*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65062 ***
{i}
ANTHOLOGY
OF
MAGAZINE VERSE
FOR 1914
AND YEAR BOOK OF
AMERICAN POETRY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
NEW YORK
LAURENCE J. GOMME
1914
{ii}
Copyright, 1914, by
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
Published December, 1914
Second Edition January, 1916
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
{iii}
TO
LOUIS V. LEDOUX
AND
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Palmam qui meruit ferat
{iv}
{v}
CONTENTS
{viii}
{ix}
INTRODUCTION
The modern idea seems to be that poetry has no relation to life. Life in
the modern sense is action, progress, success. Poetry has been conceded
special themes: it can deal with passion,—the strange and unnatural and
unreal physical attraction of the sexes—with nature, with the symbols
of mythology, and with the characteristic sentimental heroism of history
and events. With reality, it must have nothing to do. It is supposed, by
the modern world of Anglo-Saxon literalness, to create an atmosphere of
illusion, which one must avoid to keep one’s emotions from going astray
in a civilization that needs the hardest kind of common sense. It is
paradoxical that the English-speaking people who have given the world
the greatest poets, should take this false attitude while in possession
of the greatest spiritual and imaginative legacy of life and experience,
bequeathed them from one generation to another during the last four
hundred years.
Escaping the illusion, this modern world has become the prisoner of
delusion. For, if poetry deals with anything, it deals with reality. No
matter how remote the setting, how subtle the communication, the one
hard fact about true poetry, is its reality. The poet at the core and
centre of life, surrounded with his dreams, his clairvoyant madness
imbibed from the full draught of experience, his intensity of emotion,
his childlike tenderness of sympathy, his quickening ecstasy of
unashamed and unrestrained feeling, is considered{x} the abnormal product
of modern civilization; while in truth he is alone the one normal type
of modern mankind, because he alone is in absolute harmony and
understanding with the real and common impulse of human destiny.
The great secret of life is to discover by a process of related effects,
this common reality of experience. Most of mankind grope blindly in the
dark, and miss it, and by a kind of frenzied and pitiable ignorance
acquire the abnormal character of conduct. The poet discovers, or at
least puts his being wholly at the disposal of, these secrets, wins a
serene and contemplative relationship to these effects, and lives a
normal spiritual life. Harmony and rhythm are but two common terms that
express and designate infinity. There was a man who was so absolutely
sane that the scoffers of his day called him mad—this man was William
Blake. Christ was a madman to the community of his day, even his closest
friends and disciples were not without doubt at times as to his sanity.
But these two men were never a hair’s breadth from the commonest reality
of existence. They realized imaginative facts, and kept in absolute tune
with the harmony and rhythm of life, not merely with what they saw with
the actual eye, but with that more penetrative, more limitless sense,
the seeing soul. They were poets, and the one insistent quality of their
message, was the reality of mortal and immortal life.
It is hard to make a certain type of mind understand that all which is
seen with the physical eye, and touched with the fleshly hand, is
illusion.{xi} That kind of a mind does not understand symbols. It belongs
to the so-called practical people of the world, who obey, but do not
comprehend, laws; whose laws, indeed, are the conventions of minds
similar to their own. They organize, but do not construct; they
interpret, but do not create. They are the wheels, and not the
motor-power, of the engine of civilization and humanity. These are the
people who make up nine-tenths of the world’s population; without the
other tenth, they would perish. Their reality in life is mathematical
immediacy, the cloak of visibility in which they are wrapped to go about
their daily tasks in the world. Now poetry sees in these people and
their affairs only the symbols of what is real, looks upon their whole
fantastic display of living as the illusion beneath which their real
living is concealed; the crises of their joys and sorrows, their
aspirations and passions, hidden in the reality of their consciousness
where exists an infinite universe of being, and where every event of
their lives is enacted before their shadow is thrown upon the stage of
the world. The fact of life is there, hidden away in the solitary soul,
determining the illusions of conductual existence. It is crowded with
moods, emotions and feelings, experienced with such intensity that what
breaks forth in actual deed and event is but a faint reflection of the
real experience the soul has gone through. The ideal is the real,
because it is what one has lived but cannot express in the related
experience of human intercourse.
Poetry comes nearer finality in embodying the{xii} exact meaning and
intensity of human feeling than any other art. Human feeling, being the
root of all individual intelligence, is the most inexplicable quantity
in life. Intuition is the primary significance of our existence. And it
is the quality which gives to poetry its visionary and spiritual
substance. In a nation it is the register of a people’s culture.
The study of poetry in the magazines which I began ten years ago, has
grown into the convincing evidence of the following pages of this book.
During this time we have passed through a number of phases in our
national life; but through these changing aspects of national
aspirations, there has run, like a widening and brightening strand of
culture, the development of a new period of poetry, both in its
productive and appreciative aspects. From 1900 to 1905, poetry had
declined; and I think there has never been another period in our history
when so unintelligent and indifferent an attitude existed toward the
art. The scale since 1905 has been ascending, and the high pitch of
achievement has not yet been reached. Whether fine poetry creates a
general and popular recognition of the art, or the sympathetic
appreciation of poetry for itself encourages excellent production, I
cannot say. But this is apparent: that a period or epoch of the highest
achievement has always been one of popular appreciation.
A factor that should be taken into consideration, and which affects
poetry and its audience,{xiii} is the attitude of the book reviews in our
most influential literary journals. A characteristic example is the New
York Nation, which has been in the habit of grouping in a few articles
during the year with indiscriminate selection, the volumes of poetry
which it receives. In these reviews there is a supercilious and academic
attitude which dismisses really important work with opinions which have
every suggestion of preconceived judgment. One has only to turn back his
files to the review of Masefield’s “Everlasting Mercy” and “The Widow in
the Bye Street,” to see the type of poetry reviewing that is more common
than uncommon in American periodicals and newspapers. I do not mean to
make The Nation an exception, but an illustration of the kind of
stewardship with which reviewers in some of our most authoritative
publications perform the duties of a serious and distinguished branch of
American authorship.
To show that there is a quality of poetry in our national production
worthy of pride and support, it has been my privilege for a number of
years to emphasize in an annual review the distinction of the verse in
the magazines. Out of these reviews has grown a demand for a more
permanent preservation of the best work, resulting in this annual
“Anthology of Magazine Verse,” to which are added records, references,
and criticisms, which constitute a “Year-Book of American Poetry.” While
all the other arts have had this service performed in their interests,
poetry, the one art that most needed such a special reinforcement of
its{xiv} achievement, has been permitted to drift along throughout our
entire critical history without this sort of attention.
The poetry in the magazines this year has been of an excellence in the
longer pieces beyond the standard of any year in which I have made these
estimates. The selections in this volume give evidence of a serious,
even anxious, probing of human life. The lyric, represented by some
lovely work, has not been practiced with the same irresponsible
emotional delight as in past years. Perhaps, there has never been a year
when the American poets have shown the independence of their own
efforts, when comparatively new work has been so free from English
influences. What influences there are, seem to come from French sources.
Vers libre has been taken out of the hands of weak and pompous
innovators, and made a distinctive medium by a few earnest and powerful
singers. The most notable distinction in this respect is to be found in
the work of James Oppenheim, whose book, “Songs for the New Age,” is a
milestone in our poetic progress. So is Vachel Lindsay’s new work. He
has mastered a new form of poetic expression in his volume “The Congo
and Other Poems.” Miss Amy Lowell, in the better parts of “Sword Blades
and Poppy Seed,” is working toward a new elasticity in rhythm, which is
beginning to produce effective and beautiful results. On the other hand
Mr. Arthur Stringer in “Open Water” utterly fails to embody in actual
performance the principles expounded in the introduction to that
volume,{xv} though this introduction is as important a piece of critical
writing in English upon the subject as I know. No matter how
revolutionary they attempt to be in expression, there is still in these
writers a traditional note imbuing the substance which makes up the
significant part of their creativeness.
The selections in this volume are chosen from all kinds and methods of
poetic expression, and the reader’s attention is invited to their
differences in many aspects—though the aspect of quality is, I think,
of equal attainment in all—of such poems as Bliss Carman’s Phi Beta
Kappa Poem, Percy MacKaye’s “Fight,” Vachel Lindsay’s “The Firemen’s
Ball,” Eloise Briton’s “The Two Flames,” Conrad Aiken’s “Romance,” Olive
Tilford Dargan’s “Old Fairingdown” and “Path Flower,” Joyce Kilmer’s
“Twelve-Forty-Five,” and Don Marquis’s “The God-Maker, Man.” Of the
shorter pieces, I think the standard is decidedly above last year’s
quality. Mahlon Leonard Fisher has again followed the success of
previous years with his sonnet “Afterwards,” which sustains his position
as one of the foremost sonnet-writers this country has yet produced.
This poet has the unusual distinction of a fine reputation without
having published a book, but his definite contribution to American
poetry will soon take place with the publication of his first volume,
“An Old Mercer, and Other Poems.” A poem likely to create a profound
impression is Don Marquis’s “The God-Maker, Man,”—a fine achievement,
not only for its flashing images, but{xvi} for spiritual substance shaped
with compelling conviction.
The selections in this volume reflect the extraordinary richness of the
published volumes this year. I do not recall any year of the past decade
when the quantity and quality alike have been so notable. The autumn
season’s publication of verse usually shows a preponderance in quality
of books by English poets, who seem to meet with more favorable
consideration from the best established publishers. There have been this
year a number of notable volumes by English poets brought out in this
country, but the balance of distinction, both in standard and numbers of
books, belongs this year most emphatically to the American poets.
Thirty-five volumes of distinguished poetry stand to our credit, and
these are only a selection from a larger number of books which merit
appreciation. Books by Louis V. Ledoux, George Edward Woodberry, Louis
Untermeyer, Walter Conrad Arensberg, William Rose Benét, Vachel Lindsay,
George Sterling, Olive Tilford Dargan, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson,
Conrad Aiken, James Oppenheim, Harry Kemp, Amelia Josephine Burr, Joyce
Kilmer, Amy Lowell, Percy MacKaye, Arthur Davison Ficke, Edwin Markham,
Agnes Lee, and Bliss Carman, are among those which have advanced the
significance of the year’s output.
The European war has had a more immediate effect upon literature than
almost anything else. All books of a non-military character published
just before the war, with the exception of poetry, have been thrown into
relatively ineffective sig{xvii}nificance. Poetry endures because it is
integrally woven with the warp of man’s real existence, and not of that
illusory substance, of which other kinds of imaginative literature are
fashioned, and which has been so easily wiped away by this war’s primal
brutality. And poetry has aspired to sustain the nobler part of man’s
nature during the confusion into which civilization has been plunged
since the war began. The English people, who have been in the world’s
vanguard practising democratic ideals, have, in their poets to-day,
shattered the idol of war and are glorifying the ideals of peace.
The best poems in English directly inspired by the war have been
produced by American poets. Of these I have gathered a representative
group in this volume. The work achieved by Percy MacKaye on different
phases of the European war has made more secure than ever his position
as a poet. It is no exaggeration to say that the two groups of sonnets
which originally appeared in the Boston Transcript in August and
September, and which are now included in his volume, “The Present Hour,”
are comparable as a whole to William Watson’s “The Purple East,” and in
such individual pieces as “Kruppism,” and “The Real Germany,” he has
done work finer and more impressive than is to be found in any of the
older writer’s sonnets. Moreover, such pieces as “If!” and “The Other
Army,” by Bartholomew F. Griffin; “Prelude,” by Edmond McKenna; “He Went
for a Soldier,” by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, and “To a Necrophile,” by
Walter Conrad Arensberg,{xviii} are striking and spontaneous poetry of a high
order. In E. Sutton, a poet is presented, who has produced martial
poetry in “The Bugle,” “The Drum,” and the stirring “Pipes of the
North,” which, for swinging rhythm and profound reflection upon the pomp
and futility of military glory, has not been equalled by any
contemporary poet.
A notable feature of the poetry year is the Kennerley edition of Walt
Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” The works of Whitman have been transferred
from publisher to publisher so often, that there has been little
opportunity for their circulation among the people for whom he wrote.
This edition contains the text and arrangement preferred by the poet
himself, and is the only perfect and complete issue, comprising one
hundred and six additional poems not included in any other edition.
There are suitable editions to meet the demand of all classes of Whitman
enthusiasts and students: an India paper edition bound in leather, a
library edition bound in cloth, and two issues of a Popular edition,
bound in cloth and in paper respectively. To these are added the
“Complete Prose” in a Library and Popular edition in cloth. None of the
leading American poets of the past generation have been so unfortunate
in publication; and many who believe Whitman to be America’s greatest
poet will be glad to know, that now, by the authorization of his
executors, all his works are gathered in uniform editions under one
imprint.
Other important new editions of poetry are the{xix} cheap reissue by the
Oxford University Press of John Sampson’s final and authoritative text
of William Blake’s complete poems, and the new reprint in Bohn’s Popular
Library issued by The Macmillan Company of Henry Vaughan’s Complete
Poems.
As in former years in my annual summary in the Boston Transcript, I
have examined the contents of the leading American magazines. To the
seven magazines which I examined last year,—namely, Harper’s,
Scribner’s, The Century, The Forum, Lippincott’s, The Smart
Set, and The Bellman,—I have added this year three monthlies, The
Trend, The International, and The Masses; and one quarterly, The
Yale Review. The Bellman still maintains its high poetic distinction,
by virtue of which it prints more good poetry than any other American
weekly, and most American monthlies. As last year, I have winnowed from
other magazines distinctive poems for classification and notice:—one
each from The Metropolitan, The Craftsman, The Poetry Journal, the
Southern Woman’s Magazine, Puck, and The Infantry Journal; and two
each from Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The Nation, The Atlantic
Monthly, and the Outlook; while from three newspapers I have selected
fourteen poems:—eleven from the Boston Evening Transcript, two from
the Boston News Bureau, and one from the New York Evening Sun. In
quoting from the Boston Transcript, I wish to testify to the ready
recognition and encouragement this daily paper has offered to poets{xx} and
poetry. It is one of the paper’s finest traditions.
The poems published during the year in the eleven representative
magazines I have submitted to an impartial critical test, choosing from
the total number what I consider the “distinctive” poems of the year.
From the distinctive pieces are selected fifty-two poems, to which are
added thirty from other magazines and from newspapers not represented in
the list of eleven, making a total of eighty-two, which are intended to
represent what I call an “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914.”
Quoting from what I have written in previous years, to emphasize the
methods which guided my selections, the reader will see how impartial
are the tests by which the distinctive and best poems are chosen: “I
have not allowed any special sympathy with the subject to influence my
choice. I have taken the poet’s point of view, and accepted his value of
the theme he dealt with. The question was: How vital and compelling did
he make it? The first test was the sense of pleasure the poem
communicated; then to discover the secret or the meaning of the pleasure
felt; and in doing so to realize how much richer one became in a
knowledge of the purpose of life by reason of the poem’s message.”
In one hundred and forty-seven numbers of these eleven magazines I find
there were published during 1914 a total of 647 poems, of which 157 were
poems of distinction. The total number of poems printed in each
magazine, and the number of the distinctive{xxi} poems are: Century, total
71, 19 of distinction; Harper’s, total 39, 10 of distinction;
Scribner’s, total 49, 18 of distinction; Forum, total 33, 13 of
distinction; Lippincott’s, total 56, 8 of distinction; The Smart Set
(excluding November and December), total 148, 18 of distinction; The
Bellman (until November 7th), total 42, 23 of distinction; The Yale
Review, total 19, 10 of distinction; The Trend (April, and June to
November), total 51, 16 of distinction; The Masses (excluding
December), total 53, 13 of distinction; The International (excluding
November and December), total 86, 9 of distinction.
Following the text of the poems making the anthology in this volume, I
have given the titles and authors of all the poems classified as
distinctive, published in the magazines of the year; in addition I give
a list of all the poems and their authors in the one hundred and
forty-seven numbers of the magazines examined, as a record which readers
and students of poetry will find useful.
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and thanks to the editors of
Scribner’s Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Forum, The Century
Magazine, The Outlook, Lippincott’s Magazine, The Bellman, The
Smart Set, The Yale Review, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The
Poetry Journal, The International, The Masses, The Metropolitan,
Harper’s Weekly, The Craftsman, The Nation, The Southern Woman’s
Magazine, Puck, The Infantry Journal, The Boston News Bureau,
The New York Evening Sun, and the Boston Evening Transcript, and to
the publishers of these{xxii} magazines and newspapers, for kind permission
to reprint in this volume the poems making up the “Anthology of Magazine
Verse for 1914.” To the authors of these poems I am equally indebted and
grateful for their willingness to have me reprint their work in this
form. Since their appearance in the magazines and before the close of
the year when the contents of this volume was made up, twenty-eight
poems herein included have appeared in volumes of original poetry by
their authors. For the use of “Yankee Doodle” and “The Firemen’s Ball”
by Vachel Lindsay, included in his volume “The Congo, and Other Poems”;
of “Fight,” “France,” and “Six Sonnets (August, 1914)” by Percy MacKaye,
included in his volume “The Present Hour”; and for “Romance” by Conrad
Aiken, included in his volume “Earth Triumphant,” I have also to thank
The Macmillan Company, under whose imprint these volumes appear. Similar
acknowledgment is due to the George H. Doran Company for permission to
reprint “The Twelve-Forty-Five” by Joyce Kilmer, included in his volume,
“Trees and Other Poems”; and to print “In the Roman Forum” and “A
Lynmouth Widow” by Amelia Josephine Burr, included in her volume “In
Deep Places.” I am grateful to Charles Scribner’s Sons for two poems by
Olive Tilford Dargan, “Old Fairingdown” and “Path Flower,” included in
her volume “Path Flower”; and for two poems by Corinne Roosevelt
Robinson, “From a Motor in May,” and “If You Should Cease to Love Me,”
included in her volume “One Woman{xxiii} to Another.” I am indebted to Mr.
Mitchell Kennerley for kind permission to reprint Sonnets XXIX, XXX, and
XXXVII from “Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter”; and to Mr. A. M. Robertson
for two poems by George Sterling, “Ballad of Two Seas” and “The Hunting
of Dian,” included in his volume “Beyond the Breakers, and Other Poems.”
Finally, The Century Company have been kind enough to permit me to
republish “Landscapes” and “Summons” by Louis Untermeyer, from his
volume entitled “Challenge”; and “Patterns,” “A Handful of Dust,” and
“We Dead” by James Oppenheim, from his volume entitled “Songs for a New
Age.” If I have omitted any acknowledgments, it is quite unintentional,
and I trust that any such omission will be regarded leniently. I wish it
to be understood that the privilege extended to me so courteously, by
the authors, magazine editors and publishers, and book publishers, to
print the poems in this volume, does not in any sense restrict the
authors in their rights to print the poems in volumes of their own or in
any other place. I wish to thank the Boston Transcript for the
privilege of reprinting material in this book which originally appeared
in the columns of that paper.
A new feature this year is the series of critical summaries of new
volumes of verse, which are significant, and which have been appraised
in accordance with the same principles as the poems in the “Anthology of
Magazine Verse.” It is believed that by adding this feature, the book
will more nearly approximate to being an actual Year-Book{xxiv} of American
Poetry, and it is in this belief that a subtitle has been added to this
volume. I believe that not only libraries, but private individuals will
welcome the selected lists of the best volumes for library purchase,
graded according to the requirements of a large or a small purse. A list
is also subjoined of the best books about poetry, and if there seems
to be a demand for this innovation, it is planned next year to include
in the book critical summaries of these volumes, as well as of the
volumes of original verse.
I shall be grateful for suggestions as to improvements of this year-book
in future years, and as to valuable extensions of its scope. To all
friends who have assisted this volume by their personal efforts, and to
the readers of past years who have made this annual publication possible
by promoting it through their interest in poetry, I tender my grateful
thanks. They are too many to name here, but my gratitude for their
efforts is none the less sincere.
W. S. B.
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
November, 1914.
{1}
LANDSCAPES
(For Clement R. Wood)
The rain was over, and the brilliant air
Made every little blade of grass appear
Vivid and startling—everything was there
With sharpened outlines, eloquently clear,
As though one saw it in a crystal sphere.
The rusty sumac with its struggling spires;
The golden-rod with all its million fires;
(A million torches swinging in the wind)
A single poplar, marvellously thinned,
Half like a naked boy, half like a sword;
Clouds, like the haughty banners of the Lord;
A group of pansies with their shrewish faces
Little old ladies cackling over laces;
The quaint, unhurried road that curved so well;
The prim petunias with their rich, rank smell;
The lettuce-birds, the creepers in the field—
How bountifully were they all revealed!
How arrogantly each one seemed to thrive—
So frank and strong, so radiantly alive!
And over all the morning-minded earth
There seemed to spread a sharp and kindling mirth,
Piercing the stubborn stones until I saw
The toad face heaven without shame or awe,
The ant confront the stars, and every weed
Grow proud as though it bore a royal seed;
While all the things that die and decompose
Sent forth their bloom as richly as the rose ...
Oh, what a liberal power that made them thrive
And keep the very dirt that died, alive.
And now I saw the slender willow-tree
No longer calm and drooping listlessly,{2}
Letting its languid branches sway and fall
As though it danced in some sad ritual;
But rather like a young, athletic girl,
Fearless and gay, her hair all out of curl,
And flying in the wind—her head thrown back,
Her arms flung up, her garments flowing slack,
And all her rushing spirits running over ...
What made a sober tree seem such a rover—
Or made the staid and stalwart apple-trees,
That stood for years knee-deep in velvet peace,
Turn all their fruit to little worlds of flame,
And burn the trembling orchard there below.
What lit the heart of every golden-glow—
Oh, why was nothing weary, dull or tame?...
Beauty it was, and keen, compassionate mirth
That drives the vast and energetic earth.
And, with abrupt and visionary eyes,
I saw the huddled tenements arise.
Here where the merry clover danced and shone
Sprang agonies of iron and of stone;
There, where the green Silence laughed or stood enthralled,
Cheap music blared and evil alleys sprawled.
The roaring avenues, the shrieking mills;
Brothels and prisons on those kindly hills—
The menace of these things swept over me;
A threatening, unconquerable sea....
A stirring landscape and a generous earth!
Freshening courage and benevolent mirth—
And then the city, like a hideous sore....
Good God, and what is all this beauty for?
Century. Louis Untermeyer.
{3}
PHI BETA KAPPA POEM
Harvard, 1914
Sir, friends, and scholars, we are here to serve
A high occasion. Our New England wears
All her unrivalled beauty as of old;
And June, with scent of bayberry and rose
And song of orioles—as she only comes
By Massachusetts Bay—is here once more,
Companioning our fête of fellowship.
The open trails, South, West, and North, lead back
From populous cities or from lonely plains,
Ranch, pulpit, office, factory, desk, or mill,
To this fair tribunal of ambitious youth,
The shadowy town beside the placid Charles,
Where Harvard waits us through the passing years,
Conserving and administering still
Her savor for the gladdening of the race.
Yearly, of all the sons she has sent forth,
And men her admiration would adopt,
She summons whom she will back to her side
As if to ask, “How fares my cause of truth
In the great world beyond these studious walls?”
Here, from their store of life experience,
They must make answer as grace is given them,
And their plain creed, in verity, declare.
Among the many, there is sometimes called
One who, like Arnold’s scholar gipsy poor,
Is but a seeker on the dusky way,
“Still waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.”
He must bethink him first of other days,
And that old scholar of the seraphic smile,
As we recall him in this very place
With all the sweetest culture of his age,{4}
His gentle courtesy and friendliness,
A chivalry of soul now strangely rare,
And that ironic wit which made him, too,
The unflinching critic and most dreaded foe
Of all things mean, unlovely, and untrue.
What Mr. Norton said, with that slow smile,
Has put the fear of God in many a heart,
Even while his hand encouraged eager youth.
From such enheartening who would not dare to speak—
Seeing no truth can be too small to serve,
And no word worthless that is born of love?
Within the noisy workshop of the world,
Where still the strife is upward out of gloom,
Men doubt the value of high teaching—cry,
“What use is learning? Man must have his will!
The élan of life alone is paramount!
Away with old traditions! We are free!”
So Folly mocks at truth in Freedom’s name.
Pale Anarchy leads on, with furious shriek,
Her envious horde of reckless malcontents
And mad destroyers of the Commonwealth,
While Privilege with indifference grows corrupt,
Till the Republic stands in jeopardy
From following false idols and ideals,
Though sane men cry for honesty once more,
Order and duty and self-sacrifice.
Our world and all it holds of good for us
Our fathers and unselfish mothers made,
With noble passion and enduring toil,
Strenuous, frugal, reverent, and elate,
Caring above all else to guard and save
The ampler life of the intelligence
And the fine honor of a scrupulous code—
Ideals of manhood touched with the divine.{5}
For this they founded these great schools we serve,
Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale,
Amherst and Williams, trusting to our hands
The heritage of all they held most high,
Possessions of the spirit and the mind,
Investments in the provinces of joy.
Vast provinces are these! And fortunate they
Who at their will may go adventuring there,
Exploring all the boundaries of Truth,
Learning the roads that run through Beauty’s realm,
Sighting the pinnacles where good meets God,
Encompassed by the eternal unknown sea!
Even for a little to o’erlook those lands,
The kingdoms of Religion, Science, Art,
Is to be made forever happier
With blameless memories that shall bring content
And inspiration for all after days.
And fortunate they whom destiny allows
To rest within those provinces and serve
The dominion of ideals all their lives.
For whoso will, putting dull greed aside,
And holding fond allegiance to the best,
May dwell there and find fortitude and joy.
In the free fellowship of kindred minds,
One band of scholar gypsies I have known,
Whose purpose all unworldly was to find
An answer to the riddle of the Earth—
A key that should unlock the book of life
And secrets of its sorceries reveal.
This, they discovered, had long since been found
And laid aside forgotten and unused.
Our dark young poet who from Dartmouth came
Was told the secret by his gypsy bride,
Who had it from a master over seas,{6}
And he it was first hinted to the band
The magic of that universal lore,
Before the great Mysteriarch summoned him.
It was the doctrine of the threefold life,
The beginning of the end of all their doubt.
In that Victorian age it has become
So much the fashion now to half despise,
Within the shadow of Cathedral walls
They had been schooled and heard the mellow chimes
For Lenten litanies and daily prayers,
With a mild, eloquent, beloved voice
Exhorting to all virtue and that peace
Surpassing understanding—casting there
That “last enchantment of the Middle Age,”
The spell of Oxford and her ritual.
So duteous youth was trained, until there grew
Restive outreaching in men’s thought to find
Some certitude beyond the dusk of faith.
They cried on mysticism to be gone,
Mazed in the shadowy princedom of the soul.
Then as old creeds fell round them into dust,
They reached through science to belief in law,
Made reason paramount in man, and guessed
At reigning mind within the universe.
Piecing the fragments of a fair design
With reverent patience and courageous skill,
They saw the world from chaos step by step,
Under far-seeing guidance and restraint,
Emerge to order and to symmetry,
As logical and sure as music’s own.
With Spencer, Darwin, Tyndall, and the rest,
Our band saw roads of knowledge open wide
Through the uncharted province of the truth,{7}
As on they fared through that unfolding world.
Yet there they found no rest-house for the heart,
No wells sufficient for the spirit’s thirst,
No shade nor glory for the senses starved....
Turning—they fled by moonlit trails to seek
The magic principality of Art,
Where loveliness, not learning, rules supreme.
They stood intoxicated with delight before
The poised unanxious splendor of the Greek;
They mused upon the Gothic minsters gray,
Where mystic spirit took on mighty form,
Until their prayers to lovely churches turned—
(Like a remembrance of the Middle Age
They rose where Ralph or Bertram dreamed in stone);
Entranced they trod a painters’ paradise,
Where color wasted by the Scituate shore
Between the changing marshes and the sea;
They heard the golden voice of poesie
Lulling the senses with its last caress
In Tennysonian accents pure and fine;
And all their laurels were for Beauty’s brow,
Though toiling Reason went ungarlanded.
Then poisonous weeds of artifice sprang up,
Defiling Nature at her sacred source;
And there the questing World-soul could not stay,
Onward must journey with the changing time,
To come to this uncouth rebellious age,
Where not an ancient creed nor courtesy
Is underided, and each demagogue
Cries some new nostrum for the cure of ills.
To-day the unreasoning iconoclast
Would scoff at science and abolish art,
To let untutored impulse rule the world.
Let learning perish, and the race return{8}
To that first anarchy from which we came,
When spirit moved upon the deep and laid
The primal chaos under cosmic law.
And even now, in all our wilful might,
The satiated being cannot bide,
But to that austere country turns again,
The little province of the saints of God,
Where lofty peaks rise upward to the stars
From the gray twilight of Gethsemane,
And spirit dares to climb with wounded feet
Where justice, peace, and loving-kindness are.
What says the lore of human power we hold
Through all these striving and tumultuous days?
“Why not accept each several bloom of good,
Without discarding good already gained,
As one might weed a garden overgrown—
Save the new shoots, yet not destroy the old?
Only the fool would root up his whole patch
Of fragrant flowers, to plant the newer seed.”
Ah, softly, brothers! Have we not the key,
Whose first fine luminous use Plotinus gave,
Teaching that ecstasy must lead the man?
Three things, we see, men in this life require,
(As they are needed in the universe:)
First of all spirit, energy, or love,
The soul and mainspring of created things;
Next wisdom, knowledge, culture, discipline,
To guide impetuous spirit to its goal;
And lastly strength, the sound apt instrument,
Adjusted and controlled to lawful needs.
The next world-teacher must be one whose word
Shall reaffirm the primacy of soul,
Hold scholarship in her high guiding place,
And recognize the body’s equal right{9}
To culture such as it has never known,
In power and beauty serving soul and mind.
Inheritors of this divine ideal,
With courage to be fine as well as strong,
Shall know what common manhood may become,
Regain the gladness of his sons of morn,
The radiance of immortality.
Out of heroic wanderings of the past,
And all the wayward gropings of our time,
Unswerved by doubt, unconquered by despair,
The messengers of such a hope must go;
As one who hears far off before the dawn,
On some lone trail among the darkling hills,
The hermit thrushes in the paling dusk,
And at the omen lifts his eyes to see
Above him, with its silent shafts of light,
The sunrise kindling all the peaks with fire.
The Forum Bliss Carman
THE DESERTED PASTURE
I love the stony pasture
That no one else will have,
The old gray rocks so friendly seem,
So durable and brave.
In tranquil contemplation
It watches through the year,
Seeing the frosty stars arise,
The slender moons appear.
Its music is the rain-wind,
Its choristers the birds,
And there are secrets in its heart
Too wonderful for words.{10}
It keeps the bright-eyed creatures
That play about its walls,
Though long ago its milking herds
Were banished from their stalls.
Only the children come there,
For buttercups in May,
Or nuts in autumn, where it lies
Dreaming the hours away.
Long since its strength was given
To making good increase,
And now its soul is turned again
To beauty and to peace.
There in the earthly springtime
The violets are blue,
And adder-tongues in coats of gold
Are garmented anew.
There bayberry and aster
Are crowded on its floors
When marching summer halts to praise
The Lord of Out-of-doors.
And then October passes
In gorgeous livery,
In purple ash, and crimson oak,
And golden tulip tree.
And when the winds of winter
Their bugles blast again,
I watch the battalions come
To pitch their tents therein.
{11}
Atlantic Monthly Bliss Carman
TO A PHŒBE-BIRD
Under the eaves, out of the wet,
You nest within my reach;
You never sing for me and yet
You have a golden speech.
You sit and quirk a rapid tail,
Wrinkle a ragged crest,
Then pirouette from tree to rail
And vault from rail to nest.
And when in frequent, witty fright
You grayly slip and fade,
And when at hand you re-alight
Demure and unafraid,
And when you bring your brood its fill
Of iridescent wings
And green legs dewy in your bill,
Your silence is what sings.
Not of a feather that enjoys
To prate or praise or preach,
O Phœbe, with your lack of noise,
What eloquence you teach!
The Bellman Witter Bynner
FROM A MOTOR IN MAY
The leaves of Autumn and the buds of Spring
Meet and commingle on our winding way—
And we, who glide into the heart of May,
Sense in our souls a sudden quivering.
What though the flesh of blue or scarlet wing
Bid us forget the night in dawning day,{12}
Skies of November, sullen, sad, and gray,
Once hung above this withered covering.
There is no Spring that Autumn has not known,
Nor any Autumn Spring has not divined,—
The odor of dead flowers on the wind
Shall but enrich a fairer blossoming,
And though they shiver from a breeze outblown,
The leaves of Autumn guard the buds of Spring.
The Outlook Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
TO A GARDEN IN APRIL
Alas, and are you pleading now for pardon?
Spring came by night—and so there was no telling?
Spring had his way with you, my little garden....
You hide in leaf, but oh! your buds are swelling.
The Trend Walter Conrad Arensberg
JEWEL-WEED
Thou lonely, dew-wet mountain road,
Traversed by toiling feet each day,
What rare enchantment maketh thee
Appear so gay?
Thy sentinels, on either hand
Rise tamarack, birch and balsam-fir,
O’er the familiar shrubs that greet
The wayfarer;
But here’s a magic cometh new—
A joy to gladden thee, indeed:
This passionate out-flowering of
The jewel-weed,{13}
That now, when days are growing drear,
As summer dreams that she is old,
Hangs out a myriad pleasure-bells
Of mottled gold!
Thine only, these, thou lonely road!
Though hands that take, and naught restore,
Rob thee of other treasured things,
Thine these are, for
A fairy, cradled in each bloom,
To all who pass the charmèd spot
Whispers in warning:—“Friend, admire,—
But touch me not!
