Song for a Fool by Leonard Cline

Here's the last of Cline's six poems that he published in The Liberator.  "Song for a Fool" is the only one that is expressly political (witness the use of "red" in the penultimate line).  It appeared in the October 1920 issue. (It was not included in Cline's collection After-Walker, published in 1930. To see all six poems click on the tag "The Liberator".  Only two--"Bach" and "Vega"--were collected in After-Walker.)

On the Roof by Leonard Cline

Another one of Cline's poems that didn't make it into After-Walker was "On the Roof," which was published in the March 1918 issue of The Liberator.  (I suspect "laugs" in line 6 of stanza 3 is a typo for "laughs.")

Requiem by Leonard Cline

One of Cline's poems that didn't make it into After-Walker was "Requiem," which appeared in The Liberator in March 1920. It is essentially predictive of Cline's later life, for in his dark hours of anguish in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter, Cline turned back to religion, and turned back to his ex-wife Louise. 

Bach by Leonard Cline

Cline's poem "Bach" appeared in the February 1921 issue of The Liberator. In a 1925 article on "The Lineage of God Head," detailing what went into the making of his first novel, Cline noted his earlier poem "Bach":

In a time of great personal distress I found comfort in the fugues of Bach on the piano and the fugues of eternity on the skies. I bought texts on astronomy and watched Arcturus give way to Vega as mistress of the night and flaming Mars hunt Venus down in the west.  The first result of that experience was a poem called "Bach" which was printed in The Liberator. And into God Head went Wain and Swan, Polaris and the Pleiades, and all the tragic eventualities of the heavens.

Vega by Leonard Cline

Thomas Smurthwaite

The short poem "Vega" appeared in the December 1920 issue of The Liberator. It is dedicated to Thomas Smurthwaite (1850-1929), who was Cline's father-in-law, the mother of Cline's wife Louise Smurthwaite, whom he married in Manistee, Michigan, in October 1913. Thomas Smurthwaite was born in Toronto, but came to Michigan in 1865 and settled in Manistee in 1886, where he was an attorney and, for a time in the late 1890s, the mayor. The Smurthwaite house and hills, referred to in the poem, were on 160 acres purchased in 1895 for a summer home, located north of Manistee proper, at a high point on the south side of Portage Lake.

Leonard Cline's Bookplate

Leonard Cline's bookplate is reproduced at right.  According to Cline's daughter, it was designed by Arthur Marschner while both he and Cline worked at the Detroit News. Evidently only a small number of bookplates were made at the time, and examples survive in less than ten volumes owned by Cline, all published between 1918 and 1921.


Arthur A. Marschner (1884-1950) was, in his lifetime, a well-known Detroit artist and illustrator.  He published three illustrations in 1921 in The Liberator, a socialist magazine in which Cline published six poems in 1918 through 1921.


Here are the three pieces of Marschner's art (probably linoleum or wood cuts):

March 1921

March 1921

September 1921 

And here is Cline's poem, "Vision," from July 1921.

I found some other Marschner artwork on the web, and here are a few oil paintings.

Still with Fruit and Copper Pot

Two Landscapes