Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
I Came to Be AloneHarley Graves
I
From the world of the wearing of clothes to the nude and silent sky,
And into the woods I came, to the easily flowing river,
Here of my own nude soul to ask, “What manner of man am I?”
All that I thought and spoke and dared only a month ago.
Even the friends of my heart I have lost in the glancing shadows,
And the slim white self I see in the stream is the only self I know.
But now—oh, nothing but storm or peace under a bending sky,
Racket of winds at night that slap and tug at the flapping canvas,
And the rock of a good canoe by day on the rapids racing by!
For I have been glad of hunger and thirst, the fear of death I have known;
Jagged rocks in the rip I have seen and quiet waters beyond them,
And the clean green banks of perfect rest, since I came to be alone!