William Vaughn Moody

United States dramatist and poet

William Vaughn Moody was an American dramatist and poet. Moody was author of The Great Divide, first presented under the title of The Sabine Woman at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago on April 12, 1906, and then on Broadway at the Princess Theatre, running for 238 performances from October 3, 1906, to March 24, 1907.

His poetic dramas are The Masque of Judgment (1900), The Fire Bringer (1904), and The Death of Eve. His best-known poem is "An Ode in Time of Hesitation," on the Spanish-American War; others include "Gloucester Moor," "On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines," "The Brute," "Harmonics", "Until the Troubling of the Waters," "The Departure," "How the Mead-Slave Was Set Free," "The Daguerreotype," and "The Death of Eve." His poems everywhere bespeak the social conscience of the progressive era (1893–1916) in which he spent his foreshortened life.

In style they evoke a mastery of the verse-craft of his time and also the reach and depth derived from his intensive studies of Milton and of Greek tragedy.