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diff --git a/43224-8.txt b/43224-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f42c9a9..0000000 --- a/43224-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6780 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Volume I, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Volume I - October-March, 1912-13 - -Author: Various - -Editor: Harriet Monroe - -Release Date: July 15, 2013 [EBook #43224] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY: A MAGAZINE OF VERSE, VOL I *** - - - - -Produced by David Starner, Paul Marshall and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - - - - - Poetry - A Magazine of Verse - - - VOLUME I. - October-March, 1912-13 - - - Harriet Monroe ~ Editor - - - [Illustration] - - - _Reprinted with the permission - of the original publisher._ - - A. M. S. REPRINT CO. - New York, New York - - Copyright - By HARRIET MONROE - 1912-1913 - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 1 - - - OCTOBER, 1912 - - POETRY - - - - - I - - It is a little isle amid bleak seas-- - An isolate realm of garden, circled round - By importunity of stress and sound, - Devoid of empery to master these. - At most, the memory of its streams and bees, - Borne to the toiling mariner outward-bound, - Recalls his soul to that delightful ground; - But serves no beacon toward his destinies. - - It is a refuge from the stormy days, - Breathing the peace of a remoter world - Where beauty, like the musing dusk of even, - Enfolds the spirit in its silver haze; - While far away, with glittering banners furled, - The west lights fade, and stars come out in heaven. - - - II - - It is a sea-gate, trembling with the blast - Of powers that from the infinite sea-plain roll, - A whelming tide. Upon the waiting soul - As on a fronting rock, thunders the vast - Groundswell; its spray bursts heavenward, and drives past - In fume and sound articulate of the whole - Of ocean's heart, else voiceless; on the shoal - Silent; upon the headland clear at last. - - From darkened sea-coasts without stars or sun, - Like trumpet-voices in a holy war, - Utter the heralds tidings of the deep. - And where men slumber, weary and undone, - Visions shall come, incredible hopes from far,-- - And with high passion shatter the bonds of sleep. - - _Arthur Davison Ficke_ - - - - - I AM THE WOMAN - - I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker, - Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek, - Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek, - Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker, - Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek, - Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak. - - I am she that is terribly fashioned, the creature - Wrought in God's perilous mood, in His unsafe hour. - The morning star was mute, beholding my feature, - Seeing the rapture I was, the shame, and the power, - Scared at my manifold meaning; he heard me call - "O fairest among ten thousand, acceptable brother!" - And he answered not, for doubt; till he saw me crawl - And whisper down to the secret worm, "O mother, - Be not wroth in the ancient house; thy daughter forgets not at all!" - I am the Woman, fleër away, - Soft withdrawer back from the maddened mate, - Lurer inward and down to the gates of day - And crier there in the gate, - "What shall I give for thee, wild one, say! - The long, slow rapture and patient anguish of life, - Or art thou minded a swifter way? - Ask if thou canst, the gold, but oh if thou must, - Good is the shining dross, lovely the dust! - Look at me, I am the Woman, harlot and heavenly wife; - Tell me thy price, be unashamed; I will assuredly pay!" - - I am also the Mother: of two that I bore - I comfort and feed the slayer, feed and comfort the slain. - Did they number my daughters and sons? I am mother of more! - Many a head they marked not, here in my bosom has lain, - Babbling with unborn lips in a tongue to be, - Far, incredible matters, all familiar to me. - Still would the man come whispering, - "Wife!" but many a time my breast - Took him not as a husband: I soothed him and laid him to rest - Even as the babe of my body, and knew him for such. - My mouth is open to speak, that was dumb too much! - I say to you I am the Mother; and under the sword - Which flamed each way to harry us forth from the Lord, - I saw Him young at the portal, weeping and staying the rod, - And I, even I was His mother, and I yearned as the mother of God. - - I am also the Spirit. The Sisters laughed - When I sat with them dumb in the portals, over my lamp, - Half asleep in the doors: for my gown was raught - Off at the shoulder to shield from the wind and the rain - The wick I tended against the mysterious hour - When the Silent City of Being should ring with song, - As the Lord came in with Life to the marriage bower. - "Look!" laughed the elder Sisters; and crimson with shame - I hid my breast away from the rosy flame. - "Ah!" cried the leaning Sisters, pointing, doing me wrong, - "Do you see?" laughed the wanton Sisters, - "She will get her lover ere long!" - And it was but a little while till unto my need - He was given indeed, - And we walked where waxing world after world went by; - And I said to my lover, "Let us begone, - "Oh, let us begone, and try - "Which of them all the fairest to dwell in is, - "Which is the place for us, our desirable clime!" - But he said, "They are only the huts and the little villages, - Pleasant to go and lodge in rudely over the vintage-time!" - Scornfully spake he, being unwise, - Being flushed at heart because of our walking together. - But I was mute with passionate prophecies; - My heart went veiled and faint in the golden weather, - While universe drifted by after still universe. - Then I cried, "Alas, we must hasten and lodge therein, - One after one, and in every star that they shed! - A dark and a weary thing is come on our head-- - To search obedience out in the bosom of sin, - To listen deep for love when thunders the curse; - For O my love, behold where the Lord hath planted - In every star in the midst His dangerous Tree! - Still I must pluck thereof and bring unto thee, - Saying, "The coolness for which all night we have panted; - Taste of the goodly thing, I have tasted first!" - Bringing us noway coolness, but burning thirst, - Giving us noway peace, but implacable strife, - Loosing upon us the wounding joy and the wasting sorrow of life! - - I am the Woman, ark of the Law and sacred arm to upbear it, - Heathen trumpet to overthrow and idolatrous sword to shear it: - Yea, she whose arm was round the neck of the morning star at song, - Is she who kneeleth now in the dust and cries at the secret door, - "Open to me, O sleeping mother! The gate is heavy and strong. - "Open to me, I am come at last; be wroth with thy child no more. - "Let me lie down with thee there in the dark, and be slothful - with thee as before!" - - _William Vaughan Moody_ - - - - - TO WHISTLER, AMERICAN - - _On the loan exhibit of his paintings at the Tate Gallery._ - - You also, our first great, - Had tried all ways; - Tested and pried and worked in many fashions, - And this much gives me heart to play the game. - - Here is a part that's slight, and part gone wrong, - And much of little moment, and some few - Perfect as Dürer! - - "In the Studio" and these two portraits,[A] if I had my choice! - And then these sketches in the mood of Greece? - - You had your searches, your uncertainties, - And this is good to know--for us, I mean, - Who bear the brunt of our America - And try to wrench her impulse into art. - - You were not always sure, not always set - To hiding night or tuning "symphonies"; - Had not one style from birth, but tried and pried - And stretched and tampered with the media. - - You and Abe Lincoln from that mass of dolts - Show us there's chance at least of winning through. - - _Ezra Pound_ - -[Footnote A: - - "Brown and Gold--de Race." - "Grenat et Or--Le Petit Cardinal." - -] - - - - - MIDDLE-AGED - - A STUDY IN AN EMOTION - - "'Tis but a vague, invarious delight - As gold that rains about some buried king. - - As the fine flakes, - When tourists frolicking - Stamp on his roof or in the glazing light - Try photographs, wolf down their ale and cakes - And start to inspect some further pyramid; - - As the fine dust, in the hid cell beneath - Their transitory step and merriment, - Drifts through the air, and the sarcophagus - Gains yet another crust - Of useless riches for the occupant, - So I, the fires that lit once dreams - Now over and spent, - Lie dead within four walls - And so now love - Rains down and so enriches some stiff case, - And strews a mind with precious metaphors, - - And so the space - Of my still consciousness - Is full of gilded snow, - - The which, no cat has eyes enough - To see the brightness of." - - _Ezra Pound_ - - - - - FISH OF THE FLOOD - - Fish of the flood, on the bankèd billow - Thou layest thy head in dreams; - Sliding as slides thy shifting pillow, - One with the streams - Of the sea is thy spirit. - - Gean-tree, thou spreadest thy foaming flourish - Abroad in the sky so grey; - It not heeding if it thee nourish, - Thou dost obey, - Happy, its moving. - - So, God, thy love it not needeth me, - Only thy life, that I blessèd be. - - _Emilia Stuart Lorimer_ - - - - - TO ONE UNKNOWN - - I have seen the proudest stars - That wander on through space, - Even the sun and moon, - But not your face. - - I have heard the violin, - The winds and waves rejoice - In endless minstrelsy, - Yet not your voice. - - I have touched the trillium, - Pale flower of the land, - Coral, anemone, - And not your hand. - - I have kissed the shining feet - Of Twilight lover-wise, - Opened the gates of Dawn-- - Oh not your eyes! - - I have dreamed unwonted things, - Visions that witches brew, - Spoken with images, - Never with you. - - _Helen Dudley_ - - - - - SYMPHONY OF A MEXICAN GARDEN - - 1. THE GARDEN _Poco sostenuto_ in A major - The laving tide of inarticulate air. - - _Vivace_ in A major - The iris people dance. - - 2. THE POOL _Allegretto_ in A minor - Cool-hearted dim familiar of the doves. - - 3. THE BIRDS _Presto_ in F major - I keep a frequent tryst. - - _Presto meno assai_ - The blossom-powdered orange-tree. - - 4. TO THE MOON _Allegro con brio_ in A major - Moon that shone on Babylon. - - - TO MOZART - - _What junipers are these, inlaid - With flame of the pomegranate tree? - The god of gardens must have made - This still unrumored place for thee - To rest from immortality, - And dream within the splendid shade - Some more elusive symphony - Than orchestra has ever played._ - - - I In A major - _Poco sostenuto_ - - The laving tide of inarticulate air - Breaks here in flowers as the sea in foam, - But with no satin lisp of failing wave: - The odor-laden winds are very still. - An unimagined music here exhales - In upcurled petal, dreamy bud half-furled, - And variations of thin vivid leaf: - Symphonic beauty that some god forgot. - If form could waken into lyric sound, - This flock of irises like poising birds - Would feel song at their slender feathered throats, - And pour into a grey-winged aria - Their wrinkled silver fingermarked with pearl; - That flight of ivory roses high along - The airy azure of the larkspur spires - Would be a fugue to puzzle nightingales - With too-evasive rapture, phrase on phrase. - Where the hibiscus flares would cymbals clash, - And the black cypress like a deep bassoon - Would hum a clouded amber melody. - - But all across the trudging ragged chords - That are the tangled grasses in the heat, - The mariposa lilies fluttering - Like trills upon some archangelic flute, - The roses and carnations and divine - Small violets that voice the vanished god, - There is a lure of passion-poignant tone - Not flower-of-pomegranate--that finds the heart - As stubborn oboes do--can breathe in air, - Nor poppies, nor keen lime, nor orange-bloom. - - What zone of wonder in the ardent dusk - Of trees that yearn and cannot understand, - Vibrates as to the golden shepherd horn - That stirs some great adagio with its cry - And will not let it rest? - O tender trees, - Your orchid, like a shepherdess of dreams, - Calls home her whitest dream from following - Elusive laughter of the unmindful god! - - - _Vivace_ - - The iris people dance - Like any nimble faun: - To rhythmic radiance - They foot it in the dawn. - They dance and have no need - Of crystal-dripping flute - Or chuckling river-reed,-- - Their music hovers mute. - The dawn-lights flutter by - All noiseless, but they know! - Such children of the sky - Can hear the darkness go. - But does the morning play - Whatever they demand-- - Or amber-barred bourrée - Or silver saraband? - - - THE POOL - II. In A minor - _Allegretto_ - - Cool-hearted dim familiar of the doves, - Thou coiled sweet water where they come to tell - Their mellow legends and rehearse their loves, - As what in April or in June befell - And thou must hear of,--friend of Dryades - Who lean to see where flower should be set - To star the dusk of wreathed ivy braids, - They have not left thy trees, - Nor do tired fauns thy crystal kiss forget, - Nor forest-nymphs astray from distant glades. - - Thou feelest with delight their showery feet - Along thy mossy margin myrtle-starred, - And thine the heart of wildness quick to beat - At imprint of shy hoof upon thy sward: - Yet who could know thee wild who art so cool, - So heavenly-minded, templed in thy grove - Of plumy cedar, larch and juniper? - O strange ecstatic Pool, - What unknown country art thou dreaming of, - Or temple than this garden lovelier? - - Who made thy sky the silver side of leaves, - And poised its orchid like a swan-white moon - Whose disc of perfect pallor half deceives - The mirror of thy limpid green lagoon, - He loveth well thy ripple-feathered moods, - Thy whims at dusk, thy rainbow look at dawn! - Dream thou no more of vales Olympian: - Where pale Olympus broods - There were no orchid white as moon or swan, - No sky of leaves, no garden-haunting Pan! - - - THE BIRDS - III. In F major - _Presto_ - - I keep a frequent tryst - With whirr and shower of wings: - Some inward melodist - Interpreting all things - Appoints the place, the hours. - Dazzle and sense of flowers, - Though not the least leaf stir, - May mean a tanager: - How rich the silence is until he sings! - - The smoke-tree's cloudy white - Has fire within its breast. - What winged mere delight - There hides as in a nest - And fashions of its flame - Music without a name? - So might an opal sing - If given thrilling wing, - And voice for lyric wildness unexpressed. - - In grassy dimness thatched - With tangled growing things, - A troubadour rose-patched, - With velvet-shadowed wings, - Seeks a sustaining fly. - Who else unseen goes by - Quick-pattering through the hush? - Some twilight-footed thrush - Or finch intent on small adventurings? - - I have no time for gloom, - For gloom what time have I? - The orange is in bloom; - Emerald parrots fly - Out of the cypress-dusk; - Morning is strange with musk. - The wild canary now - Jewels the lemon-bough, - And mocking-birds laugh in the rose's room. - - - THE ORANGE TREE - In D Major - _Presto meno assai_ - - The blossom-powdered orange tree, - For all her royal speechlessness, - Out of a heart of ecstasy - Is singing, singing, none the less! - - Light as a springing fountain, she - Is spray above the wind-sleek turf: - Dream-daughter of the moon's white sea - And sister to its showered surf! - - - TO THE MOON - IV. In A major - _Allegro con brio_ - - Moon that shone on Babylon, - Searching out the gardens there, - Could you find a fairer one - Than this garden, anywhere? - Did Damascus at her best - Hide such beauty in her breast? - - When you flood with creamy light - Vines that net the sombre pine, - Turn the shadowed iris white, - Summon cactus stars to shine, - Do you free in silvered air - Wistful spirits everywhere? - - Here they linger, there they pass, - And forget their native heaven: - Flit along the dewy grass - Rare Vittoria, Sappho, even! - And the hushed magnolia burns - Incense in her gleaming urns. - - When the nightingale demands - Word with Keats who answers him, - Shakespeare listens--understands-- - Mindful of the cherubim; - And the South Wind dreads to know - Mozart gone as seraphs go. - - Moon of poets dead and gone, - Moon to gods of music dear, - Gardens they have looked upon - Let them re-discover here: - Rest--and dream a little space - Of some heart-remembered place! - - _Grace Hazard Conkling_ - - - - - EDITORIAL COMMENT - - AS IT WAS - -Once upon a time, when man was new in the woods of the world, when his -feet were scarred with jungle thorns and his hands were red with the -blood of beasts, a great king rose who gathered his neighbors together, -and subdued the wandering tribes. Strange cunning was his, for he ground -the stones to an edge together, and bound them with thongs to sticks; -and he taught his people to pry apart the forest, and beat back the -ravenous beasts. And he bade them honeycomb the mountainside with caves, -to dwell therein with their women. And the most beautiful women the king -took for his own, that his wisdom might not perish from the earth. And -he led the young men to war and conquered all the warring tribes from -the mountains to the sea. And when fire smote a great tree out of -heaven, and raged through the forest till the third sun, he seized a -burning brand and lit an altar to his god. And there, beside the -ever-burning fire, he sat and made laws and did justice. And his people -loved and feared him. - -And the king grew old. And for seven journeys of the sun from morn to -morn he moved not, neither uttered word. And the hearts of the people -were troubled, but none dared speak to the king's despair; neither wise -men nor warriors dared cry out unto him. - -Now the youngest son of the king was a lad still soft of flesh, who had -never run to battle not sat in council nor stood before the king. And -his heart yearned for his father, and he bowed before his mother and -said, "Give me thy blessing, for I have words within me for the king; -yea, as the sea sings to the night with waves will my words roll in -singing unto his grief." And his mother said, "Go, my son; for thou hast -words of power and soothing, and the king shall be healed." - -So the youth went forth and bowed him toward the king's seat. And the -wise men and warriors laid hands upon him, and said, "Who art thou, that -thou shouldst go in ahead of us to him who sitteth in darkness?" And the -king's son rose, and stretched forth his arms, and said, "Unhand me and -let me go, ye silent ones, who for seven sun-journeys have watched in -darkness and uttered no word of light! Unhand me, for as a fig-tree with -fruit, so my heart is rich with words for the king." - -Then he put forth his strength and strode on singing softly, and bowed -him before the king. And he spake the king's great deeds in cunning -words--his wars and city-carvings and wise laws, his dominion over men -and beasts and the thick woods of the earth; his greeting of the gods -with fire. - -And lo, the king lifted up his head and stretched forth his arms and -wept. "Yea, all these things have I done," he said, "and they shall -perish with me. My death is upon me, and I shall die, and the tribes I -have welded together shall be broken apart, and the beasts shall win -back their domain, and the green jungle shall overgrow my mansions. Lo, -the fire shall go out on the altar of the gods, and my glory shall be as -a crimson cloud that the night swallows up in darkness." - -Then the young man lifted up his voice and cried: "Oh, king, be -comforted! Thy deeds shall not pass as a cloud, neither shall thy laws -be strewn before the wind. For I will carve thy glory in rich and -rounded words--yea, I will string thy deeds together in jewelled beads -of perfect words that thy sons shall wear on their hearts forever." - -"Verily thy words are rich with song," said the king; "but thou shalt -die, and who will utter them? Like twinkling foam is the speech of man's -mouth; like foam from a curling wave that vanishes in the sun." - -"Nay, let thy heart believe me, oh king my father," said the youth. "For -the words of my mouth shall keep step with the ripple of waves and the -beating of wings; yea, they shall mount with the huge paces of the sun -in heaven, that cease not for my ceasing. Men shall sound them on -suckling tongues still soft with milk, they shall run into battle to the -tune of thy deeds, and kindle their fire with the breath of thy wisdom. -And thy glory shall be ever living, as a jewel of jasper from the -earth--yea, as the green jewel of jasper carven into a god for the rod -of thy power, oh king, and of the power of thy sons forever." - -The king sat silent till the going-down of the sun. Then lifted he his -head, and stroked his beard, and spake: "Verily the sun goes down, and -my beard shines whiter than his, and I shall die. Now therefore stand at -my right hand, O son of my wise years, child of my dreams. Stand at my -right hand, and fit thy speech to music, that men may hold in their -hearts thy rounded words. Forever shalt thou keep thy place, and utter -thy true tale in the ears of the race. And woe be unto them that hear -thee not! Verily that generation shall pass as a cloud, and its glory -shall be as a tree that withers. For thou alone shalt win the flying -hours to thee, and keep the beauty of them for the joy of men forever." - - _H. M._ - - - - - ON THE READING OF POETRY - -In the brilliant pages of his essay on Jean François Millet, Romain -Rolland says that Millet, as a boy, used to read the Bucolics and the -Georgics "with enchantment" and was "seized by emotion--when he came to -the line, 'It is the hour when the great shadows seek the plain.' - - Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant - Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae?" - -To the lover and student of poetry, this incident has an especial charm -and significance. There is something fine in the quick sympathy of an -artist in one kind, for beauty expressed by the master of another -medium. The glimpse M. Rolland gives us of one of the most passionate -art-students the world has ever known, implies with fresh grace a truth -Anglo-Saxons are always forgetting--that poetry is one of the great -humanities, that poetry is one of the great arts of expression. - -Many of our customs conspire to cause, almost to force, this forgetting. -Thousands of us have been educated to a dark and often permanent -ignorance of classic poetry, by being taught in childhood to regard it -as written for the purpose of illustrating Hadley's Latin, or Goodwin's -Greek grammar, and composed to follow the rules of versification at the -end of the book. It seems indeed one of fate's strangest ironies that -the efforts of these distinguished grammarians to unveil immortal -masterpieces are commonly used in schools and colleges to enshroud, not -to say swaddle up, the images of the gods "forever young," and turn them -into mummies. In our own country, far from perceiving in Vergil's quiet -music the magnificent gesture of nature that thrilled his Norman -reader--far from conceiving of epic poetry as the simplest universal -tongue, one early acquires a wary distrust of it as something one must -constantly labor over. - -Aside from gaining in childhood this strong, practical objection to -famous poetry, people achieve the deadly habit of reading metrical lines -unimaginatively. After forming--generally in preparation for entering -one of our great universities--the habit of blinding the inner eye, -deafening the inner ear, and dropping into a species of mental coma -before a page of short lines, it is difficult for educated persons to -read poetry with what is known as "ordinary human intelligence." - -It does not occur to them simply to listen to the nightingale. But -poetry, I believe, never speaks her beauty--certainly never her scope -and variety, except on the condition that in her presence one sits down -quietly with folded hands, and truly listens to her singing voice. - - "So for one the wet sail arching through the rainbow round the bow, - And for one the creak of snow-shoes on the crust." - -Many people do not like poetry, in this way, as a living art to be -enjoyed, but rather as an exact science to be approved. To them poetry -may concern herself only with a limited number of subjects to be -presented in a predetermined and conventional manner and form. To such -readers the word "form" means usually only a repeated literary effect: -and they do not understand that every "form" was in its first and best -use an originality, employed not for the purpose of following any rule, -but because it said truly what the artist wished to express. I suppose -much of the monotony of subject and treatment observable in modern verse -is due to this belief that poetry is merely a fixed way of repeating -certain meritorious though highly familiar concepts of existence--and -not in the least the infinite music of words meant to speak the little -and the great tongues of the earth. - -It is exhilarating to read the pages of Pope and of Byron, whether you -agree with them or not, because here poetry does speak the little and -the great tongues of the earth, and sings satires, pastorals and -lampoons, literary and dramatic criticism, all manner of fun and -sparkling prettiness, sweeping judgments, nice discriminations, -fashions, politics, the ways of gentle and simple--love and desire and -pain and sorrow, and anguish and death. - -The impulse which inspired, and the appreciation which endowed this -magazine, has been a generous sympathy with poetry as an art. The -existence of a gallery for poems and verse has an especially attractive -social value in its power of recalling or creating the beautiful and -clarifying pleasure of truly reading poetry in its broad scope and rich -variety. The hospitality of this hall will have been a genuine source of -happiness if somehow it tells the visitors, either while they are here, -or after they have gone to other places, what a delight it is to enjoy a -poem, to realize it, to live in the vivid dream it evokes, to hark to -its music, to listen to the special magic grace of its own style and -composition, and to know that this special grace will say as deeply as -some revealing hour with a friend one loves, something nothing else can -say--something which is life itself sung in free sympathy beyond the -bars of time and space. - - _E. W._ - - - - - THE MOTIVE OF THE MAGAZINE - -In the huge democracy of our age no interest is too slight to have an -organ. Every sport, every little industry requires its own corner, its -own voice, that it may find its friends, greet them, welcome them. - -The arts especially have need of each an entrenched place, a voice of -power, if they are to do their work and be heard. For as the world grows -greater day by day, as every member of it, through something he buys or -knows or loves, reaches out to the ends of the earth, things precious to -the race, things rare and delicate, may be overpowered, lost in the -criss-cross of modern currents, the confusion of modern immensities. - -Painting, sculpture, music are housed in palaces in the great cities of -the world; and every week or two a new periodical is born to speak for -one or the other of them, and tenderly nursed at some guardian's -expense. Architecture, responding to commercial and social demands, is -whipped into shape by the rough and tumble of life and fostered, -willy-nilly, by men's material needs. Poetry alone, of all the