"The Vine and the Oak" by Henry Livingston, Jr. (1786)

Byron Nilsson's narration comes from Major Henry Livingston's 1786 poem in his Poetry Manuscript Book. The published version seen is from the Feb 1791 version, which Henry published in the New-York Magazine. This is one of Professor Mac Jackson's favorite Henry poems.

I tried Byron's narration out on Major Bradley Van Deusen's army poetry (Old Soldiers' Drums, 1933), but it didn't work out. "Incident" was the best of his tries. I need to find a narrator who understands and appreciates the military. Major Van Deusen was Major Livingston's 4th great grandson, an army poet, and part of the New York City Greenwich Village scene of the 1930's and 40's.

Some other examples of Van Deusen's poetry:
Favorite Poems

Old Soldiers' Drums

The Convent of the Guns

Our clean curved mouths are cold and dead.
Our polished skin is marred.
Our tawny thighs are thick with dirt,
Dinted, cut, and scarred;
Our day is done! But once!
Our open mouths blazed Deaths' caress
Our tongues with steel were tipped!
Ah! Bitter spinsters were we then
As we slashed and cut and ripped;
Our youth was filled with lovers
All laughing, joyous boys
Who stroked our slim, proud beauty
Their latest, deadly toys.
Then clean and fresh and polished
We went forth with the Dead
The living, lovely happy lads
Whose last touch, dyed us red.
But supplanted like all harlots
By the newer fresher one
We turned to rest and quiet
As our kind have always done,
With a printed tag about our throats
To inform our lovers' sons We're an Ordanance Exhibition
The Convent of the Guns!

******

Zero Hour

Grey stars agleam in a blank, dead sky
Grey guns agrowl below.
Grey clad men out beyond the wire.
Grey fields in the star-shells glow.

The barrage is a pounding symphony
That ears attuned cannot hear.
There's something flicking the parapet
There's something above you fear!

Not fear of "stopping one" above,
Or fear for the man beside.
There's something flicking the parapet
There's a fear that you cannot hide.

"Stand By!" The rifle is cool in your hand
And your heart pounds hard and quick.
There's something flicking the parapet
Number Three of the squad is sick.

The rifle hurts the palm of your hand
Like gripping a stiff wire brush
There's something flicking the parapet
"Walk slow through the wire, then rush!"

The whistle! The ladders! Up over the edge!
And your legs seem stiff and sore.
There's something flicking the parapet
Number Three is sick no more!

Grey stars agleam in a blank dead sky
Grey guns agrowl below.
Grey faces turned to the glowing stars
Where men lie dead in a row.

******

Song to be Sung on Third Relief

You are the night winds
Singing of tarnished beauty.
You are the lure and lie
Of all I have held most dear.
You are agonies suffered alone in the squadroom
You are a girl and very near.

You are flat jades
Whipped to a deep green frenzy.
You are wrought shields
Polished to silver bright.
You are an ivory, ancient torture
Suffered throughout the night.

You are the lights
Of the Guardroom glowing.
You are the moon
On my bayonet's blade.
You are duty and more than duty
You are a woman and unafraid.

You are a bugle
Sobbing across the parade ground,
Untouchable, lovely
And remembered long.
You are a splendor and I am a soldier
This is a soldier's song.

"M" Company's stables ...
There's a padlock missing ..."
"Hello, Kid." "Post!"
And the Guard is through.
The dawn in the East is a gay, gold glory
An altar grown great for you.

******

Settled

I have found a niche for a drifter
In a peaceful little town.
The streets are quiet and the lamps are low
And I think I've settled down.
There's a hush in the early evening
And the skies are grey and still.
The people soft and their words are kind
And a man may dream his fill.
Yet a man grows soft in dreaming
And the winter air is chill
And I miss the friends that I used to know
And I miss the golden thrill
Of gallant deeds in action
Of hunger and color and death
And the little jokes in the jungle grass
Hissed out with labored breath.
But my friends have gone from the beaches
And the war gongs clash no more.
The tribes have ceased their chanting
And the blood's washed from the shore.
I'll call an end to my drifting
At least, this is something new,
I'll forget the talk and the song we sang
I'll stay and see it through.

******

Outcasts

Outcast men of the world are we,
Sunk in the depths of iniquity
Detested by all and loved by none.
A blot on the face of the kindly sun.
Men of training and breeding and birth
Who knew full well what the game was worth
Who played their hands -- and lost --
-- and then
Lost themselves from the world of men.

We hid ourselves in the Island world
Where the flashing coils of the "Snake" are curled
We sought the depths to hide our shame.
The "thing" we had made of an honored name.
We swam the Bay in the early dawn
But the Shark came not, and we lived on.
We sought the end in the bolo's steel
But hearts wounds live, while flesh wounds heal.

We went unarmed to the Moro's "jil"
But they called us "mad" and they would not kill.
And the Padre came with his tale of Grace
But we knew better, and laughed in his face.

We twined our hearts in a woman's hair
Then tried to forget in the din and glare
Of a "tienda down on the opal bay
Where many men come and some men stay.

We lost ourselves in the Army then,
Our identity merely "Enlisted Men"
But in the dusk, when the shadows start to crawl
In their weird, wild dance on the barracks wall
A ghastly pageant that comes to stir
Our memory again to what we were
And we bow our heads and stifle a cry
For we don't know how and we'll never know why.

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