The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 171
The work I was doing turned my thoughts toward literary effort, and I found myself once more attempting to write. The necessary funds were not forthcoming for a night summer course in literature at Columbia, and anyway the heat was not conducive to comfortable journeying uptown every third night. But I rented a typewriter and spent my evenings creatively at home. This was a great source of relaxation mentally, and on warm nights, when it seemed too sultry to retire, I would become oblivious to the heat and to fatigue as I sat before my typewriter, balancing this line and that, searching the dictionary for suitable synonyms, or turning to my beloved Keats for poetic atmosphere and delicacy of word manipulation.
Naturally the themes of my thoughts were my love for Warren Harding and my love for our child. It was upon such a night that I sat before my typewriter, reminiscently fondling my child and dwelling in the memory of her father, and wrote my visions into a poem. I had sat dreaming for hours before I touched the typewriter keys, but when I began to write at one o'clock in the morning, and lost myself in juggling lovingly the words which would best convey my thoughts, I felt, when a distant clock struck four, that I had really written some worth-while lines.
My belief was confirmed later by The New York Times poetry editor, who accepted and published the poem within ten days after I had made up my mind to send it to him. This was, however, not until late August. It was published in the Times of August 30th, 1926, under a partial nom de plume—"Ninon Britton." For this poem I received a check from the Times for $20 which I promptly had photostated, because it was the first money I had ever received for literary effort. The editor changed my title, "Her Eyes," to "The Child's Eyes." The lines follow:
And calm as waters stilled at evenfall.
I see not quite my child in these blue eyes,
But him whose soul shines wondrously through her.
Serene and unafraid he was, and knew
How to dispel the fears in other hearts,
Meeting an anxious gaze all tranquilly:
These are her father's eyes.
Of an October sky on mountain-tops.
I do not see my child in these blue eyes;
They are the eyes of him whose spirit glowed
With happiness of soul alone which lies
Far deeper than the depths of bluest eyes—
Whose smile a thing of joy it was to see:
These eyes, this smile, are his.
Filled with the sadness of an age-old world.
And then again my child's not in these eyes;
These are the eyes of one whom grief assailed,
Whom disappointment crushed with its great weight.
Around his head a halo memory casts,
Reflecting that refiner's fire which purged
Him clean, and made him what he was.
Her baby eyes are lifted up to mine.
These only are the eyes she brought with her.
And so I fold her close within my arms
And talk of dolls, and stars, and mother-love,
For well I know that pitifully soon
She will be grown, and then her eyes will hold
Only the deeper lights—his own eyes knew!
—Reprinted by permission of The New York Times.
_38.png)