: 
 
 YOUNG GIRL 
 
 HILDEGARDE PLANNER 
 
 
 
 

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192,0 
 
 THE 
 
 SEASON'S 
 
 1921 
 
 GREETINGS 
 
 FROM 
 
 H.S.CROCKER CO., INC 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 U. S. A. 
 

 
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YOUNG GIRL 
 
YOUNG GIRL 
 
 AWARDED THE EMILY CHAMBERLAIN COOK PRIZE 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 AND OTHER F>OEMS 
 
 BY HlLDEGARDE PLANNER 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND DECORATIONS 
 BY PORTER GARNETT 
 
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 SAN FRANCISCO 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION BY 
 
 H.S.CROCKER COMPANY, INCORPORATED 
 MDCCCCXX 
 
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COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
 by HILDEGARDE PLANNER 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE publication of this volume of verse 
 by Miss Hildegarde Planner has been un- 
 dertaken by the Crocker Press not only 
 because some of the poems it contains were 
 selected by the committee of award for the 
 Cook Prize at the University of California, but 
 also because Miss Planner's poetry has proved 
 with such frequency its power to move and to 
 give pleasure to persons who .have read it, or 
 who have heard it read. The publishers feel, 
 moreover, that the selection is an appropriate 
 one because it is representative of California. 
 Although the author is not a Californian by 
 birth, the poems here collected were all written 
 while she was a student at Berkeley, and to 
 claim them therefore as Californian is not per- 
 haps a too flagrant exhibition of that acquisi- 
 tiveness for literary and artistic personalities 
 with which we of the extreme West have, at 
 times and not without some color of truth, been 
 charged. But the point is not an important one, 
 for, since these poems have come out of Cali- 
 fornia, and since, in thought and atmosphere, 
 they so subtly refledl their provenience, may 
 
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 we not offer them here as a gift from this far 
 shore, with confidence that they will in the fu- 
 ture speak for our desire to foster creative abil- 
 ity that is unfolded among us though it be not 
 native to our soil ? 
 
 There is in this approaching voice a fresh 
 music that is quite its own. Its cadences, never 
 severely patterned, possess an unfailing grace, 
 and match a sensitive word-play, which in ap- 
 perceptive images, gives us a spontaneous and 
 valid transcription of emotion and expresses a 
 vision at once various, intense, and delicate. 
 This nai've but illuminating diftion is secure in 
 the poet's instinctive acceptance of the artist's 
 obligation to express himself always with sin- 
 cerity, personality, and style, and we welcome 
 in the freshness of her images a happy avoid- 
 ance of imitative thought, of the approximate 
 phrase, and of the cliche. 
 
 The typographic and decorative dress with 
 which these lyrics have been clothed will, we 
 hope, appeal to the friends of the Crocker Press 
 as an earnest and conscientious effort to main- 
 tain a worthy standard in " the art preservative 
 of all the arts/' 
 
 PORTER GARNETT. 
 
 Vlll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 YOUNG GIRL 
 
 This Morning 
 Garden 
 Mood 
 Confession 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 Discovery 
 
 Birch Grove" Boris Anisfeld 
 The Singer 
 Birds 
 
Ihe committee of award for the Emily Chamberlain 
 
 Cook prize consisted of Professor Harold L. Bruce, 
 
 Mr. Edgar Lee Masters, and Professor Paid Shorey. 
 
 Acknowledgments for printing some of the 
 
 poems in this volume are made to the University 
 
 of California Chronicle, the Occident, 
 
 and the New York Tribune. 
 
 V 
 
THIS MORNING 
 
 AFTER the emotion of rain 
 The mist parts across the morning 
 Like the smile of one 
 Who has laughed in sleep 
 And cannot remember why. 
 
 The damp road companions my feet 
 
 And is a friend to every step. 
 
 Above me winter goldfinches 
 
 Cling like fruit 
 
 To the delighted birch trees ; 
 
 And the studious earth, 
 
 Thinking what flowers to speak in next, 
 
 Moves restlessly with small, wise birds 
 
 Who read the tucks in the moss, 
 
 The symbols on the beetle-wings, 
 
 And the comedies on pink and yellow pebbles, 
 
 Which I am too tall to see. 
 
s 
 
 OME day I might die 
 
 For fear they cannot hear me laugh 
 When I am being buried, 
 
 Come and be merry on my grave, 
 
 O cerise and yellow darlings, 
 
 So that my friends may say, 
 
 "It seems to me I hear her voice/' 
 
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 II. COLUMBINE 
 
 THERE is an eager hillside 
 Thirsting to a lake, 
 And on the sands a hundred toads 
 Trilling to awake 
 
 A band of ghosts with yellow brows 
 Who stretch green hands and rise 
 To look along their happy limbs 
 With cherry-colored eyes. 
 
 
III. NASTURTIUM 
 
 T SHALL hide my discretion 
 1 In your willing brightness 
 And give you to a snail to hold, 
 
 ill And say ' 
 
 1 'Catch me if you can, 
 
 I am going to China/' 
 
 IV. TIGRIDIA 
 
 LET three naked men 
 Carry me across the jungle. 
 There is a broken temple 
 Where I must meet the new moon 
 At sunrise. 
 
