m 
 
 T.A
 
 ILLIAM C. MORR1S 

 
 MODERN VERSE
 
 MODERN VERSE 
 
 BRITISH AND AMERICAN 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ANITA P. FORBES, M.A. 
 
 WEA\T;R HIGH SCHOOL, HARTFORD, CONX. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
 
 COPTRIQHT, 1921 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 July, 1934 
 
 N. R. A. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 In looking over the anthologies of poetry on the shelves of 
 any well-equipped public library, one thinks of the rats that 
 followed the Pied Piper. There are war poems, love poems, sad 
 poems, funny poems, old poems, new poems, child poems, col- 
 lege poems, poems of the city, poems of the country antholo- 
 gies by tens and dozens. In the latest additions to these 
 we take particular pride, for they represent the verse of our 
 own age. 
 
 Modern poetry is worth being proud of for at least two 
 reasons. First, it appeals to many different types of people. 
 Whether one is looking for poems that are heroic, fanciful, 
 humorous, or thoughtful poems on any subject from the 
 steel industry to the immortality of the soul poems of the 
 loftiest imagination or the tenderest human interest he will 
 find his desires gratified. In no other period of English liter- 
 ature has poetry been so varied, so like an elaborate prism 
 which flashes new beauty to each eye. For never before has 
 it refracted the light of so many and such different person- 
 alities. It has been said that every one can write at least 
 one good poem ; and nowadays he can usually get it published. 
 The name of our young poets is Legion. Moreover, many of 
 our poets, even the best-known ones, have wide interests besides 
 their poetry. They may be newpaper men, lawyers, college 
 professors, army officers, social workers. The great emotional 
 stimulus of the war drove vigorous, practical men and women 
 of all ages and occupations to the discovery that poetry might 
 be a solace and joy not only to the student or visionary, but 
 to the average person. 
 
 The technique of modern poetry is no less free, novel and 
 
 1G371.S9
 
 vf FOREWORD 
 
 richly varied than its viewpoint and ideas. Never before has 
 the English language been molded into so many poetic 
 shapes, some old, some new, some fantastic, many beautiful. 
 Standard forms like blank verse, the sonnet, the couplet, the 
 ballad stanza; free verse or polyphonic prose, woven in as 
 many patterns as there are poets; imitations and adaptations 
 of French, Greek, Japanese verse-forms we find them all, 
 and many others, in the constant stream that pours out of 
 this poetic melting-pot. Whatever the form, the diction is 
 usually simple and forceful, much like that of the best con- 
 temporary speech. There is very little inverted order ; there 
 are few threadbare or over-extended metaphors. We also 
 like modern verse for its conciseness. The average poem 
 of to-day is short, and for that reason the thought or image 
 which it contains is the more likely to arrest and grip our 
 attention. 
 
 Of course, no sensible person would claim that his own 
 age had a monopoly of fine poetry any more than a monopoly 
 of great men. Our contemporary poets themselves would be 
 the last ones to urge that we read their verses instead of those 
 by the older masters, for they appreciate more fully than we 
 what is meant by poetic heritage. John Masefield's writing 
 has been much influenced by his admiration for Chaucer. 
 Amy Lowell, for years, was a devoted student of Keats. All 
 they do ask is that we read their verses in addition to the old, 
 world-famous ones, and value old and new alike at their true 
 worth. In fact, many a person has found that paradoxical 
 as it sounds the more vitally he is interested in contemporary 
 literature, the more vitally he becomes interested in standard 
 literature. For the present can never be fully interpreted 
 save in the light of the past. 
 
 Still, we owe a definite debt to our own generation. No 
 literature can reach its highest level without enthusiastic and 
 intelligent readers. If we believe that from the struggles,
 
 FOREWORD vii 
 
 questionings, and aspirations of this age there are to emerge 
 a few great poets who will guide us along the path of vision, 
 we must prepare ourselves to understand and follow them. 
 We must read contemporary verse with discrimination and 
 yet with appreciation ; we must talk about it freely and natu- 
 rally ; we must pass on what we like to our friends. 1 
 remember that one day I overheard two boys who were 
 talking as they looked over my bookcases for something to 
 read. Said one, "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man? Sure! I'll 
 show you a peach of a poem in that ! ' ' 
 
 In that spirit, then, this book passes to other American 
 school-boys and school-girls some modern poems which my own 
 pupils have liked. For two years I have been reading con- 
 temporary verse aloud to junior and senior classes or getting 
 them to read it and finding out what poems were favorites 
 with the majority. The collection is a very simple one; it 
 doesn't pretend to trace recent poetic development or to be 
 all-inclusive. Even the Notes at the back of the book serve 
 merely to point out trails which readers may follow for them- 
 selves. Sooner or later, most people discover that the verse of 
 their own age is a source of real literary pleasure. Why not 
 make that discovery early? 
 
 Formal acknowledgments to the publishers and authors 
 who have permitted the use of the poems are made on the fol- 
 lowing pages. Informal, but equally sincere thanks are due 
 to others. Helen Miller, H. P. H. S. 1919; Lester Klimm, 
 H. P. H. S. 1920; and, in fact, all my upper-class pupils of 
 the last two years have been my "collaborators" in a very real 
 sense of the word ; and the most helpful advice and suggestions 
 have been contributed by Miss Hazeltine, Miss Brann and 
 Mr. Hitchcock, my fellow-teachers and friends. 
 
 A. P. F. 
 Hartford, Conn., 
 
 October, 1920.
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 To the following publishers, authors, and individual 
 holders of copyrights my thanks are due for their ready 
 and generous cooperation in granting formal permission 
 to reprint material : 
 
 To THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY for "The Ancient Beau- 
 tiful Things," by Fannie Stearns Davis. 
 
 To MESSRS. BARSB & HOPKINS for "Funk" (from 
 Rhymes of a Red Cross Man] by Robert Service. 
 
 To MR. B. II. BLACKWELL for "Dagonet, Arthur's 
 Fool" (from Aldebaran) by M. St. Clare Byrne, and 
 "Rufus Prays" (from Oxford Poetry, 1916) by L. A. G. 
 Strong. For this latter poem, additional acknowledg- 
 ment is made to MESSRS. LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., the 
 American publishers. 
 
 To MESSRS. BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY for the poem by 
 James Whitcomb Riley. (Footnote in connection with 
 poem.) 
 
 To BRENTANO'S for "The Shadow People" and "To 
 a Distant One" from Complete Poems of Francis Led- 
 widge. 
 
 To Miss ABBIE FAR-WELL BROWN for "Pirate Treas- 
 ure" (from Heart of New England, published by Hough- 
 ton Mifflin Company.) 
 
 To THE CENTURY COMPANY for the poem by Gale 
 Young Rice. (Footnote in connection with poem.) 
 
 To MR. A. J. EARDLEY DAWSON for "Night in Meso- 
 potamia" (from Night Winds of Araby, published by 
 Grant Richards, Ltd.) 
 
 ix
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 To MESSRS. DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY for ' ' My Sweet 
 Brown Gal" (from Lyrics of Love and Laughter] by 
 Paul Laurence Dunbar, and "To a Poet By Spring" 
 (from Baubles] by Carolyn Wells. (Footnote in connec- 
 tion with poem by Mr. Dunbar.) 
 
 To MESSRS. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY for poems by 
 Amelia Josephine Burr, Walter Prichard Eaton, Aline 
 Kilmer, Joyce Kilmer, Christopher Morley, Dora Siger- 
 son, Cicely Fox Smith, Charles Hanson Towne. (Foot- 
 notes in connection with poems.) 
 
 To MESSRS. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE AND COMPANY for ''A 
 Creed" (from The Shoes of Happiness) by Edwin 
 Markham; to these publishers and Mr. Kudyard Kip- 
 ling (through Messrs A. P. Watt & Son) for "The Feet 
 of The Young Men," "If," and "Recessional," from 
 Rudijard Kipling's Verse; Inclusive Edition. 
 
 To MESSRS. E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY for poems by 
 Burges Johnson, Winifred M. Letts, Siegfried Sassoon, 
 and Herbert Trench. (Footnotes in connection with 
 poems.) Additional acknowledgment is made to Mr. 
 Trench. 
 
 To THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY for "The Faun Sees 
 Snow for the First Time" (from Images Old and New) 
 by Richard Aldington. 
 
 To MESSRS. HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. for "Da 
 Younga 'Merican" (from Canzoni) and "Een Napoli" 
 (from Carmina) by T. A. Daly; and "Prayer" (from 
 Challenge) by Louis Untermeyer. 
 
 To MESSRS. HARPER & BROTHERS for poems by Dana 
 Burnet, Charles Buxton Going, Arthur Guiterman, and 
 Captain Cyril Morton Home. (Footnotes in connection 
 with poems.) 
 
 To MESSRS. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY for "An Old 
 Woman of the Roads" (from Wild Earth) by Padraic
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi 
 
 Colum; "The Ship of Rio" (from Peacock Pie] and 
 "The Sunken Garden" (from Motley] by Walter de la 
 Mare; "To the Thawing Wind" (from A Boy's Will], 
 "After Apple-Picking" (from Mountain Interval] and! 
 "Birches" (from North of Boston], by Kobert Frost; 
 "Fog" (from Chicagb Poems], "Prayers of Steel" and 
 "Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn" (from Corn- 
 huskers) by Carl Sandburg; "Haymaking" (from, 
 Poems) by Edward Thomas; "Highmount" (from 
 These Times) by Louis Untermeyer; "The Factories" 
 and "Gifts" (from Factories) and "Mary, Helper of 
 Heartbreak" (from The Old Road to Paradise), by 
 Margaret Widdemer. 
 
 To MR. BRIAN HOOKER for "A Man-Child's Lullaby" 
 (from Poems, published by Yale University Press) . 
 
 To MESSRS. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY for selec- 
 tions from the poems of Grace Hazard Conkling, John 
 Drinkwater, John Gould Fletcher, and Josephine Pres- 
 ton Peabody. These selections are used by permission 
 of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin 
 Company, the authorized publishers of their works. 
 
 To MR. B. W. HUEBSCH for "High-Tide" (from Grow- 
 ing Pains) by Jean Starr Untermeyer, copyright 1918. 
 
 To THE INDEPENDENT for "Provincetown" by Marie 
 Louise Hersey. 
 
 To MR. MITCHELL KENNERLEY for "God's World" 
 (from Renascence, and Other Poems) by Edna St. Vin- 
 cent Millay. 
 
 To MR. ALFRED A. KNOPF for "America" (from Mush- 
 rooms) by Alfred Kreymborg; for "Psalm to My Be- 
 loved" (from Body and Raiment) by Eunice Tietjens; 
 and to him as the American publisher of "A Greeting" 
 (from Poems) by W. H. Davies; "To Lucasta, On Going 
 to the War for the Fourth Time" (from Fairies and
 
 [ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 Fusiliers) by Robert Graves; "Sonnet" (from Poems 
 First Series) by J. C. Squire. Separate acknowledgment 
 is made to Mr. Davies' English publisher, MR. ELKIN 
 MATHEWS; additional acknowledgment is here made to 
 Mr. Graves (through Mr. James B. Pinker) and Mr. 
 Squire (through Messrs A. P. Watt & Son). 
 
 To MESSRS. JOHN LANE COMPANY for "Song," "The 
 Great Lover," "The Soldier" (from Collected Poems of 
 Rupert Brooke) for "May is Building Her House" 
 (from The Lonely Dancer) by Richard Le Gallienne; 
 to these publishers and to Mr. Le Gallienne for 
 "Brooklyn Bridge at Dawn" (from New Poems) ; to 
 them and to Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer for "The Old 
 Houses of Flanders" (for On Heaven and Poems 
 Written in Active Service). 
 
 To PROF. JOHN A. LOMAX, editor of Cowboy Songs 
 (published by The Macmillan Company) from "The 
 Cow-boy's Dream." 
 
 To MESSRS. ERSKINE MACDONALD, LTD. for "The Dawn 
 Patrol" (title poem) by Paul Bewsher. 
 
 To MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co., LTD. (London) for "The 
 Penalty of Love" (from Poems of the Unknown Way) by 
 Sidney Royse Lysaght, and "Continuity" (from Col- 
 lected Poems) by A. E. 
 
 To THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for poems by John Ken- 
 drick Bangs, Mary Carolyn Davies, Fannie Stearns 
 Davis, Wilfn'd Wilson Gibson, Hermann Hagedorn, 
 Ralph Hodgson, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell, Percy 
 MacKaye, John Masefield, Edgar Lee Masters, Harriet 
 Monroe, Sara Teasdale, and W. B. Yeats. (Footnotes in 
 connection with poems.) Special additional acknowl- 
 edgment is made to Mr. Masefield. and to Mr. Yeats 
 (through Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son). 
 
 To MR. ELKIN MATHEWS for "The Dead to the Living"
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii 
 
 (from The New World} by Laurence Binyon, and "A 
 Greeting" (from Foliage) by W. H. Davies. 
 
 To MESSRS. DAVID MCKAY COMPANY for "In Service" 
 (from Songs from Leinster) by Winifred M. Letts. 
 
 To THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS for "A Vignette" 
 (from Collected Poems] by Robert Bridges. 
 
 To POETRY, A MAGAZINE OF VERSE for "Parting" by 
 Alice Corbin Henderson, and "Ellis Park" by Helen 
 Hoyt. 
 
 To THE POETRY BOOKSHOP (London) for "Peaple" 
 (from Spring Morning] by Frances D. Cornford. 
 
 To MESSRS. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS for "The Devil" 
 (from Poetical Works of William Henry Drummond) ; 
 for "In Flanders Fields" (title poem) by John McCrae. 
 (Footnotes in connection with poems.) 
 
 To MESSRS. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS for "Courage" 
 (from Moods, Songs and Doggerel) by John Galsworthy; 
 "The Green Inn" (from Scribner's Magazine) by Theo- 
 dosia Garrison; "To My Brother" (from Service and 
 Sacrifice) by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson; "Richard 
 Cory" (from Children of the Night) by Edwin Arling- 
 ton Robinson ; "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" (from 
 Poems) by Alan Seeger; "A Mile With Me" (from The 
 Poems of Henry van Dyke). 
 
 To MR. MARTIN SECKER for "The Old Ships" (from 
 Collected Poems) by James Elroy Flecker. 
 
 To MESSRS. SIDGWICK AND JACKSON, LTD. for "The 
 Old Soldier" (from Flower of Youth) by Katherine 
 Tynan. 
 
 To MESSRS. SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY for the poem 
 by Bliss Carman and the poem by Bliss Carman and 
 Richard Hovey. Additional acknowledgment is made to 
 Mr. Carman. (Footnotes in connection with poems.) 
 
 To MESSRS. STEWART AND KIDD COMPANY for "Thp
 
 xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 Little Golden Fountain" (title poem) by Mary Mac- 
 Millan. 
 
 To MESSRS. FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY for poems 
 by Witter Bynner, Hilda Conkling, Theodore Maynard, 
 Robert Nichols, and Alfred Noyes. (Footnotes in con- 
 nection with poems.) 
 
 To the BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT for "The Small 
 Town Celebrates" by Karle Wilson Baker, and "The 
 Shepherd to the Poet" by Agnes Kendrick Gray. 
 
 To the YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS for "Good Company" 
 (from Blue Smoke) by Karle Wilson Baker; for "The 
 Horse-Thief" (from Burglars of the Zodiac) by Wil- 
 liam Rose Benet. Additional acknowledgment is made 
 to Mr. Benet. 
 
 It gives me pleasure, also, to thank the following 
 authors for letters containing not only personal per- 
 mission, but, in many cases, interesting information and 
 suggestions : 
 
 Mrs. Baker, Mr. Bangs, Mr. Benet, Mr. Bridges, Miss 
 Brown, Mr. Burnet, Mr. Bynner, Miss Byrne, Mr. Car- 
 man, Mr. Colum, Mr. Daly, Miss Davies, Mr. Dawson, 
 Mr. de la Mare, Mr. Drinkwater, Mr. Eaton, Mrs. Theo- 
 dosia Garrison Faulks, Mrs. Sara Teasdale Filsinger, 
 Mrs. Marie Louise Hersey Forbes, Mr. Frost, Mr. Gals- 
 worthy, Mr. Gibson, Mrs. Fannie Stearns Davis Gifford, 
 Mr. Going, Miss Gray, Mr. Guiterman, Mr. Hagedorn, 
 Mrs. Henderson, Mrs. Katherine Tynan Hinkson, Mrs. 
 Carolyn Wells Houghton, Mr. Hooker, Miss Hoyt, Mr. 
 Hueffer, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Le Gallienne, Miss Letts, Mr. 
 Lindsay, Prof. Lomax, Miss Lowell, Mr. Lysaght, Mr. 
 MacKaye, Miss MacMillan, Mr. Markham, Mrs. Joseph- 
 ine Preston Peabody Marks, Mr. Masefield, Mr. Masters, 
 Mr. Maynard, Miss Millay, Miss Monroe. Mr. Morley, 
 Mr. Nichols, Mr. Noyes, Mr. Rice, Mrs. Robinson, Mr.
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv 
 
 Robinson, Mr. Russell, Mr. Sandburg, Mr. Sassoon, Mrs. 
 Margaret Widdemer Schauffler, Miss Smith, Mr. Squire, 
 Mr. Strong, Mr. Towne, Mr. Trench, Mrs. Untermeyer, 
 Mr. Untermeyer, Dr. van Dyke, Mr. Yeats.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE SEA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SEA-FEVER John Masefield . . . . 3 
 
 WILD \YEAIHER Fam.ie Sleanu Davis . . 4 
 
 HIGH-TIDE Jean Starr Lntermeyer . . 5 
 
 SAILOB TOWN C. Fox Smith 5 
 
 TUB SHIP OF Rio Walter de la Mare ... 7 
 
 OLD ANCHOR CHAJVTY Herbert Trench .... 7 
 
 IRRADIATIONS John Gould Fletcher . . .11 
 
 CARGOES John Masejleld .... 12 
 
 THE OLD SHIPS James Elroy Flecker . . 12 
 
 SING A SONG o' SHIPWRECK . . . John Alasefield .... 14 
 
 PIRATE TREASURE Abbie Far well Brown . . 16 
 
 THE CITY 
 
 FOG Carl Sandburg .... 21 
 
 BROOKLYN BRIDGE AT DAWN . . . Richard Le Gallienne . . 21 
 
 EKN NAPOIJI T. A. Daly 22 
 
 CITY ROOFS Charles Hanson Towne . . 23 
 
 BROADWAY Hermann Hagedorn ... 23 
 
 THE PEDDLER Hermann Hagedorn ... 24 
 
 ROSES IN THE SUBWAY .... Dana Burnet 25 
 
 THE FACTORIES Margaret Widdemer ... 26 
 
 PRAYERS CF STEEL Carl Sandburg .... 27 
 
 ELLIS PARK Helen Hoyt 28 
 
 THE PARK Dana Burnet 29 
 
 AT TWILIGHT Harriet Monroe .... 30 
 
 IN LADY STREET John Drinkwater . . . .31 
 
 THE BABREL-ORGAN Alfred Noyes 34 
 
 THE COUNTRY 
 
 THE GREEN INN Theodosia Garrison ... 43 
 
 THE FEET OF THE YOUNG MEN 
 
 1897 Rudj/ard Kipling .... 44
 
 xviii CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To THE THAWING WIND .... 
 
 Robert Frost .... 
 
 . 48 
 
 MISTEB HOP-TOAD 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 . 49 
 
 To A POET 
 
 Carolyn Wells 
 
 . 50 
 
 MAY is BUILDING HER HOUSE . 
 
 Richard Le Gallienne 
 
 . 51 
 
 A MOUNTAIN GATEWAY .... 
 
 Bliss Carman .... 
 
 . 53 
 
 HAYMAKING 
 
 Edward Thomas 
 
 . 54 
 
 AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY ON THE 
 
 
 
 PRAIRIE 
 
 Vachel Lindsay 
 
 . 56 
 
 A GREETING . 
 
 William H. Davies 
 
 . 57 
 
 A VAGABOND SONG 
 
 Bliss Carman and 
 
 
 THREE PIECES ON THE SMOKE OF 
 
 Richard Hovey 
 
 . 58 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 Carl Sandburg 
 
 . 58 
 
 GOD'S WORLD 
 
 Edna. St. Vincent Millay . 
 
 . 60 
 
 AFTER APPLE-PICKING .... 
 
 Robert Frost .... 
 
 . 60 
 
 BROTHER BEASTS 
 
 Gale Young Rice 
 
 . 62 
 
 BIRCHES 
 
 Robert Frost .... 
 
 . 63 
 
 HIGHMOUNT 
 
 Louis Untermeyer 
 
 . 65 
 
 A VIGNETTE ... ... 
 
 Robert Bridges 
 
 . 67 
 
 THE WORLD'S MISER 
 
 Theodore Maynard 
 
 . 68 
 
 GOOD COMPANY 
 
 Karle Wilson Baker 
 
 . 70 
 
 IRRADIATIONS 
 
 John Gould Fletcher 
 
 . 70 
 
 TREES 
 
 Joyce Kilmer .... 
 
 . 71 
 
 NlGHT-PlECE 
 
 Siegfried Sassoor* 
 
 . 71 
 
 THE FINAL SPURT 
 
 JoJ/n Masefield 
 
 . 72 
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 
 
 William Rose Benet 
 
 . 75 
 
 WAR 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 
 
 . 83 
 
 THE ROAD OF THE REFUGEES . 
 
 Dora Sigerson 
 
 . 83 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 
 
 Amy Lowell . 
 
 84 
 
 THE OLD HOUSES OF FLANDERS . 
 
 Ford Madox Hueffer 
 
 . 87 
 
 RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 1914 . 
 
 Grace Hazard Conkling 
 
 . 88 
 
 THE OLD SOLDIER 
 
 Katharine Tynan 
 
 . 89 
 
 FUNK 
 
 Robert W. Service 
 
 . 90 
 
 THE DEVOUT HIGHLANDER . 
 
 Cyril Morton Home 
 
 . 91 
 
 THE SPIRES OF OXFORD .... 
 
 W. M. Letts .... 
 
 . 94 
 
 THE SOLDIER 
 
 Rupert Brooke 
 
 . 95 
 
 I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH 
 
 
 
 DEATH 
 
 Alan Seeqer 
 
 95
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN FLANDERS FIELDS .... John McCrae 96 
 
 THE DEAD TO THE LIVING . . . Laurence Binyon . . . .97 
 
 COUNTER-ATTACK Siegfried Sa$soon .... 98 
 
 NOON Robert Nichols .... 99 
 
 To LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR 
 
 FOR THE FOURTH TIME . . . Robert Graves 100 
 
 RETREAT Wilfrid W. Gibson . . . 101 
 
 NIGHT IN MESOPOTAMIA . . . A. J. E. Dawson . . . .102 
 
 DOES IT MATTER? Siegfried Bassoon . . .103 
 
 THE DAWN PATROL Paul Bewsher, R. N. A. S., 
 
 D.S.C 103 
 
 AN OPEN BOAT Alfred Noyes 105 
 
 ADMIRAL DUGOUT C. Fox Smith 105 
 
 "THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" . . Alfred Noyes 107 
 
 PRAYER OF A SOLMER IN FRANCE . Joyce Kilmer 110 
 
 THE SMALL TOWN CELEBRATES . . Karle Wilson Baker . . .111 
 
 CONTINUITY A. E 114 
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 
 
 I3ABY PANTOMIME . . . . . Percy MacKaye . . . .117 
 
 A MAN-CHILD'S LULLABY . . . Brian Hooker 117 
 
 JUSTICE Aline Kilmer 118 
 
 SMELLS (JUNIOR) Christopher Morley . . .119 
 
 THE RAG DOLLY'S VALENTINE . . Arthur Guitei'man . . .119 
 
 THE ANXIOUS FARMER .... Burges Johnson . . . .120 
 
 THE DEW-LIGHT Hilda Conkling .... 121 
 
 THE SHADOW PEOPLE .... Francis Ledwidge . . . 122 
 
 INCORRIGIBLE Surges Johnson .... 123 
 
 DA YOUNGA 'MERICAN . . . . T. A. Daly 124 
 
 LITTLE PAN Witter Bynner .... 125 
 
 RUFUS PRAYS L, A. G. Strong .... 126 
 
 AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS . . Padraic Colum .... 127 
 
 THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS . Fannie Stearns Davis . . 128 
 You, FOUR WALLS, WALL NOT IN 
 
 MY HEART Josephine Preston Peabody . 132 
 
 MY DOG John Kendrick Bangs . .133 
 
 IN SERVICE W. M. Letts 134 
 
 MY SWEET BROWN GAL .... Paul Laurence Dunbar . .135 
 
 THE SUNKEN GARDEN .... Walter de la Mare . . .136 
 
 THE GABDEN BY MOONLIGHT . . Amy Lowell 137
 
 xx CONTENTS 
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 
 
 To MY BROTHER Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 
 
 A MILE WITH ME Henry van Dyke 
 
 MY FRIEND Walter Prichard Eaton 
 
 PEOPLE Frances D. Cornford 
 
 SONG Rupert Brooke 
 
 THE LOOK Sara Teasdale 
 
 To A DISTANT ONE Francis Ledicidge 
 
 "MARY, HELPER OF HEARTBREAK" . Margaret Widdemer 
 
 GARDEN OF THE ROSE .... Charles Buxton Going 
 
 THE LITTLE GOLDEN FOUNTAIN . . Mary MacMillan 
 
 SONGS CF A GIRL Mary Carolyn Davies 
 
 PSALM TO MY BELOVED .... Eunice Tietjens 
 
 THE REFLECTION Christopher Morley 
 
 A LYNMOUTH WIDOW .... Amelia Josephine Burr 
 
 PARTING Alice Corbin Henderson . 
 
 THE PENALTY OF LOVE .... Sidney Royse Lysaght 
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 
 
 BARTER Sara Teasdale 
 
 TIME, You OLD GYPSY MAN . . . Ralph Hodgson 
 
 SONNET J. C. Squire .... 
 
 PROVINCETOWN Marie Louise Hersey 
 
 AMERICA Alfred Kreymborg 
 
 RECESSIONAL Rudyard Kipling 
 
 IF Rudyard Kipling 
 
 COURAGE John Galsworthy 
 
 PRAYER Louis L'ntermeyer 
 
 A CREED Edwin Markham 
 
 THE GREAT LOVER Rupert Brooke . . . 
 
 GIFTS V-rgaret Widdcmer 
 
 RICHARD CORY Edwin Arlington Robinson 
 
 A FARMER REMEMBERS LINCOLN . Witter Banner 
 
 SUNSET Percy MacKaye 
 
 SILENCE Edgar Lee Masters 
 
 THE COWBOY'S DREAM 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS 
 
 INTO HEAVEN Vachel Lindsay 
 
 THE DEVIL William Henry Drummond
 
 CONTil 
 
 i-NTS 
 
 XXI 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE HOST OF THE AIR .... 
 
 William B. Yeats . . 
 
 . 185 
 
 THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY 
 
 William B. Yeats 
 
 . 187 
 
 THE FAUX SEES SNOW FOR THE 
 
 
 
 FIRST TIME 
 
 Richard Aldington 
 
 . 188 
 
 ETIQUETTE 
 
 Arthur Guiterman 
 
 . 189 
 
 THE POTATOES' DANCE .... 
 
 Vachel Lindsay 
 
 . 190 
 
 DAGONET, ARTHUR'S FOOL 
 
 M. St. Clare Byrne . . 
 
 . 192 
 
 FORTY SINGING SEAMEN 
 
 Alfred Noyes .... 
 
 . 194 
 
 WHEN SHAKESPEARE LAUGHED . 
 
 Christopher Morley 
 
 . 199 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A COVER OF A 
 
 
 
 VOLUME OF KEATS' POEMS 
 
 Amy LoiceJl .... 
 
 . 199 
 
 THE SHEPHERD TO THE POET 
 
 Agnes Kcndrick Gray 
 
 . 201 
 
 To YOURSELF 
 
 Witter Bynner 
 
 . 201 
 
 
 
 205 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST . . 
 
 
 258 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 
 283 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 
 271 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 . - - . 
 
 . 277
 
 THE SEA
 
 SEA-FEVEE * 
 
 I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, 
 And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, 
 And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's 
 
 shaking, 
 And a gray mist on the sea's face and a gray dawn breaking. 
 
 I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide 
 Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied ; 
 And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, 
 And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls 
 crying. 
 
 I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, 
 To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like 
 
 a whetted knife; 
 
 And all I ask is a morry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, 
 And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. 
 
 John Mase field 
 
 * From Kalt-Water Poems and Ballads, by John Masefield. Used by 
 special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 
 
 3
 
 MODERN VERSE 
 
 WILD WEATHER * 
 
 The sea was wild. The wind was proud. 
 
 He shook my curtains like a shroud. 
 
 He was a wet and worthy wind : 
 
 His hair with wild sea-crystals twined: 
 
 His cloak with wild sea-grasses green ; 
 
 His slanted wings all gray and lean: 
 
 And strange and swift, and fierce and free 
 
 He cried, "Come out! and race with me!" 
 
 I snatched my mantle wide and red, 
 And far along the cliffs I fled. 
 
 The cliff-grass bowed itself in fear, 
 The gulls forgot what path to steer; 
 Below the cliffs the broad waves broke 
 In trampled ranks like fighting folk ; 
 The ships with grisly sea-wrack blind, 
 Dead-drunken, cursed that chasing wind. 
 
 My lips with salt were wild to taste. 
 I leapt : I shouted and made haste : 
 Along the cliffs, above the sea, 
 With mad red mantle waving free, 
 And hair that whipped the eyes of me. 
 
 And there was no one else but he, 
 That great grim wind who called to me. 
 
 Oh, we ran far ! Oh, we ran free ! 
 
 Fannie Stearns Davis 
 
 * From Crack o' Dawn, by Fannie Stearns Davis. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE SEA 
 
 HIGH-TIDE 
 
 I edged back against the night. 
 
 The sea growled assault on the wave-bitten shore, 
 
 And the breakers, 
 
 Like young and impatient hounds, 
 
 Sprang, with rough joy, on the shrinking sand, 
 
 Sprang but were drawn back slowly, 
 
 With a long, relentless pull, 
 
 Whimpering, into the dark. 
 
 Then I saw who held them captive; 
 
 And I saw how they were bound 
 
 With a broad and quivering leash of light, 
 
 Held by the moon, 
 
 As, calm and unsmiling, 
 
 She walked the deep fields of the sky. 
 
 Jean Starr Untermeyer 
 
 SAILOR TOWN * 
 
 Along the wharves in sailor town a singing whisper goes 
 Of the wind among the anchored ships, the wind that blows* 
 Off a broad brimming water, where the summer day has died 
 Like a wounded whale a-sounding in the sunset tide. 
 
 There's a big China liner, gleaming like a gull, 
 
 And her lit ports flashing; there's the long gaunt hull 
 
 * From Sailor Toicn, by C. Fox Smith, copyright 1919, George H 
 Doran Company, publishers.
 
 6 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Of a Blue Funnel freighter with her derricks dark and still; 
 And a tall barque loading at the lumber mill. 
 
 And in the shops of sailor town is every kind of thing 
 That the sailormen buy there, or the ships' crews bring: 
 Shackles for a sea-chest and pink cockatoos, 
 Fifty-cent alarum clocks and dead men's shoes. 
 
 You can hear the gulls crying, and the cheerful noise 
 
 Of a concertina going, and a singer's voice 
 
 And the wind's song and the tide's song, crooning soft and 
 
 low 
 Rum old tunes in sailor town that seamen know. 
 
 I dreamed a dream in sailor town, a foolish dream and vain. 
 Of ships and men departed, of old days come again 
 And an old song in sailor town, an old song to sing 
 When shipmate meets with shipmate in the evening. 
 
 Cicely Fox Smith. 
 
 THE SHIP OF RIO 
 
 There was a ship of Rio 
 
 Sailed out into the blue, 
 And nine and ninety monkeys 
 
 Were all her jovial crew. 
 From bos'un to the cabin boy, 
 
 From quarter to caboose, 
 There weren't a stitch of calico 
 
 To breech 'em tight or loose : 
 From spar to deck, from deck to keel, 
 
 From barnacle to shroud,
 
 THE SEA 
 
 There weren't one pair of reach-me-downs 
 
 To all that jabbering crowd. 
 But wasn't it a gladsome sight, 
 
 When roared the deep-sea gales, 
 To see them reef her fore and aft, 
 
 A-swinging by their tails ! 
 Oh, wasn 't it a gladsome sight, 
 
 When glassy calm did come, 
 To see them squatting tailor-wise 
 
 Around a keg of rum ! 
 Oh, wasn't it a gladsome sight, 
 
 When in she sailed to land, 
 To see them all a-scampering skip 
 
 For nuts across the sand ! 
 
 Walter de la Mare 
 
 First Voice 
 
 With a long heavy heave, my very famous men. . . 
 
 (Chorus. Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 Second Voice 
 
 And why do you, lad, look so pale? Is it for love, or 
 
 lack of ale? 
 First Voice 
 
 All hands bear a hand that have a hand to len' 
 And there never was a better haul than you gave then. . . . 
 (Chorus. Bring home!) 
 
 * Taken by permission from Poems, with Fables In Prose, by Herbert 
 Trench, published by E. P. Button & Co., New York.
 
 8 MODERN VERSE 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave hearty, my very famous men. . . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 Curl and scud, rack and squall sea clouds you shall 
 know them all. . . . 
 
 First Voice 
 
 For we're bound for Valparaiso and round the Horn again 
 From Monte Desolado to the parish of Big Ben! . . . 
 (Bring home!) 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave hearty, my very famous men. . . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 Bold through all or scuppers under, when shall we be 
 back, I wonder? 
 
 First Voice 
 
 From the green and chancy water we shall all come 
 
 back again 
 
 To the Lizard and the ladies but who can say for 
 when? . . . 
 
 (Bring home!) 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave and she's a-trip, my very famous men. . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!)
 
 THE SEA 9 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 When your fair lass says farewell to you a fair wind 1 
 
 will sell to you. . . . 
 First Voice 
 
 You may sell your soul's salvation, but I'll bet you two- 
 pound-ten 
 
 She's a-tripping on the ribs of the devil in his den. . . . 
 (Bring home!) 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave and she's a-peak, my very famous men. . . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 You shall tread, for one eruzado, Fiddler's Green in El 
 Dorado. . . . 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Where I've seen less lucky fellows pay for liquor with 
 
 doubloons 
 
 And for 'baccy with ozellas, gold mohurs, and duca- 
 toons! . . . 
 
 (Bring home!) 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave and a-weigh, my very famous men. . . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 And drop her next in heat or cold, the flukes of England 
 they shall hold ! . . .
 
 10 MODERN VERSE 
 
 First Voice 
 
 Ring and shank, stock and fluke, she's coming into ken 
 Give a long and heavy heave, she 's a-coming into ken. . . . 
 
 (Bring home!) 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave in sight, my very famous men. . . . 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 Second Voice 
 
 With her shells and tangle dripping she's a beauty we 
 
 are shipping. . . . 
 First Voice 
 
 And she likes a bed in harbor like a decent citizen, 
 But her fancy for a hammock on the deep sea comes 
 again. . . . 
 
 (Bring home!) 
 First Voice 
 
 Heave and she 's a-wash, my very famous men. . . . 
 
 (Bring home! heave and rally!) 
 Second Voice 
 
 never stop to write the news that we are off upon a 
 
 cruise. . . . 
 First Voice 
 
 For the Gulf of Calif orny's got a roller now and then 
 But it's better to be sailing than a-sucking of a pen. . . . 
 (Bring home!) 
 
 Herbert Trench
 
 THE SEA 11 
 
 IRRADIATIONS 
 III 
 
 In the gray skirts of the fog seamews skirl desolately, 
 
 And flick like bits of paper propelled by a wind 
 
 About the flabby sails of a departing ship 
 
 Crawling slowly down the low reaches 
 
 Of the river. 
 
 About the keel there is a bubbling and gurgling 
 
 Of grumpy water ; 
 
 And as the prow noses out a way for itself, 
 
 It seems to weave a dream of bubbles and flashing foam, 
 
 A dream of strange islands whereto it is bound: 
 
 Pearl islands drenched with the dawn. 
 
 The palms flash under the immense dark sky, 
 
 Down which the sun dives to embrace the earth: 
 
 Drums boom and conches bray, 
 
 And with a crash of crimson cymbals 
 
 Suddenly appears above the polished backs of slaves 
 
 A king in a breastplate of gold 
 
 Gigantic 
 
 Amid tossed roses and swaying dancers 
 
 That melt into pale undulations and muffled echoes 
 
 'Mid the bubbling of the muddy water, 
 
 And the swirling of the seamews above the sullen river. 
 
