"He the night descended on ..."

Here is a poem Cline sent from the Tolland Connecticut jail in December 1927, three months into his one year sentence for manslaughter (he had pleaded guilty to manslaughter just before a trial on charges of first degree murder would have commenced in mid-September 1927). It was sent to Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., editor of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where Cline worked in 1924-25. Some of the imagery of this poem is echoed in Cline's long poem "After-Walker" from January 1928, after his second wife deserted him, marking a very low point in his life. 

To a Friend: Dies Natalis Invicti*

To the Editor of the Post-Dispatch

He the night descended on
And whose feet the tide crept under
And whose vision seeking dawn
   Was shut with thunder:

As a cry that finds no end
Through a deathfast desert region
He that cried, and found no friend
   But a bright legion:

Knowing how serene and strong
Is your faith beyond defeating,
He sends you in his quiet song
   A thoughtful greeting.

He is well and wishes you
Bounty of the good new season:
More to laugh for, less to rue,
   True love, true reason!

Si vis divinus esse late ut Deus. . . . **

Leonard Cline
Tolland, Conn.

 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 December 1927

*Birthday of the Invincible

**If you want to be divine, be as God. . . .

The Dedication of THE DARK CHAMBER

 It reads as follows: 

So who were Carol and Garth Hyatt?  The short answer is some fellow newspaper writers. 

Garth Browne Hyatt (1888-1931) was on the staff of the Detroit News in 1917, which is probably where he met Cline. He was then married to his first wife, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

He married Carol Rose Willis (1896-1989) on 6 November 1926 in Lake County, Indiana. She had previously been married as well, and had one son.  

Around  the mid-1920s, Garth became an editorial writer for the Sunday Chicago Herald and Examiner, a post which he held until his death, which occurred when his automobile overturned about ten miles north of Santa Fe in November 1931. 

Carol wrote for the Chicago Daily News in the 1920s (as did Cline, who was in Chicago in 1925-26); some of her Daily News articles were collected in Backyard Play (1929), a small book of backyard activities. In the mid-1930s she contributed to Ladies' Home Journal, as Carol Willis Hyatt. In 1937 she married Guy Moffett in New York.  As Carol Willis Moffett she published a number of books, including Merchandising Aspects of Packaging (1938), House Cleaning Management and Methods (1940), Shoe Sizing and Fitting: An Analysis of Practices and Trends (1941) More for Your Money (1942), on to Getting Merchandise Ready for Sale: Receiving, Checking, Marking (1969).  Around 1975 she married Luther Halsey Gulik III.