 V. PURPLE IRIS 
 
 T COULD drown 
 1 In one deep petal. 
 
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THEY say that my grandmother often 
 picked you 
 
 And placed your quaint perfume 
 At her tight girdle. 
 
 My grandmother 
 
 Did Vergil into French 
 
 And then had seven children. 
 
 . . . . I shall not pick you, 
 Dianthus. 
 
 YOU must have more wisdom than any, 
 For the sun tells you 
 What God says, 
 And the wild canaries tell you 
 What it is 
 
 To be a yellow motion 
 In the air. 
 
MOOD 
 
 MY shadow going on before 
 Flutters like a leaf, 
 But it can never reach the door 
 Before my grief. 
 
 My grief goes first and takes the key 
 To open the door and welcome me. 
 He offers me a lonely cup 
 Full of lily wine 
 
 And says, "Come sister, share this drink, 
 Yours and mine/' 
 He weds a pale blue candle 
 To a loving flame 
 And, holding it before his lips, 
 Breathes over it my name. 
 He lays his forehead to my knee 
 And I stroke his sorrowing hair. 
 The look of it beneath my hands 
 Is soft and fair. 
 
 He opens his mouth and sings one note 
 That strikes like rain against my throat ; 
 Then he leads me jealously to bed, 
 Lest I meet my dreams uncompanied ____ 
 What a desolate thing my house would be 
 If grief werejiot there to welcome me. 
 
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CONFESSION 
 
 THERE is an angel 
 Whose thoughts at morning 
 Are like a newly broken pomegranate, 
 And whose words at noon 
 Are golden ice 
 Warmed into music. 
 
 There is an angel 
 
 Whose eyes are like fuchsias 
 
 Whoever sits beneath them 
 
 Desires forthwith to be a passionate vine 
 
 And bear a flower. 
 
 There is an angel 
 
 Whose steps are slower than white clover, 
 
 For each motion 
 
 Is so heavy with beauty 
 
 That swiftness dies beneath the burden. 
 
 But I would rather live blessedly with you 
 
 Than go expectantly to heaven. 
 
DISCOVERY 
 
 UNTI L my lamp and I 
 Stood close together by the glass, 
 I had not ever noticed 
 I was a comely lass. 
 
 My aunts have always nodded, 
 
 " Sweet child, 
 
 She has a gentle soul 
 
 And mild/' 
 
 And so, one night, 
 
 I took my lamp and said 
 
 " I'll look upon my gentle soul 
 
 Before I go to bed. " 
 
 I could not find it ; no, 
 But gazing hard I spied 
 Something much more near to me, 
 White armed and amber-eyed. 
 
 And as I looked I seemed to feel 
 Warm hands upon my breast, 
 Where never any hands but mine 
 Were known to rest. 
 
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And as I looked my startled thoughts 
 Winged up in happy flight, 
 And circled like mad butterflies 
 About the light. 
 
 I went to bed without my soul, 
 And I had no mind to care, 
 For a joyful little sin 
 Slept pillowed on my hair. 
 
 I went to bed without my soul 
 What difference to me? 
 I had a joyful little sin 
 For company. 
 
 And that is what came of listening 
 To aunts who always lied. 
 They never told me that I was 
 White armed and amber-eyed. 
 
"BIRCH GROVE" Boris Amsfeld 
 
 tf je peins ce que je sens, pas ce que je vots." 
 
 I CANNOT find a path there 
 For mortal feet at all, 
 Where the shepherd boy is golden air 
 And the leaves are a waterfall. 
 
 I cannot wantonly intrude 
 Into that pagan solitude, 
 Where little dream-goats in a row 
 Trot quaintly, primly to and fro. 
 
 One hand upraised would be to crush 
 The wonder-strung fragility 
 Of trees that with a slow, still rush 
 Flow down from high infinity. 
 
 There is a chain I cannot sever .... 
 
 There is a wall that never, never 
 
 I watch the little dream-goats pace 
 Within that dim and dryad place. 
 
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THE SINGER 
 
 SOME one is coming down the street 
 singing 
 With his carol-book held out to you. 
 Come and lean against his broad, dusty 
 shoulder. 
 
 He sings the beautiful, gnarled hands of 
 
 factories 
 
 And the eyes that shine in a dark slum. 
 He sings a mighty melody for friendship 
 And a tender consolation for dishonor. 
 
 He sings valleys that hide the foxes, 
 Yellow pools along the sea-beach. 
 The red gates of day 
 And the black gates of prisons, 
 With always and always the same refrain- 
 Democracy, Myself, America! 
 
 10 
 

 BIRDS 
 
 BELOVED, the black swans of my eyes 
 Are loosed to your behest, 
 And must I still keep caged from you 
 The white swans of my breast ? 
 
 My hands, like slender pigeons, 
 Flutter the whole day through. 
 Did you not know the little things 
 Home unto you ? 
 
 My lips, like slim canaries, 
 Sing when I hear you speak. 
 Beloved, bend and stroke once more 
 The finches of my cheek. 
 
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PRINTED AT SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER. MDCCCCXX 
 
 BY H. S. CROCKER COMPANY. INCORPORATED 
 
 THE TYPOGRAPHY DESIGNED 
 
 BY PORTER GARNETT 
 
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