Charles Erskine Scott Wood

Charles Erskine Scott Wood Poems

Charles Erskine Scott Wood Biography

Charles Erskine Scott Wood (or C.E.S. Wood) (February 20, 1852 – January 22, 1944) was an author, civil libertarian, soldier, and attorney. He is best known as the author of the 1927 satirical bestseller, Heavenly Discourse. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Wood graduated from West Point in 1874. He served as an infantry officer and fought in the Nez Perce War in 1877. He was present at the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. It was Wood who translated, and perhaps embellished, Chief Joseph's famous speech: "My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." The two men became close friends. Oregon politics Following his service he became a prominent attorney in Portland, Oregon, where he often defended labor unions and "radicals" including birth control activist Margaret Sanger. He began to write, became a frequent contributor to Pacific Monthly magazine, and was a leader of Portland's literary community. In 1896, Wood was Oregon’s sole representative on the national committee of the National Democratic Party, known as the Gold Democrats. The party, which had the blessing of Grover Cleveland, championed defense of the gold standard and free trade. Like many Cleveland Democrats, including his long time friend Mark Twain, Wood joined the American Anti-Imperialist League. The League called for the United States to grant immediate independence to the Philippines and other territories conquered in the Spanish-American war. Politics As a lawyer during the early twentieth century, Wood not only represented dissidents such as Emma Goldman but crossed the line into anarchism. He wrote articles for)

The Best Poem Of Charles Erskine Scott Wood

Sunrise

The lean coyote, prowler of the night,
Slips to his rocky fastnesses,
Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush,
And from the castellated cliffs,
Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day.
The wild horses troop back to their pastures.

The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches.
Orioles, whose nests sway in the cotton-wood trees by the ditch-side, begin to twitter.
All shy things, breathless, watch
The thin white skirts of dawn,
The dancer of the sky,
Who trips daintily down the mountain-side
Emptying her crystal chalice….
And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar's top
His exultant whip above a silver world.

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