fine -arts, has been left to shift for herself in a world unaware of its -immediate and desperate need of her, a world whose great deeds, whose -triumphs over matter, over the wilderness, over racial enmities and -distances, require her ever-living voice to give them glory and -glamour. - -Poetry has been left to herself and blamed for inefficiency, a process -as unreasonable as blaming the desert for barrenness. This art, like -every other, is not a miracle of direct creation, but a reciprocal -relation between the artist and his public. The people must do their -part if the poet is to tell their story to the future; they must -cultivate and irrigate the soil if the desert is to blossom as the rose. - -The present venture is a modest effort to give to poetry her own place, -her own voice. The popular magazines can afford her but scant -courtesy--a Cinderella corner in the ashes--because they seek a large -public which is not hers, a public which buys them not for their verse -but for their stories, pictures, journalism, rarely for their -literature, even in prose. Most magazine editors say that there is no -public for poetry in America; one of them wrote to a young poet that the -verse his monthly accepted "must appeal to the barber's wife of the -Middle West," and others prove their distrust by printing less verse -from year to year, and that rarely beyond page-end length and -importance. - -We believe that there is a public for poetry, that it will grow, and -that as it becomes more numerous and appreciative the work produced in -this art will grow in power, in beauty, in significance. In this belief -we have been encouraged by the generous enthusiasm of many subscribers -to our fund, by the sympathy of other lovers of the art, and by the -quick response of many prominent poets, both American and English, who -have sent or promised contributions. - -We hope to publish in _Poetry_ some of the best work now being done in -English verse. Within space limitations set at present by the small size -of our monthly sheaf, we shall be able to print poems longer, and of -more intimate and serious character, than the popular magazines can -afford to use. The test, limited by ever-fallible human judgment, is to -be quality alone; all forms, whether narrative, dramatic or lyric, will -be acceptable. We hope to offer our subscribers a place of refuge, a -green isle in the sea, where Beauty may plant her gardens, and Truth, -austere revealer of joy and sorrow, of hidden delights and despairs, may -follow her brave quest unafraid. - - - - - NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS - -In order that the experiment of a magazine of verse may have a fair -trial, over one hundred subscriptions of fifty dollars annually for five -years have been promised by the ladies and gentlemen listed below. In -addition, nearly twenty direct contributions of smaller sums have been -sent or promised. To all these lovers of the art the editors would -express their grateful appreciation. - - Mr. H. C. Chatfield-Taylor - Mr. Howard Shaw - Mr. Arthur T. Aldis - Mr. Edwin S. Fechheimer - Mrs. Charles H. Hamill - [B]Mr. D. H. Burnham - Mrs. Emmons Blaine (2) - Mr. Wm. S. Monroe - Mr. E. A. Bancroft - Mrs. Burton Hanson - Mr. John M. Ewen - Mr. C. L. Hutchinson - Mrs. Wm. Vaughan Moody - Hon. Wm. J. Calhoun - {Miss Anna Morgan - {Mrs. Edward A. Leicht - Mrs. Louis Betts - Mr. Ralph Cudney - Mrs. George Bullen - Mrs. P. A. Valentine - Mr. P. A. Valentine - Mr. Charles R. Crane - Mr. Frederick Sargent - Mrs. Frank G. Logan - Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus - Mrs. Emma B. Hodge - Mr. Wallace Heckman - Mr. Edward B. Butler (2) - Miss Elizabeth Ross - Mrs. Bryan Lathrop - Mr. Martin A. Ryerson - Mrs. La Verne Noyes - Mrs. E. Norman Scott (2) - Mr. Wm. O. Goodman - Mrs. Charles Hitchcock - Hon. John Barton Payne - Mr. Thomas D. Jones - Mr. H. H. Kohlsaat - Mr. Andrew M. Lawrence - Miss Juliet Goodrich - Mr. Henry H. Walker - Mr. Charles Deering - Mr. Jas. Harvey Peirce - Mr. Charles L. Freer - Mrs. W. F. Dummer - Mr. Jas. P. Whedon - Mr. Arthur Heun - Mr. Edward F. Carry - Mrs. George M. Pullman - Mr. Cyrus H. McCormick (2) - Mr. F. Stuyvesant Peabody - Mrs. F. S. Winston - Mr. J. J. Glessner - {Mr. C. C. Curtiss - {Mrs. Hermon B. Butler - Mr. Will H. Lyford - Mr. Horace S. Oakley - Mr. Eames Mac Veagh - Mrs. K. M. H. Besly - Mr. Charles G. Dawes - Mr. Clarence Buckingham - Mrs. Potter Palmer - Mr. Owen F. Aldis - Mr. Albert B. Dick - Mr. Albert H. Loeb - The Misses Skinner - Mr. Potter Palmer - Miss Mary Rozet Smith - Misses Alice E. and Margaret D. Moran - {Mrs. James B. Waller - {Mr. John Borden - Mr. Victor F. Lawson - {Mrs. H. M. Wilmarth - {Mrs. Norman F. Thompson - {Mrs. William Blair - {Mrs. Clarence I. Peck - Mr. Clarence M. Woolley - Mr. Edward P. Russell - Mrs. Frank O. Lowden - Mr. John S. Miller - Miss Helen Louise Birch - Nine members of the Fortnightly - Six members of the Friday Club - Seven members of the Chicago Woman's Club - Mr. William L. Brown - Mr. Rufus G. Dawes - Mr. Gilbert E. Porter - Mr. Alfred L. Baker - Mr. George A. McKinlock - Mr. John S. Field - Mrs. Samuel Insull - Mr. William T. Fenton - Mr. A. G. Becker - Mr. Honoré Palmer - Mr. John J. Mitchell - Mrs. F. A. Hardy - Mr. Morton D. Hull - Mr. E. F. Ripley - Mr. Ernest MacDonald Bowman - Mr. John A. Kruse - Mr. Frederic C. Bartlett - Mr. Franklin H. Head - Mrs. Wm. R. Linn - -[Footnote B: _Deceased._] - - * * * * * - -Through the generosity of five gentlemen, _Poetry_ will give two hundred -and fifty dollars in one or two prizes for the best poem or poems -printed in its pages the first year. In addition a subscriber to the -fund offers twenty-five dollars for the best epigram. - - * * * * * - -Mr. Maurice Browne, director of the Chicago Little Theatre, offers to -produce, during the season of 1913-14, the best play in verse published -in, or submitted to, _Poetry_ during its first year; provided that it -may be adequately presented under the requirements and limitations of -his stage. - - * * * * * - -We are fortunate in being able, through the courtesy of the -Houghton-Mifflin Co., to offer our readers a poem, hitherto unprinted, -from advance sheets of the complete works of the late William Vaughan -Moody, which will be published in November. The lamentable death of -this poet two years ago in the early prime of his great powers was a -calamity to literature. It is fitting that the first number of a -magazine published in the city where for years he wrote and taught, -should contain an important poem from his hand. - -Mr. Ezra Pound, the young Philadelphia poet whose recent distinguished -success in London led to wide recognition in his own country, authorizes -the statement that at present such of his poetic work as receives -magazine publication in America will appear exclusively in _Poetry_. -That discriminating London publisher, Mr. Elkin Mathews, "discovered" -this young poet from over seas, and published "Personae," "Exultations" -and "Canzoniere," three small volumes of verse from which a selection -has been reprinted by the Houghton-Mifflin Co. under the title -"Provença." Mr. Pound's latest work is a translation from the Italian of -"Sonnets and Ballate," by Guido Cavalcanti. - -Mr. Arthur Davison Ficke, another contributor, is a graduate of Harvard, -who studied law and entered his father's office in Davenport, Iowa. He -is the author of "The Happy Princess" and "The Breaking of Bonds," and a -contributor to leading magazines. An early number of _Poetry_ will be -devoted exclusively to Mr. Ficke's work. - -Mrs. Roscoe P. Conkling is a resident of the state of New York; a young -poet who has contributed to various magazines. - -Miss Lorimer is a young English poet resident in Oxford, who will -publish her first volume this autumn. The London _Poetry Review_, in its -August number, introduced her with a group of lyrics which were -criticized with some asperity in the _New Age_ and praised with equal -warmth in other periodicals. - - * * * * * - -Miss Dudley, who is a Chicagoan born and bred, is still younger in the -art, "To One Unknown" being the first of her poems to be printed. - - * * * * * - -_Poetry_ will acknowledge the receipt of books of verse and works -relating to the subject, and will print brief reviews of those which -seem for any reason significant. It will endeavor also to keep its -readers informed of the progress of the art throughout the -English-speaking world and continental Europe. The American metropolitan -newspaper prints cable dispatches about post-impressionists, futurists, -secessionists and other radicals in painting, sculpture and music, but -so far as its editors and readers are concerned, French poetry might -have died with Victor Hugo, and English with Tennyson, or at most -Swinburne. - - NOTE.--Eight months after the first general - newspaper announcement of our efforts to secure a - fund for a magazine of verse, and three or four - months after our first use of the title _Poetry_, - a Boston firm of publishers announced a - forthcoming periodical of the same kind, to be - issued under the same name. The two are not to be - confused. - - THE RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUR COMPANY - PRINTERS CHICAGO - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 2 - - - NOVEMBER, 1912 - - - - - THE PIPER - - George Borrow in his _Lavengro_ - Tells us of a Welshman, who - By some excess of mother-wit - Framed a harp and played on it, - Built a ship and sailed to sea, - And steered it home to melody - Of his own making. I, indeed, - Might write for Everyman to read - A thaumalogue of wonderment - More wonderful, but rest content - With celebrating one I knew - Who built his pipes, and played them, too: - No more. - Ah, played! Therein is all: - The hounded thing, the hunter's call; - The shudder, when the quarry's breath - Is drowned in blood and stilled in death; - The marriage dance, the pulsing vein, - The kiss that must be given again; - The hope that Ireland, like a rose, - Sees shining thro' her tale of woes; - The battle lost, the long lament - For blood and spirit vainly spent; - And so on, thro' the varying scale - Of passion that the western Gael - Knows, and by miracle of art - Draws to the chanter from the heart - Like water from a hidden spring, - To leap or murmur, weep or sing. - - I see him now, a little man - In proper black, whey-bearded, wan, - With eyes that scan the eastern hills - Thro' thick, gold-rimmèd spectacles. - His hand is on the chanter. Lo, - The hidden spring begins to flow - In waves of magic. (He is dead - These seven years, but bend your head - And listen.) Rising from the clay - The Master plays _The Ring of Day_. - It mounts and falls and floats away - Over the sky-line ... then is gone - Into the silence of the dawn! - - _Joseph Campbell_ - - - - - BEYOND THE STARS - - Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, - (It was so strange to me that they should weep!) - Tall candles burned about me in the dark, - And a great crucifix was on my breast, - And a great silence filled the lonesome room. - - I heard one whisper, "Lo! the dawn is breaking, - And he has lost the wonder of the day." - Another came whom I had loved on earth, - And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. - Softly she spoke: "Oh that he should not see - The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds - Are singing in the orchard, and the grass - That soon will cover him is growing green. - The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, - And the immortal magic that he loved - Wakens again--and he has fallen asleep." - Another said: "Last night I saw the moon - Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, - And I could only think of him--and sob. - For I remembered evenings wonderful - When he was faint with Life's sad loveliness, - And watched the silver ribbons wandering far - Along the shore, and out upon the sea. - Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, - The sighing ocean and the flaming stars, - The everlasting glamour God has given-- - His tapestries that wrap the earth's wide room. - I minded me of mornings filled with rain - When he would sit and listen to the sound - As if it were lost music from the spheres. - He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, - He loved the shining gold of buttercups, - And the low droning of the drowsy bees - That boomed across the meadows. He was glad - At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came - With her worn livery and scarlet crown, - And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. - Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, - And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing - With green inscriptions of the old delight." - - I heard them whisper in the quiet room. - I longed to open then my sealèd eyes, - And tell them of the glory that was mine. - There was no darkness where my spirit flew, - There was no night beyond the teeming world. - Their April was like winter where I roamed; - Their flowers were like stones where now I fared. - Earth's day! it was as if I had not known - What sunlight meant!... Yea, even as they grieved - For all that I had lost in their pale place, - I swung beyond the borders of the sky, - And floated through the clouds, myself the air, - Myself the ether, yet a matchless being - Whom God had snatched from penury and pain - To draw across the barricades of heaven. - I clomb beyond the sun, beyond the moon; - In flight on flight I touched the highest star; - I plunged to regions where the Spring is born, - Myself (I asked not how) the April wind, - Myself the elements that are of God. - Up flowery stairways of eternity - I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy, - An atom, yet a portion of His dream-- - His dream that knows no end.... - I was the rain, - I was the dawn, I was the purple east, - I was the moonlight on enchanted nights, - (Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower - For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss, - And rapture, splendid moments of delight; - And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope; - And always, always, always I was love. - I tore asunder flimsy doors of time, - And through the windows of my soul's new sight - I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space. - I was all things that I had loved on earth-- - The very moonbeam in that quiet room, - The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost, - The soul of the returning April grass, - The spirit of the evening and the dawn, - The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms. - There was no shadow on my perfect peace, - No knowledge that was hidden from my heart. - I learned what music meant; I read the years; - I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin; - I trod the precincts of things yet unborn. - - Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead), - They grieved for me ... I should have grieved for them! - - _Charles Hanson Towne_ - - - - - [Greek: CHORIKOS] - - The ancient songs - Pass deathward mournfully. - - Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths, - Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings-- - Symbols of ancient songs - Mournfully passing - Down to the great white surges, - Watched of none - Save the frail sea-birds - And the lithe pale girls, - Daughters of Okeanos. - - And the songs pass - From the green land - Which lies upon the waves as a leaf - On the flowers of hyacinth; - And they pass from the waters, - The manifold winds and the dim moon, - And they come, - Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk, - To the quiet level lands - That she keeps for us all, - That she wrought for us all for sleep - In the silver days of the earth's dawning-- - Proserpine, daughter of Zeus. - - And we turn from the Kuprian's breasts, - And we turn from thee, - Phoibos Apollon, - And we turn from the music of old - And the hills that we loved and the meads, - And we turn from the fiery day, - And the lips that were over-sweet; - For silently - Brushing the fields with red-shod feet, - With purple robe - Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame, - Death, - Thou hast come upon us. - - And of all the ancient songs - Passing to the swallow-blue halls - By the dark streams of Persephone, - This only remains: - That in the end we turn to thee, - Death, - That we turn to thee, singing - One last song. - - O Death, - Thou art an healing wind - That blowest over white flowers - A-tremble with dew; - Thou art a wind flowing - Over long leagues of lonely sea; - Thou art the dusk and the fragrance; - Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling; - Thou art the pale peace of one - Satiate with old desires; - Thou art the silence of beauty, - And we look no more for the morning; - We yearn no more for the sun, - Since with thy white hands, - Death, - Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets, - The slim colorless poppies - Which in thy garden alone - Softly thou gatherest. - - And silently; - And with slow feet approaching; - And with bowed head and unlit eyes, - We kneel before thee: - And thou, leaning towards us, - Caressingly layest upon us - Flowers from thy thin cold hands, - And, smiling as a chaste woman - Knowing love in her heart, - Thou sealest our eyes - And the illimitable quietude - Comes gently upon us. - - _Richard Aldington_ - - - - - TO A GREEK MARBLE - - [Greek: Photnia, photnia], - White grave goddess, - Pity my sadness, - O silence of Paros. - - I am not of these about thy feet, - These garments and decorum; - I am thy brother, - Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee, - And thou hearest me not. - - I have whispered thee in thy solitudes - Of our loves in Phrygia, - The far ecstasy of burning noons - When the fragile pipes - Ceased in the cypress shade, - And the brown fingers of the shepherd - Moved over slim shoulders; - And only the cicada sang. - - I have told thee of the hills - And the lisp of reeds - And the sun upon thy breasts, - - And thou hearest me not, - [Greek: Photnia, photnia], - Thou hearest me not. - - _Richard Aldington_ - - - - - AU VIEUX JARDIN. - - I have sat here happy in the gardens, - Watching the still pool and the reeds - And the dark clouds - Which the wind of the upper air - Tore like the green leafy boughs - Of the divers-hued trees of late summer; - But though I greatly delight - In these and the water-lilies, - That which sets me nighest to weeping - Is the rose and white color of the smooth flag-stones, - And the pale yellow grasses - Among them. - - _Richard Aldington_ - - - - - UNDER TWO WINDOWS - - I. AUBADE - - The dawn is here--and the long night through I have - never seen thy face, - Though my feet have worn the patient grass at the gate - of thy dwelling-place. - - While the white moon sailed till, red in the west, it found - the far world-edge, - No leaflet stirred of the leaves that climb to garland - thy window ledge. - - Yet the vine had quivered from root to tip, and opened - its flowers again, - If only the low moon's light had glanced on a moving - casement pane. - - Warm was the wind that entered in where the barrier - stood ajar, - And the curtain shook with its gentle breath, white as - young lilies are; - - But there came no hand all the slow night through to draw - the folds aside, - (I longed as the moon and the vine-leaves longed!) or to - set the casement wide. - - Three times in a low-hung nest there dreamed his five - sweet notes a bird, - And thrice my heart leaped up at the sound I thought - thou hadst surely heard. - - But now that thy praise is caroled aloud by a thousand - throats awake, - Shall I watch from afar and silently, as under the moon, - for thy sake? - - Nay--bold in the sun I speak thy name, I too, and I wait - no more - Thy hand, thy face, in the window niche, but thy kiss at - the open door! - - II. NOCTURNE - - My darling, come!--The wings of the dark have wafted - the sunset away, - And there's room for much in a summer night, but no - room for delay. - - A still moon looketh down from the sky, and a wavering - moon looks up - From every hollow in the green hills that holds a pool in - its cup. - - The woodland borders are wreathed with bloom--elder, - viburnum, rose; - The young trees yearn on the breast of the wind that - sighs of love as it goes. - - The small stars drown in the moon-washed blue but the - greater ones abide, - With Vega high in the midmost place, Altair not far aside. - - The glades are dusk, and soft the grass, where the flower - of the elder gleams, - Mist-white, moth-like, a spirit awake in the dark of forest - dreams. - - Arcturus beckons into the east, Antares toward the south, - That sendeth a zephyr sweet with thyme to seek for thy - sweeter mouth. - - Shall the blossom wake, the star look down, all night and - have naught to see? - Shall the reeds that sing by the wind-brushed pool say - nothing of thee and me? - - --My darling comes! My arms are content, my feet are - guiding her way; - There is room for much in a summer night, but no room - for delay! - - _Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer_ - - - - - THE SINGING PLACE - - Cold may lie the day, - And bare of grace; - At night I slip away - To the Singing Place. - - A border of mist and doubt - Before the gate, - And the Dancing Stars grow still - As hushed I wait. - Then faint and far away - I catch the beat - In broken rhythm and rhyme - Of joyous feet,-- - Lifting waves of sound - That will rise and swell - (If the prying eyes of thought - Break not the spell), - Rise and swell and retreat - And fall and flee, - As over the edge of sleep - They beckon me. - And I wait as the seaweed waits - For the lifting tide; - To ask would be to awake,-- - To be denied. - I cloud my eyes in the mist - That veils the hem,-- - And then with a rush I am past,-- - I am Theirs, and of Them! - And the pulsing chant swells up - To touch the sky, - And the song is joy, is life, - And the song am I! - The thunderous music peals - Around, o'erhead-- - The dead would awake to hear - If there were dead; - But the life of the throbbing Sun - Is in the song, - And we weave the world anew, - And the Singing Throng - Fill every corner of space-- - - Over the edge of sleep - I bring but a trace - Of the chants that pulse and sweep - In the Singing Place. - - _Lily A. Long_ - - - - - IMMURED - - Within this narrow cell that I call "me", - I was imprisoned ere the worlds began, - And all the worlds must run, as first they ran, - In silver star-dust, ere I shall be free. - I beat my hands against the walls and find - It is my breast I beat, O bond and blind! - - _Lily A. Long_ - - - - - NOGI - - Great soldier of the fighting clan, - Across Port Arthur's frowning face of stone - You drew the battle sword of old Japan, - And struck the White Tsar from his Asian throne. - - Once more the samurai sword - Struck to the carved hilt in your loyal hand, - That not alone your heaven-descended lord - Should meanly wander in the spirit land. - - Your own proud way, O eastern star, - Grandly at last you followed. Out it leads - To that high heaven where all the heroes are, - Lovers of death for causes and for creeds. - - _Harriet Monroe_ - - - - - THE JESTER - - I have known great gold Sorrows: - Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully - Through the slow-pacing morrows: - I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing - Dim endless voices cried of suffering - Vibrant and far in broken litany: - Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly - Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-- - All things most tragical, most fair, - Have still encompassed me ... - - I dance where in the screaming market-place - The dusty world that watches buys and sells, - With painted merriment upon my face, - Whirling my bells, - Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery. - - I have known great gold Sorrows ... - Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones, - If it shall make them merry, and forget - That grief shall rise and set - With the unchanging, unforgetting suns - Of their relentless morrows? - - _Margaret Widdemer_ - - - - - THE BEGGARS - - The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces, - Begging of Life for Joy! - - I saw the little daughters of the poor, - Tense from the long day's working, strident, gay, - Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled - A hideous flushed beggar at the door, - Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed, - Complacent in his profitable mask. - They mocked his horror, but they gave to him - From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in - To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts - Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand - Covered by darkness, to the luring voice - Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings, - Of silks, of feathers, bought--so cheap!