One from Kevil

Mrs. Mary Lanier Magruder is apparently one of the really good gets for UK's 1936 A Brief Anthology of Kentucky Poetry. Most of the poets in here are represented by two or three titles; Editor J.T.C. Noe makes way for five from Mrs. Lanier Magruder.

"Of 'Lane's End,' Kevil, Kentucky, comes of a long line of cultured ancestors, distinguished as soldiers, musicians, diplomats, courtiers, poets, and litterateurs," writes compiler Noe. "In her Virginia ancestry are the Laniers, Washingtons, Averys, Claibornes, Sterlings, Byrds, and MacLins." (Mr. Heath High School of 1983 was a Lanier, Marty; I wonder if he and Mrs. Mary are kin.) She's a big deal--published in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Holland's and many more. Her 1924 novel, Wages, was heralded by The Buffalo Sunday Express as "sufficiently voltaged."

Here's "In April."

The April twilight waned to dark
And every star struck out a spark
From high infinitely to light
The way you came to me that night,

And every lilac laughed and blew
A lovely fragrant kiss to you,
And all the star-flowers in the grass
Trembled to hear your quick feet pass.

Long, long ago another trail
Your feet have found and followed. Pale
Those shining stars, and far and wan
Since love and hope with you are gone.

But when without my darkening pane
The lilacs whisper in the rain,
My lonely candle's flickering gleam
Still lights my unforgotten dream.

And sometimes in the village street
I hear an echo hushed and fleet;
Since doubt is dead with passion's pride,
I think I hear your feet outside.

And when the April gust is spent
And dusk with drowsy darkness blent,
Where moonbeams spread their silver patch
I hear your fingers on the latch.

But when I fling the bolt and stand
Grouping to find and touch your hand,
Oh, then I know without my door
But night and darkness evermore.