“Leave me to blossom where I sprung,
A joy untarnished shall I seem;
Pluck me, and you dispel the charm
And blur the dream!”
The Bellman Florence Earle Coates
IRISH
My father and mother were Irish,
And I am Irish, too;
I pipe you my bag of whistles,
And it is Irish, too.
’Twill sing with you in the morning,
And play with you at noon,
And dance with you in the evening
To a little Irish tune.
For my father and mother were Irish,
And I am Irish, too;
And here is my bag of whistles,
For it is Irish, too.
{14}
Boston Transcript Edward J. O’Brien
THE REGENTS’ EXAMINATION
Muffled sounds of the city climbing to me at the window,
Here in the summer noon-tide students busily writing,
Children of quaint-clad immigrants, fresh from the hut and the Ghetto,
Writing of pious Æneas and funeral rites of Anchises.
Old-World credo and custom, alien accents and features,
Plunged in the free-school hopper, grist for the Anglo-Saxons—
Old-World sweetness and light, and fiery struggle of heroes,
Flashed on the blinking peasants, dull with the grime of their bondage!
Race that are infant in knowledge, ancient in grief and traditions—
Lore that is tranquil with age and starry with gleams of the future—
What is the thing that will come from the might of the elements blending?
Neuter and safe shall it be? Or a flame to burst us asunder?
Scribner’s Magazine Jessie Wallace Hughan
YANKEE DOODLE
This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield
mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle,
yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise
for an entertainment on the evening of Washington’s Birthday.
Dawn this morning burned all red
Watching them in wonder.{15}
There I saw our spangled flag
Divide the clouds asunder.
Then there followed Washington.
Ah, he rode from glory,
Cold and mighty as his name
And stern as Freedom’s story.
Unsubdued by burning dawn
Led his continentals.
Vast they were, and strange to see
In gray old regimentals:—
Marching still with bleeding feet,
Bleeding feet and jesting—
Marching from the judgment throne
With energy unresting.
How their merry quickstep played—
Silver, sharp, sonorous,
Piercing through with prophecy
The demons’ rumbling chorus—
Behold the ancient powers of sin
And slavery before them!—
Sworn to stop the glorious dawn,
The pit-black clouds hung o’er them.
Plagues that rose to blast the day,
Fiend and tiger faces,
Monsters plotting bloodshed for
The patient toiling races.
Round the dawn their cannon raged,
Hurling bolts of thunder,
Yet before our spangled flag
Their host was cut asunder.
Like a mist they fled away....
Ended wrath and roaring.
Still our restless soldier-host
From East to West went pouring.{16}
High beside the sun of noon
They bore our banner splendid.
All its days of stain and shame
And heaviness were ended.
Men were swelling now the throng
From great and lowly station—
Valiant citizens to-day
Of every tribe and nation.
Not till night their rear-guard came,
Down the west went marching,
And left behind the sunset rays
In beauty overarching.
War-god banners lead us still,
Rob, enslave and harry;
Let us rather choose to-day
The flag the angels carry—
Flag we love, but brighter far—
Soul of it made splendid:
Let its days of stain and shame
And heaviness be ended.
Let its fifes fill all the sky,
Redeemed souls marching after,
Hills and mountains shake with song,
While seas roll on in laughter.
The Metropolitan Vachel Lindsay
FIGHT
THE TALE OF A GUNNER AT PLATTSBURGH, 1814[1]
I
Jock bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs;
He scraped the fresh sleet from the frozen sign:{17}
Men Wanted—Volunteers. Like gusts of brine
He whiffed deliriums
Of sound—the droning roar of rolling, rolling drums
And shrilling fifes, like needles in his spine,
And drank, blood-bright from sunrise and wild shore,
The wine of war.
With ears and eyes he drank and dizzy brain
Till all the snow danced red. The little shacks
That lined the road of muffled hackmatacks
Were roofed with the red stain,
Which spread in reeling rings on icy-blue Champlain
And splotched the sky like daubs of sealing-wax,
That darkened when he winked, and when he stared
Caught fire and flared.
Men Wanted—Volunteers! The village street,
Topped by the slouching store and slim flagpole,
Loomed grand as Rome to his expanding soul;
Grandly the rhythmic beat
Of feet in file and flags and fifes and filing feet,
The roar of brass and unremitting roll
Of drums and drums bewitched his boyish mood—
Till he hallooed.
His strident echo stung the lake’s wild dawn
And startled him from dreams. Jock rammed his cap
And rubbed a numb ear with the furry flap,
Then bolted like a faun,{18}
Bounding through shin-deep sleigh-ruts in his shaggy brawn,
Blowing white frost-wreaths from red mouth agap
Till, in a gabled porch beyond the store,
He burst the door;
“Mother!” he panted. “Hush! Your pa ain’t up;
He’s worser since this storm. What’s struck ye so?”
“It’s volunteers!” The old dame stammered “Oh!”
And stopped, and stirred her sup
Of morning tea, and stared down in the trembling cup.
“They’re musterin’ on the common now.” “I know,”
She nodded feebly; then with sharp surmise
She raised her eyes:
She raised her eyes, and poured their light on him
Who towered glowing there—bright lips apart,
Cap off, and brown hair tousled. With quick smart
She felt the room turn dim
And seemed she heard, far off, a sound of cherubim
Soothing the sudden pain about her heart.
How many a lonely hour of after-woe
She saw him so!
“Jock!” And once more the white lips murmured “Jock!”
Her fingers slipped; the spilling teacup fell
And shattered, tinkling—but broke not the spell.
His heart began to knock,
Jangling the hollow rhythm of the ticking clock.
“Mother, it’s fight, and men are wanted!” “Well,
Ah well, it’s men may kill us women’s joys,
It’s men—not boys!{19}”
“I’m seventeen! I guess that seventeen—”
“My little Jock!” “Little! I’m six-foot-one.
(Scorn twitched his lip.) You saw me, how I skun
The town last Hallowe’en
At wrastlin’.” (Now the mother shifted tack.) “But Jean?
You won’t be leavin’ Jean?” “I guess a gun
Won’t rattle her.” He laughed, and turned his head.
His face grew red.
“But if it doos—a gal don’t understand:
It’s fight!” “Jock, boy, your pa can’t last much more,
And who’s to mind the stock—to milk and chore?”
Jock frowned and gnawed his hand.
“Mother, it’s men must mind the stock—our own born land,
And lick the invaders.” Slowly in the door
Stubbed the old, worn-out man. “Woman, let be!
It’s liberty:
“It’s struck him like fork-lightnin’ in a pine.
I felt it, too, like that in seventy-six;
And now, if ’twa’n’t for creepin’ pains and cricks
And this one leg o’ mine,
I’d holler young Jerusalem like him, and jine
The fight; but fight don’t come from burnt-out wicks;
It comes from fire.” “Mebbe,” she said, “it comes
From fifes and drums.”
“Dad, all the boys are down from the back hills.
The common’s cacklin’ like hell’s cocks and hens;
There’s swords and muskets stacked in the cow-pens
And knapsacks in the mills;
They say at Isle aux Noix Redcoats are holding drills,
And we’re to build a big fleet at Vergennes.{20}
Dad, can’t I go?” “I reckon you’re a man:
Of course you can.
“I’ll do the chores to home, you do ’em thar!”
“Dad!”—“Lad!” The men gripped hands and gazed upon
The mother, when the door flew wide. There shone
A young face like a star,
A gleam of bitter-sweet ’gainst snowy islands far,
A freshness, like the scent of cinnamon,
Tingeing the air with ardor and bright sheen.
Jock faltered: “Jean!”
“Jock, don’t you hear the drums? I dreamed all night
I heard ’em, and they woke me in black dark.
Quick, ain’t you comin’? Can’t you hear ’em? Hark!
The men-folks are to fight.
I wish I was a man!” Jock felt his throat clutch tight.
“Men-folks!” It lit his spirit like a spark
Flashing the pent gunpowder of his pride.
“Come on!” he cried.
“Here—wait!” The old man stumped to the back wall
And handed down his musket. “You’ll want this;
And mind what game you’re after, and don’t miss.
Good-by: I guess that’s all
For now. Come back and get your duds.”
Jock, looming tall
Beside his glowing sweetheart, stooped to kiss
The little shrunken mother. Tiptoe she rose
And clutched him—close.
In both her twisted hands she held his head
Clutched in the wild remembrance of dim years{21}—
A baby head, suckling, half dewed with tears;
A tired boy abed
By candlelight; a laughing face beside the red
Log-fire; a shock of curls beneath her shears—
The bright hair falling. Ah, she tried to smother
Her wild thoughts.—“Mother!
“Mother!” he stuttered. “Baby Jock!” she moaned
And looked far in his eyes.—And he was gone.
The porch door banged. Out in the blood-bright dawn
All that she once had owned—
Her heart’s proud empire—passed, her life’s dream sank unthroned.
With hands still reached, she stood there staring, wan.
“Hark, woman!” said the bowed old man. “What’s tolling?”
Drums—drums were rolling.
II
Shy wings flashed in the orchard, glitter, glitter;
Blue wings bloomed soft through blossom-colored leaves,
And Phœbe! Phœbe! whistled from gray eaves
Through water-shine and twitter
And spurt of flamey green. All bane of earth and bitter
Took life and tasted sweet at the glad reprieves
Of spring, save only in an old dame’s heart
That grieved apart.
Crook-back and small, she poled the big wellsweep:
Creak went the pole; the bucket came up brimming.
On the bright water lay a cricket swimming
Whose brown legs tried to leap{22}
But, draggling, twitched and foundered in the circling deep.
The old dame gasped; her thin hand snatched him, skimming.
“Dear Lord, he’s drowned,” she mumbled with dry lips;
“The ships! the ships!”
Gently she laid him in the sun and dried
The little dripping body. Suddenly
Rose-red gleamed through the budding apple tree
And “Look! a letter!” cried
A laughing voice; “and lots of news for us inside!”
“How’s that, Jean? News from Jock! Where—where is he?”
“Down in Vergennes—the ship-yards.” “Ships! Ah, no!
It can’t be so.”
“He’s going to fight with guns and be a tar.
See here: he’s wrote himself. The post was late.
He couldn’t write before. The ship is great!
She’s built, from keel to spar,
And called the Saratoga; and Jock’s got a scar
Already—” “Scar?” the mother quavered. “Wait,”
Jean rippled, “let me read.” “Quick, then, my dear,
He’ll want to hear—”
“Jock’s pa; I guess we’ll find him in the yard.
He ain’t scarce creepin’ round these days, poor Dan!”
She gripped Jean’s arm and stumbled as they ran,
And stopped once, breathing hard.
Around them chimney-swallows skimmed the sheep-cropped sward
And yellow hornets hummed. The sick old man{23}
Stirred at their steps, and muttered from deep muse:
“Well, ma; what news?”
“From Jockie—there’s a letter!” In his chair
The bowed form sat bolt upright. “What’s he say?”
“He’s wrote to Jean. I guess it’s boys their way
To think old folks don’t care
For letters.” “Girl, read out.” Jean smoothed her wilding hair
And sat beside them. Out of the blue day
A golden robin called; across the road
A heifer lowed;
And old ears listened while youth read: “‘Friend Jean,
Vergennes: here’s where we’ve played a Yankee trick.
I’m layin’ in my bunk by Otter Crick
And scribblin’ you this mean
Scrawl for to tell the news—what-all I’ve heerd and seen:
Jennie, we’ve built a ship, and built her slick—
A swan!—a seven hundred forty tonner,
And I’m first gunner.
“‘You ought to seen us launch her t’other day!”
Tell dad we’ve christened her for a fight of hisn
He fought at Saratoga. Now just listen!
She’s twice as big, folks say,
As Perry’s ship that took the prize at Put-in-Bay;
Yet forty days ago, hull, masts, and mizzen,
The whole of her was growin’, live and limber,
In God’s green timber.
“‘I helped to fell her main-mast back in March.
The woods was snowed knee-deep. She was a wonder:
A straight white pine. She fell like roarin’ thunder
And left a blue-sky arch{24}
Above her, bustin’ all to kindlin’s a tall larch.—
Mebbe the scart jack-rabbits skun from under!
Us boys hoorayed, and me and every noodle
Yelled Yankee Doodle!
“‘My, how we haw’d and gee’d the big ox-sledges
Haulin’ her long trunk through the hemlock dells,
A-bellerin’ to the tinkle-tankle bells,
And blunted our ax edges
Hackin’ new roads of ice ’longside the rocky ledges.
We stalled her twice, but gave the oxen spells
And yanked her through at last on the home-clearin’—
Lord, wa’n’t we cheerin’!
“‘Since then I’ve seen her born, as you might say:
Born out of fire and water and men’s sweatin’,
Blast-furnace rairin’ and red anvils frettin’
And sawmills, night and day,
Screech-owlin’ like ’twas Satan’s rumhouse run away
Smellin’ of tar and pitch. But I’m forgettin’
The man that’s primed her guns and paid her score:
The Commodore.
“‘Macdonough—he’s her master, and she knows
His voice, like he was talkin’ to his hound.
There ain’t a man of her but ruther’d drown’d
Than tread upon his toes;
And yet with his red cheeks and twinklin’ eyes, a rose
Ain’t friendler than his looks be. When he’s round,
He makes you feel like you’re a gentleman
American.
“‘But I must tell you how we’re hidin’ here.
This Otter Crick is like a crook-neck jug,
And we’re inside. The Redcoats want to plug
The mouth, and cork our beer;{25}
So last week Downie sailed his British lake fleet near
To fill our channel, but us boys had dug
Big shore intrenchments, and our batteries
Stung ’em like bees
“’Till they skedaddled whimperin’ up the lake;
But while the shots was flyin’, in the scrimmage,
I caught a ball that scotched my livin’ image.—
Now, Jean, for Sam Hill’s sake,
Don’t let-on this to mother, for, you know, she’d make
A deary-me-in’ that would last a grim age.
’Tain’t much, but when a feller goes to war
What’s he go for
“‘If ’taint to fight, and take his chances?’” Jean
Stopped and looked down. The mother did not speak.
“Go on,” said the old man. Flush tinged her cheek.
“Truly I didn’t mean—
There ain’t much more. He says: ‘Goodbye now, little queen;
We’re due to sail for Plattsburgh this day week.
Meantime I’m hopin’ hard and takin’ stock.
Your obedient—Jock.’”
The girl’s voice ceased in silence. Glitter, glitter,
The shy wings flashed through blossom-colored leaves,
And Phœbe! Phœbe! whistled from gray eaves
Through water-shine and twitter
And spurt of flamey green. But bane of thought is bitter.
The mother’s heart spurned May’s sweet make-believes,
For there, through falling masts and gaunt ships looming,
Guns—guns were booming.
{26}
III
Plattsburgh—and windless beauty on the bay;
Autumnal morning and the sun at seven:
Southward a wedge of wild ducks in the heaven
Dwindles, and far away
Dim mountains watch the lake, where lurking for their prey
Lie, with their muzzled thunders and pent levin,
The war-ships—Eagle, Preble, Saratoga,
Ticonderoga.
And now a little wind from the northwest
Flutters the trembling blue with snowy flecks.
A gunner, on Macdonough’s silent decks,
Peers from his cannon’s rest,
Staring beyond the low north headland. Crest on crest
Behind green spruce-tops, soft as wild-fowls’ necks,
Glide the bright spars and masts and whitened wales
Of bellying sails.
Rounding, the British lake-birds loom in view,
Ruffling their wings in silvery arrogance:
Chubb, Linnet, Finch, and lordly Confiance
Leading with Downie’s crew
The line. With long booms swung to starboard they heave to,
Whistling their flock of galleys who advance
Behind, then toward the Yankees, four abreast,
Tack landward, west.
Landward the watching townsfolk strew the shore;
Mist-banks of human beings blur the bluffs
And blacken the roofs, like swarms of roosting choughs.
Waiting the cannon’s roar
A nation holds its breath for knell of Nevermore{27}
Or peal of life: this hour shall cast the sloughs
Of generations—and one old dame’s joy:
Her gunner boy.
One moment on the quarter-deck Jock kneels
Beside his Commodore and fighting squad.
Their heads are bowed, their prayers go up toward God—
Toward God, to whom appeals
Still rise in pain and mangling wrath from blind ordeals.
Of man, still boastful of his brother’s blood.—
They stand from prayer. Swift comes and silently
The enemy.
Macdonough holds his men, alert, devout:
“He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea
Driven with the wind. Behold the ships, that be
So great, are turned about
Even with a little helm.” Jock tightens the blue clout
Around his waist, and watches casually
Close-by a game-cock, in a coop, who stirs
And spreads his spurs.
Now, bristling near, the British war-birds swoop
Wings, and the Yankee Eagle screams in fire;
The English Linnet answers, aiming higher,
And crash along Jock’s poop
Her hurtling shot of iron crackles the game-cock’s coop,
Where, lo! the ribald cock, like a town crier
Strutting a gunslide, flaps to the cheering crew—
Yankee-doodle-doo!
Boys yell, and yapping laughter fills the roar:
“You bet we’ll do ’em!” “You’re a prophet, cocky!{28}”
“Hooray, old rooster!” “Hip, hip, hip!” cries Jockie.
Calmly the Commodore
Touches his cannon’s fuse and fires a twenty-four.
Smoke belches black. “Huzza! That’s blowed ’em pocky!”
And Downie’s men, like pins before the bowling,
Fall scatter-rolling.
Boom! flash the long guns, echoed by the galleys.
The Confiance, wind-baffled in the bay
With both her port-bow anchors torn away,
Flutters, but proudly rallies
To broadside, while her gunboats range the water-alleys.
Then Downie grips Macdonough in the fray,
And double-shotted from his roaring flail
Hurls the black hail.
The hail turns red, and drips in the hot gloom.
Jock snuffs the reek and spits it from his mouth
And grapples with great winds. The winds blow south,
And scent of lilac bloom
Steals from his mother’s porch in his still sleeping-room.
Lilacs! But now it stinks of blood and drouth!
He staggers up, and stares at blinding light:
“God! This is fight!”
Fight! The sharp loathing retches in his loins;
He gulps the black air, like a drowner swimming,
Where little round suns in a dance go rimming
The dark with golden coins;
Round him and round the splintering masts and jangled quoins{29}
Reel, rattling, and overhead he hears the hymning—
Lonely and loud—of ululating choirs
Strangling with wires.
Fight! But no more the roll of chanting drums,
The fifing flare, the flags, the magic spume
Filling his spirit with a wild perfume;
Now noisome anguish numbs
His sense, that mocks and leers at monstrous vacuums.
Whang! splits the spanker near him, and the boom
Crushes Macdonough, in a jumbled wreck,
Stunned on the deck.
No time to glance where wounded leaders lie,
Or think on fallen sparrows in the storm—
Only to fight! The prone commander’s form
Stirs, rises stumblingly,
And gropes where, under shrieking grape and musketry,
Men’s bodies wamble like a mangled swarm
Of bees. He bends to sight his gun again,
Bleeding, and then—
Oh, out of void and old oblivion
And reptile slime first rose Apollo’s head;
And God in likeness of Himself, ’tis said,
Created such an one,
Now shaping Shakespeare’s forehead, now Napoleon,
Various, by infinite invention bred,
In His own image molding beautiful
The human skull.
Jock lifts his head; Macdonough sights his gun
To fire—but in his face a ball of flesh,{30}
A whizzing clod, has hurled him in a mesh
Of tangled rope and tun,
While still about the deck the lubber clod is spun
And, bouncing from the rail, lies in a plesh
Of oozing blood, upstaring eyeless, red—
A gunner’s head.
* * * * * * * *
Above the ships, enormous from the lake,
Rises a wraith—a phantom dim and gory,
Lifting her wondrous limbs of smoke and glory;
And little children quake
And lordly nations bow their foreheads for her sake,
And bards proclaim her in their fiery story;
And in her phantom breast, heartless unheeding,
Hearts—hearts are bleeding.
IV
Macdonough lies with Downie in one land.
Victor and vanquished long ago were peers.
Held in the grip of peace an hundred years,
England has laid her hand
In ours, and we have held—and still shall hold—the band
That makes us brothers of the hemispheres;
Yea, still shall keep the lasting brotherhood
Of law and blood.
Yet one whose terror racked us long of yore
Still wreaks upon the world her lawless might:
Out of the deeps again the phantom Fight
Looms on her wings of war,
Sowing in armèd camps and fields her venomed spore,
Embattling monarch’s whim against man’s right,{31}
Trampling with iron hoofs the blooms of time
Back in the slime.
We, who from dreams of justice, dearly wrought,
First rose in the eyes of patient Washington,
And through the molten heart of Lincoln won
To liberty forgot,
Now, standing lone in peace, ’mid titans strange distraught,
Pray much for patience, more—God’s will be done!—
For vision and for power nobly to see
The world made free.
The Outlook Percy MacKaye
THE PROPHET
Jeremiah, will you come?
Will you gather up the multitudes, and wake them with a drum?
Will you dare anoint the chosen ones from all the cattle kind,
And threaten with the fire of God the foolish and the blind?
Jeremiah, Jeremiah, we have waited for you long,
To see the flaming fury of your hate against the wrong,
For we dally in the Temple, and we flee the eye of Truth,
And we waste along the wilderness the glory of our youth.
Jeremiah, Jeremiah, here the lying prophets speak,
Here they flatter in their feebleness the gilded and the sleek;{32}
But their languid pipings die in shame when trumpet cries are heard.
Are you coming? Are you coming? O Prophet of the Word!
The Forum Lyman Bryson
NEWPORT
On these brown rocks the waves dissolve in spray
As when our fathers saw them first alee.
If such a one could come again and see
This ancient haven in its latter day,
These haughty palaces and gardens gay,
These dense, soft lawns, bedecked by many a tree
Borne like a gem from Ind or Araby;
If he could see the race he bred, at play—
Bright like a flock of tropic birds allured
To pause a moment on the southward wing
By these warm sands and by these summer seas—
Would he not cry, “Alas, have I endured
Exile and famine, hate and suffering,
To win religious liberty for these?”
Smart Set Alice Duer Miller
TO A PHOTOGRAPHER
I have known joy and woe and toil and fight
I have lived largely, I have dreamed and planned,
And Time, the sculptor, with a master hand,
Upon my face has wrought for all men’s sight
The lines and seams of Life, of growth and blight,
Of struggle and of service and command;
And now you show me This—this waxen, bland
And placid face—unlined, untroubled, white!{33}
This is not I—this fatuous face you show
Retouched and prettified and smoothed to please,
Put back the wrinkles and the lines I know;
I have spent blood and brain achieving these,
Out of the pain, the sorrow and the wrack,
They are my scars of battle—PUT THEM BACK!
Harper’s Weekly Berton Braley
SONG
Flesh unto flowers,
And flame unto wind,
The cleansing of showers
Shall come to thee blind.
In the night of thy sleeping
The sound of the tide
Shall waken thee weeping
To turn to my side.
Boston Transcript Edward J. O’Brien
SONNET XXXVII
Through vales of Thrace, Peneus’ stream is flowing
Past legend-peopled hillsides to the deep;
From Paestum’s rose-hung plains soft winds are blowing;
The halls of Amber lie in haunted sleep;
The Cornish sea is silent with the Summer
That once bore Iseult from the Irish shore;
And lovely lone Fiesole is dumber
Than when Lorenzo’s garland-guests it wore.
This eve for us the emerald clearness glowing
Over the stream, where late was ruddy might,
Whispers a wonder, dumb to other knowing,—
Known but to you, the silence, and the night.{34}
Our boat drifts breathless; the last light is dying;
Stars, dawn, shall find us here together lying.
The Forum Arthur Davison Ficke
THE HUNTING OF DIAN
In the silence of a midnight lost, lost forevermore,
I stood upon a nameless beach where none had been before,
And red gold and yellow gold were the shells upon that shore.
Lone, lone it was as a mist-enfolded strand
Set round a lake where marble demons stand—
Held like a sapphire-stone in Thibet’s monstrous hand.
And there I beheld how One stood in her grace
To hold to the stars her wet and faery face,
And on the smooth and haunted sands her footfall had no trace.
White, white was she as the youngest seraph’s word,
Or milk of Eden’s kine or Eden’s fragrant curd,
Cast in love by Eve’s wan hand to her most snowy bird.
Fair, fair was she as Venus of the sky,
And the jasmine of her breast and starlight of her eye
Made the heart a pain and the soul a hopeless sigh.
Weak with the sight I leaned upon my sword,
Till my soul that had sighed was become an unseen chord
For stress of music rendered to unknown things adored.{35}
Surely she heard, but her beauty gave no sign
To me for whom the hushed sea was odorous as wine,—
To me for whom the voiceless world was made her silent shrine.
And she sent forth her gaze to the waters of the West,
And she sent forth her soul to the Islands of the Blest,
Below a star whose silver throes set pearls upon her breast.
But chill in the East brake a glory on the lands,
And she moaned like some low wave that dies on frozen sands,
And held to her sea-lover sweet and cruel hands.
Then rose the moon, and its lance was in her side,
And there was bitter music because in woe she cried,
Ere on the hard and gleaming beach she laid her down and died.
I leapt to her succor, my sword I left behind;
But one low mound of opal foam was all that I could find—
A moon-washed length of airy gems that trembled in the wind.
I knelt below the stars; the sea put forth a wave;
The moon drew up the captive tides upon her shining grave,
As far away I heard the cry her dim sea-lover gave.
{36}
Smart Set George Sterling
THE FIREMEN’S BALL
SECTION ONE
To be read, or chanted, with the heavy buzzing bass of
fire-engines pumping. In this passage the reading or chanting is
shriller and higher.
“Give the engines room,
Give the engines room.”
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
The reins in his hands,
In the fire-chief’s place
In the night alarm chase.
The cymbals whang,
The kettledrums bang:—
“Clear the street,
Clear the street
Clear the street—Boom, boom.
In the evening gloom,
In the evening gloom,
Give the engines room,
Give the engines room,
Lest souls be trapped
In a terrible tomb.”
The sparks and the pine-brands
Whirl on high
From the black and reeking alleys
To the wide red sky.
Hear the hot glass crashing,
Hear the stone steps hissing.
Coal black streams
Down the gutters pour.
There are cries for help
From a far fifth floor.
For a longer ladder
Hear the fire-chief call.{37}
Listen to the music
Of the firemen’s ball.
To be read or chanted in a heavy bass.
“’Tis the
Night
Of doom,”
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
“Night
Of doom,”
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
Faster, faster
The red flames come.
“Hum grum,” say the engines,
“Hum grum grum.”
Shriller and higher.
“Buzz, buzz,”
Says the crowd.
“See, see,”
Calls the crowd.
“Look out,”
Yelps the crowd
And the high walls fall:—
Listen to the music
Of the firemen’s ball.
Listen to the music
Of the firemen’s ball.
Heavy bass.
“’Tis the
Night
Of doom,”
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
Night
Of doom,
Say the ding-dong doom-bells.
Whangaranga, whangaranga,
Whang, whang, whang,
Clang, clang, clangaranga,
Bass, much slower.
Clang, clang, clang.
Clang—a—ranga{38}—
Clang—a—ranga—
Clang,
Clang.
Listen—to—the—music—
Of the firemen’s ball—
SECTION TWO
To be read or sung slowly and softly, in the manner of
lustful, insinuating music.
“Many’s the heart that’s breaking
If we could read them all
After the ball is over.” (An old song.)
Scornfully, gaily
The bandmaster sways,
Changing the strain
That the wild band plays.
With a red and royal intoxication,
A tangle of sounds
And a syncopation,
Sweeping and bending
From side to side,
Master of dreams,
With a peacock pride.
A lord of the delicate flowers of delight
He drives compunction
Back through the night.
Dreams he’s a soldier
Plumed and spurred,
And valiant lads
Arise at his word,
Flaying the sober
Thoughts he hates,
Driving them back
From the dream-town gates.
How can the languorous{39}
Dancers know
The red dreams come
When the good dreams go?
To be read or chanted slowly and softly in the manner of
lustful insinuating music.
“’Tis the
Night
Of love,”
Call the silver joy-bells,
“Night
Of love,”
Call the silver joy-bells.
“Honey and wine,
Honey and wine.
Sing low, now, violins,
Sing, sing low,
Blow gently, wood-wind,
Mellow and slow.
Like midnight poppies
The sweethearts bloom.
Their eyes flash power,
Their lips are dumb.
Faster and faster
Their pulses come,
Though softer now
The drum-beats fall.
Honey and wine,
Honey and wine.
’Tis the firemen’s ball,
’Tis the firemen’s ball.
With a climax of whispered mourning.
“I am slain,”
Cries true-love
There in the shadow.
“And I die,”
Cries true-love,
There laid low.
“When the fire-dreams come,{40}
The wise dreams go.”
Suddenly interrupting. To be read or sung in a heavy bass.
First eight lines as harsh as possible. Then gradually musical and
sonorous.
But his cry is drowned
By the proud band-master
And now great gongs whang,
Sharper, faster,
And kettledrums rattle
And hide the shame
With a swish and a swirk
In dead love’s name.
Red and crimson
And scarlet and rose
Magical poppies
The sweethearts bloom.
The scarlet stays
When the rose-flush goes,
And love lies low
In a marble tomb.
“’Tis the
Night
Of doom,”
Call the ding-dong doom-bells.
“Night
Of doom,”
Call the ding-dong doom-bells.
Sharply interrupting in a very high key. Heavy bass.
Hark how the piccolos still make cheer.
“’Tis a moonlight night in the spring of the year.”
Clangaranga, clangaranga,
Clang ... clang ... clang.
Clang ... a ... ranga ...
Clang ... a ... ranga ...
Clang ... clang ... clang ...
Listen ... to ... the ... music ...
Of ... the ... firemen’s ball ...
{41}
Listen ... to ... the ... music ...
Of ... the ... Firemen’s ... Ball ...
SECTION THREE
In Which, contrary to Artistic Custom, the moral of the piece is
placed before the reader.
(From the first Khandaka of the Mahavagga: “There Buddha thus
addressed his disciples: ‘Everything, O mendicants, is burning.
With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you it is burning with
the fire of passion, with the fire of anger, with the fire of
ignorance. It is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay and
death, grief, lamentation, suffering and despair.... A disciple,
... becoming weary of all that, divests himself of passion. By
absence of passion, he is made free.’”)
To be intoned after the manner of a priestly service.
I once knew a teacher,
Who turned from desire,
Who said to the young men,
“Wine is a fire.”
Who said to the merchants:—
“Gold is a flame
That sears and tortures
If you play at the game.”
I once knew a teacher
Who turned from desire
Who said to the soldiers,
“Hate is a fire.”
Who said to the statesmen:—
“Power is a flame
That flays and blisters
If you play at the game.”
I once knew a teacher
Who turned from desire,
Who said to the lordly,{42}
“Pride is a fire.”
Who thus warned the revellers:—
“Life is a flame.
Be cold as the dew
Would you win at the game
With hearts like the stars,
Interrupting very loudly for the last time.
With hearts like the stars.”
So BEWARE,
So BEWARE,
So BEWARE OF THE FIRE.
Clear the streets,
Boom, boom,
Clear the streets,
Boom, boom,
Give the engines room,
Give the engines room,
Lest souls be trapped
In a terrible tomb.
Says the swift white horse
To the swift black horse:—
“There goes the alarm,
There goes the alarm.
They are hitched, they are off,
They are gone in a flash,
And they strain at the driver’s iron arm.”
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga....
Clang ... clang ... clang ...
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga...
Clang ... clang ... clang....
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga.
{43}
Clang ... clang ... clang.
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vachel Lindsay
SUMMONS
The eager night and the impetuous winds,
The hints and whispers of a thousand lures,
And all the swift persuasion of the Spring,
Surged from the stars and stones, and swept me on....
The smell of honeysuckles, keen and clear,
Startled and shook me, with the sudden thrill
Of some well-known but half-forgotten voice.
A slender stream became a naked sprite,
Flashed around curious bends, and winked at me
Beyond the turns, alert and mischievous.
A saffron moon, dangling among the trees,
Seemed like a toy balloon caught in the boughs,
Flung there in sport by some too-mirthful breeze....
And as it hung there, vivid and unreal,
The whole world’s lethargy was brushed away;
The night kept tugging at my torpid mood
And tore it into shreds. A warm air blew
My wintry slothfulness beyond the stars;
And over all indifference there streamed
A myriad urges in one rushing wave....
Touched with the lavish miracles of earth,
I felt the brave persistence of the grass;
The far desire of rivulets; the keen,
Unconquerable fervor of the thrush;
The endless labors of the patient worm;
The lichen’s strength; the prowess of the ant;
The constancy of flowers; the blind belief
Of ivy climbing slowly toward the sun;
The eternal struggles and eternal deaths—
And yet the groping faith of every root!
Out of old graves arose the cry of life;
Out of the dying came the deathless call.
And, thrilling with a new sweet restlessness,
The thing that was my boyhood woke in me{44}—
Dear, foolish fragments made me strong again;
Valiant adventures, dreams of those to come,
And all the vague, heroic hopes of youth,
With fresh abandon, like a fearless laugh,
Leaped up to face the heaven’s unconcern....
And then—veil upon veil was torn aside—
Stars, like a host of merry girls and boys,
Danced gaily ’round me, plucking at my hand;
The night, scorning its ancient mystery,
Leaned down and pressed new courage in my heart;
The hermit-thrush, throbbing with more Song,
Sang with a happy challenge to the skies;
Love, and the faces of a world of children,
Swept like a conquering army through my blood—
And Beauty, rising out of all its forms,
Beauty, the passion of the universe,
Flamed with its joy, a thing too great for tears,
And, like a wine, poured itself out for me
To drink of, to be warmed with, and to go
Refreshed and strengthened to the ceaseless fight;
To meet with confidence the cynic years;
Battling in wars that never can be won,
Seeking the lost cause and the brave defeat.