--with just - Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant - For Beauty, Laughter, Passion, that is Life: - (A frock of satin for an hour's shame, - A coat of fur for two days' servitude; - "And the clothes last," the thought runs on, within - The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days; - "Who cares or knows after the hour is done?") - --Poor little beggars at Life's door for Joy! - The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible, - Complacent in the marketable mask - That earned his comforts--and they gave to him! - - But ah, the little painted, wistful faces - Questioning Life for Joy! - - _Margaret Widdemer_ - - - [Illustration] - - - - - REVIEWS AND COMMENTS - - MOODY'S POEMS - -_The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody_ will soon be published in -two volumes by the Houghton-Mifflin Co. Our present interest is in the -volume of poems, which are themselves an absorbing drama. Moody had a -slowly maturing mind; the vague vastness of his young dreams yielded -slowly to a man's more definite vision of the spiritual magnificence of -life. When he died at two-score years, he was just beginning to think -his problem through, to reconcile, after the manner of the great poets -of the earth, the world with God. Apparently the unwritten poems -cancelled by death would have rounded out, in art of an austere -perfection, the record of that reconciliation, for nowhere do we feel -this passion of high serenity so strongly as in the first act of an -uncompleted drama, _The Death of Eve_. - -Great-minded youth must dream, and modern dreams of the meaning of life -lack the props and pillars of the old dogmatism. Vagueness, confusion -and despair are a natural inference from the seeming chaos of evil and -good, of pain and joy. Moody from the beginning took the whole scheme of -things for his province, as a truly heroic poet should; there are always -large spaces on his canvas. In his earlier poetry, both the symbolic -_Masque of Judgment_ and the shorter poems derived from present-day -subjects, we find him picturing the confusion, stating the case, so to -speak, against God. Somewhat in the terms of modern science is his -statement--the universe plunging on toward its doom of darkness and -lifelessness, divine fervor of creation lapsing, divine fervor of love -doubting, despairing of the life it made, sweeping all away with a vast -inscrutable gesture. - -This seems to be the mood of the _Masque of Judgment_, a mood against -which that very human archangel, Raphael, protests in most appealing -lines. The poet broods over the earth-- - - The earth, that has the blue and little flowers-- - -with all its passionate pageantry of life and love. Like his own angel -he is - - a truant still - While battle rages round the heart of God. - -The lamps are spent at the end of judgment day, - - and naked from their seats - The stars arise with lifted hands, and wait. - -This conflict between love and doubt is the motive also of _Gloucester -Moors_, _The Daguerreotype_, _Old Pourquoi_--those three noblest, -perhaps, of the present-day poems--also of _The Brute_ and _The -Menagerie_, and of that fine poem manqué, the _Ode in Time of -Hesitation_. _The Fie-Bringer_ is an effort at another -theme--redemption, light after darkness. But it is not so spontaneous as -the _Masque_; though simpler, clearer, more dramatic in form, it is -more deliberate and intellectual, and not so star-lit with memorable -lines. _The Fire-Bringer_ is an expression of aspiration; the poet longs -for light, demands it, will wrest it from God's right hand like -Prometheus. But his triumph is still theory, not experience. The reader -is hardly yet convinced. - -If one feels a grander motive in such poems as the one-act _Death of -Eve_ and _The Fountain_, or the less perfectly achieved _I Am the -Woman_, it is not because of the tales they tell but because of the -spirit of faith that is in them--a spirit intangible, indefinable, but -indomitable and triumphant. At last, we feel, this poet, already under -the shadow of death, sees a terrible splendid sunrise, and offers us the -glory of it in his art. - -_The Fountain_ is a truly magnificent expression of spiritual triumph in -failure, and incidentally of the grandeur of Arizona, that tragic -wonderland of ancient and future gods. Those Spanish wanderers, dying in -the desert, in whose half-madness dreams and realities mingle, assume in -those stark spaces the stature of universal humanity, contending to the -last against relentless fate. In the two versions of _The Death of Eve_, -both narrative and dramatic, one feels also this wild, fierce triumph, -this faith in the glory of life. Especially in the dramatic fragment, by -its sureness of touch and simple austerity of form, and by the majesty -of its figure of the aged Eve, Moody's art reached its most heroic -height. We have here the beginning of great things. - -The spirit of this poet may be commended to those facile bards who lift -up their voices between the feast and the cigars, whose muses dance to -every vague emotion and strike their flimsy lutes for every -light-o'-love. Here was one who went to his desk as to an altar, -resolved that the fire he lit, the sacrifice he offered, should be -perfect and complete. He would burn out his heart like a taper that the -world might possess a living light. He would tell once more the grandeur -of life; he would sing the immortal song. - -That such devotion is easy of attainment in this clamorous age who can -believe? Poetry like some of Moody's, poetry of a high structural -simplicity, strict and bare in form, pure and austere in ornament, -implies a grappling with giants and wrestling with angels; it is not to -be achieved without deep living and high thinking, without intense -persistent intellectual and spiritual struggle. - - _H. M._ - - - BOHEMIAN POETRY - - _An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry_, translated by - P. Selver (Henry J. Drane, London). - -This is a good anthology of modern Bohemian poetry, accurately -translated into bad and sometimes even ridiculous English. Great credit -is due the young translator for his care in research and selection. The -faults of his style, though deplorable, are not such as to obscure the -force and beauty of his originals. - -One is glad to be thus thoroughly assured that contemporary Bohemia has -a literature in verse, sensitive to the outer world and yet national. -Mr. Selver's greatest revelation is Petr Bezruc, poet of the mines. - -The poetry of Brezina, Sova and Vrchlicky is interesting, but Bezruc's -_Songs of Silesia_ have the strength of a voice coming _de profundis_. - - A hundred years in silence I dwelt in the pit, - - * * * * * - - The dust of the coal has settled upon my eyes-- - - * * * * * - - Bread with coal is the fruit that my toiling bore;-- - -That is the temper of it. Palaces grow by the Danube nourished by his -blood. He goes from labor to labor, he rebels, he hears a voice mocking: - - I should find my senses and go to the mine once more-- - -And in another powerful invective: - - I am the first who arose of the people of Teschen. - - * * * * * - - They follow the stranger's plough, the slaves fare downwards. - -He thanks God he is not in the place of the oppressor, and ends: - - Thus 'twas done. The Lord wills it. Night sank o'er my people. - Our doom was sealed when the night had passed; - In the night I prayed to the Demon of Vengeance. - The first Beskydian bard and the last. - -This poet is distinctly worth knowing. He is the truth where our -"red-bloods" and magazine socialists are usually a rather boresome pose. - -As Mr. Selver has tried to make his anthology representative of all the -qualities and tendencies of contemporary Bohemian work it is not to be -supposed that they are all of the mettle of Bezruc. - -One hears with deep regret that Vrchlicky is just dead, after a life of -unceasing activity. He has been a prime mover in the revival of the -Czech nationality and literature. He has given them, besides his own -work, an almost unbelievable number of translations from the foreign -classics, Dante, Schiller, Leopardi. For the rest I must refer the -reader to Mr. Selver's introduction. - - _Ezra Pound_ - - - - - "THE MUSIC OF THE HUMAN HEART" - -This title-phrase has not been plucked from the spacious lawn of -_Bartlett's Familiar Quotations_. It grew in the agreeable midland yard -of Mr. Walt Mason's newspaper verse, and appeared in a tribute of his to -Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, whose fifty-ninth birthday anniversary, -falling on the seventh of October, has been widely celebrated in the -American public libraries and daily press. - -Mr. Riley's fine gift to his public, the special happiness his genius -brings to his readers, cannot, for lack of space, be adequately -described, or even indicated, here. Perhaps a true, if incomplete, -impression of the beauty of his service may be conveyed by repeating a -well-known passage of Mr. Lowes Dickinson's _Letters from John -Chinaman_--a passage which I can never read without thinking very -gratefully of James Whitcomb Riley, and of what his art has done for -American poetry-readers. - -Mr. Dickinson says:-- - - In China our poets and literary men have - taught their successors for long generations, to - look for good not in wealth, not in power, not in - miscellaneous activity, but in a trained, a - choice, an exquisite appreciation of the most - simple and universal relations of life. To feel, - and in order to feel, to express, or at least to - understand the expression, of all that is lovely - in nature, of all that is poignant and sensitive - in man, is to us in itself a sufficient end.... - The pathos of life and death, the long embrace, - the hand stretched out in vain, the moment that - glides forever away, with its freight of music - and light, into the shadow and bush of the - haunted past, all that we have, all that eludes - us, a bird on the wing, a perfume escaped on the - gale--to all these things we are trained to - respond, and the response is what we call - literature. - -Among Mr. Riley's many distinguished faculties of execution in -expressing, in stimulating, "an exquisite appreciation of the most -simple and universal relations of life," one faculty has been, in so far -as I know, very little mentioned--I mean his mastery in creating -character. Mr. Riley has expressed, has incarnated in the melodies and -harmonies of his poems, not merely several living, breathing human -creatures as they are made by their destinies, but a whole world of his -own, a vivid world of country-roads, and country-town streets, peopled -with farmers and tramps and step-mothers and children, trailing clouds -of glory even when they boast of the superiorities of "Renselaer," a -world of hardworking women and hard-luck men, and poverty and -prosperity, and drunkards and raccoons and dogs and grandmothers and -lovers. To have presented through the medium of rhythmic chronicle, a -world so sharply limned, so funny, so tragic, so mean, so noble, seems -to us in itself a striking achievement in the craft of verse. - -No mere word of criticism can of course evoke, at all as example can, -Mr. Riley's genius of identification with varied human experiences, the -remarkable concentration and lyric skill of his characterization. Here -are two poems of his on the same general theme--grief in the presence of -death. We may well speak our pride in the wonderful range of inspiration -and the poetic endowment which can create on the same subject musical -stories of the soul as diverse, as searching, as fresh and true, as the -beloved poems of _Bereaved_ and _His Mother_. - - - - - BEREAVED - - Let me come in where you sit weeping; aye, - Let me, who have not any child to die, - Weep with you for the little one whose love - I have known nothing of. - - The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed - Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used - To kiss. Such arms, such hands I never knew. - May I not weep with you. - - Fain would I be of service, say something - Between the tears, that would be comforting; - But ah! so sadder than yourselves am I, - Who have no child to die. - - - - - HIS MOTHER - - Dead! my wayward boy--my own-- - Not _the Law's_, but mine; the good - God's free gift to me alone, - Sanctified by motherhood. - - "Bad," you say: well, who is not? - "Brutal"--"With a heart of stone"-- - And "red-handed." Ah! the hot - Blood upon your own! - - I come not with downward eyes, - To plead for him shamedly: - God did not apologize - When He gave the boy to me. - - Simply, I make ready now - For His verdict. You prepare-- - You have killed us both--and how - Will you face us There! - - _E. W._ - - - - - THE OPEN DOOR - -Fears have been expressed by a number of friendly critics that POETRY -may become a house of refuge for minor poets. - -The phrase is somewhat worn. Paragraphers have done their worst for the -minor poet, while they have allowed the minor painter, sculptor, -actor--worst of all, architect--to go scot-free. The world which laughs -at the experimenter in verse, walks negligently through our streets, and -goes seriously, even reverently, to the annual exhibitions in our -cities, examining hundreds of pictures and statues without expecting -even the prize-winners to be masterpieces. - -During the past year a score or more of cash prizes, ranging from one -hundred to fifteen hundred dollars, were awarded in Pittsburgh, Chicago, -Washington, New York and Boston for minor works of modern art. No word -of superlative praise has been uttered for one of them: the first -prize-winner in Pittsburgh was a delicately pretty picture by a -second-rate Englishman; in Chicago it was a clever landscape by a -promising young American. If a single prize-winner in the entire list, -many of which were bought at high prices by public museums, was a -masterpiece, no critic has yet dared to say so. - -In fact, such a word would be presumptuous, since no contemporary can -utter the final verdict. Our solicitous critics should remember that -Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Burns, were minor poets to the subjects of -King George the Fourth, Poe and Whitman to the subjects of King -Longfellow. Moreover, we might remind them that Drayton, Lovelace, -Herrick, and many another delicate lyrist of the anthologies, whose -perfect songs show singular tenacity of life, remain minor poets through -the slightness of their motive; they created little masterpieces, not -great ones. - -The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine--may the great poet we -are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample -genius! To this end the editors hope to keep free of entangling -alliances with any single class or school. They desire to print the best -English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by -whom, or under what theory of art it is written. Nor will the magazine -promise to limit its editorial comments to one set of opinions. Without -muzzles and braces this is manifestly impossible unless all the critical -articles are written by one person. - - - - - NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS - -Mr. Ezra Pound has consented to act as foreign correspondent of POETRY, -keeping its readers informed of the present interests of the art in -England, France and elsewhere. - -The response of poets on both sides of the Atlantic has been most -encouraging, so that the quality of the next few numbers is assured. One -of our most important contributions is Mr. John G. Neihardt's brief -recently finished tragedy, _The Death of Agrippina_, to which an entire -number will be devoted within a few months. - -Mr. Joseph Campbell is one of the younger poets closely associated with -the renaissance of art and letters in Ireland. His first book of poems -was _The Gilly of Christ_; a later volume including these is _The -Mountainy Singer_ (Maunsel & Co.). - -Mr. Charles Hanson Towne, the New York poet and magazine editor, has -published three volumes of verse, _The Quiet Singer_ (Rickey), -_Manhattan_, and _Youth and Other Poems_; also five song-cycles in -collaboration with two composers. - -Mr. Richard Aldington is a young English poet, one of the "Imagistes," a -group of ardent Hellenists who are pursuing interesting experiments in -_vers libre_; trying to attain in English certain subtleties of cadence -of the kind which Mallarmé and his followers have studied in French. Mr. -Aldington has published little as yet, and nothing in America. - -Mrs. Van Rensselaer, the well-known writer on art, began comparatively -late to publish verse in the magazines. Her volume, _Poems_ (Macmillan), -was issued in 1910. - -Miss Long and Miss Widdemer are young Americans, some of whose poems -have appeared in various magazines. - -The last issue of POETRY accredited Mr. Ezra Pound's _Provenca_ to the -Houghton-Mifflin Co. This was an error; Small, Maynard & Co. are Mr. -Pound's American publishers. - - - - - BOOKS RECEIVED - - _The Iscariot_, by Eden Phillpotts. John Lane. - _The Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson._ John Lane. - _Lyrical Poems_, by Lucy Lyttelton. Thomas B. Mosher. - _The Silence of Amor_, by Fiona Macleod, Thomas B. Mosher. - _Spring in Tuscany and Other Lyrics._ Thomas B. Mosher. - _Interpretations: A Book of First Poems_, by Zoë Akins. - Mitchell Kennerley. - _A Round of Rimes_, by Denis A. MacCarthy. Little, Brown & Co. - _Voices from Erin and Other Poems_, by Denis A. MacCarthy. - Little, Brown & Co. - _Love and The Year and Other Poems_, by Grace Griswold. - Duffield & Co. - _Songs and Sonnets_, by Webster Ford. The Rooks Press, Chicago. - _The Quiet Courage and Other Songs of the Unafraid_, - by Everard Jack Appleton. Stewart and Kidd Co. - _In Cupid's Chains and Other Poems_, by Benjamin F. Woodcox. - Woodcox & Fanner. - _Maverick_, by Hervey White. Maverick Press. - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 3 - - - DECEMBER, 1912 - - - - THE MOUNTAIN TOMB - - Pour wine and dance, if manhood still have pride, - Bring roses, if the rose be yet in bloom; - The cataract smokes on the mountain side. - Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. - - Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet, - Let there be no foot silent in the room, - Nor mouth with kissing nor the wine unwet. - Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. - - In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries, - The everlasting taper lights the gloom, - All wisdom shut into its onyx eyes. - Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb. - - _William Butler Yeats_ - - - - - TO A CHILD DANCING UPON THE SHORE - - Dance there upon the shore; - What need have you to care - For wind or water's roar? - And tumble out your hair - That the salt drops have wet; - Being young you have not known - The fool's triumph, nor yet - Love lost as soon as won. - And he, the best warrior, dead - And all the sheaves to bind! - What need that you should dread - The monstrous crying of wind? - - _William Butler Yeats_ - - - - - FALLEN MAJESTY - - Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face - And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone, - Like some last courtier at a gipsy camping place - Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone. - The lineaments, the heart that laughter has made sweet, - These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd - Will gather and not know that through its very street - Once walked a thing that seemed, as it were, a burning cloud. - - _William Butler Yeats_ - - - - - LOVE AND THE BIRD - - The moments passed as at a play, - I had the wisdom love can bring, - I had my share of mother wit; - And yet for all that I could say, - And though I had her praise for it, - And she seemed happy as a king, - Love's moon was withering away. - - Believing every word I said - I praised her body and her mind, - Till pride had made her eyes grow bright, - And pleasure made her cheeks grow red, - And vanity her footfall light; - Yet we, for all that praise, could find - Nothing but darkness overhead. - - I sat as silent as a stone - And knew, though she'd not said a word, - That even the best of love must die, - And had been savagely undone - Were it not that love, upon the cry - Of a most ridiculous little bird, - Threw up in the air his marvellous moon. - - _William Butler Yeats_ - - - - - THE REALISTS - - Hope that you may understand. - What can books, of men that wive - In a dragon-guarded land; - Paintings of the dolphin drawn; - Sea nymphs, in their pearly waggons, - Do but wake the hope to live - That had gone - With the dragons. - - _William Butler Yeats_ - - - - - SANGAR - - TO LINCOLN STEFFENS - - Somewhere I read a strange, old, rusty tale - Smelling of war; most curiously named - "The Mad Recreant Knight of the West." - Once, you have read, the round world brimmed with hate, - Stirred and revolted, flashed unceasingly - Facets of cruel splendor. And the strong - Harried the weak ... - Long past, long past, praise God - In these fair, peaceful, happy days. - The Tale: - Eastward the Huns break border, - Surf on a rotten dyke; - They have murdered the Eastern Warder - (His head on a pike). - "Arm thee, arm thee, my father! - "Swift rides the Goddes-bane, - "And the high nobles gather - "On the plain!" - - "O blind world-wrath!" cried Sangar, - "Greatly I killed in youth, - "I dreamed men had done with anger - "Through Goddes truth!" - Smiled the boy then in faint scorn, - Hard with the battle-thrill; - "Arm thee, loud calls the war-horn - "And shrill!" - - He has bowed to the voice stentorian, - Sick with thought of the grave-- - He has called for his battered morion - And his scarred glaive. - On the boy's helm a glove - Of the Duke's daughter-- - In his eyes splendor of love - And slaughter. - - Hideous the Hun advances - Like a sea-tide on sand; - Unyielding, the haughty lances - Make dauntless stand. - And ever amid the clangor, - Butchering Hun and Hun, - With sorrowful face rides Sangar - And his son.... - - Broken is the wild invader - (Sullied, the whole world's fountains); - They have penned the murderous raider - With his back to the mountains. - Yet tho' what had been mead - Is now a bloody lake, - Still drink swords where men bleed, - Nor slake. - - Now leaps one into the press-- - The Hell 'twixt front and front-- - Sangar, bloody and torn of dress - (He has borne the brunt). - "Hold!" cries "Peace! God's Peace! - "Heed ye what Christus says--" - And the wild battle gave surcease - In amaze. - - "When will ye cast out hate? - "Brothers--my mad, mad brothers-- - "Mercy, ere it be too late, - "These are sons of your mothers. - "For sake of Him who died on Tree, - "Who of all Creatures, loved the Least,"-- - "Blasphemer! God of Battles, He!" - Cried a priest. - - "Peace!" and with his two hands - Has broken in twain his glaive. - Weaponless, smiling he stands - (Coward or brave?) - "Traitor!" howls one rank, "Think ye - "The Hun be our brother?" - And "Fear we to die, craven, think ye?" - The other. - - Then sprang his son to his side, - His lips with slaver were wet, - For he had felt how men died - And was lustful yet; - (On his bent helm a glove - Of the Duke's daughter, - In his eyes splendor of love - And slaughter)-- - - Shouting, "Father no more of mine! - "Shameful old man--abhorr'd, - "First traitor of all our line!" - Up the two-handed sword. - He smote--fell Sangar--and then - Screaming, red, the boy ran - Straight at the foe, and again - Hell began ... - - Oh, there was joy in Heaven when Sangar came. - Sweet Mary wept, and bathed and bound his wounds, - And God the Father healed him of despair, - And Jesus gripped his hand, and laughed and laughed ... - - _John Reed_ - - - - - A LEGEND OF THE DOVE - - Soft from the linden's bough, - Unmoved against the tranquil afternoon, - Eve's dove laments her now: - "Ah, gone! long gone! shall not I find thee soon?" - - That yearning in his voice - Told not to Paradise a sorrow's tale: - As other birds rejoice - He sang, a brother to the nightingale. - - By twilight on her breast - He saw the flower sleep, the star awake; - And calling her from rest, - Made all the dawn melodious for her sake. - - And then the Tempter's breath, - The sword of exile and the mortal chain-- - The heritage of death - That gave her heart to dust, his own to pain ... - - In Eden desolate - The seraph heard his lonely music swoon, - As now, reiterate; - "Ah gone! long gone! shall not I find thee soon?" - - _George Sterling_ - - - - - AT THE GRAND CAÑON - - Thou settest splendors in my sight, O Lord! - It seems as tho' a deep-hued sunset falls - Forever on these Cyclopean walls-- - These battlements where Titan hosts have warred, - And hewn the world with devastating sword, - And shook with trumpets the eternal halls - Where seraphim lay hid by bloody palls - And only Hell and Silence were adored. - - Lo! the abyss wherein great Satan's wings - Might gender tempests, and his dragons' breath - Fume up in pestilence. Beneath the sun - Or starry outposts on terrestrial things, - Is no such testimony unto Death - Nor altars builded to Oblivion. - - _George Sterling_ - - - - - KINDRED - - Musing, between the sunset and the dark, - As Twilight in unhesitating hands - Bore from the faint horizon's underlands, - Silvern and chill, the moon's phantasmal ark, - I heard the sea, and far away could mark - Where that unalterable waste expands - In sevenfold sapphire from the mournful sands, - And saw beyond the deep a vibrant spark. - - There sank the sun Arcturus, and I thought: - Star, by an ocean on a world of thine, - May not a being, born like me to die, - Confront a little the eternal Naught - And watch our isolated sun decline-- - Sad for his evanescence, even as I? - - _George Sterling_ - - - - - REMEMBERED LIGHT - - The years are a falling of snow, - Slow, but without cessation, - On hills and mountains and flowers and worlds that were; - But snow and the crawling night in which it fell - May be washed away in one swifter hour of flame. - Thus it was that some slant of sunset - In the chasms of piled cloud-- - Transient mountains that made a new horizon, - Uplifting the west to fantastic pinnacles-- - Smote warm in a buried realm of the spirit, - Till the snows of forgetfulness were gone. - - Clear in the vistas of memory, - The peaks of a world long unremembered, - Soared further than clouds, but fell not, - Based on hills that shook not nor melted - With that burden enormous, hardly to be believed. - Rent with stupendous chasms, - Full of an umber twilight, - I beheld that larger world. - - Bright was the twilight, sharp like ethereal wine - Above, but low in the clefts it thickened, - Dull as with duskier tincture. - Like whimsical wings outspread but unstirring, - Flowers that seemed spirits of the twilight, - That must pass with its passing-- - Too fragile for day or for darkness, - Fed the dusk with more delicate hues than its own. - Stars that were nearer, more radiant than ours, - Quivered and pulsed in the clear thin gold of the sky. - - These things I beheld, - Till the gold was shaken with flight - Of fantastical wings like broken shadows, - Forerunning the darkness; - Till the twilight shivered with outcry of eldritch voices, - Like pain's last cry ere oblivion. - - _Clark Ashton Smith_ - - - - - SORROWING OF WINDS - - O winds that pass uncomforted - Through all the peacefulness of spring, - And tell the trees your sorrowing, - That they must moan till ye are fled! - - Think ye the Tyrian distance holds - The crystal of unquestioned sleep? - That those forgetful purples keep - No veiled, contentious greens and golds? - - Half with communicated grief, - Half that they are not free to pass - With you across the flickering grass, - Mourns each vibrating bough and leaf. - - And I, with soul disquieted, - Shall find within the haunted spring - No peace, till your strange sorrowing - Is down the Tyrian distance fled. - - _Clark Ashton Smith_ - - - - - AMERICA - - _I hear America singing_ ... - And the great prophet passed, - Serene, clear and untroubled - Into the silence vast. - - When will the master-poet - Rise, with vision strong, - To mold her manifold music - Into a living song? - - _I hear America singing_ ... - Beyond the beat and stress, - The chant of her shrill, unjaded, - Empiric loveliness. - - Laughter, beyond mere scorning, - Wisdom surpassing wit, - Love, and the unscathed spirit, - These shall encompass it. - - _Alice Corbin_ - - - - - SYMBOLS - - Who was it built the cradle of wrought gold? - A druid, chanting by the waters old. - Who was it kept the sword of vision bright? - A warrior, falling darkly in the fight. - Who was it put the crown upon the dove? - A woman, paling in the arms of love. - Oh, who but these, since Adam ceased to be, - Have kept their ancient guard about the Tree? - - _Alice Corbin_ - - - - - THE STAR - - I saw a star fall in the night, - And a grey moth touched my cheek; - Such majesty immortals have, - Such pity for the weak. - - _Alice Corbin_ - - - - - NODES - - The endless, foolish merriment of stars - Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon, - Is like the wayward noises of the world - Beside my heart's uplifted silent tune. - - The little broken glitter of the waves - Beside the golden sun's intense white blaze, - Is like the idle chatter of the crowd - Beside my heart's unwearied song of praise. - - The sun and all the planets in the sky - Beside the sacred wonder of dim space, - Are notes upon a broken, tarnished lute - That God will someday mend and put in place. - - And space, beside the little secret joy - Of God that sings forever in the clay, - Is smaller than the dust we can not see, - That yet dies not, till time and space decay. - - And as the foolish merriment of stars - Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon, - My little song, my little joy, my praise, - Beside God's ancient, everlasting rune. - - _Alice Corbin_ - - - - - POEMS - - - I - -Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me -seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a -brother of the stranger. I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my -accustomed shelter; I forgot that there abides the old in the new, and -that there also thou abidest. - -Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou -leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life -who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar. When one -knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me -my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the One in the -play of the many. - - - II - -No more noisy, loud words from me, such is my master's will. Henceforth -I deal in whispers. The speech of my heart will be carried on in -murmurings of a song. - -Men hasten to the King's market. All the buyers and sellers are there. -But I have my untimely leave in the middle of the day, in the thick of -work. - -Let then the flowers come out in my garden, though it is not their time, -and let the midday bees strike up their lazy hum. - -Full many an hour have I spent in the strife of the good and the evil, -but now it is the pleasure of my playmate of the empty days to draw my -heart on to him, and I know not why is this sudden call to what useless -inconsequence! - - - III - -On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I -knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded. - -Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my -dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange smell in the south wind. - -That vague fragrance made my heart ache with longing, and it seemed to -me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its -completion. - -I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and this perfect -sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. - - - IV - -By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But -it is otherwise with thy love, which is greater than theirs, and thou -keepest me free. Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me -alone. But day passes by after day and thou are not seen. - -If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart--thy -love for me still waits for my love. - - - V - -I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this -life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery -like a bud in the forest at midnight? When in the morning I looked upon -the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that -the inscrutable without name and form had taken me in its arms in the -form of my own mother. Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as -ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know I shall love -death as well. The child cries out when from the right breast the mother -takes it away to find in the very next moment its consolation in the -left one. - - - VI - -Thou art the sky and thou art the nest as well. Oh, thou beautiful, -there in the nest it is thy love that encloses the soul with colours and -sounds and odours. There comes the morning with the golden basket in her -right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the earth. -And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted by herds, -through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in her golden -pitcher from the western ocean of rest. - -But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her -flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There is no day nor -night, nor form nor colour, and never never a word. - - _Rabindranath Tagore_ - - - - - EDITORIAL COMMENT - - A PERFECT RETURN - - -It is curious that the influence of Poe upon Baudelaire, Verlaine, and -Mallarmé, and through them upon English poets, and then through these -last upon Americans, comes back to us in this round-about and indirect -way. We have here an instance of what Whitman calls a "perfect return." -We have denied Poe, we do not give him his full meed of appreciation -even today, and yet we accept him through the disciples who have -followed or have assimilated his tradition. And now that young -Englishmen are beginning to feel the influence of Whitman upon French -poetry, it may be that he too, through the imitation of _vers libre_ in -America, will begin to experience a "perfect return." - -Must we always accept American genius in this round-about fashion? Have -we no true perspective that we applaud mediocrity at home, and look -abroad for genius, only to find that it is of American origin? - - * * * * * - -This bit of marginalia, extracted from a note-book of 1909, was relieved -of the necessity of further elaboration by supplementary evidence -received in one day from two correspondents. One, a brief sentence from -Mr. Allen Upward: "It is much to be wished that America should learn to -honor her sons without waiting for the literary cliques of London." - -The other, the following "news note" from Mr. Paul Scott Mowrer in -Paris. The date of Léon Bazalgette's translation, however, is hardly so -epochal as it would seem, since Whitman has been known for many years in -France, having been partly translated during the nineties. - -Mr. Mowrer writes: - -"It is significant of American tardiness in the development of a -national literary tradition that the name of Walt Whitman is today a -greater influence with the young writers of the continent than with our -own. Not since France discovered Poe has literary Europe been so moved -by anything American. The suggestion has even been made that -'Whitmanism' is rapidly to supersede 'Nietzscheism' as the dominant -factor in modern thought. Léon Bazalgette translated _Leaves of Grass_ -into French in 1908. A school of followers of the Whitman philosophy and -style was an almost immediate consequence. Such of the leading reviews -as sympathize at all with the strong 'young' movement to break the -shackles of classicism which have so long bound French prosody to the -heroic couplet, the sonnet, and the alexandrine, are publishing not only -articles on 'Whitmanism' as a movement, but numbers of poems in the new -flexible chanting rhythms. In this regard _La Nouvelle Revue Francaise_, -_La Renaissance Contemporaine_, and _L'Effort Libre_ have been -preëminently hospitable. - -"The new poems are not so much imitations of Whitman as inspirations -from him. Those who have achieved most success in the mode thus far are -perhaps Georges Duhamel, a leader of the 'Jeunes,' whose plays are at -present attracting national notice; André Spire, who writes with -something of the apostolic fervor of his Jewish ancestry; Henri Franck, -who died recently, shortly after the publication of his volume, _La -Danse Devant l'Arche_; Charles Vildrac, with _Le Livre d'Amour_; Philéas -Lebesgue, the appearance in collected form of whose _Les Servitudes_ is -awaited with keen interest; and finally, Jean Richard Bloch, editor of -_L'Effort Libre_, whose prose, for example in his book of tales entitled -_Levy_, is said to be directly rooted in Whitmanism. - -"In Germany, too, the rolling intonations of the singer of democracy -have awakened echoes. The _Moderne Weltdichtung_ has announced itself, -with Whitman as guide, and such apostles as Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, in -_Lobegesang des Lebens_, and Ernst Lissauer in _Der Acker_ and _Der -Strom_. - -"What is it about Whitman that Europe finds so inspiriting? First, his -acceptance of the universe as he found it, his magnificently shouted -comradeship with all nature and all men. Such a doctrine makes an -instant though hardly logical appeal in nations where socialism is the -political order of the day. And next, his disregard of literary -tradition. Out of books more books, and out of them still more, with the -fecundity of generations. But in this process of literary propagation -thought, unfortunately, instead of arising like a child ever fresh and -vigorous as in the beginning, grows more and more attenuated, paler, -more sickly. The acclaim of Whitman is nothing less than the inevitable -revolt against the modern flood of book-inspired books. Write from -nature directly, from the people directly, from the political meeting, -and the hayfield, and the factory--that is what the august American -seems to his young disciples across the seas to be crying to them. - -"Perhaps it is because America already holds as commonplaces these -fundamentals seeming so new to Europe that the Whitman schools have -sprung up stronger on the eastern side of the Atlantic than on the -western." - -It is not that America holds as commonplaces the fundamentals expressed -in Whitman that there have been more followers of the Whitman method in -Europe than in America, but that American poets, approaching poetry -usually through terms of feeling, and apparently loath to apply an -intellectual whip to themselves or others, have made no definite -analysis of the rhythmic units of Whitman. We have been content to -accept the English conception of the "barbaric yawp" of Whitman. The -curious mingling of the concrete and the spiritual, which is what -certain modern painters, perhaps under the Whitman suggestion, are -trying to achieve, was so novel as to be disconcerting, and the vehicle -so original as to appear uncouth--uncadenced, unmusical. The -hide-bound, antiquated conception of English prosody is responsible for -a great deal of dead timber. It is a significant fact that the English -first accepted the spirit of Whitman, the French his method. The -rhythmic measure of Whitman has yet to be correctly estimated by English -and American poets. It has been sifted and weighed by the French poets, -and though Whitman's influence upon modern French poetry has been -questioned by English critics, the connection between his varied -rhythmic units and modern _vers libre_ is too obvious to be discounted. -There may be an innate necessity sufficient to cause a breaking-up of -forms in a poetic language, but there is no reason to believe that -Paris, the great clearing-house of all the arts, would not be quick to -adopt a suggestion from without. English poets, certainly, have not been -loath to accept suggestions from Paris. - -At any rate this international acceptance of the two greatest American -poets, and the realization of their international influence upon us, may -awaken us to a new sense of responsibility. It would be a valuable -lesson, if only we could learn to turn the international eye, in -private, upon ourselves. If the American poet can learn to be less -parochial, to apply the intellectual whip, to visualize his art, to -separate it and see it apart from himself; we may learn then to -appreciate the great poet when he is "in our midst." and not wait for -the approval of English or French critics. - - _A. C. H._ - - - - - TAGORE'S POEMS - -The appearance of the poems of Rabindranath Tagore, translated by -himself from Bengali into English, is an event in the history of English -poetry and of world poetry. I do not use these terms with the looseness -of contemporary journalism. Questions of poetic art are serious, not to -be touched upon lightly or in a spirit of bravura. - -Bengal is a nation of fifty million people. The great age of Bengali -literature is this age in which we live. And the first Bengali whom I -heard singing the lyrics of Tagore said, as simply as one would say it -is four o'clock, "Yes, we speak of it as the Age of Rabindranath." - -The six poems now published were chosen from a hundred lyrics about to -appear in book form. They might just as well have been any other six, -for they do not represent a summit of attainment but an average. - -These poems are cast, in the original, in metres perhaps the most -finished and most subtle of any known to us. If you refine the art of -the troubadours, combine it with that of the Pleiade, and add to that -the sound-unit principle of the most advanced artists in _vers libre_, -you would get something like the system of Bengali verse. The sound of -it when spoken is rather like good Greek, for Bengali is daughter of -Sanscrit, which is a kind of uncle or elder brother of the Homeric -idiom. - -All this series of a hundred poems are made to music, for "Mr." Tagore -is not only the great poet of Bengal, he is also their great musician. -He teaches his songs, and they are sung throughout Bengal more or less -as the troubadours' songs were sung through Europe in the twelfth -century. - -And we feel here in London, I think, much as the people of Petrarch's -time must have felt about the mysterious lost language, the Greek that -was just being restored to Europe after centuries of deprivation. That -Greek was the lamp of our renaissance and its perfections have been the -goal of our endeavor ever since. - -I speak with all seriousness when I say that this beginning of our more -intimate intercourse with Bengal is the opening of another period. For -one thing the content of this first brief series of poems will destroy -the popular conception of Buddhism, for we in the Occident are apt to -regard it as a religion negative and anti-Christian. - -The Greek gave us humanism; a belief in _mens sana in corpore sano_, a -belief in proportion and balance. The Greek shows us man as the sport of -the gods; the sworn foe of fate and the natural forces. The Bengali -brings to us the pledge of a calm which we need overmuch in an age of -steel and mechanics. It brings a quiet proclamation of the fellowship -between man and the gods; between man and nature. - -It is all very well to object that this is not the first time we have -had this fellowship proclaimed, but in the arts alone can we find the -inner heart of a people. There is a deeper calm and a deeper conviction -in this eastern expression than we have yet attained. It is by the arts -alone that one people learns to meet another far distant people in -friendship and respect. - -I speak with all gravity when I say that world-fellowship is nearer for -the visit of Rabindranath Tagore to London. - - _Ezra Pound_ - - - - - REVIEWS - - _The Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson_ (John Lane.) - -This English poet, whose singing ceased a year ago, had a real lyric -gift, though a very slight one. The present volume is a collection of -all her poems, from the first girlish sheaf _Tares_, to _The Lamp and -the Lute_, which she was preparing for publication when she died. - -Through this whole life-record her poetry ripples along as smoothly and -delicately as a meadow rill, with never a pause nor a flurry nor a -thrill. She sings prettily of everyone, from the _Last Fairy_ to William -Ernest Henley, and of everything, from _Death and Justice_ to the -_Orchard of the Moon_, but she has nothing arresting or important to say -of any of these subjects, and no keen magic of phrase to give her -warbling that intense vitality which would win for her the undying fame -prophesied by her loyal husband in his preface. - -Nevertheless, her feeling is genuine, her touch light, and her tune a -quiet monotone of gentle soothing music which has a certain soft appeal. -Perhaps the secret of it is the fine quality of soul which breathes -through these numerous lyrics, a soul too reserved to tell its whole -story, and too preoccupied with the little things around and within her -to pay much attention to the thinking, fighting, ever-moving world -without. - - * * * * * - -A big-spirited, vital, headlong narrative poem is _The Adventures of -Young Maverick_, by Hervey White, who runs a printing press at -Woodstock, N. Y., and bravely publishes _The Wild Hawk_, his own little -magazine. The poem has as many moods as _Don Juan_, which is plainly, -though not tyrannically, its model. - -The poem is long for these days--five cantos and nearly six hundred -Spenserian stanzas. Yet the most casual reader, one would think, could -scarcely find it tedious, even though the satirical passages run heavily -at times. The hero is a colt of lofty Arabian lineage, and the poem -becomes eloquently pictorial in setting forth his beauty: - - Young Maverick in the upland pastures lay - Woven as in the grass, while star-like flowers, - Shaking their petals down in sweet array - Dappled his flanks with gentle breathless showers. - The thread green stems, tangled in bending bowers, - Their pollen plumes of dust closed over him, - Enwoofing through the drowse of summer hours, - The pattern of his body, head and limb; - His color of pale gold glowed as with sunshine dim. - -The spirit of the West is in this poem, its freedom, spaciousness, -strong sunshine; also its careless good humor and half sardonic fun. The -race between the horse and the Mexican boy is as swift, vivid and -rhythmical as a mountain stream; and the Mexican family, even to the fat -old Gregorio, are characterized to the life, with a sympathy only too -rare among writers of the Anglo-Saxon race. - -Certain other characterizations are equally incisive, this for example: - - Sometimes I peep into a modern poet - Like Arthur Symons, vaguely beautiful, - Who loves but love, not caring who shall know it; - I wonder that he never finds it dull. - -Mr. White is so profoundly a democrat, and so wholeheartedly a poet of -the broad, level average American people, that both social and artistic -theories sit very lightly upon him. He achieves beauty as by chance now -and then, because he can not help it, but always he achieves a warm -vitality, the persuasive illusion of life. - - * * * * * - -_The Iscariot_, by Eden Phillpotts (John Lane), is the ingenious effort -of a theorist in human nature to unroll the convolutions of the immortal -traitor's soul. And it is as ineffectual as any such effort must be to -remould characters long fixed in literary or historic tradition. In the -art of the world Judas is Judas; anyone who tries to make him over into -a pattern of misguided loyalty has his labor for his pains. - -The blank verse in which the monologue is uttered is accurately measured -and sufficiently sonorous. - - _H. M._ - - - - -_Interpretations: A Book of First Poems_, by Zoë Akins (Mitchell -Kennerley). - -The poems in this volume are creditable in texture, revealing a -conscious sense of artistic workmanship which it is a pleasure to find -in a book of first poems by a young American. A certain rhythmic -monotony may be mentioned as an impression gained from a consecutive -reading, and a prevailing twilight mood, united, in the longer poems, -with a vein of the emotionally feminine. - -Two short lyrics, however, _I Am the Wind_ and _The Tragedienne_, stand -apart in isolated perfection, even as the two Greek columns in the -ruined theater at Arles; an impression recalled by the opening stanza of -_The Tragedienne_: - - Upon a hill in Thessaly - Stand broken columns in a line - About a cold forgotten shrine - Beneath a moon in Thessaly. - -This is the first of the monthly volumes of poetry to be issued by Mr. -Kennerley. It awakens pleasant anticipation of those to follow. - - -_Lyrical Poems_, By Lucy Lyttelton. (Thomas B. Mosher.) - -The twilight mood also prevails in the poems of Lucy Lyttelton, although -the crest of a fine modern impulse may be traced in _A Vision_, _The -Japanese Widow_, _The Black Madonna_, and _A Song of Revolution_. - - "Where is Owen Griffiths?" Broken and alone - Crushed he lies in darkness beneath Festiniog stone. - "Bring his broken body before me to the throne - For a crown. - - "Oftentimes in secret in prayer he came to me, - Now to men and angels I know him openly. - I that was beside him when he came to die - Fathoms down. - - "And, Evan Jones, stand forward, whose life was shut in gloom, - And a narrow grave they gave you 'twixt marble tomb and tomb. - But now the great that trod you shall give you elbow room - And renown." - -These poems unite delicacy and strength. They convince us of sincerity -and intensity of vision. - - _A. C. H._ - - - - - NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS. - -It is hardly necessary to introduce to the lovers of lyric and dramatic -verse Mr. William Butler Yeats, who honors the Christmas number of -_Poetry_ by his presence. A score or more of years have passed since his -voice, perfect in quality, began to speak and sing in high loyalty to -the beauty of poetic art, especially the ancient poetic art of his own -Irish people. His influence, reinforced by the prompt allegiance of Lady -Gregory, Mr. Douglass Hyde, the late J. M. Synge, and many other Irish -men and women of letters, has sufficed to lift the beautiful old Gaelic -literature out of the obscurity of merely local recognition into a -position of international importance. This fact alone is a sufficient -acknowledgment of Mr. Yeats' genius, and of the enthusiasm which his -leadership has inspired among the thinkers and singers of his race. - -Mr. George Sterling, of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, is well known to -American readers of poetry through his two books of verse, _Wine of -Wizardry_ and _The House of Orchids_. - -Mr. Clark Ashton Smith, also of California, is a youth whose talent has -been acclaimed quite recently by a few newspapers of his own state, and -recognized by one or two eastern publications. - -Mr. John Reed, of New York, and Alice Corbin, the wife of William P. -Henderson, the Chicago painter, are Americans. The latter has -contributed verse and prose to various magazines. The former is a young -journalist, born in 1887, who has published little verse as yet. - -Rabindranath Tagore, the poet of Bengal, is sufficiently introduced by -Mr. Pound's article. - - - - - BOOKS RECEIVED - - _The Vaunt of Man and Other Poems_, by William Ellery Leonard. - B. W. Huebsch. - _Romance, Vision and Satire_: English Alliterative Poems of - the XIV Century, Newly Rendered in the Original Metres, - by Jessie L. Weston. Houghton Mifflin Co. - _Etain The Beloved_, by James H. Cousins. Maunsel & Co. - _Uriel and Other Poems_, by Percy MacKaye. Houghton Mifflin Co. - _The Unconquered Air_, by Florence Earle Coates. - Houghton Mifflin Co. - _A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass_, by Amy Lowell. - Houghton Mifflin Co. - _The Lure of the Sea_, by J. E. Patterson. George H. Doran Co. - _The Roadside Fire_, by Amelia Josephine Burr. George H. Doran Co. - _By the Way._ Verses, Fragments and Notes, by William Allingham. - Arranged by Helen Allingham. Longmans, Green & Co. - _Gabriel_, A Pageant of Vigil, by Isabelle Howe Fiske. - Thomas B. Mosher. - _Pilgrimage to Haunts of Browning_, by Pauline Leavens. - The Bowrons, Chicago. - _The Wind on the Heath_, Ballads and Lyrics, by May Byron. - George H. Doran. - _Valley Song and Verse_, by William Hutcheson. - Fraser, Asher & Co. - _The Queen of Orplede_, by Charles Wharton Stork. Elkin Mathews. - _Pocahontas_, A Pageant, by Margaret Ullman. The Poet Lore Co. - _Poems_, by Robert Underwood Johnson. The Century Co. - _Songs Before Birth_, Isabelle Howe Fiske. Thomas B. Mosher. - _Book Titles From Shakespeare_, by Volney Streamer. - Thomas B. Mosher. - _A Bunch of Blossoms_, Little Verses for Little Children, - by E. Gordon Browne. Longmans, Green & Co. - _June on the Miami_, by William Henry Venable. Stewart & Kidd. - _The Tragedy of Etarre_, A Poem, by Rhys Carpenter. - Sturgis & Walton Co. - _In Other Words_, by Franklin P. Adams. Doubleday, Page & Co. - _Verses and Sonnets_, by Julia Stockton Dinsmore. - Doubleday, Page & Co. - _Anna Marcella's Book of Verses_, by Cyrenus Cole. - Printed for Personal Distribution. - _Atala_, An American Idyl, by Anna Olcott Commelin. - E. P. Dutton & Co. - _Spring in Tuscany_, an Authology. Thos. B. Mosher. - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 4 - - - JANUARY, 1913 - - - - - GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS INTO HEAVEN - - (_To be sung to the tune of_ THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB _with indicated - instruments_.) - - [Sidenote: Bass drums] - - Booth led boldly with his big bass drum. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - The saints smiled gravely, and they said, "He's come," - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, - Lurching bravos from the ditches dank, - Drabs from the alleyways and drug-fiends pale-- - Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! - Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, - Unwashed legions with the ways of death-- - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - Every slum had sent its half-a-score - The round world over--Booth had groaned for more. - Every banner that the wide world flies - - [Sidenote: Banjo] - - Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes. - Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang! - Tranced, fanatical, they shrieked and sang, - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - Hallelujah! It was queer to see - Bull-necked convicts with that land make free! - Loons with bazoos blowing blare, blare, blare-- - On, on, upward through the golden air. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - [Sidenote: Bass drums slower and softer] - - Booth died blind, and still by faith he trod, - Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God. - Booth led boldly and he looked the chief: - Eagle countenance in sharp relief, - Beard a-flying, air of high command - Unabated in that holy land. - - [Sidenote: Flutes] - - Jesus came from out the Court-House door, - Stretched his hands above the passing poor. - Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there - Round and round the mighty Court-House square. - Yet in an instant all that blear review - Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new. - The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled - And blind eyes opened on a new sweet world. - - [Sidenote: Bass drums louder and faster] - - Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole! - Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl; - Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean. - Rulers of empires, and of forests green! - - [Sidenote: Grand Chorus--tambourines--all instruments in full blast] - - The hosts were sandalled and their wings were fire-- - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - Oh, shout Salvation! it was good to see - Kings and princes by the Lamb set free. - The banjos rattled, and the tambourines - Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of queens! - - [Sidenote: Reverently sung--no instruments] - - And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer - He saw his Master through the flag-filled air. - Christ came gently with a robe and crown - For Booth the soldier while the throng knelt down. - He saw King Jesus--they were face to face, - And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - _Nicholas Vachel Lindsay_ - - - - - WASTE LAND - - Briar and fennel and chincapin, - And rue and ragweed everywhere; - The field seemed sick as a soul with sin, - Or dead of an old despair, - Born of an ancient care. - - The cricket's cry and the locust's whirr, - And the note of a bird's distress, - With the rasping sound of the grasshopper, - Clung to the loneliness - Like burrs to a trailing dress. - - So sad the field, so waste the ground, - So curst with an old despair, - A woodchuck's burrow, a blind mole's mound, - And a chipmunk's stony lair, - Seemed more than it could bear. - - So lonely, too, so more than sad, - So droning-lone with bees-- - I wondered what more could Nature add - To the sum of its miseries ... - And _then_--I saw the trees. - - Skeletons gaunt that gnarled the place, - Twisted and torn they rose-- - The tortured bones of a perished race - Of monsters no mortal knows, - They startled the mind's repose. - - And a man stood there, as still as moss, - A lichen form that stared; - With an old blind hound that, at a loss, - Forever around him fared - With a snarling fang half bared. - - I looked at the man; I saw him plain; - Like a dead weed, gray and wan, - Or a breath of dust. I looked again-- - And man and dog were gone, - Like wisps of the graying dawn.... - - Were they a part of the grim death there-- - Ragweed, fennel, and rue? - Or forms of the mind, an old despair, - That there into semblance grew - Out of the grief I knew? - - _Madison Cawein_ - - - - - MY LADY OF THE BEECHES - - Here among the beeches - Winds and wild perfume, - That the twilight pleaches - Into gleam and gloom, - Build for her a room. - - Her, whose Beauty cometh, - Misty as the morn, - When the wild bee hummeth, - At its honey-horn, - In the wayside thorn. - - As the wood grows dimmer, - With the drowsy night, - Like a moonbeam glimmer - Here she walks in white, - With a firefly-light. - - Moths around her flitting, - Like a moth she goes; - Here a moment sitting - By this wilding rose, - With my heart's repose. - - Every bough that dances - Has assumed the grace - Of her form: and Fancies, - Flashed from eye and face, - Brood about the place. - - And the water, shaken - In its plunge and poise, - To itself has taken - Quiet of her voice, - And restrains its joys. - - Would that these could tell me - What and whence she is; - She, who doth enspell me, - Fill my soul with bliss - Of her spirit kiss. - - Though the heart beseech her, - And the soul implore, - Who is it may reach her-- - Safe behind the door - Of all woodland lore? - - _Madison Cawein_ - - - - - THE WAYFARERS - - Earth, I dare not cling to thee - Lest I should lose my precious soul. - - _'Tis not more wondrous than the fluff - Within the milkweed's autumn boll._ - - Earth, shall my sacred essences - But sink into thy senseless dust? - - _The springtide takes its way with them-- - And blossoms blow as blossoms must._ - - Earth, I swear with solemn vow, - I feel a greatness in my breath! - - _The grass-seed hath its dream of God, - Its visioning of life and death._ - - _Anita Fitch_ - - - - - _LES CRUELS AMOUREUX_ - - Two lovers wakened in their tombs-- - They had been dead a hundred years-- - And in the _langue_ of old Provence - They spoke of ancient tears. - - "_M'amour_," she called, "I've pardoned you;" - (How sad her dreaming seemed to be!) - "When I had kissed your dead face once - Love's sweet returned to me." - - "_M'amour_," he called, "it was too late." - (How dreary seemed his ghostly sighs!) - "Blessed the soul that love forgives," - He whispered, "ere it dies." - - And then they turned again and slept - With must and mold in ancient way; - And so they'll sleep and wake, 'tis told, - Until the Judgment Day. - - ENVOI - - _O damoiseau et damoiselle_, - Guard ye your loving while ye live! - Sin not against love's sacred flame-- - While yet ye may, forgive. - - _Anita Fitch_ - - - - - LOVE-SONGS OF THE OPEN ROAD - - MORNING - - The morning wind is wooing me; her lips have swept my brow. - Was ever dawn so sweet before? the land so fair as now? - The wanderlust is luring to wherever roads may lead, - While yet the dew is on the hedge. So how can I but heed? - - The forest whispers of its shades; of haunts where we have been,-- - And where may friends be better made than under God's green inn? - Your mouth is warm and laughing and your voice is calling low, - While yet the dew is on the hedge. So how can I but go? - - NOON - - The bees are humming, humming in the clover; - The bobolink is singing in the rye; - The brook is purling, purling in the valley, - And the river's laughing, radiant, to the sky! - - The buttercups are nodding in the sunlight; - The winds are whispering, whispering to the pine; - The joy of June has found me; as an aureole it's crowned me - Because, oh best belovèd, you are mine! - - NIGHT - - In Arcady by moonlight, - (Where only lovers go), - There is a pool where only - The fairest roses grow. - - Why are the moonlit roses - So sweet beyond compare? - Among their purple shadows - My love is waiting there. - - * * * * * - - To Arcady by moonlight - The roads are open wide, - But only joy can enter - And only joy abide. - - There is the peace unending - That perfect faith can know-- - In Arcady by moonlight, - Where only lovers go. - - _Kendall Banning_ - - - - - SYMPATHY - - As one within a moated tower, - I lived my life alone; - And dreamed not other granges' dower, - Nor ways unlike mine own. - I thought I loved. But all alone - As one within a moated tower - I lived. Nor truly knew - One other mortal fortune's hour. - As one within a moated tower, - One fate alone I knew. - Who hears afar the break of day - Before the silvered air - Reveals her hooded presence gray, - And she, herself, is there? - I know not how, but now I see - The road, the plain, the pluming tree, - The carter on the wain. - On my horizon wakes a star. - The distant hillsides wrinkled far - Fold many hearts' domain. - On one the fire-worn forests sweep, - Above a purple mountain-keep - And soar to domes of snow. - One heart has swarded fountains deep - Where water-lilies blow: - And one, a cheerful house and yard, - With curtains at the pane, - Board-walks down lawns all clover-starred, - And full-fold fields of grain. - As one within a moated tower - I lived my life alone; - And dreamed not other granges' dower - Nor ways unlike mine own. - But now the salt-chased seas uncurled - And mountains trooped with pine - Are mine. I look on all the world - And all the world is mine. - - _Edith Wyatt_ - - - - - A SONG OF HAPPINESS - - Ah Happiness: - Who called you "Earandel"? - (Winter-star, I think, that is); - And who can tell the lovely curve - By which you seem to come, then swerve - Before you reach the middle-earth? - And who is there can hold your wing, - Or bind you in your mirth, - Or win you with a least caress, - Or tear, or kiss, or anything-- - Insensate happiness? - - Once I thought to have you - Fast there in a child: - All her heart she gave you, - Yet you would not stay. - Cruel, and careless, - Not half reconciled, - Pain you cannot bear; - When her yellow hair - Lay matted, every tress; - When those looks of hers, - Were no longer hers, - You went: in a day - She wept you all away. - - Once I thought to give - You, plighted, holily-- - No more fugitive, - Returning like the sea: - But they that share so well - Heaven must portion Hell - In their copartnery: - Care, ill fate, ill health, - Came we know not how - And broke our commonwealth. - Neither has you now. - - Some wait you on the road, - Some in an open door - Look for the face you show'd - Once there--no more. - You never wear the dress - You danced in yesterday; - Yet, seeming gone, you stay, - And come at no man's call: - Yet, laid for burial, - You lift up from the dead - Your laughing, spangled head. - - Yes, once I did pursue - You, unpursuable; - Loved, longed for, hoped for you-- - Blue-eyed and morning brow'd. - Ah, lovely happiness! - Now that I know you well, - I dare not speak aloud - Your fond name in a crowd; - Nor conjure you by night, - Nor pray at morning-light, - Nor count at all on you: - - But, at a stroke, a breath, - After the fear of death, - Or bent beneath a load; - Yes, ragged in the dress, - And houseless on the road, - I might surprise you there. - Yes: who of us shall say - When you will come, or where? - Ask children at their play, - The leaves upon the tree, - The ships upon the sea, - Or old men who survived, - And lived, and loved, and wived. - Ask sorrow to confess - Your sweet improvidence, - And prodigal expense - And cold economy, - Ah, lovely happiness! - - _Ernest Rhys_ - - - - - HELEN IS ILL - - When she is ill my laughter cowers; - An exile with a broken rhyme, - My head upon the breast of time, - I hear the heart-beat of the hours; - I close my eyes without a sigh; - The vision of her flutters by - As glints the light of Mary's eyes - Upon the lakes in Paradise. - - I seem to reach an olden town - And enter at the sunset gate; - And as the streets I hurry down, - I find the men are all elate, - As if an angel of the Lord - Had passed with dearest word and nod, - Remembered like a yearning chord - Of songs the people sing to God; - I come upon the sunrise gate-- - As silent as her listless room-- - There seven beggers sing and wait - And this the song that breaks the gloom: - - God a 'mercy is most kind; - She the fairest passed this way; - We the lowest were not blind; - God a 'mercy bless the day. - - _Roscoe W. Brink_ - - - - - VERSES, TRANSLATIONS, AND REFLECTIONS - FROM "THE ANTHOLOGY" - - - - - HERMES OF THE WAYS - - The hard sand breaks, - And the grains of it - Are clear as wine. - - Far off over the leagues of it, - The wind, - Playing on the wide shore, - Piles little ridges, - And the great waves - Break over it. - - But more than the many-foamed ways - Of the sea, - I know him - Of the triple path-ways, - Hermes, - Who awaiteth. - - Dubious, - Facing three ways, - Welcoming wayfarers, - He whom the sea-orchard - Shelters from the west, - From the east - Weathers sea-wind; - Fronts the great dunes. - - Wind rushes - Over the dunes, - And the coarse, salt-crusted grass - Answers. - - Heu, - It whips round my ankles! - - II - - Small is - This white stream, - Flowing below ground - From the poplar-shaded hill, - But the water is sweet. - - Apples on the small trees - Are hard, - Too small, - Too late ripened - By a desperate sun - That struggles through sea-mist. - - The boughs of the trees - Are twisted - By many bafflings; - Twisted are - The small-leafed boughs. - - But the shadow of them - Is not the shadow of the mast head - Nor of the torn sails. - - Hermes, Hermes, - The great sea foamed, - Gnashed its teeth about me; - But you have waited, - Where sea-grass tangles with - Shore-grass. - - _H. D._ - - - - - PRIAPUS - - _Keeper-of-Orchards_ - - I saw the first pear - As it fell. - The honey-seeking, golden-banded, - The yellow swarm - Was not more fleet than I, - (Spare us from loveliness!) - And I fell prostrate, - Crying, - Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms; - Spare us the beauty - Of fruit-trees! - - The honey-seeking - Paused not, - The air thundered their song, - And I alone was prostrate. - - O rough-hewn - God of the orchard, - I bring thee an offering; - Do thou, alone unbeautiful - (Son of the god), - Spare us from loveliness. - - The fallen hazel-nuts, - Stripped late of their green sheaths, - The grapes, red-purple, - Their berries - Dripping with wine, - Pomegranates already broken, - And shrunken fig, - And quinces untouched, - I bring thee as offering. - - _H. D._ - - - - - EPIGRAM - - (_After the Greek_) - - The golden one is gone from the banquets; - She, beloved of Atimetus, - The swallow, the bright Homonoea: - Gone the dear chatterer; - Death succeeds Atimetus. - - _H. D._, - "_Imagiste_." - - - - - EDITORIAL COMMENT - - STATUS RERUM - - _London, December 10, 1912_ - -The state of things here in London is, as I see it, as follows: - -I find Mr. Yeats the only poet worthy of serious study. Mr. Yeats' work -is already a recognized classic and is part of the required reading in -the Sorbonne. There is no need of proclaiming him to the American -public. - -As to his English contemporaries, they are food, sometimes very good -food, for anthologies. There are a number of men who have written a -poem, or several poems, worth knowing and remembering, but they do not -much concern the young artist studying the art of poetry. - -The important work of the last twenty-five years has been done in Paris. -This work is little likely to gain a large audience in either America or -England, because of its tone and content. There has been no "man with a -message," but the work has been excellent and the method worthy of our -emulation. No other body of poets having so little necessity to speak -could have spoken so well as these modern Parisians and Flemings. - -There has been some imitation here of their manner and content. Any -donkey can imitate a man's manner. There has been little serious -consideration of their _method_. It requires an artist to analyze and -apply a method. - -Among the men of thirty here, Padraic Colum is the one whom we call most -certainly a poet, albeit he has written very little verse--and but a -small part of that is worthy of notice. He is fairly unconscious of such -words as "aesthetics," "technique" and "method." He is at his best in -_Garadh_, a translation from the Gaelic, beginning: - - O woman, shapely as a swan, - On your account I shall not die. - The men you've slain--a trivial clan-- - Were less than I: - -and in _A Drover_. He is bad whenever he shows a trace of reading. I -quote the opening of _A Drover_, as I think it shows "all Colum" better -than any passage he has written. I think no English-speaking writer now -living has had the luck to get so much of himself into twelve lines. - - To Meath of the pastures, - From wet hills by the sea, - Through Leitrim and Longford - Go my cattle and me. - - I hear in the darkness - Their slipping and breathing. - I name them the bye-ways - They're to pass without heeding. - - Then the wet, winding roads, - Brown bogs with black water; - And my thoughts on white ships - And the King o' Spain's daughter. - -I would rather talk about poetry with Ford Madox Hueffer than with any -man in London. Mr. Hueffer's beliefs about the art may be best explained -by saying that they are in diametric opposition to those of Mr. Yeats. - -Mr. Yeats has been subjective; believes in the glamour and associations -which hang near the words. "Works of art beget works of art." He has -much in common with the French symbolists. Mr. Hueffer believes in an -exact rendering of things. He would strip words of all "association" for -the sake of getting a precise meaning. He professes to prefer prose to -verse. You would find his origins in Gautier or in Flaubert. He is -objective. This school tends to lapse into description. The other tends -to lapse into sentiment. - -Mr. Yeats' method is, to my way of thinking, very dangerous, for -although he is the greatest of living poets who use English, and though -he has sung some of the moods of life immortally, his art has not -broadened much in scope during the past decade. His gifts to English art -are mostly negative; i. e., he has stripped English poetry of many of -its faults. His "followers" have come to nothing. Neither Synge, Lady -Gregory nor Colum can be called his followers, though he had much to do -with bringing them forth, yet nearly every man who writes English verse -seriously is in some way indebted to him. - -Mr. Hueffer has rarely "come off." His touch is so light and his -attitude so easy that there seems little likelihood of his ever being -taken seriously by anyone save a few specialists and a few of his -intimates. His last leaflet, _High Germany_, contains, however, three -poems from which one may learn his quality. They are not Victorian. I do -not expect many people to understand why I praise them. They are _The -Starling_, _In the Little Old Market-Place_ and _To All the Dead_. - -The youngest school here that has the nerve to call itself a school is -that of the _Imagistes_. To belong to a school does not in the least -mean that one writes poetry to a theory. One writes poetry when, where, -because, and as one feels like writing it. A school exists when two or -three young men agree, more or less, to call certain things good; when -they prefer such of their verses as have certain qualities to such of -their verses as do not have them. - -Space forbids me to set forth the program of the _Imagistes_ at length, -but one of their watchwords is Precision, and they are in opposition to -the numerous and unassembled writers who busy themselves with dull and -interminable effusions, and who seem to think that a man can write a -good long poem before he learns to write a good short one, or even -before he learns to produce a good single line. - -Among the very young men, there seems to be a gleam of hope in the work -of Richard Aldington, but it is too early to make predictions. - -There are a number of men whose names are too well known for it to seem -necessary to tell them over. America has already found their work in -volumes or anthologies. Hardy, Kipling, Maurice Hewlett, Binyon, Robert -Bridges, Sturge Moore, Henry Newbolt, McKail, Masefield, who has had the -latest cry; Abercrombie, with passionate defenders, and Rupert Brooke, -recently come down from Cambridge. - -There are men also, who are little known to the general public, but who -contribute liberally to the "charm" or the "atmosphere" of London: -Wilfred Scawen Blunt, the grandest of old men, the last of the great -Victorians; great by reason of his double sonnet, beginning-- - - He who has once been happy is for aye - Out of destruction's reach; - -Ernest Rhys, weary with much editing and hack work, to whom we owe gold -digged in Wales, translations, transcripts, and poems of his own, among -them the fine one to Dagonet; Victor Plarr, one of the "old" Rhymers' -Club, a friend of Dowson and of Lionel Johnson. His volume, _In The -Dorian Mood_, has been half forgotten, but not his verses _Epitaphium -Citharistriae_. One would also name the Provost of Oriel, not for -original work, but for his very beautiful translations from Dante. - -In fact one might name nearly a hundred writers who have given pleasure -with this or that matter in rhyme. But it is one thing to take pleasure -in a man's work and another to respect him as a great artist. - - _Ezra Pound_ - - - - - REVIEWS - -_The Lyric Year_, Mr. Kennerley's new annual, contains among its hundred -contributions nearly a score of live poems, among which a few excite the -kind of keen emotion which only art of real distinction can arouse. - -Among the live poems the present reviewer would count none of the -prize-winners, not even Mr. Sterling's, the best of the three, whose -rather stiff formalities in praise of Browning are, however, lit now and -then by shining lines, as-- - - Drew as a bubble from old infamies.... - The shy and many-colored soul of man. - -The other two prize-poems must have been measured by some academic -foot-rule dug up from the eighteenth century. Orrick Johns' _Second -Avenue_ is a _Grays Elegy_ essay of prosy moralizing, without a finely -poetic line in it, or any originality of meaning or cadence. And the -second prize went to an ode still more hopelessly academic. Indeed, _To -a Thrush_, by Thomas Augustine Daly, is one of the most stilted poems in -the volume, a far-away echo of echoes, full of the approved "poetic" -words--_throstle_, _pregnant_, _vernal_, _cerulean_, _teen_, _chrysmal_, -even _paraclete_--and quite guiltless of inspiration. - -But one need not linger with these. As we face the other way one poem -outranks the rest and ennobles the book. This is _The Renascence_, said -to be by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who, according to the editor, is only -twenty years old. This poem is the daring flight of a wide-winged -imagination, and the art of it, though not faultless, is strong enough -to carry us through keen emotions of joy and agony to a climax of -spiritual serenity. Though marred by the last twelve lines, which should -be struck out for stating the thesis too explicitly, this poem arouses -high hopes of its youthful author. - -Among the other live poems--trees, saplings or flowers--are various -species. _Kisa-Gotami_, by Arthur Davison Ficke, tells its familiar -story of the Buddha in stately cadences which sustain the beauty of the -tale. _Jetsam_, a "_Titanic_" elegy by Herman Montagu Donner, carries -the dread and dangerous subject without violating its terrors and -sanctities with false sentiment or light rhythm. Ridgeley Torrence's -_Ritual for a Funeral_ is less sure of its ground, sometimes escaping -into vapors, but on the whole noble in feeling and flute-like in -cadence. Mrs. Conkling's bird ode has now and then an airy delicacy, and -Edith Wyatt's _City Swallow_ gives the emotion of flight above the roofs -and smoke of a modern town. - -Of the shorter poems who could ignore Harry Kemp's noble lyric dialogue, -_I Sing the Battle_; _The Forgotten Soul_ by Margaret Widdemer, _Selma_, -by Willard H. Wright; _Comrades_ by Fannie Stearns Davis, or Nicholas -Vachel Lindsay's tribute to O. Henry, a more vital elegy than Mr. -Sterling's? These are all simple and sincere--straight modern talk -which rises into song without the aid of worn-out phrases. _Paternity_, -by William Rose Benét, _To My Vagrant Love_, by Elouise Briton, and -_Dedication_, by Pauline Florence Brower, are delicate expressions of -intimate emotion; and _Martin_, by Joyce Kilmer, touches with grace a -lighter subject. - -To have gathered such as these together is perhaps enough, but more may -be reasonably demanded. As a whole the collection, like the prizes, is -too academic; Georgian and Victorian standards are too much in evidence. -The ambition of _The Lyric Year_ is to be "an annual Salon of American -poetry;" to this end poets and their publishers are invited to -contribute gratis the best poems of the year, without hope of reward -other than the three prizes. That so many responded to the call, freely -submitting their works to anonymous judges, shows how eager is the -hitherto unfriended American muse to seize any helping hand. - -However, if this annual is to speak with any authority as a Salon, it -should take a few lessons from art exhibitions. Mr. Earle's position as -donor, editor and judge, is as if Mr. Carnegie should act as hanging -committee at the Pittsburg show, and help select the prize-winners. And -Messrs. Earle, Braithwaite and Wheeler, this year's jury of awards, are -not, even though all have written verse, poets of recognized distinction -in the sense that Messrs. Chase, Alexander, Hassam, Duveneck, and other -jurymen in our various American Salons, are distinguished painters. - -In these facts lie the present weaknesses of _The Lyric Year_. However, -the remedy for them is easy and may be applied in future issues. -Meantime the venture is to be welcomed; at last someone, somewhere, is -trying to do something for the encouragement of the art in America. -_Poetry_, which is embarked in the same adventure, rejoices in -companionship. - - _H. M._ - - * * * * * - -Already many books of verses come to us, of which a few are poetry. -Sometimes the poetry is an aspiration rather than an achievement; but in -spite of crude materials and imperfect artistry one may feel the beat of -wings and hear the song. Again one searches in vain for the magic touch, -even though the author has interesting things to say in creditable and -more or less persuasive rhymed eloquence. - -Of recent arrivals Mr. John Hall Wheelock has the most searching vision -and appealing voice. In _The Human Fantasy_ (Sherman, French & Co.) his -subject is New York, typified in the pathetic little love-affair of two -young starvelings, which takes its course through a stirring, exacting -milieu to a renunciation that leaves the essential sanctities intact. -The poet looks through the slang and shoddy of the lovers, and the dust -and glare of the city, to the divine power of passion in both. In _The -Beloved Adventure_ the emotion is less poignant; or, rather, the poet -has included many indifferent pieces which obscure the quality of finer -lyrics. More rigorous technique and resolute use of the waste-basket -would make more apparent the fact that we have here a true poet, one -with a singing voice, and a heart deeply moved by essential spiritual -beauty in the common manifestations of human character. At his best he -writes with immense concentration and unflagging vigor; and his hearty -young appetite for life in all its manifestations helps him to transmute -the repellant discords of the modern town into harmony. The fantasy of -_Love in a City_ is a "true thing" and a vital. - -Mr. Hermann Hagedorn is also a true poet, capable of lyric rapture, but -sometimes, when he seems least aware, his muse escapes him. _The -Infidel_, the initial poem of his _Poems and Ballads_ (Houghton Mifflin -Co.), recalls his _Woman of Corinth_, and others in this book remind one -of this and of his Harvard class poem, _The Troop of the Guard_, in that -the words do not, like colored sands, dance inevitably into the absolute -shape determined by the wizardry of sound. He is still somewhat hampered -by the New England manner, a trend toward an external formalism not -dependent on interior necessity. This influence makes for academic and -lifeless work, and it must be deeply rooted since it casts its chill -also over the Boston school of painters. - -But now and then Mr. Hagedorn frees himself; perhaps in the end he may -escape altogether. In such poems as _Song_, _Doors_, _Broadway_, -_Discovery_, _The Wood-Gatherer_, _The Crier in the Night_ and _A Chant -on the Terrible Highway_, we feel that he begins to speak for himself, -to sing with his own voice. Such poems are a challenging note that -should arrest the attention of all seekers after sincere poetic -expression. - -Mr. Percy MacKaye, in _Uriel and Other Poems_ (Houghton Mifflin Co.), -shows also the Boston influence, but perhaps it is difficult to escape -the academic note in such poems for occasions as these. With fluent -eloquence and a ready command of verse forms he celebrates dead poets, -addresses noted living persons, and contributes to a number of -ceremonial observances. The poems in which he is most freely lyric are -perhaps _In the Bohemian Redwoods_ and _To the Fire-Bringer_, the -shorter of his elegies in honor of Moody, his friend. - -In two dramatic poems, _The Tragedy of Etarre_, by Rhys Carpenter -(Sturgis & Walton Co.), and _Gabriel, a Pageant of Vigil_, by Mrs. -Isabelle Howe Fiske (Mosher), the academic note is confidently insisted -on. The former shows the more promise of ultimate freedom. It is an -Arthurian venture of which the prologue is the strongest part. In -firm-knit iambics Mr. Carpenter strikes out many effective lines and -telling situations. Indeed, they almost prompt the profane suggestion -that, simplified and compressed, they might yield a psychological -libretto for some "advanced" composer. - -Mrs. Fiske's venture is toward heaven itself; but her numerous -archangels are of the earth earthy. - -In _The Unconquered Air and Other Poems_ (Houghton Mifflin Co.), Mrs. -Florence Earle Coates shows not inspiration but wide and humane -sympathies. Her verse is typical of much which has enough popular appeal -and educative value to be printed extensively in the magazines; verse in -which subjects of modern interest and human sentiment are expressed in -the kind of rhymed eloquence which passes for poetry with the great -majority. - -These poets may claim the justification of illustrious precedent. The -typical poem of this class in America, the most famous verse rhapsody -which stops short of lyric rapture, is Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_. - - - - - NOTES - -Our poets this month play divers instruments. The audience may listen to -H. D.'s flute, the 'cello of Mr. Rhys, the big bass drum of Mr. Lindsay, -and so on through the orchestra, fitting each poet to his special -strain. Some of these performers are well known, others perhaps will be. - -Mr. Ernest Rhys is of Welsh descent. In 1888-9 he lectured in America, -and afterward returned to London, where he has published _A London -Rose_, Arthurian plays and poems, and Welsh ballads, and edited -_Everyman's Library_. - -Mr. Madison Cawein, the well-known Kentucky poet resident in Louisville, -scarcely needs an introductory word. His is landscape poetry chiefly, -but sometimes, as in Wordsworth, figures blend with the scene and -become a part of nature. A volume of his own selections from his -various books has recently been published by The MacMillan Company. - -Mr. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is the vagabond poet who loves to tramp -through untravelled country districts without a cent in his pocket, -exchanging "rhymes for bread" at farmers' hearths. The magazines have -published engaging articles by him, but in verse he has been usually his -own publisher as yet. - -"H. D., _Imagiste_," is an American lady resident abroad, whose identity -is unknown to the editor. Her sketches from the Greek are not offered as -exact translations, or as in any sense finalities, but as experiments in -delicate and elusive cadences, which attain sometimes a haunting beauty. - -Mr. Kendall Banning is an editor and writer of songs. "The Love Songs of -the Open Road," with music by Lena Branscord, will soon be published by -Arthur Schmidt of Boston. - -Mrs. Anita Fitch of New York has contributed poems to various magazines. - -The February number of POETRY will be devoted to the work of two poets, -Messrs. Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner. - - - - - BOOKS RECEIVED - - _The Lyric Year._ Mitchell Kennerley. - _Poems and Ballads_, by Hermann Hagedorn. Houghton Mifflin Co. - _Shadows of the Flowers_, by T. B. Aldrich. Houghton Mifflin Co. - _Poems and Plays_, by William Vaughn Moody. Houghton Mifflin Co. - _Nimrod_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard. - _The Shadow Garden and Other Plays_, by Madison Cawein. - G. P. Putman's Sons. - _Via Lucis_, by Alice Harper. M. E. Church South, - Nashville, Tenn. - _Songs of Courage and Other Poems_, by Bertha F. Gordon. - The Baker & Taylor Co. - _Narrative Lyrics_, by Edward Lucas White. G. P. Putnam's Sons. - _The Dance of Dinwiddie_, by Marshall Moreton. Stewart & Kidd Co. - _The Three Visions and Other Poems_, by John A. Johnson. - Stewart & Kidd Co. - _Hands Across The Equator_, by Alfred Ernest Keet. - Privately printed. - _Songs Under Open Skies_, by M. Jay Flannery. Stewart & Kidd Co. - _Denys Of Auxerre_, by James Barton. Christophers, London. - - _Songs in Many Moods_, by Charles Washburn Nichols. - L. H. Blackmer Press. - _The Lord's Prayer._ A Sonnet Sequence by Francis Howard Williams. - George W. Jacobs & Co. - _The Buccaneers_, by Don C. Seitz. Harper & Bros. - _The Tale of a Round-House_, by John Masefield. The MacMillan Co. - _XXXIII Love Sonnets_, by Florence Brooks. John Marone. - _The Poems of Ida Ahlborn Weeks._ Published By Her Friends, - Sabula, Iowa. - _The Poems of LeRoy Titus Weeks._ Published by the author. - _Ripostes_, by Ezra Pound. Stephen Swift. - _The Spinning Woman of the Sky_, by Alice Corbin. - The Ralph Fletcher Seymour Co. - _The Irish Poems of Alfred Perceval Graves._ Maunsel & Co. - _Welsh Poetry Old and New, in English Verse_, - by Alfred Perceval Graves. Longmans, Green & Co. - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 5 - - - FEBRUARY, 1913 - - - POEMS - BY - ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE - - - - - SWINBURNE, AN ELEGY - - I - - The autumn dusk, not yearly but eternal, - Is haunted by thy voice. - Who turns his way far from the valleys vernal - And by dark choice - Disturbs those heights which from the low-lying land - Rise sheerly toward the heavens, with thee may stand - And hear thy thunders down the mountains strown. - But none save him who shares thy prophet-sight - Shall thence behold what cosmic dawning-light - Met thy soul's own. - - II - - Master of music! unmelodious singing - Must build thy praises now. - Master of vision! vainly come we, bringing - Words to endow - Thy silence,--where, beyond our clouded powers, - The sun-shot glory of resplendent hours - Invests thee of the Dionysiac flame. - Yet undissuaded come we, here to make - Not thine enrichment but our own who wake - Thy echoing fame. - - III - - Not o'er thy dust we brood,--we who have never - Looked in thy living eyes. - Nor wintry blossom shall we come to sever - Where thy grave lies. - Let witlings dream, with shallow pride elate, - That they approach the presence of the great - When at the spot of birth or death they stand. - But hearts in whom thy heart lives, though they be - By oceans sundered, walk the night with thee - In alien land. - - IV - - For them, grief speaks not with the tidings spoken - That thou art of the dead. - No lamp extinguished when the bowl is broken, - No music fled - When the lute crumbles, art thou nor shalt be; - But as a great wave, lifted on the sea, - Surges triumphant toward the sleeping shore, - Thou fallest, in splendor of irradiant rain, - To sweep resurgent all the ocean plain - Forevermore. - - V - - The seas of earth with flood tides filled thy bosom; - The sea-winds to thy voice - Lent power; the Grecian with the English blossom - Twined, to rejoice - Upon thy brow in chaplets of new bloom; - And over thee the Celtic mists of doom - Hovered to give their magics to thy hand; - And past the moon, where Music dwells alone, - She woke, and loved, and left her starry zone - At thy command. - - VI - - For thee spake Beauty from the shadowy waters; - For thee Earth garlanded - With loveliness and light her mortal daughters; - Toward thee was sped - The arrow of swift longing, keen delight, - Wonder that pierces, cruel needs that smite, - Madness and melody and hope and tears. - And these with lights and loveliness illume - Thy pages, where rich Summer's faint perfume - Outlasts the years. - - VII - - Outlasts, too well! For of the hearts that know thee - Few know or dare to stand - On thy keen chilling heights; but where below thee - Thy lavish hand - Has scattered brilliant jewels of summer song - And flowers of passionate speech, there grope the throng - Crying--"Behold! this bauble, this is he!" - And of their love or hate, the foolish wars - Echo up faintly where amid lone stars - Thy soul may be. - - VIII - - But some, who find in thee a word exceeding - Even thy power of speech-- - To whom each song,--like an oak-leaf crimson, bleeding, - Fallen,--can teach - Tidings of that high forest whence it came - Where the wooded mountain-slope in one vast flame - Burns as the Autumn kindles on its quest-- - These rapt diviners gather close to thee:-- - Whom now the Winter holds in dateless fee - Sealèd of rest. - - IX - - Strings never touched before,--strange accents chanting,-- - Strange quivering lambent words,-- - A far exalted hope serene or panting - Mastering the chords,-- - A sweetness fierce and tragic,--these were thine, - O singing lover of dark Proserpine! - O spirit who lit the Maenad hills with song! - O Augur bearing aloft thy torch divine, - Whose flickering lights bewilder as they shine - Down on the throng. - - X - - Not thy deep glooms, but thine exceeding glory - Maketh men blind to thee. - For them thou hast no evening fireside story. - But to be free-- - But to arise, spurning all bonds that fold - The spirit of man in fetters forged of old-- - This was the mighty trend of thy desire; - Shattering the Gods, teaching the heart to mould - No longer idols, but aloft to hold - The soul's own fire. - - XI - - Yea, thou didst burst the final gates of capture; - And thy strong heart has passed - From youth, half-blinded by its golden rapture, - Into the vast - Desolate bleakness of life's iron spaces; - And there found solace, not in faiths, or faces, - Or aught that must endure Time's harsh control. - In the wilderness, alone, when skies were cloven, - Thou hast thy garment and thy refuge woven - From thine own soul. - - XII - - The faiths and forms of yesteryear are waning, - Dropping, like leaves. - Through the wood sweeps a great wind of complaining - As Time bereaves - Pitiful hearts of all that they thought holy. - The icy stars look down on melancholy - Shelterless creatures of a pillaged day: - A day of disillusionment and terror, - A day that yields no solace for the error - It takes away. - - XIII - - Thee with no solace, but with bolder passion - The bitter day endowed. - As battling seas from the frail swimmer fashion - At last the proud - Indomitable master of their tides, - Who with exultant power splendidly rides - The terrible summit of each whelming wave,-- - So didst thou reap, from fields of wreckage, gain; - Harvesting the wild fruit of the bitter main, - Strength that shall save. - - XIV - - Here where old barks upon new headlands shatter, - And worlds seem torn apart, - Amid the creeds now vain to shield or flatter - The mortal heart, - Where the wild welter of strange knowledge won - From grave and engine and the chemic sun - Subdues the age to faith in dust and gold: - The bardic laurel thou hast dowered with youth, - In living witness of the spirit's truth, - Like prophets old. - - XV - - Thee shall the future time with joy inherit. - Hast thou not sung and said: - "Save its own light, none leads the mortal spirit, - None ever led"? - Time shall bring many, even as thy steps have trod, - Where the soul speaks authentically of God, - Sustained by glories strange and strong and new. - Yet these most Orphic mysteries of thy heart - Only to kindred can thy speech impart; - And they are few. - - XVI - - Few men shall love thee, whom fierce powers have lifted - High beyond meed of praise. - But as some bark whose seeking sail has drifted - Through storm of days, - We hail thee, bearing back thy golden flowers - Gathered beyond the Western Isles, in bowers - That had not seen, till thine, a vessel's wake. - And looking on thee from our land-built towers - Know that such sea-dawn never can be ours - As thou sawest break. - - XVII - - Now sailest thou dim-lighted, lonelier water. - By shores of bitter seas - Low is thy speech with Ceres' ghostly daughter, - Whose twined lilies - Are not more pale than thou, O bard most sweet, - Most bitter;--for whose brow sedge-crowns were mete - And crowns of splendid holly green and red; - Who passest from the dust of careless feet - To lands where sunrise thou hast sought shall greet - Thy holy head. - - XVIII - - Thou hast followed after him whose hopes were greatest,-- - That meteor-soul divine; - Near whom divine we hail thee: thou the latest - Of that bright line - Of flame-lipped masters of the spell of song, - Enduring in succession proud and long, - The banner-bearers in triumphant wars: - Latest; and first of that bright line to be, - For whom thou also, flame-lipped, spirit-free, - Art of the stars. - - - - - TO A CHILD--TWENTY YEARS HENCE - - You shall remember dimly, - Through mists of far-away, - Her whom, our lips set grimly, - We carried forth today. - - But when, in days hereafter, - Unfolding time shall bring - Knowledge of love and laughter - And trust and triumphing,-- - - Then from some face the fairest, - From some most joyous breast, - Garner what there is rarest - And happiest and best,-- - - The youth, the light the rapture - Of eager April grace,-- - And in that sweetness, capture - Your mother's far-off face. - - And all the mists shall perish - That have between you moved. - You shall see her you cherish; - And love, as we have loved. - - - - - PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN - - She limps with halting painful pace, - Stops, wavers, and creeps on again; - Peers up with dim and questioning face - Void of desire or doubt or pain. - - Her cheeks hang gray in waxen folds - Wherein there stirs no blood at all. - A hand like bundled cornstalks holds - The tatters of a faded shawl. - - Where was a breast, sunk bones she clasps; - A knot jerks where were woman-hips; - A ropy throat sends writhing gasps - Up to the tight line of her lips. - - Here strong the city's pomp is poured ... - She stands, unhuman, bleak, aghast: - An empty temple of the Lord - From which the jocund Lord has passed. - - He has builded him another house, - Whenceforth his flame, renewed and bright, - Shines stark upon these weathered brows - Abandoned to the final night. - - - - - THE THREE SISTERS - - Gone are the three, those sisters rare - With wonder-lips and eyes ashine. - One was wise and one was fair, - And one was mine. - - Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair - Of only two your ivy vine. - For one was wise and one was fair, - But one was mine. - - - - - AMONG SHADOWS - - In halls of sleep you wandered by, - This time so indistinguishably - I cannot remember aught of it, - Save that I know last night we met. - I know it by the cloudy thrill - That in my heart is quivering still; - And sense of loveliness forgot - Teases my fancy out of thought. - Though with the night the vision wanes - Its haunting presence still may last-- - As odour of flowers faint remains - In halls where late a queen has passed. - - - - - A WATTEAU MELODY - - Oh, let me take your lily hand, - And where the secret star-beams shine - Draw near, to see and understand - Pierrot and Columbine. - - Around the fountains, in the dew, - Where afternoon melts into night, - With gracious mirth their gracious crew - Entice the shy birds of delight. - - Of motley dress and maskèd face, - Of sparkling unrevealing eyes, - They track in gentle aimless chase - The moment as it flies. - - Their delicate beribboned rout, - Gallant and fair, of light intent, - Weaves through the shadows in and out - With infinite artful merriment. - - * * * * * - - Dear Lady of the lily hand, - Do then our stars so clearly shine - That we, who do not understand, - May mock Pierrot and Columbine? - - Beyond this garden-grove I see - The wise, the noble and the brave - In ultimate futility - Go down into the grave. - - And all they dreamed and all they sought, - Crumbled and ashen grown, departs; - And is as if they had not wrought - These works with blood from out their hearts. - - The nations fall, the faiths decay, - The great philosophies go by,-- - And life lies bare, some bitter day, - A charnel that affronts the sky. - - The wise, the noble and the brave,-- - They saw and solved, as we must see - And solve, the universal grave, - The ultimate futility. - - * * * * * - - Look, where beside the garden-pool - A Venus rises in the grove, - More suave, more debonair, more cool - Than ever burned with Paphian love. - - 'Twas here the delicate ribboned rout - Of gallants and the fair ones went - Among the shadows in and out - With infinite artful merriment. - - Then let me take your lily hand, - And let us tread, where starbeams shine, - A dance; and be, and understand - Pierrot and Columbine. - - _Arthur Davison Ficke_ - - - - - POEMS - BY - WITTER BYNNER - - - - - APOLLO TROUBADOUR - - When a wandering Italian - Yesterday at noon - Played upon his hurdy-gurdy - Suddenly a tune, - There was magic in my ear-drums: - Like a baby's cup and spoon - Tinkling time for many sleigh-bells, - Many no-school, rainy-day-bells, - Cow-bells, frog-bells, run-away-bells, - Mingling with an ocean medley - As of elemental people - More emotional than wordy,-- - Mermaids laughing off their tantrums, - Mermen singing loud and sturdy,-- - Silver scales and fluting shells, - Popping weeds and gurgles deadly, - Coral chime from coral steeple, - Intermittent deep-sea bells - Ringing over floating knuckles, - Buried gold and swords and buckles, - And a thousand bubbling chuckles, - Yesterday at noon,-- - Such a melody as star-fish, - And all fish that really are fish, - In a gay, remote battalion - Play at midnight to the moon! - - Could any playmate on our planet, - Hid in a house of earth's own granite, - Be so devoid of primal fire - That a wind from this wild crated lyre - Should find no spark and fan it? - Would any lady half in tears, - Whose fashion, on a recent day - Over the sea, had been to pay - Vociferous gondoliers, - Beg that the din be sent away - And ask a gentleman, gravely treading - As down the aisle at his own wedding, - To toss the foreigner a quarter - Bribing him to leave the street; - That motor-horns and servants' feet - Familiar might resume, and sweet - To her offended ears, - The money-music of her peers! - - Apollo listened, took the quarter - With his hat off to the buyer, - Shrugged his shoulder small and sturdy, - Led away his hurdy-gurdy - Street by street, then turned at last - Toward a likelier piece of earth - Where a stream of chatter passed, - Yesterday at noon; - By a school he stopped and played - Suddenly a tune.... - What a melody he made! - Made in all those eager faces, - Feet and hands and fingers! - How they gathered, how they stayed - With smiles and quick grimaces, - Little man and little maid!-- - How they took their places, - Hopping, skipping, unafraid, - Darting, rioting about, - Squealing, laughing, shouting out! - How, beyond a single doubt, - In my own feet sprang the ardour - (Even now the motion lingers) - To be joining in their paces! - Round and round the handle went,-- - Round their hearts went harder;-- - Apollo urged the happy rout - And beamed, ten times as well content - With every son and daughter - As though their little hands had lent - The gentleman his quarter.-- - (You would not guess--nor I deny-- - That that same gentleman was I!) - No gentleman may watch a god - With proper happiness therefrom; - So street by street again I trod - The way that we had come. - He had not seen me following - And yet I think he knew; - For still, the less I heard of it, - The more his music grew: - As if he made a bird of it - To sing the distance through.... - And, O Apollo, how I thrilled, - You liquid-eyed rapscallion, - With every twig and twist of Spring, - Because your music rose and filled - Each leafy vein with dew,-- - With melody of olden sleigh-bells, - Over-the-sea-and-far-away-bells, - And the heart of an Italian, - And the tinkling cup and spoon,-- - Such a melody as star-fish, - And all fish that really are fish, - In a gay remote battalion - Play at midnight to the moon! - - - - - ONE OF THE CROWD - - Oh I longed, when I went in the woods today, - To see the fauns come out and play, - To see a satyr try to seize - A dryad's waist--and bark his knees, - To see a river-nymph waylay - And shock him with a dash of spray!-- - And I teased, like a child, by brooks and trees: - "Come back again! We need you! _Please!_ - Come back and teach us how to play!" - But nowhere in the woods were they. - - I found, when I went in the town today, - A thousand people on their way - To offices and factories-- - And never a single soul at ease; - And how could I help but sigh and say: - "What can it profit them, how can it pay - To strain the eye with rivalries - Until the dark is all it sees?-- - Or to manage, more than others may, - To store the wasted gain away?" - - But one of the crowd looked up today, - With pointed brows. I heard him say: - "Out of the meadows and rivers and trees - We fauns and many companies - Of nymphs have come. And we are these, - These people, each upon his way, - Looking for work, working for pay-- - And paying all our energies - To earn true love ... For, seeming gay, - "Once we were sad," I heard him say. - - - - - NEIGHBORS - - Neighbors are not neighborly - Who close the windows tight,-- - Nor those who fix a peeping eye - For finding things not right. - - Let me have faith, is what I pray, - And let my faith be strong!-- - But who am I, is what I say, - To think my neighbor wrong? - - And though my neighbor may deny - That faith could be so slight, - May call me wrong, yet who am I - To think my neighbor right? - - Perhaps we wisely by and by - May learn it of each other, - That he is right and so am I-- - And save a lot of bother. - - - - - THE HILLS OF SAN JOSÉ - - I look at the long low hills of golden brown - With their little wooded canyons - And at the haze hanging its beauty in the air-- - And I am caught and held, as a ball is caught and held by a player - Who leaps for it in the field. - And as the heart in the breast of the player beats toward the ball, - And as the heart beats in the breast of him who shouts - toward the player, - So my heart beats toward the hills that are playing ball with the sun, - That leap to catch the sun - And to throw it to other hills-- - Or to me! - - - - - GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTY - - Grieve not for the invisible, transported brow - On which like leaves the dark hair grew, - Nor for the lips of laughter that are now - Laughing inaudibly in sun and dew, - Nor for those limbs that, fallen low - And seeming faint and slow, - Shall yet pursue - More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips - Among ... and find more winds than ever blew - The straining sails of unimpeded ships! - Mourn not!--yield only happy tears - To deeper beauty than appears! - - - - - THE MYSTIC - - By seven vineyards on one hill - We walked. The native wine - In clusters grew beside us two, - For your lips and for mine, - - When, "Hark!" you said,--"Was that a bell - Or a bubbling spring we heard?" - But I was wise and closed my eyes - And listened to a bird; - - For as summer leaves are bent and shake - With singers passing through, - So moves in me continually - The wingèd breath of you. - - You tasted from a single vine - And took from that your fill-- - But I inclined to every kind, - All seven on one hill. - - - - - PASSING NEAR - - I had not till today been sure, - But now I know: - Dead men and women come and go - Under the pure - Sequestering snow. - - And under the autumnal fern - And carmine bush, - Under the shadow of a thrush, - They move and learn; - And in the rush - - Of all the mountain-brooks that wake - With upward fling - To brush and break the loosening cling - Of ice, they shake - The air with Spring! - - I had not till today been sure, - But now I know: - Dead youths and maidens come and go - Below the lure - And undertow - - Of cities, under every street - Of empty stress, - Or heart of an adulteress: - Each loud retreat - Of lovelessness. - - For only by the stir we make - In passing near - Are we confused, and cannot hear - The ways they take - Certain and clear. - - Today I happened in a place - Where all around - Was silence; until, underground, - I heard a pace, - A happy sound. - - And people whom I there could see - Tenderly smiled, - While under a wood of silent, wild - Antiquity - Wandered a child, - - Leading his mother by the hand, - Happy and slow, - Teaching his mother where to go - Under the snow. - Not even now I understand-- - I only know. - - _Witter Bynner_ - - - - - REVIEWS AND COMMENTS - - _The Story of a Round House and other Poems_, - - by JOHN MASEFIELD (Macmillan) - -Not long ago I chanced to see upon a well-known page, reflective and -sincere, these words: "The invisible root out of which the poetry -deepest in and dearest to humanity grows is Friendship." - -A recent volume may well serve as a distinguished illustration of the -saying's truth. Few persons, I think, will read _The Story of a Round -House and other Poems_ without a sense that the invisible root of its -deep poetry is that fine power which Whitman called Friendship, the -genius of sympathetic imagination. - -This is the force that knits the sinews of the chief, the life-size -figure of the book. _Dauber_ is the tale of a man and his work. It is -the story of an artist in the making. The heroic struggles of an English -farmer's son of twenty-one to become a painter of ships and the ocean, -form the drama of the poem. The scene is a voyage around the Horn, the -ship-board and round-house of a clipper where Dauber spends cruel, -grinding months of effort to become an able seaman on the road of his -further purpose-- - - Of beating thought into the perfect line. - - -His fall from the yard-arm toward the close of the conquered horrors of -his testing voyage; the catastrophe of his death after - - He had emerged out of the iron time - And knew that he could compass his life's scheme-- - -these make the end of the tragedy. - -Tragedy? Yes. But a tragedy of the same temper as that of the great -Dane, where the pursuit of a mortal soul's intention is more, far more, -than his mortality. Unseen forever by the world, part of its unheard -melodies, are all the lines and colors of the Dauber's dreaming. At -Elsinore rules Fortinbras, the foe: the fight is lost; the fighter has -been slain. These are great issues, hard, unjust and wrong. But the -greatest issue of all is that men should be made of the stuff of -magnificence. You close the poem, you listen to the last speech of its -deep sea-music, thinking: Here is death, the real death we all must die; -here is futility, and who knows what we all are here for? But here is -glory. - -Only less powerful than the impression of the strain of Dauber's -endeavor, is the impression of its loneliness. The sneers of the -reefers, their practical jokes, the dulness, the arrogance, the smugness -and endless misunderstanding, the meanness of man on the apprentice -journey, has a keener tooth than the storm-wind. - -The verities of _Dauber_ are built out of veracities. The reader must -face the hardship of labor at sea. He must face the squalors, the -miseries. If he cannot find poetry in a presentment of the cruel, -dizzying reality of a sailor's night on a yard-arm in the icy gale off -Cape Horn, then he will not perhaps feel in the poem the uncompromising -raciness inherent in romances that are true. For the whole manner of -this sea-piece is that of bold, free-hand drawing of things as they are. -Its final event presents a genuinely epic subject from our contemporary -history--the catastrophic character of common labor, and one of its -multitudinous fatalities. - -Epic rather than lyric, the verse of _Dauber_ has an admirable and -refreshing variety in its movement. It speaks the high, wild cry of an -eagle: - - --the eagle's song - Screamed from her desolate screes and splintered scars. - -It speaks thick-crowding discomforts on the mast with a slapping, frozen -sail: - - His sheath-knife flashed, - His numb hand hacked with it to clear the strips; - The flying ice was salt upon his lips. - The ice was caking on his oil-skins; cold - Struck to his marrow, beat upon him strong, - The chill palsied his blood, it made him old; - The frosty scatter of death was being flung. - -Some of the lines, such as-- - - The blackness crunched all memory of the sun-- - -have the hard ring, the thick-packed consonantal beauty of stirring -Greek. - -_Dauber_ will have value to American poetry-readers if only from its -mere power of revealing that poetry is not alone the mellow lin-lan-lone -of evening bells, though it be that also, but may have music of -innumerable kinds. - -_Biography_, the next poem in the book, sings with a different voice and -sees from a different point of view, the difficulty of re-creating in -expression--here expression through words, not through colors-- - - This many-pictured world of many passions. - -_Biography_, too, rises from the invisible root of friendship and bears -with wonderfully vivid arborescence an appreciative tale of the fine -contribution of different companionships to a life. - -Among the two-score shorter lyrics of the collection are songs of the -sea or of the country-side; chants of coast-town bells and ports, marine -ballads, and love-poems. This is, however, the loosest entitling of -their kinds; nothing but the work itself in its entirety, can ever tell -the actual subject of any true poem. Of these kinds it is not to the -marine ballads that one turns back again and again, not to the story of -"Spanish Waters" nor to any of the jingling-gold, the clinking-glass, -the treasure-wreck verses of the book. Their tunes are spirited, but not -a tenth as spirited as those of "The Pirates of Penzance." Indeed, to -the conventionally villainous among fictive sea-faring persons of song, -Gilbert and Sullivan seem to have done something that cannot now ever be -undone. - -The poems in the volume one does turn back to again and again are those -with