#blanche shoemaker wagstaff

[violettesiren]

Give me the patience of the silent hills, The green, calm hills that watch beneath the sky, Grave vigils keeping as the years go by, Unmoved by storm or wind, when winter spills Its snowy flood. O tranquil trees and rills! I wold be like your majesty of green Through life's vicissitudes to dwell serene. Give me the patience of the silent hills.

O noble contours, mighty glades that peer Upward to where the sunlight gleams on high, Companions of the cloud, friend of the star, Bride of the moon, in azure regions clear, Give me the silence of the vaulted sky, The patient fortitude that dwells afar.

July by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[la-femme-en-rouge]

“Be no longer tender. Cover me with frenzied kisses, even as I would drench my body in the cruel torrents of the rain. Envelop me from throat to ankle in delirium intolerable….” ~ Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[lost-in-woodlawn]

The beautiful portrait of poet Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff above was painted in 1905 by French artist Theobold Chartran.

Blanche published several books of poetry during her lifetime, many of which can still be found for sale online.  She also wrote a children's book about Jesus called The Beloved Son and two plays, “ Alcestis” and “Quiet Waters.”

During World War I, Blanche was one of the founders of the National League For Women’s Service; it was a well-respected war relief organization helping American soldiers. You can learn more about the League on the Wiki page about it; an interesting read!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_for_Women%27s_Service

After some time, Blanche felt the need to be even more involved in war relief efforts. She traveled to Europe and drove a car in the war zone for 2 years, helping to transport the wounded.

Blanche died in England in 1967 aged 79; she was brought back to New York to rest with her family in their Woodlawn Cemetery mausoleum.  Also entombed with Blanche is her 2nd husband Donald Carr (her first marriage, to Alfred Wagstaff Jr., ended in divorce.)   One of the Shoemaker family members resting in the mausoleum is Blanche’s brother William B. Shoemaker, who was killed in a grisly elevator accident at his place of work in 1906; he was 23 years old and tragically had been married only a few weeks when he died.)

I recently bought a used book of Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff’s poems published in 1917 titled “Narcissus and Other Poems” and was thrilled to find an intact four-leaf clover pressed into one of its pages.   I hope everyone reading this blog will get a little luck from this clover; we all could use some right now!

[neverendingparable]

Be no longer tender. Cover me with frenzied kisses, — even as I would drench my body in the cruel torrents of the rain. Envelop me from throat to ankle in delirium intolerable....

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[jewlwpet]

Beautiful girl, With large mild eyes Full of wonder and dream. Were you not made to be loved In some dim woodland Where there are no stars? Your glance is like twilight When the west is stained with silver... Dream-haunted, magical Girl! When you look at me I see the gray dust Of Italian evenings, For your face has all the beautiful sorrow Of DaVinci's Mona Lisa

“Mona Lisa” from the anthology Quiet Waters by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff, a woman, published in 1921

[suzyhazelwood]

“I wait for his face - As after rain Earth trembles waiting For the sun again...”

Earth Trembles Waiting

[violettesiren]

I would be glad of life even for these: The Spring, when amber willows are in bloom, The young moon risen like a silvery plume In opal skies, star-tinted. Through the trees A blue bird's note at twilight; on the breeze The echo of the sea's impassioned boom, A flash of lightning through the pine-tree gloom Cloud-shadows passing with the Pleiades…

I would be glad of life for April rain, Sweet-smelling earth, a quiet templed wood, Green vines on ruined towers by the sea, And meadows glowing with the golden grain, Moonrise upon a mountain solitude, Man needs no immortality!

April by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[its-all-down-hill]

From “The Book of Love” By Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff  (1917)