Century Louis Untermeyer
PATTERNS
Would you lay a pattern on life and say, thus shall ye live?
I tell you that is a denial of life;
I say that thus we pour our spirits in a mold, and they cake and die.
I want to go to the man who quickens me;
I want the gift of life, the flame of his spirit eating along the tinder of my heart;{45}
I want to feel the flood-gates within flung open and the tides pouring through me;
I want to take what I am and bring it to fruit.
Quicken me, and I will grow;
Touch me with flame, and the blossoms will open and the fruit appear.
Call forth in me a creator, and the god will answer.
And then, if I commit what you call a sin,
Better so.
It will not be a sin. It will be a mere breaking of your patterns;
For the only sin is death, and the only virtue to be altogether alive and your own authentic self.
Century James Oppenheim
NEW YORK
Sea-rimmed and teeming with millions poured out on thy granite shore
Surge upon surge, many-nationed, O City far-famed for the roar
Of thy cavernous iron streets and thy towers half hung in the sun,
Rising in layer on layer, twelve cities piled upon one,
All feeding and sleeping and breeding, enormous, half palace, half den,
With ever a tide washing through thee whose clamoring waters are men,
O where is the hand of thy builder? What god, canst thou tell,
Hath his hand on the clay of thy face? Or what demon from Hell?
I have viewed with the eye of the stranger and the pride of the New World man{46}
The mountainous leap of thy glory, the miles of thy endless span,
And my heart has gone up with thy towers and my love has fallen as dew
On thy night-blooming lamps in rows on thy beautiful Avenue.
I have stood with a seaman’s glass on the roofs of thy high hotels;
I have rolled through the sheer ravines where the cliff dweller dwells;
I have peered from the place of the Tomb far up where the hills break free
And the length of the lordly River comes down as a bride to the sea;
I have fled with a roar through the rock where the myriad lights flash by;
I have heard the song of the soaring steel come down from the sky;
I have watched as a lover thy waters all mottled with cloud and with sun
Where the ocean comes in to caress thee, O Beautiful One;
And the days and the years of my life are a gift unto thee,
And I dwell in thy marvelous gates, O Goddess cast up by the sea!
I have surged with the morning throng down the gulf of the Great White Way
That gashes thy granite length from the towers of sleep to the Bay
When the West rolls in with a rush and the North comes down with a roar
And the tramp of the Island men is loud on thy island shore.{47}
Shoulder to shoulder they come from the loins of a hundred lands,
The men with the New World brains and the men with the Old World hands,
And the vision is bright on the sky of the City to be
And the joy of the morning is there and the thrill of the sea.
As a surf is the sound of thy labor, O City; as wine
Is the hum of thy human streets filled with faces divine
When from building on populous building thy power unfurled
Leaps down to the sea and off through the air to the ends of the world.
I have loafed round the banging wharves where the foreign freighters lie;
I have watched the bridge-weaving shuttles pass over the sky;
I have felt the quick leap of thy drills where the builders of Rome
Swing the rock from the hole in the ground for the walls of thy home;
I have heard far down through the canyons the clamor and yell
When the brokers are out with their signs and the Curb is a hell;
I have sounded thy chattering markets; I have watched the noon hour
Come over thy toiling miles with a slack of thy terrible power
When story on story lets out on the pavement below
And thy streets are a-swarm with the Jew and the parks overflow.
Far-famed is the rustling hour when the shoppers flow in,{48}
For miles thy walks are abloom and the monstrous fairs begin,
And the aisles of the merchants are crowded, and dark-faced boys,
Are out on the corners with flowers, and fakirs are there with their toys.
I have paused with the passing throng where the hoyden sea wind whirls
And whisks round the tall gray towers the skirts of the laughing girls;
I have watched round the wonder of windows the beauty and grace;
I have breasted the streaming throngs and have come to the quiet place
Of the Fountain, and weary with tramping have lounged on the benches there
With the homeless man of the streets, the man with the unkempt hair;
Have given him soul for soul as we watched far up in the skies
The just-seen worker wave and the slab of marble rise
To its place on the fortieth story. Still lit by the sun
Is the face of the golden clock when the toil of the day is done.
Then the long gray miles are a-murmur and the builders come down from the sky,
And Speed throws her myriad shuttles and the ambulance hurries by,
And the foam of the evening papers is white on the living sea,
And the deep defiles are black with men as far as the eye can see,
And loaded trains rush north and west from thy mighty central heart,{49}
And the rivers foam and the bridges sag till their strong steel cables start,
And the Rock drinks in its thousands from the moving flood in the street
As the strong male tide goes out with the roar of a million feet.
I know when the night comes down that a beautiful Siren awakes.
I have seen the flash of her eyes and the light that her shadow makes
On the rain-wet Avenue when the flutes of pleasure are heard
And she dances her way to the wine cup and sings like a bird.
Hand in hand go the sons of Youth and the daughters of Beauty divine,
And the children of Hunger are there who have trodden the grapes of their wine,
And the thousands pour and pour through the huge illumined Fair,
And the booths of a hundred lands are bright and the Wonder-worker is there.
The red star is out on the roof and the horses are off on the wall,
And the girl and the dog are blown along and the flashing water fall,
And the flush of thy far-flung revel goes up to the ribbons of sky,
And forgotten Orion sinks down and the Pleiades die.
I have trailed down the pleasant river; I have tramped where the iron “L’s”
Go thundering down through the haunts of care; I have slummed through the hidden hells;
I have jostled the mingling Bowery where the stream of the races rolls;{50}
I know the town where the yellow man goes by on his velvet soles;
I have threaded the still, dark canyons where the clustered towers rise;
Not a foot is heard of the thousands; they are ghosts on the midnight skies;
I have seen o’er the glamour of waters thy piles upon shadowy piles
Standing out on the canvas of night and twinkling for miles upon miles.
As a grail is the gleam of thy towers and the glow of the Great White Way,
And a thousand ships have sailed and sailed to the lure of the lights on the Bay,
And the spell of thy song, O Enchantress, is sweet on the southern air,
And the shepherd far out on the plains feels the sting of thy hair.
Thou art young with the youth of them, strong with the strength of them, filled with the beauty of girls;
Thy throat where the River gleams is beaded with lamps as with pearls;
And the languor of night is around thee and the waters rise and fall,
And over invisible bridges slow fireworms crawl,
And the Ferries that glide o’er the bay, o’er the rivers that lave
The feet of thy emerald towers, are lighted swans on the wave,
As Merlin had walked o’er thy waters, or Prospero’s eye
Were watching alternate old cities line out on the sky,
One moment Jerusalem gleams and thy towers are holy and white,{51}
And lo, at the turn of a glass, old Babylon etched on the night
With high summer gardens abloom and the wealth of the world in her hair;
Then Carnival laughs in thy streets and Cairo is there
Barbaric all over with brooches and fountains of fire
Till the new day quenches the lamps and flares over Tyre.
The Smart Set Edwin Davies Schoonmaker
WE DEAD
When from the brooding home,
The silent, immemorial love-house,
The belovèd body of the mother in her travail,
Naked, the little one comes and wails at the world’s bleak weather,
We say that on earth and to us a child has been born.
But now we move with unhalting pace toward the dark evening,
And toward the cold, lengthening shadow,
And quick we avert our fearful eyes from the strange event,
The burial and the bourne,
That leaving home, the end—death.
Are these, then, birth and death?
Does the cut of a cord bring life, and dust to dust expunge it?
If so, what are we, then, we dead?
For, in the cities,
And dark on the lonely farms, and waifs on the ocean,{52}
As a harrying of wind, as an eddying of dust,
We dead, in our soft, shining bodies that are combed and are kissed,
Are ghosts fleeing from the inescapable hell of ourselves.
We are even as beetles skating over the waters of our own darkness;
Even as beetles, darting and restless,
But the depths dark and void—
We have found no peace, no peace, though our engines are crafty.
What avail wings to the flier in the skies
While his dead soul, like an anchor, drags on the earth?
And what avails lightning darting a man’s voice, linking the cities,
While in the booth he is the same varnished clod,
And his soul flies not after?
And what avails it that the body of man has waxed mammoth,
Limbed with the lightning and the stream,
While his spirit remains a torment and a trifle,
And, gaining the world, profits nothing?
Self-murdered, self-slain, the dead cumber the earth;
And how did they die?
A boy was born in the pouring radiance of creative magic;
And with pulses of music he was born.
Of himself he might have been shaping a song-wingèd poet;
But he was afraid.
He feared the gaunt garret of starvation and the lonely years in his soul’s desert,{53}
And he feared to be a jest and a fool before his friends.
Now he clerks, the slave,
And the magic is slimed with disastrous opiates of the night.
A girl was bathed with the lissome beauty of the seeker of love,
The call of the animals one to another in the spring,
The desire of the captive woman in her heart, as she ran and leaped on the hills;
But the imprisoned beast’s cry terrified her as she looked out over the love-quiet of the modern world.
Yet she desired to take this man-lure and release it into loveliness,
Become a dancer, lulling with witchcraft of her young body the fevered world.
But, no, her mother spied here a wickedness,
Shamefully she submitted, making a smoldering inferno of the hidden nymph in her soul,
And so died.
A woman was made body and heart for the beautiful love-life;
But of the mother-miracle,
How the cry of a troubled child whitens the red passions,
She did not know.
Fear of poverty corrupted her: she chose a fool that her heart hated,
And now through him no release for her native passions,
But only a spending of her loathsome fury on adornment and luxury.
Ah, dead glory! and the heart sick with betrayal!{54}
There is no grace for the dead save to be born again:
Engines shall not drag us from the grave,
Nor wine nor meat revive us.
For our thirst is a thirst no liquor can reach nor slake,
And our hunger a hunger by no bread filled.
The waters we crave bubble up from the springs of life,
And the bread we would break comes down from invisible hands.
We dead, awake!
Kiss the beloved past good-by,
Go leave the love-house of the betrayèd self,
And through the dark of birth go and enter the soul the soul’s bleak weather.
And I—I will not stay dead, though the dead cling to me;
I will put away the kisses and the soft embraces and the walls that encompass me,
And out of this womb I will surely move to the world of my spirit.
I will lose my life to find it, as of old;
Yea, I will turn from the life-lie I lived to the truth I was wrought for,
And I will take the creator within, sower of the seed of the race,
And make him a god, a shaper of civilization.
Now on my soul’s imperious surge,
Taking the risk, as of death, and in deepening twilight,
I ride on the darkening flood and go out on the waters
Till over the tide comes music, till over the tide the breath{55}
Of the song of my far-off soul is wafted and blown,
Murmuring commandments.
Storm and darkness! I am drowned in the torrent!
I am moving forth irrevocably from the sheltering womb!
I am naked and little!
Oh, cold of the world, and light blinding, and space terrifying
Now my cry goes up and the wailing of my helpless soul:
Mother! my mother!
Lo, then, the mother eternal!
In my opening soul the footfall of her fleeting tread,
And the song of her voice piercing and sweet with love of me,
And the enwinding of her arms and adoring of her breath,
And the milk of her plenty!
Oh, Life, of which I am part—Life, from the depths of the heavens,
That ascended like a water-spring into David of Asia on the eastern hills in the night,
That came like a noose of golden shadow on Joan in the orchard,
That gathers all life—the binding of brothers into sheaves,
That of old, kneelers in the dust
Named, glorying, Allah, Jehovah, God.
{56}
Century James Oppenheim
GOD AND THE FARMER
God sat down with the farmer
When the noontide heat grew harsh.
The One had builded a world that day,
And the other had drained a marsh.
They sat in the cooling shadow
At the porch of the templed wood;
And each looked forth on his handiwork,
And saw that the work was good.
On God’s right hand two cherubs
Bent waiting, winged with fire;
On the farmer’s left his oxen bowed
Deep bosoms marked with mire.
Still clung around the plowshare
The dark, mysterious mold,
Where the furrow it turned had heaved the new
O’er the chill and churlish old.
Jehovah’s face was seen not
By ox or grazing kine;
But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,
Or saw he that look divine?
Was it the wind in passing
That stroked that farmer’s hair?
Or had God’s own hand of wind and flame
Laid benediction there?
Through muffling miles he fancied
Far calls of greeting blew,
Where on sounding plains the lords of war
Hurled down to rear anew.
Glad hail from nation-builders
Crossed faint those dreamland bounds,
Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.
And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.{57}
“There are seven downy meadows
That never before were mown;
There were seven fields of brush and rock
Where now is nor bush nor stone.
There are seven heifers grazing
Where but one could graze before.
O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—
What have you given me more?”
God rose up from the farmer
When the cool of the evening neared;
And the One went forth through the worlds He built,
And the one through the fields he cleared.
The stars outlasting labor
Leaned down o’er the flowering soil;
And all night long o’er His child there leaned
A Toiler more old than toil.
Yale Review Frederick Erastus Pierce
SONG
O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,
Are shadows that can come no more
Still moving unseen on the door
Of Yesternight?
O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,
Are any roses that are dead
Still fragrant where their petals bled
In Junes gone by?
O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....{58}
Think you in some far Shadow-land
One keeps my roses in his hand,
Remembering?
Boston Transcript Ruth Guthrie Harding
SURETY
We have each other’s deathless love,
A love that flies on wings of light
From star to star and sings above
The night:
We bid each other’s eyes reveal
The face whose images we are;
We find each other’s hand upon the wheel
Piloting every star.
Shall we then watch with a less lonely breath
Gradual, sudden, everlasting death?
Oh, lest a separating wind assail
The jocund stars and all their ways be dearth,
And love, undone of its immense avail,
Go homeless even on earth,
Let us be constant, though we travel far,
With every mortal token of our trust,
And not forget, piloting any star,
How dear a thing is dust!
Yale Review Witter Bynner
REMEMBRANCE: GREEK FOLK-SONG
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
Why do you lead me to the forest?{59}
Joy is where the temples are, lines of dancers swinging far,
Drums and lyres and viols in the town
(It is dark in the forest)
And the flapping leaves will blind me and the clinging vines will bind me
And the thorny rose-boughs tear my saffron gown—
And I fear the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
There was one once who led me to the forest:
Hand in hand we wandered mute, where was neither lyre nor flute,
Little stars were bright against the dusk
(There was wind in the forest)
And the thicket of wild rose breathed across our lips locked close
Dizzy perfumings of spikenard and musk....
I am tired of the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
Take me from the silence of the forest!
I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at night
And echoing of laughter in my ears,
But here in the forest
I am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,
And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears—
There is memory in the forest.
{60}
The Craftsman Margaret Widdemer
THE TWO FLAMES
Behind my mask of life there lies a shrine
Wherein two flames are burning. Day and night
I tend these leaping treasures that are mine,
These lambent loves, the red one and the white,
While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,
For each is perfect. And to each I bring
The oil of pure emotion, hottest so,
And draw new strength from my own offering.
The first of these my loves burns as a star
That lifts its keen, white glory into space
With virgin fervor, lavishing afar
Its vivid purity: and in the face
Of changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.
So burns my flame of friendship. In its sight
All things are silvered with a new delight
And beauty’s self strikes deeper, till the thrill
Of mere existence vibrates like a string.
Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,
And all the little hills must clap their hands.
The soul is free as never bird on wing
To bathe in friendship like a sea of light:
And ever as it mounts the sea expands
In new infinities, and each new height
Grows keener than the last, until the mind
For very dizziness sweeps downward then
To simpler things, the cadence of a voice,
Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,
Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoice
But ask no more and do not touch again.
With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,
A deep tranquillity unknown beside,
Where all my life’s cross-currents shift and cease{61}
Like runways in the sand before the tide.
And all that I have longed to be, the brave
High dreams of youth that languished nigh forgot
Seem half accomplished. Easy now to slave
At tasks colossal, so my friend fail not.
And I am filled with gentle wonderment
That life can be so good and breath so sweet:
While all my world grows suddenly complete.
That I must love it with a new content.
So speech grows overfull, and we are fain
To drink of silence like a golden cup
With wine of sweet companionship filled up
That has no end, nor any thirst can drain.
And so at last no wish is left to me
Save thus to dream into eternity.
This is my first white love.
The second flame
Burns red and fierce as noon-time on the earth,
A wild, full-blooded love that sprang to birth
Naked and unafraid, yet scorning shame
And clean as winds that sweep the desert’s breast.
My flame of passion this, born of the sun
And warm red earth, so æon-long ago,
In languid, throbbing noons, when dust was pressed
To amorous dust, and longing made it one.
This is a good love too, and must be so,
Though bloodless fathers crushed it and denied,
And on a cross of virtue crucified
This firm sweet flesh that colors with our soul.
Aye! it is good, and beautiful, and clean,
To feel within my veins the surge and flow
Of young desire waking, that the whole
Warm universe has felt: to call, and preen,
And dance before my mate that he may know
An answering surge, and leap, and make me his{62}
And glad with every fecund thing that is.
God! It is good to feel the primal cry,
The deep, mad longing for another life,—
My life and his, that shall be born of me,—
A little child of flame, that when we die
We may cheat time, nor perish in the strife:
But in this hour of vital ecstasy
When life is molten, we may stamp thereon
Our own glad image, and conceive, and live.
And sweet it is, and languid, when the tide
Has ebbed, for lack of more than I can give,
To take his hand who breathes so close beside
And lay it on my breast, and humble me
To say: “Thou art my lord. Thy will my own.”
So at the last this wish is mine, to be
Struck at the high-tide into nothingness,
To die, ere he can learn to love me less.
So these my loves are perfect, each alone
Sufficient in itself and all complete,
Yet one of two, like rival beacons shown,
That call and call me, but that never meet.
For yet they have not met, nor ever burned
The white flame in the red, the red in white
Till both were wed together there, and turned
To some half-dreamed intensity of light.
For I have dreamed,—yes, in my priestess soul
The longing grows for one great altar fire
That shall leap up to heaven, a winged desire,
Not two but one, a perfect, living whole.
Is this a dream? Are all great lovers dreams?
Can red and white be fused, or two be one?
Yseult and Eloise, are they but themes
Whereon men hang the yearnings they have spun?
And must I cherish so till the end’s end{63}
My sweet loves sundered, lover here, or friend?
Nay, I know not! I guard by day and night
My leaping flames, the red one and the white.
The Forum Eloise Briton
THE LOOK
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.
Harper’s Magazine Sara Teasdale
THE FLIRT
Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with;
My heart is old.
Lend me your fire to make my twilight gay with,
To warm my cold;
Prove that the power my look has not forsaken,
That at my will
My touch can quicken pulses and awaken
Man’s passion still.
The moment that I ask do not begrudge me.
I shall not stay.
I shall have gone, ere you have time to judge me,
My empty way.
I am not worth remembrance, little brother,
Even to damn.{64}
One kiss—O God! if I were only other
Than what I am!
Century Amelia Josephine Burr
YOUNG EDEN
Flushed from a fairy flagon
My country love and I,
Sat by a bush forgetting,
Old conscience and his fretting,
Just dreaming there and letting
Trouble trundle by—
Like a dragon
Dead on a wagon
Drawn against the sky.
Fol de rol de raly O—
Trouble in the sky!
She knew it was only a cloud I saw
When I pointed out a dangling claw,
But she let me say my say;
For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty day
And she thought my way was a city way.
And O I liked her thinking—while each unhindered curl
Glinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow—
That I who spoke to such a girl
Was something of a fellow.
Fol de rol de raly O!
Was she really thinking so?
There’s the tree, I gaily told her,
Apples, apples, at our feet!
Come, before we’re one day older,
We shall gather, we shall eat!
Now’s the time for apple hunger!{65}
Not if we were one day younger,
Younger, older, shyer, bolder,
Would an apple taste so sweet!
Fol de rol de raly O!
Apples at our feet!
Bewildered, she was with me on the run
Toward the tree that held its treasure to the sun;
This, of all the trees of treasure, was the one
Condemning leisure
And inviting lovely pleasure—
She was with me, she was by me on the run,
With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun.
Fol de rol de raly O!
Raly O, we gaily go,
Fol—
Why should she stop and never speak?
Why should the color in her cheek
Change, not glowing gay and meek?
Deeper, redder than I knew
She was mistress of, a hue,
Though demurely,
Richly, surely
Rising in her cheek!
Fol de rol de raly O!
The change in her cheek!
There was before us on the ground,
Eyes upon us, not a sound,
Sat a neighbor’s truant child of seven years;
Her lap was full of sunny gold,
But her eyes in the sun, her eyes were old,
Were sober, seeming laden
—And such a little maiden—
Unawares but laden
With some dead woman’s tears.{66}
Fol de rol de raly O!
A child of seven years!
Some woman who had watched and wept
But had not any speech
Watched and wept now within that little breast,
Caught and caressed
Those little hands and would have kept
Beyond their reach
The anguish in that orchard,
The apple-bough unblessed,
The brightness that had tortured
The heart within the breast....
And we beheld, and see it even now,
A bent and withered apple-bough,
Of beauty dispossessed,
Which bore its poison long ago.
Oh, why we pluck it still we may not know,
But only that it leaves no rest
To the heart within the breast.
Fol de rol de raly O!
This heart within the breast!
Abashed and parting on our ways,
We saw that woman’s poor dead hand,
Ghostly making, its demand,
Fall pitiful and sad, ...
We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze,
Laughing like any child that plays,
And laughs in any land,
Lean and touch a toy she had
Half hidden in her hand,
We saw her pat and poise and raise—
An apple in her hand!
Fol de rol de raly O!
The apple in her hand!
{67}
Yale Review Witter Bynner
ABLUTION
Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door:
“Sappho, I vow that I will kiss no more
Thy lips, and every loveliness, if thou
Shouldst still refuse to bare thy beauty now!
“O from thy bed unloosen every charm
Of all thy strength beloved in limb and arm;
And doff thy robe and bathe thee as the white
Lily that leaves the river for the light;
“And Cleis on thee, at thy glowing call,
A shimmering robe of saffron shall let fall;
And we, thy girl friends, in a vestal throng,
Shall wreathe thy hair while thirsting for thy song.”
Smart Set John Myers O’Hara
PILGRIMAGE
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,
When the passion-star has paled, when the night has fled;
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,
In the glow of the early day when the east is red.
In my bright field a broken beech-tree leans;
And a giant boulder stands by a black-burned wood;
And a rough-built, falling wall and a rotting door
Sear, like a scar, the spot where a house once stood.
My eyes are mute on the white edge of the dawn,
My feet fall swift and bare upon the way....
The long soft hills grow black against the sky,
The great wood moves, unfolds; the high trees sway.{68}
The worn road stretches thin, and the low hedge stirs,
And a strong old bridge looms frail o’er a ghostly stream;
And a white flower turns and breathes, and turns again....
Does it live, as I live? Does it wake, as I waked, from a dream?
(How merciless is the dawn! how poignant the hush in my soul!
How changeless the changing sky! how fearful that wild bird’s call!
I hear the quick suck of his wing, the push of his breast—he is gone!
How swift is an æon of time! how endless, beginningless, all!)
I tread on the golden grass of my bright field;
The sun’s on a hundred hills; the night has fled;
I tread on the golden grass of my bright field
In the glow of the early day; and the east is red.
The Forum Laura Campbell
BALLAD OF TWO SEAS
“Wherefore, thy woe these many years,
O hermit by the sea?
What is the grief the winds awake,
And the waters cry to thee?”
“It was in piracy we sailed,
Great galleons to strip.
On a far day, on a far sea,
We took her father’s ship.{69}
“Red-sided rocked the Rey del Sur
Whenas its deck we won.
I slew before her eyes divine
Her father and his son.
“There was no sin I had not sinned,
On deep sea and ashore;
But when I looked in those great eyes
Villain was I no more.
“I, captain, claimed her as my prize,
Though maids in common were.
Alone ’mid that fell company
I cast my lot with her.
“They put us in an open boat
With four days’ food and drink;
Then slipped those traitor topsails down
Beyond the ocean’s brink.
“Night came, and morn, but rose no sail
On that horizon verge;
I took the oars and set our prow
Against the lessening surge.
“It was scant provender we had,
Though she was unaware;
Right soon I feared, and by deceit
I gave her all my share.
“She would not speak; she scarce would look;
Her pain was past my cure.
Red-scuppered in our hells of dream
Wallowed the Rey del Sur.
“On a far day, on a far sea,
Our shallop southward crept;
With weary arms and splitten lips
I labored—and she wept.{70}
“Dawn upon dawn, dark upon dark,
Nor ever land nor wind!
The nights were chill, the stars were keen,
The sun swung hot and blind.
“Our drink and food were long since gone....
We laid us down to die....
Then came a booming of the surf,
And palm trees met mine eye.
“I steered us through the broken reef;
Fainting, I won to shore;
I gazed upon her changèd face,
But she on mine no more.
“Below the palms I buried her
Whose bale star I had been.
And since, by this bleak coast of snows,
I sorrow for my sin.
“There was no other of our kind
That had her heavenly face.
On a far Day, by a far Sea,
I trust to know her grace.”
Smart Set George Sterling
EROS TURANNOS
She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.{71}
Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The seeker that she found him,
Her pride assuages her, almost,
As if it were alone the cost.
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits, and looks around him.
A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed with what she knows of days,
Till even prejudice delays,
And fades—and she secures him.
The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The crash of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died
Becomes a place where she can hide,—
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.
We tell you, tapping on our brows,
The story as it should be,—
As if the story of a house
Were told, or ever could be;
We’ll have no kindly veil between
Her visions and those we have seen,—
As if we guessed what hers have been
Or what they are, or would be.
Meanwhile, we do no harm; for they
That with a god have striven,{72}
Not hearing much of what we say,
Take what the god has given;
Though like waves breaking it may be,
Or like a changed familiar tree,
Or like a stairway to the sea,
Where down the blind are driven.
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
Edwin Arlington Robinson
THE SHROUD
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,—O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!
(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.
I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,—O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!
{73}
The Forum Edna St. Vincent Millay
THE MOTHER
Never again to feel that little kiss—
That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,
Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.
My breast is burning with the weight of this—
My arms are empty and my heart is dead.
Through the long nights never to hear the cry—
The little cry that called me from my sleep;
Always from now a vigil black to keep;
Always awake and listening to lie,
While over my seared heart the ashes heap.
Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,
No rest. No pity. No release from pain.
How could God give those little hands again?
How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?
Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!
The Masses Lydia Gibson
A HANDFUL OF DUST
I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.
Was it a handful of humanity I held?
Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?
For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;
And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,
And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;
And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.{74}
Handful of dust, you stagger me;
I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,
And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.
Kiss of what girls is on the wind?
Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?
Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?
I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;
I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.
Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?
Who walks with me? Isolde?
The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,
And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.
Come, girl, my comrade;
Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.
Behold this dust!
This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.
Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?
Breathed into by what god?
And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,
And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,
And never dream that in his palm
Lies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this sea
On an afternoon a hundred years before.
Listen to the dust in this hand.
Who is trying to speak to us?
{75}
Century James Oppenheim
A LYNMOUTH WIDOW
He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue
As the summer meeting of sky and sea,
And the ruddy cliffs have a colder hue
Than flushed his cheek when he married me.
We passed the porch where the swallows breed,
We left the little brown church behind,
And I leaned on his arm though I had no need,
Only to feel him so strong and kind.
One thing I never can quite forget—
It grips my throat when I try to pray—
The keen salt smell of a drying net
That hung on the churchyard wall that day.
He would have taken a long, long grave—
A long, long grave, for he stood so tall....
Oh, God—the crash of the breaking wave,
And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall!
The Bellman Amelia Josephine Burr
THE GIFT OF GOD
Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so,—
That her degree should be so great
Among the favored of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.
As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,{76}
And like to none that she has known
Of other women’s other sons,—
The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.
She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.
Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from flags and shouts,
And leave him only the renown
Of many smiles and many doubts;
Perchance the crude and common tongue
Would havoc strangely with his worth;
But she, with innocence unstung,
Would read his name around the earth.
And others, knowing how this youth
Would shine, if love could make him great,
When caught and tortured for the truth
Would only writhe and hesitate;
While she, arranging for his days
What centuries could not fulfil,
Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
And has him shining where she will.
She crowns him with her gratefulness,
And says again that life is good;
And should the gift of God be less{77}
In him than in her motherhood,
His fame, though vague, will not be small,
As upward through her dream he fares,
Half clouded with a crimson fall
Of roses thrown on marble stairs.
Scribner’s Edwin Arlington Robinson
SONNET XXIX
In the fair picture of my life’s estate
Which long ago my yearning fancy drew
From hints of poets, prophets, lords of fate,
What place is there, belovèd one, for you?
How in this edifice of the soaring dome,
Noble, harmonious, lifted towards the stars,
Shall I carve forth a niche to be the home
Of you and of my love that round you wars?
Ah, folly his, who builds him such a house
Too early, by impatient visions led,
Ere he can know what blood shall stain his brows,
And from what troubled streams his heart is fed.
Now must he labor, in late night, alone
To wreck,—and then rebuild it, stone by stone.
The Forum Arthur Davison Ficke
ROMANCE
The last farewells were said, friends hurried ashore,—
The screw threshed foam, and jarred; the pier slid by;
Hands went to ears to still the siren’s roar,
Handkerchiefs waved, and there was call and cry;
Over it all, austere and pure and high,
Glittering snow and gold, the towers looked down,—
Serene and cold, regardless of the town.{78}
The wind blew north; and gravely on it came
The trolling of the Metropolitan bells,
First the four chimes, softly as puffs of flame,
Then the deep five ... Slow, gentle gleaming swells
Came glancing in the sun, with ocean smells,
Up from the harbor and the further sea;
Over the stern poised white gulls, giddily.
Over the stern they poised and dipped and glanced,
Now dull in shade, now shining in bright sun,
And one youth watched them as they whirled and danced,
And noticed how they circled, one by one;
To have those wings, that freedom,—God, what fun!—
And watching them he felt youth in him, strong,
Wings in his blood, and in his heart a song.
Autumn! Already now the keen wind nipped,
The skies arched cold bright blue, the leaves were turning;
Whitely over the waves the cold squalls whipped;
Scarlet and pale, the maple trees were burning,
Tossing in gusts, and whirling and returning,
On Staten Island, wonderfully afire;
In bacchic song they flamed, with mad desire.
Autumn! bringing to old adventures death,
Sadness at all things past, things passing still,
Touching all earth with strange and mystic breath,
Veiling all earth in fire ere winter kill;
Even this youth felt now his deep heart fill
With a grey tide of mystery and sadness,
Poignant sorrow for all past hours of gladness....{79}
Those times—would others come as keen as they?
Was life to come as living as life past?—
Ah, he was youth, life could not say him nay,—
The blood sang swift in him, doubt could not last;
Let all life dead beneath his feet be cast
And he would trample it, divinely singing:
Life lay before, more rapturous music bringing!
More lusts, more shining eyes, more dizzy laughter,
More, madder music, flute and violin,
With drums before and roses showered after,
Always in new bliss drowning his old sin;
Sin?—Was it that?—And straight in merry din
Of song and shout and laugh this thought was lost;
It was no sin to live, whate’er the cost!...
High overhead the Brooklyn bridges passed,
Span upon span and rumorous with cars,
Their shadows on the deck a moment cast,
With dizzy thunder from their traffic’s wars;
Those grey stone piers would soon be crowned with stars,—
Even now their brows were soft with waning sun;
The homeward march of armies was begun.
Good-bye, old bridges! And New York, good-bye!
Northward the engines took him; now no more
His gaze hung here; he watched the western sky
Blazing with vision-isles and faery shore;
Northward the vibrant ship beneath him bore;
The Sound spread out before them, wide and blue,
Clean came the wind whereon the sea-gulls flew....
Soft fields, the flaming trees, a twilight farm ...
New York was gone. He drew deep breaths of air,
Keen as keen fire it was; then slow and calm,{80}
He turned to walk ... when lo, a girl came there,
Deep sunset in her eyes and on her hair,
Her white dress clinging to her knees, one hand
Rising to shade her blue eyes; as she scanned
The swiftly gliding shore, the passing ships,
The bell-buoys, bobbing and tolling in the tide....
A moment, breath hung lifeless on his lips,
His heart froze quiet; no one was at her side;
Faintly, he smiled; he thought her eyes replied,
Remote lights meeting in them,—quickening;
He passed, and all his body seemed to sing....
He passed, then turned; and, as he turned, she turned,—
Her eyes met his eyes shyly, then again
She looked away, and all her soft face burned,
And all her virgin heart was big with pain.
From the saloon below came soft a strain
Of some new rag-time, bidding feet to move,
Imploring hands to cling, young hearts to love....
Sweetly it came, seductive, soft bizarre,
Huddled and breathless now, now note by note
Crying its separate pain ... now near, now far ...
Mingled with all the throbbing of the boat.
How beautiful! the first star came, to float
Impalpable in dusk, low in the east;
It seemed to sing on when the music ceased.
Herald of love, lo, love itself it seemed,
Singing into the twilight of her soul....
How beautiful!... across dark waters gleamed
Red lights and green, she heard a bell-buoy toll
Suddenly caught in the after-wash’s roll;
A smell of autumn fires came down the wind;
Beauty so keen it seemed it must have sinned....{81}
What was this night, what did it bring to her,
What flower unfolded in its darkness now?
She was this night; she felt her deep soul stir,
The slow strange stir of blossoms in the bough....
How beautiful! She watched the forefoot plough
Sheer through the foaming black, the white waves gliding
Dizzily past, now swelling, now subsiding....
