John Neihardt (January 8, 1881 to November 24, 1973) was an American poet and essayist. Born in Illinois he determined to understand the meaning of the conquest by the United States of a continent -- sentiments similar to those of Frederick Jackson Turner, (1861 -1932). Turner's scholarly paper "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", was presented at an American Historical Association meeting, in Chicago, during the Chicago World's Fair (1893). Both thinkers felt that the significance of what had happened, with the defeat of the indians and the expansion to the Pacific ocean, transcended mere geographical realignments.
Our Neihardt quote is from the September 10, 1910 issue of The Literary Digest. We preface it with the editor's introduction to Neihardt.
There is a rugged Saxon strength and a vigorous originality in the poetry of John Neihardt, that place him in the very front rank of American poets. The verse of his "Man-Song" (Mitchell Kennerley) seems to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiseled or molded from any softer material.
I watch you basking sleepy in the light,
Majestic dreamer, humorously stern.
Your little scratch-scarred nose betrays you quite,
Yet how I long to know your thoughts, to learn
What magic dreams beget themselves and burn
Throughout your subtle nerves; for once I saw
A cat's form graven on an antique urn,
And round their god Egyptians knelt in awe.
Was once thy hiss a blight, was once thy pur a law?
Perhaps through sentient chains of linked ages
Your soul has fled: yet like a haunting dream
Can recollect the prayers of swarthy sages,
Can hear the wash of Nilus' mystic stream!
It seems I see you basking in the gleam
Of desert dawns. Majestical you gaze
Unto the eye of Ra, and dream a dream.
Vast multitudes wait breathless in amaze.
For your oraculous purr to set their hearts ablaze!
Perhaps you think "How stupid grows the world,'
And pine for godhood, till you come to be
A broken spirit. like a war-flag furled,
Or drouth-drained river sighing for the sea!
What potent utterance do you waste on me
When I am kind and stroke your glossy fur?
What do you gaze on that I can not see?
Perhaps if men could know the things that were.
Their petted faiths should quake and tremble at your pur!
There is a rugged Saxon strength and a vigorous originality in the poetry of John Neihardt, that place him in the very front rank of American poets. The verse of his "Man-Song" (Mitchell Kennerley) seems to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiseled or molded from any softer material.
To My Cat
By John G. Neihardt
I watch you basking sleepy in the light,
Majestic dreamer, humorously stern.
Your little scratch-scarred nose betrays you quite,
Yet how I long to know your thoughts, to learn
What magic dreams beget themselves and burn
Throughout your subtle nerves; for once I saw
A cat's form graven on an antique urn,
And round their god Egyptians knelt in awe.
Was once thy hiss a blight, was once thy pur a law?
Perhaps through sentient chains of linked ages
Your soul has fled: yet like a haunting dream
Can recollect the prayers of swarthy sages,
Can hear the wash of Nilus' mystic stream!
It seems I see you basking in the gleam
Of desert dawns. Majestical you gaze
Unto the eye of Ra, and dream a dream.
Vast multitudes wait breathless in amaze.
For your oraculous purr to set their hearts ablaze!
Perhaps you think "How stupid grows the world,'
And pine for godhood, till you come to be
A broken spirit. like a war-flag furled,
Or drouth-drained river sighing for the sea!
What potent utterance do you waste on me
When I am kind and stroke your glossy fur?
What do you gaze on that I can not see?
Perhaps if men could know the things that were.
Their petted faiths should quake and tremble at your pur!
These three stanzas of iron hammered thoughts comprise the entire text of the poem: "To My Cat." The sentiments, would be repeated in a much more famous work--Black Elk Speaks (1932.) We see in both works the same willingness to comprehend a vanished and foreign glory and power. Neihardt's book made the views of a defeated Indian shaman famous.
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