I WALK alone and cry out under the stars. As one in a desert I hunger for refreshment. I have need of the coolness of some azure pool. O, I would anoint my bosom with the clear water! O, I would immerse myself in the emulous depths!        5 O, I would drink of ineffable dreams. You, Beloved, are the silvery lake shimmering in the desert of my youth. You only can allay the fever of my spirit! On your lips I should drain the fountain of life. On your white breast I shall breath the perfume of numberless lilies.        10 Therein I shall die a thousand deaths and arise reborn in the awful splendor of your love….*        *        *        *        * LAY your hands,—softer than dove’s wings,—in my hands so I may feel your young life flowing into mine thro’ your finger-tips. Lay your eyes upon my eyes that I may grow tremulous beneath the flutter of your eyelids. Lay your heart against my heart that I may hear your love summoning me to forgetfulness. Lay your tresses about me that I may feel their warm sun streaming thro’ my veins.        15 Lay your mouth on my mouth until all dissolves in mist about me….                (Is it life? Is it death?)*        *        *        *        * YOU are as a million birds that sing unto my heart, O, Beloved. Thro’ the long nights I hear the chanting of blithe voices. What divine minstrelsy! what ravishment….        20 Is this multitudinous melody the rapture of your kiss? Come to me, press upon my brow the coolness of your young lips that I may hear the thunder of your love in the night….*        *        *        *        * When will it end, the long vigil…. What dawn will bring you forever unto me, O, my Beloved? Life is but shadow.        25 Only you, my Beloved, are more real than shadow. Beneath your caresses I am as one awakened unto life. Your finger-tips bear presage of divinity. Your heart-beats are a threnody sublime. O, Beloved, you are as a white nenuphar lifting its snowy breast on a stream. In your bosom are all the treasures of Elysium. The scent of your skin is like jasmine and honeysuckle. Why is such loveliness withheld from me, O, Beloved?        30 When can I look upon you and say: “Beloved! all this beauty is mine forever.” When will it end, the long vigil….*        *        *        *        * O, MIRACLE of love! You whom I adore unto delirium, Your arms are white lilies upon my bosom.        35 Stars encircle me when your lips lean down to mine. There is the sound of many waters falling. There is the murmur of a million nightingales,—and the flash of brilliant lightning. Caress celestial! Moon-path of my dreams! O, miracle of Love—my divinity and my crucifixion….*        *        *        *        * WHEN the young moon silvers the sky, the earth is ours,        40 We shall go into the forest and wander in the shadow of the pines. I shall cover you with leaves, and we shall lie on the soft moss entwined like sisters. And all the while I will know that the fragrance of your skin is sweeter to me than the perfumes of a million roses….*        *        *        *        * LET me enfold you in my hair. Let me wind you as in a golden skein.        45 Give me the curve of your throat, milky white and rose, that I may place about it the glossy fillets of my hair. Don it as a shining mantilla…. Let my hair shower about you until you are radiant with perfume; Let it ripple over you like the wind on summer wheat. Then give me your lips that we may stand united beneath the downpour of its sunlight.        50 Let us be intermingled as two trees that have bent one single root….*        *        *        *        * IT rains, Beloved…. The dripping of the rain is like the cool kisses of your mouth…. I faint beneath the rapture of your lips. Be no longer tender.        55 Cover me with frenzied kisses,—even as I would drench my body in the cruel torrents of the rain. Envelop me from throat to ankle in delirium intolerable…. *        *        *        *        * TO love you like the midnight storm! To take you swooning unto death as the wind sweeps the waves in tempest!        60 To transport you unto delirium! To hear the wild beating of your veins; to feel flame shuddering your blood and to agonize you with my ardor. To crush you as a flower upon my breast, To bear you away to some secret valley where I would love you unto insensibility….*        *        *        *        * IF I think of you, I quiver from head to foot.        65 If I think of you tears flood my eyes. If I pass you my heart quickens to suffocation and the blood seems to leave my body. If I look into your eyes a sudden fire burns in my veins. If I touch you I am as one possessed with madness; my arms tremble and my limbs totter beneath me. To love you is to suffer the pangs of an intolerable agony.*        *        *        *        *        70 I SEE you coming toward me…. Silently you take me in your arms. Our lips meet and our eyes close. I feel the shuddering of your breast and the beating of your throat against mine. We are enveloped in darkness.        75 We know nothing but the thunder of our veins…. We are swept out into a sea of infinite oblivion.

[lost-in-woodlawn]

I noticed that you had the death of BLANCHE SHOEMAKER WAGSTAFF as 1967 but on the internet it was 1959. Which is correct?

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff Carr died in England on December 15, 1967. She was returned to the U.S. to rest in her family’s plot.

[neverendingparable]

Lay your heart against my heart that I may hear your love summoning me to forgetfulness.... Lay your mouth on my mouth until all dissolves in mist about me....

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[pre1923]

Pyre by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff Quiet Waters, 1921

[halaatme]

[violettesiren]

Here peace and beauty reign, Here by the sea; Here I am whole again, Of pain set free! Flung to the dappled sky All old desire, Cleansed in the sun-fire That which was I; Each little nerve of me Strung sweet anew, Each weary sense of me Soothed by the blue; No more the ache of things No more the sigh; Hark! has my soul spread wings into the sky?

By The Sea by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

[tinytimetravel]

"Her 'Litany' a Yearning For Spiritual Beauty", from the Washington [DC] "Times", 3/8/1914 [p.3]. As a testament to the fickle nature of literary fame, you cannot do better than Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff. First published at age 7, author of five books of poetry by the age of 25, she is forgotten today. Perhaps with good reason. The poem mentioned in this article, "Litany", can be read at the Internet Archive in her book  "Narcissus and Other Poems". She seems to have been a bit of a narcissist herself. When asked what she intended to convey in her poem 'Litany", she replied, "Like everything with a lofty ideal, it is not obvious." Critics seem to have concentrated on the fact that Wagstaff herself married into wealth, referring to her poetry as the outpourings of the idle rich, and "the cry of a wanton society woman, satiated with luxury and indolence". There is definitely the taint of late 19th century Decadence in her verse. "Litany" itself has as one of its refrains, "Give me my utmost hour and let me die!" Her poetry is ripe with weariness and a longing for "rapture" to break the monotony of existence; she calls out for ecstasy (both religious and sexual), and her poems often reference Greek mythical beings, such as Adonis and Bacchus, not to mention her patron, Narcissus. Still, though she wrote bad poetry, she wrote quite a bit of it, and it was published, and at least a few people in her day must have found that her words spoke to them.

[lioninsunheart]

To love you like the midnight storm!... To hear the wild beating of your veins; to feel flame shuddering your blood and to agonize you with my ardor. To crush you as a flower upon my breast, To bear you away to some secret valley where I would love you into insensibility....

~Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff