I just finished reading
The Husband Test, 1921, by Mary Carolyn Davies and followed with this poem from her 1919 collection
Youth Riding.
MARRIAGE
Back from the dusty church,
The words all said
And the strange kiss given,
We walked down the long lane of Fourteenth
Street,
(Our shoulders touching home-bound clerks,
And shoppers, straggly shawls about their
heads),
To the Hungarian restaurant where for
weeks
You had courted me between the soup and
steak.
To-night
The mirrors all about the walls seemed only
To show your face to me, and mine to you;
Wherever I might look, I found your eyes,
You mine, and as we gazed
We quite forgot that earth held other things;
Until our friendly waiter, twinkling-eyed,
Came bustling back, a link from heaven to
earth.
Three blocks of windy street,
Three flights of stairs,
And then we stood
Before your studio door.
You turned the key
And groping in the dark, you found a candle
And pouring tallow in a little pool
Upon the mantelpiece, you stood it there
In its tall whiteness.
There was rain outside;
The skylight hummed and rattled with its
coming.
A few faint sounds blew up from the loud
distance;
The grunt of a Salvation Army's drum
Blent with the noise
Of women's voices roughened by the night
Singing from hearts the night has roughened
too —
And softened.
The street flung up its sounds against our
window,
But could not force the fortress of our
thoughts,
Your thoughts of me, and mine of you, old,
new,
And riotous —
And frightened —
We, who had always been such open com-
rades,
Now were half afraid
To touch each other's hands,
To see each other's faces in the dim
And holy dusk.
We thought of God. I prayed to Him,
As I had prayed when first you said, " I love
you,"
The same quick, breathless, little broken
prayer,
"God, oh, don't let us hurt each other, ever."
The portraits you had painted were about us,
A ghostly company of friends.
Life seemed all ends;
Ends of things finished, ends of things begun,
Ends, ends —
No safe and placid middles.
Because the silence choked from utterance
All other words, we talked of daily things,
Your order for a cartoon, and the story
Long overdue, that I must mail to-morrow —
And then the silence
Laid its hands even on these commonplaces.
We looked at one another gravely,
Shy children that our mothers, Youth and
Life,
Had brought to see each other, and to play
Together.
Two startled children
Permitted by the gold ring on my hand
To stay and talk there in the dusk alone
And for the first time not to think of clocks
But if we liked, watch night's dark bud bloom
dawn.
The silence grew and filled the room's dim
corners.
The candle on the mantel burned its life out
And its flame died, and all the room was
dark;
And on the skylight fell the black loud rain;
And in the world there was no other sound
But your breathing
And the beating of my heart.
Then in the dark
You stumbled to me
And caught me by the shoulders
And laid your mouth on mine.
And all the hunger of our lives for life,
And all my hunger for you, yours for me,
Surged up in us, love caught us as a storm
A helpless ship, and beat upon us; joy
Rose like a tossing sea, and swallowed us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is a biography, mostly provided by her brother, in
The Bookman, Vol. 54.
Fred Lockley writes an account from Oregon, of an Oregonian who has migrated to New York City:
Mary Carolyn Davies, author of "The Husband Test", was born at Sprague, Washington, of Welsh and Danish ancestry. "We come by our Joy of writing naturally," said L. L. Davies, her brother. "My mother was richly endowed with the creative gift and her mother also was a writer. My father was a miner, and for eight years we lived In Casalo, B. C, on Rootenay Lake. Casalo was a unique community, very different from the ordinary American village or small town. While we were there we published a magazine. All of our family wrote for it, as well as other members of the community. It was hand written throughout and the Illustrations were also hand work. We produced each week twelve copies, which circulated throughout the entire community until everyone had read them.
"When my sister Mary was fourteen years old and still had braids down her back she was writing clever verse. While she was in high school she wrote a story and sent it to the 'Youth's Companion'. They sent her a check for forty dollars. This decided her to take up a literary career. To secure the money to go to the University of California she taught school for a year in eastern Oregon, near a little settlement called Post. Each day she rode three or four miles to her school on horseback. Riding has always been the one thing, next to writing, which she most loves. She attended the University of California for two years, majoring in English literature. This was In 1911 and 1912. Here she won the Emily Chamberlain Cook prize and the Bohemian Club prize, both awarded for the best verse produced by a student during the year. During her stay at the University she came under the Influence of Professor Gayley and of Warren Cheney. They encouraged her to make literature her life work. She also became well acquainted with Jack London and his wife Charmlan. Their friendly interest stimulated her greatly, and at their advice she went to New York University. She became a member of the Poetry Society of America, and when she came back to Portland was elected president of the Women's Press Club of Portland.
"In 1918 she published her book of verse entitled 'Drums In Our Street', and in 1919 a one act play entitled 'The Slave with Two Faces'. Her book of child verse, 'A Little Freckled Person', also published in 1919, Is going very well. 'Youth Riding', another of her books, is a collection of her more recent verse. 'The Century', 'Harper's', 'The Atlantic', 'The Cosmopolitan', 'The Bookman' and many other high class magazines have published her work."