 John Gould Fletcher
 
 12 MODERN VERSE 
 
 CARGOES * 
 
 Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, 
 Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, 
 
 With a cargo of ivory 
 
 And apes and peacocks, 
 Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. 
 
 Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, 
 Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores 
 
 With a cargo of diamonds, 
 
 Emeralds, amethysts, 
 Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 
 
 Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, 
 Butting through the channel in the mad March days 
 
 With a cargo of Tyne coal, 
 
 Road rails, pig lead, 
 Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays. 
 
 John Masefield 
 
 THE OLD SHIPS 
 
 I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep 
 Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, 
 With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep 
 For Famagusta and the hidden sun 
 That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; 
 
 * From Salt- Water Poems and Ballads, by John Masefield. Used by 
 special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE SEA 13 
 
 And all those ships were certainly so old 
 Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, 
 Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, 
 The pirate Genoese 
 Hell-raked them till they rolled 
 Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold. 
 But now through friendly seas they softly run, 
 Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green, 
 Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold. 
 
 But I have seen, 
 
 Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn, 
 
 An image tumbled on a rose-swept bay, 
 
 A drowsy ship of some yet older day; 
 
 And, wonder's breath indrawn, 
 
 Thought I who knows who knows but in that same 
 
 (Fished up beyond ^Ea?a, patched up new 
 Stern painted brighter blue ) 
 That talkative, bald-headed seaman came 
 (Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar) 
 From Troy's doom-crimson shore, 
 And with great lies about his wooden horse 
 Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course. 
 
 It was so old a ship who knows, who knows? 
 And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain 
 To see the mast burst open with a rose, 
 A.nd the whole deck put on its leaves again. 
 
 James Elroy Flecker
 
 14 MODERN VERSE 
 
 SING A SONG 0' SHIPWRECK* 
 
 He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea, 
 With ear-rings of brass and a jumper of dungaree, 
 " 'N' many a queer lash-up have I seen," says he. 
 
 "But the toughest hooray o' the racket," he says, "I'll be 
 
 sworn, 
 
 'N' the roughest traverse I worked since the day I was born, 
 Was a packet o' Sailor's Delight as I scoffed in the seas o' the 
 
 Horn. 
 
 "All day long in the calm she had rolled to the swell. 
 Rolling through fifty degrees till she clattered her bell ; 
 'N' then came snow, 'n' a squall, 'n' a wind was colder 'n 
 hell. 
 
 "It blew like the Bull of Barney, a beast of a breeze, 
 'N' over the rail come the cold green lollopin" seas, 
 'N' she went ashore at the dawn on the Ramirez. 
 
 "She was settlin' down by the stern when I got to the deck. 
 
 Her waist was a smother o ' sea as was up to your neck, 
 
 'N' her masts were gone, 'n' her rails, 'n' she was a wreck. 
 
 "We rigged up a tackle, a purchase, a sort of a shift, 
 To hoist the boats off o' the deck-house and get them adrift, 
 When her stern gives a sickenin ' settle, her bows give a lift, 
 
 " 'N ' comes a crash of green water as sets me afloat 
 With freezing fingers clutching the keel of a boat 
 The bottom-up whaler 'n' that was the juice of a note. 
 
 * From Salt-Water Poems and Ballads, by John Masefield. Used bj 
 special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE SEA 15 
 
 "Well, I clambers acrost o' the keel 'n' I gets me secured, 
 When I sees a face in the white o' the smother to looard, 
 So I gives 'im a 'and, 'n' be shot if it wasn't the stooard! 
 
 "So he climbs up forrard o' me, 'n' 'thanky,' a' says, 
 
 'N' we sits 'n' shivers 'n' freeze to the bone wi' the sprays, 
 
 ; N' I sings 'Abel Brown,' 'n' the stooard he prays. 
 
 "Wi' never a dollop to sup nor a morsel to bite, 
 
 The lips of us blue with the cold 'n' the heads of us light, 
 
 Adrift in a Cape Horn sea for a day 'n' a night. 
 
 ' 'N' then the stooard goes dotty 'n' puts a tune to his lip 
 'N J moans about Love like a dern old hen wi' the pip 
 (I sets no store upon stooards they ain't no use on a 
 ship). 
 
 " 'N' 'mother,' the looney cackles, 'come 'n' put Willy to bed !' 
 So I says 'Dry up, or I'll fetch you a crack o' the head'; 
 'The kettle's a-bilin',' he answers, "n' I'll go butter the 
 bread. ' 
 
 " 'N' he falls to singin' some slush about clinkin' a can, 
 
 'N' at last he dies, so he does, 'n' I tells you, Jan, 
 
 I was glad when he did, for he weren't no fun for a man. 
 
 "So he falls forrard, he does, 'n' he closes his eye, 
 'N' quiet he lays 'n' quiet I leaves him lie, 
 'N' I was alone with his corp, 'n' the cold green sea and the 
 sky. 
 
 " 'N' then I dithers, I guess, for the next as I knew 
 Was the voice of a mate as was sayin' to one of the crew, 
 ' Easy, my son, wi' the brandy, be shot if he ain't comin'-to !.' ' 
 
 John Masefield
 
 16 MODERN VERSE 
 
 PIRATE TREASURE 
 
 A lady loved a swaggering rover ; 
 The seven salt seas he voyaged over, 
 Bragged of a hoard none could discover, 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 She bloomed in a mansion dull and stately, 
 And as to Meeting she walked sedately, 
 From the tail of her eye she liked him greatly. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 Rings in his ears and a red sash wore he, 
 He sang her a song and he told her a story : 
 ' ' I '11 make ye Queen of the Ocean ! ' ' swore he. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 She crept from bed by her sleeping sister ; 
 By the old gray mill he met and kissed her. 
 Blue day dawned before they missed her. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 And while they prayed her out of Meeting, 
 Her wild little heart with bliss was beating, 
 As seaward went the lugger fleeting. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 Choose in haste and repent at leisure; 
 A buccaneer life is not all pleasure. 
 He set her ashore with a little treasure. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0.
 
 THE SEA 17 
 
 Oft' he sailed where waves were dashing, 
 Knives were gleaming, cutlasses clashing, 
 And a ship on jagged rocks went crashing. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 Over his bones the tides are sweeping; 
 The only trace of the rover sleeping 
 Is what he left in the lady 's keeping. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 Two hundred years is his name unspoken, 
 
 The secret of his hoard unbroken ; 
 
 But a black-browed race wears the pirate's 
 
 token. 
 Hey ! Jolly Roger, 0. 
 
 Sea-blue eyes that gleam and glisten, 
 Lips that sing and you like to listen 
 A swaggering song. It might be this one: 
 "Hey! Jolly Roger, 0." 
 
 Abbie Farwell Brown
 
 THE CITY
 
 FOG 
 
 The fog comes 
 on little cat feet. 
 
 It sits looking 
 over harbor and city 
 on silent haunches 
 and then moves on. 
 
 BEOOKLYN BRIDGE AT DAWN 
 
 Out of the cleansing night of stars and tides, 
 Building itself anew in the slow dawn, 
 The long sea-city rises: night is gone, 
 
 Day is not yet ; still merciful, she hides 
 
 Her summoning brow, and still the night-car glides 
 Empty of faces; the night-watchmen yawn 
 One to the other, and shiver and pass on, 
 
 Nor yet a soul over the great bridge rides. 
 
 Frail as a gossamer, a thing of air, 
 
 A bow of shadow o'er the river flung, 
 Its sleepy masts and lonely lapping flood; 
 
 Who, seeing thus the bridge a-slumber there, 
 
 Would dream such softness, like a picture hung, 
 Is wrought of human thunder, iron and blood ? 
 
 Richard Le Gallienne 
 
 21
 
 22 MODERN VERSE 
 
 EEN NAPOLI 
 
 Here een Noo Yorka, where am I 
 Seence I am landa las' July, 
 All gray an' ogly ees da sky, 
 
 An' cold as eet can be. 
 But steell so long I maka mon'. 
 So long ees worka to be done, 
 I can forgat how shines da sun 
 Een Napoli. 
 
 But oh, w 'en pass da boy dat sal 
 Da violets, an' I can smal 
 How sweet dey are, I can not tal 
 
 How seeck my heart ees be. 
 I no can work, how mooch I try, 
 But only seet an' wondra why 
 I could not justa leeve an' die 
 Een Napoli. 
 
 T. A. Daly 
 
 CITY EOOFS * 
 
 (From the Metropolitan Tower.) 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, what do you cover? 
 
 Sad folk, bad folk, and many a glowing lover ; 
 Wise people, simple people, children of despair 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, hiding pain and care. 
 
 * From Today and Tomorrow, by Charles Hanson Towne, copyright 
 1916, George H. Doran Company, publishers.
 
 THE CITY 23 
 
 Roof-tops, roof -tops, what sin you're knowing, 
 
 While above you in the sky the white clouds are blowing ; 
 While beneath you, agony and dolor and grim strife 
 Fight the olden battle, the olden war of Life. 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, cover up their shame 
 
 Wretched souls, prison souls too piteous to name; 
 
 Man himself hath built you all to hide away the stars 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, you hide ten million scars. 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, well I know you cover 
 
 Many solemn tragedies, and many a lonely lover ; 
 
 But ah ! you hide the good that lives in the throbbing 
 
 city 
 Patient wives, and tenderness, forgiveness, faith, and pity. 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, this is what I wonder: 
 
 You are thick as poisonous plants, thick the people under ; 
 Yet roofless, and homeless, and shelterless they roam, 
 The driftwood of the town who have no roof-top, and no 
 home! 
 
 Charles Hanson Towne 
 
 BROADWAY * 
 
 How like the stars are these white, nameless faces ! 
 
 These far innumerable burning coals ! 
 This pale procession out of stellar spaces, 
 
 This Milky Way of souls ! 
 
 * From Poems and Ballads, by Hermann Hagedorn. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 24 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Each in its own bright nebula? enfurled, 
 Each face, dear God, a world ! 
 
 I fling my gaze out through the silent night 
 In those far stars, what gardens, what high halls, 
 
 Has mortal yearning built for its delight, 
 What chasms and what walls ? 
 
 What quiet mansions where a soul may dwell? 
 
 What Heaven and what Hell? 
 
 Hermann Hagedorvt 
 
 THE PEDDLER* 
 
 I peddles pencils on Broadway. 
 
 I know it ain't a great career. 
 It's dull an' footless so folks say 
 
 And yet I've done it twenty year, 
 Held down my same old corner here 
 
 An' never missed a day. 
 
 I peddles, an' I watch the crowd. 
 
 I knows 'em all they say an' do 
 As if they shouted it out loud. 
 
 I look 'em through an' through an' through! 
 By crabs ! they'd kill me if they knew 
 
 They are so fine an' proud. 
 
 I knows 'em! Oh, it's in their eyes, 
 It 's in their walk, it 's in their lips ! 
 
 They tries to bluff it but I 'm wise ! 
 An' they're just children when you strips 
 
 * From Poems and Ballads, by Hermann Hagedorn. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE CITY 25 
 
 The smirk off ; an ' the clerks, the chips, 
 Stands clean of all the lies. 
 
 I've watched so long, I scarcely see 
 The clo'es it's just the faces now. 
 
 Somehow I knows their misery, 
 
 An ' wonders when ? An ' where ? An ' how ? 
 
 Elbow an' shoulder on they plow 
 An' yet somehow they speaks to me. 
 
 I'm like the priest an' all day long 
 
 They tells me what they 've thought an ' done, 
 
 An' some is flabby, some is strong, 
 An' some of 'em was dead an' gone 
 
 Before they ever saw the sun. . . . 
 I know where some of 'em belong. 
 
 I peddles pencils. Christ! An' they? 
 
 They does the thing's that seems worth while. 
 I watch 'em growin' old an' gray, 
 
 An' queer about the eyes, an' smile 
 To see 'em when they 've made their pile, 
 
 A-totterin' up Broadway. 
 
 Hermann Hagedorn 
 
 ROSES IN THE SUBWAY * 
 
 A wan-cheeked girl with faded eyes 
 Came stumbling down the crowded car, 
 
 * From Poems, by Dana Burnet. Copyright 1915, by Harper & 
 Brothers.
 
 26 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Clutching her burden to her breast 
 As though she held a star. 
 
 Roses, I swear it ! Red and sweet 
 
 And struggling from her pinched white hands, 
 
 Roses . . . like captured hostages 
 From far and fairy lands! 
 
 The thunder of the rushing train 
 Was like a hush. . . The flower scent 
 
 Breathed faintly on the stale, whirled air 
 Like some dim sacrament 
 
 I saw a garden stretching out 
 
 And morning on it like a crown 
 And o'er a bed of crimson bloom 
 
 My mother . . . stooping down. 
 
 Dana Burnet 
 
 THE FACTORIES 
 
 I have shut my little sister in from life and light 
 
 (For a roso, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair), 
 I have made her restless feet still until the night, 
 
 Locked from sweets of summer and from wild spring air ; 
 I who ranged in the meadowlands, free from sun to sun, 
 
 Free to sing and pull the buds and watch the far wings fly, 
 I have bound my sister till her playing-time was done 
 
 Oh, my little sister, was it I ? Was it I ?
 
 THE CITY 27 
 
 I have robbed my sister of her day of maidenhood 
 
 (For a robe, for a feather, for a trinket's restless spark), 
 Shut from Love till dusk shall fall, how shall she know good, 
 
 How shall she go scatheless through the sin-lit dark? 
 I who could be innocent, I who could be gay, 
 
 I who could have love and mirth before the light went by, 
 I have put my sister in her mating-time away 
 
 Sister, my young sister, was it I? Was it I? 
 
 I have robbed my sister of the lips against her breast, 
 
 (For a coin, for th^. weaving of my children's lace and lawn), 
 Feet that pace beside the loom, hands that cannot rest 
 
 How can she know motherhood, whose strength is gone? 
 I who took no heed of her, starved and labor-worn, 
 
 I, against whose placid heart my sleepy gold-heads lie, 
 Round my path they cry to me, little souls unborn 
 
 God of Life! Creator! It was I! It was I! 
 
 Margaret Widdemer 
 
 PRAYERS OF STEEL 
 
 Lay me on an anvil, God. 
 
 Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. 
 
 Let me pry loose old walls. 
 
 Let me lift and loosen old foundations. 
 
 Lay me on an anvil, God. 
 Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. 
 Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. 
 Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. 
 Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue 
 nights into white stars. 
 
 Carl Sandburg
 
 28 MODERN VERSE 
 
 ELLIS PARK 
 
 Little park that I pass through, 
 
 I carry off a piece of you 
 
 Every morning hurrying down 
 
 To my work-day in the town ; 
 
 Carry you for country there 
 
 To make the city ways more fair. 
 
 I take your trees, 
 
 And your breeze, f 
 
 Your greenness, 
 
 Your cleanness, 
 
 Some of your shade, some of your sky, 
 
 Some of your calm as I go by; 
 
 Your flowers to trim 
 
 The pavements grim ; 
 
 Your space for room in the jostled street 
 
 And grass for carpet to my feet. 
 
 Your fountains take and sweet bird calls 
 
 To sing me from my office walls. 
 
 All that I can see 
 
 I carry off with me. 
 
 But you never miss my theft, 
 
 So much treasure you have left 
 
 As I find you, fresh at morning, 
 
 So I find you, home returning 
 
 Nothing lacking from your grace. 
 
 All your riches wait in place 
 
 For me to borrow 
 
 On the morrow. 
 
 Do you hear this praise of you, 
 Little park that I pass through ? 
 
 Helen Hoyt
 
 THE CITY 
 
 THE PARK * 
 
 All day the children play along the walks, 
 A robin sings high in a brave, green tree, 
 
 The city lifts gray temples at its marge, 
 But still it keeps the heart of Arcady. 
 
 Still blows a flower in the waving grass, 
 
 Lifting a face of beauty to the sun; 
 Still bursts the bough in joyous burgeoning 
 
 Still comes a lover when the day is done. 
 
 Here the white moon, with magic in her train, 
 
 Stoops from the starry lanes of paradise, 
 And, with her ancient witchery of dreams, 
 Lays some new hope upon a poet 's eyes. 
 
 See, on that bench beneath the drooping bough, 
 Did not yon grief -bowed figure lift its face? 
 
 Look how the moonlight finds him through the leaves, 
 Touching his brow with sudden crowns of grace! 
 
 little park, little land of hope, 
 
 Snatched from the world and held for God and me, 
 Still through thy walks the wistful cities go, 
 
 Searching the dream that yet might set them free ! 
 
 Dana Burnet 
 
 * From Poems, by Dana Burnet. Copyright, 1915, by Harper & 
 Brothers.
 
 30 MODERN VERSE 
 
 AT TWILIGHT* 
 
 You are a painter listen 
 
 I '11 paint you a picture too ! 
 Of the long white lights that glisten 
 
 Through Michigan Avenue ; 
 With the red lights down the middle 
 
 Where the street shines mirror-wet, 
 While the rain-strung sky is a fiddle 
 
 For the wind to feel and fret. 
 Look! far in the east great spaces 
 
 Meet out on the level lake. 
 Where the lit ships veil their faces 
 
 And glide like ghosts at a wake; 
 And up in the air, high over 
 
 The rain-shot shimmer of light, 
 The huge sky-scrapers hover 
 
 And shake out their stars at the night. 
 Oh, the city trails gold tassels 
 
 From the skirts of her purple gown, 
 And lifts up her commerce castles 
 
 Like a jewel-studded crown. 
 See, proudly she moves on, singing 
 
 Up the storm-dimmed track of time* 
 Road dark and dire, 
 
 Where each little light 
 Is a soul afire 
 
 t From You and J, by Harriet Monroe. Used by special permission 
 The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE CITY 31 
 
 Against the night! 
 Oh, grandly she marches, flinging 
 Her gifts at our feet, and singing ! 
 
 Have I chalked out a sketch in my rhyme ? 
 
 Harriet Monroe 
 
 IN LADY STREET 
 
 All day long the traffic goes 
 
 In Lady Street by dingy rows 
 
 Of sloven houses, tattered shops 
 
 Fried fish, old clothes and fortune-tellers 
 
 Tall trams on silver-shining rails, 
 
 With grinding wheels and swaying tops, 
 
 And lorries with their corded bales, 
 
 And screeching cars. "Buy, buy!" the sellers 
 
 Of rags and bones and sickening meat 
 
 Cry all day long in Lady Street. 
 
 And when the sunshine has its way 
 In Lady Street, then all the grey 
 Dull desolation grows in state 
 More dull and grey and desolate, 
 And the sun is a shamefast thing, 
 A lord not comely-housed, a god 
 Seeing what gods must blush to see, 
 A song where it is ill to sing, 
 And each gold ray despiteously 
 Lies like a gold ironic rod.
 
 32 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Yet one grey man in Lady Street 
 Looks for the sun. He never bent 
 Life to his will, his traveling feet 
 Have scaled no cloudy continent, 
 Nor has the sickle-hand been strong. 
 He lives in Lady Street ; a bed, 
 Four cobwebbed walls. 
 
 But all day long 
 A time is singing in his head 
 Of youth in Gloucester lanes. He hears 
 The wind among the barley-blades, 
 The tapping of the woodpeckers 
 On the smooth beeches, thistle-spades 
 Slicing the sinewy roots ; he sees 
 The hooded filberts in the copse 
 Beyond the loaded orchard trees, 
 The netted avenues of hops; 
 He smells the honeysuckle thrown 
 Along the hedge. He lives alone, 
 Alone yet not alone, for sweet 
 Are Gloucester lanes in Lady Street. 
 
 Ay, Gloucester lanes. For down below 
 
 The cobwebbed room this gray man plies 
 
 A trade, a coloured trade. A show 
 
 Of many-coloured merchandise 
 
 Is in his shop. Brown filberts there, 
 
 And apples red with Gloucester air, 
 
 And cauliflowers he keeps, and round 
 
 Smooth marrows grown on Gloucester ground, 
 
 Fat cabbages and yellow plums, 
 
 And gaudy brave chrysanthemums. 
 
 And times a glossy pheasant lies
 
 THE CITY 33 
 
 Among his store, not Tyrian dyes 
 More rich than are the neck-feathers j 
 And times a prize of violets, 
 Or dewy mushrooms satin-skinned, 
 And times an unfamiliar wind 
 Robbed of its woodland favour stirs 
 Gay daffodils this grey man sets 
 Among his treasure. 
 
 All day long 
 
 In Lady Street the traffic goes 
 By dingy houses, desolate rows 
 Of shops that stare like hopeless eyes. 
 Day long the sellers cry their cries, 
 The fortune-tellers tell no wrong 
 Of lives that know not any right, 
 And drift, that has not even the will 
 To drift, toils through the day until 
 The wage of sleep is won at night. 
 But this grey man heeds not at all 
 The hell of Lady Street. His stall 
 Of many-coloured merchandise 
 He makes a shining paradise, 
 As all day long chrysanthemums 
 He sells, and red and yellow plums 
 And cauliflowers. In that one spot 
 Of Lady Street the sun is not 
 Ashamed to shine and send a rare 
 Shower of colour through the air; 
 The grey man says the sun is sweet 
 On Gloucester lanes in Lady Street. 
 
 John Drinkuxiter
 
 34 MODERN VERSE 
 
 THE BARREL-ORGAN 
 
 There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low; 
 And the music 's not immortal ; but the world has made it sweet 
 
 And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; 
 And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain 
 
 That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light ; 
 And they've given it a glory and a part to play again 
 
 In the Symphony that rules the day and night. 
 
 And now it's marching onward through the realms of old 
 romance, 
 
 And trolling out a fond familiar tune, 
 And now it 's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France, 
 
 And now it's prattling softly to the moon, 
 And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore 
 
 Of human joys and wonders and regrets; 
 To remember and to recompense the music evermore 
 
 For what the cold machinery forgets. . . . 
 
 Yes; as the music changes, 
 
 Like a prismatic glass, 
 It takes the light and ranges 
 
 Through all the moods that pass; 
 Dissects the common carnival 
 
 Of passions and regrets, 
 And gives the world a glimpse of all 
 
 The colours it forgets. 
 
 And there La Traviata sighs 
 Another sadder song; 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Collected Poems, by Alfred Noyes, 
 Copyright, 1913, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 THE CITY 36 
 
 And there II Trovatore cries 
 
 A tale of deeper wrong; 
 And bolder knights to battle go 
 
 With sword and shield and lance, 
 Than ever here on earth below 
 
 Have whirled into a dance! 
 
 Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; 
 
 Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's 
 wonderland ; 
 
 Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 
 The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet 
 
 perfume, 
 The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to 
 
 London!) 
 And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's 
 
 a blaze of sky 
 
 The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for 
 London. 
 
 The Dorian nightingale is rare and yet they say you'll hear 
 
 him there 
 
 At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) 
 
 The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo 
 
 And golden-eyed tu-whit, tu-whoo of owls that ogle London. 
 
 or Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn 't heard 
 At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London !) 
 And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires 
 
 are out 
 
 You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for 
 London :
 
 36 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time? 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 And you, shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's 
 wonderland; 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 
 And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street, 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low ; 
 
 And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet 
 Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat, 
 And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never 
 
 meet, 
 Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and 
 
 the wheat, 
 In the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote II Trovatore did you dream 
 
 Of the City when the sun sinks low, 
 Of the organ and the monkey and the many-colored stream 
 On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem 
 To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam 
 As A che la morte parodies the world's eternal theme 
 
 And pulses with the sunset-glow? 
 
 There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen 
 
 stone 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low ; 
 
 There 's a portly man of business with a balance of his own, 
 There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone. 
 And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have 
 
 known : 
 They are crammed and jammed in busses and they're each of 
 
 them alone 
 In the land where the dead dreams go.
 
 THE CITY 37 
 
 There's a very modish woman and her smile is very bland 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low; 
 
 And her hansom jingles onward, but her little jeweled hand 
 Is clenched a little tighter arid she cannot understand 
 What she wants or why she wanders to that undiscovered land, 
 For the parties there are not at all the sort of thing she 
 planned, 
 
 In the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 There's a rowing man that listens and his heart is crying out 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low; 
 For the barge, the eight, the Isis, and the coach's whoop and 
 
 shout, 
 For the minute-gun, the counting and the long dishevelled 
 
 rout, 
 
 For the howl along the tow-path and a fate that's still in doubt, 
 For a roughened oar to handle and a race to think about 
 In the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 There's a laborer that listens to the voices of the dead 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low ; 
 
 And his hand begins to tremble and his face to smoulder red 
 As he sees a loafer watching him and there he turns his head 
 And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled, 
 For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led 
 
 Through the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 There's an old and haggard demi-rep, it's ringing in her ears, 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low; 
 With the wild and empty sorrow of the love that blights and 
 
 sears, 
 
 Oh, and if she hurries onward, then be sure, be sure she hears, 
 Hears and bears the bitter burden of the unforgotten years,
 
 38 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And her laugh's a little harsher and her eyes are brimmed 
 
 with tears 
 For the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks low ; 
 Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it 
 
 sweet 
 
 Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet 
 Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet 
 Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat 
 
 In the land where the dead dreams go. 
 
 So it 's Jeremiah, Jeremiah, 
 
 What have you to say 
 When you meet the garland girls 
 
 Tripping on their way? 
 
 All around my gala hat 
 
 I wear a wreath of roses 
 (A long and lonely year it is 
 
 I've waited for the May!) 
 If any one should ask you, 
 
 The reason why I wear it is 
 My own love, my true love 
 
 Is coming home to-day. 
 
 And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady 
 
 (It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!) 
 
 Buy a bunch of violets for the lady 
 While the sky burns blue above: 
 
 On the other side of the street you'll find it shady 
 
 (It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)
 
 THE CITY 39 
 
 But buy a bunch of violets for the lady 
 And tell her she's your own true love. 
 
 There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street 
 
 In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow ; 
 And the music 's not immortal ; but the world has made it sweet 
 And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete 
 In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning 
 meet, 
 
 As it dies into the sunset-glow; 
 And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain 
 
 That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light, 
 And they've given it a glory and a part to play again 
 
 In the Symphony that rules the day and night. 
 
 And there, as the music changes, 
 
 The song runs round again. 
 Once more it turns and ranges 
 
 Through all its joy and pain, 
 Dissects the common carnival 
 
 Of passions and regrets; 
 And the wheeling world remembers all 
 
 The wheeling song forgets. 
 
 Once more La Traviata sighs 
 
 Another sadder song: 
 Once more II Trovatore cries 
 A tale of deeper wrong ; 
 Once more the knights to battle go 
 
 "With sword and shield and lance 
 Till once, once more, the shattered foe 
 Has whirled into a dance!
 
 40 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's 
 
 wonderland; 
 
 Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) 
 
 Alfred Noyes
 
 THE COUNTRY
 
 THE GREEN INN 
 
 I sicken of men's company, 
 The crowded tavern's din, 
 
 Where all day long with oath and song 
 Sit they who entrance win, 
 
 So come I out from noise and rout 
 To rest in God's Green Inn. 
 
 Here none may mock an empty purse 
 Or ragged coat and poor, 
 
 But Silence waits within the gates, 
 And Peace beside the door; 
 
 The weary guest is welcomest, 
 The richest pays no score. 
 
 The roof is high and arched and blue, 
 The floor is spread with pine; 
 
 On my four walls the sunlight falls 
 In golden flecks and fine ; 
 
 And swift and fleet on noiseless feet 
 The Four Winds bring me wine. 
 
 Upon my board they set their store 
 Great drinks mixed cunningly, 
 
 Wherein the scent of furze is blent 
 With odor of the sea; 
 
 As from a cup I drink it up 
 To thrill the veins of me. 
 
 It's I will sit in God's Green Inn 
 
 Unvexed by man or ghost, 
 Yet ever fed and comforted, 
 43
 
 44 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Companioned by mine host, 
 And watched at night by that white light 
 High swung from coast to coast. 
 
 Oh, you who in the House of Strife 
 
 Quarrel and game and sin, 
 Come out and see what cheer may be 
 
 For starveling souls and thin, 
 Who come at last from drought and fast 
 
 To sit in God's Green Inn. 
 
 Theodosia Garrison 
 
 Now the Four-way Lodge is opened, now the Hunting Winds 
 
 are loose 
 
 Now the Smokes of Spring go up to clear the brain ; 
 Now the Young Men's hearts are troubled for the whisper of 
 
 the Trues, 
 
 Now the Red Gods make their medicine again! 
 Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the 
 
 black-tail mating? 
 
 Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry? 
 Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is 
 
 waiting 
 Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly?
 
 THE COUNTRY 45 
 
 He must go go go away from here! 
 
 On the other side the world he's overdue. 
 'Send your road is clear before you when the old Spring- 
 
 fret comes o'er you, 
 And the Red Gods call for you! 
 
 So for one the wet sail arching through the rainbow round 
 
 the bow, 
 
 And for one the creak of snow-shoes on the crust ; 
 And for one the lakeside lilies where the bull-moose waits the 
 
 cow, 
 
 And for one the mule-train coughing in the dust. 
 Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight? Who hath heard 
 
 the birch-log burning? 
 
 Who is quick to read the noises of the night? 
 Let him follow with the others, for the Young Men's feet are 
 
 turning 
 To the camps of proved desire and known delight ! 
 
 Let him go go, etc. 
 
 I 
 
 Do you know the blackened timber do you know that racing 
 
 stream 
 
 With the raw, right-angled log-jam at the end; 
 And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask 
 
 and dream 
 
 To the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend? 
 It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and 
 
 traces, 
 To a silent, smoky Indian that we know
 
 46 MODERN VERSE 
 
 To a couch of new-pulled hemlock, with the starlight on our 
 
 faces, 
 For the Red Gods call us out and we must go ! 
 
 They must go go, etc. 
 
 II 
 
 Do you know the shallow Baltic where the seas are steep and 
 
 short, 
 
 "Where the bluff, lee-boarded fishing-luggers ride? 
 Do you know the joy of threshing leagues to leeward of your 
 
 port 
 
 On a coast you've lost the chart of overside ? 
 It is there that I am going, with an extra hand to bale her 
 
 Just one able 'long-shore loafer that I know. 
 He can take his chance of drowning, while I sail and sail and 
 sail her, 
 
 For the Red Gods call me out and I must go ! 
 
 . 
 He must go go, etc. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Do you know the pile-built village where the sago-dealers 
 trade 
 
 Do you know the reek of fish and wet bamboo ? 
 Do you know the steaming stillness of the orchid-scented glade 
 
 When the blazoned, bird-winged butterflies flap through? 
 It is there that I am going with my camphor, net and boxes, 
 
 To a gentle, yellow pirate that I know 
 To my little wailing lemurs, to my palms and flying-foxes, 
 
 For the Red Gods call me out and I must go ! 
 
 He must go go, etc.
 
 THE COUNTRY 47 
 
 IV 
 
 Do you know the world's white roof -tree do you know that 
 
 windy rift 
 
 Where the baffling mountain-eddies chop and change? 
 Do you know the long day's patience, belly-down on frozen 
 
 drift, 
 
 While the head of heads is feeding out of range? 
 It is there that I am going, where the boulders and the snow 
 
 lie, 
 
 With a trusty, nimble tracker that I know. 
 [ have sworn an oath, to keep it on the Horns of Ovis Poli, 
 And the Red Gods call me out and I must go ! 
 He must go go, etc. 
 
 Now the Four-way Lodge is opened now the Smokes of 
 
 Council rise 
 
 Pleasant smokes, ere yet 7 twixt trail and trail they choose 
 Now the girths and ropes are tested : now they pack their last 
 
 supplies: 
 
 Now our Young Men go to dance before the Trues! 
 Who shall meet them at those altars who shall light them to 
 
 that shrine? 
 
 Velvet-footed, who shall guide them to their goal? 
 Unto each the voice and vision : unto each his spoor and sign 
 Lonely mountain in the Northland, misty sweat-bath 'neath 
 
 the Line 
 
 And to each a man that knows his naked soul ! 
 White or yellow, black or copper, he is waiting, as a lover. 
 
 Smoke of funnel, dust of hooves, or beat of train 
 Where the high grass hides the horseman or the glaring flats 
 
 discover 
 
 Where the steamer hails the landing, or the surf-boat ormgs 
 the rover
 
 48 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Where the rails run out in sand-drift . . . Quick! ah heave 
 
 the camp-kit over, 
 For the Red Gods make their medicine again ! 
 
 And we go go go away from here! 
 
 On the other side the world we're overdue! 
 'Send the road is clear before you when the old Spring 
 
 fret comes o'er you, 
 And the Red Gods call for you! 
 
 Rudyard Kipling 
 
 Come with rain, loud South wester! 
 Bring the singer, bring the nester ; 
 Give the buried flower a dream ; 
 Make the settled snow-bank steam; 
 Find the brown beneath the white; 
 But whatever you do to-night, 
 Bathe my window, make it flow, 
 Melt it as the ices go; 
 Melt the glass and leave the sticks 
 Like a hermit's crucifix; 
 Burst into my narrow stall ; 
 Swing the picture on the wall ; 
 Run the rattling pages o'er; 
 Scatter poems on the floor; 
 Turn the poet out of door. 
 
 Robert Frost
 
 THE COUNTRY 49 
 
 MISTER HOP-TOAD * 
 
 Howdy, Mister Hop-Toad ! Glad to see you out ! 
 
 Bin a month o' Sundays sence I seen you hereabout. 
 Kind o' bin a-layin' in, from the frost and snow? 
 Good to see you out ag'in, it's bin so long ago! 
 Plows like slicin' cheese, and sod's loppin' over even; 
 Loam's like gingerbread, and clods 's softer 'n deceivin' 
 Mister Hop-Toad, honest-true Springtime don't you love it? 
 You old rusty rascal you, at the bottom of it ! 
 
 Oh, oh, oh! 
 I grabs up my old hoe; 
 But I sees you, 
 And s' I, "Ooh-ooh! 
 Howdy, Mister Hop-Toad! How-dee-do!" 
 
 Make yourse'f more cumfo'bler square round at your ease 
 Don't set saggin' slanchwise, with your nose below your knees. 
 Swell that fat old throat o' yourn and lemme see you swaller; 
 Straighten up and hi'st your head! You don't owe a 
 
 dollar! 
 
 Hain't no mor'gage on your land ner no taxes, nuther; 
 You don't haf to work no roads even ef you'd ruther! 
 'F I was you, and fixed like you, I railly wouldn't keer 
 To swop f er life and hop right in the presidential cheer 1 
 
 Oh, oh, oh ! 
 
 I hauls back my old hoe; 
 
 * From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James 
 Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1^13. Used by special permission of th 
 publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
 
 60 MODERN VERSE 
 
 But I sees you, 
 And s' I, "Ooh-ooh! 
 Howdy, Mister Hop-Toad! How-dee-do!" 
 
 Long about next Aprile, hoppin' down the furry, . 
 
 Won't you mind I ast you what 'peared to be the hurry? 
 
 Won't you mind I hooked my hoe and hauled you back and 
 
 smiled ? 
 
 W'y bless you, Mister Hop-Toad, I love you like a child! 
 S'pose I'd want to 'flict you any more'n what you air? 
 S 'pose I think you got no rights 'cept the warts you wear ? 
 Hulk, sulk, and blink away, you old bloat-eyed rowdy i 
 Hain't you got a word to say? Won't you tell me "Howdy"? 
 
 Oh, oh, oh ! 
 
 I swish round my old hoe ; 
 But I sees you, 
 And s' I, "Ooh-ooh! 
 Howdy, Mister Hop-Toad! How-dee-do!" 
 
 James Whitcomb Eiley 
 
 TO A POET 
 
 (BY SPEING) 
 
 Yes, Poet, I am coming down to earth, 
 
 To spend the merry months of blossom- time ; 
 
 But don 't break out in paeans of glad mirth 
 (Expressed in hackneyed rhyme.)
 
 THE COUNTRY 51 
 
 For once, dear Poet, won't you kindly skip 
 Your ode of welcome? It is such a bore; 
 I am no chicken, and I've made the trip 
 Six thousand times or more. 
 
 And as I flutter earthward every year, 
 You must admit that it grows rather stale 
 
 When I arrive, repeatedly to hear 
 The same old annual "Hail"! 
 
 Time was when I enjoyed the poet's praise, 
 Will Shakspere's song, or Mr. Milton's hymn; 
 
 Or even certain little twittering lays 
 By ladies quaint and prim. 
 