O Youth, O music, O sweet wizardry
Of young life sung like fire through beating veins!
O covering darkness and persuasive sea!
O night of stars, of blisses and of pains!
But most, O Youth, that but an hour remains,—
Be fierce, be sweet with us before you go;
For, knowing you, the best of life we know.
Enchanted so she watched dark waters slipping
Swiftly and dizzily past the sheer black side,
Watched the fierce wind in sudden flurries whipping
The torn spray from the waves, against the tide;
High among stars she saw the mast-head glide,—
Steadily now, now swinging slowly, slightly,
There the high mast-head lantern burning brightly....
O Youth, O music, O sweet wizardy,—
O covering darkness of mysterious night!—
She turned; along the dark deck, quietly,
He came again; an open door shed light
Strongly across him for a space, then fright
Suddenly set her wild heart beating, beating,—
Suddenly set her endlessly repeating
“I mustn’t speak! I mustn’t speak!”—And then
He stood beside her, close and warm and strong,
And she knew sudden the beauty that’s in men,{82}
And all her blood flew musical with song....
“—Beautiful, isn’t it?—Have you known it long?”—
Calmly he looked at her, and gently spoke.
She nodded, lightly; then the warm words broke
Easily, quickly, fervently from her heart,
All the restraint of all her youth was gone,
She felt a thousand warm new instincts start
Out of her soul, birds taking wing with dawn,
Singing their hearts out ... With a deep breath drawn,
“Yes! I’ve known it for years, and loved it, too;
Beautiful!—This—is this the first for you?”
They talked, in low tones; and the sound of sea,
Falling of foam and swish of dropping spray,
Encircled them with song, incessantly;—
They felt alone, the world seemed far away.
They two! they two! so seemed the night to say;
A darkness and a stealing fragrance came
Spreading through all their souls, silent as flame....
O beauty of being a living thing, she thought,—
Of drawing breath beneath these stars, this sky!—
O beautiful fire that from his eyes she caught,
That made her breath rise quick, her lips burn dry!
What was this thing? Dread came, she scarce knew why,—
Impulsively she went; yet she had given
Her word to dine with him, her earth was heaven.
He watched her go, and smiled,—her white dress blowing,
Softly in dark,—so young, so sweet, so brave!
She was so pure! by God, there was no knowing,{83}—
And he had half a mind, still, to behave....
No, though: far better take what fortune gave,—
Dance to the music that was played for him;
Smiling he mused of her, his eyes grew dim,—
And he could feel her warmness by his side,
And all his body flushed with sweet desire
To take her shining loveliness for bride,
To kiss, to fuse with her in single fire....
O youth, O young heart musical as a lyre!
O covering darkness of mysterious night!
He knew these things; his heart was filled with light....
What was one more? Pah, how he scorned this qualm!
Innocent? Such girls seem—but never are.
No, he was not her first.... And cold and calm
He turned and sought the brightly-lighted bar....
The music rose, through shut doors, faint and far,
Wailful.... Down in her stateroom mirror there
A young girl eyed herself, with frightened stare.
II
She eyed herself with quick breath, frightened stare,
The fingers of one hand caught at her throat,
And half unconsciously she smoothed her hair....
The music called to her, bizarre, remote....
On a vast hurrying tide she seemed afloat,
Hurrying through a darkness downward ever,
Starless, along some subterranean river....
Where was she going? Where was the current taking?
Vaguely she knew that it would lead to pain,
To a dark endless pain her deep heart breaking,{84}
To a grey world forever dulled with rain....
And yet she knew this would not come again,
And all the sweet bliss came imploring, pleading,
Melting her soul, bruising her heart to bleeding....
O God, she did not know!—Yet future sorrow
Seemed somehow paid for by this instant bliss,
A brief to-day was worth a long to-morrow;
O youth, O night,—this joy she dared not miss!
Her whole soul yearned for this young lover’s kiss,
Though it be paid for through eternity.
O, had not God designed this thing to be?
Was not her mouth for this young mouth intended,
Since all her living body told her so?
Was it not preordained that so be ended
A girlhood colder than December snow?
A starlight kiss—she need no further go—:
His warm hands touching hers: O was this sin?
Just this?—She shut her eyes to fires within....
To those fierce central fires she closed her eyes,
Yet dimly of their passion was aware,
And felt their flames like drunkenness arise
Whirling her soul, making life strangely fair....
She eyed herself with held breath, frightened stare....
Alas, was it the alchemy of sin
That made her lovelier far than e’er she’d been?
Plausibly sweet the music came to her,
Through many doors, most plausible and sweet,
Setting some subtle pulse in her astir,
Smoothing in song her heart’s erratic beat.
Dizziness came, unstrung her knees, her feet,
And she sank down a space upon her bed,
Shutting her eyes, mad reelings in her head.{85}
How would this end? And would her whole life change,
Swayed by this mastering sun as sways the moon?
Would all her way of life be new and strange,
Her friends be lost, her kin desert her soon?
Passion surged up in her, and in its swoon
These doubts were swept aside, obscure and fleeting;
Somewhere she heard a beating ... beating ... beating....
Was it her heart, the loud pulse in her ear,
Or music, some recurring undertone?—
The drums perhaps.... She raised her head to hear,
The beating ceased.... Only the tireless drone
Of toiling engines, and the sea’s hushed moan
Soft through the fast-shut port ... and that was all.
Steps passed and re-passed down the muffled hall.
Steps passed and re-passed on the deck above
Ringing like iron.... The curtains by her bed
Quivered forever to the engine’s move,
And from the lamp a quivering light was shed.
These senseless things, when all her life was dead,
Would still go on: steps pass, the curtains quiver,
These things or others,—they would last forever.
Quickly she rose, and in the mirror’s shine
Looked at herself a quiet moment’s space;
It was as if the earth’s autumnal wine
Had touched her soul,—her body had a grace
That passing life has, lovely was her face
With a strange loveliness, and in her eyes
Was the deep glory of October skies.
She was alive! her blood flew warm and young;
No more than this she knew, that she was fair;
And happiness through her deep heart was sung;{86}
Passionate joy as light as flame in air;
O youth! O love, oblivious of all care!
O lithe swift-blooded youth, O rose of earth,
O warm-eyed loveliness of fragrant mirth!—
Giddy, with whirling thoughts, she left her room;
And down the corridor, with fainting feet,
Lightly she went, caught onward to sweet doom,
And only heard her heart’s loud tremulous beat;
Through opening doors, most plausible, most sweet,
The music rose to her; and he stood there,
Smiling, in all that noise and whir and glare....
Over the shining silver, sparkling glass,
The smooth white table-cloth, he leaned and smiled;
The whole world vanished, they were lad and lass,
In love, and face to face, hearts running wild.
Deep in her eyes he looked: O what a child!
Her soft breast rose and fell, her throat’s pure white
Beat with a little pulse of joy and fright.
No need to talk.... For in their eyes they met,
Treading an air so soft, so light, so fine,
That they were speechless, words they could forget;
They only smiled, and shyly sipped their wine,
And smiled again, and felt their full hearts shine,
Talked breathlessly a little, and longed to lean
Nearer, more near,—till no mote lay between,—
Not light or darkness, world or heaven or star,
Not wind, nor warm, nor cold ... but just they two
Meeting at last, two spirits come from far,
Face raised to face, white flowers made sweet with dew,—
Shining and passionate, and young and new,—
Their two warm bodies singing each to each,
Mingling at last in love’s harmonious speech....{87}
The lights, the noise, the tumult passed away;
As in a dream without a sound they passed;
She only knew that it was wildly gay,
And shy, and bliss unbearable.... At last
Under the high dark starward-gliding mast
In grateful night they sat; he brought her coat
And trembling wrapped the scarf around her throat;
Letting his fingers linger there a space,
Longer than there was need, so sweet she smiled,
So close they were to that soft wistful face....
The stars looked down upon them, clear and mild....
Woman and maiden, girl, and little child,—
She was all these.... A moment, he was shaken,—
Lest he do wrong, lest he might prove mistaken....
Only a moment ... passion rose again,
Quiet he took her hand and held it long,
And all her virgin heart grew big with pain,
And all her new-born body ached with song.
Blindly she prayed to God to make her strong,—
More blindly cried to earth to make her weak;
And looked at him, near tears, and could not speak.
He was a loveliness she could not bear....
Like a fierce furnace seemed his beauty now....
A fire that caught her throat, her lips, her hair,
Her parching eyes, her pained and beating brow.
Only to give herself,—she cared not how.—
Into the flame, body and soul to fling;
To have him hurt her,—ah, divinest thing!...
Four bells were struck: ’twas ten o’clock he said;
And still the sea rushed past, under the night.
The engines toiled and the great steamer sped;
And they could see the bow-wash, dimly white,
Fall into darkness; the mast-head light{88}
Quivered among the stars, and in its fire
A span of fore-stay shone like golden wire....
Little by little they were left alone,
The decks were emptied; only, from the bar,
Came shouts and laughter, and a drunkard’s groan,
The glasses clinking, and a strummed guitar,
The door shut, and the sounds grew faint and far,
And all the deck was dark; only the sea
Lifted its great voice, like infinity.
O youth, O music, O sweet wizardy
Of young love sung like fire through beating veins!
O covering darkness and persuasive sea!
O night of stars, of blisses and of pains!
But most, O youth that but an hour remains,—
Be fierce, be sweet with us, before you go;
For knowing you the best of life we know!
Beneath his kiss her mouth rose soft and warm,
And dewy soft as rose-leaves were her eyes,
Under his hands, shaken as with a storm
He felt her soft breast fall and shudder and rise,
Torn with impassioned breath, unuttered cries,
Quivering, straining breast against his breast,
She clung to him, her mouth on his mouth pressed....
And only knew that this was life at last,
Forgot all else in agony of bliss;
Into this fire of love all earth was cast;
The stars, the sea, were mingled in this kiss.
And through her heart the blood, with sing and hiss,
Poured a red madness, surged a riotous pain,—
Unbearable music cried out in her brain....
“O love,” he said, “O let me come with you!
I love you so! This night,—O let me come!{89}”
Ah, God have pity! she knew not what to do,
But sat all quiet,—frozen, shrinking, dumb;
And only heard the toiling engines hum,
The rush of sea, the swish of dropping spray,
Her clamorous heart; and all that she could say
Was a quick “yes,” and then a broken breath
That quivered like a sob; and then she rose,
Dizzy and weak and pale, like one near death,
And now her heart was fire, and now it froze....
Faint in her room she stood; the door to close,—
She might still turn the key.... She cried a space,—
Long in the glass stared at her pallid face....
And heard a step tramp over the deck above,
Ringing like iron.... The curtains by her bed
Quivered forever to the engine’s move,
And from the lamp a quivering light was shed....
These things would all go on when she was dead....
Trembling, with misty eyes, she loosed the pin
Under her throat ... mad fires whirled up within....
Mad fires whirled up, ungulfing all her soul;
Beyond the sun and stars, across all space,
Power that earth nor heaven could now control,
She heard her lover come, with quickening pace;
Nowhere to hide! Alas, his shining face,
Though she hid under seas would find her there,
Though she hid under mountains lay her bare!
Across the stars, nearer, more near it came,
And now earth shook with it, and now the sea,
And her white body, tremulous with shame,
From its sheer anguish knew that it was he,—
Yearned for this wonder that was soon to be;{90}
And all her heart made music for his feet,
All of the world re-echoed to their beat....
Marriage of youth! And quick a darkness fell,
And time and space went down, consumed in fire;
Through that dark space, only one breath, to tell
That here was youth, and love, and wild desire:
One heart that to itself sang ever higher,
Tremulous, passionate, despite all pain,—
“How wonderful!—how wonderful!”—again.
III
October earth, with scarlet maple-leaf,
With oak-leaves brown, with flaming leaves and pale;
Mysterious autumn, symbol of all grief,
Symbol of lives that die and hopes that fail:
Now on the threshing-floor has fallen the flail,
The hands are elsewhere that have stored the grain;
Now comes the season of snows and bitter rain.
Weeks passed.... And then one day there came a note
To New York for this youth ... he tore and read.
It was that girl he played with on the boat....
Scarcely three shaky lines ... in which she said,
That she was sick with typhoid, nearly dead,—
Wanted to say she loved him; then she cried,
O God, if he would come before she died!—
Loved him!... a blackness fell; and in his eyes,
So long unused, and even now ashamed,
He felt the warm tears quickening to rise....
Loved him!—he had not known.... Could he be blamed?—
Then a great light of sorrow in him flamed,—
And bitterness, his sight swam quickly dim,—
Thinking how little it had meant to him!{91}
Scarce knowing why, he packed his things and went....
He was surprised, on seeing her, to find how lovely
she had been, though pale and spent....
He sat beside her, striving to be kind,
Stroking her forehead.... Yet, she had divined,
And known too bitterly, before she died,
This man had never loved her, but had lied....
And he knew this: he knew that she had known;
In her dark eyes he saw the mastered yearning,
All the unspoken love that died in moan,
Shrunk on itself, through all her body burning....
And many days the memory came returning
Of her last kiss,—quivering, wet with tears,—
Her clinging hands, her brimmed eyes dark with fears....
Until at times a sudden terror came
Lest, through great pity, he should love one dead,—
So burning sweet recurred in him this shame,
So haunted him those eyes, that fallen head;
The lips that pleaded so, the words she said,—
Pathetic words!—these haunted him a space;
Then, in the dark of time he lost her face....
O Autumn! bringing to old adventures death,
Sadness at all things past, things passing still,—
You touched this love with strange and dreadful breath;
Easy as leaf is human love to chill,—
Easy as leaf is human to kill;
Yet beautiful is that death with sudden flame,
Ere it goes down to darkness, whence it came!...
{92}
The Poetry Journal Conrad Aiken
“IF YOU SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE ME”
If you should cease to love me, tell me so!
I could not bear to feel your ardent hand
That waked the chords of life to understand,
Hold mine less closely; no, belovèd, no;
If you should cease to love me, tell me so!
If you should cease to love me, do not dare
To meet me with a masque of tenderness;
I could not stoop to suffer one caress
That any other had the right to share,—
If you should cease to love me, do not dare!
If you should cease to love me, do not fear—
I would not have you think I made one claim.
If your great love should pass, there is no blame;
For love grown cold, I would not shed a tear;—
If you should cease to love me, do not fear!
If you should cease to love me, let us part,
As friends who part for all eternity;
Let us make grave the reverent obsequy
For what was once our very soul and heart—
If you should cease to love me, let us part!
But while you love me, keep our hearts’ deep faith
As some High Priest would guard the holy place;
Let me not see the shame upon your face
Of one unworthy of Love’s vital breath,
So while you love me, keep our hearts’ high faith!
Thus, if you cease to love me, save my soul
By having kept our love so pure and high
That if the time must come when it shall die,
I may retain my treasure fair and whole,—
If you should cease to love me,—save my soul!
{93}
Scribner’s Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
VAIN EXCUSE
Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate,
And when he enters let him be at home.
Think of the roads that he has had to roam,
Think of the years that he has had to wait.
But if I let Love in I shall be late.
Another has come first, there is no room;
And I am busy at the thoughtful loom;
Let Love be patient, the importunate.
O Life, be idle, and let Love come in,
And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin.
But Love himself is idle with his song.
Let Love come last, and then may Love last long.
Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last;
Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed.
The Trend Walter Conrad Arensberg
SONNET XXX
You mean, my friend, you do not greatly care
For these harsh portraits I have lately done?
You like my old style better,—like the rare
Enamelled softness of that princess-one?
True, this old woman, with the sunken throat
Painted like cordage, is not sweet to view.
Perhaps the blear whites of her eyes connote
No element of loveliness to you.
Ah yes, we all must love the sapphire lake,
The rainbow, and the rose,—but these alone?
Or is there some slight wonder where pines shake{94}
On bare-ribbed mountain-peaks of shattered stone?
So these disturb? I fear this is the end
Of days when I shall please your taste, my friend.
The Forum Arthur Davison Ficke
LOST TREASURE
You know deep in your heart, it could not last—
And, when a wind, newborn on some hillside—
(Some fair tall hill the other side of Crete)
Came laden with the dear and odorous past—
(Laden with scents of gardens that have died,
Buried in dust, not any longer sweet.)
Then, realized, all the unlovely years
Lay on your heart, like those old gardens’ dust;
You had forgotten how your life was fair,
For all the memories were dulled with tears
Since shed, and unsuspected moth and rust
Ate deep, and naught remembered was but care.
So is your treasure lost, vanished away—
Nothing but wind and half-shut eyes and grass—
Nothing of now but strivings after then.
And naught heard in the clear air of to-day
But dusty wings that crumble as they pass—
You have not strength to make them live again.
The Masses Lydia Gibson
OLD FAIRINGDOWN
Soft as a treader on mosses
I go through the village that sleeps;{95}
The village too early abed,
For the night still shuffles, a gypsy,
In the woods of the east,
And the west remembers the sun.
Not all are asleep; there are faces
That lean from the walls of the gardens.
Look sharply, or you will not see them,
Or think them another stone in the wall.
I spoke to a stone, and it answered
Like an agèd rock that crumbles;
Each falling piece was a word.
“Five have I buried,” it said,
“And seven are over the sea.”
Here is a hut that I pass,
So lowly it has no brow,
And dwarfs sit within at a table.
A boy waits apart by the hearth;
On his face is the patience of firelight,
But his eyes seek the door and a far-world
It is not the call to the table he waits,
But the call of the sea-rimmed forests,
And cities that stir in a dream.
I haste by the low-browed door,
Lest my arms go in and betray me,
A mother jealously passing.
He will go, the pale dwarf, and walk tall among giants;
The child with his eyes on the far land,
And fame like a young curled leaf in his heart.
The stream that darts from the hanging hill
Like a silver wing that must sing as it flies,
Is folded and still on the breast{96}
Of the village that sleeps.
Each mute old house is more old than the other,
And each wears its vines like ragged hair
Round the half-blind windows.
If a child should laugh, if a girl should sing,
Would the houses rub the vines from their eyes,
And listen and live?
A voice comes now from a cottage,
A voice that is young and must sing,
A honeyed stab on the air,
And the houses do not wake.
I look through the leaf-blowsed window,
And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,
Sees Life sitting hopeful within.
She is young, but a woman, round-breasted,
Waiting the peril of Eve;
And she makes the shadows about her sweet
As the glooms that play in a pine-wood.
She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are),
And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notes
Like a hidden brook in a forest
Seeking and seeking the sun.
I have watched a young tree on the edge of a wood
When the mist is weaving and drifting;
Slowly the boughs disappear, and the leaves reach out
Like the drowning hands of children,
Till a grey blur quivers cold
Where the green grace drank of the sun.
So now, as I gaze, the morrows
Creep weaving and winding their mist
Round the beauty of her who sings.
They hide the soft rings of her hair,{97}
Dear as a child’s curling fingers;
They shut out the trembling sun of eyes
That are deep as a bending mother’s;
And her bridal body is scarfed with their chill.
For old, and old, is the story;
Over and over I hear it,
Over and over I listen to murmurs
That are always the same in these towns that sleep;
Where, grey and unwed, a woman passes,
Her cramped, drab gown the bounds of a world
She holds with grief and silence;
And a gossip whose tongue alone is unwithered
Mumbles the tale by her affable gate;
How the lad must go, and the girl must stay,
Singing alone to the years and a dream;
Then a letter, a rumor, a word,
From the land that reaches for lovers
And gives them not back;
And the maiden looks up with a face that is old;
Her smile, as her body, is evermore barren;
Her cheek like the bark of the beech-tree
Where climbs the grey winter.
Now have I seen her young,
The lone girl singing,
With the full, round breast and the berry lip,
And heart that runs to a dawn-rise
On new-world mountains.
The weeping ash in the dooryard
Gathers the song in its boughs,
And the gown of dawn she will never wear.
I can listen no more; good-by, little town, old Fairingdown.
I climb the long, dark hillside,{98}
But the ache I have found here I cannot outclimb.
O Heart, if we had not heard, if we did not know
There is that in the village that never will sleep!
Hampshire, England.
Scribner’s Olive Tilford Dargan
IN THE ROMAN FORUM
Nothing but beauty, now.
No longer at the point of goading fear
The sullen, tributary world comes near
Before all-subjugating Rome to bow.
No more the pavement of the Forum rings
To breathless Victory’s exultant tread
Before the heavy march of captive kings.
Here stood the royal dead
In sculptured immortality; their gaze
Remote above the turmoil of the street
Hoarse with its living struggle at their feet.
Here spoke the law—that voice of bronze was heard
By all the world, and stirred
The latent mind of nations in the bud.
Bright with the laurels, bitter with the blood
Of heroes upon heroes was this place
Where the strong heart of an imperial race
Beat with the essence of a man’s life.
Princes and people evermore at strife—
Incense and worship—clash of armored rage—
Ambition soaring up the sky like flame—
Interminable war that mortals wage
From century to century the same.
Still Fortune holds the crown for those who dare;
Mankind in many a distant otherwhere
Leaps panting toward the promise of her face{99}—
But here, no more of coveting nor care.
No longer here the weltering human tide
Sluices the market-place and scatters wide
The weak as foam, to perish where they list.
Now by the Sovereign Silence purified,
Spring showers all with fragrant amethyst.
Were once these pulses violent and swift
As those that shake the cities of to-day?
How indolently sweet the petals drift
From yonder nodding spray!
Warming their broidered raiment in the sun,
The little-bright-eyed lizards bask and run
O’er fallen temples gracious in decay.
Man’s arrogance with calculated art
Boasted in marble—now the quiet heart
Of the Great Mother dreams eternal things
In brief, bright roses and ethereal green,
Or more exuberant, sings
In poppies poured profusely to the air
From secret hoards of scarlet. Nothing seen
But swoons with beauty—beauty everywhere—
Nothing but beauty ... now.
Here is the immortality of Rome.
Not where the city rises, dome on dome,
Seek we the living soul of ancient might,
But in this temple of green silence—here
Flame purer than the vestal is alight.
The world again draws near
In reverence, but now it comes to pay
The tribute of a nobler coin than fear.
In wondering worship, not in fierce dismay,
Men bow the knee to what of Rome remains.
Time’s long lustration has effaced her stains,
All that is perishable now is past
And earth her portion tenderly transmutes
To evanescent beauty of her own{100}—
Jubilant flowers and nectar-breathing fruits—
Living in deathless glory at the last
Divinity alone.
The Bellman Amelia Josephine Burr
ASH WEDNESDAY
(After hearing a lecture on the origins of religion)
Here in the lonely chapel I will wait,
Here will I rest, if any rest may be;
So fair the day is, and the hour so late,
I shall have few to share the blessed calm with me.
Calm and soft light, sweet inarticulate calls!
One shallow dish of eerie golden fire
By molten chains above the altar swinging,
Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stalls
To the warm chancel-dome;
Crag-like the clustered organs loom,
Yet from their thunder-threatening choir
Flows but a ghostly singing—
Half-human voices reaching home
In infinite, tremulous surge and falls.
Light on his stops and keys,
And pallor on the player’s face,
Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seize
The pattern of a mood’s elusive grace,
Captures his spirit in an airy lace
Of fading, fading harmonies.
Oh, let your coolness soothe
My weariness, frail music, where you keep
Tryst with the even-fall;
Where tone by tone you find a pathway smooth
To yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creep
Along the bronzèd wall,{101}
Where shade by shade thro’ deeps of brown
Comes the still twilight down.
Wilt thou not rest, my thought?
Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding room
Whence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought?
O weary, weary questionings,
Will ye pursue me to the altar rail
Where my old faith for sanctuary clings,
And back again my heart reluctant hale
Yonder, where crushed against the cheerless wall
Tiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tier
Of faces unserene and startled eyes—
Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set,
On desperate outmaneuverings of doom?
Still must I hear
The boding voice with cautious rise and fall
Tracking relentless to its lair
Each fever-bred progenitor of faith,
Each fugitive ancestral fear?
Still must I follow, as the wraith
Of antique awe toward a wreck-making beach
Drives derelict?
Nay, rest, rest, my thought,
Where long-loved sound and shadow teach
Quietness to conscience overwrought.
Harken! The choristers, the white-robed priest
Move thro’ the chapel dim
Sounding of warfare and the victor’s palm,
Of valiant marchings, of the feast
Spread for the pilgrim in a haven’d calm.
How on the first lips of my steadfast race
Sounded that battle hymn,
Quaint heaven-vauntings, with God’s gauntlet flung,
To me bequeathed, from age to age,{102}
My challenge and my heritage!
“The Lord is in His holy place”—
How in their ears the herald voice has rung!
Now will I make bright their sword,
Will pilgrim in their ancient path,
Will haunt the temple of their Lord;
Truth that is neither variable nor hath
Shadow of turning, I will find
In the wise ploddings of their faithful mind;
Of finding not, as in this frustrate hour
By question hounded, waylaid by despair,
Yet in these uses shall I know His power
As the warm flesh by breathing knows the air.
O futile comfort! My faith-hungry heart
Still in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour;
Far off, far off I quiver ’neath the smart
Of old indignities and obscure scorn
Indelibly on man’s proud spirit laid,
That now in time’s ironic masquerade
Minister healing to the hurt and worn!
What are those streams that from the altar pour
Where goat and ox and human captive bled
To feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest?
I cannot see where Christ’s dear love is shed,
So deep the insatiate horror washes red
Flesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore.
Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands outspread,
What forest shades behold what shameful rites
Of maidenhood surrendered to the beast
In obscene worship on midsummer nights!
What imperturbable disguise
Enwraps these organs with a chaste restraint
To chant innocuous hymns and litanies
For sinner and adoring saint,
Which yet inherit like an old blood-taint{103}
Some naked caperings in the godliest tune,—
Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan,
That charmed the easy cow-girl and her man
In uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon!
Ah, could I hearken with their trust,
Or see with their pure-seeing eyes
Who of the frame of these dear mysteries
Were not too wise!
Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour,
Outface the horror that defeats me now?
Hare I not reaped complacent the rich power
That harvest from this praise and bowing low?
On this strong music have I mounted up,
At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup,
And on that cross have hung, and felt God’s pain
Sorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end.
Not from these forms my questionings come
That serving truth are purified,
But from the truth itself, the way, the goal,
One challenge vast that strikes faith dumb—
If truth be fickle, who shall be our guide?
“Truth that is neither variable, nor hath
Shadow of turning?” Ah, where turns she not!
Where yesterday she stood,
Now the horizon empties—lo, her steps
Where yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold,
Yet shall he find her never, but the thought
Mantling within him like her blood
Shall from his eloquence fade, and leave his words
Flavor’d with vacant quaintness for his son.
What crafty patience, scholar, hast thou used,
Useless ere it was begun—
What headless waste of wing,
Beating vainly round and round!
In no one Babel were the tongues confused,{104}
But they who handle truth, from sound to sound
Master another speech continuously.
Deaf to familiar words, our callous ear
Will quiver to the edge of utterance strange;
When truth to God’s truth-weary sight draws near,
Cannot God see her till she suffer change?
Must ye then change, my vanished youth,
Home customs of my dreams?
Change and farewell!
Farewell, your lost phantasmic truth
That will not constant dwell,
But flees the passion of our eyes
And leaves no hint behind her
Whence she dawns or whither dies,
Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems.
Here tho’ I only dream I find her,
Here will I watch the twilight darken.
Yonder the scholar’s voice spins on
Mesh upon mesh of loveless fate;
Here will I rest while truth deserts him still.
What hath she left thee, Brother, but thy voice?
After her, have thy will,
And happy be thy choice!
Here rather will I rest, and harken
Voices longer dead but longer loved than thine.
Yet still my most of peace is more unrest,
As one who plods a summer road
Feels the coolness his own motion stirs,
But when he stops the dead heat smothers him.
Here in this calm my soul is weariest,
Each question with malicious goad
Pressing the choice that still my soul defers
To visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim,
Lest in my haste I deem{105}
That truth’s invariable part
Is her eluding of man’s heart.
Farewell, calm priest who pacest slow
After the stalwart-marching choir!
Have men thro’ thee taught God their dear desire?
Hath God thro’ thee absolvèd sin?
What is thy benediction, if I go
Sore perplexed and wrought within?
Open the chapel doors, and let
Boisterous music play us out
Toward the flaring molten west
Whither the nerve-racked day is set;
Let the loud world, flooding back,
Gulf us in its hungry rout;
Rest? What part have we in rest?
Boy with the happy face and hurrying feet,
Who with thy friendly cap’s salute
Sendest bright hail across the college street,
If thou couldst see my answering lips, how mute,
How loth to take thy student courtesy!
What truth have I for thee?
Rather thy wisdom, lad, impart,
Share thy gift of strength with me.
Still with the past I wrestle, but the future girds thy heart.
Clutter of shriveled yesterdays that clothe us like a shell,
Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk newborn and free.
All things the human heart hath learned—God, heaven, earth, and hell—
Thou weighest not for what they were, but what they still may be.
Whether the scholar delve and mine for faith-wreck buried deep,{106}
Or the priest his rules and holy rites, letter and spirit, keep,
Toil or trust in breathless dust, they shall starve at last for truth;
Scholar and priest shall live from thee, who art eternal youth.
Holier if thou dost tread it, every path the prophets trod;
Clearer where thou dost worship, rise the ancient hymns to God;
Not by the priest but by thy prayers are altars sanctified;
Strong with new love where thou dost kneel, the cross whereon Christ died.
Yale Review John Erskine
THE LAGGARD SONG
I had no heart to write to thee in prose,
The sadness in me sore demanded song;
But the song came not,—laggard as the birds,
That will not sing us back the little leaves.
O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?
I am sore weary of these deathlike days,
This shroud unheaving of eternal snow,—
O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?
’Tis time to answer, O nightingale,—
’Tis thine to sing the winter all away,
Release the world from bondage, and bring back
The sound of many waters and of trees,
And little sleeping lives anumb with cold,—
Yea! all the resurrection of the world.
O winter of my heart! O nightingale!
{107}
Harper’s Richard Le Gallienne
GROTESQUE
With the first light on the skyline came the rapping of the sickles
And the brown arms of the reapers bent to toil another morn;
Close beside me in the glimmer, in the golden sweep and shimmer,
Knelt a reaper strange among us, crooning thro’ the ragged corn:
“Born of sorrow,
Gone to-morrow—
Gone to lie in yonder valley where their fathers long have lain;
Men who know not ship nor sabre,
Each but drudges by his neighbor,
And the fields wherein they labor are a heritage of pain!”
Sleep was heavy on our eyelids when a lone star followed sunset,
But we missed the pale young stranger, none knew whither he had gone—
Then, from where the dead are lying, with the nightwind’s tender sighing
Rose and fell a last low cadence of the voice we heard at dawn:
“Weary reapers,
Early sleepers—
Brief the glow that drifts across them from the waning August moon:
These that rest beyond its gleaming
Lie unvexed of drift or dreaming,
And the fields with harvest teeming have forgot them all too soon!{108}”
Boston Transcript Ruth Guthrie Harding
BALLADE OF A DEAD LADY
All old fair things are in their places,
I count them over, and miss but one;
The April flowers are running races,
The green world stretches its arms to the sun;
The nuptial dance of the days is begun—
The same young stars in the same old skies;
And all that was lost again is won—
But where have they hidden those great eyes?
All have come back—dogwood and daisies—
All things ripple and riot and run;
Swallow and swallow in aery mazes,
A fairy frolic of fire and fun;
The same old enchanted web is spun,
With diamond dews for the same old flies;
Yet all is new, spite of Solomon—
But where have they hidden those great eyes?
Lovely as love are the new-born faces—
God knows they are fair to look upon;
And my heart goes out to the young embraces,
To the flight of the young to the young;
But, Time, what is it that thou hast done?
For my heart ’mid all the blossom cries:
“Roses are many, the Rose is gone—
Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?”
ENVOI
Prince, I bring you my April praises,
But O! on my heart a shadow lies;
For a face I see not at all my gaze is—
Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?
{109}
Puck Richard Le Gallienne
AN EPITAPH
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that you died,
Life is a bal masqué which you saw through.
You never told on Life—you had your pride;
But Life has told on you.
The Trend Walter Conrad Arensberg
WAR
Fools, fools, fools,
Your blood is hot to-day.
It cools
When you are clay.
It joins the very clod
Wherein you look at God,
Wherein at last you see
The living God,
The loving God,
Which was your enemy.
The Nation Witter Bynner
FRANCE
Half artist and half anchorite,
Part siren and part Socrates,
Her face—alluring and yet recondite—
Smiled through her salons and academies.
Lightly she wore her double mask,
Till sudden, at war’s kindling spark,
Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque,
Blazed to the world her single soul—
Jeanne d’Arc!
{110}
The Nation. Percy MacKaye
THE DRUM
There’s a rhythm down the road where the elms overarch
Of the drum, of the drum,
There’s a glint through the green, there’s a column on the march,
Here they come, here they come,
To the flat resounding clank they are tramping rank on rank,
And the bayonet flashes ripple from the flank to the flank.
“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.
“No aid am I desiring of the loud brazen choiring,
“Of bugle or of trumpet the lilt and the lyring,
“I’m the slow dogged rhythm, unending, untiring,
“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.
“I am rhythm, dogged rhythm, and the plodders feel me with ’em,
“I’m the two miles an hour that is empire, that is power,
“I’m the slow resistless crawl in the dust-cloud’s choking pall,
“I’m the marching days that run from the dawn to set of sun,
“I’m the rifle and the kit and the dragging weight of it,
“I’m the jaws grimly set and the faces dripping sweat,
“I’m the how, why, and when, the Almighty made for men,”
Says the rhythm, marching rhythm, of the drum.
