Again, what prompted this poem? Evelyn was so able to see a vignette of life and then get inside the mind of the person involved. (See "Farewell.") Clearly this speaker's eloquence inspired Evelyn to look deep inside the young woman's soul.
The Young Communist
A bell struck deep within me when she spoke.
It was as if my dormant flesh awoke
To life for the first time. It seemed to me
A strange and wondrous thing that I could be
Thus moved by one I had not seen before - -
By one whose creed my fathers would deplore.
Was it the music of her low-hung voice
That made my spirit answer and rejoice?
I had not seen the glowing eyes of her.
I had not felt the restless fires stir
In her warm body, though her lips framed words
That drew rapt followers to her in herds.
Her youth was like the burning flush of dawn
That lingers till the final dark is gone;
Enthusiasm like the maddest rush of waves
That piles its green-tongued foam ashore and laves
Bewildered sands. The pleading of her cause
Was met with ardent hand and heart applause.
What matter that her dreams are futile dreams?
Her words like drops of light in candle beams?
What matter that her youth will waste away
And ultimately seep through solid clay?
Her lips have held a multitude in thrall.
She is a prophet, flaunting Need’s thin call.
Evelyn Coffey
This is one about which we had asked Evelyn. She had listened to a talk by a young woman who was, as the poem states, a communist. She was quite struck by her. Often Evelyn would come back to her apartment after a stimulating experience (like hearing Schubert Unfinished Symphony)and her poetry would give voice to her reflections. What a gift that she captured these experiences as a legacy, to her failing memory later in life and to us now.
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