Alternate spellings: MacDonald Clarke; M’Donald Clarke

McDonald Clarke 1798-1842. It is known he was born in Bath, Maine, the son (or grandson) of a wealthy ship builder. There is dispute over his legitimacy as there is over much of his early life. He was was associated with the Bohemian set in New York in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Clarke is sometimes remembered for a couplet from his poem, “Death in Disguise,” which is sometimes used as a quotation:

“Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star.”

And for an epigram he wrote:

“Tis vain for present fame to wish–
Our persons first must be forgotten;
For poets are like stinking fish–
They never shine until they’re rotten.”

His, “Elixir of Moonshine by the Mad Poet” was published in 1822. That was followed by, “The Gossip” in 1925 and five other collections in the next 15 years, including his collected works in 1836.

When Clarke was twelve his mother died at sea, from there he’s next heard of in Philadelphia where, in Lydia Child’s “Letters From New-York” she states that, “he habitually slept in the graveyard on Franklin’s monument.”1 Mostly forgotten today, Clarke was a well-known figure in the New York Broadway area, where he arrived around 1819, eventually becoming known as the “Mad Poet of Broadway” for his eccentric behavior and attire. “Clarke was an imitator of Byron, and copied his airs and costumes,”2 and was seen along Broadway wearing a cloth cap and “sporting a dark blue coat and red neckerchief.”3 Though he early attempted to earn a living at journalism, it appears that