 Chaucer and Spenser filled me with delight, 
 And how I loved to hear Bob Herrick woo ! 
 
 Old Omar seemed to think I was all right, 
 And Aristotle, too. 
 
 But I am sated with this fame and glory, 
 Oh, Poet, leave Parnassian heights unsealed; 
 
 This time let me be spared the same old story, 
 And ccme for once unhailed! 
 
 Carolyn Wells 
 
 MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE 
 
 May is building her house. With apple blooms 
 
 She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; 
 
 Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,
 
 52 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And, spinning all day at her secret looms, 
 With arras of leaves each wind-sprayed wall 
 She pictureth over, and peopleth it all 
 
 With echoes and dreams, 
 
 And singing of streams. 
 
 May is building her house of petal and blade; 
 Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, 
 With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, 
 Each small miracle over and over, 
 And tender, traveling green things strayed. 
 
 Her windows the morning and evening star, 
 And her rustling doorways, ever ajar 
 
 With the coming and going 
 
 Of fair things blowing, 
 The thresholds of the four winds are. 
 
 May is building her house. From the dust of things 
 She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings; 
 From October's tossed and trodden gold 
 She is making the young year out of the old; 
 Yea! out of the winter's flying sleet 
 She is making all the summer sweet, 
 And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet 
 She is changing back again to spring's. 
 
 Richard Le Gallienne
 
 THE COUNTRY 53 
 
 A MOUNTAIN GATEWAY * 
 
 I know a vale where I would go one day, 
 
 "When June comes back and all the world once more 
 
 Is glad with summer. Deep with shade it lies, 
 
 A mighty cleft in the green bosoming hills, 
 
 A cool, dim gateway to the mountains' heart. 
 
 On either side the wooded slopes come down, 
 Hemlock and beech and chestnut; here and there 
 Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams, 
 Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness 
 That still perfection from the world withdrawn, 
 As if the wood gods had arrested there 
 Immortal beauty in her breathless flight. 
 
 Far overhead against the arching blue 
 Gray ledges overhang from dizzy heights 
 Scarred by a thousand winters and untamed. 
 The road winds in from the broad riverlands, 
 Luring the happy traveler turn by turn, 
 Up to the lofty mountain of the sky. 
 
 And where the road runs in the valley's foot, 
 
 Through the dark woods the mountain stream comes down, 
 
 Singing and dancing all its youth away 
 
 Among the boulders and the shallow runs, 
 
 Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang, 
 
 Drenchod all day long with murmuring sound and spray. 
 
 There, light of heart and footfree, I would go 
 
 * From April Airs, by Bliss Carman. Copyright, 1916, by Small, 
 [aynard and Company. Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publishers, 
 mall, Maynard and Company, Inc.
 
 54 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Up to my home among the lasting hills, 
 And in my cabin doorway sit me down, 
 Companioned in that leafy solitude 
 By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace. 
 
 And in that sweet seclusion I should hear, 
 
 Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk, 
 
 The calm-voiced thrushes at their evening hymn 
 
 So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure, 
 
 It well might be, in wisdom and in joy, 
 
 The seraphs singing at the birth of time 
 
 The unworn ritual of eternal things. 
 
 BUss Carman 
 
 HAYMAKING 
 
 After night's thunder far away had rolled, 
 
 The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold, 
 
 And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled, 
 
 Like the first gods before they made the world 
 
 And misery, swimming the stormless sea 
 
 In beauty and in divine gaiety. 
 
 The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn 
 
 With leaves the holly's Autumn falls in June 
 
 And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat. 
 
 The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit 
 
 With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd 
 
 Of children pouring out of school aloud. 
 
 And in the little thickets where a sleeper 
 
 Forever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper 
 
 And garden warbler sang unceasingly ; 
 
 While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee 
 
 The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow
 
 THE COUNTRY 55 
 
 As if the bow had flown off with the arrow. 
 Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown 
 Traveled the road. In the field sloping down, 
 Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook, 
 Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook 
 Out in the sun ; and the long wagon stood 
 Without its team; it seemed it never would 
 Move from the shadow of that single yew. 
 The team, as still, until their task was due, 
 Beside the laborers enjoyed the shade 
 That three squat oaks mid-field together made 
 Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut, 
 And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but 
 Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean. 
 The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin, 
 But still. And all were silent. All was old, 
 This morning time, with a great age untold, 
 Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome, 
 Than, at the field's far edge, the farmer's home, 
 A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree. 
 Under the heavens that know not what years be 
 The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements 
 Uttered even what they will in times far hence 
 All of us gone out of the reach of change 
 Immortal in a picture of an old grange. 
 
 Edward Thomas
 
 56 MODERN VERSE 
 
 AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY ON THE 
 PRAIRIE * 
 
 (IN THE BEGINNING) 
 
 The sun is a huntress young, 
 The sun is a red, red joy, 
 The sun is an Indian girl, 
 Of the tribe of the Illinois. 
 
 (MID-MORNING) 
 
 The sun is a smoldering fire, 
 
 That creeps through the high gray plain, 
 
 And leaves not a bush of cloud 
 
 To blossom with flowers of rain. 
 
 (NOON) 
 
 The sun is a wounded deer, 
 That treads pale grass in the skies, 
 Shaking his golden horns, 
 Flashing his baleful eyes. 
 
 (SUNSET) 
 
 The sun is an eagle old, 
 There in the windless west. 
 Atop of the spirit-cliffs 
 He builds him a crimson nest. 
 
 Vachel Lindsay 
 
 * From The Congo, by Vachel Lindsay. Used by special permission 
 of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE COUNTRY 57 
 
 A GREETING 
 
 Good morning, Life and all 
 Things glad and beautiful. 
 My pockets nothing hold, 
 But he that owns the gold, 
 The Sun, is my great friend 
 His spending has no end. 
 
 Hail to the morning sky, 
 Which bright clouds measure high; 
 Hail to you birds whose throats 
 Would number leaves by notes; 
 Hail to you shady bowers, 
 And you green fields of flowers. 
 
 Hail to you women fair, 
 That make a show so rare 
 In cloth as white as milk 
 Be't calico or silk: 
 Good morning, Life and all 
 Things glad and beautiful. 
 
 William H. Davies
 
 o8 MODERN VERSE 
 
 A VAGABOND SONG * 
 
 There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood- 
 Touch of manner, hint of mood; 
 And my heart is like a rhyme, 
 With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time 
 
 The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry 
 
 Of bugles going by, 
 
 And my lonely spirit thrills 
 
 To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. 
 
 There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir; 
 
 We must rise and follow her, 
 
 When from every hill of flame 
 
 She calls and calls each vagabond by name. 
 
 Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey 
 
 THREE PIECES ON THE SMOKE OF 
 AUTUMN 
 
 Smoke of autumn is on it all. 
 
 The streamers loosen and travel. 
 
 The red west is stopped with a gray haze. 
 
 They fill the ash trees, they wrap the oaks, 
 
 They make a long-tailed rider 
 
 In the pocket of the first, the earliest evening star. 
 
 
 * From More Songs from Vaga'bondia, by Bliss Carman and Richard 
 Hovey. Copyright, 1896, by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey.
 
 THE COUNTRY 59 
 
 Three muskrats swim west on the Desplaines River. 
 
 There is a sheet of red ember glow on the river; it is dusk; 
 and the muskrats one by one go on patrol routes west. 
 
 Around each slippery padding rat, a fan of ripples; in the 
 silence of dusk a faint wash of ripples, the padding of the 
 rats going west, in a dark and shivering river gold. 
 
 (A newspaper in my pocket says the Germans pierce the 
 Italian line; I have letters from poets and sculptors in 
 Greenwich Village; I have letters from an ambulance 
 man in France and an I. "W. "W. man in Vladivostok.) 
 
 I lean on an ash and watch the lights fall, the red ember glow, 
 and three muskrats swim west in a fan of ripples on a 
 sheet of river gold. 
 
 Better the blue silence and the gray west, 
 
 The autumn mist on the river, 
 
 And not any hate and not any love, 
 
 And not anything at all of the keen and the deep. 
 
 Only the peace of a dog head on a barn floor. 
 
 And the new corn shoveled in bushels 
 
 And the pumpkins brought from the corn rows, 
 
 Umber lights of the dark, 
 
 Umber lanterns of the loam dark. 
 
 Here a dog head dreams. 
 
 Not any hate, not any love. 
 
 Not anything but dreams. 
 
 Brother of dusk and umber. 
 
 Carl Sandburg
 
 60 MODERN VERSE 
 
 O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! 
 
 Thy winds, thy wide gray skies! 
 
 Thy mists that roll and rise ! 
 Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag 
 And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag 
 To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! 
 "World, World, I cannot get thee close enough ! 
 
 Long have I known a glory in it all, 
 
 But never knew I this; 
 
 Here such a passion is 
 
 As stretcheth me apart, Lord, I do fear 
 
 Thou 'st made the world too beautiful this year ; 
 My soul is all but out of me, let fall 
 No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. 
 
 Edna St. Vincent Millay 
 
 AFTER APPLE-PICKING 
 
 My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 
 
 Toward heaven still, 
 
 And there's a barrel that I didn't fill 
 
 Beside it, and there may be two or three 
 
 Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. 
 
 But I am done with apple-picking now. 
 
 Essence of winter sleep is on the night, 
 
 The scent of apples : I am drowsing off. 
 
 I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
 
 THE COUNTRY 61 
 
 I got from looking through a pane of glass 
 
 I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough 
 
 And held against the world of hoary grass. 
 
 It melted, and I let it fall and break. 
 
 But I was well 
 
 Upon my way to sleep before it fell, 
 
 And I could tell 
 
 What form my dreaming was about to take. 
 
 Magnified apples appear and disappear, 
 
 Stem end and blossom end, 
 
 And every fleck of russet showing clear. 
 
 My instep arch not only keeps the ache, 
 
 It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. 
 
 I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. 
 
 And I keep hearing from the cellar bin 
 
 The rumbling sound 
 
 Of load on load of apples coming in. 
 
 For I have had too much 
 
 Of apple-picking : I am overtired 
 
 Of the great harvest I myself desired. 
 
 There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, 
 
 Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. 
 
 For all 
 
 That struck the earth, 
 
 No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, 
 
 Went surely to the cider-apple heap 
 
 As of no worth. 
 
 One can see what will trouble 
 
 This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. 
 
 Were he not gone, 
 
 The woodchuck could say whether it's like his 
 
 Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, 
 
 Or just some human sleep. 
 
 Robert Frost
 
 62 MODERN VERSE 
 
 BROTHER BEASTS * 
 
 Winter is here 
 And there are no leaves 
 On the naked trees, 
 Save stars twinkling 
 As the wind blows. 
 Soft to the branches 
 The little screech-owl 
 Silently comes. 
 Silently goes, 
 With weird tremolos. 
 
 I would go out 
 And gather the stars 
 The wind shakes down, 
 Were they not scattered 
 So far in the West. 
 I would go ask 
 The little screech-owl 
 If he finds ease 
 There in his nest 
 After his quest. 
 
 I would go learn 
 If the small gray mouse 
 Who sets up house 
 In the frozen meadow 
 Dreams of the stars. 
 Or what he thinks 
 
 * Taken from Wraiths and Realities, by Cale Young Rice, by permis 
 sion of the publishers, The Century Co.
 
 THE COUNTRY 63 
 
 There in the dark, 
 When flake on flake 
 Of white snow bars 
 Him in with its spars. 
 
 I would go out 
 
 And learn these things 
 
 That I may know 
 
 What dream or desire 
 
 Troubles my brothers 
 
 In nest or hole. 
 
 For even as I 
 
 The owl and the mouse, 
 
 Or blinded mole 
 
 With unborn soul, 
 
 May have some goal. 
 
 Gale Young Rice 
 
 BIRCHES 
 
 When I see birches bend to left and right 
 Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 
 I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 
 But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. 
 Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 
 Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning 
 After a rain. They click upon themselves 
 As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored 
 -A<^ the stip-1'.vfl.rkft anil r.vnaan -rimlf Krrf*mt't~~~ 
 Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 
 Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
 
 64 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 
 
 You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 
 
 They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 
 
 And they seem not to break ; though once they are bowed 
 
 So low for long, they never right themselves : 
 
 You may see their trunks arching in the woods 
 
 Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground 
 
 Like k'irls on hands and knees that throw their hair 
 
 Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 
 
 But I was going to say when Truth broke in 
 
 With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 
 
 (Now am I free to be poetical?) 
 
 I should prefer to have some boy bend them 
 
 As he went out and in to fetch the cows 
 
 Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 
 
 Whose only play was what he found himself, 
 
 Summer or winter, and could play alone. 
 
 One by one he subdued his father's trees 
 
 By riding them down over and over again 
 
 Until he took the stiffness out of them, 
 
 And not one but hung limp, not one was left 
 
 For him to conquer. He learned all there was 
 
 To learn about not launching out too soon 
 
 And so not carrying the tree away 
 
 Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 
 
 To the top branches, climbing carefully 
 
 With the same pains you use to fill a cup 
 
 Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 
 
 Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 
 
 Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 
 
 So was I once myself a swinger of birchea 
 
 And so I dream of going back to be. 
 
 It's when I'm weary of ronsidorations, 
 
 A.nd life is too much like a pathless wood
 
 THE COUNTRY 65 
 
 Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 
 
 Broken across it, and one eye is weeping 
 
 From a twig's having lashed across it open. 
 
 I 'd like to get away from earth awhile 
 
 And then come back to it and begin over. 
 
 May no fate willfully misunderstand me 
 
 And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 
 
 Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 
 
 I don't know where it's likely to go better. 
 
 I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 
 
 And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 
 
 Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 
 
 But dipped its top and set me down again. 
 
 That would be good both going and coming back. 
 
 One could do worse than be a swinger of birches 
 
 Robert Frost 
 
 HIGHMOUNT 
 
 Hills, you have answered the craving 
 
 That spurred me to come ; 
 You have opened your deep blue bosom 
 
 And taken me home. 
 
 The sea had filled me with the stress 
 
 Of its own restlessness ; 
 
 My voice was in that angry roll 
 
 Of passion beating upon the world. 
 
 The ground beneath me shifted; I was swirled 
 
 In an implacable flood that howled to see 
 
 Its breakers rising in me, 
 
 A torrent rushing through my soul. 
 
 And tearing things free
 
 66 MODERN VERSE 
 
 I could not control. 
 
 A monstrous impatience, a stubborn and vain 
 
 Repetition of madness and longing, of question and pain, 
 
 Driving me up to the brow of this hill 
 
 Calling and questioning still. 
 
 And you you smile 
 
 In ordered calm ; 
 
 You wrap yourself in cloudy contemplation while 
 
 The winds go shouting their heroic psalm, 
 
 The streams press lovingly about your feet 
 
 And trees, like birds escaping from the heat, 
 
 Sit in great flocks and fold their broad green wings. . 
 
 A cow bell rings 
 
 Like a sound blurred by sleep, 
 
 Giving the silence a rhythm 
 
 That makes it twice as deep. . . . 
 
 Somewhere a farm-hand sings. . . . 
 
 And here you stand 
 
 Breasting the elemental sea, 
 
 And put forth an invisible hand 
 
 To comfort me. 
 
 Rooted in quiet confidence, you rise 
 
 Above the frantic and assailing years; 
 
 Your silent faith is louder than the cries; 
 
 The shattering fears 
 
 Break and subside when they encounter you. 
 
 You know their doubts, the desperate questions 
 
 And the answers too. 
 
 Hills, you are strong; and my burdens 
 
 Are scattered like foam. 
 You have opened your deep, blue bosom 
 
 And taken me home. 
 
 Louis Untermeyer
 
 THE COUNTRY 67 
 
 A VIGNETTE 
 
 Among the meadows 
 
 lightly going, 
 With worship and joy 
 
 my heart o'erflowing, 
 
 Far from town 
 and toil of living, 
 
 To a holy day 
 
 my spirit giving, . . 
 
 * # * 
 
 Thou tender flower, 
 I kneel beside thee 
 
 "Wondering why God 
 so beautified thee. 
 
 An answering thought 
 *vithin me springeth, 
 
 A bloom of the mind 
 her vision bringeth. 
 
 Between the dim hill's 
 
 distant azure 
 And flowery foreground 
 
 of sparkling pleasure 
 
 I see the company 
 of figures sainted, 
 
 For whom the picture 
 of earth was painted.
 
 68 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Those robed seers 
 
 who made man's story 
 The crown of Nature, 
 
 Her cause his glory. 
 
 They walk in the city 
 which they have builded, 
 
 The city of God 
 from evil shielded : 
 
 To them for canopy 
 
 the vault of heaven, 
 The flowery earth 
 
 for carpet is given; 
 
 Whereon I wander 
 
 not unknowing, 
 With worship and joy 
 
 my heart o'erflowing. 
 
 Robert Bridges 
 
 THE WORLD'S MISER* 
 
 1 
 
 A miser with an eager face 
 
 Sees that each roseleaf is in place. 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Poems, by Theodore Maynard. 
 Copyright, 1919, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 THE COUNTRY 69 
 
 He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars 
 The piercing beauty of the stars. 
 
 The colours of the dying day 
 
 He hoards as treasure well He may ! 
 
 And saves with care (lest they be lost) 
 The dainty diagrams of frost. 
 
 He counts the hairs of every head, 
 And grieves to see a sparrow dead. 
 
 II 
 
 Among the yellow primroses 
 He holds His summer palaces, 
 
 And sets the grass about them all 
 To guard them as His spearmen small. 
 
 He fixes on each wayside stone 
 A mark to shew it as His Own, 
 
 And knows when raindrops fall through air 
 Whether each single one be there, 
 
 That gathered into ponds and brooks 
 They may become His picture-books, 
 
 To shew 'in every spot and place 
 The living glory of His face. 
 
 Theodore Maynaid
 
 70 MODERN VERSE 
 
 GOOD COMPANY 
 
 To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees, 
 The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line ; 
 And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star 
 That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine. 
 
 The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk 
 Woke his happy mate within me to an answer free and fine; 
 And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke 
 Lord, who am I that they should stoop these holy folk of 
 thine? 
 
 Earle Wilson Baker 
 
 IRRADIATIONS 
 
 X. 
 
 The trees, like great jade elephants, 
 
 Chained, stamp and shake 'neath the gadflies of the breeze; 
 The trees lunge and plunge, unruly elephants : 
 The clouds are their crimson howdah-eanopies, 
 The sunlight glints like the golden robe of a Shah. 
 Would I were tossed on the wrinkled backs of those trees. 
 
 John Gould Fletcher
 
 THE COUNTRY 71 
 
 TREES * 
 
 I think that I shall never see 
 A poem lovely as a tree. 
 
 A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 
 Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; 
 
 A tree that looks at God all day 
 And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 
 
 A tree that may in Summer wear 
 A nest of robins in her hair ; 
 
 Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 
 Who intimately lives with rain. 
 
 Poems are made by fools like me, 
 But only God can make a tree. 
 
 Joyce Kilmer 
 
 NIGHT-PIECE * 
 
 Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan, 
 Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still ; 
 
 * From Joyce Kilmer; Poems, Essays, and Letters, copyright 1918, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers. 
 
 * Taken by permission from The Old Huntsman, by Siegfried Sassoon, 
 copyrighted by E. P. Button & Co., New York.
 
 72 MODERN VERSE 
 
 For now the moon through heaven sails alone, 
 Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill. 
 The faun from out his dim and secret place 
 Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream 
 Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face 
 Reflected, and the wistful eyes that gleam. 
 
 To his cold lips he sets the pipe to blow 
 
 Some drowsy note that charms the listening air : 
 
 The dryads from their trees come down and creep 
 
 Near to his side; monotonous and low, 
 
 He plays and plays till all the woodside there 
 
 Stirs to the voice of everlasting sleep. 
 
 Siegfried Sassoon 
 
 THE FINAL SPURT 
 
 From Reynard, the Fox* 
 
 At the sixth green field came the long slow climb 
 
 To the Mourne End Wood as old as time, 
 
 Yew woods dark, where they cut for bows, 
 
 Oak woods green with the mistletoes, 
 
 Dark woods evil, but burrowed deep 
 
 With a brock's earth strong, where a fox might sleep. 
 
 He saw his point on the heaving hill, 
 
 He had failing flesh and a reeling will, 
 
 He felt the heave of the hill grow stiff, 
 
 He saw black woods, which would shelter If 
 
 * From Reynard the Fox, by John Masefield. Used by special per- 
 mission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THE COUNTRY 73 
 
 Nothing else, but the steepening slope, 
 
 And a black line nodding, a line of hope 
 
 The line of the yews on the long slope's brow. 
 
 A mile, three-quarters, a half-mile now. 
 
 A quarter-mile, but the hounds had viewed 
 
 They yelled to have him this side the wood, 
 
 Robin capped them, Tom Dansey steered them 
 
 With a "Yooi, Yooi, Yooi," Bill Ridden cheered them, 
 
 Then up went hackles as Shall erer led, 
 
 "Mob him," cried Ridden, "the wood's ahead. 
 
 Turn him, damn it; Yooi, beauties, beat him, 
 
 God, let them get him; let them eat him. 
 
 O God," said Ridden, "I'll eat him stewed, 
 
 If you'll let us get him this side the wood." 
 
 But the pace, uphill, made a horse like stone, 
 
 The pack went wild up the hill alone. 
 
 Three hundred yards, and the worst was past, 
 
 The slope was gentler and shorter-grassed, 
 
 The fox saw the bulk of the woods grow tall 
 
 On the brae ahead like a barrier-wall. 
 
 He saw the skeleton trees show sky, 
 
 And the yew trees darken to see him die, 
 
 And the line of the woods go reeling black; 
 
 There was hope in the woods, and behind, the pack. 
 
 Two hundred yards, and the trees grew taller, 
 Blacker, blinder, as hope grew smaller, 
 Cry seemed nearer, the teeth seemed gripping 
 Pulling him back, his pads seemed slipping. 
 He was all one ache, one gasp, one thirsting, 
 Heart on his chest-bones, beating, bursting, 
 The hounds were gaining like spotted pards 
 And the wood-hedge still was a hundred yards.
 
 74 MODERN VERSE 
 
 The wood hedge black was a two year, quick 
 Cut-and-laid that had sprouted thick 
 Thorns all over, and strongly plied, 
 "With a clean red ditch on the take-off side. 
 
 He saw it now as a redness, topped 
 
 With a wattle of thorn-work spiky cropped, 
 
 Spiky to leap on, stiff to force, 
 
 No safe jump for a failing horse, 
 
 But beyond it, darkness of yews together, 
 
 Dark green plumes over soft brown feather, 
 
 Darkness of w r oods where scents were blowing 
 
 Strange scents, hot scents, of wild things going. 
 
 Scents that might draw these hounds away. 
 
 So he ran, ran, ran to that clean red clay. 
 
 Still, as he ran, his pads slipped back, 
 All his strength seemed to draw the pack, 
 The trees drew over him dark like Norus, 
 He was over the ditch and at the thorns. 
 
 He thrust at the thorns, which would not yield. 
 He leaped, but fell, in sight of the field, 
 The hounds went wild as they saw him fall, 
 The fence stood stiff like a Buck's flint wall. 
 
 He gathered himself for a new attempt, 
 His life before was an old dream dreamt, 
 All that he was was a blown fox quaking, 
 Jumping at thorns too stiff for breaking, 
 "While over the grass in crowd, in cry, 
 Came the grip teeth grinning to make him die, 
 The eyes intense, dull, smoldering red. 
 The fell like a ruff round each keen head,
 
 THE COUNTRY 75 
 
 The pace like fire, and scarlet men 
 Galloping, yelling, "Yooi, eat him, then." 
 He gathered himself, he leaped, he reached 
 The top of the hedge like a fish-boat beached. 
 He steadied a second and then leaped down 
 To the dark of the wood where bright things drown. 
 
 John Masefield 
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 
 
 There he moved, cropping the grass at the purple canyon's 
 
 lip. 
 His mane was mixed with the moonlight that silvered 
 
 his snow-white side, 
 For the moon sailed out of a cloud with the wake of a spectral 
 
 ship. 
 
 I crouched and I crawled on my belly, my lariat coil looped 
 wide. 
 
 Dimly and dark the mesas broke on the starry sky. 
 
 A pall covered every color of their gorgeous glory at noon. 
 I smelt the yucca and mesquite, and stifled my heart's quick 
 
 cry, 
 
 And wormed and crawled on my belly to where he moved 
 against the moon ! 
 
 Some Moorish barb was that mustang's sire. His lines were 
 
 beyond all wonder. 
 
 From the prick of his ears to the flow of his tail he ached in 
 my throat and eyes
 
 76 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Steel and velvet grace! As the prophet says, God had 
 
 "clothed his neck with thunder". 
 
 Oh, marvelous with the drifting cloud he drifted across the- 
 skies ! 
 
 And then I was near at hand crouched, and balanced, and 
 
 cast the coil ; 
 And the moon was smothered in cloud, and the rope 
 
 through my hands with a rip ! 
 But somehow I gripped and clung, with the blood in my brain 
 
 aboil, 
 
 With a turn round the rugged tree-stump there on the 
 purple canyon's lip. 
 
 Right into the stars he reared aloft, his red eye rolling and 
 
 raging. 
 He whirled and sunfished and lashed, and rocked the earth 
 
 to thunder and flame. 
 He squealed like a regular devil horse. I was haggard and 
 
 spent and aging 
 
 Roped clean, but almost storming clear, his fury too fierce 
 to tame. 
 
 And I cursed myself for a tenderfoot moon-dazzled to play 
 
 the part, 
 But I was doubly desperate then, with the posse pulled out 
 
 from town, 
 Or I 'd never have tried it. I only knew I must get a mount 
 
 and a start. 
 The filly had snapped her foreleg short. I had had to shoot 
 
 her down. 
 
 So there he struggled and strangled, and I snubbed him 
 
 around the tree. 
 Nearer, a little nearer hoofs planted, and lolling tongue
 
 THE COUNTRY 77 
 
 Till a sudden slack pitched me backward. He reared right 
 
 on top of me. 
 
 Mother of God that moment! He missed me ... and 
 up I swung. 
 
 Somehow, gone daft completely and clawing a bunc-b of his 
 
 mane, 
 As lie stumbled and tripped in the lariat, there 1 was up 
 
 and astride. 
 And cursing for seven counties! And the mustang? Just 
 
 insane! 
 
 Crack-bang ! went the rope ; we cannoned off the tree then 
 gods, that ride! 
 
 A rocket that's all, a rocket! I dug with my teeth and 
 
 nails. 
 Why, we never hit even the high spots (though I hardly 
 
 remember things), 
 But I heard a monstrous booming like a thunder of flapping 
 
 sails 
 
 When he spread well, call me a liar! when he spread 
 those wings, those wings ! 
 
 So white that my eyes were blinded, thick-feathered and 
 
 wide unfurled 
 They beat the air into billows. We sailed, and the earth 
 
 was gone. 
 
 Canyon and desert and mesa withered below, with the world. 
 And then I knew that mustang; for I was Bellerophon ! 
 
 Yes, glad as the Greek, and mounted on a horse of the elder 
 
 gods, 
 With never a magic bridle or a fountain-mirror nigh!
 
 78 MODERN VERSE 
 
 My chaps and spurs and holster must have looked it? What's 
 
 the odds ? 
 I'd a leg over lightning and thunder, careering across the 
 
 sky! 
 
 And forever streaming before me, fanning my forehead cool, 
 
 Flowed a mane of molten silver; and just before my thighs 
 
 (As I gripped his velvet-muscled ribs, while I cursed 
 
 myself for a fool), 
 
 The steady pulse of those pinions their wonderful fall and 
 rise! 
 
 The bandanna I bought in Bowie blew loose and whipped 
 
 from my neck. 
 My shirt was stuck to my shoulders and ribboning out 
 
 behind. 
 The stars were dancing, wheeling and glancing, dipping with 
 
 smirk and beck. 
 
 The clouds were flowing, dusking and glowing. We rode a 
 roaring wind. 
 
 We soared through the silver starlight to knock at the planets' 
 
 gates. 
 
 New shimmering constellations came whirling into our ken. 
 Red stars and green and golden swung out of the void that 
 
 waits 
 
 For man's great last adventure; the Signs took shape 
 and then 
 
 I knew the lines of that Centaur the moment I saw him come ! 
 The musical-box of the heavens all around us rolled to a 
 
 tune 
 That tinkled and chimed and trilled with silver sounds that 
 
 struck you dumb, 
 
 As if some archangel were grinding out the music of the 
 moon.
 
 THE COUNTRY 79 
 
 Melody-drunk on the Milky Way, as we swept and soared 
 
 hilarious, 
 Full in our pathway, sudden he stood the Centaur of the 
 
 Stars, 
 Flashing from head and hoofs and breast ! I knew him for 
 
 Sagittarius. 
 
 He reared and bent and drew his bow. He crouched as 
 a boxer spars. 
 
 Flung back on his haunches, weird he loomed then leapt 
 
 and the dim void lightened. 
 Old White Wings shied and swerved aside, and fled from 
 
 the splendor-shod. 
 Through a flashing welter of worlds we charged. I knew 
 
 why my horse was frightened. 
 
 He had two faces a dog's and a man's that Babylonian 
 god! 
 
 Also, he followed us real as fear. Ping ! went an arrow past. 
 My broncho buck-jumped, humping high. We plunged 
 
 ... I guess that's all! 
 I lay on the purple canyon's lip, when I opened my eyes at 
 
 last 
 
 Stiff and sore and my head like a drum, but I broke no 
 bones in the fall. 
 
 So you know and now you may string me up. Such was 
 
 the way you caught me. 
 Thank you for letting me tell it straight, though you never 
 
 could greatly care. 
 For I took a horse that wasn't mine! . . . But there's one 
 
 the heavens brought me, 
 
 And I'll hang right happy, because I know he is waiting 
 for me up there.
 
 80 MODERN VERSE 
 
 From creamy muzzle to cannon-bone, by God, he's a peerless 
 
 wonder ! 
 He is steel and velvet and furnace-fire, and death's su- 
 
 premest prize; 
 And never again shall be roped on earth that neck that is 
 
 "clothed with thunder" . . . 
 
 String me up, Dave ! Go dig my grave ! / rode him across 
 the skies! 
 
 William Rose Benet
 
 WAR
 
 THE EETUEN * 
 
 He went, and he was gay to go ; 
 And I smiled on him as he went. 
 My son 'twas well he couldn't know 
 My darkest dread, nor what it meant 
 
 Just what it meant to smile and smile 
 And let my son go cheerily 
 My son . . . and wondering all the while 
 What stranger would come back to me. 
 
 Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 
 
 THE KOAD OF THE REFUGEES * 
 
 Listen to the tramping ! Oh, God of pity, listen ! 
 
 Can we kneel at prayer, sleep all unmolested, 
 While the echo thunders? God of pity, listen! 
 
 Can we think of prayer or sleep so arrested? 
 
 Million upon million fleeing feet in passing 
 
 Trample down our prayers trample down our sleeping; 
 
 How the patient roads groan beneath the massing 
 Of the feet in going, bleeding, running, creeping! 
 
 * From Collected Poems, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Used by special 
 permission of The Macinillan Company, publishers. 
 
 * From The Sad Years, by Dora Sigerson. copyright, 1918, George H. 
 Doran Company, publishers. 
 
 83
 
 84 
 
 Clank of iron shoe, unshod hooves of cattle, 
 
 Pad of roaming hound, creak of wheel in turning, 
 
 Clank of dragging chain, harness ring and rattle, 
 Groan of breaking beam, crash of roof-tree burning. 
 
 Listen to the tramping! God of love and pity! 
 
 Million upon million fleeing feet in passing 
 Driven by the war out of field and city, 
 
 How the sullen road echoes to the massing! 
 
 Little feet of children, running, leaping, lagging, 
 Toiling feet of women, wounded, weary guiding, 
 
 Slow feet of the aged, stumbling, halting, flagging. 
 Strong feet of the men loud in passion striding. 
 
 Hear the lost feet straying, from the roadw r ay slipping 
 They will walk no longer in this march appalling; 
 
 Hear the sound of rain dripping, dripping, diipping, 
 Is it rain or tears? What, God, is falling? 
 
 Hear the flying feet! Lord of love and pity! 
 
 Crushing down our prayers, tramping down our sleeping, 
 Driven by the war out of field and city, 
 
 Million upon million, running, bleeding, creeping. 
 
 Dora Sigerson 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT * 
 
 Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It 
 stops a moment on the carved head of Saint John, then 
 
 * From Men, Women, and Ghosts, by Amy Lowell. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 WAR 85 
 
 slides on again, slipping and trickling over his stone cloak. 
 It splashes from the lead conduit of a gargoyle, and falls 
 from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square. 
 "Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep 
 about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the 
 rain. Boom, again ! After it, only water rushing in the 
 gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle. 
 Silence. Eipples and mutters. Boom! 
 
 The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about 
 from the firelight. The lusters of the chandelier are bright, 
 and clusters of rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the 
 etagcre. Her hands are restless, but the white masses of her 
 hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to torture, 
 this iteration ! Boom ! The vibration shatters a glass on the 
 etagcre. It lies there, formless and glowing, with all its crim- 
 son gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. 
 A th ; n hell -note pricks through the silence. A door creaks. 
 The old lady speaks : "Victor, clear away that broken glass." 
 "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one 
 hundred years ago my father brought it Boom ! The 
 room shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and 
 breaks. Boom ! 
 
 It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, 
 and he is shut within its clash and murmur. Inside is his 
 Candle, his table, his ink, his pen, and his dreams. He is 
 thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams of sunshine, 
 slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up 
 at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin 
 he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A 
 wind-harp in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words 
 blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers 
 of fire, higher and higher. Boom ! The flame-flowers snap
 
 86 MODERN VERSE 
 
 on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long broken 
 spears of dishevelled water and flattens into the earth. Boom ! 
 And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the 
 sliding rain. Again, Boom ! Boom ! Boom ! He stuffs his 
 fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in fright. 
 Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom! 
 Boom! 
 
 A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. 
 What has made the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? 
 I am awake." "Hush, my darling, I am here." "But, 
 Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." 
 Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! 
 "Where is Father? I am so afraid. 1 '" Boom! The child 
 sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. Boom ! 
 
 Retorts, globes, tubes and phials lie shattered. All his 
 trials oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, 
 lonely, urgent, goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in 
 a ruined laboratory, that is his story. Boom! Gloom and 
 ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Disease like snakes 
 crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from 
 people burying their dead. Through the window, he can see 
 the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, 
 and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, 
 behind the lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved 
 tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from 
 the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, and aureoles 
 him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the 
 ram. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet 
 night. 
 
 Boom t The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it 
 begin to scorch. Boom ! The bohemian glass on the etagere
 
 WAR 87 
 
 is no longer there. Boom! A stalk of flame sways against 
 the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot walk. She 
 watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom! Boom! 
 Boom ! 
 
 The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in 
 a sheet of silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered 
 with scarlet beads. The city burns. Quivering, spearing, 
 thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames. Over roofs and 
 walls and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on the sky, 
 the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and 
 chuckles along the floors. 
 
 The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled 
 flower flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame 
 creep along the ceiling beams. 
 
 The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks 
 at the burning Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with 
 people. They seek shelter and crowd into the cellar. They 
 shout and call, and over all, slowly and without force, the 
 rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes 
 down among the people. Boom ! Boom, again ! The water 
 rushes along the gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom ! 
 
 Amy Lowell 
 
 THE OLD HOUSES OF FLANDERS 
 
 The old houses of Flanders, 
 
 They watch by the high cathedrals ;
 
 88 MODERN VERSE 
 
 They overtop the high town-halls ; 
 
 They have eyes, mournful, tolerant, and sardonic, for the 
 
 ways of men 
 In the high, white, tiled gables. 
 
 The rain and the night have settled down on Flanders; 
 It is all wet darkness; you can see nothing. 
 
 Then those old eyes, mournful, tolerant, and sardonic, 
 Look at great, sudden, red lights, 
 Look upon the shades of the cathedrals; 
 And the golden rods of the illuminated rain, 
 For a second . . . 
 
 And those old eyes, 
 
 Very old eyes that have watched the ways of men for man} 
 
 generations, 
 Close forever. 
 
 The high, white shoulders of the gables 
 Slouch together for a consultation, 
 
 Slant drunkenly over in the lee of the flaming cathedrals. 
 They are no more, the old houses of Flanders. 
 
 Ford Madox Hueffer 
 
 RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 1914 
 
 A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells, 
 And poured them molten from thy tragic towers; 
 Now are the windows dust that were thy flowers 
 Patterned like frost, petaled like asphodels. 
 Gone are the angels and the archangels.
 
