Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

Although STEPHEN CRANE (1871—1900) is best known for his classic Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895) and a handful of extraordinary short stories, he also found time in a life cut short by tuberculosis and overwork to write poetry of striking originality. Collected in The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895) and War is Kind (1899), his spare, chiseled, free-verse treats the same theme and expresses the same sensibility his fiction does: the absurd fate of men floundering in an indifferent universe and a sardonic relish for the grim comedy of the spectacle.

POEMS
In the Desert
War is Kind ["Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind"]