• Title: Letter from John G. Neihardt to Dr. Bowen, January 15, 1955
  • Date: January 15, 1955
  • Author(s): Neihardt, John Gneisenau, 1881-1973
  • Recipient: Bowen, Dr.
  • TEI XML: nei.j4c.20.7-10.xml
Skyrim Farm, Route 6, Columbia, Mo. Jan. 15, '55
Dear Dr. Bowen:

Good to hear from you! Yes, that poem has had some adventures in its 30 years of life! I've even seen it with other names than mine attached — and feel flattered. One very old man came to think he wrote it himself. A sourdough in Alaska declared it saved his life — etc. etc.

Use the second version.

"Let me lie" must be "Let me die."

"Soul-house" hyphenated.

"Time-swept" is horrible! Make it ""tune-swept."

Things go very well at the University. My Epic America course continues to be popular and classes grow larger and larger in spite of stiff requirements. I teach two writing courses also. Lots of fun!

It seems I'm to read poetry at the Michigan State College Speech Conference, June 25-26. Perhaps I shall see you.

Kindest thoughts

John G. Neihardt

From THE QUEST (1928), page 50:

LET ME LIVE OUT MY YEARS

Let me live out my years in heat of blood!
Correct
Let me die drunken with the dreamer's wine!
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust--a vacant shrine!
Let me go quickly like a candle light
Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow!
Give me high noon--and let it then be night!
Thus would I go.
And grant me, when I face the grisly Thing,
One haughty cry to pierce the gray Perhaps!
Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring
That feels the Master Melody--and snaps!

From Argus Tresidder, READING TO OTHERS, Scott, Foresman, 1940, p. 348 (acknowledgement to Macmillan and THE QUEST):

Let me live out my years in heat of blood!
Misprint!
Let me lie drunken with the dreamer's wine!
Let me not see this soul house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust--a vacant shrine.
Let me go quickly like a candle light
Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow.
Give me high noon--and let it then be night!
Thus would I go.
And grant me, when I face the grisly Thing,
My song may trumpet down the grey Perhaps.
Correct
O let me be a time-swept fiddle string
That feels the Master-Melody--and snaps.
This is a misprint — very bad! Should be TUNE.
Keep second version with indicated corrections of misprints.