Across the Spectrum:The Interdisciplinary Life and Letters of John G. Neihardt (‘Flaming Rainbow’)

I want to add to what I wrote yesterday, before I mail this installment, that I have more faith in the Cycle than ever. I begin to think I see that it has a far better chance than anything done in poetry in our time to live into better times - and there will be better times. I am laying plans now to escape from my present routine, and I can do it. I expect to be on the road again next year, and I'm in better shape to do that than formerly. Then I can push ahead more rapidly than in the earlier days of the Cycle, for somehow I seem to work with more ease. I think the Jed Smith poem and the Mormon poem may be done in blank verse. I see no reason why not, and I can write blank verse so that it flows. There would be no less beauty, and I have done ten thousand lines in rhymed verse for those who might want it. I believe very much in the rhymed verse as I've handled it, but I believe I can make the blank verse do something else. The Messiah will be in rhyme, of course, because it is a part of the Wars.

Let's feel encouraged together. It is true that the world is passing rapidly into a twilight, or at least a cynical drabness. You and I will never know the feeling of the morning again, or of the noon. It will not be in the world while we live. But let us leave a song and a fine memory for days on the other side of the shadow.