Cale Young Rice

“ For I think it is not alone to bring forth life, that I mate you;
More than life is the beauty of life with love!
[Pg 8] Plentiful are the children that you bear to me, the blossoms,
The fruits and all the creatures at your breast dewily fed,
But mating is troubled with a far higher meaning—
A hint of a consummation for all things.
Come utterly then,
Utterly to me come,
And let us surge together, clasped close, in infinite union,
Until we reach a transcendence of all birth, and all dying,
An ecstasy holding the universe blended—
Such ecstasy as is its ultimate Aim! ”

“ A shuttle with silver breast across the warp of the waves gliding;
And an isle far out shall be a beam in the loom of my delight,
And the pattern of every dream shall be a rapture bathed in light—
Its evanescence a beauty most abiding.
And the sunsets shall give sadness all its due,
They shall stain the sands and trouble the tides with all the ache of sorrow.
They shall bleed and die with a beauty of meaning old yet ever new,
They shall burn with all the hunger for things that hearts have failed to do,
They shall whisper of a gold that none can borrow. ”

“ More than ships that meet and fling a wild ahoy and pass,
On any alien tides however enchanted.
And the face of love, the evening face of love, at a window waiting,
Shall ever a kindled Light on any long-unlifting shore,
Shall ever a Harbor Light like that light matter?
Ah no! so enough of the sea and the soul for a season.
Too long followed they leave life as a dream,
Reality as a mirage when port is made.
[Pg 53] "Ever in sight of the human," is the helm-word of the wisest,
For earth is not earth to one upon the flood of infinity ”

“ While beauty and love are everywhere—
As the tide comes tumbling in.
SENSE-SWEETNESS
Flowers are dancing, waves playing, pines swaying, gulls are a-swarm;
Sea and heather, sunning together, glad of the weather, with God are warm.
Flowers are dancing, clouds winging, larks singing, summer abrew—
Summer the old ecstatic passion of Life to fashion the world anew.
[Pg 105]
TIDALS
Low along the sea, low along the sea,
The gray gulls are flying, and one sail swings;
The tide is foaming in; the soft wind sighing;
The brown kelp is stretching, to the surf, harp-strings. ”

“ Rice the large and elemental vision a poet must have to serve his people when overwhelmed by elemental sorrows and passions. His poetry is a spiritual force interpreting life in the various phases of intellect and emotion, with a beauty of finish and sense of form that are unerring."—The Louisville Post. ”

“ AT THE HELM (Nova Scotia)
Fog, and a wind that blows the sea
Blindly into my eyes.
And I know not if my soul shall be
When the day dies.
But if it be not and I lose
All that men live to gain—
I who have known but heaving hues
Of wind and rain—
Still I shall envy no man's lot,
For I have held this great,
Never in whines to have forgot
That Fate is Fate.
[Pg 100]
IMPERTURBABLE
Three times the fog rolled in today, a silent shroud,
From which the breakers ran like ghosts, moaning and tumbling.
Three times a startled sea-bird cried aloud,
On the wind stumbling. ”

“ Rice is an American by birth, but he is not merely an American poet. Over existence and the whole world his vision extends. He is a poet of human life and his range is uncircumscribed."—The Baltimore Evening News. ”

“ It is like great chimes sounding—jangled at times or overborne—but always great."—The Philadelphia North American.
"Mr. Rice in his narratives can tell such tales as the old ballad-makers would have gloated over, and can make them contemporary and convincing. He can create life tragedies or comedies in a few lines and leave the reader with a sense of having been given a full meal of circumstance.... He is original without striving to be so, and one can never be embarrassed by the affirmation that he has come to hold a high place among poets of America."—The Chicago Tribune. ”

“ I have watched it foam at ships that sought to defy you,
I have seen it straining at cables that cross you, bearing whispers hid to you,
Or heaving at waves of the air that tell your hurricanes.
I know, I know your heart!
Men you will sink, and shores will sink; but a shore shall be man's forever,
From whence his lighthouse soul shall signal the Infinite,
Whose fleets go by, star after star, bearing their unknown burden
To a Port which only eternity shall determine! ”

