DONALD JEFFREY HAYES
Reading edition
Donald Jeffrey Hayes was born November 16, 1904, in Raleigh, N. C. At the age of five his parents brought him to Atlantic City, N. J., where he attended the public schools through the freshman year of High School. In 1913 he moved with his family to Pleasantville, N. J., where in his sophomore year of High School he was awarded, after a near student strike, court action and the dismissal of a member of the faculty—the highest debating honors. Following this unpleasantness, he went to Chicago where he studied privately the forms of poetry while completing his High School work. He graduated in 1926 from Englewood an honor student, and distinguished, as it were, as “The poet of Englewood” and “The Bronze God” as his fellow students dubbed him.
He is at present planning a volume of his verse and studying the voice, planning to make his career in the concert field.
INSCRIPTION
He wrote upon his heart As on the door of some dark ancient house: Who once lived here has long been dead As dead as moss-grown stone Only a ghost inhabits here One that would be alone Only a ghost inhabits here A ghost without desire Who sits before a shadowed hearth And warms to a spectral fire....
AUF WIEDERSEHEN
I shall come this way again On some distant morrow When the red and golden leaves Have fallen on my sorrow...! I shall come this way again When this day is rotten In the grave of yesterdays And this hour forgotten...! I shall come this way again Before the lamp light dies To comfort you and dry the tear Of penance from your eyes...!
NIGHT
Night like purple flakes of snow Falls with ease Catching on the roofs of houses In the tops of trees Down upon the distant grass And the distant flower It will drift into this room In an hour....
CONFESSION
She kneeled before me begging That I should with a prayer Give her absolution (How golden was her hair!) She begged an absolution While the moments fled She thought my tears were pity (My soul her lips were red!) She begged of me forgiveness God you understand (For pale and soft and slender Was her dainty hand!) She begged that I should pray You That her Soul might rest But I could not pray O Master (Ivory was her breast!)
NOCTURNE
Softly blow lightly O twilight breeze Scarcely bend slightly O silver trees: Night glides slowly down hill ... down stream Bringing a myriad star-twinkling dream.... Softly blow lightly O twilight breeze Scarcely bend slightly O silver trees: Night will spill sleep in your day weary eye While a soft yellow moon steals down the sky.... Softly blow Scarcely bend So ...! Lullaby....
AFTER ALL
After all and after all When the song is sung And swallowed up in silence It were more real unsung.... After all and after all When the lips have stirred Such a little of the thought Is transmuted in the word.... Suffer not my ears with hearing Suffer not your thoughts with speech. Let us feel into our meaning And thus know the all of each.