“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.” ñ Nicholas Butler
If this is an accurate quote, one wonders what he thought of this poem written by Rolfe Humphries, which appeared in the prestigious Poetry Magazine.
Humphries had been asked to write an original piece for Poetry Magazine in June 1939. He was given the title and asked to assure that the poem contain one classical reference per line and be in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Nicholas Butler had been Humphries former professor at Columbia Teachers University.
Humphries was banned from Poetry Magazine for life once the editors realized what they had published.
79. AN ODE FOR A PHI BETA KAPPA AFFAIR
Niobe’s daughters yearn to the womb again,
Ionians bright and fair, to the chill stone;
Chaos in cry, Actaeon’s angry pack,
Hounds of Molussus, shaggy wolves driven
Over Ampsanctus’ vale and Pentheus’ glade,
Laelaps and Ladon, Dromas, Canace,–
As these in fury harry brake and hill
So the great dogs of evil bay the world.;
Memory, Mother of Muses, be resigned
Untill King Saturn comes to rule again!
Remember now no more the golden day
Remember now no more the fading gold,
Astraea fled, Proserpina in hell;
You searchers of the earth be reconciled!
Because, through all the blight of human woe,
Under Robigo’s rust, and Clotho’s shears,
The mind of man still keeps its argosies,
Lacedaemonian Helen wakes her tower,
Echo replies, and lamentation loud
Reverberates from Thrace to Delos Isle;
Itylus grieves, for whom the nightingale
Sweetly as ever tunes her Daulian strain.
And over Tenedos the flagship burns.
How shall men loiter when the great moon shines
Opaque upon the sail, and Argive seas
Rear like blue dolphins their cerulean curves?
Samos is fallen, Lesbos streams with fire,
Etna in rage, Canopus cold in hate,
Summon the Orphic bard to stranger dreams.
And so for us who raise Athene’s torch.
Sufficient to her message in this hour:
Sons of Columbia, Awake, Arise.
