Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because the lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Speaker, “Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War is Kind” Stephen Crane did not really enjoy the lofty status in the world of American poets that he deserved at the time he was writing because he did not really belong to that time. America as the 19th century drew to a close was still firmly in the grips of its ardor for sentimental literature in both prose and poetry. The shift toward a harsher portrait of certain unpleasant societal truths through the adoption of realism and naturalism was already underway, not yet widely accepted within the mainstream. The irrefutable facts are this: Crane possessed a sense of irony that would have made him far better suited to writing poetry today. The opening lines of this poem are a perfect example of his worldview: it is not just an ironic perspective on war, but bitterly ironic.
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never -”“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.
It is of the utmost important when studying the poems of Crane to keep in mind that the most popular poet in America at the time was still Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The reputation of Longfellow remained high in the first few decades following his death before experiencing a rapid decline in the 20th century. The reasons for this is that Longfellow was writing a type of unambiguous, clear, precise, narrative-based verse in which the meaning was not difficult to determine because he had put it there. In other words, one of the reasons for his tremendous popularity eclipsing every other famous name—including Poe and Whitman—is that it didn’t require a lot of work to get at what he was trying to say.
Ambiguity and analytical open spaces become all the rage in the 20th century and it is no accident that as Longfellow’s reputation began to slide, Crane’s verse was becoming more and more celebrated. He famously describes his approach to crafting poetry in one of his letters: “If there is any moral or lesson . . . I do not try to point it out. I let the reader find it for himself.” The poem quoted in full above is just one example from a variety of similar poems following the same basic template and these poems represent just one faction of his overall body of work that share a commonality.
Charity thou art a lie,
A toy of women,
A pleasure of certain men.
In the presence of justice,
Lo, the walls of the temple
Are visible
Through thy form of sudden shadows.
And yet, there is this. If, as he claims, Crane has no interest in pointing out a lesson morality, what is to be made of this verse which seems to very clearly point toward a certain moral stance? Closer scrutiny reveals that it is not irreconcilable as it seems. It would be a mistake to confuse the intent of providing a moral lesson with the concept of Crane’s poetry expressing a fundamental moral perspective. Certain aspects of society deemed immoral by the masses were not viewed as such by Crane, but he most assuredly worked from a very well-defined moralistic view of the universe. One such perspective held tightly by Crane was the immoral consequences that acquisition of wealth tended to have toward one’s character.
Whether by design or coincidence, Cranes economic theories align with those of predominant American economist of the time—and the only one whose theories remain relevant—Thorstein Veblen. Veblen’s theories indulge in a psychological dimension in which economics is inextricably intertwined with views on morality and values. This particular poem is an expression of those theories which assert that charitable actions often disguise intents and motivations that are far less than charitable, but he does take the upon himself the weight of being the moralist who identifies those particular actions.