 WAR 89 
 
 The saints, the little lamb above thy door, 
 The shepherd Christ ! They are not, any more, 
 Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells. 
 But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom 
 That old divine insistence of the sea, 
 When music flows along the sculptured stone 
 In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom 
 Like faithful sunset, warm immortally! 
 Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone ! 
 
 Grace Hazard Conkling 
 
 (14th November 1914) 
 
 Lest the young soldiers be strange in Heaven, 
 
 God bids the old soldier they all adored 
 Come to Him and wait for them, clean, new-shriven, 
 
 A happy door-keeper in the House of the Lord. 
 
 Lest it abash them, the great new splendor, 
 Lest they affright them, the new robes clean, 
 
 God sets an old face there, long-tried and tender, 
 A word and a hand-clasp as they troop in. 
 
 My boys! he welcomes them and Heaven is homely; 
 
 He, their great Captain in days gone o'er. 
 Dear is the face of a friend, honest and comely, 
 
 As they come home from the war and he at the door. 
 
 Katherine Tynan
 
 9(v MODERN VERSE 
 
 FUNK 
 
 When your marrer bone seems 'oiler, 
 
 And you're glad you ain't no taller, 
 
 And you're all a-shakin' like you 'ad the chills; 
 
 When your skin creeps like a pullet's, 
 
 And you're duckin' all the bullets, 
 
 And you're green as gorgonzola round the gills 
 
 When your legs seem made of jelly, 
 
 And you're squeamish in the belly, 
 
 And you want to turn about and do a bunk : 
 
 For Gawd's sake, kid, don't show it! 
 
 Don't let your mateys know it 
 
 You 're just sufferin ' from funk, funk, funk. 
 
 Of course there's no denyin' 
 
 That it ain't so easy tryin' 
 
 To grin and grip your rifle by the butt, 
 
 When the 'ole world rips asunder, 
 
 And you sees your pal go under, 
 
 As a bunch of shrapnel sprays 'im on the nut r 
 
 I admit it's 'ard contrivin' 
 
 When you 'ears the shells arrivin', 
 
 To discover you're a bloomin' bit o' spunk; 
 
 But my lad, you've got to do it, 
 
 And your God will see you through it, 
 
 For wot 'E 'ates is funk, funk, funk. 
 
 So stand up, son; look gritty, 
 And just 'um a lively ditty, 
 And only be afraid to be afraid ; 
 Just 'old yer rifle steady,
 
 WAR 91 
 
 And 'ave yer bay 'nit ready, 
 
 For that 's the way good soldier-men is made. 
 
 And if you 'as to die, 
 
 As it sometimes 'appens, why, 
 
 Far better die a 'ero than a skunk; 
 
 A-doin' of yer bit, 
 
 And so to 'ell with it, 
 
 There ain't no bloomin' funk, funk, funk. 
 
 Robert W. Service 
 
 THE DEVOUT HIGHLANDER * 
 
 Listen, laddies: Gin ye go into the battle, be devout; 
 Dinna trust to thews an' sinews or yer sin wull find ye out; 
 Dinna think yoursel' omnipotent gie Providence His due 
 An' then fight fer a' yer worth because the Lord expects ye to. 
 
 An' ye maun pray, pray, 
 Lord defend the right; 
 
 Pray, pray, 
 
 Before ye start to fight ; 
 Dinna waver at a trifle 
 (Use the butt-end o' yer rifle). 
 
 Ask the Lord to gie ye strength wherewith to smite, 
 smite, smite, 
 
 AN' PIT YER BACK INTO IT, LADDIE, GIN YE SMITE! 
 
 * From Songs of the Shrapnel Shell, by Captain Cyril Morton Home 
 Copyright, 1916, 1918, by Harper & Brothers.
 
 92 MODERN VERSE 
 
 II 
 
 When the Germans came upon us, said me mither ''Donald, 
 
 Boy, 
 
 Ye '11 no look upon this fightin' as a pastime or a joy." 
 Sez I "Mither, I'm for prayin' an' for fightin' I am loath, 
 But the Lord Almighty wills it that I'll do a bit o' both!" 
 
 But ye maun pray, pray etc. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I remember out at Wipers I obsarved a German lad 
 Takkin' pot shots at our snipers but his aim was awfu' bad 
 So I prayed the Lord to help me, found the range and drew 
 
 a bead, 
 An' the Lord was verra kind because the German laddie's 
 
 de'ed. 
 
 So ye maun pray, pray etc. 
 
 IV 
 
 There was muckle lusty fightin' round the Yser River banks, 
 An' the German dum-dum bullets caused confusion i' the 
 
 ranks ; 
 It was ihen, through force o' circumstance (as feyther used 
 
 to say) 
 I felt justified i' feeling I had rayther fight than pray! 
 
 But ye maun pray, pray etc.
 
 WAE 93 
 
 V 
 
 At La Bassey I was singled while we wallowed i' the mud 
 By a German unbeliever who was thirst in' for me blood, 
 So I turned before retreatin' frae the trench, an' made a stand 
 An' I pierced him thro' the stomach as the Lord had fully 
 planned. 
 
 So ye maun pray, pray etc. 
 
 VI 
 
 This is no a lecture, laddies ; ye can only do yer best- 
 Draw a bead an' pull the trigger, an' the Lord \vull do 
 
 the rest. 
 
 Ye maun simply try to follow out the teachin' c' the church, 
 An' since the Lord is on yer side ye mauna leave Him i' the 
 
 lurch . 
 
 But ye maun pray, pray, 
 Lord defend the right; 
 
 Pray, pray, 
 
 Before ye start to fight ; 
 Dinna waver at a trifle 
 (Use the butt-end o' yer rifle). 
 
 Ask the Lord to gie ye strength wherewith to smite, 
 smite, smite, 
 
 AN' PIT YER BACK INTO IT, LADDIE, GIX YE SMITE! 
 
 Cyril Morton Home
 
 94 
 
 THE SPIRES OF OXFORD * 
 (Seen from a Train) 
 
 I saw the spires of Oxford 
 
 As I was passing by, 
 The gray spires of Oxford 
 
 Against a pearl-gray sky , 
 My heart was with the Oxford men 
 
 "Who went abroad to die. 
 
 The years go fast in Oxford, 
 
 The golden years and gay; 
 The hoary colleges look down 
 
 On careless boys at play, 
 But when the bugles sounded War! 
 
 They put their games away. 
 
 They left the peaceful river, 
 
 The cricket field, the quad, 
 The shaven lawns of Oxford 
 
 To seek a bloody sod. 
 They gave their merry youth away 
 
 For country and for God. 
 
 God rest you, happy gentlemen, 
 Who laid your good lives down, 
 
 Who took the khaki and the gun 
 Instead of cap and gown. 
 
 God bring you to a fairer place 
 Than even Oxford town. 
 
 W. M. Letts 
 
 * Taken by permission from The Spires of Oxford, by Winifred M, 
 Letts, copyrighted by E. P. Button & Co., New York,
 
 WAR 95 
 
 THE SOLDIER 
 
 If I should die, think only this of me : 
 
 That there's some corner of a foreign field 
 That is forever England. There shall be 
 
 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; 
 A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, 
 
 Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, 
 A body of England's, breathing English air, 
 
 Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 
 
 And think, this heart, all evil shed away, 
 A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 
 
 Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given 
 Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her day ; 
 And laughter, learnt of friends ; and gentleness, 
 In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 
 
 Rupert Brooke 
 
 I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH 
 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 At some disputed barricade, 
 "When Spring comes back with rustling shade 
 And apple-blossoms fill the air 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 When Spring brings back blue days and fair. 
 
 It may be he shall take my hand 
 And lead me into His dark land
 
 96 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And close my eyes and quench my breath- 
 It may be I shall pass him still. 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 On some scarred slope of battered hil^ 
 When Spring comes round again this year 
 And the first meadow-flowers appear. 
 
 God knows 'twere better to be deep 
 Pillowed in silk and scented down, 
 Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, 
 Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, 
 Where hushed awakenings are dear . . . 
 But I've a rendezvous with Death 
 At midnight in some flaming town, 
 When Spring trips north again this year, 
 And I to my pledged word am true, 
 I shall not fail that rendezvous. 
 
 Alan Seeger 
 
 IN FLANDERS FIELDS * 
 
 In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
 
 Between the crosses, row on row, 
 That mark our place ; and in the sky 
 The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
 
 Scarce heard amid the guns below. 
 
 We are the Dead. Short days ago 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
 
 * From In Flanders Fields, by John Me Crae. Courtesy of G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, Publishers, New York and London.
 
 WAR 
 
 Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
 
 In Flanders fields. 
 Take up our quarrel with the foe : 
 To you from failing hands we throw 
 The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
 If ye break faith with us who die 
 "We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 John McCrae 
 
 THE DEAD TO THE LIVING 
 
 O you that still have rain and sun, 
 Kisses of children and of wife, 
 And the good earth to tread upon, 
 And the mere sweetness that is life, 
 Forget not us, who gave all these 
 For something dearer, and for you. 
 Think in what cause we crossed the seas'. 
 Remember, he who fails the Challenge 
 Fails us, too. 
 
 Now in the hour that shows the strong 
 The soul no evil powers affray 
 Drive straight against embattled wrong! 
 Faith knows but one, the hardest, way. 
 Endure; the end is worth the throe, 
 Give, give, and dare; and again dare! 
 On, to that Wrong's great overthrow. 
 We are with you, of you ; we the pain 
 And victory share. 
 
 Laurence Binyon
 
 MODERN VERSE 
 
 COUNTER-ATTACK * 
 
 We'd gained our first objective hours before 
 While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, 
 Pallid, unshaven and thirsty, blind with smoke, 
 Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, 
 With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, 
 And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. 
 
 The place was rotten with dead ; green clumsy legs 
 High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps; 
 And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud, 
 Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; 
 And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, 
 Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime. 
 And then the rain began, the jolly old rain! 
 
 A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, 
 Staring across the morning blear with fog ; 
 He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; 
 And then, of course, they started with five-nines 
 Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. 
 Mute in the clamor of shells he watched them burst 
 Spouting dark earth and wire gusts from hell, 
 While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. 
 He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, 
 Sick for escape, loathing the strangled horror 
 And butcheied, frantic gestures of the dead. 
 
 Taken by permission from Counter-Attack, by Siegfried Sassoor. 
 copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.
 
 WAR 99 
 
 An officer came blundering down the trench: 
 "Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went . . . 
 Gasping and bawling. "Fire-step . . . counter-attack!" 
 
 Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right 
 
 Down the old sap : machine-guns on the left ; 
 
 And stumbling figures looming out in front. 
 
 "0 Christ, they're coming at us !" Bullets spat, 
 
 And he remembered his rifle . . . rapid fire . . . 
 And started blazing wildly . . . then a bang 
 Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out 
 To grunt and wriggle : none heeded him ; he choked 
 And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, 
 Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans . . . 
 Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, 
 Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed. 
 
 Siegfried Sassoon 
 
 NOON* 
 
 (i FROM "BATTLE") 
 
 It is midday : the deep trench glares . . . 
 A buzz and blaze of flies. . . . 
 The hot wind puffs the giddy airs. . . . 
 The great sun rakes the skies. 
 
 No sound in all the stagnant trench 
 Where forty standing men 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Ardours and Endurances, by Roben 
 Nichols. Copyright, 191 7 Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 100 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Endure the sweat and grit and stench, 
 Like cattle in a pen. 
 
 Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs 
 Or twangs the whining wire ; 
 Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs 
 As in hell's frying fire. 
 
 From out a high cool cloud descends 
 
 An aeroplane's far moan. . . . 
 
 The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends . <. ,- 
 
 The black speck travels on. 
 
 And sweating, dizzied, isolate 
 
 In the hot trench beneath, 
 
 We bide the next shrewd move of fate 
 
 Be it of life or death. 
 
 Robert Nichols 
 
 TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR FOB 
 THE FOURTH TIME 
 
 It doesn't matter what's the cause 
 
 What wrong they say we're righting, 
 A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, 
 
 When we're to do the fighting! 
 And since we lads are proud and true, 
 
 What else remains to do ? 
 Lucasta, when to France your man 
 Returns his fourth time, hating war, 
 Yet laughs as calmly as he can 
 
 And flings an oath, but says no more,
 
 WAR 101 
 
 That is not courage, that 's not fear 
 Lucasta, he's a Fusilier, 
 
 And his pride keeps him here. 
 
 Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray, 
 
 And so decide who started 
 This bloody war, and who's to pay, 
 
 But he must be stout-hearted, 
 Make sit and stake with quiet breath, 
 
 Playing at cards with Death. 
 Don't plume yourself he fights for you; 
 It is no courage, love or hate, 
 But let us do the things we do ; 
 
 It's pride that makes the heart be great; 
 It is not anger, no, nor fear 
 Lucasta, he's a Fusilier, 
 
 And his pride keeps him here. 
 
 Robert Graves 
 
 EETREAT * 
 
 Broken, bewildered by the long retreat 
 Across the stifling leagues of Southern p'ain. 
 Across the scorching leagues of trampled grain, 
 Half-stunned, half-blinded by the trudge of feet 
 And dusty smother of the August heat, 
 He dreamt of flowers in an English lane, 
 Of hedgerow flowers glistening after rain 
 All-heal and willowherb and meadowsweet. 
 
 * From Collected Poems, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 102 MODERN VERSE 
 
 All-heal and willowherb and meadowsweet 
 The innocent names kept up a cool refrain, 
 All-heal and willowherb and meadowsweet, 
 Chiming and tinkling through his aching brain 
 Until he babbled as a child again 
 "All-heal and willowherb and meadowsweet." 
 
 Wilfrid W. Gibson 
 
 NIGHT IN MESOPOTAMIA 
 
 A quiver in the hot and breathless air 
 
 Like the faint frou-frou of a woman's dress. 
 
 The restless sleepers turn, their bodies bare 
 
 To this babe spirit of the wilderness 
 
 Whose frail, yet welcome hands damp brows caress 
 
 Bringer of blessed sleep dispelling care 
 
 Until the pipings of the dawn express 
 
 Another day of blistering heat and glare. 
 
 There, out beneath the open starlit dome 
 
 Come dreams that bloom and fade like fragile flowers, 
 
 To some, the simple cries of hearth and home, 
 
 To others, memories of gilded hours; 
 
 Mayhap the fragrance of some Beauty's bowers, 
 
 Far out of reach to wandering souls who roam. 
 
 A. J. E. Dawson
 
 WAR 103 
 
 DOES IT MATTER?* 
 
 Does it matter? losing your leg? . . . 
 For people will always be kind, 
 And you need not show that you mind 
 When the others come in after hunting 
 To gobble their muffins and eggs. 
 
 Does it matter? losing your sight? . . . 
 There's such splendid work for the blind; 
 And people will always be kind, 
 As you sit on the terrace remembering 
 And turning your face to the light. 
 
 Do they matter? those dreams from the pit? . . . 
 
 You can drink and forget and be glad, 
 
 And people won't say that you're mad; 
 
 For they'll know that you've fought for your country, 
 
 And no one will worry a bit. 
 
 Siegfried Sassoon 
 
 THE DAWN PATROL 
 
 Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea, 
 Where, underneath, the restless waters flow 
 
 Silver, and cold, and slow. 
 Dim in the East there burns a new-born sun 
 Whose rosy gleams along the ripples run. 
 
 Save where the mist droops low, 
 Hiding the level loneliness from me. 
 
 * Taken by permission from Counter- Attack, by Siegfried Sassoon, 
 copyrighted by E. P. Button & Co., New York.
 
 10 4 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And now appears beneath the milk-white haze 
 A little fleet of anchored ships, which lie 
 
 In clustered company, 
 
 And seem as they are yet fast bound by sleep 
 Although the day has long begun to peep, 
 
 "With red-inflamed eye, 
 Along the still, deserted ocean ways. 
 
 The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face 
 As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly, 
 
 And watch the seas glide by. 
 Scarce human seem I, moving through the skies, 
 And far removed from warlike enterprise 
 
 Like some great gull on high 
 Whose white and gleaming wings beat on through space 
 
 Then do I feel with God quite, quite alone 
 High in the virgin morn, so white and still 
 
 And free from human ill : 
 
 My prayers transcend my feeble earth -bound plaints- 
 As though I sang among the happy Saints 
 
 With many a holy thrill 
 As though the glowing sun were God's bright Throne. 
 
 My flight is done. I cross the line of foam 
 That breaks around a town of gray and red, 
 
 Whose streets and squares lie dead 
 Beneath the silent dawn then am I proud 
 That England's peace to guard I am allowed; 
 
 Then bow my humble head 
 In thanks to Him Who brings me safely home. 
 
 Paul Bewsher, R. N. A. S., D. S. C. 
 LUXEUIL-LES-BAINS, 1917
 
 WAR 105 
 
 AN OPEN BOAT * 
 
 what is that whimpering there in the darkness? 
 "Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, 1 know. 
 Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck." 
 
 "The sea's rising. 
 The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go." 
 
 gee quick by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses, 
 The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat, 
 
 And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover 
 And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat. 
 
 "Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I fed his heart beating. 
 
 He's living,! know. But he's numbed with the cold. 
 Sec, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him." 
 
 "No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Conic, loosen your 
 hold. 
 
 "Come. Loosen your fingers." "0 God, let me keep him!" 
 0, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way! 
 
 For there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness, 
 To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day. 
 
 Alfred Noyes 
 
 ADMIRAL DUGOUT * 
 
 He had done with fleets and squadrons, with the restless, 
 
 roaming seas, 
 He had found the quiet haven he desired, 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from The ~Sew Morning, by Alfred Noyes. 
 Copyright, 1919, Frederick A. Stokes Company. 
 
 * From Small Craft, by C. Fox Smith, copyright 1919, George H. 
 Doran Company, publishers.
 
 106 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And he lay there to his moorings with the dignity and ease 
 
 Most becoming to Rear-Admirals (retired). 
 He was reared 'mid "spit and polish," he was bred to 
 "stick and string" 
 
 All the things the ultra-moderns never name; 
 But a wind blew up to seaward, and it meant the Real Thing, 
 
 And he had to slip his cable when it came. 
 
 i 
 
 So he hied him up to London, for to hang about Whitehall, 
 
 And he sat upon the steps there soon and late ; 
 He importuned night and morning, he bombarded great and 
 small, 
 
 From messengers to Ministers of State. 
 He was like a guilty conscience, he was like a ghost unlaid, 
 
 He was like a debt of which you can 't get rid, 
 Till the Powers that Be, despairing, in a fit of temper said, 
 
 "For the Lord's sake give him something" and they did! 
 
 They commissioned him a trawler with a high and raking 
 bow, 
 
 Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft, 
 With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row, 
 
 And a brace of little barkers fore and aft. 
 And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the Noi'th 
 Sea sprays, 
 
 And exceedingly extolled his lucky star, 
 That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days, 
 
 (With the rank of Captain Dugout, R.N.R.) 
 
 He is jolly as a sandboy, he is happier than a king, 
 
 And his trawler is the darling of his heart, 
 (With her cuddy like a cupboard where a kitten couldn't 
 swing.
 
 WAR 107 
 
 And a scent of fish that simply won't depart). 
 He has found upon occasion sundry targets for his guns, 
 
 He could tell you tales of mine and submarine; 
 Oh, the holes he's in and out of, and the glorious risks he runs 
 
 Turn his son (who's in a Super-Dreadnought) green. 
 
 He is fit as any fiddle, he is hearty, hale and tanned, 
 
 He is proof against the coldest gales that blow, 
 He has never felt so lively since he got his first command, 
 
 (Which is rather more than forty years ago). 
 And of all the joyful picnics of his wild and wandering 
 
 youth, 
 
 Little dust-ups 'tween Taku and Zanzibar, 
 There was none to match the picnic, he declares in sober sooth. 
 That he has as Captain Dugout, R.N.R. 
 
 C. Fox Smith 
 
 "THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" * 
 
 This is the song of the wind as it came 
 
 Tossing the flags of the nations to flame: 
 
 I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. 
 I am Ills Liberty. That is my name. 
 
 So it descended, at night, on the city. 
 So it went lavishing beauty and pity, 
 Lighting the lordliest street of the world 
 With half of the banners that earth has unfurled; 
 Over the lamps that are brighter than stars. 
 Laughing aloud on its way to the wars, 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from The New Morning, by Alfred Nbyes 
 Copyright, 1919, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 108 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Proud as America, sweeping along 
 Death and destruction like notes in a song, 
 Leaping to battle as man to his mate, 
 Joyous as God when lie moved to create, 
 
 Never was voice of a nation so glorious, 
 Glad of its cause and afire with its fate ! 
 Never did eagle on mightier pinion 
 Tower to the height of a brighter dominion, 
 Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame. 
 Calling aloud on the deep as it came, 
 
 Cleave me a ivaij for an army with banners. 
 1 am Els Liberty. That is my name. 
 
 Know you the meaning of all they are doing? 
 Know you the light that their soul is pursuing? 
 Know you the might of the world they are making., 
 This nation of nations whose heart is awaking? 
 What is this mingling of peoples and races? 
 Look at the wonder and joy in their faces! 
 Look how the folds of the union are spreading! 
 Look, for the nations are come to their wedding. 
 How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it? 
 England was born of it. England was made of it, 
 Made of this welding of tribes into one, 
 This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun! 
 Briton and Roman and Saxon were drawn 
 By winds of this Pentecost, out of the dawn, 
 Westward, to make her one people of many; 
 But here is a union more mighty than any. 
 Know you the soul of this deep exultation? 
 Know you the word that goes forth to this nation? 
 
 / am the breath of God. 1 am His Liberty. 
 Let there be light over all His creation.
 
 WAR 109 
 
 Over this Continent, wholly united, 
 They that were foemen in Europe are plighted. 
 Here, in a league that our blindness and pride 
 Doubted and flouted and mocked and denied, 
 Dawns the Republic, the laughing, gigantic 
 Europe, united, beyond the Atlantic, 
 That is America, speaking one tongue, 
 Acting her epics before they are sung, 
 Driving her rails from the palms to the snow, 
 Through States that are greater than Emperors know. 
 Forty-eight States that are empires in might, 
 But ruled by the will of one people to-night, 
 Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel, 
 Merging their strength in the one Commonweal, 
 Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars, 
 Building their cities to talk with the stars. 
 Thriving, increasing by myriads again 
 Till even in numbers old Europe may wane. 
 How shall a son of the England they fought 
 Fail to declare the full pride of his thought. 
 Stand with the scoffers who, year after year, 
 Bring the Republic their half -hidden sneer? 
 Now, as in beauty she stands at our side, 
 Who shall withhold the full gift of his pride? 
 Not the great England who knows that her son, 
 Washington, fought her, and Liberty won. 
 England, whose names like the stars in their station, 
 Stand at the foot of that world's Declaration, 
 Washington, Livingston, Langdon, she claims them. 
 It is her right to be proud when she names them, 
 Proud of that voice in the night as it came, 
 Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:
 
 110 MODERN VERSE 
 
 I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. 
 I am His Liberty. That is my name. 
 
 Flags, in themselves, are but rags that are dyed. 
 Flags, in that wind, are like nations enskied. 
 See, how they grapple the night as it rolls 
 And trample it under like triumphing souls. 
 Over the city that never knew sleep, 
 Look at the riotous folds as they leap. 
 Thousands of tri-colors, laughing for France, 
 Eipple and whisper and thunder and dance; 
 Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame 
 Answer their sisters in Liberty's name. 
 Belgium is burning in pride overhead. 
 Poland is near, and her sunrise is red. 
 Under and over, and fluttering between, 
 Italy burgeons in red, white and green. 
 See, how they climb like adventurous flowers, 
 Over the tops of the terrible towers. . . . 
 There, in the darkness, the glories are mated. 
 There, in the darkness, a world is created. 
 There, in this Pentecost, streaming on high. 
 There, with a glory of stars in the sky. 
 There the broad flag of our union and liberty 
 Rides the proud night-wind and tyrannies die. 
 
 Alfred Noyes 
 
 PRAYER OF A SOLDIER IN FRANCE * 
 
 My shoulders ache beneath my pack 
 (Lie easier, Cross, upon His back). 
 
 * From Joyce Kilmer; Poems, Essays t and letters. Copyright, 1918, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers.
 
 WAR 111 
 
 I march with feet that burn and smart 
 (Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart). 
 
 Men shout at me who may not speak 
 
 (They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek). 
 
 I may not lift a hand to clear 
 
 My eyes of salty drops that sear. 
 
 (Then shall my fickle soul forget 
 Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?) 
 
 My rifle hand is stiff and numb 
 
 (From Thy pierced palm red rivers come). 
 
 Lord, Then didst suffer more for me 
 Than all the hosts of land and sea. 
 
 So let me render back again 
 
 This millionth of Thy gift. Amen. 
 
 Joyce Kilmer 
 
 THE SMALL TOWN CELEBRATES 
 
 We tumbled out into the starry dark 
 Under the cold stars ; still the sirens shrieked, 
 And as we reached the square, two rockets hissed 
 And flowered: they were the only two in town. 
 Down streamed the people, blowing frosty breath 
 Under the lamps the mayor and the marshal, 
 The fire department, members of the band,
 
 112 
 
 Buttoning their clothes with one hand, while the other 
 
 Clutched a cold clarionet or piccolo 
 
 That shivered for its first ecstatic squeal. 
 
 We had no cannon we made anvils serve, 
 
 Just as our fathers did when Sumter fell ; 
 
 And all a little town could do, to show 
 
 That twenty haughty cities heaped together 
 
 Could not be half so proud and glad as we, 
 
 We did. Soon a procession formed itself 
 
 Prosperous and poor, young, old, and staid and gay, 
 
 Every glad soul who'd had the hardihood 
 
 To jump from a warm bed at four o'clock 
 
 Into the starry blackness. Bound the square 
 
 A most unmilitary sight it pranced, 
 
 Straggled and shouted, while the street-lamps blinked 
 
 In sleepy wonder. 
 
 At the very end 
 
 Where the procession dwindled to a tail, 
 Shuffled Old Boozer. From a snorting car 
 But just arrived, a leading citizen 
 Sprang to the pavement. 
 
 "Hallelujah, Boss! 
 "We's whop de Kaiser!" 
 
 "Well, you old black fraud," 
 (The judge's smile was hiding in his beard) 
 "What's he to you?" 
 
 Old Boozer bobbed and blinked 
 Under the lamps; another moment, he 
 Had scrambled to the base about the post, 
 And through the nearer crowd the shout went round, 
 "Listen Old Boozer's going to preach !" 
 
 He raised 
 His tranced eyes. A moment's pause. 
 
 "0 Lawd,
 
 WAR 113 
 
 You heah dis gemman. ax me dat jes' now, 
 
 'What's he to Boozer'? Doan he know, Lawd, 
 
 Dat Kaiser's boot-heel jes' been tinglin' up 
 
 To stomp on Boozer? Doan he know de po', 
 
 De feeble, an' de littlesome toddlin' chile 
 
 Dat scream to Ilebben when he tromp 'em down, 
 
 Hab drug dat Bad Man right down off his throne 
 
 To ebberlastin' torment? Glory, Lawd! 
 
 We done pass through de Red Sea! Glory, Lawd! 
 
 De Lawd done drug de mighty from his seat ! 
 
 He done exalted dem ob low degree! 
 
 He sabe de spark from dem dat stomp it out ! 
 
 He sabe de seed from dem dat tromp it down ! 
 
 He sabe de lebben struggiin' in de lump ! 
 
 He sabe de " 
 
 Cheering, laughing, moving on, 
 With cries of "Go it, Boozer!" the crowd swirled 
 About his perch; but, as I passed, I saw 
 A red-haired boy, who stood, and did not move, 
 But gazed and gazed, as if the old man's words 
 Raised visions. In his shivering arms he held 
 A struggling puppy; once I heard him say, 
 "Down, Wood row!" but he scarcely seemed to know 
 He spoke. The stars paled slowly overhead; 
 The din increased; the crowd surged; but the boy 
 Stood rapt. As I turned back once more, I saw 
 Full morning on his face. And at the end 
 Of our one down-town street, the laughing sun 
 Came shouting up, belated, but most, glad. 
 
 Karle Wilson Baker
 
 114 MODERN VERSE 
 
 CONTINUITY 
 
 No sign is made while empires pass, 
 The flowers and stars are still His care, 
 The constellations hid in grass, 
 The golden miracles in air. 
 
 Life in an instant will be rent, 
 
 Where death is glittering blind and wild 
 
 The Heavenly Brooding is intent 
 
 To that last instant on Its child. 
 
 It breathes the glow in brain and heart, 
 Life is made magical. Until 
 Body and spirit are apart 
 The Everlasting works Its will. 
 
 In that wild orchid that your feet 
 In their next falling shall destroy, 
 Minute and passionate and sweet 
 The Mighty Master holds His joy. 
 
 Though the crushed jewels droop and fade, 
 The Artist's labors will not cease, 
 And of the ruins shall be made 
 Some yet more lovely masterpiece. 
 
 A. E.
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME
 
 BABY PANTOMIME * 
 
 Serene, he sits on other shores 
 
 Than ours : with wide, unconscious lands 
 He holds strange speech, or, silent, pores 
 
 On denizens of viewless strands; 
 On tablets of the air weird scores 
 
 He writes, and makes with eager hands 
 As strange erasements; then, two-fisted, stores 
 
 An elfin hour-glass with heavenly sands. 
 
 Percy MacKaye 
 
 A MAN-CHILD'S LULLABY 
 
 Little groping hands that must learn the weight of labor, 
 
 Little eyes of wonder that must learn to weep ; 
 Mother is thy life now: that shall be to-morrow 
 Time enough for trouble time enough for sorrow 
 Now . . . sleep. 
 
 Little dumb lips that shall wake and make a woman, 
 
 Little blind heart that shall know the worst and best; 
 Mother is thy love now : that shall be hereafter 
 Time enough for joy, and time enough for laughter 
 Now . . . rest. 
 
 Little rosy body, new-born of pain and beauty, 
 Little lonely soul new-risen from the deep ; 
 
 * From The Sistine Eve, by Percy MacKaye. Used by special per- 
 mission of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 
 
 117
 
 118 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Mother is thy world now, whole and satisfying 
 Time enough for living time enough for dying 
 Now . . .sleep. 
 
 Brian Hooker 
 
 JUSTICE * 
 
 Michael, come in! Stop crying at the door. 
 
 Come in and see the evil you have done. 
 
 Here is your sister's doll with one leg gone, 
 Naked and helpless on the playroom floor. 
 ' ' Poor child ! poor child ! now he can never stand. 
 
 "With one leg less he could not even sit!" 
 She mourned, but first, with swift avenging hand. 
 
 She smote, and I am proud of her for it. 
 
 Michael, my sympathies are all for you. 
 
 Your cherub mouth, your miserable eyes, 
 
 Your gray -blue smock tear-spattered and your cries 
 Shatter my heart, but what am I to do? 
 He was her baby and the fear of bears 
 
 Lay heavy on him so he could not sleep 
 But in the crook of her dear arm, she swears. 
 
 So, Michael, she was right and you must weep. 
 
 Aline Kilmer 
 
 * From Candles That Burn, by Aline Kilmer. Copyright, 1919, George 
 H. Doran Company, publishers.
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 119 
 
 SMELLS (JUNIOR) * 
 
 My Daddy smells like tobacco and books 
 
 Mother, like lavender and listerine; 
 Uncle John carries a whiff of cigars, 
 
 Nannie smells starchy and soapy and clean. 
 
 Shandy, my dog, has a smell of his own 
 
 (When he's been out in the rain he smells most) ; 
 But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all 
 
 She smells exactly like hot buttered toast! 
 
 Christopher Morley 
 
 Though others think I stare with eyes unseeing, 
 
 I've loved you, Mistress mine, so dear to me, 
 With all my fervent rag-and-sawdust being 
 
 Since first you took me from the Christmas Tree. 
 I love you though my only frock you tear off; 
 
 I love you though you smear my face at meals ; 
 I love you though you've washed my painted hair off: 
 
 I love you when you drag me by the heels; 
 I love you though you've sewed three buttons on me, 
 
 But most I love you when you sit upon me. 
 
 * From The Rocking Horse, by Christopher Morley. Copyright, 1919, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers. 
 
 * From The Laughing Muse, by Arthur Guiterman. Copyright, 1915, 
 by Harper & Brothers.
 
 120 MODERN VERSE 
 
 No jealous pang shall mar my pure affection ; 
 
 For, while 'tis true your heart I'm forced to share 
 With that Wax Doll of pink-and-white complexion, 
 
 The Pussy Cat, the Lamb and Teddy Bear, 
 'Tis mine alone, whate'er the time or place is, 
 
 To know your every grief and each delight; 
 I feel your childish wrath and warm embraces, 
 
 I share your little pillow every night. 
 And so, without another why or whether, 
 I'll love you while my stitches hold together! 
 
 Arthur Guiterman 
 
 It was awful long ago 
 
 That I put those seeds around; 
 And I guess I ought to know 
 
 When I stuck 'em in the ground, 
 'Cause I noted down the day 
 
 In a little diary book 
 It's gotten losted somewhere, and 
 
 I don't know where to look. 
 
 But I'm certain anyhow 
 
 They've been planted most a week; 
 And it must be time by now 
 
 For their little sprouts to peek. 
 They've been watered every day 
 
 With a very speshul care, 
 And once or twice I 've dug 'em up to 
 
 see if they was there. 
 
 *From Youngsters, published by E. P. Button & Company; by per- 
 mission of the author.
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 121 
 
 I fixed the dirt in humps 
 
 Just the way they said I should ; 
 And I crumbled all the lumps 
 
 Just as finely as I could. 
 And I found a nangle-worm 
 
 A-poking up his head, 
 He maybe feeds on seeds and such, 
 
 and so I squushed him dead. 
 
 A seed's so very small, 
 
 And dirt all looks the same ; 
 How can they know at all 
 
 The way they ought to aim? 
 And so I'm waiting round 
 
 In case of any need ; 
 A farmer ought to do his best for 
 
 every single seed! 
 
 Surges Johnson 
 
 THE DEW-LIGHT * 
 
 The Dew-Man comes over the mountains wide, 
 Over the deserts of sand, 
 With his bag of clear drops 
 And his brush of feathers, 
 
 rHe scatters brightness, 
 
 The white bunnies beg him for dew. 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Poems by a Little Girl, by Hilda 
 Conkling. Copyright, 1920, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 122 MODERN VERSE 
 
 He sprinkles their fur . . . 
 They shake themselves. 
 All the time he is singing, 
 
 The unknown world is beautiful! 
 
 He polishes flowers, 
 
 Humming, "Oh, beautiful!" 
 
 He sings in the soft light 
 
 That grows out of the dew; 
 
 Out of the misty dew-light that leans over him 
 
 He makes his song. 
 
 It is beautiful, the unknown world! 
 
 Hilda Conkling 
 (8 years old) 
 
 THE SHADOW PEOPLE 
 
 Old lame Bridget doesn't hear 
 Fairy music in the grass 
 When the gloaming's on the mere 
 And the shadow people pass: 
 Never hears their slow gray feet 
 Coming from the village street 
 Just beyond the parson's wall, 
 Where the clover globes are sweet 
 And the mushroom's parasol 
 Opens in the moonlit rain. 
 Every night I hear them call ' 
 From their long and merry train. 
 Old lame Bridget says to me, 
 "It is just your fancy, child."
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 123 
 
 She cannot believe I see 
 Laughing faces in the wild, 
 Hands that twinkle in the sedge 
 Bowing at the water's edge 
 Where the finny minnows quiver, 
 Shaping on a blue wave's ledge 
 Bubble foam to sail the river. 
 And the sunny hands to me 
 Beckon ever, beckon ever. 
 Oh ! I would be wild and free 
 And with the shadow people be. 
 
 Francis Ledwidge 
 
 INCORRIGIBLE * 
 
 I guess I 'm bad as I can be 
 
 'Cause after uncle found and yanked me 
 Out of that old apple-tree, 
 
 And after dad came home and spanked me, 
 And while my teacher told me things 
 
 About the narrow path of duty, 
 And how an education brings 
 
 The only truly joy and beauty, 
 And while she said she didn't doubt 
 
 They'd wasted all the good they'd taught me, 
 I had to grin, to think about 
 
 The fun I had before they caught me. 
 
 Surges Johnson 
 
 * From Youngsters, published by E. P. Button & Company ; by per- 
 mission of the author.
 