“Did you call my song ‘barbaric’? Did you mutter, ‘out of date’?{111}
“When you hear me with the foemen then your cry will come too late.
“Here are hearts a-beating for you, to my pulsing as I come,
“To the rhythm, tramping rhythm,
“To the rhythm, dogged rhythm,
“To the dogged tramping rhythm
“Of the drum!”
There’s a clashing snarling rhythm down the valley broad and ample
Of the drum, kettledrum,
There’s a low, swelling rumor that is cavalry a-trample,
Here they come, here they come,
To the brassy crash and wrangle, to the horseman’s clink and jangle,
And the restive legs beneath ’em all a-welter and a-tangle.
“I am rhythm, dancing rhythm,” says the drum.
“White and sorrel, roan and dapple, hocks as shiny as an apple,
“Don’t they make a splendid showing, ears a-pricking, tails a-blowing?
“Good boys—bless ’em—well they’re knowing all my tricks to set ’em going
“To my rhythm, dancing rhythm!” says the drum.
“I am rhythm, clashing rhythm, and the horses feel me with ’em.
“I’m the foray and the raid, I’m the glancing sabre-blade.
“Now I’m here, now I’m there, flashing on the unaware.
“How I scout before the ranks, how I cloud along the flanks,{112}
“How the highway smokes behind me let the faint stars tell that find me
“All night through, all night through, when the bridles drip with dew.
“I’m the labor, toil, and pain, I’m the loss that shall be gain,”
Says the rhythm, clashing rhythm, of the drum.
“Did you speak of ‘useless slaughter’? Did you murmur ‘Christian love’?
“Pray that such as these before you when the war-cloud bursts above,
“With the bridle on the pommel meet the foemen as they come,
“To the rhythm, dashing rhythm,
“To the rhythm, crashing rhythm
“To the crashing, dashing rhythm
“Of the drum!”
There’s an echo shakes the valley o’er the rhythm deep and slow
Of the drum, of the drum,
’Tis the guns, the guns a-rolling on the bridges down below,
Here they come, here they come,
Hark the felloes grind and lumber through the shadows gray and umber,
And the triple spans a-panting up the slope the stones encumber,
With the rhythm, distant rhythm, of the drum.
“’Tis the long Shapes of Fear that the moonlight silvers here,
“And the jolting limber’s weighted with the silent cannoneer,
“’Tis the Pipes of Peace are passing, O ye people, give an ear!”
Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.{113}
“They are rhythm, thunder rhythm, and they do not need me with ’em,
“That can overtone my choir like the bourdon from the spire.
“Avant-garde am I to these Lords of dreadful revelries,
“Iron Cyclops with an eye to confound the earth and sky.
“Love and Fear, Love and Fear, neither one but both revere,
“And whatever grace ye deal let it be from courts of steel,
“Set the guns’ emplacement then to expound the Law to men,”
Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.
“O ye coiners, sentence-joiners, in a fatted, tradesman’s land,
“Here’s evangel Pentecostal that all nations understand,
“When they speak before the battle fools and theories are dumb!”
God be with ’em, and the rhythm,
And the rhythm, iron rhythm,
And the rolling thunder rhythm
Of the drum!
There’s a rhythm still and toneless with the wind amid the green,
Of the drum, muffled drum,
And there’s arms reversed, and something ’neath a flag that goes between
As they come, as they come.
“Just a soldier, nothing more, such as all the ages bore
“And as time and tide shall bear them till the sun be sere and hoar,{114}”
Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.
“No more am I requiring of the keen brazen lyring
“Than ‘taps’ from the bugle—some shots for the firing.
“Hats off; stand aside; it is all I’m desiring,”
Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.
“I am rhythm, muffled rhythm; long and deep farewell go with him,
“Hands that bore their portion through tasks our nature needs must do,
“Feet that stepped the ancient rhyme of the battle-march of Time.
“Blood or tribute, steel or gold, still Vae Victis as of old,
“Stern and curt the message runs taught to sons and sons of sons.
“Chair à canon, would you call? What else are we, one and all?
“Write it thus to close his span: ‘Here there lies a fighting man,’”
Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.
“O ye farms upon the hillside and ye cities by the sea,
“With the laughter of young mothers and the babes about the knee,
“’Tis a heart that once beat for you that is passing, still and dumb,
“To the rhythm, muffled rhythm,
“To the rhythm, solemn rhythm,
“To the slow and muffled rhythm
“Of the drum!{115}”
Scribner’s Magazine E. Sutton
IF!
Suppose ’twere done!
The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;
Into the wheeling death-clutch sent
Each millioned armament,
To grapple there
On land, on sea and under, and in air!
Suppose at last ’twere come—
Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb
And arsenals and dockyards hum,—
Now all complete, supreme,
That vast, Satanic dream!—
Each field were trampled, soaked,
Each stream dyed, choked,
Each leaguered city and blockaded port
Made famine’s sport;
The empty wave
Made reeling dreadnought’s grave;
Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell
’Neath bomb and shell;
In deathlike trance
Lay industry, finance;
Two thousand years’
Bequest, achievement, saving disappears,
In blood and tears,
In widowed woe
That slum and palace equal know,
In civilization’s suicide,—
What served thereby, what satisfied?
For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?
Naught!—
Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap
On the world’s shaken map{116}
New lines, more near or far,
Binding to King or Czar
In fostering hate
Some newly vassaled state;
And passion, lust and pride made satiate;
And just a trace
Of lingering smile on Satan’s face!
Boston New Bureau Bartholomew F. Griffin
PRELUDE
Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the town I love in the peace of the
Summer night,
And I loved the joyous and cruel leash of life at my throat,
And I loved the peace in the soul of the woman I love, and I knew that the net of her beauty was cast in a sea of peace.
I loved the silver-blue flood of the moon that flowed over the quiet town
And the trees that shaded the stream and the town I love;
(For Nature is personal always to me and is never untrue and intrusive.)
The garrulous, intimate talk of the trees, I loved;
And the birds asleep in their nests in the trees,
And the rosy wet-mouthed babes that never have minted speech, asleep in the quiet town and kissed by the warm and mothering night—
The merry uncertain tentative falling leaves that fell on the rocks and the path and were carried
laughing away by the musical stream, I loved,
And the sentient gaiety of the flowers I felt were near and knew my affection, I loved;{117}
And the neighborly boisterous wind that trampled in play across the yellowing wheat;
And the cattle that lay in the meadow;
And the moonlight that hid in the silver sheen of the birch by the gate, I loved;
And the moonlight that lay like frost that had over-slept on the Summer grass;
And I loved the peaceful, close-breathing, embracing night that breathed the scent of unseen flowers and the fragrance of the woman I love.
Ancient and cruel songs passed deathward into the night,
And symbols of ancient wrongs went mournfully by and away,
And the peace that is finally done with old desires and with conquering
Caressingly laid her cheek, with illimitable quietude, between my cheek and the cheek of the woman
I love,
And the three of us were one as we stood by the stream in the peace of the Summer night.
The silence gathered and rolled above us fold upon exquisite fold,
Till tenderness made me eager to shout and to sing aloud in the positive light of Day,
And to see the early marching sun brushing the fields and the town I love with his gold-shod feet,
And wrapping the flowers and the intimate personal trees in the sudden flame of his breath.
Christ; Christ; Christ;—
That this day dawned;
Peace; Peace; Peace—
Raped and mangled and dead,{118}
And none to lay a healing hand for easement on her head.
War; War; War—
Came with withering day.
Ancient cruel songs
From red throats hurled
And none to sing a healing song of peace in all the world.
The sunlight is a wound to me and Jesus Christ has rotted overnight,
And peace is now a corpse whose naked body lies half cold upon a shield.
The morning wind has grown a hawk’s strong claws,
And nothing brings my heart so near to breaking as sunlight surging over the long grass.
The Masses Edmond McKenna
THE OTHER ARMY
O’er ruined road past draggled field,
O’er twisted stones of shaken street,
Marches an army terrible,
The army of the bleeding feet,—
Of skirted feet that now first leave
Immaculate field and kitchen floor,—
Old feet that slept beside the hearth,
Wee feet that twinkled by the door.
To strange world past the parish line
(More strange with sound and sight to-day),
Recruited fast at every hedge,
The gathering army takes its way.{119}
Commanders? Aye, they trudge ahead,—
Not badge but babe on every breast.
The troops? They straggle at her skirt,
From tot to crone, in ranks ill-drest.
And uniformed—in rusty best
From cedarn chests and linen bags;
Ah, rough the roads and chill the winds
To sabots split and sudden rags!
Equipment? Aye, ’tis furnished well,
This army of the old and young,—
On shoulder bent a bundle small,
A doll from little fingers swung!
Almost complete—it only lacks
The battle oath and cheer and song;
Save infant fret and agèd sigh,
Now dumbly marches it along.
Past gaping window, roof and sill
It fares to red horizon’s edge,
Past blackened furrow, hearth and fane,—
And fast it grows at every hedge!
Boston News Bureau. Bartholomew F. Griffin
THE BUGLE
Oh calling, and calling, at the rising of the sun,
Hark the bugle clearly singing with the swallows widely winging
In the morning just begun.
“You are going to the flowing of the traffic-roaring street,
“To the toiling and turmoiling, and though toil for man be meet,{120}
“Is it all, is it all, thus to plod and feed and crawl,
“Is there not a thought to stray from your task from day to day?
“Ah, December follows May; leaves will fall!
“For the glory gone before you,
“For the mother-breast bent o’er you,
“The good earth that bore you,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, as the morning mists unfold,
Hark the bugle’s keen upbraiding that true hearts are more than trading
And that steel is more than gold.
“Is there seeming in your dreaming of an endless golden day?
“Ne’er were powers, ne’er were towers, but uncherished would decay.
“Follow through, follow through, foaming wake and throbbing screw,
“All your fair and broad dominions with the seagull’s waving pinions,
“What but swords that did them win once, holds them all?
“For the thousand years behind you,
“For the slothful cords that bind you,
“The future that may find you,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, when the twilight stars are born,
Hark the bugle’s fierce complaining—“Labor—labor—still sustaining,
“Unrequited, laughed to scorn!
“Wheels are humming, you are coming to your fire-lit warmth and ease,{121}
“Ask the teachers, ask the preachers who declaim of ‘love’ and ‘peace,’
“What to do, what to do, if no more my signal blew
“By the Northern ocean-strands, on the scorching desert sands,
“Or beneath the tropic lands’ steamy pall?
“For your plenteous bin and board, now
“For ‘all things in order stored,’ now,
“For Right, for the Lord, now,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, when the dark is closing down,
Hark the bugle clearly crying of the fame beyond all dying,
And the laurel, and the crown.
“Heroes sworded—splendors hoarded by enshrining centuries,
“Life or living—theirs the giving—greater love had none than these!
“Can it be, can it be, sons of steel on land and sea,
“Song and story weft of war-woof, blood and breed from sires of war-proof,
“That ye stand to such a lore proof, one and all?
“For the glory gone before you,
“For the mother-breast bent o’er you,
“The good earth that bore you,
“I call, I call!”
Infantry Journal E. Sutton
HE WENT FOR A SOLDIER
He marched away with a blithe young score of him
With the first volunteers,
Clear-eyed and clean and sound to the core of him,
Blushing under the cheers.{122}
They were fine, new flags that swung a-flying there,
Oh, the pretty girls he glimpsed a-crying there,
Pelting him with pinks and with roses—
Billy, the Soldier Boy!
Not very clear in the kind young heart of him
What the fuss was about,
But the flowers and the flags seemed part of him—
The music drowned his doubt.
It’s a fine, brave sight they were a-coming there
To the gay, bold tune they kept a-drumming there,
While the boasting fifes shrilled jauntily—
Billy, the Soldier Boy!
Soon he is one with the blinding smoke of it—
Volley and curse and groan:
Then he has done with the knightly joke of it—
It’s rending flesh and bone.
There are pain-crazed animals a-shrieking there
And a warm blood stench that is a-reeking there;
He fights like a rat in a corner—
Billy, the Soldier Boy!
There he lies now, like a ghoulish score of him,
Left on the field for dead:
The ground all round is smeared with the gore of him—
Even the leaves are red.
The Thing that was Billy lies a-dying there,
Writhing and a-twisting and a-crying there;
A sickening sun grins down on him—
Billy, the Soldier Boy!
Still not quite clear in the poor, wrung heart of him
What the fuss was about,
See where he lies—or a ghastly part of him—
While life is oozing out:{123}
There are loathsome things he sees a-crawling there;
There are hoarse-voiced crows he hears a-calling there,
Eager for the foul feast spread for them—
Billy, the Soldier Boy!
How much longer, O lord, shall we bear it all?
How many more red years?
Story it and glory it and share it all,
In seas of blood and tears?
They are braggart attitudes we’ve worn so long;
They are tinsel platitudes we’ve sworn so long—
We who have turned the Devil’s Grindstone,
Borne with the hell called War!
Smart Set Ruth Comfort Mitchell
SIX SONNETS
(August, 1914)
I
TO WILLIAM WATSON IN ENGLAND
Singer of England’s ire across the sea,
Your austere voice, electric from the deep,
Speaks our own yearning, and our spirits sweep
To Europe’s allied honor.—Painfully,
Bowed with a planet’s lonely burden, we
Held our hot hearts in leash, but now they leap
Their ban, like young hounds belling from their keep,
To bait the Teuton wolf of tyranny.
What! Would he throw us sops of sugared art
And poisoned commerce, snarling: “So! lie still
Till I have shown my fangs, and torn the heart{124}
Of half the world, and gorged my sanguine fill!”—
Now, England, let him see: Rage as he will,
He cannot tear our plighted souls apart.
II
AMERICAN NEUTRALITY
How shall we keep an armed neutrality
With our own souls? Our souls belie our lips,
That seek to hold our passion in eclipse
And hide the wound of our sharp sympathy,
Saying: “One’s neighbor differs; he might be
Kindled to wrath, were one to wield the whips
Of Truth.” Great God! A red Apocalypse
Flames on the blinded world: and what do we?
Peace! do we cry? Peace is the godlike plan
We love and dedicate our children to;
Yet England’s cause is ours: The rights of man,
Which little Belgium battles for anew,
Shall we recant? No!—Being American,
Our souls cannot keep neutral and keep true.
III
PEACE
Peace!—But there is no peace. To hug the thought
Is but to clasp a lover who thinks lies.
Go: look your earnest neighbor in the eyes
And read the answer there. Peace is not bought
By distance from the fight. Peace must be fought
And bled for: ’tis a dream whose horrid price
Is haggled for by dread realities;
Peace is not paid till dreamers are distraught.
Would we not close our ears against these ills,
Urging our hearts: “Be calm! America
Is called soon to rebuild a world.”—But ah!{125}
How shall we nobly build with neutral wills?
Can we be calm while Belgian anguish thrills?
Or would we crown with peace—Caligula?
IV
WILSON
Patience—but peace of heart we cannot choose;
Nor would he wish us cravenly to keep
Aloof in soul, who—large in statesmanship
And justice—sent our ships to Vera Cruz.
Patience must wring our hearts, while we refuse
To launch our country on that crimson deep
Which breaks the dikes of Europe, but we sleep
Watchful, still waiting by the awful fuse.
Wisdom he counsels, and he counsels well
Whose patient fortitude against the fret
And sneer of time has stood inviolable
We love his goodness and will not forget.
With him we pause beside the mouth of hell:—
The wolf of Europe has not triumphed yet.
V
KRUPPISM
Crowned on the twilight battlefield, there bends
A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold,
Chuckling: “One hundred thousand gatlings—sold!”
And the moon rises, and a moaning rends
The mangled living, and the dead distends,
And a child cowers on the chartless wold,
Where, searching in his safety vault of mold,
The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends.
We, who still wage his battles, are his thralls,
And dying do him homage: yea, and give{126}
Daily our living souls to be enticed
Into his power. So long as on war’s walls
We build engines of death that he may live,
So long shall we serve Krupp instead of Christ.
VI
THE REAL GERMANY
Bismarck—or rapt Beethoven with his dreams:
Ah, which was blind? Or which bespoke his race?—
That breed which nurtured Heine’s haunting grace,
And Goethe, mastering Olympic themes
Of meditation, Mozart’s golden gleams,
And Leibnitz charting realms of time and space,
Great-hearted Schiller, and that fairy brace
Of brothers who first trailed the goblin streams.
Bismarck for these builded an iron tomb,
And clanged the door, and turned a kaiser’s key;
And simple folk that once danced merrily
Their May-ring rites, march now in roaring gloom
Toward that renascent dawn when the black womb
Of buried guns gives birth to Germany.
Boston Transcript Percy MacKaye
LITANY OF NATIONS
The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters
... and
shall be chased before the wind.—Isaiah.
GREECE
Aeons of old were wandering down the seas,
When Homer sang at Chios—and the sweet
Tranquillity of marching silences
Was broken at my feet.{127}
Great dawns have shown the way
When we have wandered.
God, in the battle sway,
What have we squandered?
ITALY
Avid and Roman born in soul and sense,
Master of all else but myself was I,
When, bound by silken cords of indolence,
I saw the world go by.
FRANCE
Ravaging, roystering and repenting—save
In story and the regions of romance,
Rises the moon on whom more mad and brave,
Or beautiful than France?
GERMANY
Once German arms and German armies hurled
Thunders on Rome. Than mine no readier hand
Would wake the violin and woo the world,
Were it a fairyland.
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Mine is a house divided but upheld
By the sheer force of many hemming powers.
Ages, like forests, have been hewn and felled
To build my crumbling towers.
RUSSIA
Gray winters flourish and old empires fail;
And still the starry watchmen sally forth
As wardens, with me, of the frozen grail
And ramparts of the north.
{128}
BALKAN STATES
Stabbing the skies for stars and air in which
To bask awhile and breathe—shall we remain
Simply the little brothers of the rich?
God! have we fought in vain?
SPAIN
Strong was my soul in war and wise in peace.
On whom else was the Moslem vanguard hurled?
O but for me had any Genoese
Sailed and brought back a world?
SWITZERLAND
High noons and sunsets pass while I repeat
The world-old secret of the endless quest;
And with the nations ageing at my feet,
I overlook the west.
GREAT BRITAIN
Flecking the seas where war and tempest brew,
And biding till the gonfalons are furled,
My British sails have dared and driven through
Thunders that shook the world.
AMERICA
Westward the tide of empire ebbs and flows:
And westward where the new-world torches rise
And rout the night, the Great Day dawning glows
And kindles in my eyes.
JAPAN
Amid the warring peoples I that slept
And dreamt of wide dominion—confident,
Ambitious, urging, conquering—have stept
Out from the orient.
{129}
CHINA
Glory and power for ages had been mine,
Until upon me fell a sudden night,
Such as makes beacon-star republics shine:
And my eyes saw the light.
TURKEY
In infidel debate on whence and why,
They hiss my God, and know not whether hale
And wise, or worn and withering am I,
Behind the crimson veil.
Great dawns have shown the way
When we have wandered.
God, in the battle sway,
What have we squandered?
The International William Griffith
TO THE NECROPHILE
(After reading of the affectionate desire of Germany “to get
closer to France,” expressed by the German Secretary of State to
the British Ambassador at Berlin, as published in the British White
Papers.)
With love are you gone mad, O lover of France,
That you should be embracing with your arms
Her gory body for the gore that warms
Only a monster in his dalliance?
Alas! she is alive with her alarms,
Unwilling yet for the enraged romance.
Assault her sacredness of Paris, lance
Her flank with such a wound as has its charms.
For you who want for your obscene amours
The body of a soul that is not yours,{130}
For you who want a wound to enter by,
For you who want a corpse upon your heart.
Coupling with France if France would only die,
Not yours the human vow: “Till death us part!”
The Trend Walter Conrad Arensberg
LOUVAIN
Bleeding and torn, ravished with sword and flame,
By that blasphemer prince, who with the name
Of God upon his lips betrayed the state
He falsely swore to hold inviolate,
Made mad by pride and reckless of the rod,
Shaking his mailed fist in the face of God.
But not in vain her martyrdom. Louvain,
Like the brave maid of France shall rise again;
Above her clotted hair a crown shall shine,
From her dark ashes rise a hallowed shrine
Where pilgrims from far lands shall heal their pain,
Shrived by the sacred sorrow of Louvain.
Harper’s Weekly Oliver Herford
THE ANCIENT SACRIFICE
Ye dead and gone great armies of the world,
Sweet gleam the fields where ye were used to pass,
With Death for leader, legioned like the grass,
Day after day by dews of morning pearled.
Ye dead and gone great armies, ye were hurled
’Gainst other armies, great and dead and gone,
In awful dark: ye died before the dawn,
Ne’er knowing how your flags in peace are furled!{131}
Ye are the tall fair forests that were felled
To build a pyre for strife that it might cease;
Ye are the white lambs slaughtered to bring peace;
Ye are the sweet ships sunk that storm be quelled;
And ye are lilies plucked and set like stars
About the blood-stained shrine of bygone wars!
The Bellman Mahlon Leonard Fisher
THE PIPES OF THE NORTH
Do ye hear ’em sternly soundin’ through the noises of the street,
O heart from the heather overseas?
Do ye leap up to greet ’em, does your pulse skip a beat?
There’s a lad with a plaid and naked knees.
Here where all is strange and foreign to the swing of kilt and sporran,
With his head proud and high and a lightin’ in his eye,
He’s skirlin’ ’em, he’s dirlin’ ’em, he’s blowin’ like a storm—
O pipes of the North, O the pibroch pourin’ forth,
You’re fierce and loud as Winter but ye make the blood run warm!
All the battle-names of story, all the jewel-names of song
Down the spate of the clangor swing and reel,
And the claymores come a-flashin’ for a thousand years along
From Can-More to bonnie Charlie and Lochiel.
Though the high-singin’ bugle and the brazen crashin’ fugue’ll{132}—
With the drum and the fife—wake the trampin’ lines to life,
But neighin’ ’em, and brayin’ ’em, and shatterin’ all the air,
O pipes of the North, when the legions thunder forth
There’s naught like ye to lift ’em on to death or glory there!
Now he tunes an ancient ditty for the leal Highland lover,
A rill of the mountain clear and pure,
How the bee is in the blossom and the peewit passin’ over
And the cloud-shadows chasin’ on the moor.
Hark the carol of the chanter rollickin’ a skeltin’ canter,
And the hum of the drones with their “wind-arisin’” tones!
He’s flightin’ ’em, he’s kitin’ ’em, he’s flingin’ gay and free—
O pipes of the North, when the reel comes tumblin’ forth
’Tis the breeze amid the bracken or the wavelets on the sea!
Now hark the wrenchin’ sob of it, the “wild with all regret,”
O heart from the heather overseas,
For the homeland of your fathers, though you’ve never known it yet,
’Tween Tay and the outer Hebrides.
O the rugged misty Highlands, O the grim and lonely islands,
And the solemn fir and pine, and the grey tormented brine{133}—
He’s trailin’ ’em, he’s wailin’ ’em, to tear your bosom’s core!
O pipes of the North, when the long lament goes forth
No sorrow’s left to utter, for the tongue can say no more!
Oh, Breton pipes are clear and strong, and Irish pipes are sweet
And soft upon the heather overseas,
But Scottish aye can take your throat or make ye swing your feet,
O hark the lad a-paddlin’ on the keys!
See him footin’ straight and proud through the wonder-gawkin’ crowd,
With his feathered Glengarry like a gun at the carry;
He’s bellin’ ’em, he’s yellin’ ’em, he’s skirlin’ high to you—
O pipes of the North, O the wild notes rushin’ forth,
Ye’re sure the wings of Gaelic souls as far as blood is true!
Scribner’s Magazine E. Sutton
OUT OF BABYLON
As I stole out of Babylon beyond the stolid warders,
(My soul that dwelt in Babylon long, long ago!)
The sound of cymbals and of lutes, of viols and recorders,
Came up from khan and caravan, loud and low.
As I crept out of Babylon, the clangor and the babel,
The strife of life, the haggling in the square and mart,{134}
Of the men who went in saffron and the men who went in sable,
It tore me and it wore me, yea, it wore my heart.
As I fled out of Babylon, the cubits of the towers
They seemed in very mockery to bar my way;
The incense of the altars, and the hanging-garden flowers,
They lured me with their glamour, but I would not stay.
We still flee out of Babylon, its vending and its vying,
Its crying up to Mammon, its bowing down to Baal;
We still flee out of Babylon, its sobbing and its sighing,
Where the strong grow ever stronger, and the weary fail!
We still flee out of Babylon, the feverish, the fretful,
That saps the sweetness of the soul and leaves but a rind;
We still flee out of Babylon, and fain would be forgetful
Of all within that thrall of wall threatening behind!
Oh, Babylon, oh, Babylon, your toiling and your teeming,
Your canyons and your wonder-wealth,—not for such as we!
We who have fled from Babylon contented are with dreaming,—
Dreaming of earth’s loveliness, happy to be free!
{135}
The Bellman Clinton Scollard
“FUNERE MERSIT ACERBO”
(Written by Giosué Carducci at the death of his
little son Dante, and
addressed to his brother Dante,
who had taken his own life years
before.)
O thou among the Tuscan hills asleep,
Laid with our father in one grassy bed,
Faintly, through the green sod above thy head,
Hast thou not heard a plaintive child’s voice weep?
It is my little son—at thy dark keep
He knocketh, he who wore thy name, thy dread
And sacred name; he too this life hath fled,
Whose ways, my brother, thou didst find so steep.
Among the flower-borders as he played,
By sunny, childish visions smiled upon,
The Shadow caught him to that world how other,—
Thy world long since! So now to that chill shade,
Oh, welcome him! as backward toward the sun
He turns his head, to look, and call his mother.
The Bellman Ruth Shepard Phelps
AFTERWARDS
There was a day when death to me meant tears,
And tearful takings-leave that had to be,
And awed embarkings on an unshored sea,
And sudden disarrangement of the years.
But now I know that nothing interferes
With the fixed forces when a tired man dies;
That death is only answerings and replies,
The chiming of a bell which no one hears,
The casual slanting of a half-spent sun,
The soft recessional of noise and coil,
The coveted something time nor age can spoil;{136}
I know it is a fabric finely spun
Between the stars and dark; to seize and keep,
Such glad romances as we read in sleep.
Boston Transcript Mahlon Leonard Fisher
EVENING
Go, little sorrows! From the evening wood
Faint odors rise, that touch the heart like tears
With inarticulate comfort. Lo, she bears
A weary load—small cares that drug the blood,
Small envies, sick desires for lesser good,—
All day, till now the evening re-appears,
They drop away, and she with wonder rears
Her aching height from needless servitude.
The tree-tops are all music; light and soft
The brook’s small feet go tinkling toward the sea
Bearing the little day’s distress afar;
While yonder, in the stillness set aloft,
My one great Grief, still glimmering down on me,
Smiles tremulous as a bereavèd Star.
Yale Review Charlotte Wilson
LIGHTS THROUGH THE MIST
Some for the sadness and sweetness of far evening bells,
Seeming to call a tryst,
Yet, for my choice, all the comfort and kindness that wells
From lights through the mist.
In the dim dusk so unreal that it seems like a dream
Hard for the heart to resist,{137}
Mellowing the pain of the close-drawing darkness, they stream,
Lights through the mist.
Blurred to new beauty, the blues and the browns and the grays
Shimmer with soft amethyst;
Then God’s own glory of gold as it shines through the haze,
Lights through the mist!
Century William Rose Benét
THE TWELVE-FORTY-FIVE
(For Edward J. Wheeler)
Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head.
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
And now the grave, incurious stars
Gleam on the groaning, hurrying cars.
Against the kind and awful reign
Of darkness, this our angry train,
A noisy little rebel, pouts
Its brief defiance, flames and shouts—
And passes on, and leaves no trace.
For darkness holds its ancient place,
Serene and absolute, the king
Unchanged, of every living thing.
The houses lie obscure and still
In Rutherford and Carlton Hill.
Our lamps intensify the dark
Of slumbering Passaic Park.
And quiet holds the weary feet
That daily tramp through Prospect Street.{138}
What though we clang and clank and roar
Through all Passaic’s streets? No door
Will open, not an eye will see
Who this loud vagabond may be.
Upon my crimson cushioned seat,
In manufactured light and heat,
I feel unnatural and mean.
Outside the towns are cool and clean;
Curtained awhile from sound and sight
They take God’s gracious gift of night.
The stars are watchful over them.
On Clifton as on Bethlehem
The angels, leaning down the sky,
Shed peace and gentled dreams. And I—
I ride, I blasphemously ride
Through all the silent countryside.
The engine’s shriek, the headlight’s glare,
Pollute the still nocturnal air.
The cottages of Lake View sigh
And sleeping, frown as we pass by.
Why, even strident Paterson
Rests quietly as any nun.
Her foolish warring children keep
The grateful armistice of sleep.
For what tremendous errand’s sake
Are we so blatantly awake?
What precious secret is our freight?
What king must be abroad so late?
Perhaps Death roams the hills to-night
And we rush forth to give him fight.
Or else, perhaps, we speed his way
To some remote unthinking prey.
Perhaps a woman writhes in pain
And listens—listens for the train!
The train, that like an angel sings,
The train, with healing on its wings.{139}
Now “Hawthorne!” the conductor cries.
My neighbor starts and rubs his eyes.
He hurries yawning through the car
And steps out where the houses are.
This is the reason of our quest!
Not wantonly we break the rest
Of town and village, nor do we
Lightly profane night’s sanctity.
What Love commands the train fulfils,
And beautiful upon the hills
Are these our feet of burnished steel.
Subtly and certainly I feel
That Glen Rock welcomes us to her
And silent Ridgewood seems to stir
And smile, because she knows the train
Has brought her children back again.
We carry people home—and so
God speeds us, wheresoe’er we go.
Hohokus, Waldwick, Allendale
Lift sleepy heads to give us hail.
In Ramsey, Mahwah, Suffern, stand
Houses that wistfully demand
A father—son—some human thing
That this, the midnight train, may bring.
The trains that travel in the day
They hurry folks to work or play.
The midnight train is slow and old
But of it let this thing be told,
To its high honor be it said,
It carries people home to bed.
My cottage lamp shines white and clear.
God bless the train that brought me here!
{140}
Smart Set Joyce Kilmer
THE LAST DEMAND
Life, you have bruised me and chilled me; Fate, you have jeered at my pain;
Dreams, you have mocked while you thrilled me—so I turn to the battle again.
Love, you have blessed me and led me; the lips that have kissed you, you smite;
Hope, you have urged me and fled me—but left is the joy of the fight!
Never was I a coward! Now must I prove my worth.
World, I will give you my courage; not tears but a hard-bought mirth.
Work of my hands I grant you, labor and toil of brain,
But heart and soul shall be wanting—for they are dead of pain!
Forward! A fight to the death, then! Life is a sorry jest.
Ahead! To the thick of tumult! Fate is a fool at the best.
Courage! The war gods are greatest! Love is a false, fair light.
To arms! For Dreams are frail bubbles, and Hope but a song in the night.
World, I cast down the gauntlet, for you were made to defy!
Own me a foe for your mettle! Ah, fighting let me die!
Love, Hope and Dreams I give you; Life I fling at your feet;
I will drink to the dregs of the bitter—for once I had tasted of sweet!{141}
Of one last taunt I shall rob you; stern, I will claim my due;
One recompense you shall give me, balm I will snatch from you.
’Tis neither Fame nor Glory—toys to break and regret;
I demand to conquer Memory! I demand that I—forget.
The Smart Set Faith Baldwin
GODSPEED!
The soul speaks
“Body o’ mine—and must I lay thee low?
So long I have looked out from thy dear eye!
Ears that have brought me song, and willing hands,
And feet that carried me to pleasant fields—
Shall dust claim all, and must I say good-bye?
Godspeed!”
The body speaks:
“Sister o’ mine—I go from whence I came,
Perchance to bloom again, or if required,
When time is ripe, to house another soul.
Thou art more wise than I, yet recketh not,
Oh, soul o’ mine, that I at last am tired!
Godspeed!”
Southern Woman’s Magazine Jane Belfield
AT THE END OF THE ROAD
This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,{142}—
Nothing to lose or to gain.
Here by the road at the end o’ the year,
Let us sit down and drink of our beer,
Happy-Go-Lucky and her Cavalier,
Out in the wind and the rain.
Now we are old, hey, isn’t it fine,
Out in the wind and the rain?
Now we have nothing, why snivel and whine?
What would it bring us again?
When I was young I took you like wine,
Held you and kissed you and thought you divine—
Happy-Go-Lucky, the habit’s still mine,
Out in the wind and the rain.
Oh, my old Heart, what a life we have led,
Out in the wind and the rain!
How we have drunken and how we have fed!
Nothing to lose or to gain.
Cover the fire now; get we to bed.
Long is the journey and far has it led.
Come, let us sleep, lass, sleep like the dead,
Out in the wind and the rain.
The Bellman Madison Cawein
PATH FLOWER
A red-cap sang in Bishop’s wood,
A lark o’er Golder’s lane,
As I the April pathway trod
Bound west for Willesden.
At foot each tiny blade grew big
And taller stood to hear,
And every leaf on every twig
Was like a little ear.{143}
As I too paused, and both ways tried
To catch the rippling rain,—
So still, a hare kept at my side
His tussock of disdain,—
Behind me close I heard a step,
A soft pit-pat surprise,
And looking round my eyes fell deep
Into sweet other eyes;
The eyes like wells, where sun lies too,
So clear and trustful brown,
Without a bubble warning you
That here’s a place to drown.
“How many miles?” Her broken shoes
Had told of more than one.
