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Archibald MacLeish text for Elinor Remick Warren pieceDate: May 25, 2012 by Frank Albinder  Views: 2522
Hi all,
I'm working on a piece by Elinor Remick Warren with one of my choirs. It's called Merry-Go-Round, and in the score, published by H. W. Gray in 1934, the text (below) is credited to Archibald MacLeish, with the note that "Words used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co." We've been discussing the text in rehearsals trying to hone in on some meanings, but when trying to do further research, I find absolutely nothing about the text, save for mentions connecting it to the Warren piece. Google searches for fragments of the text also deliver nothing, as do searches of MacLeish's poetry. Does anyone know this text or have any information about it? Thanks for anything you can provide!
Frank
Who’ll ride on the merry-go-round?
Who’ll ride on the merry-go-round? Who’ll undergo birth For a whirl on the earth? Who’ll ride on the merry-go-round? You swing through unlimited space, Noting to hold you in place. You circle the sun Till you’re giddy with fun, And the nebulae laugh in your face. You can ride on the Pegasus steed, On the hobbledy horse on a lead. It won’t matter a bit If you pull or you hit, There’s only one possible speed. You can ride on the true lover’s throne With the lad or the lass that’s your own. You can laugh at the rest, In his arms, on her breast, But you stop, when you stop, by your lone. You pay as you enter, my dear, And you pay after that every year. And you pay after that When they pass the big hat, And you pay when you leave, never fear. Who’ll ride on the merry-go-round? Replies (5): Threaded | Chronological
Laura Kennelly on May 25, 2012 1:50pm
Hi Frank,
Just to state the obvious, it's a metaphor about life. No matter whether you are a poet (Pegasus), have a cause (hobby horse), fame, have a true love, etc. you can move in a giddy whirl (the merry-go-round), but you will die and you will you do it alone. You pay with age as the years pass. It also seems to allude to the carnival barker's invitation "Who'll ride?" The big invitation to life--.
Laura
Laura Kennelly, Ph.D.
Associate Editor
Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute
275 Eastland Road
Berea, OH 44017
440-826-8071
lkennell(a)bw.edu
on May 26, 2012 6:55am
Hi Frank,
I checked my copy of Bortin's bio-biblio of Warren. Alas, nothing other than a listing in catalog of her works. However, I have one thought: when MacLeish returned from Paris in 1928, he lived in Georgetown (DC) around the corner from Drew Pearson, a muckraking journalist who published in 1931 a scandalous book entitled The Washington Merry-Go-Round. Wonder if there could be a connection, but that depends upon when MacLeish wrote the poem, which seems more likely to date from his expat years in Paris in the 20s. What's your deadline? I can check MacLeish's papers at LC next week as well as the original copyright records, if that would be helpful. There is an expert in Mss Div on MacLiesh because he was appointed Librarian of Congress in 1940 by FDR, and completely reorganized the place into the 20th century. I can also check various on-site only databases. Great question, Frank! Cheers! Margaret Margaret Shamnon
Applauded by an audience of 1
on May 26, 2012 2:12pm
A quick trip to Arlington Public Library produces this
further information. The text set by Warren appears to be part of a
poem titled "Chevaux de Bois" (Merry-Go-Round), which was published
in The Happy Marriage and Other Poems on March 1, 1924, by Houghton
Mifflin. I say "appears to be " because I have been unable to dig
up a complete text of the book online or at library.
According to his biographer Scott Donaldson, MacLeish, then 30, was a very up-and-coming lawyer at the prestigious law firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart. "He stole time for poetry and wrote much of what was to become his second book of verse, The Happy Marriage and Other Poems. One day in February 1924, it occurred to him that he must either get out of law then or not at all. If he stayed any longer, it would be impossible for him to break free." That night, he and his young musician- wife ( who would study with Nadia Boulanger) decided to go live in Paris, where the post-war exchange rate was ridiculously favorable, "to see if he really was a poet." These lines from the poem are quoted in Donaldson: Three hundred and sixty-five twirls
The critics were encouraging. " According to convention," writes Donaldson, "in a true marriage the lonely soul merges with another, and so ceases to be alone, but 'The Happy Marrage' rejects this hypothesis entirely. For MacLeish at this period, each soul was utterly and unavoidably alone. The brief review in Dial praised the book for its 'flashes of imagination,' while criticizing its sometimes prosaic passages. MacLeish could not have agreed more. He had progressed to a much sparer style. To his mind, the best work in the book consisted of a few poems he had written after coming overseas. Among them was " Chevaux De Bois", where life is compared to a merry-go-round. Here occurs the first instance of the most prevalent image of MacLeish's writing: insignificant man adrift in space on the spinning earth." [pp. 134-35] This should get you started! Margaret Applauded by an audience of 1
on May 27, 2012 9:31pm
Have you communicated with the following:
Elinor Remick Warren Society
535 S. Curson Ave. Suite ML
Los Angeles, CA 90036
vbortin(a)elinorremickwarren.com
www.elinorremickwarren.com
Michele
Professor emerita of music, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN 55105
on May 28, 2012 8:06am
(a)Margaret - Thanks for doing some leg work on this! One of my singers uncovered a reference to the poem in a book of literary criticism published in 1941, so I went to the Library of Congress to take a look. Though the critic, Rica Brenner, liked the main poem of the collection, she wasn't very complimentary about the others. And she only quoted one stanza in her criticism. And another of my singers consulted the Donaldson biography as well. Since the poem is so obscure, it makes one wonder how Warren found it in the first place!
(a)Laura - Yes, that was certainly one of the meanings we discussed in rehearsal. One of my singers posited that it was really about marriage, and now that we know it comes from a collection called The Happy Marriage and other poems, that seems to be a reasonable interpretation too. I was really more interested in where the text came from.
(a)Michele - Yes, we've been in touch with the Society, but this is a little obscure, even for them. They were, however, delighted that we'll be performing two of Warren's pieces on our concert this week.
For me, the puzzling thing remains the paucity of information about the poem itself. When you look up The Happy Marriage and other poems, there's never a listing of the "other poems." Even websites that purport to list the complete poems of MacLeish don't have these titles. It's pretty odd. And frustrating, especially since he was a Librarian of Congress and lived not too far from where I'm sitting right now!
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