 MODERN VERSE 
 
 DA YOUNGA 'MERICAN 
 
 I, Mysal ', I f eela strange 
 
 Een dees countra. I can no 
 Mak' mysal' agen an' change 
 
 Eento 'Merican, an' so 
 I am w'at you calla me, 
 
 Justa "dumb ole Dago man." 
 Alia same my boy ees be 
 
 Smarta younga 'Merican. 
 Twalv' year ole ! but alia same 
 
 He ees learna soocha lot 
 He can read an' write hees name 
 
 Smarta keed ? I tal you w 'at ! 
 
 He no talk Italian ; 
 
 He says: "Dat's for Dagoes speak, 
 I am younga 'Merican, 
 
 Dago langwadge mak' me seeck." 
 Eef you gona tal heein, too, 
 
 He ees "leetla Dago," my! 
 
 He ees gat so mad weeth you 
 
 He gon' ponch you een da eye. 
 Mebbe so you gona mak' 
 
 Fool weeth heem an' mebbe not. 
 Queeck as flash he sass you back ; 
 
 Smarta keed ? I tal you w 'at ! 
 
 He ees moocha' 'shame' for be 
 
 Meexa weeth Italian; 
 He ees moocha 'shame' of me 
 
 I am dumb ole Dago man.
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 125 
 
 Evra time w'en I go out 
 
 Weetha heem I no can speak 
 To som'body. "Shut your mout',*' 
 
 He weell tal me pretta queeck, 
 "You weell geeve yoursal' away 
 
 Talkin' Dago lika dat ; 
 Try be 'Merican," he say 
 
 Smarta keed? I tal you w'at! 
 
 I am w'at you calla me, 
 
 Justa "dumb ole Dago man:" 
 Alia same my boy ees be 
 
 Smarta younga 'Merican. 
 
 T. A. Daly 
 
 LITTLE PAN * 
 
 Out on the hill by an autumn-tree 
 
 As red as his cheek in the weather 
 He waved a sumac-torch of glee 
 
 And preened, like a scarlet feather, 
 A branch of maple bright on his breast 
 
 And shook an oak in his cap ; 
 And the dance of his heels on the rocky crest 
 
 Was a woodpecker's tap-tap-tap. 
 
 The eyes of a squirrel were quick in his head 
 
 And the grace of a deer in his shoulder, 
 And never a cardinal beckoned so red 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Grenstone Poems, by Witter Bynner. 
 Copyright, 1917, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 126 MODERN VERSE 
 
 As his torch when he leapt on a boulder; 
 A robin exclaiming he mocked in a voice 
 
 Which hurried the heavens around him. 
 What could we do but attend and rejoice, 
 
 Celia and I who had found him ! 
 
 He spied us at last, though we hid by a pine ; 
 
 And before he might vanish in smoke 
 I tried to induce him to give us a sign, 
 
 But he stopped in his dance when I spoke 
 "0 tell me your name and the hill you inhabit !" 
 
 He curled round his tree like a cat ; 
 "They call me," he cried, as he fled like a rabbit, 
 
 "Donovan's damned little brat!" 
 
 Witter Bynner 
 
 EUFUS PRAYS 
 
 In the darkening church, 
 Where but a few had stayed, 
 At the Litany Desk 
 The idiot knelt and prayed. 
 
 Rufus, stunted, uncouth, 
 The one son of his mother: 
 "Eh, I'd sooner 'ave Rufie," 
 She said, "than many another. 
 
 'E 's so useful about the 'ouse 
 And so gentle as 'e can be 
 And 'e gets up early o' mornin's 
 To make me a cup o' tea."
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 127 
 
 The formal evensong 
 
 Had passed over his head: 
 
 He sucked Ins thumb, and squinted, 
 
 And dreamed, instead. 
 
 Now while the organ boomed 
 To few who still were there, 
 At the Litany Desk 
 The idiot made his prayer : 
 
 "Gawd bless Muther, 
 'N ' make Rufie a good lad. 
 Take Rufie to Heaven, 
 'N' forgive him when he's bad. 
 
 " 'N' early mornin's in Heaven 
 'E '11 make Muther 's tea, 
 'N' a cup for the Lord Jesus 
 'N' a cup for Thee." 
 
 L. A. G. Strong 
 
 AN OLD WOMAN OF THE EOADS 
 
 0, to have a little house ! 
 To own the hearth and stool and all ! 
 The heaped up sods upon the fire, 
 The pile of turf against the wall ! 
 
 To have a clock with weights and chains 
 And pendulum swinging up and down!
 
 128 MODERN VERSE 
 
 A dresser filled with shining delph, 
 Speckled and white and blue and brown ! 
 
 I could be busy all the day 
 
 Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, 
 
 And fixing on their shelf again 
 
 My white and blue and speckled store ! 
 
 I could be quiet there at night 
 Beside the fire and by myself, 
 Sure of a bed and loth to leave 
 The ticking clock and the shining delph. 
 
 Och ! but I 'm weary of mist and dark, 
 
 And roads where there 's never a house nor bush, 
 
 And tired I am of bog and road, 
 
 And the crying wind and the lonesome hush ! 
 
 And I am praying to God on high, 
 And I am praying Him night and day, 
 For a little house a house of my own 
 Out of the wind's and the rain's way. 
 
 Padraic Colum 
 
 THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS 
 
 I am all alone in the room. 
 The evening stretches before me 
 Like a road all delicate gloom 
 Till it readies the midnight's gate. 
 And I hear his step on the path,
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 129 
 
 And his questioning whistle, low 
 At the door as I hurry to meet him. 
 
 He will ask, "Are the doors all locked? 
 Is the fire made safe on the hearth ? 
 And she is she sound asleep?" 
 
 I shall say "Yes, the doors are locked, 
 
 And the ashes are white as the frost: 
 
 Only a few red eyes 
 
 To stare at the empty room. 
 
 And she is all sound asleep, 
 
 Up there where the silence sings, 
 
 And the curtains stir in the cold.' ; 
 
 He will ask, "And what did you do 
 While I have been gone so long? 
 So long ! Four hours or five ! ' ' 
 
 I shall say, "There was nothing I did. 
 
 I mended that sleeve of your coat. 
 
 And I made her a little white hood 
 
 Of the furry pieces I found 
 
 Up in the garret to-day. 
 
 She shall wear it to play in the snow, 
 
 Like a little white bear, and shall laugh, 
 
 And tumble, and crystals of stars 
 
 Shall shine on her cheeks and hair. 
 
 It was nothing I did. I thought 
 
 You would never come home again!" 
 
 Then he will laugh out, low. 
 Being fond of my folly, perhaps; 
 And softly and hand in hand
 
 130 MODERN VERSE 
 
 "We shall creep upstairs in the dusk 
 To look at her, lying asleep: 
 Our little gold bird in her nest: 
 The wonderful bird who flew in 
 At the window our life flung wide. 
 (How should we have chosen her, 
 Had we seen them all in a row, 
 The unborn vague little souls, 
 All wings and tremulous hands? 
 How should we have chosen her, 
 Made like a star to shine, 
 Made like a bird to fly, 
 Out of a drop of our blood, 
 And earth, and fire, and God?) 
 
 Then we shall go to sleep, 
 Glad. 
 
 God, did you know 
 When you molded men out of clay, 
 Urging them up and up 
 Through the endless circles of change, 
 Travail and turmoil and death, 
 Many would curse you down, 
 Many would live all gray 
 With their faces flat like a mask: 
 But there would be some, God, 
 Crying to you each night, 
 "I am so glad! so glad! 
 I am so rich and gay ! 
 How shall I thank you, God?" 
 
 Was that one thing you knew 
 
 When you smiled and found it was good : 
 
 The curious teeming earth
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 131 
 
 That grew like a child at your hand? 
 Ah, you might smile, for that! 
 
 I am all alone in the room. 
 The books and the pictures peer, 
 Dumb old friends, from the dark. 
 The wind goes high on the hills, 
 And my fire leaps out, being proud. 
 The terrier, down on the hearth, 
 Twitches and barks in his sleep, 
 Soft little foolish barks, 
 More like a dream than a dog . . . 
 I will mend the sleeve of that coat, 
 All ragged, and make her the hood 
 Furry, and white, for the snow. 
 She shall tumble and laugh . . . 
 
 Oh, I think 
 
 Though a thousand rivers of grief 
 Flood over my head though a hill 
 Of horror lie on my breast, 
 Something will sing, "Be glad! 
 You have had all your heart's desire : 
 The unknown things that you asked 
 When you lay awake in the nights, 
 Alone, and searching the dark 
 For the secret wonder of life. 
 You have had them (can you forget?) : 
 The ancient beautiful things!" .- . . 
 
 How long he is gone. And yet 
 It is only an hour or two . . .
 
 132 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Oh, I am so happy. My eyes 
 Are troubled with tears. 
 
 Did you know, 
 God, they would like this, 
 Your ancient beautiful things? 
 Are there more? Are there more, out there f- 
 God, are there always more? 
 
 Fannie Stearns Davis 
 
 YOU, FOUR WALLS, WALL NOT IN MY 
 HEART ! 
 
 You, Four Walls, 
 
 Wall not in my heart ! 
 When the lovely night-time falls 
 
 All so welcomely, 
 Blinding, sweet hearth-fire, 
 Light of heart's desire, 
 
 Blind not, blind not me ! 
 Unto them that weep apart, 
 While you glow, within, 
 
 Wreckt, despairing kin, 
 Do not blind my heart ! 
 
 You, close Heart ! 
 
 Never hide from mine 
 Worlds that I divine 
 Through thy human dearness; 
 0, beloved Nearness, 
 Hallow all I understand
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 133 
 
 With thy hand-in-hand; 
 All the lights I seek 
 "With thy cheek-to-cheek. 
 
 All the loveliness I loved apart. 
 
 You, heart's Home! 
 
 Wall not in my heart. 
 
 Josephine Preston Peabody 
 
 MY DOG * 
 
 I have no dog, but it must be 
 
 Somewhere there's one belongs to me 
 
 A little chap with wagging tail, 
 
 And dark brown eyes that never quail, 
 
 But look you through, and through, and through 
 
 With love unspeakable, but true. 
 
 Somewhere it must be, I opine, 
 There is a little dog of mine 
 With cold black nose that sniffs around 
 In search of what things may be found 
 In pocket, or some nook hard by 
 Where I have hid them from his eye. 
 
 Somewhere my doggie pulls and tugs 
 The fringes of rebellious rugs, 
 Or with the mischief of the pup 
 Chews all my shoes and slippers up, 
 And when he's done it to the core 
 With eyes all eager pleads for more. 
 
 * From Foothills of Pa'massus, by John Kendriek Bun^s. Used by 
 special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 134 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Somewhere upon his hinder legs 
 
 My little doggie sits and begs, 
 
 And in a wistful minor tone 
 
 Pleads for the pleasures of the bone 
 
 I pray it be his owner's whim 
 
 To yield, and grant the same to him. 
 
 Somewhere a little dog doth wait, 
 
 It may be by some garden-gate, 
 
 With eyes alert and tail attent 
 
 You know the kind of tail that's meant 
 
 "With stores of yelps of glad delight 
 
 To bid me welcome home at night. 
 
 Somewhere a little dog is seen, 
 His nose two shaggy paws between, 
 Flat on his stomach, one eye shut 
 Held fast in dreamy slumber, but 
 The other open, ready for 
 His master coming through the door. 
 
 John Kendrick Bangs 
 
 IN SERVICE 
 
 Little Nellie Cassidy has got a place in town, 
 
 She wears a fine white apron, 
 
 She wears a new black gown, 
 An' the quarest little cap at all with straymers hanging down 
 
 I met her one fine evening stravagin' down the street, 
 A feathered hat upon her head,
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 135 
 
 And boots upon her feet. 
 
 "Och, Mick," says she, "may God be praised that you and I 
 should meet. 
 
 ' ' It 's lonesome in the city with such a crowd, ' ' says she ; 
 
 "I'm lost without the bog-land, 
 
 I'm lost without the sea, 
 An' the harbor an' the fishing-boats that sail out fine and free. 
 
 "I'd give a golden guinea to stand upon the shore, 
 
 To see the big waves lepping, 
 
 To hear them splash and roar, 
 To smell the tar and the drying nets, I'd not be asking more. 
 
 "To see the small white houses, their faces to the sea, 
 
 The childher in the doorway, 
 
 Or round my mother 's knee ; 
 
 For I'm strange and lonesome missing them, God keep them 
 all," says she. 
 
 Little Nellie Cassidy earns fourteen pounds and more, 
 
 "Waiting on the quality, 
 
 And answering the door 
 
 But her heart is some place far away upon the "Wexford shore. 
 
 W. M. Letts 
 
 MY SWEET BROWN GAL * 
 
 Wen de clouds is hangin' heavy in de sky, 
 An' de win's 's a-taihin' moughty vig'rous by, 
 I don' go a-sighin' all erlong de way; 
 I des' wo'k a-waitin' fu' de close o' day. 
 
 * From Lyrics of Love and Laughter by Paul Laurence Dunbar 
 Copyright by Dodd, Mead & Co.
 
 136 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Case I knows w 'en evenin' draps huh shadders down, 
 I won' care a smidgeon fu' de weathah's frown; 
 Let de rain go splashin', let de thundah rain, 
 Dey's a happy sheltah, an' I's goin' daih. 
 
 Down in my ol' cabin wa'm ez mammy's toas', 
 'Taters in de fiah lay in' daih to roas'; 
 No one daih to cross me, got 110 talkin' pal, 
 But I 's got de comp 'ny o ' my sweet brown gal. 
 
 So I spen's my evenin' listenin' to huh sing, 
 Lak a blessid angel; how huh voice do ring! 
 Sweetah den a bluebird flutter-in' erroun', 
 Wn he sees de steamin' o' de new plowed groun*. 
 
 Den I hugs huh closah, closah to my breas'. 
 Needn't sing, my da lm',tek you' hones' res'. 
 Does I mean Malindy, Mandy, Lize er Sal? 
 No, I means my fiddle dat's my sweet brown gal! 
 l j aul Laurence Duribar 
 
 THE SUNKEN GARDEN 
 
 Speak not whisper not ; 
 Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; 
 Softly on the evening hour, 
 Secret herbs their spices shower, 
 Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh. 
 Lean-stalked, purple lavender; 
 Hides within her bosom, too, 
 All her sorrows, bitter rue.
 
 CHILDREN AND HOME 137 
 
 Breathe not trespass not ; 
 Of this green and darkling spot, 
 Latticed from the moon's beams, 
 Perchance a distant dreamer dreams j 
 Perchance upon its darkening air, 
 The unseen ghosts of children fare, 
 Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, 
 Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep ; 
 While, unmoved, to watch and ward, 
 'Mid its gloomed and daisied sward, 
 Stands with bowed and dewy head 
 That one little leaden Lad. 
 
 Walter de la Mare 
 
 THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT * 
 
 A. black cat among roses, 
 
 Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon, 
 
 The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock c 
 
 The garden is very still, 
 
 It is dazed with moonlight, 
 
 Contented with perfume, 
 
 Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies. 
 
 Firefly lights open and vanish 
 
 High as the tip buds of the golden glow 
 
 Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet. 
 
 Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises, 
 
 ivluon-spikes shafting through the snow-ball bush. 
 
 * From Pictures of the Floating World, by Amy Lowell. Used by spe 
 cial permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 138 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring, 
 
 Only the cat, padding between the roses, 
 
 Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern 
 
 As water is broken by the falling of a leaf. 
 
 Then you come. 
 
 And you are quiet like the garden, 
 
 And white like the alyssum flowers, 
 
 And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies. 
 
 Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies? 
 
 They knew my mother, 
 
 But who belonging to me will they know 
 
 When I am gone. 
 
 Amy Lowell
 
 I loved you for your loving ways, 
 The ways that many did not know; 
 
 Although my heart would beat and glow 
 When Nations crowned you with their bays. 
 
 I loved you for the tender hand 
 That held my own so close and warm, 
 
 t loved you for the winning charm 
 That brought gay sunshine to the land. 
 
 I loved you for the heart that knew 
 
 The need of every little child; 
 I loved you when you turned and smiled, 
 
 It was as though a fresh wind blew. 
 
 I loved you for your loving ways, 
 That look that leaped to meet my eye, 
 
 The ever-ready sympathy, 
 
 The generous ardor of your praise. 
 
 I loved you for the buoyant fun 
 
 That made perpetual holiday 
 For all who ever crossed your way, 
 
 The highest or the humblest one. 
 
 I loved you for the radiant zest, 
 The thrill and glamor that you gave 
 
 To each glad hour that we could save 
 And garner from Time's grim behest. 
 141
 
 142 MODERN VERSE 
 
 I loved you for your loving ways, 
 And just because I loved them so, 
 
 And now have lost them, thus I know 
 I must go softly all my days! 
 
 Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 
 
 A MILE WITH ME 
 
 0, who will walk a mile with me 
 
 Along life's merry way? 
 A comrade blithe and full of glee, 
 Who dares to laugh out loud and free, 
 And let his frolic fancy play, 
 Like a happy child, through the flowers gay 
 That fill the field and fringe the way 
 
 Where he walks a mile with me. 
 
 And who will walk a mile with me 
 
 Along life's weary way? 
 A friend whose heart has eyes to see 
 The stars shine out o'er the darkening lea, 
 And the quiet rest at the end o' the day, 
 A friend who knows, and dares to say, 
 The brave, sweet words that cheer the way 
 When he walks a mile with me. 
 
 With such a comrade, such a friend 
 I fain would walk till journey's end, 
 Through summer sunshine, winter rain, 
 And then? Farewell, we shall meet again! 
 
 Henry van Dyke
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 143 
 
 MY FRIEND * 
 
 The friend I love is like the sea to me, 
 With spacious days of large tranquility 
 When on my heart his wordless comforts lie, 
 As on the utter sea rim rests the sky ; 
 And like the sea for wrath he is, and strong 
 To launch his surges on the cliffs of Wrong ; 
 But most I love him for his deep-sea spell 
 Of unguessed secrets that he may not tell: 
 So I have seen him stand and look afar 
 Beyond the twilight to the evening star, 
 And like the ocean's haunting lure to me, 
 Deep in his eyes I read a mystery: 
 For he whose soul we fathom to the end 
 Becomes our servant then, and not our friend. 
 
 Walter Prichard Eaton 
 
 PEOPLE 
 
 Like to islands in the seas 
 Stand our personalities: 
 Islands where we always face 
 One another's watering-place; 
 When we promenade our sands, 
 We can hear each other's bands; 
 We can see on festal nights 
 Red and green and purple lights, 
 
 * From Echoes and Realities, by Walter Prichard Eaton. Copyright, 
 ?918, George H. Doran Company, publishers.
 
 144 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Gilt pavilions in a row, 
 Stucco houses built for show. 
 
 But our eyes can never reach 
 Further than the tawdry beach, 
 Never can they hope to win 
 To the wonders far within : 
 Jagged rocks against the sky, 
 Where the eagles haunt and cry, 
 Forests full of running rills, 
 Darkest forests, sunny hills, 
 Hollows where a Monster lowers, 
 Sweet and unimagined flowers. 
 
 Frances D. Cornford 
 
 SONG 
 
 "Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings, 
 
 And Triumph is his crown. 
 Earth fades in flame before his wings, 
 
 And Sun and Moon bow down." 
 But that, I knew, would never do ; 
 
 And Heaven is all too high. 
 So whenever I meet a Queen, I said, 
 
 I will not catch her eye. 
 
 "Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said 5 
 
 "The gift of Love is this; 
 A crown of thorns about thy head, 
 
 And vinegar to thy kiss!" 
 But Tragedy is not for me;
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 145 
 
 And I'm content to be gay. 
 So whenever I spied a Tragic Lady, 
 I went another way. 
 
 And so I never feared to see 
 
 You wander down the street, 
 Or come across the fields to me 
 
 On ordinary feet. 
 For what they'd never told me of, 
 
 And what I never knew ; 
 It was that all the time, my love, 
 
 Love would be merely you. 
 
 Rupert Brooke 
 
 THE LOOK * 
 
 Strephon kissed me in the spring, 
 
 Robin in the fall, 
 But Colin only looked at me 
 
 And never kissed at all. 
 
 Strephon 's kiss was lost in jest, 
 
 Robin's lost in play, 
 But the kiss in Colin 's eyes 
 
 Haunts me night and day. 
 
 Sara Teasdale 
 
 * From Love Songs, by Sara Teasdale. Used by special permission 
 of The Maemillan Company, publishers.
 
 146 MODERN VERSE 
 
 TO A DISTANT ONE 
 
 Through wild by-ways I come to you, my love, 
 Nor ask of those I meet the surest way ; 
 "What way I turn I cannot go astray 
 And miss you in my life. Though Fate may prove 
 A tardy guide she will not make delay 
 Leading me through strange seas and distant lands. 
 I'm coming still, though slowly, to your hands. 
 We'll meet one day. 
 
 There is so much to do, so little done, 
 In my life's space that I perforce did leave 
 Love at the moonlit trysting-place to grieve 
 Till fame and other little things were won. 
 I have missed much that I shall not retrieve, 
 Far will I wander yet with much to do. 
 Much will I spurn before I yet meet you, 
 So fair I can't deceive. 
 
 Your name is in the whisper of the woods 
 Like Beauty calling for a poet's song 
 To one whose harp had suffered many a wrong 
 In the lean hands of Pain. And when the broods 
 Of flower eyes waken all the streams along 
 In tender whiles, I feel most near to you : 
 Oh, when we meet there shall be sun and blue 
 Strong as the spring is strong. 
 
 Francis Ledwidge
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 147 
 
 Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me, 
 
 The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free, 
 
 Far too clever a lover not to be having still 
 
 A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the 
 
 farther hill 
 Love on the field and love on the path and love in the woody 
 
 glen 
 (Lad, will I never see you, never your face again?) 
 
 Ay, if the thing is ending, now I'll be getting rest, 
 
 Saying my prayers and bending down to be stilled and blest, 
 
 Never the days are sending hope till my heart is sore 
 
 For a laugh on the path and a voice by the gate and a step 
 
 on the shieling floor 
 Grief on my ways and grief on my work and grief till the 
 
 evening's dim 
 (Lord, will I never hear it, never a sound of him?) 
 
 Sure if it 's done forever, better for me that 's wise, 
 Never the hurt, and never tears in my aching eyes, 
 No more the trouble ever to hide from my asking folk 
 Beat of my heart at click o' the latch, and throb if his name is 
 
 spoke ; 
 Never the need to hide the sighs and the flushing thoughts and 
 
 the fret, 
 And after awhile my heart will hush and my hungering hands 
 
 forget . . . 
 Peace on my ways, and peace in my step, and maybe my heart 
 
 grown light 
 (Mary, helper of heartbreak, send him to me to-night!) 
 
 Margaret Widdemer
 
 148 MODERN VERSE 
 
 GARDEN OF THE ROSE * 
 
 Her heart is like a garden fair 
 
 Where many pleasant blossoms grow; 
 
 But though I sometimes enter there, 
 There is one path I do not know. 
 
 The way I go to find it lies 
 
 Through dewy beds of violet; 
 Those are the portals of her eyes, 
 
 Where modesty and truth are set. 
 
 And just behind, a hedge is placed 
 A hedge of lilies, tall and white. 
 
 Those are her maiden thoughts, so chaste 
 I almost tremble in their sight. 
 
 But shining through them, and above 
 Half-hid, but trembling to unfold 
 
 I spy the roses of her love, 
 
 And then again I grow more bold. 
 
 So, half in prayer, I seek and wait 
 
 To find the secret path that goes 
 Up from the lily-guarded gate 
 
 To her heart's garden of the rose. 
 
 Charles Buxton Going 
 
 * From Star-Glow and tfc.ng, by Charles Buxton Going. Copyright, 
 1909, by Harper & Brothers.
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 149 
 
 THE LITTLE GOLDEN FOUNTAIN 
 
 Oh, my heart is a little golden fountain, 
 
 Through it and spilling over the brim 
 
 Wells the love of you. 
 
 Brighter gleams the gold for the sparkling water, 
 
 And down below where the overflow drips 
 
 Into a clear little pool of bubbles, 
 
 Fresh spears of grass spring against the golden column, 
 
 Oh, my heart is a little golden fountain 
 
 Fashioned purely for that leaping grace, 
 
 The luminous love of you. 
 
 Up through the column and over the golden basin 
 
 It thrills and fills and trembles in the sunlight, 
 
 Showering its gladness over and bestrewing 
 
 The golden fountainhead with rainbow rapture. 
 
 Mary MacMillan 
 
 SONGS OF A GIKL * 
 XIX 
 
 Within the little house 
 
 Of my great love for you, 
 
 This safe and happy house, 
 
 I sit and sing, while all the world goes by. 
 
 * From Youth Riding, by Mary Carolyn Davies. Used by special per- 
 mission of The Macmillau Company, publishers.
 
 150 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Within the house that is my love for you 
 No harm can come, nor any thought of fear; 
 There is no danger that can cross the threshold. 
 
 You did not build this house 
 
 Nor I; 
 
 But God the Carpenter 
 
 Mary Carolyn Davies 
 
 PSALM TO MY BELOVED 
 
 Lo, I have opened unto you the wide gates of rny being, 
 
 And like a tide you have flowed into me. 
 
 The innermost recesses of my spirit are full of you, and all 
 the channels of my soul are grown sweet with your pres- 
 ence. 
 
 For you have brought me peace; 
 
 The peace of great tranquil waters, and the quiet of the sum- 
 mer sea. 
 
 Your hands are filled with peace as the noon-tide is filled 
 with light ; about your head is bound the eternal quiet of 
 the stars, and in your heart dwells the calm miracle of 
 twilight. 
 
 I am utterly content. 
 
 In all my spirit is no ripple of unrest. 
 
 For I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being 
 
 And like a tide you have flowed into me. 
 
 Eunice Tietjens
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 151 
 
 THE EEFLECTION * 
 
 I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face> 
 
 Nor touched her hand ; 
 And yet some echo of her woman's grace 
 
 I understand. 
 
 I have no picture of her lovelihootv 
 
 Her smile, her tint; 
 But that she is both beautiful and good 
 
 I have true hint. 
 
 In all that my friend thinks and says, I see 
 
 Her mirror true ; 
 His thought of her is gentle ; she must be 
 
 All gentle too. 
 
 In all his grief or laughter, work or play, 
 
 Each mood and whim, 
 How brave and tender, day by common day, 
 
 She speaks through him! 
 
 Therefore I say I know her, be her face 
 
 Or dark or fair 
 For when he shows his heart 's most secret place 
 
 I see her there ! 
 
 Christopher Morley 
 
 * From The Rocking Horse, by Christopher Morley. Copyright, 1919, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers.
 
 152 MODERN VERSE 
 
 A LYNMOUTH WIDOW * 
 
 He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue 
 As the summer meeting of sky and sea, 
 And the ruddy cliffs had a colder hue 
 Than flushed his cheek when he married me. 
 
 We passed the porch where the swallows breed, 
 "We left the little brown church behind, 
 And I leaned on his arm, though I had no need, 
 Only to feel him so strong and kind. 
 
 One thing I never can quite forget ; 
 
 It grips my throat when I try to pray 
 
 The keen salt smell of a drying net 
 
 That hung on the churchyard wall that day. 
 
 He would have taken a long, long grave 
 A long, long grave, for he stood so tall . . . 
 Oh, God, the crash of a breaking wave, 
 And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall ! 
 
 Amelia Josephine Burr 
 
 PARTING 
 
 Now I go, do not weep, woman 
 Woman, do not weep ; 
 
 * From In Deep Places, by Amelia Josephine Burr. Copyright, 1914, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers. 

 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE 153 
 
 Though I go from you to die, 
 
 We shall both lie down 
 
 At the foot of the hill, and sleep. 
 
 Now I go, do not weep, woman 
 Woman, do not weep ; 
 Earth is our mother and our tent the sky. 
 Though I go from you to die, 
 We shall both lie down 
 At the foot of the hill, and sleep. 
 
 Alice Corbin Henderson 
 
 THE PENALTY OF LOVE 
 
 If Love should count you worth}', and should deign 
 One day to seek your door and be your guest, 
 Pause ! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest, 
 
 If in your old content you would remain. 
 
 For not alone he enters : in his train 
 Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest, 
 Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed, 
 
 And sorrow, and Life's immemorial pain. 
 
 He wakes desires you never may forget, 
 He shows you stars you never saw before, 
 He makes you share with him, for evermore, 
 
 The burden of the world's divine regret. 
 
 How wise were you to open not! and yet, 
 
 How poor if you should turn him from the door. 
 
 Sidney Royse Lysaght
 
 BARTER * 
 
 Life has loveliness to sell 
 
 All beautiful and splendid things, 
 
 Blue waves whitened on a cliff, 
 Climbing fire that sways and sings, 
 
 And children's faces looking up 
 
 Holding wonder like a cup. 
 
 Life has loveliness to sell 
 
 Music like a curve of gold, 
 Scent of pine trees in the rain, 
 
 Eyes that love you, arms that hold, 
 And for your spirit's still delight, 
 Holy thoughts that star the night. 
 
 Spend all you have for loveliness, 
 
 Buy it and never count the cost, 
 For one white singing hour of peace 
 
 Count many a year of strife well lost, 
 And for a breath of ecstasy 
 Give all you have been or could be. 
 
 Sara Teasdale 
 
 TIME, YOU OLD GYPSY MAN * 
 
 Time, you old gypsy man, 
 Will you not stay, 
 
 * From Love Songs, by Sara Teasdale. Used by special permission of 
 The Macmillan Company, publishers. 
 
 * From Poems, by Ralph Hodgson. Used by special permission of The 
 Macmillan Company, publishers. 
 
 157
 
 158 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Put up your caravan 
 Just for one day ? 
 
 All things I'll give you 
 Will you be my guest, 
 Bells for your jennet 
 Of silver the best. 
 Goldsmiths shall beat you 
 A great golden ring. 
 Peacocks shall bow to you, 
 Little boys sing. 
 Oh, and sweet girls will 
 Festoon you with may, 
 Time, you old gypsy, 
 Why hasten away? 
 Last week in Babylon, 
 Last night in Rome, 
 Morning, and in the crush 
 Under Paul's dome; 
 Undei* Paul's dial 
 You tighten your rein 
 Only a moment, 
 And off once again , 
 Off to some city 
 Now blind in the womb, 
 Off to another 
 Ere that's in the tomb. 
 
 Time, you old gypsy man, 
 
 Will you not stay, 
 Put up your caravan 
 
 Just for one day? 
 
 Ralph Hodgson
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 159 
 
 SONNET 
 
 There was an Indian, who had known no change, 
 
 Who strayed content along a sunlit beach 
 Gathering shells. He heard a sudden strange 
 
 Commingled noise ; looked up ; and gasped for speech. 
 For in the bay, where nothing was before, 
 
 Moved on the sea, by magic, huge canoes, 
 With bellying cloths on poles, and not one oar, 
 
 And fluttering colored signs and clambering crews. 
 
 And he, in fear, this naked man alone, 
 His fallen hands forgetting all their shells, 
 
 His lips gone pale, knelt low behind a stone, 
 And stared, and saw, and did not understand, 
 
 Columbus 's doom-burdened caravels 
 
 Slant to the shore, and all their seamen land. 
 
 f. C. Squire 
 
 PROVINCETOWN 
 
 All summer in the close-locked streets the crowd 
 Elbows its way past glittering shops to strains 
 Of noisy rag-time, men and girls, dark skinned, 
 From warmer foreign waters they have come 
 To our New England. Purring like sleek cats 
 The cushioned motors of the rich crawl through 
 While black-haired babies scurry to the curb: 
 Pedro, Maria, little Gabriel
 
 160 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Whose red bandana mothers selling fruit 
 Have this in common with the fresh white caps 
 Of those first immigrants courage to leave 
 Familiar hearths and build new memories. 
 
 Blood of their blood who shaped these sloping roofs 
 And low arched doorways, laid the cobble stones 
 Not meant for motors, you and I rejoice 
 When roof and spire sink deep into the night 
 And all the little streets reach out their arms 
 To be received into the salt-drenched dark. 
 Then Provincetown comes to her own again, 
 Draws round her like a cloak that shelters her 
 From too swift changes of the passing years 
 The dunes, the sea, the silent hilltop grounds 
 Where solemn groups of leaning headstones hold 
 Perpetual reunion of her dead. 
 
 At dusk we feel our way along the wharf 
 
 That juts into the harbor: anchored ships 
 
 With lifting prow and slowly rocking mast 
 
 Ink out their profiles; fishing dories scall 
 
 With muffled lamps that glimmer through the spray; 
 
 We hear the water plash among the piers 
 
 Rotted with moss, long after sunset stay 
 
 To watch the dim sky-changes ripple down 
 
 The length of quiet ocean to our feet 
 
 Till on the sea rim rising like a world 
 
 Bigger than ours, and laying bare the ships 
 
 In shadowy stillness, swells the yellow moon. 
 
 Between this blue intensity of sea 
 
 And rolling dunes of white-hot sand that burn 
 
 All day across a clean salt wilderness
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 161 
 
 On shores grown sacred as a place of prayer, 
 Shine bright invisible footsteps of a band 
 Of firm-lipped men and women who endured 
 Partings from kindred, hardship, famine, death, 
 And won for us three hundred years ago 
 A reverent proud freedom of the soul. 
 
 Marie Louise Hersey 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 Up and down he goes 
 
 with terrible, reckless strides, 
 
 flaunting great lamps 
 
 with joyous swings 
 
 one to the East 
 
 and one to the West 
 
 and flaunting two words 
 
 in a thunderous call 
 
 that thrills the hearts of all enemies: 
 
 All, One, All, One; All, One; All, One! 
 
 Beware that queer wild wonderful boy 
 
 and his playground ; don 't go near ! 
 
 All, One, All, One; All, One; All, One; 
 
 Up and down he goes. 
 
 Alfred Kreymborg. 
 
 EECESSIONAL 
 
 God of our fathers, known of old, 
 Lord of our far-flung battle-line, 
 
 Beneath whose awful hand we hold 
 Dominion over palm and pine
 
 162 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
 Lest we forget lest we forget! 
 
 The tumult and the shouting dies ; 
 
 The captains and the kings depart: 
 Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, 
 
 An humble and a contrite heart. 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
 Lest we forget lest we forget! 
 
 Far-called, our navies melt away ; 
 
 On dune and headland sinks the fire: 
 Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
 
 Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! 
 Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, 
 Lest we forget lest we forget ! 
 
 If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
 Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, 
 
 Such boastings as the Gentiles use, 
 Or lesser breeds without the Law 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
 
 Lest we forget lest we forget ! 
 
 For heathen heart that puts her trust 
 In reeking tube and iron shard, 
 
 All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
 
 Ar.d guarding, calls not Thee to guard, 
 
 For frantic boast and foolish word 
 
 Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord ! 
 
 Eudyard Kipling
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 163 
 
 IF 
 
 If you can keep your head when all about you 
 
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 
 If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
 
 But make allowance for their doubting too; 
 If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
 
 Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
 Or being hated don't give way to hating, 
 
 And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: 
 
 If you can dream and not make dreams your master ; 
 
 If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, 
 If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
 
 And treat those two impostors just the same ; 
 If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
 
 Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
 Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 
 
 And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 
 
 If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
 
 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
 And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
 
 And never breathe a word about your loss; 
 If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
 
 To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
 
 Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 
 
 If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
 Or walk with Kings nor IOSP the common touch, 
 If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 
 164 MODERN VERSE 
 
 If all men count with you, but none too mucn ; 
 If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
 
 "With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
 Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
 
 And which is more you'll be a Man, my son! 
 
 Rudyard KipUng 
 
 COUEAGE 
 
 Courage is but a word, and yet, of words, 
 The only sentinel of permanence; 
 The ruddy watch-fire- of cold winter days, 
 We steal its comfort, lift our weary swords, 
 And on. For faith without it has no sense; 
 And love to wind of doubt and tremor sways; 
 And life forever quaking marsh must tread. 
 
 Laws give it not, before it prayer will blush, 
 Hope has it not, nor pride of being true. 
 'Tis the mysterious soul which never yields, 
 But hales us on and on to breast the rush 
 Of all the fortunes we shall happen through. 
 And when Death calls across his shadowy fields 
 Dying, it answers: "Here! I am not dead!" 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 PEAYEE 
 
 God, though this life is but a wraith. 
 Although we know not what we use, 
 
 Although we grope with little faith, 
 Give me the heart to fight and lose.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 165 
 
 Ever insurgent let me be, 
 
 Make me more daring than devout; 
 From sleek contentment keep me free, 
 
 And fill me with a bouyant doubt. 
 