She answered like a dreaming Muse,
“I came from Islington.”
“So long a tramp?” Two gentle nods,
Then seemed to lift a wing,
And words fell soft as willow-buds,
“I came to find the Spring.”
A timid voice, yet not afraid
In ways so sweet to roam,
As it with honey bees had played
And could no more go home.
Her home! I saw the human lair,
I heard the hucksters bawl,
I stifled with the thickened air
Of bickering mart and stall.
Without a tuppence for a ride,
Her feet had set her free.{144}
Her rags, that decency defied,
Seemed new with liberty.
But she was frail. Who would might note
That trail of hungering
That for an hour she had forgot
In wonder of the Spring.
So shriven by her joy she glowed
It seemed a sin to chat.
“A tea-shop snuggled off the road;”
Why did I think of that?
Oh, frail, so frail! I could have wept,—
But she was passing on,
And I but muddled “You’ll accept
A penny for a bun?”
Then up her little throat a spray
Of rose climbed for it must;
A wilding lost till safe it lay
Hid by her curls of rust;
And I saw modesties at fence
With pride that bore no name;
So old it was she knew not whence
It sudden woke and came;
But that which shone of all most clear
Was startled, sadder thought
That I should give her back the fear
Of life she had forgot.
And I blushed for the world we’d made,
Putting God’s hand aside,
Till for the want of sun and shade
His little children died;{145}
And blushed that I who every year
With Spring went up and down,
Must greet a soul that ached for her
With “penny for a bun!”
Struck as a thief in holy place
Whose sin upon him cries,
I watched the flowers leave her face,
The song go from her eyes.
Then she, sweet heart, she saw my rout,
And of her charity
A hand of grace put softly out
And took the coin from me.
A red-cap sang in Bishop’s wood,
A lark o’er Golder’s lane;
But I, alone, still glooming stood,
And April plucked in vain;
Till living words rang in my ears
And sudden music played:
Out of such sacred thirst as hers
The world shall be remade.
Afar she turned her head and smiled
As might have smiled the Spring,
And humble as a wondering child
I watched her vanishing.
Atlantic Monthly Olive Tilford Dargan
THE GOD-MAKER, MAN
Nevermore
Shall the shepherds of Arcady follow
Pan’s moods as he lolls by the shore
Of the mere, or lies hid in the hollow;{146}
Nevermore
Shall they start at the sound of his reed fashioned flute;
Fallen mute
Are the strings of Apollo,
His lyre and his lute;
And the lips of the Memnons are mute
Evermore;
And the gods of the North,—are they dead or forgetful,
Our Odin and Baldur and Thor?
Are they drunk, or grown weary of worship and fretful,
Our Odin and Baldur and Thor?
And into what night have the Orient deities strayed?
You swart gods of the Nile, in dusk splendors arrayed,
Brooding Isis and sombre Osiris,
You were gone ere the fragile papyrus
That bragged you eternal decayed.
The avatars
But illumine their limited evens
And vanish like plunging stars;
They are fixed in the whirling heavens
No firmer than falling stars;
Brief lords of the changing soul, they pass
Like a breath from the face of a glass,
Or a blossom of summer blown shalloplike over
The clover
And tossed tides of grass.
Sink to silence the psalms and the pæans,
The shibboleths shift, and the faiths,{147}
And the temples that challenged the æons
Are tenanted only by wraiths;
Swoon to silence the cymbals and psalters,
The worship grow senseless and strange,
And the mockers ask, “Where be thy altars?”
Crying, “Nothing is changeless—but Change!”
Yea, nothing seems changeless, but Change.
And yet, through the creed wrecking years,
One story forever appears:
The tale of a City Supernal—
The whisper of Something eternal—
A passion, a hope and a vision
That people the silence with Powers;
A fable of meadows Elysian
Where Time enters not with his Hours;—
Manifold are the tale’s variations,
Race and clime ever tinting the dreams.
Yet its essence, through endless mutations,
Immutable gleams.
Deathless, though godheads be dying,
Surviving the creeds that expire,
Illogical, reason defying,
Lives that passionate, primal desire;
Insistent, persistent, forever
Man cries to the silences, “Never
Shall Death reign the lord of the soul,
Shall the dust be the ultimate goal—
I will storm the black bastions of Night!
I will tread where my vision has trod,
I will set in the darkness a light,
In the vastness, a god!”
As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds;{148}
And his gods they are shaped in his image, and mirror his needs;
And he clothes them with thunders and beauty,
He clothes them with music and fire.
Seeing not, as he bows by their altars,
That he worships his own desire;
And mixed with his trust there is terror,
And mixed with his madness is ruth,
And every man grovels in error,
Yet every man glimpses a truth.
For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true;
And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too;
For no form of a god, and no fashion
Man has made in his desperate passion
But is worthy some worship of mine;
Not too hot with a gross belief,
Nor yet too cold with pride,
I will bow me down where my brothers bow,
Humble, but open eyed.
{149}
Evening Sun Don Marquis
THE BEST POETRY OF 1914
I. TEN BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A SMALL LIBRARY.
* Certain volumes of new poetry and collected editions are
drawn to the individual reader’s notice by an asterisk employed to
indicate special poetic distinction.
* The East I Know. By Paul Claudel. Translated from the French by
Teresa Frances and William Rose Benét. (Yale University Press: $1.25
net.) A volume of prose poems by one of the greatest poets living in the
world to-day. Although Paul Claudel is unknown to English readers, his
influence is the strongest shaping force there is on the young poetry of
most European countries. This volume is as much of a literary event as
the publication of John Synge’s first volume in this country. I know of
no living writer of whom we may more confidently predict immortality for
his work. The present volume reveals the soul of China in wonderful
strophes, and though perhaps the slightest of Claudel’s books, is the
volume by which Claudel may be most fittingly introduced to the American
public. If any reader can set down this volume without realizing that a
great new force in literature and life has been born into the world, he
is incapable of imaginative appreciation.
* The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime. By Emily Dickinson. (Little,
Brown, & Co.: $1.25 net.) A new volume by one of the world’s great
spiritual artists, which contains much poetry that is imperishable as an
integral part of American literature. With Blake’s naked uncompromising
vision, and his absorption in the eternal shadows of mortality, she has
a personal and fragrant beauty of feeling and expression which is unique
and incomparable. Her verses are like flashes of lightning illumining
the chaos of our material existence. The Single Hound is the rich
legacy of a great spiritual imagination. There are few books in American
poetry of which we can more confidently predict immortality.
* Collected Poems. By Norman Gale. (Macmillan: $1.50 net.) The poet’s
choice of the lyrics and longer poems by which he wishes to be
definitely remembered. Indispensable to every library. No poet since the
Elizabethans has managed to convey such an infectious joy into pastoral
poetry, and the best of these poems are permanent treasure{150} trove for
the anthologist. Such a volume as this would alone dignify a season.
* Georgian Poetry. Edited by E. M. (Putnam: $1.50 net.) A superb
collection of representative poems by the younger English writers who
have won their reputation in the last four or five years. This book,
which has gone through nine English editions already, should meet with
as great success in this country. Here, and here only, will you find the
authentic younger singers adequately represented by hitherto unpublished
work. If this volume introduces Rupert Brooke and Lascelles Abercrombie
to America, it will have done our literature a service great enough to
justify its publication.
* The Congo and Other Poems. By Vachel Lindsay. (Macmillan: $1.25
net.) A new volume of verse by Mr. Lindsay, whose first book was the
most significant publication in American poetry last year. While this
book does not mark an advance, many of the poems written to be chanted
aloud fully sustain the poet’s reputation, and the volume is graced with
a selection of the best and less strident of the Rhymes to be Traded
for Bread. As the poetic interpreter of the Middle West, Mr. Lindsay is
performing a great social service, as well as a great service to poetry
by bringing it into the homes and hearts of the people. The Firemen’s
Ball and I Heard Immanuel Singing have qualities of permanence, and
in the former Mr. Lindsay has perfected a new medium of poetic
expression. But we are in danger of losing sight of Mr. Lindsay’s more
delicate talent by virtue of which he is preëminently a poet
* The Present Hour: A Book of Poems. By Percy MacKaye. (Macmillan:
$1.25 net.) The poems dealing with the present war reaffirm Mr. MacKay’s
authority of utterance, and the best of the sonnets surpass William
Watson’s “The Purple East.” But it is in “Fight” and “School” that the
poet has at last found himself and invented a medium admirably fitted to
express what he desires. These two poems have all the distinction of
Masefield with the originality and shrewdness of New England feeling,
and a homeliness which is unique in contemporary poetry. The volume
includes many poems of occasion, all adequate, and in the case of
“Goethals” and one or two others, noble. So far, Mr. MacKaye’s best
volume of poems.{151}
* The Complete Poems of S. Weir Mitchell. (Century Co.: $2.00 net.)
The definitive edition of Dr. Mitchell’s poetry revised according to his
final wishes. It should serve to make known to the present generation
the graceful contemplative poetry of that rival to America’s other
distinguished physician-poet, Dr. Holmes. Dr. Mitchell’s poems of
occasion at their best are equal to the best of Dr. Holmes, while his
“Ode to a Lycian Tomb” surpasses “The Chambered Nautilus.” It is one of
the anomalies of literature that Dr. Mitchell’s novels have so long
overshadowed his poetry. In this volume the best of his dramatic work is
included, and “Drake” is a play of poetic distinction in its way. The
volume may rest pleasantly with its peers on the same library shelf with
the poems of Longfellow and Holmes. It is the harvest of sixty years
devoted to poetry.
* Songs for the New Age. By James Oppenheim. (Century Co.: $1.25
net.) The most significant volume of new poetry of the year 1914, as
Vachel Lindsay’s General William Booth Enters Into Heaven was the most
significant volume of 1913. With more self-conscious art than Whitman,
in the verse form which Whitman was once thought to have perfected, Mr.
Oppenheim sings the joys and sorrows of the race now and to come. The
vision of these poems is swift and sure: their philosophy, mature and
American. If there is one volume of verse this year which we might
safely recommend to every American man and woman who has not read poetry
before, it is this book, where they will find their dreams and strivings
sung and interpreted in a book which has qualities of greatness. The
form of these poems is so difficult to shape perfectly that Mr.
Oppenheim’s technical achievement can only be characterized as masterly.
The volume is the only one in which the use of “polyrhythmic verse” can
claim complete justification since Leaves of Grass, and its art is as
individual as its matter. Songs for the New Age may reaffirm much of
Whitman, but they do not echo him. The volume will prove more and more
satisfying with each rereading. And its message to the American people
may not pass unheeded.
* The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems. By Henry Van Dyke. (Scribner:
$1.25 net.) Poetry of the quality familiar to Dr. Van Dyke’s readers,
and fully equal to the poetry in his earlier volumes. To the more
serious{152} poems are added several delightfully humorous poems of
occasion, among which Ars Agricolaris is a classic of its kind.
* The Flight, and Other Poems. By George Edward Woodberry. (Macmillan
$1.25 net.) Mr. Woodberry’s finest volume of verse, in which he gives
expression to many moods of intellectual beauty and a philosophy of the
ideal akin to Shelley. It contains one lyric, Comrades, absolutely
peerless and worthy to be set beside Browning’s The Guardian Angel, if
it does not surpass it. These poems are the fruit of a ripe culture and
a passionate idealism thoroughly American in its voicing of its message.
One of the most completely satisfying volumes of the year.
II. TWENTY-FIVE BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A LARGER LIBRARY.
The List of ten books printed above and the following fifteen
titles:—
* In Deep Places. By Amelia Josephine Burr. (Doran: $1.00 net.) Fine
dramatic monologues and narrative poems, which represent a great advance
over Miss Burr’s previous book. Jehane is a worthy sequel to The
Haystack in the Floods by William Morris. Allah is With the Patient
and other narrative poems are related in a blank verse of firm yet
varied texture. Miss Burr’s dramatic imagination interprets Italy and
England in human terms, and travel has afforded her lyric opportunities
to which she has responded sensitively and well. With this volume Miss
Burr has come to stay.
* The Little King. By Witter Bynner. (Kennerley: $.60 net.) A stark
one-act play in verse of swift sure dramatic nerve about the little son
of Marie Antoinette. With great economy of material and vivid historic
imagination, Mr. Bynner has made The Little King human and poignant in
his brief little tragedy.
* Earth Deities, and Other Rhythmic Masques. By Bliss Carman and Mary
Perry King. (Kennerley: $1.50 net.) Four masques of earth with Mr.
Carman’s old familiar lyric quality directed into fresh and living
channels. Each of them would afford a rare delight to an audience,
particularly if accompanied by the rhythmic dances which have been
designed for them by Mary Perry King.{153}
* Poetical Works. By Edward Dowden. In two volumes. (Dutton: $4.00
net.) A permanent and integral part of English literature. It is
gratifying to find tardy justice done at last to the merits of the late
Professor Dowden as a poet. Those who care for the work of Mr. Woodberry
will find the same qualities in Dowden’s poetry, but in a larger and
more authoritative voice. Moreover, he is one of the great nineteenth
century sonneteers. His many hymns to intellectual beauty have not an
undistinguished line in them, and as a lyric poet his singing quality is
infectious. This is the first edition of his poems since 1876, and
contains many which have never been collected before. The second volume
is a pleasant translation of Goethe’s, The West Eastern Divan. It will
not greatly interest admirers of Prof. Dowden’s work, and should be sold
separately.
* Borderlands and Thoroughfares. By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
(Macmillan: $1.25 net.) Mr. Gibson’s fourth volume in three years.
Though not equal to his earlier books, it will well repay the lover of
poetry. The first section, entitled Borderlands consists of three
dramatic dialogues in free verse which aim with some success to be
simple, sensuous, and passionate. Hoops is one of Mr. Gibson’s most
satisfactory poems. The second section, entitled Thoroughfares
comprises shorter poems, many of which are dramatic monologues, and of
these Solway Ford and The Gorse represent Mr. Gibson’s best. As we
have said elsewhere, Mr. Gibson’s art “satisfies our æsthetic emotions
and fulfils our social needs.”
* Aroun’ the Boreens: A Little Book of Celtic Verse. By Agnes I.
Hanrahan. (Badger: $1.00 net.) A slight volume of Irish songs equal to
the very best by Eva Gore-Booth or Mrs. Hinkson, and tipped with a more
delicate art. The volume should be on every shelf beside Moira O’Neill’s
Songs of the Glens of Antrim.
* The Cry of Youth. By Harry Kemp. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.) Terse
ringing ballads of modern life with much of Buchanan’s quality and keen
technique. Despite the propagandist note, which is less insistent than
in most poetry of a socialistic tendency, Mr. Kemp has succeeded with
some quiet reserve in making the reader feel the pity of lonely outcast
life, and in expressing his philosophy in genuine poetry. The sincerity
of his work is unquestionable, and the volume merits a critical
attention on its{154} merits which we should be anxious to assist. The Cry
of Youth is not written solely for an audience of poets and critics. It
is genuine poetry of cruelly naked emotion borne unflinchingly.
* Songs of the Dead End. By Patrick MacGill. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.)
Poetry of labor and poetry without a brief in about equal measure.
Though the former is fine, Mr. MacGill’s best work is to be found in the
latter. The poet has been a navvy, a miner, a switchman, a car-coupler,
a tramp, and a plate-layer, and out of grinding poverty and toil his
poetry has emerged. There is danger of a wrong emphasis on his social
poetry. It is good, but not better than that of several others. The less
premeditated lyrics will give the greatest pleasure to the reader, and
to many of them one will turn again and again.
* Philip the King, and Other Poems. By John Masefield. (Macmillan:
$1.25 net.) A one-act play in verse which is competent but would not be
distinctive were it not for a superb ballad of the Armada, which
challenges comparison with Drayton. Four other poems of strong beauty
which redeem the rest of the volume, and make it necessary to poetry
lovers. The notable war-poem entitled August, 1914, is included.
* The Wine-Press: A Tale of War. By Alfred Noyes. (Stokes: $.60 net.)
A tale of the horror of war and its blind futility, whose scene is laid
in the Balkans. It is told with all of Mr. Noyes’s art and its awful
lesson should be particularly timely in the midst of the present
struggle. The poem is a hymn to liberty passionately voiced, and brings
death and suffering home in relentless poetry.
* Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. By Morris Rosenfeld. Translated
from the Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. (Badger: $.75
net.) An excellent translation of the poems of an American Yiddish poet
of poignant beauty, whose work has hitherto not been accessible to
English readers except in an incomplete prose version. The present
translation includes many poems now published for the first time, and is
adorned with two remarkable illustrations in black and white which
reveal new possibilities in line. A volume which deserves to go through
many editions.
* Poems. By Clinton Scollard. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) A
selection of Mr. Scollard’s best poems from his{155} numerous volumes. It
should serve to define his place in American poetry, which is beside Mr.
Cawein. Delicate fancy and a love of nature which is not vague are
united to an opulence of expression which has not always done Mr.
Scollard service, but which in almost every poem in this volume results
in giving the pleasure of fine poetic sensation to the discriminating
reader.
Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time. (Lane: $.75 net.) A
collection of the best poems by English poets inspired by the war,
issued for the benefit of the Prince of Wales Fund. The total profits of
the volume are turned over to this fund for relief work, and the
purchaser will not only procure a volume whose significance will be more
and more realised as time passes, but will be contributing in small
measure to this charitable work.
* Challenge. By Louis Untermeyer. (Century Co.: $1.00 net) One of the
most significant new volumes of the year. With much of Shelley’s social
enthusiasm and a genuine inspiration, he sings the strength and weakness
of our democracy with the eagerness of youth. This is a volume whose
significance will grow as the years go by, and it should be associated
with Mr. Oppenheim’s new volume on which comment will be found
elsewhere. Although democracy is the substance of his song, yet the
feeling for beauty’s essence which here finds lyrical expression is the
most substantially satisfying quality of his work.
III. SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF SIGNIFICANT BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A LARGE
LIBRARY
* Earth Triumphant, and Other Tales in Verse. By Conrad Aiken.
(Macmillan: $1.25 net.) Three narrative poems of distinction, followed
by shorter poems interpreting the philosophy of youth. They suggest
comparison with the longer poems of John Masefield, but have a firm
independent technique of their own. With genuine beauty they relate
tales which reveal the heart of modern life in various phases of youth,
and contain a reading of earth which differs in essentials from that of
Meredith. The volume deserves a wider audience than the usual public
which cares for poetry. It has a message which every American will
appreciate, and if it helps to spread an{156} interest in poetry among new
circles of readers, it will only be fulfilling its mission. It is a
distinguished first book of verse.
Poems. By Walter Conrad Arensberg. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.00 net.) The
most artistic volume of poetry this year in its technique. Aloofness,
controlled emotion, conscious art, are the characteristics of his
poetry. Despite an occasional bizarrerie, despite echoes of Verlaine
and Laforgue, Mr. Arensberg is a classicist. His technique is faultless.
Each line is not only exquisite in itself, but it is perfectly
coördinated with every other line. If these poems leave the reader cold,
they offer an abundant intellectual compensation for the “thrills” of
other poets. The special qualities of his verse are unique in American
poetry, and will surely appeal to a discriminating circle, though his
work is unlikely to become popular.
The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont. Edited by Eloise Robinson.
(Houghton-Mifflin: $5.00 net.) An authoritative text of Joseph
Beaumont’s minor poems edited from a manuscript in the possession of
Professor George Herbert Palmer. The poems are preceded by a critical
introduction and followed by a brief but careful textual apparatus.
While Beaumont was a very minor poet, the fact remains that he was a
significant member of the group of metaphysical poets of whom Vaughan
was the greatest, and this volume must take its place in any collection
of English poetry which claims to be even reasonably complete.
The Falconer of God, and Other Poems. By William Rose Benét. (Yale
University Press: $1.25 net.) Mr. Benét’s second collection marks an
advance in facility combined with a greater restraint and reticence. It
includes many fine ballads, and several dramatic soliloquies only
surpassed this year by those in Miss Burr’s new volume. Although there
is much which is experimental in the book, it is successful experiment,
and Mr. Benét’s range of expression is continually broadening.
* Auguries. By Laurence Binyon. (Lane: $1.00 net.) One of the most
satisfying collections of verse of a noteworthy poet who is too little
known and appreciated in this country. Its grave classical beauty will
never assure it popularity, but at its best it is worthy to stand beside
Mr. Bridges, and it contains no poem that is not excellent. Ferry
Hinksey is a lyric which no future anthologist{157} can overlook. Next to
Mr. Arensberg’s poems, the most satisfying new volume artistically of
the year. It demands silence and complete surrender.
Broad-Sheet Ballads. With An Introduction by Padraic Colum. (Norman,
Remington: $.75 net.) A narrow, but good, selection of the best of the
Broad-Sheet Ballads which occupy so definite a place in Irish poetry.
These waifs and strays have been gathered previously in various
collections, but never before in a volume calculated to appeal to the
general public. An introduction telling the story of this form of art
and the characteristics of its audiences and appeal to them is prefixed.
* Syrinx: Pastels of Hellas. By Mitchell S. Buck. (Claire-Marie:
$1.25 net.) A volume of prose poems of reticent Pagan art, suggestive of
the best work of Pierre Louys. Unique in American poetry, and really
beautiful.
In the High Hills. By Maxwell Struthers Burt. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25
net.) The verse in this volume is of a kind that has eminent qualities
without eminent distinction. The earnestness and sincerity of Mr. Burt’s
poetic moods give to his poetry those sound qualities which at least
compel attention, if they do not excite the emotions. The elements of
poetry are not fused with imaginative heat in his work, and hence it
lacks magic, but it reflects the gentlemanly feeling of a lover of
poetry in verse which demands respect.
The Sun-Thief, and Other Poems. By Rhys Carpenter. (Oxford University
Press: $1.75 net.) Competent academic verse on classical models,
including a new version of the Prometheus legend.
The Poet and Nature: What He Saw and What He Heard. By Madison Cawein.
(John P. Morton & Co.: Louisville, Kentucky. $1.50.) A volume of prose
and verse designed to encourage a love of poetry in children. The first
half of the volume is in the form of a juvenile story with previously
published lyrics of Mr. Cawein interspersed as examples of poetic
beauty: the second half of the volume consists of hitherto uncollected
poems of nature by Mr. Cawein now gathered together under the title of
The Morning Road. This part of the volume should give especial
pleasure to Mr. Cawein’s readers.
Green Days and Blue Days. By Patrick R. Chalmers. (Norman, Remington:
$1.00 net.) A pleasant volume of light verse by a contributor to
Punch. The verses do not{158} pretend to be more than agreeable
diversions, and reflect the lighter moods of life happily and in
delicate numbers.
At the Shrine, and Other Poems. By George Herbert Clarke. (Stewart and
Kidd: $1.25 net.) A pleasant unassuming collection of somewhat academic
verse reflecting a life of scholarly leisure. The closing section of
letters in verse to departed novelists is particularly happy, recalling
at no great distance the similar work of Austin Dobson.
* Path Flower. By Olive Tilford Dargan. (Scribner: $1.25 net.) With
this volume of lyrical poems Olive Tilford Dargan definitely takes her
place as one of our foremost younger poets. With much of Francis
Thompson’s vision of an overarching heaven and a shadowed earth, and
also much of Thompson’s mannerism, she is herself in the best of these
poems, in which she treats high themes with high artistic fervor. Her
feeling for landscape is English in its delicacy, and she has
interpreted the influence of nature on human life and its incidence with
clear insight and sympathy. No one will deny Mrs. Dargan’s poetic
inspiration or the refinement of her vision.
Florence on a Certain Night, and Other Poems. By Coningsby Dawson.
(Holt: $1.25 net.) A volume of undistinguished literary verse by a
distinguished novelist.
* America and Other Poems. By W. J. Dawson. (Lane: $1.25 net.) The
expression of an ideal America as seen by one with an alien tradition.
The volume includes several fine ballad narratives, notably “The Kiss,”
“Salome,” and the swift sure rhythmic “Last Ride of the Sheik Abdullah;”
above all, “Blake’s Homecoming,” a member of the royal line of English
ballads. In addition to competent lyrics on various themes, special
attention should be called to the poems of childhood and the delicately
imagined meditative poems of religious feeling. So many religious poems
rely wholly on a good intention, “more fit to pave Hell than cause
rejoicing in Heaven,” as a French critic says, that exceptions should be
noted. The volume marks an appreciable advance over Dr. Dawson’s
previous collections.
A Pageant of the Thirteenth Century for the Seven Hundredth Anniversary
of Roger Bacon. The Text by John Erskine. (Columbia University Press.)
A pageant reflecting the culture and endeavor of the thirteenth century
in every field. The text is in verse of fine tex{159}ture and imaginative
expression by Professor Erskine of Columbia University. While the
pageant itself has been deferred because of the war, it is still
possible to enjoy the text, and to look forward to the pageant’s
representation in the near future.
Lux Juventutis: A Book of Verse. By Katharine A. Esdaile.
(Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) The first volume of a young English poet
who shows considerable promise. It is characterised by classical
restraint and a fine feeling for form, and does not lack singing
quality.
* Sonnets from the Patagonian. By Donald Evans. (Claire-Marie: $1.25
net.) Eighteen impressionistic sonnets of exotic workmanship, suggesting
the fantasy of Laforgue, but more extremely composed in disembodied
words. They rely on tone color for much of their effect, and are bizarre
to the point of irony. However, they grow on the reader as he becomes
familiar with them, and their consummate art is unquestionable.
* Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter. By Arthur Davison Ficke. (Kennerley:
$1.00 net.) A sequence of fifty-seven sonnets in an undeservedly
neglected form, which do not recall too definitely Meredith’s Modern
Love. They are extremely subtle and their intellectual content is very
closely woven, so that they will prove difficult reading, but they repay
careful study, and in many sonnets the lyric impulse has happily
overmastered the poet completely. A collection which is worthy of
several readings.
* Arrows in the Gale. By Arturo Giovannitti. (Hillacre Bookhouse,
Riverside, Connecticut: $1.25 net.) One of the more important volumes of
new verse this year. A passionate voicing of social injustice in
imaginative strophes, which introduce a new poetic form with
considerable art. The Cage, when printed in the Atlantic Monthly, last
year, was called the most significant poem published in that periodical
since Moody’s Ode in Time of Hesitation. The volume claims a hearing
as fine poetry rather than as an expression of Syndicalism. There is an
appreciative introduction by Helen Keller which is good criticism.
* My Lady’s Book. By Gerald Gould. (Kennerley: $1.00 net.) Twenty
lyrics of pure song quality which are almost faultless in their
perfection, though in a minor key. A volume to afford pure delight by
its unaffected lyric quality.{160}
Poems. By Katharine Howard. (Sherman, French: $1.00 net.) Minor verse
in vers libre, which is frequently pleasing and always individual. It
is the expression of a whimsical personality who wears her singing robes
lightly, and who is most successful in verse of macabre suggestion.
* Des Imagistes: An Anthology. (Boni: $1.00.) The best collection of
“imagiste” poetry, in which the work of Ford Madox Hueffer, F. S. Flint,
Amy Lowell, and others is represented. There are many poems in the
volume which will give pleasure, but as a collection it is uneven and
rather tenuous. The work of F. S. Flint which it contains justifies the
volume’s purchase.
The Thresher’s Wife. By Harry Kemp. (Boni: $.40 net.) A narrative poem
well told in the manner of Masefield, whose influence upon it has been
great.
* Trees, and Other Poems. By Joyce Kilmer. (Doran: $1.00 net.) The
spirit of youth and grave faith expressed in lyric numbers. This slight
little book defines a personality of poetic interest. The book shows
less alien influence than most recent American poetry, and is quite
individual in its affirmations. Though unassuming, the book will not
meet with just treatment unless we recognize the fine lyric
accomplishment of such poems as Trees and Martin. Is this volume the
prelude of a little Catholic Renaissance in American poetry?
* The Shadow of Ætna. By Louie V. Ledoux. (Putnam: $1.00 net.)
Severely chaste poetry on classical models of distinguished beauty. They
reveal fine intellectual feeling that recalls Shelley in its intensity
and Arnold in its disciplined reticence. They have all the warmth of
life seen against an eternal background, and a passionate message which
cannot go unheeded.
* The Sharing. By Agnes Lee. (Sherman, French: $1.00 net.) Agnes
Lee’s new book has all her familiar qualities, but in addition it
presents a new criticism of life which reveals a feeling for human
values akin in many respects to that of Browning. In its brevity and
search for the polished word, it suggests the sculptor’s art, and many
of these poems would have pleased Landor for their freight of suggestion
and elemental simplicity.
* Sword Blades and Poppy Seed. By Amy Lowell. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.)
A volume, not only of interesting experiment in vers libre and exotic
rhythms, but of{161} notable accomplishment in poetry. Though associated
with the “imagiste” school of English poetry, Miss Lowell’s talent is
independent of it, and in her narrative and lyric poems alike one feels
an artistic firmness and restraint which results in clear vision clearly
sung. Best of all, this “imagiste” poetry is healthy and able to fight
for its existence. In so far as it is derivative from French influences
it adds a new note to English verse, and reveals a subtle use of free
cadenced rhythms which is fully responsive to the mood and feeling of
the poem. Far more genuine and spontaneous than Miss Lowell’s first
volume.
The Passing Singer and Other Poems. By Samuel Henry Marcus. (Stratford
Pub. Co.: $1.00 net.) A modest first volume which is likely to receive
less attention than it deserves. Mr. Marcus has not yet found himself in
poetry, but he sings the present condition of humanity sincerely and
passionately. When he sings it simply, he will be more satisfying, but
this volume will give pleasure to any one who really cares for poetry.
* Poems. By Edward Sandford Martin. (Scribner: $1.50 net.) The
collected verse of the Editor of Life. Mellow Horatian philosophy and
wit not yet frost-bitten by a man whom Dr. Johnson would have pronounced
clubbable and with whom Boswells must feel uncomfortable.
You and I. By Harriet Monroe. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A bulky volume
of verse by the editor of Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse. In it the
social note is voiced strongly, and expression is given to many phases
of modern effort, but its intellectual content rather overshadows its
lyric quality.
* The Sea is Kind. By T. Sturge Moore. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.50 net.)
This is the first collection issued in America of the poems of an
English craftsman of great distinction and power, whose chief weakness
is an over-proportion of intellectual substance. He lacks the glow of
beauty, and perhaps of beauty’s realization, but his work is literary
craftsmanship of the highest order, and his metrical experiments are
almost as significant as those of Mr. Bridges. Altogether the artistic
product of a richly stored mind without aspiration or imaginative
vision.
* Saloon Sonnets: With Sunday Flutings. By Allen Norton.
(Claire-Marie: $1.25 net.) A volume less bizarre than its title implies.
The sonnets bear evidence of ueberkultur, but occasionally surprise
the reader by their pleas{162}ant lyric charm. They do not lack virility and
enthusiasm.
The Sister of the Wind. By Grace Fallow Norton. (Houghton-Mifflin:
$1.00 net.) A new volume by the author of Little Gray Songs from St.
Joseph’s which is most disappointing. In a poet of Miss Norton’s
quality, it is inevitable that there should be always something to repay
the reader, but this volume is singularly unrepresentative of Miss
Norton’s real powers.
Celtic Memories. By Norreys Jephson O’Conor. (Lane: $1.00 net.) A
first volume of some promise by a recent graduate of Harvard, whose
Irish feeling is drawn directly from experience, but whose expression is
still drawn chiefly from books.
* The Ebon Muse and Other Poems by Léon Laviaux. Englished by John
Myers O’Hara. (Smith and Sale: $2.00 net.) Translations from the work
of a young Creole poet, glorifying the “fille de couleur” in love poetry
of original beauty. Differing from Latin and Oriental passion alike, it
reveals a type of feminine beauty which is wholly new to Northern
readers.
* An Epilogue To the Praise of Angus and Other Poems. By Seumas
O’Sullivan. (Norman, Remington Co.: $.75 net.) A thin sheaf of delicate
poems by one of the foremost poets of the New Ireland. Akin in certain
aspects of his vision to “Æ,” who does not surpass him, his verses have
more singing quality, and he is a successful experimenter in various new
verse forms which reproduce cadences in ancient Irish music.
* One Woman to Another, and Other Poems. By Corinne Roosevelt
Robinson. (Scribner: $1.25 net.) Dramatic monologues and sonnets of
sharply etched lines whose competence is unquestionable, and a more
satisfying reality of human feeling than in Mrs. Robinson’s previous
volume. The volume will give much intellectual and some emotional
pleasure, and in two or three lyrics the poet has achieved high ground.
* Beyond the Breakers, and other Poems. By George Sterling.
(Robertson: $1.25 net.) This is Mr. Sterling’s first thoroughly
satisfying book. It includes the superb “Ode on the Centenary of the
Birth of Robert Browning,” and poems of such importance as “Tidal, King
of Nations,” “Willy Pitcher,” “The Mission Swallows,” “Past the Panes,”
and “You Never Can Tell.” We must call{163} particular attention to the
vision of the noble ode entitled “Beyond the Sunset.” With less opulent
diction and heady imagination than Mr. Sterling’s earlier volumes,
Beyond the Breakers shows a disciplined vision expressed with a
disciplined technique.
Open Water. By Arthur Stringer. (Lane: $1.00 net) A collection of
delicate pictures expressing many frail and drifting moods phrased in
vers libre not yet quite sure of itself. The volume contains much
quiet beauty, and is prefaced by a plea for vers libre of considerable
documentary and critical value. A volume which the lover of poetry can
scarcely neglect.
