Although Stephen Crane 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.
More By This Poet
In the Desert
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it...
In Heaven
XVIII
In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
“What did you do?”
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind
Ashamed.
Presently God said:
“And what did you do?”
The little blade answered:...