 Open my eyes to visions girt 
 
 With beauty, and with wonder lit 
 But let me always see the dirt, 
 
 And all that spawn and die in it. 
 
 Open my ears to music; let 
 
 Me thrill with Spring's first flutes and drums 
 But never let me dare forget 
 
 The bitter ballads of the slums. 
 
 From compromise and things half-done, 
 Keep me, with stern and stubborn pride; 
 
 And when, at last, the fight is won 
 God, keep me still unsatisfied. 
 
 Louis Untermeyer 
 
 A CREED 
 
 (To Mr. David Lubin) 
 
 There is a destiny that makes us brothers; 
 
 None goes his way alone: 
 All that we send into the lives of others 
 
 Comes back into our own.
 
 166 MODERN VERSE 
 
 I care not what his temples or his creeds, 
 
 One thing holds firm and fast 
 That into his fateful heap of days and deeds 
 
 The soul of a man is cast. 
 
 Edwin Markham 
 
 THE GREAT LOVER 
 
 I have been so great a lover: filled my days 
 
 So proudly with the splendor of Love's praise, 
 
 The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, 
 
 Desire illimitable, and still content, 
 
 And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, 
 
 For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear 
 
 Our hearts at random down the dark of life. 
 
 Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife 
 
 Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far. 
 
 My night shall be remembered for a star 
 
 That outshone all the suns of all men's days. 
 
 Shall I not crown them with immortal praise 
 
 Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me 
 
 High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see 
 
 The inenarrable godhead of delight? 
 
 Love is a flame; we have beaconed the world's night. 
 
 A city: and we have built it, these and I. 
 
 An emperor: we have taught the world to die. 
 
 So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence, 
 
 And the high cause of Love's magnificence, 
 
 And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names 
 
 Golden forever, eagles, crying flames,
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 167 
 
 And set them as a banner, that men may know, 
 To dare the generations, burn, and blow 
 Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming . . . 
 These I have loved: 
 
 White plates and cups, clean-gleaming. 
 Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; 
 Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light ; the strong crust 
 Of friendly bread ; and many tasting food ; 
 Rainbows ; and the blue bitter smoke of wood ; 
 And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers ; 
 And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours, 
 Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon; 
 Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon 
 Smooth away trouble ; and the rough male kiss 
 Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is 
 Shining and free ; blue-massing clouds ; the keen 
 Unpassioned beauty of a great machine ; 
 The benison of hot water; furs to touch; 
 The good smell of old clothes; and other such 
 The comfortable smell of friendly fingers, 
 Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers 
 About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . . 
 
 Dear names, 
 
 And thousand other throng to me ! Royal flames ; 
 Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring; 
 Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing; 
 Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain, 
 Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train; 
 Firm sands; the dulling edge of foam 
 That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home; 
 And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold 
 Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mold; 
 Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; 
 And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
 
 168 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; 
 
 All these have been my loves. And these shall pass, 
 
 Whatever passes not, in the great hour, 
 
 Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power 
 
 To hold them with me through the gate of Death. 
 
 They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath, 
 
 Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust 
 
 And sacramental covenant to the dust. 
 
 Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake, 
 
 And give what's left of love again, and make 
 
 New friends, now strangers. . . . 
 
 But the best I've known, 
 
 Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown 
 About the winds of the world, and fades from brains 
 Of living men, and dies. 
 
 Nothing remains. 
 
 O dear my loves, O faithless, once again 
 
 This one last gift I give: that after men 
 
 Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed, 
 
 Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved." 
 
 Mataiea, 1914. 
 
 Rupert Brooke 
 
 OIFTS 
 
 God does not give us, when our youth is done, 
 
 Any such dower as we thought should be: 
 
 We are not strong, nor crowned with moon or sun; 
 
 We are not gods nor conquerors : life 's sea 
 
 Has not rolled back to let our feet pass through .
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 162 
 
 And if one great desire, long-hoped, came true 
 
 Some gift long-hungered for, some starry good, 
 
 Some crowning we desired, 
 
 It had lost all its pageant-wonderhood : 
 
 A wonted thing, enveiled no more in flame, 
 
 Dully it came 
 
 Its winning has not made our feet less tired. 
 
 "We are so near the same 
 
 Our mirrors saw in youth ! 
 
 Not very wise : in truth 
 
 Not nobler than we were those years ago; 
 
 We have to show 
 
 Only a handful of such little things 
 
 As our high-thoughted youth 
 
 Had named of little worth. 
 
 Only . . . the gift to feel 
 
 In little looks of praise, 
 
 In words, in sunny days, 
 
 A pleasantness, a mirth 
 
 Joy in a bird 's far wings, 
 
 Pleasure in flowers breaking out of earth, 
 
 In a child's laughter, in a neighbor's smile; 
 
 And in all quiet things 
 
 Peace for awhile. 
 
 And one more gift to smile, content to see 
 Ay, to be very glad seeing alight on high 
 The stars we wanted for our jewelry 
 Still clear ashine . . . still in the sky. 
 
 Margaret Widdemer
 
 170 MODERN VERSE 
 
 RICHARD CORY 
 
 i 
 Whenever Richard Cory went down town, 
 
 We people on the pavement looked at him : 
 He was a gentleman from sole to crown, 
 
 Clean favored, and imperially slim. 
 
 And he was always quietly arrayed, 
 And he was always human when he talked; 
 
 But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 
 
 "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. 
 
 And he was rich yes, richer than a king, 
 And admirably schooled in every grace: 
 
 In fine, we thought that he was everything 
 To make us wish that we were in his place. 
 
 So on we worked, and waited for the light, 
 And went without the meat and cursed the bread ; 
 
 And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, 
 Went home and put a bullet through his head. 
 Edwin Arlington Robinson 
 
 A FARMER REMEMBERS LINCOLN * 
 
 "Lincoln? 
 
 Well, I was in the old Second Maine, 
 
 The first regiment in Washington from the Pine Tree State. 
 
 Of course I didn't get the butt of the clip; 
 
 We was there for guardin' Washington 
 
 We was all green. 
 
 * "Reprinted with permission from Grenstone Poems, by Witter Bynner. 
 Copyright, 1917, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 171 
 
 "I ain't never ben to but one theater in my life 
 
 I didn't know how to behave. 
 
 I ain't never ben since. 
 
 I can see as plain as niy hat the box where he sat in 
 
 When he was shot. 
 
 I can tell you, sir, there was a panic 
 
 When we found our President was in the shape he was in! 
 
 Never saw a soldier in the world but what liked him. 
 
 "Yes, sir. His looks was kind o' hard to forget. 
 
 He was a spare man, 
 
 An old farmer. 
 
 Everything was all right, you know, 
 
 But he wan't a smooth-appearin' man at all 
 
 Not in no ways; 
 
 Thin-faced, long-necked, 
 
 And a swellin' kind of a thick lip like. 
 
 "And he was a jolly old fellow always cheerful; 
 
 He wan't so high but the boys could talk to him their own 
 
 ways. 
 
 While I was servin' at the Hospital 
 He'd come in and say, 'You look nice in here,' 
 Praise us up, you know. 
 And he'd bend over and talk to the boys 
 And he'd talk so good to 'em so close 
 That's why I call him a farmer. 
 I don't mean that everything about him wan't all right, 
 
 you understand, 
 
 It's just well, I was a farmer 
 And he was my neighbor, anybody's neighbor. 
 
 "I guess even you young folks would 'a' liked him." 
 
 Witter Bynner
 
 172 MODERN VERSE 
 
 SUNSET * 
 
 Behold where Night clutches the cup of heaven 
 And quaffs the beauty of the world away ! 
 Lo, his first draught is all of dazzling day ; 
 
 The next he fills with the red wine of even 
 
 And drinks; then of the twilight's amber, seven 
 Deep liquid hues, seven times, superb in ray, 
 He fills and drinks ; the last, a mead pale-gray 
 
 Leaves the black beaker gemmed with starry levin. 
 
 Even so does Time quaff our mortality ! 
 
 First, of the effervescing blood and blush 
 Of virgin years, then of maturity 
 
 The deeper glow, then of the pallid hush 
 "Where only the eyes still glitter, till even they 
 After a pause melt in immenser day. 
 
 Percy MacKaye. 
 
 SILENCE * 
 
 I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, 
 
 And the silence of the city when it pauses, 
 
 And the silence of a man and a maid, 
 
 And the silence for which music alone finds the word, 
 
 And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring 
 
 begin, 
 And the silence of the sick 
 
 * From The Sistine Eve, by Percy MacKaye. Used by special permis- 
 sion of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 
 
 * From Songs and Satires, by Edgar Lee Masters. Used by special 
 permission of the Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 173 
 
 When their eyes roam about the room. 
 
 And I ask : For the depths 
 
 Of what use is language? 
 
 A beast of the fields moans a few times 
 
 When death takes its young. 
 
 And we are voiceless in the presence of realities 
 
 We cannot speak. 
 
 A curious boy asks an old soldier 
 
 Sitting in front of the grocery store, 
 
 "How did you lose your leg?" 
 
 And the old soldier is struck with silence, 
 
 Or his mind flies away 
 
 Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. 
 
 It comes back jocosely 
 
 And he says, "A bear bit it off." 
 
 And the boy wonders, while the old soldier 
 
 Dumbly, feebly lives over 
 
 The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, 
 
 The shrieks of the slain, 
 
 And himself lying on the ground, 
 
 And the hospital surgeons, the knives, 
 
 And the long days in bed. 
 
 But if he could describe it all 
 
 He would be an artist. 
 
 But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds 
 
 Which he could not describe. 
 
 There is the silence of a great hatred, 
 
 And the silence of a great love, 
 
 And the silence of a deep peace of mind, 
 
 And the silence of an embittered friendship. 
 
 There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, 
 
 Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, 
 
 Comes with visions not to be uttered
 
 !74 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Into a realm of higher life. 
 
 And the silence of the gods who understand each other with- 
 
 out speech. 
 
 There is the silence of defeat. 
 There is the silence of those unjustly punished; 
 And the silence of the dying whose hand 
 Suddenly grips yours. 
 
 There is the silence between father and son, 
 When the father cannot explain his life, 
 Even though he be misunderstood for it. 
 
 There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. 
 
 There is the silence of those who have failed ; 
 
 And the vast silence that covers 
 
 Broken nations and vanquished leaders. 
 
 There is the silence of Lincoln, 
 
 Thinking of the poverty of his youth. 
 
 And the silence of Napoleon 
 
 After "Waterloo. 
 
 And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc 
 
 Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus" 
 
 Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope. 
 
 And there is the silence of age, 
 
 Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it 
 
 In words intelligible to those who have not lived 
 
 The great range of life. 
 
 And there is the silence of the dead. 
 
 If we who are in life cannot speak 
 
 Of profound experiences, 
 
 Why do you marvel that the dead 
 
 Do not tell you of death ? 
 
 Their silence shall be interpreted 
 
 As we approach them. 
 
 Edgar Lee Masters
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 175 
 
 THE COWBOY'S DEE AM * 
 
 Last night as I lay on the prairie, 
 And looked at the stars in the sky, 
 I wondered if ever a cowboy 
 Would drift to that sweet by and by. 
 
 Roll on, roll on ; 
 
 Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on, 
 
 Roll on, roll on ; 
 
 Roll on, little dogies, roll on. 
 
 The road to that bright, happy region 
 Is a dim narrow trail, so they say ; 
 But the broad one that leads to perdition 
 Is posted and blazed all the way. 
 
 They say there will be a great round-up, 
 And cowboys, like dogies, will stand, 
 To be marked by the Riders of Judgment 
 Who are posted and know every brand. 
 
 I know there's many a stray cowboy 
 Who'll be lost at the great, final sale, 
 When he might have gone in the green pastures 
 Had he known of the dim, narrow trail. 
 
 I wonder if ever a cowboy 
 Stood ready for that Judgment Day, 
 And could say to the Boss of the Riders, 
 "I'm ready, come drive me away." 
 
 * Sung to the air of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.
 
 176 MODERN VERSE 
 
 For they, like the cows that are locoed, 
 
 Stampede at the sight of a hand, 
 
 Are dragged with a rope to the round-up, 
 
 Or get marked with some crooked man's brand. 
 
 And I'm scared that I'll be a stray yearling, 
 A maverick, unbranded on high, 
 And get cut in the bunch with the ''rustics" 
 When the Boss of the Riders goes by. 
 
 For they tell of another big owner 
 Who's ne'er overstocked, so they say, 
 But who always makes room for the sinner 
 Who drifts from the straight, narrow way. 
 
 They say he will never forget you, 
 That he knows every action and look; 
 So, for safety, you'd better get branded, 
 Have your name in the great Tally Book. 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS INTO 
 HEAVEN * 
 
 [Bass drum beaten loudly] 
 Booth led boldly with his big bass drum 
 (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) 
 
 * From General William, Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems, 
 by Vachel Lindsay. Used by special permission of The Macmillan Com- 
 pany, publishers. 
 
 (To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated 
 instrument)
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 177 
 
 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 bravoes 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?) 
 
 [Banjos] 
 
 Every slum had sent its half-a-score 
 The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.) 
 Every banner that the wide world flies 
 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 made free. 
 Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare 
 On, on upward thro' the golden air! 
 (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) 
 
 II 
 
 [Bass drum 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
 
 178 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Unabated in that holy land. 
 
 [Sweet flute music] 
 
 Jesus came from out the court-house door, 
 Stretched his hands above the passing poor. 
 Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there 
 Eound 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 opaned on a new, sweet world. 
 
 [Bass drum louder] 
 
 Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole ! 
 Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl I 
 Sages and .sibyls now, and athletes clean, 
 Rulers of empires, and of forests green! 
 
 [Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to ihe 
 
 foreground.] 
 
 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?) 
 0, 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. 
 
 [Reverently sung, no instruments] 
 And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer 
 He saw his Master thro' the flag-filled air. 
 Christ came gently with a robe and crown
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 179 
 
 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? 
 
 Vachel Lindsay 
 
 THE DEVIL* 
 
 Along de road from Bord a Plouffe 
 
 To Kaz-a-baz-u-a 
 
 Were poplar trees lak sojers stan', 
 An' all de Ian' is pleasan' Ian', 
 In off de road dere leev's a man 
 Call' Louis Desjardins. 
 
 An' Louis, w'en he firse begin 
 
 To work hees leetle place, 
 He work so hard de neighbors say, 
 "Unless he tak's de easy way 
 Dat feller's sure to die some day, 
 
 We see it on hees face. ' ' 
 
 'T was lak a swamp, de farm he got, 
 
 De water ev'ryw'ere 
 Might drain her off as tight as a drum. 
 An' back dat water is botfn' to come 
 In less 'n a day or two ba Gum ! 
 
 'T would mak' de angel swear. 
 
 So Louis t 'ink of de bimeby, 
 If he leev so long as dat, 
 "W'en he's ole an' blin' an' mebbe deaf, 
 
 * From the Poetical Works of William Henry Drummond. Courtesy 
 of G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers, New York and London.
 
 180 MODERN VERSE 
 
 All alone on de house hese 'f , 
 No frien', no money, no not 'ing lef ' , 
 An' poor can't kip a cat. 
 
 So wan of de night on winter tarn, 
 
 W 'en Louis is on hees bed, 
 He say out loud lak a crazy man, 
 " I 'm sick of tryin ' to clear dis Ian ', 
 Work any harder I can't stan', 
 
 Or it will kill me dead. 
 
 "Now if de devil would show hese'f 
 An' say to me, "Tiens! Louis! 
 
 Hard tarn an' work she's at an' en', 
 
 You'll leev' lak a Grand Seigneur, ma frien', 
 
 If only you'll be ready w'en 
 
 I want you to come wit ' me, ' 
 
 "I'd say, 'Yass, yass 'maudit! w'at's dat?" 
 
 An' he see de devil dere 
 Brimstone, ev'ryt'ing bad dat smell, 
 You know right away he's come from well, 
 De place I never was care to tell 
 
 An' wcarin' hees long black hair, 
 
 Lak election man, de kin' I mean 
 
 You see aroun ' church door, 
 Spreadin' hese'f on great beeg speech 
 'Bout poor man's goin' some day be reech, 
 But dat's w'ere it alway come de heetch, 
 
 For poor man's alway poor. 
 
 De only diff' rence me I see 
 
 'Tween devil an ' long-hair man
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 181 
 
 It's hard to say, but I know it's true, 
 Wen devil promise a t'ing to do 
 Dere's no mistak' he kip it too 
 I hope you understan '. 
 
 So de devil spik, ' ' You 're not content, 
 
 An' want to be reech, Louis 
 All right, you'll have plaintee, never fear 
 No wan can beat you far an' near, 
 An' I'll leave you alone for t'orty year, 
 
 An' den you will come wit' me. 
 
 "Be careful now it's beeg contrac'. 
 
 So mebbe it 's bes ' go slow : 
 For me de promise I mak' to you 
 Is good as de bank Riviere du Loup ; 
 For you w'enever de tarn is due, 
 
 Ba tender! you got to go." 
 
 Louis try hard to tak ' hees tarn 
 
 But w'en he see de fall 
 Comin' along in a week or so, 
 All aroun' heem de rain an' snow 
 An' pork on de bar'l runnin' low, 
 
 He don't feel good at all. 
 
 An' w'en he t'ink of de swampy farm 
 
 An' gettin' up winter night, 
 Watchin' de stove if de win' get higher 
 For fear de chimley go on fire, 
 It's makin' poor Louis feel so tire 
 
 He tell de devil, ''All right." 
 
 "Correct," dat feller say right away,
 
 182 MODERN VERSE 
 
 "I'll only say, Au revoir," 
 An' out of de winder he's goin' pouf ! 
 Beeg nose, long hair, short tail, an' hoof 
 Off on de road to Bord a Plouffe 
 
 Crossin' de reever dere. 
 
 Wen Louis get up nex' day, ma frien', 
 
 Dere's lot of devil sign 
 Bar! o' pork an' keg o' rye, 
 Bag o' potato ten foot high, 
 Pile o ' wood nearly touch de sky, 
 
 "Was some o' de t'ing he fin'. 
 
 Suit o' clothes would have cos' a lot 
 
 An' ev'ryt'ing I dunno, 
 Trotter horse w'en he want to ride 
 Eatin' away on de barn outside, 
 Stan' all day if he's never tied, 
 
 An' watch an' chain also. 
 
 An' swamp dat's bodder heem many tarn, 
 
 "Were is dat swamp to-day? 
 Don't care if you're huiitin' up an' down 
 You won't fin' not 'ing but medder groun', 
 An' affer de summer come aroun' 
 W 'ere can you see such hay ? 
 
 Wall! de year go by, an' Louis leev' 
 
 Widout no work to do, 
 Rise w'en he lak on winter day, 
 Fin' all de snow is clear away, 
 No fuss, no not 'ing, dere's de sleigh. 
 
 An' trotter waitin' too.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANG'S 183 
 
 "Wen forty year is nearly t'roo 
 
 An' devil's not come back 
 'Course Louis say, ' ' Wall ! he forget 
 Or t 'ink de tarn 's not finish yet ; 
 I'll tak' ma chance an' never fret," 
 
 But dat's w'ere he mak' niistak'. 
 
 For on a dark an ' stormy night 
 
 Wen Louis is sittin' dere, 
 Affer he fassen up de door 
 De devil come as he come before, 
 Lookin' de sam' only leetle more, 
 
 For takin' heem you know w'ere. 
 
 "Asseyez vous, sit down, ma frien', 
 
 Bad night be on de road ; 
 You come long way an' should be tire 
 Jus' wait an' mebbe I feex de fire 
 Tak' off your clothes for mak' dem drier y 
 
 Dey mus' be heavy load." 
 
 Dat's how poor Louis Desjardins 
 
 Talk to de devil, sir 
 Den say, "Try leetle w'isky blanc, 
 Dey 're makin' it back on St. Laurent 
 It 's good for night dat 's cole an ' raw, ' ' 
 
 But devil never stir, 
 
 Until he smell de smell dat come 
 Wen Louis mak' it hot 
 
 Wit' sugar, spice, an' ev'ryt'ing, 
 
 Enough to mak' a man's head sing 
 
 For winter, summer, fall an' spring- 
 It's very bes' t'ing we got.
 
 184 MODERN VERSE 
 
 An' so the devil can't refuse 
 
 To try de w'isky blanc, 
 An ' say, ' ' I 'm tryin ' many drink, 
 An' dis is de fines' I don't t'ink, 
 De firs, ba tonder ! mak ' me wink 
 
 Hooraw, poor Canadaw!" 
 
 "Merci non, non I tak' no more," 
 
 De devil say at las', 
 "For tarn is up wit' you, Louis, 
 So come along, ma frien', wit' me, 
 So many star I'm sure I see, 
 
 De storm she mus' be pas'." 
 
 "No hurry wait a minute, please," 
 
 Say Louis Desjardins, 
 "We'll have a smoke before we're t'roo, 
 'T will never hurt mese'f or you 
 To try a pipe, or mebbe two, 
 
 Of tabac Canayen. ' ' * 
 
 "Wan pipe is all I want for me 
 
 We'll finish our smoke downstair," 
 De devil say, an ' it was enough, 
 For w'en he tak de very firse puff 
 He holler out, "Maudit! w'at stuff! 
 
 Fresh air! fresh air!! fresh air!!!" 
 
 An' oh! he was never sick before 
 
 Till he smoke tabac Bnineau 
 Can 't walk or fly, but he want fresh air 
 So Louis put heem on rockin' chair 
 An' t'row heem off on de road out dere . 
 An' tole heem go below.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 185 
 
 An' he shut de door an' fill de place 
 
 Wit' tabac Canayen, 
 An' never come out, an' dat's a fac' 
 But smoke away till hees face is black 
 So dat's w'y de devil don't come back 
 
 For Louis Desjardins. 
 
 An' dere he's yet, an' dere he'll stay 
 
 So weech of de two '11 win 
 Can't say for dat it's kin' of a doubt, 
 For Louis, de pipe never leave hees mout', 
 An' night or day can't ketch heem out, 
 
 An' devil's too scare' go in. 
 
 William Henry Drummond 
 
 THE HOST OF THE AIR * 
 
 O 'Driscoll drove with a song 
 The wild duck and the drake, 
 From the tall and the tufted reeds 
 Of the drear Hart Lake. 
 
 And he saw how the reeds grew dark 
 At the coming of night tide, 
 And dreamed of the long dim hair 
 Of Bridget his bride. 
 
 * From Poems, by William Butler Yeats. Used by special permission 
 of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 186 MODERN VERSE 
 
 He heard while he sang and dreamed 
 A piper piping away, 
 And never was piping so sad, 
 And never was piping so gay. 
 
 And he saw young men and young girls 
 "Who danced on a level place 
 And Bridget his bride among them, 
 With a sad and a gay face. 
 
 The dancers crowded about him 
 
 And many a sweet thing said, 
 
 And a young man brought him red wine 
 
 And a young girl white bread. 
 
 But Bridget drew him by the sleeve 
 Away from the merry bands, 
 To old men playing at cards 
 With a twinkling of ancient hands. 
 
 The bread and the wine had a doom, 
 For these were the host of the air; 
 He sat and played in a dream 
 Of her long dim hair. 
 
 He played with the merry old men 
 And thought not of evil chance, 
 Until one bore Bridget his bride 
 Away from the merry dance. 
 
 He bore her away in his arms, 
 The handsomest young man there, 
 And his neck and his breast and his arms 
 Were drowned in her long dim hair.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 187 
 
 O'Driscoll scattered the cards 
 
 And out of his dream awoke : 
 
 Old men and young men and young girls 
 
 Were gone like a drifting smoke ; 
 
 But he heard high up in the air 
 A piper piping away, 
 And never was piping so sad, 
 And never was piping so gay. 
 
 William B. Yeats 
 
 THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY * 
 
 When I play on my fiddle in Dooney 
 Folk dance like a wave of the sea; 
 My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, 
 My brother in Moharabuiee. 
 
 I passed my brother and cousin: 
 They read in their books of prayer ; 
 I read in my book of songs 
 I bought at the Sligo fair. 
 
 When we come at the end of time, 
 To Peter sitting in state, 
 He will smile on the three old spirits, 
 But call me first through the gate; 
 
 For the good are always the merry, 
 Save by an evil chance, 
 
 * From Poems, by William Butler Yeats. Used by special permission 
 of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 188 MODERN VERSE 
 
 And the merry love the fiddle 
 And the merry love to dance. 
 
 And when the folk there spy me, 
 They will all come up to me, 
 With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney !" 
 And dance like a wave of the sea. 
 
 William B. Yeats 
 
 THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE 
 FIRST TIME 
 
 Zeus, 
 
 Brazen-thunder-hurler, 
 
 Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, 
 
 Send vengeance on these Oreads 
 
 Who strew 
 
 White frozen flecks of mist and cloud 
 
 Over the brown trees and the tufted grass 
 
 Of the meadows, where the stream 
 
 Kuns black through shining banks 
 
 Of bluish white. 
 
 Zeus, 
 
 Are the halls of heaven broken up 
 That you flake down upon me 
 Feather-strips of marble ? 
 
 Dis and Styx! 
 
 When I stamp my hoof 
 
 The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft 
 
 So that I reel upon two slippery points. . .
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 189 
 
 Fool, to stand here cursing 
 When I might be running ! 
 
 Richard Aldington 
 
 ETIQUETTE * 
 
 The Gossips tell a story of the Sparrow and the Cat, 
 The Feline thin 'and hungry and the Bird exceeding fat. 
 With eager, famished energy and claws of gripping steel, 
 Puss pounced upon the Sparrow and prepared to make a meal. 
 
 The Sparrow never struggled when he found that he was 
 
 caught 
 
 (If somewhat slow in action he was mighty quick of thought), 
 But chirped in simple dignity that seemed to fit the case, 
 ' ' No Gentleman would ever eat before he 'd washed his face ! ' ' 
 
 This hint about his Manners wounded Thomas like a knife 
 (For Cats are great observers of the Niceties of Life) ; 
 He paused to lick his paws, which seemed the Proper Thing 
 
 to do, 
 And, chirruping derisively, away the Sparrow flew! 
 
 In helpless, hopeless hunger at the Sparrow on the bough, 
 Poor Thomas glowered longingly, and vowed a Solemn Vow: 
 "Henceforth I'll eat my dinner first, then wash myself!" 
 
 And that's 
 The Universal Etiquette for Educated Cats. 
 
 Arthur Guiterman 
 
 * From The Laughing Muse, by Arthur Guiterman. Copyright, 1915, 
 by Harper & Brothers,
 
 190 MODERN VERSE 
 
 THE POTATOES' DANCE* 
 
 (A Poem Game) 
 I 
 
 "Down cellar," said the cricket, 
 "Down cellar/' said the cricket, 
 "Down cellar," said the cricket, 
 "I saw a ball last night 
 
 In honor of a lady, 
 
 In honor of a lady, 
 
 In honor of a lady, 
 
 Whose wings were pearly-white, 
 
 The breath of bitter weather, 
 
 The breath of bitter weather, 
 
 The breath of bitter weather, 
 
 Had smashed the cellar pane. 
 
 We entertained a drift of leaves. 
 
 We entertained a drift of leaves. 
 
 We entertained a drift of leaves. 
 
 And then of snow and rain. 
 
 But we were dressed for winter, 
 
 But we were dressed for winter, 
 
 But we were dressed for winter, 
 
 And loved to hear it blow. 
 
 In honor of the lady, 
 
 In honor of the lady, 
 
 In honor of the lady, 
 
 Who makes potatoes grow, 
 
 Our guest the irish lady, 
 
 * From The Chinese Nightingale, by Vachel Lindsay. Used by special 
 permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANC 191 
 
 The tiny Irish lady, 
 The airy Irish lady, 
 "Who makes potatoes grow. 
 
 II 
 
 "Potatoes were the waiters, 
 Potatoes were the waiters, 
 Potatoes were the waiters, 
 Potatoes were the band, 
 Potatoes were the dancers 
 Kicking up the sand, 
 Kicking up the sand, 
 Kicking up the sand, 
 Potatoes were the dancers 
 Kicking up the sand. 
 Their legs were old burnt matches, 
 Their legs were old burnt matches, 
 Their legs were old burnt matches, 
 Their arms were just the same. 
 They jigged and whirled and scrambled. 
 Jigged and whirled and scrambled, 
 Jigged and whirled and scrambled, 
 In honor of the dame, 
 The noble Irish lady 
 "Who make potatoes dance, 
 The witty Irish lady, 
 The saucy Irish lady, 
 The laughing Irish lady 
 "Who makes potatoes prance. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "There was just one sweet potato. 
 He was golden brown and slim.
 
 192 MODERN VERSE 
 
 The lady loved his dancing, 
 
 The lady loved his dancing, 
 
 The lady loved his dancing, 
 
 She danced all night with him, 
 
 She danced all night with him, 
 
 Alas, he wasn't Irish. 
 
 So when she flew away, 
 
 They threw him in the coal-bin, 
 
 And there he is to-day, 
 
 Where they cannot hear his sighs 
 
 And his weeping for the lady, 
 
 The glorious Irish lady, 
 
 The beauteous Irish lady, 
 
 Who 
 
 Gives 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Eyes." 
 
 Vachcl Lindsay 
 
 DAGONET, ARTHUR'S FOOL 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's fool, 
 
 He shocked and crashed with the rest, 
 But they gave him his coup-de-grace, 
 
 When Arthur fought in the West. 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's fool, 
 
 They smashed him, body and soul, 
 And they shoved him under a bush, 
 
 To die like a rat in a hole.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 193 
 
 His poor little queer fool's body 
 
 Was twisted awry with pain : 
 Dagonet, Arthur's fool, 
 
 Left to die in the rain. 
 
 He writhed and groaned in his torment, 
 But none heard his shameful cry : 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's fool, 
 Whom they left alone to die. 
 
 Mordred hated the fool, 
 
 And he passed the place where he lay, 
 "Ah-ha! my pleasant fool, 
 
 We'll see if you'll jest to-day!" 
 
 "We've silenced your bitter tongue, 
 We've stopped your quirks and pride!" 
 
 And Mordred, who ne'er forgot, 
 He kicked the fool aside. 
 
 Mordred was ever vile, 
 
 He scorned each knightly rule, 
 He swung a crashing blow 
 
 Right on the mouth of the fool. 
 
 He lifted his bleeding head, 
 
 Dazed for a moment 's space ; 
 Then Dagonet, Arthur's fool, 
 
 He laughed in Mordred 's face. 
 
 M. St. Clare Byrne
 
 194 MODERN VERSE 
 
 FORTY SINGING SEAMEN * 
 
 "In our lands be Beeres and Lyons of dyvers colours as ye redd, 
 grene, black, and white. And in our land be also unicornes and these 
 Unicornes slee many Lyons. . . . Also there dare no man make a lye 
 in our lande, for if he dyde he sholde incontynent be sleyn." Mediaeval 
 Epistle, of Pope Prester John. 
 
 Across the seas of Wonderland to Mogadore we plodded, 
 
 Forty singing seamen in an old black barque, 
 And we landed in the twilight where a Polyphemus nodded 
 With his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through 
 
 the dark! 
 
 For his eye was growing mellow 
 Rich and ripe and red and yellow, 
 
 As was time, since old Ulysses made him bellow in the dark ! 
 Cho. Since Ulysses bunged his eye up with a pine-torch in 
 the dark! 
 
 II 
 
 Were they mountains in the gloaming or the giant's ugly 
 
 shoulders 
 Just beneath the rolling eyeball, with its bleared and vinous 
 
 glow, 
 
 Red and yellow o'er the purple of the pines among the boulders 
 And the shaggy horror brooding on the sullen slopes below? 
 Were they pines among the boulders 
 Or the hair upon his shoulders ? 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Collected Poems, by Alfred Noyes. 
 Copyright, 1913, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 195 
 
 We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know. 
 Cho. We were simply singing seamen, so of course we 
 couldn't know. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But we crossed a plain of poppies, and we came upon a foun- 
 tain 
 
 Not of water, but of jewels, like a spray of leaping fire ; 
 And behind it, in an emerald glade, beneath a golden mountain 
 There stood a crystal palace, for a sailor to admire ; 
 For a troop of ghosts came round us, 
 Which with leaves of bay they crowned us, 
 Then with grog they well nigh drowned us, to the depth of 
 
 our desire! 
 Cho. And 'twas very friendly of them, as a sailor can admire ! 
 
 IV 
 
 There was music all about us, we were growing quite forgetful 
 
 We were only singing seamen from the dirt of London-town, 
 
 Though the neetar that we swallowed seemed to vanish half 
 
 regretful 
 
 As if we wasn't good enough to take such vittles down, 
 When we saw a sudden figure, 
 Tall and black as any nigger, 
 
 Like the devil only bigger drawing near us with a frown ! 
 Cho. Like the devil but much bigger and he wore a golden 
 crown ! 
 
 And "What's all this?" he growls at us! With dignity we 
 
 chaunted, 
 "Forty singing seamen, sir, as won't be put upon!"
 
 196 MODERN VERSE 
 
 "What? Englishmen?" he cries, "Well, if ye don't mind 
 
 being haunted, 
 Faith you're welcome to my palace; I'm the famous Pres- 
 
 ter John! 
 
 Will ye walk into my palace ? 
 I don't bear 'ee any malice! 
 One and all ye shall be welcome in the halls of Prester 
 
 John!" 
 
 Cho. So we walked into the palace and the halls cf Prester 
 John! 
 
 VI 
 
 Now the door was one great diamond and the hall a hollow 
 
 ruby 
 
 Big as Beachy Head, my lads, nay bigger by a half ! 
 And I sees the mate wi' mouth agape, a-staring like a booby, 
 And the skipper close behind him, with his tongue out like 
 
 a calf ! 
 
 Now the way to take it rightly 
 Was to walk along politely 
 
 Just as if you didn't notice so I couldn't help but laugh! 
 Cho. For they both forgot their manners and the crew was 
 bound to laugh! 
 
 VII 
 
 But he took us through his palace and, my lads, as I'm a 
 
 sinner, 
 
 We walked into an opal like a sunset-colored cloud 
 "My dining-room," he says, and, quick as light we saw a 
 
 dinner 
 
 Spread before ns by the fingers of a hidden fairy crowd; 
 And the skipper, swaying gently 
 After dinner, murmurs faintly,
 
 THOUGHT AND FANC^S 197 
 
 "I looks towards you, Prester John, you've done us very 
 
 proud ! ' ' 
 
 Cho. And we drank his health with honors, for he done us 
 very proud ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Then he walks us to his garden where we sees a feathered 
 
 demon 
 
 Very splendid and important on a sort of spicy tree! 
 "That's the Phoenix," whispers Prester, "which all eddicated 
 
 seamen 
 
 Knows the only one existent, and he's waiting for to flee! 
 When his hundred years expire 
 Then he'll set hisself a-fire 
 
 And another from his ashes rise most beautiful to see!" 
 Cho. With wings of rose and emerald most beautiful to see ! 
 
 IX 
 
 Then he says, "In yonder forest there's a little silver river. 
 
 And whosoever drinks of it, his youth shall never die ! 
 The centuries go by, but Prester John endures forever 
 
 With his music in the mountains and his magic on the sky ! 
 While your hearts are growing colder, 
 While your world is growing older, 
 There's a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets 
 
 the sky. ' ' 
 
 Cho. It shall call to singing seamen till the fount o' song is 
 dry! 
 
 So we thought we 'd up and seek it, but that forest fair defied 
 
 us, 
 First a crimson leopard laughs at us most horrible to see,
 
 198 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Then a sea-green lion came and sniffed and licked his chops 
 
 and eyed us, 
 
 While a red and yellow unicorn was dancing round a tree ! 
 We was trying to look thinner 
 Which was hard, because our dinner 
 Must ha' made us very tempting to a cat of high degree! 
 Cho. Must ha' made us very tempting to the whole menar- 
 jeree ! 
 
 XI 
 
 So we scuttled from that forest and across the poppy meadows 
 Where the awful shaggy horror brooded o 'er us in the dark ! 
 And we pushes out from shore again a-jumping at our shadows, 
 And pulls away most joyful to the old black barque ! 
 And home again we plodded 
 While the Polyphemus nodded 
 With his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through 
 
 the dark, 
 
 Cho. Oh, the moon above the mountains, red and yellow 
 through the dark! 
 
 XII 
 
 Across the seas of Wonderland to London-town we blundered, 
 
 Forty singing seamen as was puzzled for to know 
 If the visions that we saw was caused by here again we 
 
 pondered 
 
 A tipple in a vision forty thousand years ago. 
 Could the grog we dreamt we swallowed 
 Make us dream of all that followed? 
 