Idylls of Greece. Third Series. By Howard V. Sutherland. (Fitzgerald:
$1.00 net) Modest idylls of Greek fable telling with some passages of
beauty the tales of “Idas and Marpessa,” “Rhodanthe,” “Sappho and
Phaon,” and “Œnone.” The blank verse, though not firm, is of
well-wrought texture, and Mr. Sutherland expresses feelingly the
fleeting beauty of Pagan love and Hellenic landscape. Mr. Sutherland’s
three volumes merit more attention than they have received.
The Poems of François Villon. Translated by H. De Vere Stacpoole.
(Lane: $1.50 net) A convenient edition of Villon’s best work, in which a
reasonably accurate text of the two Testaments and the best of the
Ballades and Rondels is printed, together with a running commentary, a
vivid introduction, and translations of some of the shorter poems with
dubious success. However, the volume is the best popular service to
Villon that has yet been performed in this country, and should be on the
library shelf.
* Little Verse for a Little Clan. By F.D.W. (Published Privately: Not
for Sale.) A slight little volume of thirty-five pages of delicate
workmanship, which contain poems that make the book rank among the very
best of the year. I know of very few books written by Americans which
would afford the pleasure to discriminating readers that this volume
would offer were it to be published in a form accessible to all. It is
as delicate, at its best, as Beeching and Mackail’s Love in Idleness,
and will please all lovers of A Shropshire Lad. It is just the sort of
book which Mr. Mosher used to delight in finding for the American
public. I shall be glad to give further information about it to
inquirers.
Eris: A Dramatic Allegory. By Blanche Shoemaker{164} Wagstaff. (Moffat,
Yard, and Co.: $1.00 net.) A short dramatic allegory in which the
elements of poetry are present, but which is hardly successful in fusing
them into life. There are several pages of genuine poetry which prove
the certainty of the poet’s ultimate accomplishment, and much competent
craftsmanship. This is an honest book, whose weakness is that the
imagination of the reader has no suggestive substance to feed upon.
Justification: A Philosophic Phantasy. By John H. White. (Richard G.
Badger: $1.00.) A poem in four short cantos and though philosophic in
conception is full of abstract idealisms. The author has a fruitful
imagination, but his reasoning on the origin and destiny of human life
is profound. The verse, though concrete, is flexible.
* The Collected Poems of Margaret L. Woods. (Lane: $1.50 net.) The
definitive edition of the poetry and drama of a great weaver of words
and emotion, who unites to much of Lionel Johnson’s repressed sombreness
a sustained beauty of musical effect which was characteristic of the
earlier poet. Mrs. Woods has performed for Oxford the poetic service
that Johnson performed for Winchester, and in other poems has added new
immortalities to Westminster Abbey’s crown. The plays are finely wrought
and deeply felt, and together with the lyrics, place Mrs. Woods in the
authentic English poetic line.
LIST OF “DISTINCTIVE POEMS,” THEIR AUTHORS, AND THE MAGAZINES IN WHICH
THEY APPEARED
Century—
The River. John Masefield.
Hope. Oliver Herford.
The Poet Rebukes His Flatterers. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
To Arms. Louis Untermeyer.
The Crucible. Robert Haven Schauffler.
To My Baby Hilda. Grace Hazard Conkling.
Love’s Lantern. Joyce Kilmer.
To My Little Son. Pauline Florence Brower.
Menace. George Sterling.{165}
On Hans Christian Andersen’s “Snow Queen.” William Rose Benét.
The Redwing. Bliss Carman.
El Greco Paints His Masterpiece. Thomas Walsh.
The Last Shrine. Richard Le Gallienne.
The Gaoler. Helen Gray Cone.
Summons. Louis Untermeyer.
O My Love Leonore. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
Three Poplars. Witter Bynner.
The Feast of the Gods. William Rose Benét.
Landscapes. Louis Untermeyer.
Patterns. James Oppenheim.
A Handful of Dust. James Oppenheim.
We Dead. James Oppenheim.
Lights Through the Mist. William Rose Benét.
The Flirt. Amelia Josephine Burr.
A Birthnight Candle. John Finley.
All Souls’ Night. Gertrude Huntington McGiffert.
“I Shall Go to Love Again.” Margaret Widdemer.
Prinzip. Cale Young Rice.
Harper’s—
The Look. Sara Teasdale.
Afterward. Charles Hanson Towne.
Old Friend. Richard Le Gallienne.
The Pool. Mary White Slater.
Night Song at Amalfi. Sara Teasdale.
Exile. Alice Duer Miller.
The Laggard Song. Richard Le Gallienne.
A Face at Christmas. Dana Burnet.
The Glory of the Grass. Claire Wallace Flynn.
Ships. John Masefield.
Scribner’s—
Student’s Song. Robert Louis Stevenson.
With Walton in Angle-Land. Robert Gilbert Welsh.
Reprieve. Charlotte Wilson.
Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Pembroke: A Ballad from Froissart. E. Sutton.
The Gift of God. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Swimming by Night. Alice Blaine Damrosch.
How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim. Henry van Dyke.
The Trodden Way. Martha Haskell Clark.{166}
Old Fairingdown. Olive Tilford Dargan.
The Summons. William Rose Benét.
Solace. Walter Malone.
In the “Zoo.” George T. Marsh.
The Pipes of the North. E. Sutton.
The Regents’ Examination. Jessie Wallace Hughan.
If You Should Cease to Love Me. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
Desert Song. John Galsworthy.
The Drum. E. Sutton.
Another Dark Lady. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
The Forum—
The Song of the Women. Florence Kiper.
The Song of the Wind. John Allan Wyeth, Jr.
Pilgrimage. Laura Campbell.
The Cry of Woman. Victor Starbuck.
The Man on the Hill-top. Arthur Davison Ficke.
Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter, A Sequence (57 Sonnets). Arthur Davison Ficke.
Interim. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Prophet. Lyman Bryson.
The Two Flames. Eloise Briton.
The Shroud. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Cardinal’s Garden, Villa Albani. Witter Bynner.
Sorrow. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Phi Beta Kappa Poem: Harvard, 1914. Bliss Carman.
The Bellman—
The Ancient Sacrifice. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
“Funere Mersit Acerbo.” Ruth Shepard Phelps.
At the End of the Road. Madison Cawein.
In the Roman Forum. Amelia Josephine Burr.
Winner of Second. Witter Bynner.
Foretaste. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Symbol. Richard Burton.
A Lynmouth Widow. Amelia Josephine Burr.
The Coquette. Witter Bynner.
The Closed Book. Madison Cawein.
Jewel-Weed. Florence Earle Coates.
Charwomen. James Norman Hall.
The Dynamo. Jane Belfield.
Sentinels. Witter Bynner.{167}
The Master-Poet. Theresa V. Beard.
Out of Babylon. Clinton Scollard.
To a Phœbe-Bird. Witter Bynner.
The Lame Child. Amelia Josephine Burr.
The Dead Friend. Margaret Widdemer.
The Dear Adventurer. Richard Burton.
Idols. Richard Burton.
Shakespeare. Witter Bynner.
If You Should Tire of Loving Me. Margaret Widdemer.
Smart Set—
New York. Edwin Davies Schoonmaker.
Old Poets. Joyce Kilmer.
Variations on a Classic Theme. Louis Untermeyer.
The Ballad of St. John of Nepomuk. George Sterling.
The Reporter—An Assignment. Paul Scott Mowrer.
Bewilderment. Victor Starbuck.
The Hunting of Dian. George Sterling.
The Rebuke. John Myers O’Hara.
The Friend at Sardis. John Myers O’Hara.
Lassitude. John Myers O’Hara.
Ablution. John Myers O’Hara.
Wine of the World. John Hall Wheelock.
The Awakening. Aloysius Coll.
The Weed’s Counsel. Bliss Carman.
Rarer than Comets. Witter Bynner.
Villanelle of Vision. Willard Huntington Wright.
Ballad of Two Seas. George Sterling.
Manhood. Willard A. Wattles.
The Country of the Young. Donn Byrne.
The Twelve-Forty-Five. Joyce Kilmer.
You Never Can Tell. George Sterling.
Pas de Trois. Bliss Carman and Mary Perry King.
The Mule Driver. Henry Herbert Knibbs.
Narcissus. Robert Bridges.
The Poet Returns. Victor B. Neuburg.
Consummation. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
Argosies. Victor Starbuck.
The Last Demand. Faith Baldwin.
He Went for a Soldier. Ruth Comfort Mitchell.
Books. Grace Fallow Norton.
An Old Maid. Louis Untermeyer.
Newport. Alice Duer Miller.
The Wind. Victor Starbuck.{168}
Sky Battle. Harry Kemp.
Mown Fields. Leonard Doughty.
Yale Review—
The Dying Pantheist to the Priest. Henry A. Beers.
God and the Farmer. Frederick Erastus Pierce.
Ash Wednesday. John Erskine.
The Mirror. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
Young Eden. Witter Bynner.
Surety. Witter Bynner.
Evening. Charlotte Wilson.
Desire of Fame. Charlotte Wilson.
The Tramp’s Refusal. Vachel Lindsay.
Interval. Lee Wilson Dodd.
Lippincott’s—
The Forsaken Seaport. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Good Snow-Flake. Richard Kirk.
When Darkness Covered the Earth. Caroline Giltiman.
Moon-Glint. Jane Belfield.
The Winding Lane. Ethel Hallet Porter.
Click o’ the Latch. Nancy Byrd Turner.
Dawn. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
As Days Go Down the West. Marion Manville.
A Coin of Lesbos. Sarah M. B. Piatt
The International—
The Anarchist. Zoë Akins.
Jasmines. David Morton.
To Anna Pavlowa Dancing. Joel Elias Spingarn.
The Captive. Blanche Shoemaker Waggstaff.
Still-Born. Faith Baldwin.
The Garden at Troutbeck. Joel Elias Spingarn.
Regret for Atthis. John Myers O’Hara.
A Bazaar by the Sea. Witter Bynner.
The Fireflies of Sumida. Ethel Morse Pool.
In Memoriam: Jean Moréas, 1856-1910. William Aspenwall Bradley.
Litany of Nations. William Griffith.
The Hailing Trains. Nicolas Beauduin. Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.
Hymn of Toil. Nicolas Beauduin. Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.
To My Love Child. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
{169}
The Masses—
The Masquerader. Sarah Cleghorn.
The Trappers. Wilton Agnew Barret.
The Champion. Harry Kemp.
Onward Christian Nations. Will Herford.
Poor Girl. William Rose Benét.
Comrade Jesus. Sarah Cleghorn.
Cell-Mates. Louis Untermeyer.
Grey. Lydia Gibson.
Lost Treasure. Lydia Gibson.
The Mother. Lydia Gibson.
God’s Blunder. Clement Richardson Wood.
A Question. Edmond McKenna.
Horses. Elizabeth Waddell.
The Drug Clerk. Eunice Tietjens.
Prelude. Edmond McKenna.
God and the Strong Ones. Margaret Widdemer.
Old Glory at Calumet. Joseph Warren Beach.
Them and Their Wives. Elizabeth Waddell.
The Trend—
Salome. Pitts Sanborn.
Vain Excuse. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
An Epitaph. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
The Puritans. Frank Simonds.
The Valley of Silence. Mary Farley Sanborn.
To a Garden in April. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
Green Orchids for Mænad. Donald Evans.
Stars of Paris. Donald Evans.
Une Nuit Blanche. Donald Evans.
You and Me. Mary Farley Sanborn.
To One Defending New York. Walter Prichard Eaton.
The Shadows of Desire. Donald Evans.
Portrait. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
On an Old Guitar. Wallace Stevens.
To the Necrophile. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
“Six Carried Her Away.” Djuna Chappell Barnes.
THE “BEST POEMS” CHOSEN FROM THE “DISTINCTIVE” LIST
The Look. Sara Teasdale.
The Pool. Mary White Slater.{170}
Exile. Alice Duer Miller.
The Laggard Song. Richard Le Gallienne.
A Face at Christmas. Dana Burnet.
The Glory of the Grass. Claire Wallace Flynn.
Ships. John Masefield.
New York. Edwin Davies Schoonmaker.
The Friend at Sardis. John Myers O’Hara.
Ablution. John Myers O’Hara.
The Weed’s Counsel. Bliss Carman.
Ballad of Two Seas. George Sterling.
The Twelve-Forty-Five. Joyce Kilmer.
You Never Can Tell. George Sterling.
Pas de Trois. Bliss Carman and Mary Perry King.
Delicatessen. Joyce Kilmer.
Argosies. Victor Starbuck.
The Last Demand. Faith Baldwin.
He Went for a Soldier. Ruth Comfort Mitchell.
An Old Maid. Louis Untermeyer.
Newport. Alice Duer Miller.
The Wind. Victor Starbuck.
The Maid of the Wood. Richard Butler Glaenzer.
After Hearing Tschaikowsky. Charles Hanson Towne.
The Dying Pantheist to the Priest. Henry A. Beers.
God and the Farmer. Frederick Erastus Pierce.
Ash Wednesday. John Erskine.
The Mirror. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
Young Eden. Witter Bynner.
Surety. Witter Bynner.
Evening. Charlotte Wilson.
Desire of Fame. Charlotte Wilson.
The Tramp’s Refusal. Vachel Lindsay.
Interval. Lee Wilson Dodd.
Student’s Song. Robert Louis Stevenson.
With Walton in Angle-Land. Robert Gilbert Welsh.
Reprieve. Charlotte Wilson.
Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Pembroke: A Ballad from Froissart. E. Sutton.
The Gift of God. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Swimming by Night. Alice Blaine Damrosch.
How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim. Henry van Dyke.
The Trodden Way. Martha Haskell Clark.
Old Fairingdown. Olive Tilford Dargan.
The Pipes of the North. E. Sutton.
Song. Glen Ward Dresbach.{171}
The Regents’ Examination. Jessie Wallace Hughan.
If You Should Cease to Love Me. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
Desert Song. John Galsworthy.
The Drum. E. Sutton.
Another Dark Lady. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Cradle Song. Josephine Peabody.
Sunset Balconies. Thomas Walsh.
The Song of Women. Florence Kiper Frank.
The Song of the Wind. John Allan Wyeth, Jr.
Pilgrimage. Laura Campbell.
The Cry of Woman. Victor Starbuck.
The Man on the Hilltop. Arthur Davison Ficke.
Sonnets of a Portrait Painter (A Sequence of 57 Sonnets). Arthur Davison Ficke.
Interim. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Prophet. Lyman Bryson.
The Two Flames. Eloise Briton.
The Shroud. Edna St Vincent Millay.
The Cardinal’s Garden, Villa Albania. Witter Bynner.
Sorrow. Edna St Vincent Millay.
Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard 1914. Bliss Carman.
Old Houses. Lisette Woodworth Reese.
The River. John Masefield.
The Poet Rebukes His Flatterers. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
The Crucible. Robert Haven Schauffler.
To My Baby Hilda. Grace Hasard Conkling.
Love’s Lantern. Joyce Kilmer.
To My Little Son. Pauline Florence Brower.
Menace. George Sterling.
On Hans Christian Andersen’s “Snow Queen.” William Rose Benét.
The Redwing. Bliss Carman.
El Greco Paints His Masterpiece. Thomas Walsh.
Summons. Louis Untermeyer.
O My Love Leonore. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
The Feasts of the Gods. William Rose Benét.
Landscapes. Louis Untermeyer.
Patterns. James Oppenheim.
Abide the Adventure. James Oppenheim.
The Slave. James Oppenheim.
The Lonely Child. James Oppenheim.
Folk-Hungers. James Oppenheim.
Joy of Living. James Oppenheim.{172}
A Handful of Dust. James Oppenheim.
The Woman Speaks. James Oppenheim.
The Man Speaks. James Oppenheim.
We Dead. James Oppenheim.
Lights Through the Mist. William Rose Benét.
The Flirt. Amelia Josephine Burr.
A Birthnight Candle. John Finley.
All Souls’ Night. Gertrude Huntington McGiffert.
“I Shall Go to Love Again.” Margaret Widdemer.
Prinzip. Cale Young Rice.
The Forsaken Seaport. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Good Snow-Flake. Richard Kirk.
When Darkness Covered the Earth. Caroline Giltinan.
Moon-Glint. Jane Belfield.
The Winding Lane. Ethel Hallet Porter.
Click o’ the Latch. Nancy Byrd Turner.
Dawn. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
As Days Go Down the West. Marion Manville.
A Coin of Lesbos. Sarah M. B. Platt
The Ancient Sacrifice. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
“Funere Mersit Acerbo.” Ruth Shepard Phelps.
At the End of the Road. Madison Cawein.
In the Roman Forum. Amelia Josephine Burr.
Winner of Second. Witter Bynner.
Foretaste. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Symbol. Richard Burton.
A Lynmouth Widow. Amelia Josephine Burr.
The Coquette. Witter Bynner.
The Closed Book. Madison Cawein.
Jewel-Weed. Florence Earle Coates.
Charwomen. James Norman Hall.
The Dynamo. Jane Belfield.
Sentinels. Witter Bynner.
Out of Babylon. Clinton Scollard.
To a Phoebe-Bird. Witter Bynner.
A Round. Florence Earle Coates.
The Dear Adventurer. Richard Burton.
Idols. Richard Burton.
Shakespeare. Witter Bynner.
The Anarchist. Zoë Akins.
Jasmines. David Morton.
The Exeter Road. Amy Lowell.
Regret for Atthis. John Myers O’Hara.
The Fireflies of Sumida. Ethel Morse Pool.{173}
In Memoriam: Jean Moréas, 1856-1910. William Aspenwall Bradley.
Litany of Nations. William Griffith.
The Town in Rut. Nicolas Beauduin (tr. by Edward J. O’Brien).
The Hailing Trains. Nicolas Beauduin (tr. by Edward J. O’Brien).
Modern Heaven. Nicolas Beauduin (tr. by Edward J. O’Brien).
Hymn of Toil. Nicolas Beauduin (tr. by Edward J. O’Brien).
To My Love Child. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
The Crimson Rain. John Myers O’Hara.
Hybla. John Myers O’Hara.
Funeral Epigram. John Myers O’Hara.
Messalina. John Myers O’Hara.
Cell Mates. Louis Untermeyer.
Grey. Lydia Gibson.
Lost Treasure. Lydia Gibson.
The Mother. Lydia Gibson.
A Question. Edmond McKenna.
Horses. Elizabeth Waddell.
The Drug Clerk. Eunice Tietjens.
Prelude. Edmond McKenna.
Them and Their Wives. Elizabeth Waddell.
{174}
TITLES AND AUTHORS OF ALL POEMS APPEARING IN THE MAGAZINES FOR 1914
CENTURY
January—
The River. John Masefield.
Hope. Oliver Herford.
The Dream and the Song. James D. Corrothers.
A Beethoven Andante. Grace Hazard Conkling.
Gods and Heroes of the Gael. Eleanor Rogers Cox.
The Poet Rebukes his Flatterers. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
February—
Yesterday and To-day. Alice Felicita Corey.
To Arms. Louis Untermeyer.
Helas! Charles Hanson Towne.
Fifth Avenue in Fog. James Norman Hall.
Joan. Laura Benet.
March—
The Crucible. Robert Haven Schauffler.
Of Love. Marvin Ferree.
To My Baby Hilda. Grace Hazard Conkling.
Love’s Lantern. Joyce Kilmer.
The Favorite. Anna Glen Stoddard.
April—
To My Little Son. Pauline Florence Brower.
Geronsios Oinos, Posthumous. Robert Browning.
To a Lady on the Eve of Easter. Julian Street
Menace. George Sterling.
To Poseidon of Sunium. James S. Martin.
At the Ch’en Gate. Cale Young Rice.
Ad Thaliarchum. Marvin Ferree.
May—
On Hans Christian Andersen’s “Snow Queen.” William Rose Benét.
The Redwing. Bliss Carman.
Greco Paints His Masterpiece. Thomas Walsh.
June—
The Miser. Virginia Fraser Boyle.
The Last Shrine. Richard Le Gallienne.
Pagliacci. Douglas Duer.
July—
The Gaoler. Helen Gray Cone.
Approach. Gladys Cromwell.
Under Mauna Loa. Douglas Duer.
Summons. Louis Untermeyer.
The Traitors. Anna Glen Stoddard.
August—
“O My Lore Leonore!” Fannie Stearns Gifford.
Youth Speaks to Age. Marion Couthouy Smith.
Age Calls to Youth. Marion Couthouy Smith.
Song. Brian Hooker.
The Blue Scarf. Amy Lowell.
Three Poplars. Witter Bynner.
Angels and Men. William Hervey Woods.
The Feast of the Gods. William Rose Benét.
September—
The Lagoon at Night (Venice). Grace Hazard Conkling.
Landscapes. Louis Untermeyer.
Fathers and Sons. J. G. P.
Patterns. James Oppenheim.
Abide the Adventure. James Oppenheim.
The Slave. James Oppenheim.
The Lonely Child. James Oppenheim.
Folk-Hungers. James Oppenheim.
Joy of Living. James Oppenheim.
A Handful of Dust. James Oppenheim.
The Woman Speaks. James Oppenheim.
We Dead. James Oppenheim.
October—
Lights Through the Mist. William Rose Benét.
The Merchant. Douglas Duer.
Dust. J. H. Wallace.
Number Thirteen. Ethel Talbot Scheffauer.
Time’s Vision. Norreys Jephson O’Conor.
HARPER’S
January—
The Look. Sara Teasdale.
Afterward. Charles Hanson Towne.
Wander-Lure. Edith M. Thomas.
Through the Snow. Richard Le Gallienne.
Life and Death. Martha W. Austin.
February—
Pity. Sara Teasdale.
A Later Day. Harriet Prescott Spofford.
Old Friends. Richard Le Gallienne.
After the Rain. Thomas Walsh.
March—
Treasure Trove. Lee Wilson Dodd.
The Kiss. Sara Teasdale.
The Pool. Mary White Slater.
Spent. Dorothy Paul.
April—
Night Song at Amalfi. Sara Teasdale.
May—
The Film of Life. Charles Hanson Towne.
Fog. Lisette Woodworth Reese.
A White Night. Louise Collier Willcox.
June—
The River. Louise Driscoll.
Hesperides. Sarah N. Cleghorn.
Pan. Richard Le Gallienne.
Man and Woman. Ellen M. H. Gates.
July—
Loss. David Morton.
Among the Pines. James Herbert Morse.
In Memory of a Dumb Friend. Amelia Josephine Burr.
You and I. Dora Read Goodale.
Over the Meadow. Louise Morgan Sill.
Nothing that Can Die. Florence Earle Coates.
Sorrow’s Shadow. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
August—
Enheartenment. Sarah N. Cleghorn.
September—
Exile. Alice Duer Miller.
October—
A Prayer. Julia Cooley.
The Ghosts. Scudder Middleton.
SCRIBNER’S
January—
Student Song. Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Mother. Laura Spencer Porter.
Live Thy Life. Florence Earle Coates.
The Poetry of the Future. Austin Dobson.
February—
Child, Child. Grace Fallow Norton.
With Walton in Angle-Land. Robert Gilbert Welsh.
March—
In the High Hills. Maxwell Struthers Burt.
Reprieve. Charlotte Wilson.
April—
Return. David Morton.
Night and Day. C. A. Price.
Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Pembroke. E. Sutton.
The Gift of God. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Lines Upon Reading a Garden Annual. Mildred Howells.
May—
Swimming by Night. Alice Blain Damrosch.
Pax Ultima. Victor Starbuck.
June—
How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim. Henry van Dyke.
The Trodden Way. Martha Haskell Clark.
Old Faringdown. Olive Tilford Dargan.
The Summons. William Rose Benét.
Solace. Walter Malone
The Homeward Road. Charles Buxton Going.
July—
In the “Zoo.” George T. Marsh.
The Pipes of the North. E. Sutton.
Song. Glenn Ward Dresbach.
August—
The Mother. Theodosia Garrison.
The Regents’ Examination. Jessie Wallace Hughan.
Convalescence. Amy Lowell.
The Keenin’ Wind. Clinton Scollard.
Wood Minster. Stephen Berrien Stanton.
September—
Walter Scott. Amelia Josephine Burr.
If You Should Cease to Love Me. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
The Swimmer at Elsinore. Maurice Francis Egan.
October—
Desert Song. John Galsworthy.
A Gloucester Helmsman’s Song. James B. Connolly.
Of Old. Edith Ives Woodworth.
December—
Another Dark Lady. Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Cradle Song. Josephine Preston Peabody.
The Upper Slopes. Margaret Sherwood.
A Christmas Vision. John Kendrick Bangs.
The Standard-Bearer. Henry van Dyke.
A Feast of Tabernacles. John Finley.
Vox Clamantis. C. A. Price.
THE FORUM
January—
The Song of the Women. Florence Kiper.
The Song of the Wind. John Allan Wyeth, Jr.
February—
The Model. Harriet Monroe.
The Chamberwoman. Thomas Moult.
Anitra’s Dance. Addison Lewis.
March—
A Street Cry. Arthur Ketchum.
Pilgrimage. Laura Campbell.
At the Loom. Beatrice Redpath.
Woman. Christian Gauss.
April—
The Cry of Woman. Victor Starbuck.
The Secret Guardian. Charles L. Buchanan.
May—
Still Life. Louis Untermeyer.
Our Lady of the Wood. Teresa Hooley.
The Dilettante Wakens. Shaemas O’ Sheel.
June—
The Man of the Hilltop. Arthur Davison Ficke.
For Me the Tears. Lyman Bryson.
Lure. Leolyn Louise Everett.
July—
The Stranger Woman. Muriel Rice.
The Daughter of Jairus. Beatrice Redpath.
August—
In Crypts Uncandled. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter. Arthur Davison Ficke.
September—
Interim. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Prophet. Lyman Bryson.
The Two Flames. Eloise Briton.
October—
The Shroud. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Cardinal’s Garden: Villa Albani. Witter Bynner.
Measure for Measure. Richard Butler Glaenser.
December—
Old Houses. Lisette Woodworth Reese.
Youth. C. R. Murphy.
Prayer for Peace. William Samuel Johnson.
The Wax Museum for Men. Scudder Middleton.
YALE REVIEW
January—
The Dying Pantheist to the Priest. Henry A. Beers.
They Who Scent the Tasselled Pine. Frederick Erastus Pierce.
God and the Farmer. Frederick Erastus Pierce.
April—
Ash Wednesday. John Erskine.
The Winds of March. Walter Pierce.
The Exile. Walter Pierce.
July—
The Mirror. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
Escape. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
To a Mocking-Bird. William Alexander Percy.
Young Eden. Witter Bynner.
Surety. Witter Bynner.
October—
The “Moses” of Michael Angelo. Robert Browning.
On Being Defied to Express in a Hexameter: “You Ought to Sit on the Safety-Valve.” Robert Browning.
The Young Poet to Italy. Charlotte Wilson.
Evening. Charlotte Wilson.
Desire of Fame. Charlotte Wilson.
To My Enemy. Charlotte Wilson.
The Tramp’s Refusal. Vachel Lindsay.
Interval. Lee Wilson Dodd.
THE SMART SET
January—
New York. Edwin Davies Schoonmaker.
Old Poets. Joyce Kilmer.
All Else but Love. Willard A. Wattles.
At a Subway Station. Sara Teasdale.
His Stenographer--As He Dictates To Her. Harriet Monroe.
Frank. Witter Bynner.
Variations on a Classic Theme. Louis Untermeyer.
A Moon Song. Skipwith Cannéll.
A Desert Vision. Clinton Scollard.
The Ballad of St. John of Nepomuk. George Sterling.
The Reporter--An Assignment. Paul Scott Mowrer.
Bewilderment. Victor Starbuck.
Beannacht Leat--My Blessing With You. Donn Byrne.
A Faun in Wall Street. John Myers O’Hara.
February—
Loyalty. Edith Hulbert Hamilton.
The Hunting of Astarte. George Sterling.
New Songs of Sappho: The Rebuke. The Friend at Sardis. Lassitude. Ablution. John Myers O’Hara.
An Angel. Witter Bynner.
Bloodroot. Bliss Carman.
The Police Gazette. Arthur Davison Ficke.
The Last Revel. Arthur Wallace Peach.
Wine of the World. John Hall Wheelock.
The Billiard Players. Edwin Davies Schoonmaker.
Gifts. Mary Arnold Lewisohn.
White Silence. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
Man and Woman. Reginald Wright Kauffman.
Portrait of a Girl. W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez.
The Awakening. Aloysius Coll.
March—
The Weed’s Counsel. Bliss Carman.
A Broken Lute. Clinton Scollard.
A Ballade of Old-Time Captains. Donn Byrne.
Skyscrapers. Horace Holley.
A March Mood. Louis Untermeyer.
Memory. Katherine Williams Sinclair.
Then Should You Know. Ivan Swift.
Rarer Than Comets. Witter Bynner.
Villanelle of Vision. Willard Huntington Wright.
Exile. Kelsey Percival Kitchel.
To the Harpies. Arthur Davison Ficke.
The Wolf. Richard Butler Glaenzer.
April—
At the Last. Witter Bynner.
Ballad of Two Seas. George Sterling.
Willow Song. Robert Loveman.
Ol’ Marse Winter. Mary Alice Ogden.
Spring Night. Sara Teasdale.
Manhood. Willard A. Wattles.
The Still Places. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
I Walked the Wood. Richard Le Gallienne.
The Country of the Young. Donn Byrne.
The Twelve Forty-Five. Joyce Kilmer.
M-i-l-e-s-t-o-n-e-s. Edmund Vance Cooke.
Separation. Brian Hooker.
April. Louis Untermeyer.
Sunday. Ludwig Lewisohn.
The Truant Ways. Clinton Scollard.
The House of Death. Helen Cowles Le Cron.
Her Glove. Charles Campbell Jones.
May—
Virgin Isle. Florence Brooks.
You Never Can Tell. George Sterling.
Under the Snow. Richard Le Gallienne.
Pas De Trois. Bliss Carman and Mary Perry King.
Houses. Ludwig Lewisohn.
A Spring Song. Robert Loveman.
The Sea. Louise Driscoll.
Dead Dreams. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
The Woman-at-Arms. Victor Starbuck.
Sunday Night. Louis Untermeyer.
Delicatessen. Joyce Kilmer.
The Call. Faith Baldwin.
Wild Swans. Skipwith Cannéll.
The Mule Driver. Henry Herbert Knibbs.
June—
Spring in Lesbos. John Myers O’Hara.
Pan in the City. Victor Starbuck.
Jonquils. Louis Untermeyer.
Love’s Silences. Charles Hanson Towne.
After Love. Sara Teasdale.
Narcissus. Robert Bridges.
My Heart’s Desire. Henry Herbert Knibbs.
The Dryad Child. Miriam Crittenden Carman.
I Bring you All I Have. Witter Bynner.
The Poet Returns. Victor Neuburg.
Premiere Danseuse. Fanny Hodges Newman.
Consummation. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
A Picture. Elisabeth Curtis Holman.
At the Lattice. Archibald Sullivan.
Le Matin. Par Theodore de Banville.
Waste Firelight. Fannie Stearns Gifford.
I Never Knew. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
July—
Mary’s Eyes. Hermann Hagedorn.
Argosies. Victor Starbuck.
The Ghost. Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald.
The Last Demand. Faith Baldwin.
The Mendicant. Arthur Wallace Peach.
A Man in a Club Window. Reginald Wright Kauffman.
Ballad of the Yielded Kiss. Ethel Allen Murphy.
Heartsease. Clifford Evans Van Hook.
Sonoma. Witter Bynner.
Symbols. Edna Valentine Trapnell.
Kansas and London. Harry Kemp.
He Went for a Soldier. Ruth Comfort Mitchell.
Dark. Laura Benet.
The Dwelling. Clinton Scollard.
Home. Sophie Irene Loeb.
Dites! Aut Faut-il Faire? Hortense Flexner.
August—
Songs of Married Love. Ludwig Lewisohn.
The Winds of God. Charles Wharton Stork.
Books. Grace Fallow Norton.
The Artist. Maude Ralston.
A New York Skyscraper. Madison Cawein.
Nocturne. Byron Dunne.
The Merchant Adventurers. Charles Campbell Jones.
Summer in Town. Gordon Johnstone.
Shipmates. Witter Bynner.
In a Garden. David Morton.
Rondenas. Thomas Walsh.
An Old Maid. Louis Untermeyer.
Panamanian Nights: Rainy Season. Dry Season. Glenn Ward Dresbach.
September—
Doubt. Catherine Sisk Macomb.
A Diagnosis. John Gould Fletcher.
Meditation Pathetique. Ludwig Lewisohn.
Home-Returning. Richard Burton.
Newport. Alice Duer Miller.
Love’s Feet Linger. Berton Braley.
A Window in Acacia Vale. Stephen Phillips.
Occult Summer. Gordon Johnstone.
The Hour of Life. Elsa Barker.
Ballade of My Lady’s Book. Charles Campbell Jones.
Love in Taormina. Robert Garland.
For a Guitar. Donn Byrne.
The Wind. Victor Starbuck.
October—
Waste. Amelia Josephine Burr.
Law. Hermann Hagedorn.
To a Discarded Favorite. Winifred Webb.
Rain Songs. Charles Hanson Towne.
Violets. Alvin Probasco Nipgen.
Song. Ethel Allen Murphy.
Sky Battle. Harry Kemp.
Mown Fields. Leonard Doughty.
The Little Inn at Dromehaire. Clinton Scollard.
Maximum and Minimum. Charles Irvin Junkin.
Two Incarnations. Ethel Talbot Scheffauer.
THE BELLMAN
The Coyote. Charles Badger Clark, Jr.
The Ancient Sacrifice. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
“Funere Mersit Acerbo.” Ruth Shepard Phelps.
