Josephine Bell - 2 Short Poems (1919)

Forgotten Poems #57

 
              —: My Comrade :—

       I am laughing with the smell of the river;
       I am laughing with the hidden wind swelling up
            over the lap and shoulders,
       and winding about the neck of my green world;
       I am laughing with the sweeps of rank grass
            and the calm shining miles of floating river;
       I am laughing with the knowledge of heaped pine boughs
            and wet moldy earth,
            and last uncurling leaves of middle June:
       I am laughing with the heavy wasteful leafage;
       I am laughing with yellow tons of spacious sunshine
            pressing lightly, like a warm cheek against mine;
       All of me is absorbed and jubilant,
       in my gleaming comrade,
              the manifold person of the morning.
 

Josephine Bell was the pseudonym of Doris Bell Collier (1897-1987); physician and writer. Bell was also a vocal supporter of anarchists activists and leaders of the movement, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, as in her poem ‘A Tribute’, written following their arrest in 1917;

 
              —: A Tribute  :—

       Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
       Are in prison,
       Although the night is tremblingly beautiful
       And the sound of water climbs down the rocks
       And the breath of the night air moves through
            multitudes and multitudes of leaves
       That love to waste themselves
            for the sake of summer.

       Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
       Are in prison tonight,
       But they have made themselves elemental forces,
       Like the water that climbs down the rocks:
       Like the wind in the leaves:
       Like the gentle night that holds us:
       They are working on our destinies:
       They are forging the love of the nations:
       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
       Tonight they lie in prison.
 

In the 1930s Bell would become well-known for her crime and detective fiction, writing more then 40 novels over the next 50 years, and helping to found the Crime Writers' Association in 1953. Unfortunately, Bell never returned to publishing poetry, and little of her verse remains.

              For Josephine Bell
                  by Dick Whyte

       laugh loudly
       warm & wind-like,

       and when with trees
       still feel awe:

       one day,
       everyone will mean
       everyone

 

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