the great singing tones, that pour forth with originality, with -inexpressible free grace and native power. Again and again you will read -_A Creed_, _C. L. M._, _Born for Nought Else_, _Roadways_, _Truth_, _The -Wild Duck_, _Her Heart_, and-- - - But at the falling of the tide - The golden birds still sing and gleam. - The Atlanteans have not died, - Immortal things still give us dream. - - The dream that fires man's heart to make, - To build, to do, to sing or say - A beauty Death can never take, - An Adam from the crumbled clay. - -Wonderful, wonderful it is that in the hearing of our own generation, -one great voice after another has called and sung to the world from the -midst of the sea-mists of England. From the poetry of Swinburne, of -Rudyard Kipling, of John Masefield immortal things still give us dream. - -Among the poems of this new book, more than one appear as incarnations -of the beauty Death can never take. Of these, perhaps, none is more -characteristic of the poet, nor will any more fittingly evince his -volume's quality than _Truth_. - - Man with his burning soul - Has but an hour of breath - To build a ship of Truth - In which his soul may sail, - Sail on the sea of death. - For death takes toll - Of beauty, courage, youth, - Of all but Truth. - - Life's city ways are dark, - Men mutter by, the wells - Of the great waters moan. - O death, O sea, O tide, - The waters moan like bells. - No light, no mark, - The soul goes out alone - On seas unknown. - - Stripped of all purple robes, - Stripped of all golden lies, - I will not be afraid. - Truth will preserve through death; - Perhaps the stars will rise, - The stars like globes. - The ship my striving made - May see night fade. - - _Edith Wyatt_ - - _Présences_, par P. J. Jouve: Georges Crès, Paris. - -I take pleasure in welcoming, in Monsieur Jouve, a contemporary. He -writes the new jargon and I have not the slightest doubt that he is a -poet. - -Whatever may be said against automobiles and aeroplanes and the -modernist way of speaking of them, and however much one may argue that -this new sort of work is mannered, and that its style will pass, still -it is indisputable that the vitality of the time exists in such work. - -Here is a book that you can read without being dead sure of what you -will find on the next page, or at the end of the next couplet. There is -no doubt that M. Jouve sees with his own eyes and feels with his own -nerves. Nothing is more boresome than an author who pretends to know -less about things than he really does know. It is this silly sort of -false naïveté that rots the weaker productions of Maeterlinck. Thank -heaven the advance guard is in process of escaping it. - -It is possible that the new style will grow as weak in the future in the -hands of imitators as has, by now, the Victorian manner, but for the -nonce it is refreshing. Work of this sort can not be produced by the -yard in stolid imitation of dead authors. - -I defy anyone to read it without being forced to think, immediately, -about life and the nature of things. I have perused this volume twice, -and I have enjoyed it. - - _E. P._ - - - - - THE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA - -The Poetry Society of America, organized in 1910, was a natural -response, perhaps at the time unconscious, to the reawakened interest in -poetry, now so widely apparent. - -There seemed no reason why poetry, one of the noblest of the arts, -should not take to itself visible organization as well as its sister -arts of music and painting, since it was certain that such organization -contributed much to their advancement and appreciation. Poetry alone -remained an isolated art, save through the doubtful value of coteries -dedicated to the study of some particular poet. In the sense of -fellowship, of the creative sympathy of contact, of the keener -appreciation which must follow the wider knowledge of an art, poetry -stood alone, detached from these avenues open from the beginning to -other arts. - -The Society was therefore founded, with a charter membership of about -fifty persons, which included many of the poets doing significant work -to-day, together with critics and representatives of other arts, the -purpose from the outset being to include the appreciators of poetry as -well as its producers. It has grown to nearly two hundred members, -distributed from coast to coast, and eventually it will probably resolve -itself into branch societies, with the chief organization, as now, in -New York. Such societies should have a wide influence upon their -respective communities in stimulating interest in the work of living -poets, to which the Poetry Society as an organization is chiefly -addressed. - -Since the passing of the nineteenth-century poets, the art of poetry, -like the art of painting, has taken on new forms and become the vehicle -of a new message. The poet of to-day speaks through so different a -medium, his themes are so diverse from those of the elder generation, -that he cannot hope to find his public in their lingering audience. He -must look to his contemporaries, to those touched by the same issues and -responsive to the same ideals. To aid in creating this atmosphere for -the poet, to be the nucleus of a movement for the wider knowledge of -contemporaneous verse, the Poetry Society of America took form and in -its brief period has, I think, justified the idea of its promoters. - -Its meetings are held once a month at the National Arts Club in New -York, with which it is affiliated, and are given chiefly to the reading -and discussion of poetry, both of recently published volumes and of -poems submitted anonymously. This feature has proved perhaps the most -attractive, and while criticism based upon one hearing of a poem cannot -be taken as authoritative, it is often constructive and valuable. - -The Society is assembling an interesting collection of books, a -twentieth century library of American poetry. Aside from its own -collection, it is taking steps to promote a wider representation of -modern poets in public libraries. - - _Jessie B. Rittenhouse._ - - - - - NOTES - - "THAT MASS OF DOLTS" - -Mr. Pound's phrase in his poem _To Whistler, American_, has aroused more -or less resentment, some of it quite emphatic. Apparently we of "these -states" have no longing for an Ezekiel; our prophets must give us, not -the bitter medicine which possibly we need, but the sugar-and-water of -compliment which we can always swallow with a smile. - -Perhaps we should examine our consciences a little, or at least step -down from our self-erected pedestals long enough to listen to this -accusation. What has become of our boasted sense of humor if we cannot -let our young poets rail, or our sense of justice if we cannot cease -smiling and weigh their words? In certain respects we Americans are a -"mass of dolts," and in none more than our huge stolid, fundamental -indifference to our own art. Mr. Pound is not the first American poet -who has stood with his back to the wall, and struck out blindly with -clenched fists in a fierce impulse to fight. Nor is he the first whom -we, by this same stolid and indifferent rejection, have forced into -exile and rebellion. - -After a young poet has applied in vain to the whole list of American -publishers and editors, and learned that even though he were a genius of -the first magnitude they could not risk money or space on his poetry -because the public would not buy it--after a series of such rebuffs our -young aspirant goes abroad and succeeds in interesting some London -publisher. The English critics, let us say, praise his book, and echoes -of their praises reach our astonished ears. Thereupon the poet in exile -finds that he has thus gained a public, and editorial suffrages, in -America, and that the most effective way of increasing that public and -those suffrages is, to remain in exile and guard his foreign reputation. - -Meantime it is quite probable that a serious poet will have grown weary -of such open and unashamed colonialism, that he will prefer to stay -among people who are seriously interested in aesthetics and who know -their own minds. For nothing is so hard to meet as indifference; blows -are easier for a live man to endure than neglect. The poet who cries out -his message against a stone wall will be silenced in the end, even -though he bear a seraph's wand and speak with the tongues of angels. - - * * * * * - -One phase of our colonialism in art, the singing of opera in foreign -languages, has been persistently opposed by Eleanor E. Freer, who has -set to music of rare distinction many of the finest English lyrics, old -and new. She writes: - - In the Basilikon Doron, King James I of - England writes to his son: "And I would, also, - advise you to write in your own language; for - there is nothing left to be said in Greek and - Latin already--and besides that, it best becometh - a King to purify and make famous his own tongue." - Might we add, it best becometh the kings of art - in America and England to sing their own language - and thus aid in the progress of their national - music and poetry? - - * * * * * - -Messrs. Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner belong to the younger -group of American poets, both having been born since 1880, the former in -Davenport, Iowa, and the latter in Brooklyn. Both were graduated from -Harvard early in this century, after which Mr. Ficke was admitted to the -bar, and Mr. Bynner became assistant editor of McClure's. - -Mr. Ficke has published _From the Isles_, _The Happy Princess_, _The -Earth Passion_ and _The Breaking of Bonds_; also _Mr. Faust_, a dramatic -poem, and a series of poems called _Twelve Japanese Painters_, will be -published this year. Mr. Bynner has published _An Ode to Harvard and -Other Poems_, and _An Immigrant_. His play, _His Father's House_, was -recently produced in California. - -The March number of _Poetry_ will contain _The Silent House_, a one-act -play, by Agnes Lee, and poems by Alice Meynell, Alfred Noyes, Fannie -Stearns Davis and others. - - - - - BOOKS RECEIVED - - _Bugle Notes of Courage and Love_, by Althea A. Ogden. - Unity Publishing Co. - _Altar-Side Messages_, by Evelyn H. Walker. Unity Publishing Co. - _Dream Harbor_, by J. W. Vallandingham. Privately printed. - _Hopeful Thoughts_, by Eleanor Hope. Franklin Hudson Publishing Co. - _The Youth Replies_, by Louis How. Sherman, French & Co. - _Songs of the Love Unending_, A Sonnet Sequence, - by Kendall Banning. Brothers of the Book. - _William Allingham_, The Golden Treasury Series. The Macmillan Co. - _Idylls Beside the Strand_, by Franklin F. Phillips. - Sherman, French & Co. - _The Minstrel with the Self-Same Song_, by Charles A. Fisher. - The Eichelberger Book Co. - _The Wife of Potiphar_, with Other Poems, by Harvey M. Watts. - The John C. Winston Co. - _A Scroll of Seers_, A Wall Anthology. Peter Paul & Son. - - - - - Poetry VOL. I - A Magazine of Verse NO. 6 - - - MARCH, 1913 - - - - - THE SILENT HOUSE - - _David._ [_Re-reading a letter._] How may a letter bring - such darkness down-- - With this: "She dallied with your love too long!" - And this: "It is the word of all the town: - "Corinna has no soul, for all her song!" - - _Martha._ [_Entering with flowers._] O sir, I bring you - flaming bergamot, - And early asters, for your window-sill. - And where I found them? Now you'll guess it not. - I visited the garden on the hill, - And gathered till my arms could hold no more. - - _David._ The garden of the little silent house! - - _Martha._ The city lured her from her viny door. - But see, the flowers have stayed! - - _David._ They seem to drowse - And dream of one they lost, a paler-blown. - How fares the house upon the hill? - - _Martha._ The blinds - Are fast of late, and all are intergrown - With weedy havoc tossed by searching winds. - - _David._ How somber suddenly the sky! A shower - Is in the air. - - _Martha._ I'll light the lamps. - - _David._ Not yet. - Leave me the beauty of the twilit hour. - - _Martha._ Hear the wind rising! How the moorings fret! - More than a shower is on its way through space. - I would not be aboard of yonder barque. - [_She goes out._] - _David._ Corinna! Now may I recall her face. - It is my light to think by in the dark. - Yes, all my years of study, all the will - Tenacious to achieve, the tempered strife, - The victories attained through patient skill, - Lie at the door of one dear human life. - And yet ... the letter ... - Often have I read - How love relumes the flowers and the trees. - True! For my world is newly garmented: - Rewards seem slight, and slighter penalties. - Daily companionship is more and more. - To make one little good more viable, - To lift one load, is worth the heart's outpour. - And she--she has made all things wonderful. - And yet ... the letter ... - O to break a spell - Wherein the stars are crumbling unto dust! - There never was a hope--I know it well, - And struggle on, and love because I must. - Never a hope? Shall ever any scheme, - Her silence, or alarm of written word, - Or voiced asseveration, shake my dream? - She loves me! By love's anguish, I have heard! - We two from our soul-towers across a vale - Are calling each to each, alert, aware. - Shall one of us one day the other hail, - And no reply be borne upon the air? - Corinna, come to light my heart's dim place! - O come to me, Belovèd and Besought, - O'er grief, o'er gladness,--even o'er death apace,-- - For I could greet your phantom, so it brought - Love's own reality!... - A song of hers - Seems striving hither, a faint villanelle - Half smothered by the gale's mad roisterers. - She used to sing it in the bracken dell. - Here is the rain against the window beating - In heavy drops that presage wilder storm. - The lake is lost within a lurid sheeting; - The house upon the hill has changed its form. - The melancholy pine-trees weep in rocking. - And what's that clamor at the outer door? - Martha! O Martha! Somebody is knocking! [_Calling._] - - _Martha._ [_Re-entering._] You hear the rills that down - the gutters roar. - - _David._ And are you deaf? The door--go open it! - This is no night to leave a man outside! - - _Martha._ [_Muttering and going toward the door._] And - is it I am growing deaf a bit, - And blind a bit, with other ill-betide! - Well, I can see to thread a needle still, - And I can hear the ticking of the clock, - And I can fetch a basket from the mill. - But hallow me if ever I heard knock! - [_She throws the door open. David starts up and rushes - forward with outstretched arms._] - _David._ Corinna! You, Corinna! Drenched and cold! - At last, at last! But how in all the rain! - Martha! - [_Martha stands motionless, unseeing._] - Good Martha, you are growing old! - Draw fast the shades--shut out the hurricane. - Here, take the dripping cloak from out the room; - Bring cordial from the purple damson pressed, - And light the lamps, the candles--fire the gloom. - Why stand you gaping? See you not the guest? - - _Martha._ I opened wide the door unto the storm. - But never heard I step upon the sill. - All the black night let in no living form. - I see no guest. Look hard as e'er I will, - I see none here but you and my poor self. - - _David._ The room that was my mother's room prepare. - Spread out warm garments on the oaken shelf-- - Her gown, the little shawl she used to wear. - [_Martha, wide-eyed, bewildered, lights the lamps and - candles and goes out, raising her hands._] - _Corinna._ The moments I may tarry fade and press. - Something impelled me hither, some clear flame. - They said I had no soul! O David, yes, - They said I had no soul! And so I came. - I have been singing, singing, all the way, - O, singing ever since the darkness grew - And I grew chill and followed the small ray. - Lean close, and let my longing rest in you! - - _David._ Dear balm of light, I never thought to win - From out the pallid hours for ever throbbing! - How did you know the sorrow I was in? - - _Corinna._ A flock of leaves came sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. - - _David._ O, now I hold you fast, my love, my own, - My festival upleaping from an ember! - But, timid child, how could you come alone - Across the pathless woods? - - _Corinna._ Do you remember?-- - Over the summer lake one starry, stilly, - Sweet night, when you and I were drifting, dear, - I frighted at the shadow of a lily! - It is all strange, but now I have no fear. - - _David._ Your eyes are weary, drooping. Sleep, then, sleep. - - _Corinna._ I must go over to the silent house. - - _David._ The dwelling stands forsaken up the steep, - With never beast nor human to arouse! - - _Corinna._ Soon will the windows gleam with many lamps. - Hark!--heavy wheels are toiling to the north. - - _David._ I will go with you where the darkness ramps. - - _Corinna._ Strong arms are in the storm to bear me forth. - - _David._ Not in these garments dripping as the trees! - Not in these clinging shadows! - - _Corinna._ Ah, good-night! - Dear love, dear love, I must go forth in these. - Tomorrow you shall see me all in white. - - _Agnes Lee_ - - - - - THE ORACLE - - (_To the New Telescope on Mt. Wilson_) - - Of old sat one at Delphi brooding o'er - The fretful earth;--ironically wise, - Veiling her prescience in dark replies, - She shaped the fates of men with mystic lore. - The oracle is silent now. No more - Fate parts the cloud that round omniscience lies. - But thou, O Seer, dost tease our wild surmise - With portents passing all the wealth of yore. - For thou shalt spell the very thoughts of God! - Before thy boundless vision, world on world - Shall multiply in glit'ring sequence far; - And all the little ways which men have trod - Shall be as nothing by His star-dust whirled - Into the making of a single star. - - - - - A GARGOYLE ON NOTRE DAME - - With angel's wings and brutish-human form, - Weathered with centuries of sun and storm, - He crouches yonder on the gallery wall, - Monstrous, superb, indifferent, cynical: - And all the pulse of Paris cannot stir - Her one immutable philosopher. - - _Edmund Kemper Broadus_ - - - - - SANTA BARBARA BEACH - - Now while the sunset offers, - Shall we not take our own: - The gems, the blazing coffers, - The seas, the shores, the throne? - - The sky-ships, radiant-masted, - Move out, bear low our way. - Oh, Life was dark while it lasted, - Now for enduring day. - - Now with the world far under, - To draw up drowning men - And show them lands of wonder - Where they may build again. - - There earthly sorrow falters, - There longing has its wage; - There gleam the ivory altars - Of our lost pilgrimage. - - --Swift flame--then shipwrecks only - Beach in the ruined light; - Above them reach up lonely - The headlands of the night. - - A hurt bird cries and flutters - Her dabbled breast of brown; - The western wall unshutters - To fling one last rose down. - - A rose, a wild light after-- - And life calls through the years, - "Who dreams my fountains' laughter - Shall feed my wells with tears." - - _Ridgely Torrence_ - - - - - MATERNITY - - One wept, whose only babe was dead, - New-born ten years ago. - "Weep not; he is in bliss," they said. - She answered, "Even so. - - "Ten years ago was born in pain - A child, not now forlorn; - But oh, ten years ago in vain - A mother, a mother was born." - - _Alice Meynell_ - - - - - PROFITS - - Yes, stars were with me formerly. - (I also knew the wind and sea; - And hill-tops had my feet by heart. - Their shaggéd heights would sting and start - When I came leaping on their backs. - I knew the earth's queer crooked cracks, - Where hidden waters weave a low - And druid chant of joy and woe.) - - But stars were with me most of all. - I heard them flame and break and fall. - Their excellent array, their free - Encounter with Eternity, - I learned. And it was good to know - That where God walked, I too might go. - - Now, all these things are passed. For I - Grow very old and glad to die. - What did they profit me, say you, - These distant bloodless things I knew? - Profit? What profit hath the sea - Of her deep-throated threnody? - What profit hath the sun, who stands - Staring on space with idle hands? - And what should God Himself acquire - From all the aeons' blood and fire? - - My profit is as theirs: to be - Made proof against mortality: - To know that I have companied - With all that shines and lives, amid - So much the years sift through their hands, - Most mortal, windy, worthless sands. - - This day I have great peace. With me - Shall stars abide eternally! - - - - - TWO SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL - - MOON FOLLY - - I will go up the mountain after the Moon: - She is caught in a dead fir-tree. - Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl, - Like a great pale apple is she. - - I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold hands - And carry her home in my sack. - I will set her down safe on the oaken bench - That stands at the chimney-back. - And then I will sit by the fire all night, - And sit by the fire all day. - I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart's delight, - Till I gnaw her slowly away. - - And while I grow mad with the Moon's cold taste, - The World may beat on my door, - Crying "Come out!" and crying "Make haste! - And give us the Moon once more!" - But I will not answer them ever at all; - I will laugh, as I count and hide - The great black beautiful seeds of the Moon - In a flower-pot deep and wide. - Then I will lie down and go fast asleep, - Drunken with flame and aswoon. - But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap: - The subtle swift seeds of the Moon. - - And some day, all of the world that beats - And cries at my door, shall see - A thousand moon-leaves sprout from my thatch - On a marvellous white Moon-tree! - Then each shall have moons to his heart's desire: - Apples of silver and pearl: - Apples of orange and copper fire, - Setting his five wits aswirl. - And then they will thank me, who mock me now: - "Wanting the Moon is he!" - Oh, I'm off to the mountain after the Moon, - Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree! - - - - - WARNING - - You must do nothing false - Or cruel-lipped or low; - For I am Conn the Fool, - And Conn the Fool will know. - - I went by the door - When Patrick Joyce looked out. - He did not wish for me - Or any one about. - - He thought I did not see - The fat bag in his hand. - But Conn heard clinking gold, - And Conn could understand. - - I went by the door - Where Michael Kane lay dead. - I saw his Mary tie - A red shawl round her head. - - I saw a dark man lean - Across her garden-wall. - They did not know that Conn - Walked by at late dusk-fall. - - You must not scold or lie, - Or hate or steal or kill, - For I shall tell the wind - That leaps along the hill; - - And he will tell the stars - That sing and never lie; - And they will shout your sin - In God's face, bye and bye. - - And God will not forget, - For all He loves you so.-- - He made me Conn the Fool, - And bade me always know! - - - - - STORM DANCE - - The water came up with a roar, - The water came up to me. - There was a wave with tusks of a boar, - And he gnashed his tusks on me. - I leaned, I leapt, and was free. - He snarled and struggled and fled. - Foaming and blind he turned to the sea, - And his brothers trampled him dead. - - The water came up with a shriek, - The water came up to me. - There was a wave with a woman's cheek, - And she shuddered and clung to me. - I crouched, I cast her away. - She cursed me and swooned and died. - Her green hair tangled like sea-weed lay - Tossed out on the tearing tide. - - Challenge and chase me, Storm! - Harry and hate me, Wave! - Wild as the wind is my heart, but warm, - Sudden and merry and brave. - For the water comes up with a shout, - The water comes up to me. - And oh, but I laugh, laugh out! - And the great gulls laugh, and the sea! - - _Fannie Stearns Davis_ - - - - - DIRGE FOR A DEAD ADMIRAL - - What woman but would be - Rid of thy mastery, - Thou bully of the sea? - - No more the gray sea's breast - Need answer thy behest; - No more thy sullen gun - Shall greet the risen sun, - Where the great dreadnaughts ride - The breast of thy cold bride; - Thou hast fulfilled thy fate: - Need trade no more with hate! - - Nay, but I celebrate - Thy long-to-be-lorn mate, - Thy mistress and her state, - Thy lady sea's lorn state. - She hath her empery - Not only over thee - But o'er _our_ misery. - - Hark, doth she mourn for thee? - - Nay, what hath she of grief? - She knoweth not the leaf - That on her bosom falls, - Thou last of admirals! - - Under the winter moon - She singeth that fierce tune, - Her immemorial rune; - Knoweth not, late or soon, - Careth not - Any jot - For her withholden boon - To all thy spirit's pleas - For infinite surcease! - - If, on this winter night, - O thou great admiral - That in thy sombre pall - Liest upon the land, - Thy soul should take his flight - And leave the frozen sand, - And yearn above the surge, - Think'st thou that any dirge, - Grief inarticulate - From thy bereaved mate, - Would answer to thy soul - Where the waste waters roll? - - Nay, thou hast need of none! - Thy long love-watch is done! - - - - - SPRING-SONG - - Early some morning in May-time - I shall awaken - When the breeze blowing in at the window - Shall bathe me - With the delicate scents - Of the blossoms of apples, - Filling my room with their coolness - And beauty and fragrance-- - As of old, as of old, - When your spirit dwelt with me, - My heart shall be pure - As the heart that you gave me. - - - - - A SWEETHEART: THOMPSON STREET - - Queen of all streets, Fifth Avenue - Stretches her slender limbs - From the great Arch of Triumph, on,-- - On, where the distance dims - - The splendors of her jewelled robes, - Her granite draperies; - The magic, sunset-smitten walls - That veil her marble knees; - - For ninety squares she lies a queen, - Superb, bare, unashamed, - Yielding her beauty scornfully - To worshippers unnamed. - - But at her feet her sister glows, - A daughter of the South: - Squalid, immeasurably mean,-- - But oh! her hot, sweet mouth! - - My Thompson Street! a Tuscan girl, - Hot with life's wildest blood; - Her black shawl on her black, black hair, - Her brown feet stained with mud; - - A scarlet blossom at her lips, - A new babe at her breast; - A singer at a wine-shop door, - (Her lover unconfessed). - - Listen! a hurdy-gurdy plays-- - Now alien melodies: - She smiles, she cannot quite forget - The mother over-seas. - - But she no less is mine alone, - Mine, mine!... Who may I be? - Have _I_ betrayed her from her home? - I am called Liberty! - - - - - THE OFF-SHORE WIND - - The skies are sown with stars tonight, - The sea is sown with light, - The hollows of the heaving floor - Gleam deep with light once more, - The racing ebb-tide flashes past - And seeks the vacant vast, - A wind steals from a world asleep - And walks the restless deep. - - It walks the deep in ecstasy, - It lives! and loves to free - Its spirit to the silent night, - And breathes deep in delight; - Above the sea that knows no coast, - Beneath the starry host, - The wind walks like the souls of men - Who walk with God again. - - The souls of men who walk with God! - With faith's firm sandals shod, - A lambent passion, body-free, - Fain for eternity! - O spirit born of human sighs, - Set loose 'twixt sea and skies, - Be thou an Angel of mankind, - Thou night-unfettered wind! - - Bear thou the dreams of weary earth, - Bear thou Tomorrow's birth, - Take all our longings up to Him - Until His stars grow dim; - A moving anchorage of prayer, - Thou cool and healing air, - Heading off-shore till shoreless dawn - Breaks fair and night is gone. - - _Samuel McCoy_ - - - - - "THE HILL-FLOWERS" - - "_I will lift up mine eyes to the hills._" - - I - - _Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, - Ere I waken in the city--Life, thy dawn makes all things new! - And up a fir-clad glen, far from all the haunts of men, - Up a glen among the mountains, oh my feet are wings again!_ - - Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, - O mountains of my boyhood, I come again to you, - By the little path I know, with the sea far below, - And above, the great cloud-galleons with their sails of rose and snow; - - As of old, when all was young, and the earth a song unsung - And the heather through the crimson dawn its Eden incense flung - From the mountain-heights of joy, for a careless-hearted boy, - And the lavrocks rose like fountain sprays of bliss - that ne'er could cloy, - - From their little beds of bloom, from the golden gorse and broom, - With a song to God the Giver, o'er that waste of wild perfume; - Blowing from height to height, in a glory of great light, - While the cottage-clustered valleys held the lilac last of night, - - So, when dawn is in the skies, in a dream, a dream, I rise, - And I follow my lost boyhood to the heights of Paradise. - Life, thy dawn makes all things new! Hills of Youth, I come to you, - Moving through the dew, moving through the dew. - - II - - Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, - Floats a brother's face to meet me! Is it you? Is it you? - For the night I leave behind keeps these dazzled eyes still blind! - But oh, the little hill-flowers, their scent is wise and kind; - - And I shall not lose the way from the darkness to the day, - While dust can cling as their scent clings to memory for aye; - And the least link in the chain can recall the whole again, - And heaven at last resume its far-flung harvests, grain by grain. - - To the hill-flowers clings my dust, and tho' eyeless Death may thrust - All else into the darkness, in their heaven I put my trust; - And a dawn shall bid me climb to the little spread of thyme - Where first I heard the ripple of the fountain-heads of rhyme. - - And a fir-wood that I know, from dawn to sunset-glow, - Shall whisper to a lonely sea, that swings far, far below. - Death, thy dawn makes all things new. Hills of Youth, I come to you, - Moving through the dew, moving through the dew. - - _Alfred Noyes_ - - - - - EDITORIAL COMMENT - - THE SERVIAN EPIC - -Poetry as the inspiration of the Balkan war was the theme of a recent -talk given by Madame Slavko Grouitch before the Friday Club in Chicago, -and elsewhere, during her brief sojourn in her native country. Madame -Grouitch was a student at the American School of Archaeology in Athens -when she married the young Servian diplomat who now represents his -nation in London. - -According to the speaker, the Servian national songs have kept alive the -heroic spirit of the people during more than four centuries of Turkish -oppression. Through them each generation of the illiterate peasantry has -fought once more the ancient wars, and followed once more the ancient -leaders even to the final tragedy of the battle of Kossovo, where in -1377 they made their last brave stand against the Mohammedan invader. -Whenever a few people assemble for a festival, some local bard, perhaps -an old shepherd or soldier, a blind beggar or reformed brigand, will -chant the old songs to the monotonous music of the _gusle_, while the -people dance the _Kolo_. - -"There are thousands of songs in the Servian epic," says Mme. Grouitch, -"and each has many variants according to whether it is sung in Bosnia, -Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, Servia, Bulgaria or Macedonia; for -all these political divisions are peopled by the Servian race descended -from the heroes whose deeds are the theme of such unwearied narration. -The bard is called the Guslar from his one-stringed instrument, whose -melancholy cadence--a sighing-forth of sound--affects the emotions and -increases the pathos of the words. For the story is usually sad, even -when it proclaims the triumph of great deeds." - -These songs invariably begin: - - Once it was so; now it is told. - -And they as invariably end: - - From me the song; from God health to you. - -A number of poems were read from Mme. Mijatovich's rather uninspired -translation of the Kossovo series, published in London in 1881. Extreme -simplicity and vividness characterize the old epic, which follows the -hopeless struggle of the noble Czar Lazar against the foe without, and -suspicions, dissensions, blunders, even treacheries, within. Certain -characters stand out with the uncompromising exactness of some biblical -story: the Czar himself; his over-zealous Vojvode; Milosh Obilich, whose -murder of Sultan Murad precipitated the disaster; and certain haughty -and passionate women, like the Empress Militza and her two daughters. -Also "Marko, the King's son," whose half-mythical figure is of the race -of Achilles. - -"There was one thing," said Mme. Grouitch, "which the Turk could not -take away from the Serb--the heavenly gift of poetry; that continued to -dwell hidden in the breast of the southern Slav. His body was enslaved, -but his soul was not; his physical life was oppressed, but his spiritual -being remained free. In the eighteenth century Europe re-discovered the -Servian national poetry, and became conscious that the race survived as -well as its ideals. Then Serb and Bulgar again appeared in current -history, and began to retrace the ancient boundaries. - -"All the conferences of all the powers can never diminish the hopes, nor -eclipse the glory of the Serb race in the minds of the Balkan peoples; -because the Guslar, who is their supreme national leader, is forever -telling them of that glory, and urging them to concerted action against -all outside foes. It was the Guslar who led the Montenegrin Serbs from -one heroic victory to another, so that 'their war annals,' as Gladstone -said, 'are more glorious than those of all the rest of the world.' It -was the Guslar who inspired Kara George and his heroic band of Servian -peasants to keep up their battle until free Servia was born. - -"Amid the roar of cannon at Lule Burgas and Monastir, I could hear the -mighty voice of the Guslar reminding Serb and Bulgar that their fight -was for 'the honored cross and golden liberty.' And they obeyed because -it was the voice of their nation. It is this irresistible national -spirit which leads their armies, and beside it the spirit of German -training behind the Turk is a lifeless shadow. The Ottoman power in -Europe is in ruins now, a wreck in the path of a national earthquake -which the Guslar has prophesied for five hundred years. The Guslar has -done his duty, and he stands today in a blaze of glory at the head of -the united and victorious nations of the Balkans." - -The speaker told of an impressive ceremony at the Servian legation in -London. Young Servians, recalled home for military service last autumn, -met there on the eve of departure. Wine being served, the minister and -his young patriots rose with lifted glasses, and chanted the ancient -summons of Czar Lazar to his people: - - Whoever born of Serbian blood or kin - Comes not to fight the Turk on Kossovo, - To him be never son or daughter born, - No child to heir his lands or bear his name! - For him no grape grow red, no corn grow white; - In his hands nothing prosper! - May he live - Alone, unloved! and die unmourned, alone! - - _H. M._ - - - - - IMAGISME[C] - -Some curiosity has been aroused concerning _Imagisme_, and as I was -unable to find anything definite about it in print, I sought out an -_imagiste_, with intent to discover whether the group itself knew -anything about the "movement." I gleaned these facts. - -[Footnote C: Editor's Note--In response to many requests for information -regarding _Imagism_ and the _Imagistes_, we publish this note by Mr. -Flint, supplementing it with further exemplification by Mr. Pound. It -will be seen from these that _Imagism_ is not necessarily associated -with Hellenic subjects, or with _vers libre_ as a prescribed form.] - -The _imagistes_ admitted that they were contemporaries of the Post -Impressionists and the Futurists; but they had nothing in common with -these schools. They had not published a manifesto. They were not a -revolutionary school; their only endeavor was to write in accordance -with the best tradition, as they found it in the best writers of all -time,--in Sappho, Catullus, Villon. They seemed to be absolutely -intolerant of all poetry that was not written in such endeavor, -ignorance of the best tradition forming no excuse. They had a few rules, -drawn up for their own satisfaction only, and they had not published -them. They were: - - 1. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective - or objective. - 2. To use absolutely no word that did not contribute - to the presentation. - 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of - the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome. - -By these standards they judged all poetry, and found most of it wanting. -They held also a certain 'Doctrine of the Image,' which they had not -committed to writing; they said that it did not concern the public, and -would provoke useless discussion. - -The devices whereby they persuaded approaching poetasters to attend -their instruction were: - - 1. They showed him his own thought already - splendidly expressed in some classic (and the school - musters altogether a most formidable erudition). - 2. They re-wrote his verses before his eyes, using - about ten words to his fifty. - -Even their opponents admit of them--ruefully--"At least they do keep bad -poets from writing!" - -I found among them an earnestness that is amazing to one accustomed to -the usual London air of poetic dilettantism. They consider that Art is -all science, all religion, philosophy and metaphysic. It is true that -_snobisme_ may be urged against them; but it is at least _snobisme_ in -its most dynamic form, with a great deal of sound sense and energy -behind it; and they are stricter with themselves than with any outsider. - - _F. S. Flint_ - - - - - A FEW DONT'S BY AN IMAGISTE - -An "Image" is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex -in an instant of time. I use the term "complex" rather in the technical -sense employed by the newer psychologists, such as Hart, though we might -not agree absolutely in our application. - -It is the presentation of such a "complex" instantaneously which gives -that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits -and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in -the presence of the greatest works of art. - -It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce -voluminous works. - -All this, however, some may consider open to debate. The immediate -necessity is to tabulate A LIST OF DONT'S for those beginning to write -verses. But I can not put all of them into Mosaic negative. - -To begin with, consider the three rules recorded by Mr. Flint, not as -dogma--never consider anything as dogma--but as the result of long -contemplation, which, even if it is some one else's contemplation, may -be worth consideration. - -Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves -written a notable work. Consider the discrepancies between the actual -writing of the Greek poets and dramatists, and the theories of the -Graeco-Roman grammarians, concocted to explain their metres. - - - - - LANGUAGE - -Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something. - -Don't use such an expression as "dim lands _of peace_." It dulls the -image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the -writer's not realizing that the natural object is always the _adequate_ -symbol. - -Go in fear of abstractions. Don't retell in mediocre verse what has -already been done in good prose. Don't think any intelligent person is -going to be deceived when you try to shirk all the difficulties of the -unspeakably difficult art of good prose by chopping your composition -into line lengths. - -What the expert is tired of today the public will be tired of tomorrow. - -Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of -music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least -as much effort on the art of verse as the average piano teacher spends -on the art of music. - -Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency -either to acknowledge the debt outright, or to try to conceal it. - -Don't allow "influence" to mean merely that you mop up the particular -decorative vocabulary of some one or two poets whom you happen to -admire. A Turkish war correspondent was recently caught red-handed -babbling in his dispatches of "dove-gray" hills, or else it was -"pearl-pale," I can not remember. - -Use either no ornament or good ornament. - - - - - RHYTHM AND RHYME - -Let the candidate fill his mind with the finest cadences he can -discover, preferably in a foreign language so that the meaning of the -words may be less likely to divert his attention from the movement; -e.g., Saxon charms, Hebridean Folk Songs, the verse of Dante, and the -lyrics of Shakespeare--if he can dissociate the vocabulary from the -cadence. Let him dissect the lyrics of Goethe coldly into their -component sound values, syllables long and short, stressed and -unstressed, into vowels and consonants. - -It is not necessary that a poem should rely on its music, but if it does -rely on its music that music must be such as will delight the expert. - -Let the neophyte know assonance and alliteration, rhyme immediate and -delayed, simple and polyphonic, as a musician would expect to know -harmony and counterpoint and all the minutiae of his craft. No time is -too great to give to these matters or to any one of them, even if the -artist seldom have need of them. - -Don't imagine that a thing will "go" in verse just because it's too dull -to go in prose. - -Don't be "viewy"--leave that to the writers of pretty little philosophic -essays. Don't be descriptive; remember that the painter can describe a -landscape much better than you can, and that he has to know a deal more -about it. - -When Shakespeare talks of the "Dawn in russet mantle clad" he presents -something which the painter does not present. There is in this line of -his nothing that one can call description; he presents. - -Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising -agent for a new soap. - -The scientist does not expect to be acclaimed as a great scientist until -he has _discovered_ something. He begins by learning what has been -discovered already. He goes from that point onward. He does not bank on -being a charming fellow personally. He does not expect his friends to -applaud the results of his freshman class work. Freshmen in poetry are -unfortunately not confined to a definite and recognizable class room. -They are "all over the shop." Is it any wonder "the public is -indifferent to poetry?" - -Don't chop your stuff into separate _iambs_. Don't make each line stop -dead at the end, and then begin every next line with a heave. Let the -beginning of the next line catch the rise of the rhythm wave, unless you -want a definite longish pause. - -In short, behave as a musician, a good musician, when dealing with that -phase of your art which has exact parallels in music. The same laws -govern, and you are bound by no others. - -Naturally, your rhythmic structure should not destroy the shape of your -words, or their natural sound, or their meaning. It is improbable that, -at the start, you will be able to get a rhythm-structure strong enough -to affect them very much, though you may fall a victim to all sorts of -false stopping due to line ends and caesurae. - -The musician can rely on pitch and the volume of the orchestra. You can -not. The term harmony is misapplied to poetry; it refers to simultaneous -sounds of different pitch. There is, however, in the best verse a sort -of residue of sound which remains in the ear of the hearer and acts more -or less as an organ-base. A rhyme must have in it some slight element of -surprise if it is to give pleasure; it need not be bizarre or curious, -but it must be well used if used at all. - -Vide further Vildrac and Duhamel's notes on rhyme in "_Technique -Poetique_." - -That part of your poetry which strikes upon the imaginative _eye_ of the -reader will lose nothing by translation into a foreign tongue; that -which appeals to the ear can reach only those who take it in the -original. - -Consider the definiteness of Dante's presentation, as compared with -Milton's rhetoric. Read as much of Wordsworth as does not seem too -unutterably dull. - -If you want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon, Heine -when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid; or, if you -have not the tongues, seek out the leisurely Chaucer. Good prose will do -you no harm, and there is good discipline to be had by trying to write -it. - -Translation is likewise good training, if you find that your original -matter "wobbles" when you try to rewrite it. The meaning of the poem to -be translated can not "wobble." - -If you are using a symmetrical form, don't put in what you want to say -and then fill up the remaining vacuums with slush. - -Don't mess up the perception of one sense by trying to define it in -terms of another. This is usually only the result of being too lazy to -find the exact word. To this clause there are possibly exceptions. - -The first three simple proscriptions[D] will throw out nine-tenths of -all the bad poetry now accepted as standard and classic; and will -prevent you from many a crime of production. - -" ... _Mais d'abord il faut etre un poete_," as MM. Duhamel and Vildrac -have said at the end of their little book, "_Notes sur la Technique -Poetique_"; but in an American one takes that at least for granted, -otherwise why does one get born upon that august continent! - - _Ezra Pound_ - -[Footnote D: Noted by Mr. Flint.] - - - - - NOTES - -Agnes Lee (Mrs. Otto Freer) who has lived much in Boston, but is now a -resident of Chicago, is known as the author of various books of poetry, -the most representative, perhaps, being _The Border of the Lake_, -published about two years ago by Sherman, French & Co. She has -translated Gautier's _Emaux et Camees_ into English poetry; and has -contributed to the magazines. Her long poem, _The Asphodel_, which -appeared in _The North American Review_ several years ago, attracted -wide attention. - -Mr. Edmund Kemper Broadus is a member of the faculty of the University -of Alberta, Canada. - -Miss Fannie Stearns Davis is a young American who has written many songs -and lyrics, a collection of which is to be published this spring. She -was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but now lives in the East. - -Mrs. Meynell, who is the wife of Mr. Wilfrid Meynell, editor of one of -the leading English Catholic reviews, hardly needs an introduction in -America, where her exquisite art is well known. Her small volumes of -essays--_The Rhythm of Life_, _The Color of Life_, _The Children_, etc., -and her _Poems_ are published by The John Lane Company. - -Mr. Ridgely Torrence is the author of _El Dorado_, _A Tragedy_, _Abelard -and Eloise_, a poetic drama, and _Rituals for The Events of Life_. He -contributes infrequently to the magazines, several of his longer poems -having never been republished. He lives in New York. - -Mr. Samuel McCoy was born, thirty-one years ago, at Burlington, Iowa. He -now lives at Indianapolis, and devotes himself wholly to literary work. -He was educated at Princeton, and from 1906 to 1908 was associate editor -of _The Reader_. A collection of Mr. McCoy's poems will be issued in -book form this year by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. - -Mr. Alfred Noyes, a young English poet, is a well known contributor to -English and American magazines, and has published many books of poetry. -_The Loom of Years_; _The Flower of Old Japan_; _Poems_; _The Forest -of Wild Thyme_; _Drake, English An Epic_; _Forty Singing Seamen_, and -_The Enchanted Island_ are among the titles of his published works; and -a new volume, _The Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_, is to be published this -spring by the Frederick A. Stokes Co. - -Early numbers of Poetry will contain poems by John G. Neihardt, Ezra -Pound, Harriet Monroe, William Carlos Williams, Allen Upward, and -others. - - - - - BOOKS RECEIVED - - _Songs of a Syrian Lover_, by Clinton Scollard. Elkin Mathews. - _Annatese of Song_, by George M. P. Baird. Privately Printed. - _Pearls of Thought, A Collection of Original Poems_, - by Samuel M. Fleishman. Privately Printed. - _The Summons of the King, A Play_, by Philip Becker Goetz. - The MacDowell Press. - _Drake, An English Epic_, by Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes Co. - _Sherwood, or Robin Hood and the Three Kings, A Play in Five Acts_, - by Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes Co. - _The Enchanted Island and Other Poems_, by Alfred Noyes. - Frederick A Stokes Co. - _Songs of the City_, by DeCamp Leland. The Westende Publishing Co. - _In Vivid Gardens_, by Marguerite Wilkinson. Sherman, French & Co. - _A Book of Verse_, by Alice Hathaway Cunningham. - Cochrane Publishing Co. - _Chilhowee, A Legend of the Great Smoky Mountains_, - by Henry V. Maxwell. Knoxville Printing Co. - _Sappho, And the Island of Lesbos_, by Mary Mills Patrick. - Houghton Mifflin Co. - _Harp of Milan_, by Sister M. Fidés Shepperson. - J. H. Yewdale & Sons. - _Two Legends, A Souvenir of Sodus Bay_, by Mrs. B. C. Rude. - Privately Printed. - _Moods_, by David M. Cory. The Poet Lore Co. - _Poems_, by Charles D. Platt. Charles D. Platt, Dover. New Jersey. - _Poems, Old and New_, by A. H. Beesly. Longmans, Green & Co. - _Paroles devant la Vie_, par Alexandre Mercereau. E. Figuière - _Alexandre Mercereau_, par Jean Metzinger. E. Figuiére, Paris. - _Anthologie-Critique_, par Florian-Parmentier. - Gastien-Serge, Paris. - - - - - PERIODICALS - - _The Wild Hawk_, Hervey White. The Maverick Press, - Woodstock, N. Y. - _The Bibelot_, Thos. B. Mosher, Portland, Maine. - _The Idler_, Robert J. Shores, New York City. - _The Century_, New York City. - _The Forum_, New York City. - _The Conservator_, Horace Traubel, Philadelphia. - _The Nation_, New York City. - _The Poetry Review_, Harold Munro, London. - _The Poetry Review_ (New Series), Stephen Phillips, London. - _The Literary Digest_, New York City. - _Current Opinion_, New York City. - _The International_, New York City. - _The Dial_, Chicago. - _The Survey_, New York City. - _The Nation_, New York City. - _The Music News_, Chicago. - _Mercure de France_, 26 Rue de Condé, Paris. - _L'Effort Libre_, Galerie Vildrac, 11 Rue de Seine, Paris. - _Les Poétes_, E. Basset, 3 Rue Dante, Paris. - (This number devoted to poems selected from the work of - Nicolas Beauduin, _Paroxyste_.) - _L'Ile Sonnante_, 21 Rue Rousselet, Paris. - - - - - CONTENTS OF VOL. I - - VERSE - PAGE - - _Aldington, Richard_: - CHORIKOS 39 - To a Greek Marble 42 - Au Vieux Jardin 43 - - _Banning, Kendall_: - Love Songs of the Open Road 110 - - _Brink, Roscoe W._: - Helen Is Ill 117 - - _Broadus, Edmund Kemper_: - The Oracle 179 - A Gargoyle on Notre Dame 179 - - _Bynner, Witter_: - Apollo Troubadour 150 - One of the Crowd 153 - Neighbors 155 - The Hills of San José 156 - Grieve Not for Beauty 156 - The Mystic 157 - Passing Near 158 - - _Campbell, Joseph_: - The Piper 33 - - _Conkling, Grace Hazard_: - Symphony of a Mexican Garden 11 - - _Cawein, Madison_: - Waste Land 104 - My Lady of the Beeches 106 - - _Corbin, Alice_: - America 81 - Symbols 82 - The Star 82 - Nodes 87 - - _Davis, Fannie Stearns_: - Profits 182 - Two Songs of Conn the Fool 183 - Storm Dance 186 - - _Dudley, Helen_: - To One Unknown 10 - - _Ficke, Arthur Davison_: - Poetry 1 - Swinburne, An Elegy 137 - To a Child--Twenty Years Hence 144 - Portrait of an Old Woman 145 - The Three Sisters 146 - Among Shadows 147 - A Watteau Melody 147 - - _Fitch, Anita_: - The Wayfarers 108 - Les Cruels Amoureux 109 - - _H. D. "Imagiste"_: - Verses, Translations and Reflections from - "The Anthology" 118 - - _Lee, Agnes_: - The Silent House 173 - - _Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel_: - General Booth Enters into Heaven 101 - - _Long, Lily A._: - The Singing Place 47 - Immured 49 - - _Lorimer, Emilia Stuart_: - Fish of the Flood 9 - - _McCoy, Samuel_: - Dirge for a Dead Admiral 187 - Spring Song 189 - A Sweetheart: Thompson Street 189 - Off-shore Wind 190 - - _Meynell, Alice_: - Maternity 181 - - _Monroe, Harriet_: - Nogi 50 - - _Moody, William Vaughn_: - I Am the Woman 3 - - _Noyes, Alfred_: - The Hill Flowers 192 - - _Pound, Ezra_: - To Whistler, American 7 - Middle-aged 8 - - _Reed, John_: - Sangar 71 - - _Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuyler Van_: - Under Two Windows 44 - - _Rhys, Ernest_: - A Song of Happiness 114 - - _Smith, Clark Ashton_: - Remembered Light 77 - Sorrowing of Winds 78 - - _Sterling, George_: - A Legend of the Dove 75 - At the Grand Cañon 76 - Kindred 77 - - _Tagore, Rabindranath_: - Poems 84 - - _Torrence, Ridgely_: - Santa Barbara Beach 180 - - _Towne, Charles Hanson_: - Beyond the Stars 35 - - _Widdemer, Margaret_: - The Jester 51 - The Beggars 52 - - _Wyatt, Edith_: - Sympathy 112 - - _Yeats, William Butler_: - The Mountain Tomb 67 - To a Child Dancing upon the Shore 68 - Fallen Majesty 68 - Love and the Bird 69 - The Realists 70 - - - - - PROSE ARTICLES - - As It Was, _H. M._, 19 - On the Reading of Poetry, _E. W._, 22 - The Motive of the Magazine, _H. M._, 26 - Moody's Poems, _H. M._, 54 - Bohemian Poetry, _Ezra Pound_, 57 - "The Music of the Human Heart," _E. W._, 59 - The Open Door, 62 - A Perfect Return, _A. C. H._, 87 - Tagore's Poems, _Ezra Pound_, 92 - - Reviews: - _The Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson_, 94 - _The Adventures of Young Maverick_, by Hervey White, 95 - _The Iscariot_, by Eden Phillpotts, 96 - _Interpretations_, by Zoë Akins, 97 - _Lyrical Poems_, by Lucy Lyttelton, 97 - Status Rerum, _Ezra Pound_, 123 - - Reviews: - _The Lyric Year_, 128 - _The Human Fantasy_, and - _The Beloved Adventure_, by John Hall Wheelock, 131 - _Poems and Ballads_, by Hermann Hagedorn, 132 - _Uriel and Other Poems_, by Percy MacKaye, 133 - _The Tragedy of Etarre_, by Rhys Carpenter, 133 - _Gabriel_, by Isabelle Howe Fiske, 133 - _The Unconquered Air_, by Florence Earle Coates, 133 - _The Story of a Round House and Other Poems_, - by John Masefield, 160 - _Présences_, by P. J. Jouve, 165 - - The Poetry Society of America, - _Jessie B. Rittenhouse_, 166 - "That Mass of Dolts", 168 - The Servian Epic, _H. M._, 195 - Imagisme, _F. S. Flint_, 199 - A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste, _Ezra Pound_, 202 - Notes, 29,64,99,134,168,206 - - - - - _Editor_ HARRIET MONROE - - _Advisory Committee_ HENRY B. FULLER - EDITH WYATT - H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR - - _Foreign Correspondent_ EZRA POUND - - _Administration Committee_ WILLIAM T. ABBOTT - CHARLES H. HAMIL - - - - - - TO HAVE GREAT POETS THERE MUST - BE GREAT AUDIENCES TOO - - _Whitman_ - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Volume I, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY: A MAGAZINE OF VERSE, VOL I *** - -***** This file should be named 43224-8.txt or 43224-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/2/43224/ - -Produced by David Starner, Paul Marshall and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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