The Cult. C. T. Ryder.
On the Housetop. M. E. Buhler.
A Song of the Sunset. Stokely S. Fisher.
White Violets. Louise Foley.
On the Beach. M. E. Buhler.
The Child in Black. Amelia Josephine Burr.
At the End of the Road. Madison Cawein.
In the Roman Forum. Amelia Josephine Burr.
Winner of Second. Witter Bynner.
Sakonnet Rooks. M. E. Buhler.
Foretaste. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Symbol. Richard Burton.
A Lynmouth Widow. Amelia Josephine Burr.
The Coquette. Witter Bynner.
The White Flag. Joseph Warren Beach.
The Closed Book. Madison Cawein.
Jewel-Weed. Florence Earle Coates.
Charwoman. James Norman Hall.
Gurnard’s Head. Nelson Collins.
Burial. Arthur Adams.
The Dynamo. Jane Belfield.
Sentinels. Witter Bynner.
The Master-Poet. Theresa V. Beard.
Stormy Sunset. Madison Cawein.
Out of Babylon. Clinton Scollard.
To a Phoebe-Bird. Witter Bynner.
The Lame Child. Amelia Josephine Burr.
A Round. Florence Earle Coates.
The Dead Friend. Margaret Widdemer.
The Dear Adventurer (In Memory: J. S. B.). Richard Burton.
The Eternal Triangle. Paul Hervey Fox.
The Masquerader. James B. Kenyon.
Idols. Richard Burton.
The Fallen. C. T. Ryder.
Lilliput Library. Nora Archibald Smith.
LIPPINCOTT’S
January—
On a Friend’s Passing. Thomas Crawford Galbreath.
Unshackled. Herman Scheffauer.
The Pangs of Victory. Richard Kirk.
February—
Magic. George Morris Strout.
The Dream Minstrel. Kenneth Rand.
Resurgence. Jane Belfield.
Tuum Est! Ada Melville Shaw.
Invocation. Arthur Wallace Peach.
The Award. Antoinette De Coursey Patterson.
March—
Love’s Goal. Helen Hicks Bates.
The Forsaken Seaport. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
The Good Snow-Flake. Richard Kirk.
The All-Mother. Florence Earle Coates.
April—
A Desert Evening. Jean Brooke Burt.
The “Flying Dutchman’s” Review. Frederick H. Martens.
Easter. Mary Eleanor Roberts.
Pantheism. Victor Starbuck.
Easter at Nazareth. Clinton Scollard.
May—
Haunted. Thomas Grant Springer.
The Mourner. Florence Earle Coates.
In Memory. Alice E. Allen.
Early April in Grenstone. Witter Bynner.
Recalled. William Rose Benét.
June—
June. Willis Boyd Allen.
A Love Song. Charles Hanson Towne.
Let Us Go A-Gypsying. Clara Odell Lyon.
A Song of the Evanescent. Edith M. Thomas.
Moon-Glint. Jane Belfield.
July—
The Winding Lane. Ethel Hallett Porter.
Click o’ the Latch. Nancy Byrd Turner.
Dawn. Mahlon Leonard Fisher.
August—
Scent of Clover. Alice E. Allen.
Twilight. Sara Teasdale.
California Sunshine in Midsummer. Olive B. Read.
Latent. Kate Putnam Osgood.
Counterparts. Alice Wellington Rollins.
As Days Go Down the West. Marion Manville.
September—
A Coin of Lesbos. Sarah M. B. Piatt.
Unrest. A. Lampman.
Sunset. Dora M. Hepner.
Where Harold Sleeps. Florence Earle Coates.
To a Wild Rose. L. L. Biddle.
Lessons. Richard Kirk.
The Price. Carlotta Perry.
The Priceless Boon. Stuart Sterne.
October—
Measure for Measure. Margaret H. Lawless.
A Passing. Arthur Wallace Peach.
Ultimate Failure. Charles Henry Luders.
Ding Dong. Anon.
Song. Langdon Elwyn Mitchell.
The Faded Pansy. Curtis Hall.
THE MASSES
January—
Battle Hymn. Louis Untermeyer.
From Harry in England. Harry Kemp.
The Masquerader. Sarah N. Cleghorn.
The Trappers. Wilton Agnew Barrett.
February—
The Champion. Harry Kemp.
Confidence. Will Herford.
Heloise Sans Abelard. Joel Elias Spingarn.
Lost Leaders. Edmond McKenna.
March—
Gardens of Babylon. Laura Benet.
Onward Christian Nations. Will Herford.
April—
Poor Girl. William Rose Benét.
Comrade Jesus. Sarah N. Cleghorn.
The Kanawha Striker. By a Paint Greek Miner.
May—
Cell-Mates. Louis Untermeyer.
Peter Pan, Obit New York, MCMXIV. Edmond McKenna.
Leaves of Burdock. Harry Kemp.
Children of Kings. Lydia Gibson.
Grey. Lydia Gibson.
Lost Treasure. Lydia Gibson.
Yellow. Lydia Gibson.
Aeolian. Lydia Gibson.
The Mother. Lydia Gibson.
April Scent. Lydia Gibson.
The Child Speaks. Lydia Gibson.
June—
Ludlow. M. B. Levick.
A Customer. Louis Untermeyer.
A Waiter. Rose Pastor Stokes.
Social Progress. Rex Lampman.
God’s Blunder. Clement Richardson Wood.
I Cry for War. Max Endicoff.
A Psalm Not for David. Clement Richardson Wood.
A Question. Edmond McKenna.
Anarch. Horace Holley.
July—
Horses. Elisabeth Waddell.
August—
God’s Acre. Witter Bynner.
The Three Whose Hatred Killed Them. Irwin Granich.
Decoration Day. Louis Untermeyer.
Priests. James Oppenheim.
Civilization. James Oppenheim.
Tasting the Earth. James Oppenheim.
The Runner in the Skies. James Oppenheim.
Song of the Free Poet. Clement Richardson Wood.
The Plain Clothes Man Speaks. Richard Coe Bland.
Civilization. Edmond McKenna.
Haggerty. Edmund R. Brown.
September—
Laugh it Off. Bolton Hall.
The Drug Clerk. Eunice Tietjens.
Rockaway Beach. Harry Kemp.
The Smokers. Max Endicoff.
October—
Prelude. Edmond McKenna.
Miracle. Nina Bull.
A Bad Business. Hugo Seelig.
Custom. Mary Carolyn Davies.
The Public School Teacher. M. M.
THE INTERNATIONAL
January—
Half Moon. Mary Carolyn Davies.
Dead. David Morton.
Innocence. Richard Le Gallienne.
Night Lyric. Bliss Carman.
A New Year. Margaret Widdemer.
The Thirst of Satan. George Sterling.
A Song of Life. B. Russell Herts.
Why? Mary Carolyn Davies.
Dirge. Orrick Johns.
Song. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
Conquered. Zoë Akins.
The Drunken Poet. Algernon Boyesen.
February—
A Garden in Mexico. Ruth Gaines.
The Violin. Willard Huntington Wright.
The Anarchist. Zoë Akins.
“That Walk in Darkness.” George Sterling.
March—
The Everlasting Doors. Richard Le Gallienne.
After Hearing a Waltz by Bartok. Amy Lowell.
Litany. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
Respite. George Sterling.
Fortunate Islands. Clinton Scollard.
Alone. Anne Simon.
Pilgrims of the Spring. Ruth Gaines.
Quoth the Sun of Bermuda. Richard Butler Glaenzer.
Jasmines. David Morton.
To a Dead Beauty. Witter Bynner.
April—
Harry Thurston Peck (Died by his own hand, March 28, 1914). Joel Elias Spingarn.
Rich Enough. Stokeley S. Fisher.
The Exeter Road. Amy Lowell.
The Wood Anemone. Madison Cawein.
Song of the Scarlet Host. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
Spring. Katharine N. Rhoads.
Amende. John Nicholas Beffel.
May—
Sea-Lure. Victor Starbuck.
Wine Red. Egmont Hegel Arens.
Deep in the Night. Sara Teasdale.
To Anna Pavlowa Dancing. Joel Elias Spingarn.
Kinship. Thomas Moult.
Vale. L. Everett Harré.
The Captive. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
June—
To Theodore Roosevelt. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
The Forest--A Song of Bilitis. Margaret Widdemer.
The Garden at Troutbeck. Joel Elias Spingarn.
Pierre. Mary M. Reisinger.
To Him that Fails. Don Marquis.
The Futurist Painters. Horace B. Samuel.
You. Richard Butler Glaenser.
In the Temple. Homer Davis.
Falling Waters. Clinton Scollard.
July—
Regret for Atthis. John Myers O’Hara.
A Bazaar by the Sea. Witter Bynner.
Before the Gates. Maurice A. Beer.
And Thus Spake Sex. Thomas Moult.
Joseph in the House of Potiphar. Miriam E. Oatman.
Souls. Horace Holley.
Prison Song. William Alexander Percy.
The Fireflies of Sumida. Ethel Morse Pool.
August—
Songs of Devotion. Rabindranath Tagore.
The Corpse. Skipwith Cannéll.
Love Song. Skipwith Cannéll.
The Pond. Helen Hoyt.
Because of You. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
Isolde’s Motif. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
Magic. Madison Cawein.
The Tomb of Oscar Wilde. Ethel Talbot Scheffauer.
Rencontre. Arthur Ketchum.
Cafe Du Neant. Mina Loy.
To Gardenia. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
Hatred. John Marshall Bold.
September—
Wilhelm II., Prince of Peace. George Sylvester Viereck.
The German-American to His Adopted Country. George Sylvester Viereck.
The Czar of Russia. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
The Baths of Caracalla. John Myers O’Hara.
Songs to a Soldier. Margarete Muensterberg.
Prayer of a Poet Soldier. Margarete Muensterberg.
Soldier’s Song. Margarete Muensterberg.
In Memoriam: Jean Moréas, 1856-1910. William Aspenwall Bradley.
Cereus. Richard M. Hunt.
River Impressions. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.
Huerta. George Sylvester Viereck.
October—
Dr. Faust’s Descent from Heaven. George Sylvester Viereck.
The Town in Rut. Nicolas Beauduin. (Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.)
The Hailing Trains. Nicolas Beauduin. (Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.)
Modern Heaven. Nicolas Beauduin. (Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.)
Hymn of Toil. Nicolas Beauduin. (Trans. by Edward J. O’Brien.)
To my Love Child. Joseph Bernard Rethy.
“1914.” Ferdinand Earle.
Values. William Lamb Francis.
Challenge. Mary M. Reisinger.
Litany of Nations. William Griffith.
THE TREND
Salome. Pitts Sanborn.
Arabella Jones. Rena Cary Sheffield.
Vain Excuse. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
An Easter Lily. N. R. H.
Trailing Arbutus. Henry Clayton Hopkins.
Spring. Julia V. Bond.
A Coward. Walter Prichard Eaton.
An Epitaph. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
The Puritans. Frank Simonds.
The Call. Harold Bullard.
To the Wind. Robert Alden Sanborn.
The Valley of Silence. Mary Farley Sanborn.
To a Garden in April. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
Green Orchids for a Meanad. Donald Evans.
Stars of Paris--In April of a Thursday in the Morning. Donald Evans.
Une Nuit Blanche. Donald Evans.
You and Me. Mary Farley Sanborn.
The Price. Walter Prichard Eaton.
Omnipotent. John Macy.
The Old Mill. Witter Bynner.
To One Defending New York. Walter Prichard Eaton.
The Shadows of Desire. Donald Evans.
Portrait. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
Out of the Sea. Witter Bynner.
Reckoning. John Macy.
Carnet de Voyage. Wallace Stevens.
Converse. Helen Hoyt.
“--And Battles Long Ago.” Witter Bynner.
Just Lately Drummer Boy. Djuna Chappell Barnes.
Safety. John Macy.
The Night of Ariadne. Walter Conrad Arensberg.
Parturition. Mina Loy.
For the Haunting of Mauna. Donald Evens.
VOLUMES OF POETRY PUBLISHED DURING 1914
The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. James Cloyd Bowman. The Pfeifer
Press, Columbus, Ohio.
Verses. Marion Morgan Mulligan. Published by the Author.
At the World’s Heart. Cale Young Rice. Doubleday, Page & Co.
Beyond the Stars. Charles Hanson Towne. Mitchell Kennerley, New
York City.
Brunelleschi. John Galen Howard. Published by the Author, San
Francisco.
Celtic Memories and Other Poems. Norreys Jephson O’Conor. John Lane
Co. New York City.
The Collected Works of Margaret L. Woods. John Lane Co., New York
City.
The Wine Press. A Tale of War. Alfred Noyes. F. A. Stokes Co., New
York City.
Lyrics from the Chinese. Helen Waddell. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
Boston.
The Flight and Other Poems. George Edward Woodberry. Macmillan Co.,
New York City.{193}
An English Dante. A Translation in the Original Rhythm and Rhymes.
John Pyne. Albert and Charles Boni, New York City.
Out of Bondage. Fanny Hodges Newman. Paul Elder & Co., San
Francisco.
The Foothills of Parnassus. John Kendrick Bangs. Macmillan Co., New
York City.
The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont, 1616-1699. Edited from the
Autograph Manuscript, with Introduction and Notes. Eloise Robinson.
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Love and the Universe, The Immortals and Other Poems. Albert D.
Watson. Macmillan Co., New York City.
Auguries. Laurence Binyon. John Lane Co., New York City.
Latin Songs. Classical, Medieval, and Modern, with Music. Calvin S.
Brown. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York City.
In the High Hills. Maxwell Struthers Burt. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
Boston.
Poems. John L. Stoddard. George L. Shuman & Co., Boston.
The Rift in the Cloud. Songs of Love and Faith. John S. Wrightnour.
Sherman, French & Co., Boston.
He Who Won the World. A Poem of the Twentieth Century Christ.
Edward Payson Powell. Sherman, French & Co., Boston.
Driftwood and Foam. Cary F. Jacob. Sherman, French & Co., Boston.
New Canadian Poems. Warneford Moffat. William Briggs, Toronto.
From Far Lands. “Gervais Gage” (J. Laurence Rantoul). Macmillan
Co., New York City.
Songs of the Dead End. Patrick MacGill. Mitchell Kennerley, New
York City.
Affinity. Maurine Hathaway. Barse & Hopkins, New York City.
Collected Poems. Norman Gale. Macmillan Co., New York City.
Songs from the Smoke. Madeleine Sweeny Miller, with an Introduction
by Simon N. Patten. The Methodist Book Concern, New York City.
Songs and Poems. Martin Schütze. The Laurentian Publishers,
Chicago.{194}
The Sister of the Wind, and Other Poems. Grace Fallow Norton.
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Eris. A Dramatic Allegory. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff. Moffat, Yard
& Co., New York City.
Through Realms of Song. Isaac Bassett Choate. Chapple Publishing
Co., Boston.
A Shower of Verses. Althea Randolph. The H. W. Gray Co., New York
City.
At the Shrine, and Other Poems. George Herbert Clarke. Stewart &
Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.
In a Minor Vein. Life, Love and Death. Lucy Scott Bower. Edward
Sansot, Paris.
The Shadow Babe and Others. Jessamine Kimball Draper. Sherman,
French & Co., Boston.
Sunlight and Shadow. Louise W. Kneeland. Sherman, French & Co.,
Boston.
The Thresher’s Wife. Harry Kemp. Albert and Charles Boni, New York
City.
The Ebon Muse and Other Poems. By Léon Laviaux. English, by John
Myers O’Hara. Smith and Sale, Portland, Me.
Wildings. Seraph Maltie Dean and Lee Parker Dean. Thomas Todd,
Boston.
My Lady’s Book. Gerald Gould. Mitchell Kennerley, New York City.
The Sea is Kind. T. Sturge Moore. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Ballads of Blyndham. Robert De Camp Leland. Amityville, New York,
Paul Bailey.
To a Summer Cloud, and Other Poems. Emily Tolman. Sherman, French &
Co., Boston.
Spring Moods and Fancies. Helen E. Wieland. Sherman, French & Co.,
Boston.
The Springtime of Love, and Other Poems. Albert Edmund Trombly.
Sherman, French & Co., Boston.
Poems. John T. McFarland. The Methodist Book Concern, New York
City.
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. Drawn from the best French
Sources, and Retold by J. Bedier. Englished by H. Belloc. Dodd,
Mead & Co., New York City.
Poems. Edward Sanford Martin. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York
City.
Idylls of Greece. Third Series. Howard V. Sutherland. Desmond
FitzGerald, Inc., New York City.{195}
The Single Hound. Poems of a Lifetime. Emily Dickinson. With an
Introduction by her Niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Little, Brown
& Co., Boston.
Mary Magdalene, and Other Poems. Laura E. McCully. Macmillan Co.,
New York City.
Songs of Sixpence. Abbie Farwell Brown. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
Boston.
By and Large. Franklin P. Adams. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden
City, N. Y.
Lichens from the Temple. Robert Restalrig Logan. G. P. Putnam’s
Sons.
The Falconer of God, and Other Poems. William Rose Benet. Yale
University Press, New Haven.
Earth Triumphant, and Other Tales in Verse. Conrad Aiken. Macmillan
Co., New York City.
Lux Juventutis. Katharine A. Esdaile. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
The Congo, and Other Poems. Vachel Lindsay. Macmillan Co., New York
City.
One Woman to Another, and Other Poems. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York City.
The Spirit’s Work. J. H. Montgomery. The Riverdale Press,
Brookline.
The Complete Poems of S. Weir Mitchell. The Century Co., New York
City.
Green Days and Blue Days. Patrick R. Chalmers. The Norman Remington
Co., Baltimore.
Broad-Sheet Ballads. Being a Collection of Irish Popular Songs,
with an Introduction by Padraic Colum. The Norman Remington Co.,
Baltimore.
Open Water. Arthur Stringer. John Lane Co., New York City.
America, and Other Poems. W. J. Dawson. John Lane Co., New York
City.
Kirstin. A Play in Four Acts. Alice Cole Kleene. Sherman, French &
Co., Boston.
Omar or Christ. N. B. Ripley. Eaton & Mains, New York City.
Songs of the Susquehanna. Frederic Brush. Thomas B. Mosher,
Portland, Me.
Heinrich Heine. Poems and Ballads Done into English. Robert Levy.
Macmillan Co., New York City.
The Shadow of Ætna. Louis V. Ledoux. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. New York
City.{196}
Faint Chords. George Scheftel. Radical Publishing Co., Brooklyn, N.
Y.
Sprays of Shamrock. Clinton Scollard. The Mosher Press, Portland,
Me.
Saloon Sonnets: With Sunday Flutings. Allen Norton. Claire Marie,
New York City.
Trail Dust of a Maverick. E. A. Brininstool, with an Introduction
by Robert J. Burdette. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York City.
Poems. Walter Conrad Arensberg. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Challenge. Louis Untermeyer. The Century Co., New York City.
The Soul of the East. Charles G. Fall. The Old Corner Bookstore,
Boston.
In the Heart of the Meadow, and Other Poems. Thomas O’Hagan, with a
Foreword by Hon. Justice Longley. William Briggs, Toronto.
Des Imagistes. An Anthology. Albert and Charles Boni. New York
City.
Atta Troll. From the German of Heinrich Heine. Herman Scheffauer,
with an Introduction by Dr. Oscar Levy. B. W. Huebsch, New York
City.
Dutch Days. May Emery Hall. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York City.
Oriental Verses. Bernard Westermann. Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Co., San
Francisco.
Florence on a Certain Night, and Other Poems. Coningsby Dawson.
Henry Holt & Co., New York City.
Facts and Fancies. William Francis Evans. Stewart & Co., New York
City.
The Ride Home, with The Marriage of Guineth, a Play in One Act.
Florence Wilkinson. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Sunshine and Roses. Edwin P. Haworth. Rockhill Art Publishers,
Kansas City.
Poems and Translations. Frederick Rowland Marvin. Sherman, French &
Co., Boston.
Poems of Human Progress, and Other Pieces. James Harcourt West. The
Tufts College Press, Boston.
Ballads of Childhood. Michael Earls, S. J. Benziger Brothers, New
York City.
The Little King. Witter Bynner. Mitchell Kennerley, New York City.{197}
The Gypsy Trail. An Anthology for Campers. Pauline Goldmark and
Mary Hopkins. Mitchell Kennerley, New York City.
The Great Grey King, and Other Poems. Old and New. Samuel Valentine
Cole. Sherman, French & Co., Boston.
The Holocaust, and Other Poems. Lincoln Sonntag. Sherman, French &
Co., Boston.
Path Flower, and Other Verses. Olive Tilford Dargan. Charles
Scribner’s Sons, New York City.
The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems. Henry van Dyke. Charles
Scribner’s Sons, New York City.
Songs of the Outlands. Henry Herbert Knibbs. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
Boston.
The Dyak Chief, and Other Verses. Erwin Clarkson Garrett. Barse &
Hopkins, New York City.
Earth Deities: and Other Rhythmic Masques. Bliss Carman and Mary
Perry King. Mitchell Kennerley, New York City.
Tales of the Trail. James W. Foley. E. P. Dutton, New York City.
Borderlands and Thoroughfares. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Macmillan
Co., New York City.
Trees, and Other Poems. Joyce Kilmer. George H. Doran Co., New York
City.
The Shoes of Happiness. Edwin Markham. Doubleday, Page & Co.,
Garden City, N. Y.
Songs for the New Age. James Oppenheim. The Century Co., New York
City.
Pagan Poems. Franklin H. Giddings. Macmillan Co., New York City.
You and I. Poems. Harriet Monroe. Macmillan Co., New York City.
Sword-Blades and Poppy Seed. Amy Lowell. Macmillan Co., New York
City.
In Deep Places. Amelia Josephine Burr. George H. Doran Co., New
York City.
Justification. A Philosophic Phantasy. John H. White. Richard G.
Badger, Boston.
Salambo. A Tragedy in Four Acts. George Morrison von Schrader.
Sherman, French and Co. Boston.
Truth and Other Poems. Paul Carus. Open Court Pub. Co. Chicago.
Undine. A Poem. Adapted in Part from the Romance{198} by De La Motte
Fouque. Antoinette de Coursey Patterson. H. W. Fisher and Co.
Philadelphia.
A Pageant of the Thirteenth Century For the Seven Hundredth
Anniversary of Roger Bacon given by Columbia University. Text by
John Erskine. Columbia University Press. New York.
Links of Gold. Joseph Ware. Sherman, French and Co. Boston.
The Rout of the Frost King and Other Fairy Poems. Eugene Neustadt.
Paul Elder. San Francisco.
Moods Mystical and Otherwise. Anne Vyne Tillery. Sherman, French
and Co. Boston.
Muse and Mint. Walter S. Percy. Sherman, French and Co. Boston.
Where Bugles Call and Other Poems. Elizabeth Powers Merrill.
Sherman, French and Co. Boston.
Poems Obiter. R. E. L. Smith. The Gorham Press. Boston.
Sonnets. Selected by R. M. Leonard. (Oxford Garlands) Oxford
University Press. New York.
Patriotic Poems. Selected by R. M. Leonard. (Oxford Garlands)
Oxford University Press. New York.
Love Poems. Selected by R. M. Leonard. (Oxford Garlands) Oxford
University Press. New York.
Rada, A Drama of War in One Act. Alfred Noyes. F. A. Stokes. New
York.
Philip the King and Other Poems. John Masefield. Macmillan Co. New
York.
FORTY BOOKS ABOUT POETRY PUBLISHED IN 1914
I. FIVE BOOKS FOR A SMALL LIBRARY
Moore, George. Vale. Appleton. $1.75 net.
Murray, Gilbert. Euripides and His Age. Holt. $.50 net.
Douglas, Lord Alfred. Oscar Wilde and Myself. Duffield. $2.50
net.
Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel. Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of
Beauty. Kennerley. $1.00 net.
Schelling, Felix E. English Drama. Dutton. $1.50 net.
{199}
II. FIFTEEN BOOKS FOR A LARGER LIBRARY
The above, and the ten following books:
Campbell, Wilfred. The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. Oxford Univ.
Press. $2.00 net.
Fitzmaurice-Kelly, J. The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse. Oxford
Univ. Press. $2.00 net.
Gayley, Charles Mills. Beaumont the Dramatist. Century. $2.00
net.
Verrall, A. W. Lectures on Dryden. Putnam. $3.50 net.
Abercrombie, Lascelles. Speculative Dialogues. Kennerley. $1.25
net.
Brailsford, H. N. Shelley, Godwin, and Their Circle. Holt. $.50
net.
Clutton-Brock, A. William Morris. Holt. $.50 net.
Zweig, Stefan. Emile Verhaeren. Houghton-Mifflin, $2.00 net.
Thompson, Vance. French Portraits. Kennerley. $2.50 net.
Noguchi, Yone. The Spirit of Japanese Poetry. Dutton. $.70 net.
III. TWENTY-FIVE OTHER IMPORTANT BOOKS
Cowl, B. R. P. The Theory of Poetry in England. Its Development in
Doctrine and Ideas from the 16th to 19th Century. Macmillan Co.
Tynan, Katharine. Twenty-Five Years’ Reminiscences. Devin-Adair.
Weston, Jessie L. The Chief Middle English Poets.
Houghton-Mifflin. $2.00 net.
Thorley, Wilfrid. Paul Verlaine. Houghton-Mifflin. $.75 net.
Sélincourt, Basil de. Walt Whitman. Kennerley. $2.50 net.
Traubel, Horace. With Walt Whitman in Camden. Vol. III.
Kennerley. $3.00 net.
Carpenter, W. Boyd. The Spiritual Message of Dante. Harvard Univ.
Press.
Hadow, Grace E. Chaucer and His Time. Holt. $.50 net.
Dowden. Ernest Letters. 2 v. Dutton. $4.50 net.
Ozanam, Frederic. The Franciscan Poets. Net.
Brooks, Van Wyck. John Addington Symonds. Kennerley. $1.50 net.{200}
Williams, Orlo. Giosué Carducci. Houghton-Mifflin. $.75 net.
Shelley, Henry C. The Life and Letters of Edward Young.
Little-Brown. $4.00 net.
The Keats Letters. Lane. $2.00 net.
Carpenter, Edward. Iolaüs: An Anthology of Friendship. Kennerley.
$1.25 net.
Hopkins, M. D. and Goldmark, Pauline. The Gypsy Trail: An Anthology
for Campers. Kennerley. $1.25 net.
Robertson, J. M. Elizabethan Literature. Holt. $.50 net.
Sichel, Edith. The Renaissance. Holt. $.50 net.
Thompson, Elbert N. S. Essays on Milton. Yale Univ. Press. $1.35
net.
Nicholson, Meredith. The Poet. Houghton-Mifflin. $1.30 net.
Stewart, Charles D. Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare. Yale
Univ. Press. $1.35 net.
Mayne, Ethel Colburn. Browning’s Heroines. Pott. $2.00 net.
Durand, Ralph. A Handbook to the Poetry of Rudyard Kipling.
Doubleday, Page. $2.00 net.
{201}
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
| | PAGE |
| Æons of old were wandering down the seas. |
| William Griffith | 126 |
| Alas, and are you pleading now for pardon? |
| Walter Conrad Arensberg | 12 |
| All old fair things are in their places. |
| Richard Le Gallienne | 108 |
| A red-cap sang in Bishop’s wood. |
| Olive Tilford Dargan | 142 |
| As I stole out of Babylon beyond the stolid warders. |
| Clinton Scollard | 133 |
| Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with. |
| Amelia Josephine Burr | 63 |
| Behind my mask of life there lies a shrine. |
| Eloise Briton | 60 |
| Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate. |
| Walter Conrad Arensberg | 93 |
| Bismarck—or rapt Beethoven with his dreams. |
| Percy MacKaye | 126 |
| Bleeding and torn, ravished with sword and flame. |
| Oliver Herford | 130 |
| Blessed with a joy that only she. |
| Edwin Arlington Robinson | 75 |
| Body o’ mine—and must I lay thee low? |
| Jane Belfield | 141 |
| Crowned on the twilight battlefield, there bends. |
| Percy MacKaye | 125 |
| Dawn this morning burned all red. |
| Vachel Lindsay | 14 |
| Death, I say, my heart is bowed. |
| Edna St. Vincent Millay | 72 |
| Do ye hear ’em sternly soundin’ through the noises of the street? |
| E. Sutton | 131 |
| Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the town I love in the peace of the Summer night. |
| Edmond McKenna | 116 |
| Flesh unto flowers. |
| Edward J. O’Brien | 33 |
| Flushed from a fairy flagon. |
| Witter Bynner | 64 |
| Fools, fools, fools! |
| Witter Bynner | 109 |
| “Give the engines room. |
| Vachel Lindsay | 36 |
| God sat down with the farmer. |
| Frederick Erastus Pierce | 56 |
| Go, little sorrows! From the evening wood. |
| Charlotte Wilson | 136 |
| Half artist and half anchorite. |
| Percy MacKaye | 109 |
| He marched away with a blithe young score of him. |
| Ruth Comfort Mitchell | 121 |
| Here in the lonely chapel I will wait. |
| John Erskine | 100 |
| He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue. |
| Amelia Josephine Burr | 75 |
| How shall we keep an armed neutrality? |
|
Percy MacKaye | 124 |
| If you should cease to love me, tell me so! |
|
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson | 92 |
| I had no heart to write to thee in prose. |
| Richard Le Gallienne | 106 |
| I have known joy and woe and toil and fight. |
| Berton Braley | 32 |
| I love the stony pasture. |
| Bliss Carman | 9 |
| In the fair picture of my life’s estate. |
|
Arthur Davison Ficke | 77 |
| In the silence of a midnight lost, lost forevermore. |
| George Sterling | 34 |
| I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust. |
| James Oppenheim | 73 |
| I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field. |
| Laura Campbell | 67 |
| Jeremiah, will you come? |
| Lyman Bryson | 31 |
| Jock bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs. |
| Percy MacKaye | 16 |
| Life, you have bruised me and chilled me; Fate, you have jeered at my pain. |
| Faith Baldwin | 140 |
| Muffled sounds of the city climbing to me at the window. |
| Jessie Wallace Hughan | 14 |
| My father and mother were Irish. |
| Edward J. O’Brien | 13 |
| Never again to feel that little kiss—
Lydia Gibson | 73 |
| Nevermore. |
| Don Marquis | 145 |
| Nothing but beauty, now. |
| Amelia Josephine Burr | 98 |
| Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover! |
|
Margaret Widdemer | 58 |
| O’er ruined road past draggled field. |
| Bartholomew F. Griffin | 118 |
| Oh calling, and calling, at the rising of the sun. |
| E. Sutton | 119 |
| On these brown rocks the waves dissolve in spray. |
| Alice Duer Miller | 32 |
| O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight. |
| Ruth Guthrie Harding | 57 |
| O thou among the Tuscan hills asleep. |
| Ruth Shepard Phelps | 135 |
| Patience—but peace of heart we cannot choose. |
| Percy MacKaye | 125 |
| Peace! But there is no peace. To hug the thought. |
| Percy MacKaye | 124 |
| Perhaps it doesn’t matter that you died. |
| Walter Conrad Arensberg | 109 |
| Sea-rimmed and teeming with millions poured out on thy granite shore. |
| Edwin Davies Schoonmaker | 45 |
| She fears him, and will always ask. |
| Edwin Arlington Robinson | 70 |
| Singer of England’s ire across the sea. |
| Percy MacKaye | 123 |
| Sir, friends, and scholars, we are here to serve. |
| Bliss Carman | 3 |
| Soft as a treader on mosses. |
| Olive Tilford Dargan | 94 |
| Some for the sadness and sweetness of far evening bells. |
| William Rose Benét | 136 |
| Strephon kissed me in the spring. |
| Sara Teasdale | 63 |
| Suppose ’twere done! |
| Bartholomew F. Griffin | 115 |
| The eager night and the impetuous winds. |
| Louie Untermeyer | 43 |
| The last farewells were said, friends hurried ashore. |
| Conrad Aiken | 77 |
| The leaves of Autumn and the buds of Spring. |
| Corinne Roosevelt Robinson | 11 |
| The rain was over and the brilliant air. |
| Louis Untermeyer | 1 |
| There’s a rhythm down the road where the elms overarch. |
| E. Sutton | 110 |
| There was a day when death to me meant tears. |
| Mahlon Leonard Fisher | 135 |
| This is the truth as I see it, my dear. |
| Madison Cawein | 141 |
| Thou lonely, dew-wet mountain road. |
| Florence Earle Coates | 12 |
| Through vales of Thrace, Peneus’ stream is flowing. |
| Arthur Davison Ficke | 33 |
| Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door. |
| John Myers O’Hara | 67 |
| Under the eaves, out of the wet. |
| Witter Bynner | 11 |
| We have each other’s deathless love. |
| Witter Bynner | 58 |
| When from the brooding home. |
| James Oppenheim | 51 |
| “Wherefore, thy woe these many years. |
| George Sterling | 68 |
| Within the Jersey City shed. |
| Joyce Kilmer | 137 |
| With the first light on the skyline came the rapping of the sickles. |
| Ruth Guthrie Harding | 107 |
| With love are you gone mad, O lover of France. |
| Walter Conrad Arensberg | 129 |
| Would you lay a pattern on life and say, thus shall ye live? |
| James Oppenheim | 44 |
| Ye dead and gone great armies of the world. |
| Mahlon Leonard Fisher | 130 |
| You know deep in your heart, it could not last— |
|
Lydia Gibson | 94 |
| You mean, my friend, you do not greatly care. |
| Arthur Davison Ficke | 93 |
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65062 ***
