Ramblings

In researching McDonald Clarke I've been skeptical of the stories that he drowned under an open faucet, and I've been in touch with others that also believe that they were rumors meant to bolster the image of the 'Mad Poet'. According to research Joe Fodor has done, Clarke was victim to a neurological disease.

I've also collected a few obituaries of the Mad Poet, which all talk about how he died of a neurological wasting disease-on the internment books at Green-Wood he is listed as dying of dementia. The story about drowning under a faucet of water, which is included in the circa 1870 biography, seems like a poetical invention.

Given the fact that Clarke had been complaining of muscle aches and pains and severe headache shortly before his death, I'd be willing to bet that he had contracted a virus.

Here's another reference that substantiates the fact that Clarke possibly suffered from meningitis or some other disease that in the end affected his brain.

In early March 1842, a night watchman found Clarke on his knees in the snow, interviewing a beggar. According to Carmer, "The watchman found the poet's talk so incoherent that he took him to the Tombs." (209) Clarke was then transferred to the insane asylum at Blackwell's Island, New York, where according to authorities he died of brain fever. His remains were buried in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. (CARMER 210)

Let silence gaze – but curse not his grave.

Some photos by of a pilgrimage to Clarke's grave here.

"But what are human plaudits now?

He never deemed them worth his care:

Yet death has twined around his brown

The wreath he was too proud too wear."

four lines, written by a friend:

"By friendship’s willing hand erected –

By genius, taste, and skill adorned –

For one too long in life neglected,

But now in death sincerely mourned."

On Saturday, May 12 and Sunday, May 13, Historic Green-Wood Cemetery will present a “world premiere” fundraising theatrical event celebrating the wonderful stories of the people there performed by students at Holy Name School in Windsor Terrace. Called “The Stories Never End, The Love Never Dies,” all proceeds will benefit the Green-Wood Historic Fund efforts and help restore the monument of Charlotte Canda, a seventeen year old girl who died in a tragic accident in 1845....
Among the show’s highlights: students will assume the roles of Henry Chadwick (1824–1908), “The Father of Baseball;” McDonald Clarke (1798-1842) known in his day as “The Mad Poet of Broadway;” and maestro Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) buried atop Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn.

To - .

Farewell - the midnight sail is set,
That wafts me to another shore,
And we, who have so often met-
Shall meet perhaps on earth no more.

Oh why should rapture's restless light
So briefly blaze upon the heart?
And those whose warm affections might
Forever mingle - always part?

Why is the course of joy so fleet,
And why does pleasure fade so fast?
The birth of human hope is sweet -
But ends in agony at last.

Our quiet eves of bliss are o'er -
Our silver hours of feeling fled -
And memory's mournful voice will pour
A useless anthem round the dead.

Enjoyment's feverish cheek is pale
In the cold evening of delight:
I never felt her ties so frail,
So shadowy, as they seem to-night.

And must I leave thee, weeping girl,
To droop in pining silence here:
Oh - will tom-morrow's breezed hurl
My life from all that makes it dear?

No more at sunset's crimson calm
Thy timid footsteps softly guide -
And with thee wander arm in arm,
Where love and loneliness abide?

No more thy casement's signal light
Shall tell me thou art left alone,
For our pure spirits to unite
In raptures to the world unknown.

When shall my hot lips steal to thine,
And snatch the still bewildered kiss,
And feel them fondly answer mine,
In bashful and almighty bliss?

When shall my arms enfold thy waist,
As on my bosom sinks thy head?
When shall our blushing passions taste
The transports that this evening fled?

Heaven's holiest anthems warn his soul away,
Heaven's whitest angels hover o'er his clod,
Heaven's moonlight laughs with more than wonted ray,
And heaven is drest in rainbows by his God.

Oh sinner pause - before thy name is curst,
By him who weeps to curse the meanest thing'
Think - there is mercy even for the worst -
Oh pause - ere fetters chain the spirit's wing.

Then shall this mystic grave I've gazed on, be
A blessed vision to thy dying breath,
Thy generous God shall make a rest for thee,
Nor wilt thou dread the dressing room of death.

M'Donald Clarke
1821

When the wild sun of boyhood for ever is going
Down the crimson horizon of early delight,
The mad pulse of hope less impetuously glowing,
As life's rosy season fades fast from the sight.

How the young heart sinks down, as if fearful of feeling;
The cold, cruel change, it must soon undergo,
When suspicion and sorrow shall o'er it be stealing,
And it finds the world's smile, but-hypocrisy's show.

When the frank open eye must be guarded in coldness,
The affectionate tongue chain'd to caution and art
The mind taught to mask its high-spirited boldness,
And cunning and cruelty harden the heart.

And doom'd to commingle with things it despises,
And smile upon what it regards, with disgust;
And if the warm nerve of its tenderness rises,
See the harsh wink of prudence- forbid it to trust.

When the epicure visions of innocence vanish,
And damning experience comes with its curse,
When forc'd the sweet faith of its nature to banish,
As hope's borne away on duplicity's hearse.

Oh! who does not feel that this sorrowful season
Is that where the paradise - curse must first lite;
When love breaks its neck on the cradle of reason;
For the sunset of boyhood - is that of delight.

M'Donald Clarke
The Elixir of Moonshine