“ Your tides, like the tidal generations, ever shall rise and fall,
And your infinite waves find birth, rebirth, and billowy dissolution.
The years of your existence are unending.
The years of your unresting are forever.
The sun, who is desire, ever begets in you his passion,
And the moon is ever drawing you, with silvery soft alluring,
To surge and sway, to wander and fret, to waste yourself in foam. ”

“ Here by the wide lone waves and lonelier wastes of sky,
We keep our poet-watch, as patient poets should,
Questioning earth's commingled ill and good to us.
Yet little of them, or naught, have truly understood.
Bright are the stars, and constellated thick.
To you, so quick to flit along your flickering course,
They seem perhaps as glowing mates in other fields.
[Pg 10] And all the knowledge I have gathered yields to me
Scarce more of the great mystery their wonder wields. ”

“ Rice's dramas are not equaled by any other American author's.... And when those who are loyal to poetic traditions cherished through the whole history of our language contemplate the anemia and artificiality of contemporaries, they can but assert that Mr. Rice has the grasp and sweep, the rhythm, imagery and pulsating sympathy, which in wondering admiration are ascribed to genius."—The Los Angeles Times. ”

“ Many Gods
"These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the East.... What I am sure of in Mr. Rice is that here we have an American poet whom we may claim as ours."—William Dean Howells, in The North American Review.
Nirvana Days
"Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up almost the entire equipment of many poets nowadays, but human nature is more to him always ... and he has the feeling and imaginative sympathy without which all poetry is but an empty and vain thing."—The London Bookman. ”

“ And peace matters, the valley-spirit of peace, unprone to wander,
Unprone to pierce to the world's end—and past it.
And zephyrs matter, that never lift up a sail,
Save that of the thistle voyaging over the meadow.
[Pg 52]
And the lark—oh—the sunny lark—as well as the songless petrel,
Who cries the foamy length of a thousand leagues. ”

“ By CALE YOUNG RICE and ALICE HEGAN RICE
"This volume of stories should hold its own with any collection likely to be published this year."—New York Post (The Literary Review) .
"American writers have been distinctive as narrators of the short story, but few, if any, volumes of such stories have recently been published in this country equal to 'Turn About Tales.'"—D. F. Hannigan (The Rochester Post-Express) .
"The gamut of the volume runs from spiritualism to the depths. It contains something of almost anything one happens to want. ”

“ Come from the sands where you have stayed too long,
Come from the reefs where you have wandered silent,
[Pg 7] For ebbings are good, the restful ebbings of love,
But, oh, the bridal flowings of it are better! ”

“ Rice has written well—so well as to justify prediction that he will, if he elect to do so, achieve greater distinction as a short story writer than as a poet. His 'Lowry,' 'Francella' and 'Aaron Harwood,' to cite a few of the stories, meet the test of artistic stories.... Each leaves an impression that will impel re-reading."—Galveston News. ”

“ Rice is an American poet whose reputation is deserved.... He has achieved a high position as poet and dramatist, a great fertility and variety of outlook being marked features of his work."—The London Times.
"Foremost among writers who have brought America into prominence in the realm of modern thought is Mr. Cale Young Rice.... 'Collected Plays and Poems' is one of the best offerings of verse we have had for long. ”

“ Nearly all his poems have elevation of thought and feeling, with beauty of imagery and music."—The New York Times.
"Whether the forms of this book are lyrical, narrative, or dramatic, there is an excellence of workmanship that denotes the master hand.... And while the range of ideas is broad, the treatment of each is distinguished by a strength and beauty remarkably fine."—The Continent (Chicago) .
"Mr. Rice proves the fine argument of his preface ... ”

“ The gulls have left the ship and wheel
Back to the cliff's gray wraith.
Will it be so of all our thoughts
When we set sail on Death?
And what will the last sight be of life
As lone we fare and fast?
Grief and a face we love in mist—
Then night and awe too vast?
Or the dear light of Hope—like that,
Oh, see, from the lost shore
Kindling and calling "Onward, you
Shall reach the Evermore!"
THE END On this and following pages are listed other books by Cale Young Rice. They are all published by The Century Co., 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City. ”

