss so appalling

The lady was crushed when he smacked her.

 

So I would make mention of this thing,

To all who for wisdom are list’ning:

   A whole hundred-horse power

   Can not open a flower

Without some celestial light glist’ning.

 

And let us not fail to remember

The rift between May and November;

   How his crumpled up browns

   Dulled the sheen of her gowns,

Reducing her love to an ember.

 

Then I laurel the brow of no lover

But lifts up the languishing soul of her

   On wings too celestial

   For anything bestial,

And heavens and leavens the whole of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At a poetry club meeting, members were challenged to produce a sonnet incorporating what had been published in Sunset Magazine by poet and lexicographer Wilfred J. Funk as the ten most beautiful words in the English language, beautiful in meaning and in the musical arrangement of their letters. Inspired, Heath produced this in twenty minutes, missing only one of the words: dawn, hush (missed by Heath), lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, melody.

 

 

   BEAUTIFUL WORDS

Sweet wisps of meaning, with emotion hued,

Let me but stir thee in my fancy’s bowl

And pour thee forth in measured rhyme, subdued

To faery patterns, meet for poet’s scroll.

As twinkling orbs, each lovely all alone,

In rhythmic pageants grace their lordless sky,

So fill my dreaming fancy with the tone

Of silver chimes or mellow lullaby. —

Whisper a tranquil song to golden dawn,

Ravish the luminous noonday of its rays,

Glisten with misty glamor joys long gone,

Murmur a melody meet for halcyon days.

  The beauty time in each of you has coined

       Give back ten-fold in gracious garlands joined.

S. H. Elkridge, Md. July 31, 1938.

 

 

 

 

It is unclear which of these versions of EUSYNTROPE was the last. One is on Butler Hall, New York City letterhead, the other is marked Elkridge. That there exists only one copy of the latter but many of the former may suggest the former was preferred.

 

 

EUSYNTROPE

Two Shadows touch their wings

and Lo! through both

Surge waves that tremble from

the deeps of life —

That waken melodies long sought

but known

Only as Emptiness for Echo

yearns

And shudders lest the answer be

a moan.

Two lips are pressed and then

like doves descend

Fulfillments. — In one moment

there are born

Preludes to symphonies that waken

powers

And hidden potencies —

that vanquish fears

But wail throughout the intervening

hours.

 

 

 EUSYNTROPE

Two shadows merge their wings and in that blend

Surge waves that thrill the deeps and still return

To waken melodies long sought but known

Only as soundless songs for echoes yearn

Yet tremble lest the music mask a moan.

Two lips are pressed and then like doves descend

Fulfillments.  In that moment there inheres

Prelude  —  to symphonies that waken powers

And hidden potencies, that vanquish fears

With poignant rhapsodies for endless hours.

S. H.  Elkridge, Md.

 

 

Jeanne Williams, of Winchester, Virginia, wrote that she’d “write a poem on him if he could take it.” Heath penciled the following:

 

 

If ever you make it,

   A poem on me,

You bet, I can take it

   Just like one, two, three.

 

So shake it and rake it

   In letter and line

And try hard to wake it

   To rhythm and rhyme.

 

Or my heart you will break it

   In fragments so small

All eyes will mistake it

   For nothing at all.

 

My love life I stake it

   On passion’s return;

In you I must slake it

   Or, otherwise, burn.

 

So, I pray you, don’t ache it,

   Just lean to its yearn; —

Roast, boil it or bake it

   But don’t let it burn.

 

But if you forsake it

   And don’t do your stuff

It’s no use to fake it, —

   I’m calling your bluff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A poem of unknown authorship that Heath enjoyed occasionally reciting with gusto and full Italian accent:

 

CARLOTTA

Guiseppe, the barber, he greata for mash

He gotta da bigga da blacka moustache

He gotta fine close and plenta fine cash

An many da hearts of da seelly young girls

He is gotta

But notta Carlotta.

He stand on da steps dere

An maka da eye

For catcha Carlotta

When she is go by

Carlotta she gif him a cold stony stare

As if she not know dere iss anyone dere.

Guiseppe the barber he greata for mash

He gotta da bigga da blacka moustache

He gotta fine close and plenta fine cash

An’ many da hearts of da seelly young girls

He is gotta

But notta, I bet my life notta Carlotta

   Carlotta, I gotta.