“ Rice's subject, inspiration, and mode of expression.... The passage of his spirit is truly from deep to deep."—Margaret S. Anderson (The Louisville Evening Post) .
"It is good to find such sincere and beautiful work as is in these two volumes.... Here is a writer with no wish to purchase fame at the price of eccentricity of either form or subject."—The Independent.
"Mr. Rice's style is that of the masters.... Yet it is one that is distinctively American.... He will live with our great poets."—Louisville Herald (J. J. Cole) . ”

“ Rice's plays as a whole, I should say that his prime virtue is fecundity or affluence, the power to conceive and combine events resourcefully, and an abundance of pointed phrases which recalls and half restores the great Elisabethans. ”

“ Rice has fairly won his singing robes and has a right to be ranked with the first of living poets. One must read the volumes to get an idea of their cosmopolitan breadth and fresh abiding charm.... The dramas, taken as a whole, represent the most important work of the kind that has been done by any living writer.... ”

“ A Play
"It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical drama written by an American for some years. There is genuine pathos, mighty yet never repellent passion, great sincerity and penetration, and great elevation and beauty of language."—The Chicago Post.
Song-Surf
"Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with nature and life, and a welcome originality of sentiment and metrical harmony."—Sydney Lee.
TRAILS SUNWARD By CALE YOUNG RICE
"Cale Young Rice has written some of the finest poetry of the last decade, and is the author of the very best poetic dramas ever written by an American.... ”

“ Rice is modern in the broadest sense of that term. Many of his poems are without rhyme and have irregular metres, but they never offend thereby.... His place in contemporary first class company is secure.—The Springfield Republican.
"A volume possessing range and variety, together with a lyric quality which distinguishes this poet, who ranks among the foremost American writers."—The Post-Intelligencer (Seattle) .
"Mr. Rice in his dramas is an enchanter, and to cast a spell is better than to have uttered the most lovely lyrics—but he has done both."—E. A. Jonas (The Louisville Herald) . ”

“ SHADOWY THRESHOLDS By CALE YOUNG RICE
"Cale Young Rice is far too great a pout to be acclaimed in some partisan circles.... He is intensely American ... as authentic an artist as Shelley or Keats.... He has the magic of Poe without that poet's morbidity.... ”

“ WRAITHS AND REALITIES By CALE YOUNG RICE
"In the writing of lyrics Mr. Rice is unequalled by any modern poet.... One must go outside of contemporary life to find anything of similar excellence."—Gordon Ray Young (The Los Angeles Times) .
"A new book by Mr. Rice is always an event in American letters...."—The New York Tribune. ”

“ Sanity linked with vitality and breadth in art make for permanence, and one can but feel that Mr. Rice builds for more than a day."—The Louisville Courier Journal.
"I rarely use the term 'sublimity,' yet in touches of 'The Foreseers,' particularly in its cavern-set opening, I should say that Mr. Rice had scaled that eminence."—O. W. Firkins (The Nation) .
12mo. 150 pages. Price $1.50
EARTH AND NEW EARTH By CALE YOUNG RICE
"America has today no poet who answers so well the multiplex tests of poetry as does Cale Young Rice."—New York Sun. ”

“ Rice's versatility or power of expression. Its poems are serious, keen, distinctively free and vitally spiritual in thought."—The Continent (Chicago) .
"Mr. Rice is concerned with thoughts that are more than timely; they represent a large vision of the world events now transpiring ... and his affirmation of the spiritual in such an hour establishes him in the immemorial office of the poet-prophet.... The volume is a worthy addition to the large amount of his work."—Anna L. Hopper in The Louisville Courier-Journal.
"Cale Young Rice is the greatest living American poet."—D. F. Hannigan, Lit. Ed. ”

“ Here we have variety, if ever.... If one can only own one of his books this is a good volume to choose."—The Galveston News.
"Cale Young Rice is a poet capable of sounding the deep imaginative strain not only with melody, but with vigor and power of thought. This volume will add another shining stone to his reputation."—The San Francisco Chronicle.
"Once more a book of the same high order as all Mr. Rice's work."—The Rochester Democrat-Chronicle.
"Shadowy Thresholds has as great a variety of poetic forms as any volume of late years.... Mr. ”