 We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know! 
 Cho. We were simple singing seamen, so of course we could 
 not know. 
 
 Alfred Noyes
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 199 
 
 When Shakespeare laughed, the fun began! 
 Even the tavern barmaids ran 
 
 To choke in secret, and unbent 
 
 A lace, to ease their merriment. 
 The Mermaid rocked to hear the man. 
 
 Then Ben his aching girth would span, 
 And roar above his pasty pan, 
 
 "Avast there, "Will, for I am spent!" 
 When Shakespeare laughed. 
 
 I' faith, let him be grave who can 
 When Falstaff, Puck and Caliban 
 In one explosive jest are blent ! 
 The boatmen on the river lent 
 An ear to hear the mirthful clan 
 When Shakespeare laughed. 
 
 Christopher Morley 
 
 Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign 
 To put upon the cover of this book? 
 
 * From The Rocking Horse, by Christopher Morley. Copyright, 1919, 
 George H. Doran Company, publishers. 
 
 * From A Dome of Many-Colored Glass, by Amy Lowell. Used by 
 special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.
 
 200 MODERN VERSE 
 
 Who heard thee singing in the distance dim, 
 The vague, far greenness of the enshrouding wood, 
 When the damp freshness of the morning earth 
 Was full of pungent sweetness and thy song? 
 
 Who followed over moss and twisted roots, 
 
 And pushed through the wet leaves of trailing vines 
 
 Where slanting sunbeams gleamed uncertainly, 
 
 While ever clearer came the dropping notes, 
 
 Until, at last, two widening trunks disclosed 
 
 Thee singing on a spray of branching beech, 
 
 Hidden, then seen ; and always that same song 
 
 Of joyful sweetness, rapture incarnate, 
 
 Filled the hushed, rustling stillness of the wood? 
 
 We do not know what bird thou art. Perhaps 
 That fairy bird, fabled in island tale, 
 Who never sings but once, and then his song 
 Is of such fearful beauty that he dies 
 From sheer exuberance of melody. 
 
 For this they took thee, little bird, for this 
 They captured thee, tilting among the leaves, 
 And stamped thee for a symbol on this book. 
 For it contains a song surpassing thine, 
 Richer, more sweet, more poignant. And the poet 
 Who felt this burning beauty, and whose heart 
 Was full of loveliest things, sang all he knew 
 A little while, and then he died; too frail 
 To bear this untamed, passionate burst of song. 
 
 Amy Lowell
 
 THOUGHT AND FANCY 201 
 
 THE SHEPHERD TO THE POET 
 
 Och, what's the good o' spinnin' words 
 
 As fine as silken thread ? 
 Will "golden gorse upon the hill" 
 
 Be gold to buy ye bread 1 
 
 An' while ye 're list'nin' in the glen 
 
 "To catch the thrush's lay," 
 Your thatch is scattered be th' wind, 
 
 Your sheep have gone astray. 
 
 Th ' time ye 're af ther makin ' rhymes 
 
 0' "leppin' waves an' sea," 
 Arrah! ye should be sellin' then 
 
 Your lambs upon the quay. 
 
 Sure, 'tis God's ways is very quare, 
 
 An ' far beyont my ken, 
 How o' the selfsame clay he makes 
 
 Poets an' useful men! 
 
 Agnes Kendrick Gray 
 
 TO YOURSELF * 
 
 Talking to people in well-ordered ways is prose, 
 
 And talking to them in well-ordered ways or 
 
 in disordered outbreak may be poetry. 
 
 * Reprinted with permission from Grenstone Poems, by Witter Bynner 
 Copyright, 1917, Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 202 MODERN VERSE 
 
 But talking to yourself, out on a country road, 
 no houses and no hedges to conceal a listener, 
 
 Only yourself and heaven and the trees and a 
 wind and a linnet; 
 
 Talking to yourself in those long breaths that 
 sing or hum or whistle fullness of the heart, 
 
 Or the short breaths, 
 
 Beats of the heart, 
 
 Whether it be of sadness or a haystack, 
 
 Mirth or the smell of the sea, 
 
 A cloud or luck or love, 
 
 Any of these or none 
 
 Is poetry. 
 
 Witter Bynner
 
 NOTES
 
 PREFACE TO THE NOTES 
 
 Some lovers of poetry object to studying it. They prefer 
 to feel its effects without analyzing them; they prefer to an- 
 swer the questions that arise in their own minds rather than 
 the questions that have occurred to someone else. Above all 
 they dread the possibility that discussions may become formal- 
 ized. On the other hand, many persons, both young and old, 
 really cannot appreciate poetry until they do study it until 
 they see the connection between an author's life and his work; 
 until they understand the allusions or technique of a poem; 
 until they can apply a few standards of comparison, and get 
 their imaginations working. 
 
 These Notes are added in the hope that they may help the 
 latter class of readers without seriously offending the former. 
 They give very briefly important biographical data, neces- 
 sary background, and some questions which are intended 
 merely as suggestions and time-savers. (Nearly all of these 
 questions originally were asked by pupils themselves, in the 
 course of two years' classroom experiments with modern 
 verse.) They simply show some ways of teaching oneself how 
 to test and enjoy not only these modern poems, but others 
 which may be read in future.
 
 NOTES 
 
 SEA-FEVER 
 
 Page 3. (From Salt-Water Poems and Ballads) 
 
 John Masefield was born in 1874. From childhood he had such a 
 love of the sea that his parents apprenticed him, at fourteen, to a 
 shipmaster as a cabin boy. Later, he spent several years before the 
 mast. Then he wandered on foot through various countries. For awhile 
 he worked in New York, first in a saloon and then in a factory. 
 Returning to England with his mind finally made up to devote himself 
 to literature, he worked patiently for over ten years before the publica- 
 tion of The Everlasting Mercy (which won the Edmond de Polignac 
 prize in 1912) made him famous. Since then he has published many 
 volumes of verse and plays. During the war he served with the Red 
 Cross in France and at Gallipoli, fitting out a hospital ship at his own 
 expense. He has made a lecture tour of the United States. 
 
 For generations, love of the sea has been a characteristic of the 
 Englishman. Over a thousand years ago, an Anglo-Saxon poet whose 
 name we do not know and in a way, it does not matter, since he waa 
 but a Toice for many of his fellows composed a long poem called "The 
 Seafarer." A few scattered lines from it( Cook and Tinker's translation) 
 will show the similarity of feeling: 
 
 "The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard only 
 The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan; 
 For pastime the gannet's cry served me; the kittiwakes" chatter 
 For laughter of men; and for mead-drink the call of the sea-mews." 
 
 "Yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing 
 
 To test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play, 
 
 Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander 
 
 To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off." 
 
 "Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, 
 
 Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale, 
 
 To the end of the earth and comes back to me. Eager and greedy, 
 
 The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward 
 
 Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea." 
 
 On what sort of day do you love the sea best ? 
 
 207
 
 208 NOTES 
 
 WILD WEATHER 
 
 Page 4. (From Crack o' Dawn) 
 
 Fannie Stearns Davis (Mrs. Gifford) is a Smith College graduate, 
 of 1904. She has published books of verse, anu contributes frequently to 
 leading magazines. She lives in Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 Which do you prefer a windy day near the sea or a windy day in 
 the country? What words here give best an idea of the onrush and 
 might of the wind? Do you know a famous nineteenth century poem 
 which is full of a man's fierce exultation in this great force of Nature? 
 
 HIGH-TIDE 
 
 Page 5. (From Growing Pains) 
 
 Jean Starr was born in Ohio, 1886. She attended private schools in 
 Ohio and New York, and took a Columbia University extension course. 
 She married Louis Untermeyer (q. v. ) in 1907. She has published 
 some of her verse, and contributes to leading magazines. 
 
 What two ideas about the moon one scientific, the other mythical 
 are skillfully combined in this poem? 
 
 Cadenced verse (very commonly, but rather incorrectly known as 
 "free verse," from a mistranslation of the French term "vers libre") 
 is an extremely difficult form. This note, long as it is, gives only the 
 more important principles governing its construction. Your teacher 
 will help you illustrate and discuss the points. Once you understand 
 them, and have applied them to several poems written in cadenced 
 verse, you will see that this form is far from being as many people 
 ignorantly think mere chopped-up prose. It has long been recognized 
 in other languages as a legitimate form cf poetry. 
 
 The French, who use it frequently, call it "vers libre." "Vers'' 
 means "line" or "lines." The lines of cadenced verse are "free" in 
 that they follow no fixed scheme of rhyme or metre. But the group or 
 groups of lines that constitute the poem what in English is some- 
 times loosely called "the verse" are not "free." They must obey the 
 laws of cadence, and preserve the strophic unit. 
 
 The literal meaning of "cadence" is "a fall of the voice in reading 
 or speaking." A "fall" which occurs at the end of a sentence is often 
 caused by the speaker's need to breathe; the minor ones which occur 
 in the midst of the sentence, by his wish to emphasize. A slight transi- 
 tion in thought gives us the usual meaning of "cadence" the whole 
 rhythmical, pleasant flow of sound caused by the rising and falling of 
 the voice between the drawings of breath. Amy Lowell has said, (Some 
 Musical Analogies in Modern Poetry) "By 'cadence' in poetry we mean 
 a rhythmic curve, containing one or more stressed accents, and corre-
 
 NOTES 209 
 
 spending roughly to the necessity for breathing. This must also corre- 
 spond to a slight depression or slight dropping in the tension of the 
 subject at this point what T might call a pause in the flow of the 
 idea." 
 
 It can easily be seen that rhyme and metre do impose upon cadence 
 certain restrictions of regularly recurring accents and sounds. For if 
 verse requires rhyming words at regular intervals, one of two things is 
 likely to happen; either the natural curve of the cadence may have to bo 
 altered for the sake of fitting in those particular words, or words which 
 do not fit the meaning so exactly may have to be substituted. Metre 
 also hampers freedom in the choice of words, for in English verse the 
 metrical accent must correspond to the natural accent. Again, in the 
 case of metre, a line which forms part or the whole of a cadence must 
 be made up of feet containing so many syllables, with the corresponding 
 syllable of each foot accented. Cadenced verse, on the contrary, is non- 
 syllabic; it is based upon accent, and there may be one syllable or four 
 to any single beat. (These groups of syllables may be called "time- 
 units," for the number of seconds, or fractions of seconds, required to 
 read each one is approximately the same.) Thus greater freedom in 
 choice of words and greater variety of cadence-effect is possible in "vers 
 libre" than in metrical verse. 
 
 But the human ear and the human mind demand some unit in every 
 form of expression, no matter how great may be the variety within that 
 unit. Skillful writers of cadenced verse always preserve a unit called 
 the strophe. "Strophe," in Greek tragedy, meant the circuit made by 
 the chorus around the central altar in the pauses between action, and 
 hence the group of lines which they chanted while making this turn. 
 It had no universally prescribed length or metre, like the stanza, but 
 it possessed a certain completeness of rhythm and thought. Writers 
 of cadenced verse, then, mean by "strophe" a succession of cadences that 
 gives an effect of completed harmony. (The "circle" is usually closed 
 by having the strophe "return" upon itself; that is, some thought or 
 sound at the end brings one back to the thought or sound of the be- 
 ginning.) The strophe may be the whole poem, or only a part of it. 
 In the latter case, each strophe should lead naturally into the next; 
 the whole poem might thus be likened to a series of circles, either 
 tangent or concentric. 
 
 The question naturally arises, "Cannot variety of cadence-effect and 
 strophic unity be preserved even when metre and rhyme are used?" 
 Yes occasionally, when the poem is by a master. Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Keats, and Shelley are among the few who have attained this fourfold 
 excellence. But even they could not often attain it without employing 
 inversions a trick very much disliked by modern writers or inserting 
 words evidently used for reasons of rhyme or of metre. The average 
 modern poet, preferring to approach perfection within his individual 
 limitations, does not try to do six things at once; he deliberately
 
 210 NOTES 
 
 sacrifices one or two effects, believing that definite compensations are 
 offered by the increased naturalness and beauty of those retained. 
 Writers of cadenced verse claim that natural sentence-order, the use of 
 the exact word contributing delightfully delicate values of word-mean- 
 ings the "subtle shades of changing rhythms," and a certain organic 
 unity are enough to give poetic pleasure without metre or rhyme. They 
 do not claim that "vers libre" is the only, or even the best, way of 
 writing poetry. All of them who write it well have spent years in 
 studying and writing standard metrical verse, and most of them still 
 use that older medium on occasions. They regard cadenced verse and 
 we should regard it as simply another form of English poetry, at 
 present somewhat experimental, but without doubt destined to make a 
 positive contribution to English poetic technique. 
 
 The possibilities resulting from that contribution cannot be dis- 
 cussed at any length here. Broadly, it may be said that the addition 
 of a new form to a language always means new effects in subject- 
 matter, vocabulary, and rhythm, which not only have intrinsic worth 
 but exert a powerful influence upon accepted forms, and that in this 
 way techniqu is constantly widened and enriched. If you are interested 
 in this idea ol the steady progress of art through action and reaction, 
 you may like a book called Convention and Revolt in Poetry, by John 
 Livingston Lowes. (Chapter 6 deals especially with the question of 
 "vers libre.") Or if you wish to examine the charge that poetry is 
 becoming more and more like prose, read Chapters 5 and 6 of A Study 
 of Poetry, by Bliss Perry: this is rather more technical. Various books 
 and articles by Amy Lowell the first American poet to set forth clearly 
 the case for "free" forms and furnish convincing proof of their merits 
 by the beauty of her own work are also difficult, but very valuable. 
 
 All of these general principles underlying cadenced verse lead up, for 
 you to one specific, practical direction. Don't judge a poem written 
 in this form by how it looks; judge it by how it sounds. The uae of 
 capitals or small letters does not affect the cadences, and neither do the 
 arbitrary line-divisions, which vary infinitely according to the subtle 
 shades of emphasis that the poets wish to convey. The only real test 
 of cadenced verse is made by the ear. Never fail to read it aloud as you 
 study it not once, but many times. 
 
 SAILOR TOWN 
 
 Page 5. (From Sailor Town) 
 
 Cicely Fox Smith was born in England toward the close of the last 
 century. One of her ancestors was Captain John Smith of Virginia. 
 Several years spent on the Pacific Coast of Canada gave her a full 
 opportunity to indulge her passion for ships and the sea. To quote 
 from her letter: "I wish I might truthfully tell you that I was a
 
 NOTES 211 
 
 sea-captain's daughter and had sailed with him on all his voyages. 
 That is what some of my unknown correspondents have surmised. Also, 
 I frequently receive letters from sailormen who do not know my sex 
 asking if I am not an old shipmate." 
 
 Miss Smith has published not only volumes of verse but novels. She 
 is now living in England. 
 
 Have you ever been along the water-front in a fishing center like 
 Gloucester or any large harbor city ? If you were writing a poem about 
 it, would you choose the scene in daytime or the scene in the evening, 
 as the author has? Of the many objects in the little shops, why do 
 you think she picked out the ones she did for mention? 
 
 THE SHIP OF RIO 
 
 Page 6. (From Peacock Pie) 
 
 Walter de la Mare was born in 1873, and educated at St. Paul's 
 Cathedral Choir School. Since 1902 he has written many volumes of 
 verse. (Recently, these have been published in an American "collected 
 edition.") In 1910 he won the Edmond de Polignac prize for that year. 
 He is a very quiet, unworldly man, with an eternally young heart and 
 a keen sense of humor. His poems are chiefly of three types: child- 
 poems, many of which rival Mother Goose; character-studies; and 
 poems of elusive and mysterious fancy. 
 
 This is one of the first group. It gives equal delight to children and 
 to grown-ups. 
 
 OLD ANCHOR CHANTY 
 
 Page 7. (From Poems with Fables in Prose) 
 
 Herbert Trench is very fond of sea life as the traveler knows it. He 
 was born in Ireland, 1865, and educated at Haileybury and Oxford. 
 He has held positions of honor on the Board of Education, been director 
 of the Haymarket Theater, and done much to promote better under- 
 standing between Great Britain and Italy. He has written poems and 
 plays. 
 
 "The Chanty-Man Sings," by William Brown Meloney (Everybody's 
 Magazine, August, 1915) would be most interesting to read in connec- 
 tion with this. It gives the words and tunes for several famous old 
 chanties those songs that sailors used to sing while they were heaving 
 anchor, hoisting yards, or adjusting sails, on the square-rigged ships 
 and schooners. The chanty verse consisted of alternate solo and 
 chorus lines. Often the leader improvised as he went along. 
 
 When this is read aloud in class, two solo parts should be assigned, 
 and all others join in the chorus.
 
 212 NOTES 
 
 IRRADIATIONS III 
 
 Page n. (From Irradiations; Sand and Spray) 
 
 John Gould Fletcher was born in Arkansas in 1886. He attended 
 Phillips Andover and Harvard. Soon afterwards, he went to Europe, 
 remaining six years. Returning to America at the outbreak of the 
 war, he travelled in the West. In 1916, he went back to England, 
 where he has been living since. He. has published several volumes of 
 verse which embody interesting and very "advanced" poetic theories, and 
 has translated a good deal of Japanese poetry. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher is one of the so-called "Imagists." The rules which 
 these poets have set for themselves are given below, in their own words. 
 They are taken from the preface to Some Imagist Poets, an anthology 
 containing representative verse by Amy Lowell, "H. D." (Hilda Doolittle, 
 now Mrs. Aldington), John Gould Fletcher, Richard Aldington, F. S. 
 Flint, and D. II. Lawrence. They are prefaced by the statement : 
 "These principles are not new; they have fallen into desuetude. They 
 are the essentials of all great poetry, indeed of all great literature." 
 
 "1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the 
 exact word, not the nearly exact, nor the merely decorative word. 
 
 "2. To create new rhythms as the expression of new moods and not 
 to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist 
 Tipon "free verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for 
 it as a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a 
 poet may often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional 
 forms. In poetry a new cadence means a new idea. 
 
 "3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not 
 good art to write badly of aeroplanes and automobiles, nor is it neces- 
 sarily bad art to write well about the past. We believe passionately 
 in the artistic value of modern life, but we wish to point out that 
 there is nothing so uninspiring nor as old-fashioned as an aeroplane of 
 the year 1911. 
 
 "4. To present an image (hence the name: 'Imagist'). We are not a 
 school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars 
 exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and 
 sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who 
 seems to us to shirk the responsibilities of his art. 
 
 "5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred and 
 indefinite. 
 
 "6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very 
 essence of poetry." 
 
 A clear and interesting explanation (with illustrations) of these 
 rules may be found in Amy Lowell's Tendencies in Modern American 
 Poetry. 
 
 How does this poem show Mr. Fletcher to be an Imagist? Does his
 
 NOTES 213 
 
 free verse embody the principles which were laid down in the note on 
 
 "High-Tide"? 
 
 CARGOES 
 
 Page 12. (From Salt-Wctter Poems and Ballads) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Sea-Fever.") 
 
 Occasionally poems come in one Hash of inspiration. Mr. Masefield is 
 said to have written this in half an hour. 
 
 What idea is suggested by the poem as a whole? How does the in- 
 tentional anticlimax contribute to this? Which of the three pictures 
 is clearest in vour mind? 
 
 THE OLD SHIPS 
 
 Page 12. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 In James Elroy Flecker's untimely death English poetry suffered a 
 great loss. Born in 1884, he died of consumption when only thirty. 
 He was an Oxford man. He spent four years of his life in the Consular 
 Service, holding posts at Constantinople, Smyrna, and Beyrout. He 
 married a Greek girl. He loved the East, especially for its picturesque- 
 ness and its age-old civilization. 
 
 How long ago did "the pirate Genoese" do battle? What did the 
 "drowsy ship of some yet older day" look like? How old might it 
 possibly be? Do you remember the wooden horse of Troy? Who lived 
 on the island of 
 
 SING A SONG 0' SHIPWRECK 
 
 Page 14. (From Salt-Water Poems and Ballads) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Sea-Fever.") 
 
 This was written while Mr. Masefield was a very young man, still 
 serving before the mast. 
 
 Do you like the poem's being written in dialect? What details give 
 vhidness? humor? What shows that the sailor is not so callous as he 
 may seem? Should you have liked a full account of the rescue? 
 
 PIRATE TREASURE 
 
 Page 16. (From Heart of New England) 
 
 Abbie Farwell Brown still lives in her native city Boston, Massa-: 
 chusetts. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College, and has traveled much
 
 214 NOTES 
 
 abroad. She has written many books for children and short stories, as 
 well as verse. 
 
 Though the age of pirates is past, few people can think long of the 
 sea without thinking of a "Jolly Roger." As the lady found out, dis- 
 tance lends enchantment, and yet do you think she wholly repented 
 her adventuresomeness? 
 
 Do you know "The Skeleton in Armor," by Longfellow? 
 These verses would be splendid to set to music. 
 
 FOG 
 
 Page 2i. (From Chicago Poems) 
 
 Carl Sandburg was born in 1878. Forced to leave school at thirteen, 
 he worked at six or seven trades before enlisting for service in the 
 Spanish-American War. After his return, he put himself through 
 Lombard College, then roamed the Middle West as a newspaperman, a 
 salesman, and an organizer for the Social-Democratic party of Wis- 
 consin. From 1910-1912 he was secretary to the mayor of Milwaukee. 
 He is now an editorial writer on the Chicago Daily Neics, and a 
 lecturer on poetry, as well as one of the leading poets in America. His 
 volumes of verse show a steady increase in power to handle a very free 
 technique. He uses no standard metres whatever. 
 
 The whole point of this "handful" is the unusual comparison. What 
 do you think of it ? 
 
 BROOKLYN BRIDGE AT DAWN 
 
 Page 21. (From New Poems) 
 
 Richard Le Gallienne was born in Liverpool, 1866, and educated at 
 Liverpool College. He was engaged in business for seven years, but 
 abandoned it in favor of literature. For about fifteen years he has 
 lived in the United States. He has written much, chiefly essays and 
 poems. 
 
 Since this is the first sonnet in the collection, and there are many 
 others, make sure you remember what a sonnet 'it in respect to length, 
 divisions, transitions of thought and vaiious rhyme-schemes. In spite 
 of the fact that it is an old and much-used form and very difficult, it 
 maintains tremendous popularity. 
 
 You would find it interesting to compare this with a famous sonnet 
 by Wordsworth, "On Westminster Bridge." What is the idea common
 
 NOTES 215 
 
 to both? What additional thought is found in the closing lines of Mr. 
 Le Gallienne's? Which picture do you think has more of the elusive 
 something which we call beauty? 
 
 BEN NAPOLI 
 
 Page 22. (From Carminaj 
 
 Thomas Augustine Daly was born in 1871. After studying at Fordham 
 University, he took up newspaper work, which has been his vocation 
 ever since. He has been general manager for the Catholic Standard 
 and Times, editorial writer on the Philadelphia Record, and associate 
 editor of the Evening Ledger. Ke is a member of the American Press 
 Humorists, and as that implies a very witty lecturer and writer. 
 His volumes of verse have been extremery popular. Most of the poems 
 are in Italian or Irish dialect. 
 
 How often do you think of immigrants as homesick? Through which 
 one of the senses is poignant remembrance apt to come? 
 
 CITY ROOFS 
 
 Page 23. (From Today and Tomorrow) 
 
 "Charley" Towne is very popular in New York because of his genial, 
 whole-hearted interest in everything and everybody. He was born in 
 Kentucky (1877) but says he could never be happy long away from 
 New York. He has been an editor on various magazines, has written 
 words for music by well-known composers, and published several volumes 
 of verse. 
 
 Have you been up to the top of the Metropolitan tower, or seen a 
 similar view of any great city? Does the thought of the poem seem 
 natural? depressing? Would the thought of the last stanza occur to 
 you? Do you believe there are more bad people in the world than good 
 ones? 
 
 BROADWAY 
 
 Page 23. (From Poems and Ballads) 
 
 Hermann Hagedorn was born in 1882. He graduated from Harvard 
 in 1907, and from 1909-11 was instructor in English there. He first 
 achieved reputation through his plays; since, he has written poems, 
 translations, and fiction. He was one of the founders of the Vigilantes 
 (1916) and lately has been on the Executive Committee of the Roosevelt 
 Memorial Association. He not only owns, but runs, a farm in Con- 
 necticut. 
 
 What three things about the Broadway evening crowds suggest the
 
 216 NOTES 
 
 comparison? Why should they be called "far" when the writer was 
 probably jostling elbows with them? Does the figure of speech become 
 too involved? 
 
 THE PEDDLER 
 
 Page 24. (From Poems and Ballads) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to preceding poem.) 
 
 Point out all the differences you see between this poem and "Broad- 
 way." Should you think they were by the same author? Which do 
 you like better? 
 
 ROSES IN THE SUBWAY 
 
 Page 25. (From Poems) 
 
 Dana Burnet was born in 1888, in Cincinnati. He studied law at 
 Cornell, but soon turned to newspaper work. From 1911-1918 he was 
 with the New York Evening Sun. (In the winter of 1917-18 the 81111 
 sent him to France as a special writer.) He now devotes himself almost 
 entirely to his writing. He has published much fiction, as well as 
 poetry. 
 
 What line shows you that the roses mean a great deal to the girl? 
 Why do they? What might have been the thoughts of some other fellow- 
 passengers ? 
 
 THE FACTORIES 
 
 Page 26. (From Factories) 
 
 Margaret Widdemer was born in Pennsylvania. She was educated at 
 home, and attended Drexel Institute Library School. Since 1912 she 
 has contributed to well-known magazines, writing fiction and essays 
 as well as verse. In 1919 she married Robert Haven Schauffler. She 
 has recently brought out an anthology of ghost-poems, called The 
 Haunted Hour, which you might find interesting. 
 
 How far do you think each individual is responsible for general social 
 /ibuses? The last few years have wrought great changes in conditions 
 of labor! is there still room for complaint? 
 
 PRAYERS OF STEEL 
 
 Page 27. (From Cornhuskers) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Fog.") 
 
 This same theme the fearful beauty and the big meaning of a huge
 
 NOTES 217 
 
 industry is to be found in the title poem of Mr. Sandburg's new 
 volume, Smoke and Steel. 
 
 What in the poem shows the author's vivid imagination? His in- 
 terest in a new social order? His aspiration? 
 
 Several critics have said that in structure this reminded one of the 
 Psalms. If you doubt it, look up Psalm iUO, and write it out in ten 
 lines of free verse. You will be astonished at the similarity. The 
 Psalms, you know, were poetry intended to be sung and our Bible 
 translators kept them wonderfully rhythmic. They are prose only in 
 form. 
 
 ELLIS PARK 
 
 Page 28. (From Poetry; A Magazine of Verse) 
 
 Helen Hoyt was born in Connecticut, and educated at private schools. 
 She graduated from Barnard College in 1909. Since then, her home has 
 been in the Middle West. She taught for awhile, then worked in an 
 office ( near Ellis Park ) , and finally, as a secretary, came into the office 
 of Poetry. In 1918 she was made an associate editor, but resigned 
 shortly before her marriage. She has contributed to many magazines. 
 
 Ellis Park is in Chicago. 
 
 What is the most appealing thing about this poem? 
 
 THE PARK 
 
 Page 29. (From Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Roses in the Subway.") 
 Do you see any difference between the diction of this poem and that 
 of "'Roses in the Subway," or that of the preceding poem by Miss Hoyt? 
 What do "marge," "heart of Arcady," "burgeoning" mean? In what 
 sense has this poem a wider application than the preceding one? 
 
 AT TWILIGHT 
 
 Page 30. (From You and I) 
 
 Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Harriet Monroe for the interest 
 which she has stimulated in poetry. She is the founder and editor of 
 Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, which has given encouragement and oppor- 
 tunity to many young American poets. She is also the author of several 
 volumes of verse, and edited, with Alice Corbin Henderson, an inter- 
 esting anthology, The New Poetry. She was born and has always lived 
 in Chicago. 
 
 The city is Chicago, but it might be almost any great city on a rainy
 
 218 NOTES 
 
 night. Should you call the picture mainly literal, mainly suggestive, 
 or mainly imaginative? 
 
 IN LADY STREET 
 
 Page 31. (From Poems) 
 
 John Drinkwater was born in 1882. He has published essays, poems, 
 and plays, and has long been interested in problems of the stage. He 
 is general manager of the Birmingham Repertory Theater. He became 
 famous over-night with the production of Abraham Lincoln, which had 
 an amazing run in London before its huge success here. He made a 
 lecture tour of the States in 1921. 
 
 Do you think that poetry is poetry when it describes ugly things? 
 (This question has been debated for hundreds of years.) What, of 
 course, is the point of the ugliness here? Should you judge that most 
 of Mr. Drinkwater's poems were about the city or about the country! 
 
 Page 34. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 Alfred Noyes, who was born in 1880, is an Englishman by birth, and 
 an Oxford graduate. Recently, however, he has spent much time in the 
 United States, not only lecturing, but occupying a professor's chair at 
 Princeton University, so that many Americans are coming to look 
 upon him as an "adopted" poet of their own. (Perhaps he would not 
 regard this as a compliment! ) During the war he served for a time in 
 the British Foreign Office, and has been created C. B. E. He has written 
 essays and fiction, but the bulk of his work is poetry, in which line 
 popular opinion ranks him with Kipling and Masefield. 
 
 The street-organ, at least in America, will soon be a thing of the 
 past. (Why?) Where, then, may you watch the same miracle of the 
 effect of music on different people? Would the effect on these men and 
 women be the same at any time of day? (Apropos of the ''rowing-man," 
 that sport has always been one of Mr. Noyes' hobbies.) Why does the 
 poet introduce so much repetition, and so many variations of a few 
 ideas? Is the "lilac time" song intended to be an imitation of the 
 average ragtime ditty, or is it too good for that? Why has the poem 
 appealed so strongly to hundreds of readers? 
 
 THE GREEN INN 
 
 Page 43. (From Scribner's Magazine) 
 
 Theodosia Garrison Faulks was born in Newark, 1874, and educated 
 at private schools. She was married in 1898, and again in 1911. She
 
 NOTES 219 
 
 has published several volumes of poems, and contributed to leading 
 magazines. 
 
 An extended figure like this is hard to carry through without a slip. 
 What parts of it do you think are most successfully done? Notice, too, 
 the rather unusual rhyme-scheme. 
 
 THE FEET OF THE YOUNG MEN 
 
 Page 44. (From Rudyard Kipling's Terse Inclusive Edition) 
 There are few parts of the world which Rudyard Kipling has not 
 seen. He was born in Bombay, 1865; went to England to be educated; 
 returned to India and wrote for the Anglo-Indian press from 1882-1889; 
 then traveled in China, Japan, America, Africa, and Australasia. For 
 some time he lived in Vermont. (He had already become so famous 
 that while there he used to be annoyed by autograph fiends, who would 
 even buy his checks, given to local dealers, for the sake of the signature ! ) 
 Since then, he has made his home in England. In 1907, he won the 
 Nobel Prize for Literature. His work is astonishing, not only for its 
 vigor, but for its versatility. His poems fill an enormous volume 
 (Inclusive Edition, 1885-1918). He is an acknowledged master of short 
 story writing, whether the stories be of Anglo-Indian life (Plain Tales 
 from the Hills), children's stories (the Jungle Books and Just So 
 Stories) or tales of ghosts and terror (The Phantom Rickshaw, At the 
 End of the Passage, The Mark of the Beast). Of his novels, Kim is 
 already a classic. 
 
 Which call of the Red Gods do you hear most clearly ? Where would 
 you go if it were the one given in stanza III? in stanza IV? What is 
 meant by " 'Send your road is clear before you?" Why do you think 
 the poet chose the Indian figure of speech as a sort of background for 
 his vivid pictures? 
 
 TO THE THAWING WIND 
 
 Page 48. (From A Boy's Will) 
 
 Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, 1875, but his education and 
 life has been in New England, and all his affection centers on its hill- 
 side farms, its stone walls, its taciturn, conservative villagers. He has 
 been a farmer himself, also. He has taught a great deal grade school, 
 academy, normal school, and college. From 1912-15 he was in England. 
 He is now at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He spends much time on his farm 
 at Franconia, N. H. 
 
 Why is the poet anxious for the thawing wind to come? Have you 
 ever seen a window "flow" during a hard rain? What is meant by
 
 220 NOTES 
 
 "leave the sticks 
 Like a hermit's crucifix" i 
 
 When you read the" poem, take particular care to bring out the 
 humorous climax. 
 
 MISTER HOP-TOAD 
 
 Page 49. (From Songs o' Cheer) 
 
 People in Indiana are so proud of James Whitcomb Riley that they 
 have made his birthday a state holiday. He was born in 1853, and died 
 in 1916. He tried sign-painting, acting, and newspaper work before 
 he devoted himself to literature. Much of his verse is in the Hoosier 
 dialect, but his "straight English" verses, like "An Old Sweetheart 
 of Mine" have also been much quoted. Of his many volumes, The 
 Raggedy Man and The Little Orphant Annie Book are two that you 
 would like. 
 
 Do you know Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse"? If you don't, 
 hunt it up and compare it with this. There are some interesting 
 similarities, and some interesting differences which are due to the 
 different nationalities, times and temperaments of the poets. 
 
 One word may puzzle you. "Mind" in the 3d verse means "remember," 
 in this dialect. 
 
 TO A POET 
 (BY SPBING) 
 
 Page 50. (From Baubles) 
 
 Carolyn Wells Mrs. Hadwin Houghton, since 1918 has given 
 people many an hour of delight with her nonsense poems and parodies. 
 Look over sometimes A Parody Anthology, A Satire Anthology, and 
 A Whimsey Anthology. She has also written many children's books. 
 She has been engaged in literary work since 1900. 
 
 You know the conventional type of "Spring is here" poem. It is 
 a case where "so much has been said, and so well said" that the god- 
 dess's protest seems quite natural. What did Chaucer say about 
 "Aprile with his shoures sote?" What are some of Shakespeare s 
 spring songs? Herrick's? 
 
 MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE 
 
 Page 51. (From The Lonely Dancer) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Brooklyn Bridge at Dawn.")
 
 NOTES 221 
 
 Do you think this poem would draw a protest from sated "Spring," 
 or is it a trifle unusual? 
 What does "arras" mean ? 
 Which lines do YOU like the least? The best? 
 
 A MOUNTAIN GATEWAY 
 
 Page 53. (From April Airs) 
 
 Bliss Carman is a native of New Brunswick. Born in 1861, he 
 icceived his education there, at the University of Edinburgh, and 
 at Harvard. He read law two years, traveled, and was in editorial 
 work. Since 1894 he has devoted himself to literature, and has brought 
 out many small volumes of poetry, April Airs being a recent one. 
 
 My particular "mountain gateway" is in New Hampshire. Where 
 is yours? 
 
 Do you remember about Daphne? If you do not, look up the story 
 in Gayley's Classic Myths. 
 
 HAYMAKING 
 
 Page 54. (From Poems] 
 
 Edward Thomas Welsh, Spanish and English by descent was born 
 in 1878. He met death on the battlefield of Arras, April 9, 1917. In 
 his thirty-nine years he had published essays, reviews, biographies, and 
 one volume of verse. The latter is dedicated to Robert Frost, whom 
 Mr. Thomas met while he was in England, and whose work he admired. 
 
 In no two periods of English literature have poets described the 
 beauty of country life and scenery in quite the same way. Perhaps 
 you remember Milton's description of a summer noon in the country: 
 
 "Hard by a cottage chimney smokes 
 Fnom betwixt two aged oaks, 
 Where Corydon and Thyrsis met 
 Are at their savory dinner set 
 Of herbs and other country messes 
 Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; 
 And then in haste her bower she leaves 
 With Thestylis to bind the sheaves 
 Or, if the earlier season lead, 
 To the tanned haycock in the mead." 
 
 At first reading, the conventional pastoral names familiar to Milton's 
 readers make the lines sound artificial to us. Yet doubtless Milton 
 was remembering with keen appreciation just the sort of scene
 
 222 NOTES 
 
 described more fully here; and three hundred years hence, some 
 poet will be mirroring the beauty of a similar scene according to the 
 fashion of his age. Just at present we are favoring realistic detail, 
 'carefully observed but touched with unexpected bits of imagination. 
 Point out vivid instances in this poem. 
 
 AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY ON THE PRAIRIE 
 
 Page 56. (From The Congo) 
 
 If Nicholas Vachel Lindsay could be persuaded to write an auto- 
 biography, it would make fascinating reading. So far as facts go 
 he was born in Illinois, 1879, educated at Hiram College, Chicago 
 Art Institute, and New York School of Art; lectured for the Y. M. C. A. 
 and stumped for the Anti-Saloon League; in 1912 walked from Illinois 
 to New Mexico, distributing rhymes in return for a night's lodging, 
 and speaking in behalf of "The Gospel of Beauty." For the last five 
 years, he has lectured and recited his poetry in many parts of the 
 United States. In 1920 he gave recitals in England. The next summer 
 he tramped in the Rockies with the English author Stephen Graham. 
 He spends a large part of every year at home writing. You would like 
 "The Congo" and "The Chinese Nightingale," both too long to reprint 
 in this volume. The Village Magazine (privately printed) contains 
 dozens of symbolic and beautiful illustrations for poems. 
 
 In what sense is this poem really built around the title? Does the 
 imagery interfere with the accurateness of the description? 
 
 A GREETING 
 
 Page 57. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 William Henry Davies was born in 1870, of Welsh parents. He was 
 apprenticed to the picture-frame-making trade, but after his term 
 was over left England and became a tramp in America, for six years. 
 Returning to England, he made several walking tours as a peddler of 
 notions and as a street singer. His first volume of poems appeared 
 when he was thirty-four. Since then, he has published many other 
 volumes, which have been collected and printed in one American 
 edition. 
 
 What is it about this poem that almost makes you wish you were 
 a tramp yourself? 
 
 A VAGABOND SONG 
 
 Page 58. (From More Songs of Vagabondia) 
 
 The note on Bliss Carman will be found under "A Mountain Gate- 
 way." This poem is from the second of a series of three small
 
 NOTES 223 
 
 volumes which were written in collaboration with Richard Hovey. 
 He was a journalist, actor, dramatist, poet, and lecturer \vho died 
 in 1900, when he was only thirty-six. 
 
 Do you think autumn "sets the gypsy blood astir" more than spring? 
 
 Would this poem be good to set to music say, for a Boys' Glee Club? 
 
 THREE PIECES ON THE SMOKE OF AUTUMN 
 
 Page 58. (From Cornhuskers) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Fog.") 
 
 Why do you think the poet grouped these three short pieces together ? 
 How does the predominant feeling here differ from that in the preceding 
 autumn poem ? In the second piece, why is the passage in parenthesis 
 Inserted? All of this is "free" verse but what devices as old as poetry 
 itself are skillfully employed? 
 
 GOD'S WORLD 
 
 Page 60. (From Renascence and Other Poems) 
 
 E<kia St. Vincent Millay achieved her reputation very young. She 
 was born in Maine, in 1892, and is a graduate of Vassar College. Her 
 most famous long poem, "Renascence," was written when she was 
 nineteen. Since, she has contributed to many magazines, and has 
 brought out several volumes of poems. 
 
 Here is still a third way in which the beauty of autumn affects 
 people. Do you think it is more typical of a woman than of a man? 
 
 AFTER APPLE-PICKING 
 
 Page 60. (From North of Boston) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Thawing Wind.'') 
 In that strange land of delicious drowsiness through which we pass 
 to the sea of sleep, oonscious remembrance becomes twisted into images 
 half-real and half-fantastic. What shows the gradual blurring of the 
 apple-picker's mind? Is the picture of the day in the orchard still 
 fairly clear? Do you like the concluding fancy? Notice the apparent 
 carelessness of rhyme and meter. Does it satisfy your ear? 
 
 BROTHER BEASTS 
 
 Page 62. (From Wraiths and Realities) 
 
 Cale Young Rice is a native of Kentucky. He was born in 1872 
 - and educated at Cumberland University and Harvard. He has written
 
 224 NOTES 
 
 many poetic dramas and poems. His wife is the author of Mrs. Wiggs 
 of the Cabbage Patch, which was published the year before their 
 marriage. 
 
 In what way is this poem rather unusual? 
 
 Notice that there are few actual rhymes, and yet each stanza gives 
 the effect of being much rhymed. How do you account for it? 
 
 BIRCHES 
 
 Page 63. (From Mountain Interval) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Thawing Wind.") 
 
 Did you ever think of trying this sport yourself? Which page of 
 the poem do you think is most "poetical?" 
 
 Read the first page and consider it, for a minute, simply as blank 
 verse. How does it differ from blank verse you have already known? 
 
 HIGHMOUNT 
 
 Page 65. (From These Times) 
 
 Louis Untermeyer is a man of many interests by vocation a designer 
 and manufacturer of jewelry, by avocation a poet, translator, parodist, 
 lecturer, editor and critic. He was born in 1885, was educated in New 
 York and has always lived there. One very enjoyable volume of his 
 parodies in referred to under "The Sunken Garden." His two recently 
 published anthologies, Modern American Poetry and Modern British 
 Poetry, are ones which you would like. 
 
 What did the Psalmist say about the hills, long, long ago? 
 
 How does this poem differ from "A Mountain Gateway?" 
 
 A VIGNETTE 
 
 Page 67. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 Robert Bridges has been the poet laureate of England since 1918. 
 (What great poets have formerly held this office?) He was born in 
 1844. He is an Oxford man, and for years was a physician by pro- 
 fession. He fias written various plays, poems and critical essays; 
 his latest volume of verse, October and Other Lyrical Poems, (1920) 
 has been highly praised by critics in England. 
 
 What trace of the older "poetic diction" do you notice here? Is the 
 poem modern in spirit? What interpretation is here given of the 
 beauty of Nature?
 
 NOTES 225 
 
 Page 68. (From Poems) 
 
 Theodore Maynard, though still in his thirties, has had a checkered 
 career. Born in India, the son of a missionary, he studied first for the 
 Congregational ministry and then for the Unitarian pulpit; fina/ly he 
 became a Roman Catholic. He spent two years in America, where, 
 owing to unforeseen emergencies, he worked as a factory hand, a bill 
 poster, a book canvasser, and a hand on a cattle boat. Soon after 
 returning to England in 1911, he began to write poetry, and from 
 1916 on has been making a reputation for himself, being a lecturer 
 and critic as well as a poet. 
 
 I recently heard a very sweet and religious but rather narrow- 
 minded old lady say that she thought this poem was sacrilegious. 
 Do you see why she thought so? What lines of the poem show un- 
 mistakably the love and deep reverence which lie behind the old 
 coriception ? 
 
 GOOD COMPANY 
 
 Page 70. (From Blue Smoke) 
 
 Karle Wilson Baker was born in Arkansas, 1878; was educated at 
 Little Rock Academy and the University of Chicago; married in 
 1907. She has published only one volume of verse, but has contributed 
 stories, essays, and poems to various leading magazines, and writes 
 nonsense fairy books for children. 
 
 Why is the last line italicized? Which line do you think gives 
 the prettiest picture? 
 
 IRRADIATIONS X 
 
 Page 70. (From Irradiations; Sand and Spray) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to III from Irradiations.) 
 
 Is the odd image justified ? Is it consistently carried through ? What 
 
 is a howdah? 
 
 (Mr. Fletcher has long felt the influence of Oriental art and 
 
 literature. ) 
 
 TREES 
 
 Page 71. (From Poems, Essays and Letters) 
 
 Joyce Kilmer was a young American soldier-poet whose death will 
 long be mourned. He was born in New Jersey, 1886; graduated from
 
 226 NOTES 
 
 Columbia in 1908; taught school and then became a newspaper man. He 
 was connected longest with the New York Sunday Times. On America's 
 declaration of war, he enlisted immediately as a private. Officially he 
 was a sergeant, but was acting as adjutant when he was killed, on 
 July 30, 1918. 
 
 Why has this little poem been so much admired and so widely 
 quoted? Do you personally prefer this or the preceding one? 
 
 NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 Page 71. (From The Old Huntsman} 
 
 An interesting sketch of Siegfried Bassoon's work and personality, 
 written by his friend Robert Nichols, forms a preface to his second 
 volume, Counter-Attack. Briefly: Mr. Sassoon was born in 1886; was 
 jducated at Marlborough and Christchurch (Oxford) ; served through- 
 out the war as captain in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, both in France tnd 
 Palestine, where he received the M. C. ; and since then has been writing 
 and lecturing, having made a tour of the United States in 1920. 
 
 He is best known as a poet of the war. Why, then, should this 
 earlier poem be included in this collection? What are fauns? Dryads? 
 What vowel, skillfully used throughout, somehow gives the effect of 
 night noises in the woods? Do you remember the "blue meager hag" 
 passage in Comusf 
 
 THE FINAL SPURT 
 
 Page 72. (From Reynard the Fox) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Sea-Fever.") 
 
 These seventy-eight lines are really the climax of the long narra- 
 tive poem which tells the story of a whole day's thrilling fox-hunt. 
 The fox has shaken off his pursuers twice, but this time he seems 
 doomed. After reading this, you surely will want to know whether 
 the horses too, jumped the hedge, and whether Reynard finally escaped. 
 Get a copy of the book and read the conclusion. It is rather unexpected, 
 in that it satisfies both our sympathy for the hunted fox and our 
 sympathy for his pursuers. For although we, as Americans, have 
 been bred to consider fox-hunting a cruel sport a scruple which rarely 
 occurs to an Englishman as we follow Mr. Masefield's huntsmen and 
 horses and dogs throughout the poem, we grow so fond of them, and 
 so excited with them that we are ready to forgive their almost 
 prayerful profanity and should feel really disappointed if they had 
 their long day's chase for nothing.
 
 NOTES 227 
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 
 
 Page 75. (From Burglars of the Zodiac) 
 
 William Rose Benet was born in 1886, educated at Albany Academy 
 and Yale. Before the war he brought out three volumes of verse, 
 and was assistant editor of the Century Magazine. After his honorable 
 discharge from the Air Service, he went into the advertising business, 
 then resumed his literary career, publishing Burglars of the Zodiac. 
 He is now Associate Editor of the Literary Review (New York Eve- 
 ning Post). 
 
 How do you know that only a lover of horses could have written 
 this poem? What makes it different from any other poem about 
 horses that you have ever read? Why is it a good specimen of 
 the type called "dramatic monologue?" 
 
 Bellerophon rode the winged horse Pegasus. 
 
 Sagittarius, "the archer," (sometimes represented as a Centaur, 
 in older charts) is one of the constellations and a sign of the Zodiac. 
 The idea of the Zodiac originated with the Babylonians, who not 
 only named stars and planets after their gods, but positively identified 
 the two. 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Page 83. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 Wilfred Wilson Gibson was born in 1878. In his early thirties he 
 was a social worker, living in the East End of London. During part 
 of 'the war, he served quite characteristically, as a private in the 
 British Army. In 1917, he made a lecture tour of the United States. 
 He has written many small volumes of verse, most of which have been 
 collected in one large volume. Some of the best verses are war-poems; 
 the others deal with "the short and simple annals of the poor." 
 
 What is the unexpected twist at the end? Why is this suggestion 
 worse than the one which probably occurred to you that the boy 
 might be killed? 
 
 THE ROAD OF THE REFUGEES 
 
 Page 83. ( From The Sad Years ) 
 
 Lora Sigerson was a very sensitive, gifted young Irish writer, a 
 member of a family who were prominent socially and intellectually, 
 and actively interested in Irish politics. She married Mr. Clement 
 Shorter in 1897. She lived afterwards in England, but was always 
 passionately devoted to Ireland, and worry over the situation there
 
 228 NOTES 
 
 doubtless hastened her death in January, 1918. She had already 
 suffered much from the tragedy of the Great War. 
 
 If you did not know, how could you guess that this poem was 
 written by a woman? Which one of your senses is particularly affected 
 by reading the poem? By what poetic device is this effect accom- 
 plished? What is there rather unusual about the meter? 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 
 
 Page 84. (From Men, Women, and Ghosts) 
 
 Amy Lowell was born in 1874, of a distinguished Massachusetts 
 family. She was educated at private schools, and has traveled 
 widely. An interesting and significant feature of her poetic career 
 is that she spent years in learning her craft before attempting 
 to publish a single poem. They paid. Since 1912 she has published 
 many books of verse, literary criticism, and essays, and by them 
 has become widely known for her radical yet soundly defended poetic 
 theories. It would seem as if there were few experiments left for 
 her to try. She has put free verse on a sound critical basis, and has 
 gone a step further in her "polyphonic prose" pieces, of which this is 
 an example. 
 
 This is what Miss Lowell says about "polyphonic prose" in her 
 Tendencies in Modern American Poetry: 
 
 " 'Polyphonic prose' is not a prose form, although being printed as 
 prose, many people have found it difficult to understand this. It is 
 printed in that manner for convenience, as it changes its character 
 so often, with every wave of emotion, in fact. The word 'polyphonic' 
 is its keynote. 'Polyphonic' means 'many-voiced' and the form is so 
 called because it makes use of all the 'voices' of poetry, viz: meter 
 vers libre, assonance, alliteration, rhyme, and return. It employs 
 every form of rhythm, even prose rhythm at times, but usually holds 
 no particular one for long. It is an exceedingly difficult form to write, 
 as so much depends upon the poet's taste. The rhymes may come 
 at the ends of the cadences, or may appear in close juxtaposition to 
 each other, or may be only distantly related. It is an excellent medium 
 for dramatic portrayal, for stories in scenes, as it permits of great 
 vividness of presentation." 
 
 First of all, read The Bombardment through aloud at least twice. 
 By that time, your ear will have told you that this is no prose, even 
 though it is written as such. You must have noticed many cases of 
 assonance, alliteration, rhyme and return. Pick out a few instances 
 of each. Read it again, trying especially now to pick out phrases 
 which swing into regular meter for an instant. You can try all sorts
 
 NOTES 229 
 
 of interesting tests on it, if you have time. But don't neglect to read 
 it aloud once more as a whole, not stopping to think about any of the 
 poetic devices. Subconsciously, this time, you will find your ear 
 satisfied, and you will be free to notice the wonderful succession of 
 pictures. 
 
 THE OLD HOUSES OF FLANDERS 
 
 Page 87. (From On Heaven and Poems Written on Active Service) 
 Ford Madox Ilueffer was born in 1873, the grandson of the famous 
 English painter Ford Madox Brown. His father was German, but 
 had an intense hatred of Prussianism. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that he immediately sought a commission in the British Army during 
 the war, although he was over age, and was abandoning a prosperous 
 literary career. He was the first editor of The English Review, and. 
 has written fiction, essays, and biography as well as poetry. 
 
 How does this poem differ from the preceding one? What is rather 
 unusual about the conception? Is the strictly impersonal tone effective? 
 
 RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 1914 
 
 Page 88. (From Afternoons of April) 
 
 Grace Hazard Conkling graduated from Smith College in 1899, and 
 afterwards studied music and languages at Heidelberg and Paris. 
 She was married in 1905. She has been instructor and professor in the 
 English Department at Smith since 1914. She has brought out 
 several volumes of verse. 
 
 Word of the havoc wrought upon Rheims Cathedral came like 
 the news of a friend's death to those who knew and loved the magnificent 
 building, with its age-old beauty of detail. For whom does that 
 beauty still exist? Of what lines in II Penseroso do lines 9-12 remind 
 you? Do you know Wordsworth's sonnet, "On King's Chapel, 
 Cambridge"? 
 
 THE OLD SOLDIER 
 
 Page 89. (From Flower of youth] 
 
 Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) was born in Dublin and educated 
 in a Drogheda convent. Her first volume of verse was published 
 in 1885. Since then, she has brought out many more volumes, fiction 
 as well as poetry. She did much philanthropic work during the 
 war, and gave her two sons to the British Army. 
 
 This poem was written upon the death of Lord Roberts, affoe
 
 230 NOTES 
 
 tionately known to all English soldiers as "Bobs." Do you like the 
 thought? Do you like the very concrete form given to the idea of 
 God's tender care for His children? 
 
 FUNK 
 
 Page 90. (From Rhymes of a Red Cross Man) 
 
 Robert W. Service, who was born in 1874, is English by birth, Scotch 
 by education, Canadian, American, and "citizen of the world" by 
 experience. He has farmed, traveled, and worked in banks and on 
 newspapers. He spent eight years in the Yukon, and much of his 
 poetry concerns this wonderful land. He is an ardent motorist, and 
 through the Great War drove a Red Cross ambulance. 
 
 Service has been called a disciple of Kipling. Does this poem 
 show you why? What are the most vivid lines? The finest? What 
 is suggested by the steady beat of the last line in each stanza? 
 
 THE DEVOUT HIGHLANDER 
 
 Page 91. (From Songs of the Shrapnel Shell) 
 
 Captain Cyril Morton Home was one of the English soldier-poets 
 who gave his life. He was trying to rescue a wounded soldier in 
 front of the trenches when a shrapnel shell burst overhead (Jan. 27, 
 1916). He was only twenty-one. 
 
 How does this poem show that Captain Home had a delicious 
 sense of humor as well as a thorough understanding of Scotch 
 characteristics ? 
 
 THE SPIRES OF OXFORD 
 
 Page 94. (From The Spires of Oxford) 
 
 Winifred M. Letts was born in 1887, in Ireland. She has always 
 been much interested in Irish peasant life; in fact, an article in the 
 Dublin Review called her "a poet of the streets." She served as a 
 nurse at base hospitals during the Great War, and that experience 
 resulted in a volume of war poems, of which this is the best known. 
 Besides verse, she has written novels, and books for children. 
 
 What pictures do you find here of the peace and beauty of Oxford? 
 About how old are some of "the hoary colleges?" Should the sacrifice 
 made by these men be appreciated any more than that made by others? 
 Do you know the old English carol of which the last stanza gives an 
 echo?
 
 NOTES 231 
 
 THE SOLDIER 
 
 Page 95. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 Rupert Brooke was a poet of very great promise. He was born in 
 1887; educated at Rugby and Cambridge. He studied in Munich and 
 traveled on the Continent; in 1913-1914 he made a trip to the South 
 Seas, via the United States and Canada. He enlisted immediately on 
 the outbreak of the war and was first sent to Antwerp. A few months 
 later he sailed for the Dardanelles (with the British Mediterranean 
 Expeditionary Force), but never reached there, dying from blood-poison- 
 ing on April 23, 1914. His grave is on the island of Scyros. 
 
 The sonnet-sequence called "1914" is better known than anything 
 else of Brooke's, and of the five sonnets, this one is most often quoted. 
 Do you see why it has been so highly praised? Which do you like better, 
 the octave or the sestet? 
 
 I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH 
 
 Page 95. (From Poems) 
 
 Alan Seeger was born in 1888. He was educated at various Eastern 
 public and private schools and at Harvard. Soon after, he sailed for 
 Paris, where he studied several years, until the war broke out. He 
 immediately enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France, and served not 
 quite two years, being killed in action on July 4, 1916. 
 
 Alan Seeger's name is often linked with Rupert Brooke's. They 
 were both young, they both loved life tremendously, and they gave 
 it up unhesitatingly. Each, too, had a strong presentiment of his 
 approaching death. 
 
 Notice the contrasts here, pointed by the same constantly recurring 
 thought. 
 
 IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 Page 96. (From In Flanders Fields) 
 
 John McCrae was a Canadian, born in 1872. He took both his A.B. 
 and his M.D. at the University of Toronto, finishing in 1898. During 
 1899-1900 he served in South Africa and spent the rest of his life in 
 medical practice, for which he was exceptionally gifted. He enlisted 
 immediately on the outbreak of the war. After a few months at the 
 froiit, he was sent back to No. 3 General Hospital at Boulogne, vith the 
 rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His three years of tireless service there 
 doubtless lessened his power to resist an attack of pneumonia, which 
 caused his death in January, 1918.
 
 232 NOTES 
 
 Why is this poem more familiar to the average reader than any 
 oilier poem of the Great War? Can you determine why it is so musical? 
 (In this connection, you might study the first and third stanzas of 
 "The Solitary Reaper," by Wordsworth, where the devices and effect 
 are much the same. How does the unrhymed line in this poem help it 
 still further?) In form, the poem is a "rondeau," a difficult and 
 beautiful metrical pattern first used by French poets. 
 
 Page 97. ( From The Neio World ) 
 
 Laurence Binyon was born in 1869, and educated at St. Paul's 
 School and Oxford. Since 1893 he has held various offices of trust 
 and honor in the British Museum. He. lectured in the U. S. A. in 
 1012 and 1914. During the war, he worked in a hospital in France, 
 and as a volunteer in the anti-aircraft service. 
 
 Why do you think it is that this poem dealing with almost exactly 
 the same theme as "In Flanders Fields" has not had the same popularity? 
 In what sense has this poem a wider and a deeper thought? 
 
 COUNTER-ATTACK 
 
 Page 98. (From Counter-Attack and Other Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Night-Piece.") 
 
 This illustrates a kind of war verse which Sassoon and some other 
 young poets have insisted should be written and should be read. Do 
 you understand why they thought so? Do you think, on the whole, it 
 is more or less effective than any of the five preceding poems? 
 
 NOON (I FROM "BATTLE") 
 
 Page 99. (From Ardours and Endurances) 
 
 Robert Nichols was one of those who left "the shaven lawns of 
 Oxford" and he came very near finding the "bloody sod." An under- 
 graduate of twenty-one, he enlisted immediately in 1914 and served 
 as lieutenant for a year, until he was so severely wounded and shell- 
 shocked that he had to be invalided out of service. He was later 
 employed by the British Ministry of Labor. He made a lecture tour 
 of the U. S. A. in 1918-19. He has published several volumes of 
 verse. 
 
 What two thing? which make the soldiers' situation well-nigh 
 unbearable are brought out vividly in thia brief sketch? Is it the 
 same sort of poetry as "Counter-Attack" ?
 
 NOTES 233 
 
 TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WAR 
 FOR THE FOURTH TIME 
 
 Page too. (From Fairies and Fusiliers) 
 
 Robert Graves was born in 1895. In spite of his youth, he was a 
 captain in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers before his army service ceased. 
 Picked up for dead on the battle-field, he is said to have astounded the 
 stretcher-bearers by suddenly exclaiming: "I'm not dead! I'm 
 damned if I'll die!" He has written volumes of poetry and of poetic 
 criticism. 
 
 What is the very famous older poem which Mr. Graves had ta 
 mind while writing these verses? How would you know this to ba a 
 product of the twentieth century, as unmistakably as you would know 
 the other to be one of the seventeenth? 
 
 RETREAT 
 
 Page 101. (From Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Return.") 
 
 At the first of the Mesopotamian campaign, the British suffered 
 reverses because of their insufficient numbers and extreme difficulty 
 in establishing communications. Very little, comparatively, has been 
 written about these campaigns, but from the point of strategy they 
 were most important. British Campaigns in the Nearer East, by 
 Edmund Lane, is an interesting recent work on the subject. 
 
 Mr. Gibson's war poems generally concern the psychology of the 
 soldier that is, the way war's horrors affect his mind rather than 
 war's horrors themselves. Should you think this kind of war poetry 
 would be more or less effective than that which employs realistic 
 description of the horrors? 
 
 It is very unusual to find only two rhymes in a sonnet. What do 
 you think was the author's purpose in thus limiting them, and in 
 repeating one line so often? 
 
 Page 102. (From Night Winds of Ardby) 
 
 A. J. Eardley Dawson was born in 1890. He wan educated at 
 Cheltenham College, passed into the Cadet College, Quetta, and was 
 commissioned in 1917. Sent to an Indian regiment the famous Queen's 
 Rajputs he has served in Mesopotamia, Salonica, South Russia, 
 Armenia, Persia, and Constantinople.
 
 234 NOTES 
 
 How would you like to march, fight, and sleep in an Asian desert 
 where during the day the thermometer was above 110 and during 
 the night not below 80? 
 
 What do you consider the best line here? 
 
 DOES IT MATTER? 
 
 Page 103. (From Counter- Attack and Other Poems) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Night-Piece.") 
 What is the method employed here to make people realize what 
 war means? Is it effective? Do you think we have done and are 
 doing enough for our disabled and nerve-racked veterans? 
 
 THE DAWN PATROL 
 
 Page 103. (From The Dawn Patrol and Other Poems of an Aviator) 
 Captain Paul Bewsher was the first airman to obtain notice as a 
 poet. He has also won distinction as a lecturer and a journalist. He 
 was educated at St. Paul's School (London). He gained various war 
 honors for exploits at Zeebrugge and elsewhere on the Belgian coast. 
 With all this, he is still in his twenties. 
 
 This poem, with its beauty, its sense of soaring, and its realization 
 of the Great Guiding Power, has always reminded me of two very 
 famous "bird" poems one English, one American. Do you know 
 them? 
 
 AN OPEN BOAT 
 
 Page 105. (From The Neiv Morning) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Barrel-Organ.") 
 Comparatively few poems have been written about the horrors of 
 submarine warfare. Does this one gain in vividness by its briefness? 
 Would you rather have had a longer poem describing the torpedoing 
 of the ship, the escape to the open boat, perhaps some brave deed of 
 the lover which cost him his life? What finally happened to them all? 
 
 ADMIRAL DUGOUT 
 
 Page 105. (From Small Craft) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Sailor Town.") 
 
 Super-dreadnoughts, cruisers, and destroyers were not the only 
 ships that protected the North Sea. The plucky little trawlers
 
 NOTES 235 
 
 equipped with mine-sweeping apparatus and a few "barkers" to riddle 
 chance-met submarines played a heroic part in the struggle. Often 
 they were commanded by men of exactly "Admiral Dugout's" type. 
 
 "THE AVENUE OF THE ALLIES" 
 
 Page 107. ( From The New Morning ) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Barrel-Organ.") 
 
 Throughout the Liberty Loan campaigns and the great accompanying 
 
 parades, Fifth Avenue (New York) was a sight never to be forgotten. 
 
 The sober brown, white and gray buildings were covered with a riot 
 
 of color thousands of flags of the Allied Nations, as far down the 
 
 "lordly street" as eye could see. 
 
 What was Pentecost? What was "that world's Declaration?" What 
 
 is the device on the Polish flag? What does "burgeons" mean? 
 Why does the poet take the scene at night, rather than in the 
 
 daytime? Could you put the main thought of the poem into a few 
 
 words? Does it make you any prouder of your country? Is it what 
 
 you would have expected from an Englishman? 
 
 PRAYER OF A SOLDIER IN FRANCE 
 
 Page no. (From Poems, Essays, and Letters) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Trees.") 
 
 Joyce Kilmer was a devoted Catholic, with a strong vein of religious 
 mysticism in his temperament. What is the reverent and beautiful 
 thought which comes to him in the midst of his trials? Do you think 
 it would have occurred to the average soldier? 
 
 In the line "Men shout at me who may not speak," what is the 
 antecedent of "who?" 
 
 THE SMALL TOWN CELEBRATES 
 
 Page in. (From Boston Transcript) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Good Company.") 
 What were you doing on the dawn of November 11, 1918? What 
 are some especially good bits of description? How is Old Boozer's 
 "preaching" typical of a negro? Why introduce, the boy? The 
 puppy? 
 
 CONTINUITY 
 
 Page 114. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 George W. Russell, who writes under the pseudonym "A.E." is a 
 middle-aged Irish poet and painter who is known and loved through-
 
 236 NOTES 
 
 out all Ireland. His personality is calm, sincere, straightforward and 
 strong, and he has abiding faith in the permanence of Good. His 
 house in Dublin is a center for gracious hospitality and the stimulating 
 of interest in social, artistic, and intellectual problems. 
 
 This poem was written in war-time. What special significance does 
 it gain from that fact? 
 
 BABY PANTOMIME 
 
 Page 117. (From The Sistine Eve) 
 
 Percy MacKaye was born in 1875. He was educated at Harvard 
 and Leipzig. He is a dramatic rather than a lyric poet, having written 
 many plays and masques in verse. (You would be interested in The 
 Canterbury Pilgrims if you have read Chaucer. ) He has lectured widely 
 on the theater, and organized many community playhouses. 
 
 Do you know a long and difficult, but very beautiful poem by 
 Wordsworth one with an appalling title of which this sounds like 
 a humorous echo? Which of the gestures mentioned have you seen 
 a baby make most frequently? 
 
 A MAN-CHILD'S LULLABY 
 
 Page 117. (From Poems) 
 
 Brian Hooker was born in 1880, graduated from Yale, and has been 
 instructor in English at Yale and at Columbia. He has written 
 the libretto for several successful American operas, Horatio Parker 
 writing the music. He is a literary editor on the New York Sun, 
 and lately has become interested in the writing of "movies." He wrote 
 the lyrics for "Marjolaine," one of the daintiest of recent Broadway 
 successes. 
 
 How does this differ from the preceding poem? 
 
 Do you remember the refrain of an old Elizabethan lullaby 
 "Sephestia's Song to Her Child" which has this idea? 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 Page 118. (From Candles That Burn) 
 
 Aline Kilmer was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1888, and educated at 
 a private school in New Jersey. She married Joyce Kilmer (q.v. ) 
 in 1908. Since his death, she had published several volumes of 
 verse, and she contributes to various magazines. 
 
 The Kilmers had four children. How old do you think Michael and 
 his sister were when this happened? What primal instincts has the
 
 NOTES 237 
 
 little girl developed? Does Michael realize his mother's decision ia 
 just ? 
 
 SMELLS (JUNIOK) 
 
 Page 119. (From The Rocking-Horse) 
 
 Christopher Morley was born in Pennsylvania in 1890. He graduated 
 from Haverford, and from 1910-1913 was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. 
 He has held editorial positions with Doubleday, Page & Company, The 
 Ladies' Home Journal, and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. He is 
 now a literary editor of the JVetc York Evening Post, conducting an 
 enjoyable "column." He writes fiction and essays, as well as verse. 
 
 Can you remember any scents which especially struck your fancy 
 when you were a child? 
 
 THE RAG DOLLY'S VALENTINE 
 
 Page 119. (From The Laughing Muse) 
 
 Arthur Guiterman was born in 1871, and graduated from the Col- 
 lege of the City of New York in 1891. He has been a journalist 
 and an editorial writer. Since 1911 he has contributed a great 
 deal of humorous verse to Life and collected the best of it in several 
 delightful volumes. He has conducted classes in newspaper and maga- 
 zine verse in New York University. 
 
 Why are children's favorite toys usually their most disreputable 
 ones? What were you fond of taking to bed with you? 
 
 THE ANXIOUS FARMER 
 
 Page 120. (From Youngsters) 
 
 Surges Johnson was born in 1877, in Vermont, and graduated from 
 Amherst in 1899. He has been a reporter, and held various editorial 
 positions on different magazines. Since 1915 he has been associate 
 professor of English at Vassar. He has written many books of 
 humorous verse. 
 
 Don't you feel like illustrating this poem? Is the title well chosen? 
 Is there any hope for the garden? 
 
 THE DEW-LIGHT 
 
 Page 121. (From Poems of a Little Girl) 
 
 Little Hilda Conkling, the daughter of Mrs. Grace Hazard Covikling 
 (n.v. ) has been composing verse since she was four years old. (She
 
 238 NOTES 
 
 was born in 1910.) Her mother writes down these "songs" as Hilda 
 gives them to her, carefully indicating by divisions and punctuation 
 the original cadences of the child's voice. Hilda is an absolutely normal, 
 happy, healthy little girl, in spite of her exceptional gift. 
 
 As far as technique goes, this might well have been written by an 
 older person. What shows you clearly, however, that it is the work 
 of a child? 
 
 THE SHADOW PEOPLE 
 
 Page 122. (From Complete Poems) 
 
 Francis Ledwidge, the most promising of the young Irish poets, 
 was only twenty-six when he was killed in action, July, 1917. He 
 was a peasant boy with little education who had been a farmhand and 
 laborer. But he had been writing creditable poetry since he was 
 sixteen. We owe much to Lord Dunsany for "discovering" and encour- 
 aging him, and for making a collection of his verse, after his tragic 
 death. 
 
 The poem was written while Ledwidge was in hospital in Egypt. 
 Might the child be his remembered self? Why, anyway, is the child 
 distinctly Irish? What two lines do you like best? 
 
 INCORRIGIBLE 
 
 Page 123. (From Youngsters) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Anxious Farmer.") 
 
 Is it the boy's apple-tree exploit that makes him "incorrigible"? 
 
 DA YOUNGA 'MERICAN 
 
 Page 124. ( From Canzoni ) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Een Napoli.") 
 
 Why is the father proud of his boy? Is the boy altogether worth 
 being proud of? 
 
 LITTLE PAN 
 
 Page 125. (From Grenstone Poems). 
 
 Witter Bynner was born in 1881, and graduated from Harvard in 
 1902. He has been an assistant editor and literary editor on various 
 magazines, and a lecturer, as well as the writer of several volumes of 
 verse. Recently be has been an instructor at the University of Cali- 
 fornia.
 
 NOTES 239 
 
 Do you like the title of the poem? What line is most important? 
 One of my girls said that the youngster reminded her of Huck 
 Finn or Tom Sawyer. Do you see why? 
 
 RIJFUS PRAYS 
 
 Page 126. (From Oxford Poetry, 1916) 
 
 Leonard A. G. Strong was born in Devonshire in 1896, and educated at 
 private schools and Wadham College, Oxford. Kept out of the army 
 by ill health, he taught for two years at Summer Fields, Oxford, to 
 which he has now returned. In 1919 he published Dallington Rhymes, 
 and Dublin Days in 1921. 
 
 A boy said that this reminded him of the parable about the Pharisee 
 and the publican. 
 
 Rufus has the repulsive outward marks of idiocy why, then does he 
 not repel us? What very beautiful conception of the future life does 
 he phrase in his idiot way? 
 
 AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS 
 
 Page 127. (From Wild Earth and Other Poems) 
 
 Padraic Colum was born in Ireland, 1881. Before coming to the 
 United States to live (in 1914) he was an editor of the Irish Review 
 (Dublin) and a founder of the Abbey Theater (Irish National Theater). 
 He lectures on poetry and Irish literature. He has written plays and 
 sketches as well as poems. 
 
 In Ireland, the female tramp, be she beggar, peddler, or mere wan- 
 derer, is a familiar figure. Synge has drawn a charmingly humorous 
 picture of such an old woman and her husband in his comedy The 
 Well of the Saints. 
 
 Might this longing find an echo in the hearts of any class in America? 
 
 Why wouldn't the old woman crave company in her little house? 
 
 THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS 
 
 Page 128. (From Atlantic Monthly) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Wild Weather.") 
 
 What are "the ancient beautiful things" meant here? How do they 
 differ from the delights of a home as pictured by "the old woman of the 
 roads''? Do you recall a scene in a play by Maeterlinck which is sug- 
 gested by the lines beginning, "How should we have chosen her?" What 
 famous Bible text sounds like an answer to the last question?
 
 240 NOTES 
 
 YOU, FOUR WALLS, WALL NOT IN MY HEART ! 
 
 Page 132. ( From The Singing Man ) 
 
 Josephine Preston Peabody (Mrs. Marks) was born in New York, and 
 took her B.A. at Radcliffe in 1894. For a time she was in the English 
 Department at Wellesley. She married in 1906. In 1910 her play The 
 Piper was awarded the Stratford-on-Avon prize. She had published 
 several volumes of verse. 
 
 Which poem do you think has a bigger thought, this or the 
 preceding ? 
 
 MY DOG 
 
 Page 133. (From Foothills of Parnassus) 
 
 John Rendrick Bangs was a lecturer and humorist as well as a 
 writer. Also, lie has been an editor on various periodicals. He was 
 born in 1862, and was a Columbia graduate. He died in 1922, a man 
 much loved and mourned. Two well-known books of his are A House- 
 boat on the Styx, and Ghosts I Have Met. 
 
 Why has this little poem given delight to readers of all ages? 
 
 IN SERVICE 
 
 Page 134. (From Songs of Leinster) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Spires of Oxford." ) 
 
 Which picture do you prefer here that of the wistful-eyed little 
 serving-maid in her unprecedented finery (even boots!), or that of the 
 fishing-village which is her home? 
 
 Wordsworth once wrote a poem about a homesick country girl in town 
 do you know it? 
 
 MY SWEET BROWN GAL 
 
 Page 135. (From Lyrics of Love and Laughter) 
 
 Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, and educated in 
 the public schools there. For a time he was a journalist in New York, 
 and then was on the staff of the Congressional Library. He published 
 many small volumes of verse, beginning when he was twenty-one. His 
 readings of his own poems delighted large audiences. His untimely 
 death in 1906 he was only thirty-two meant a great loss to American 
 poetry. 
 
 Mr. Dunbar was the first American negro to stimulate interest in his
 
 NOTES 241 
 
 race through poetry characteristic of them, and written in their dialect. 
 Ever since his death, his influence has persistently showed itself in the 
 ever-increasing attention given to negro "spirituals" and songs. 
 
 Warmth, peace, music from a beloved instrument could the most 
 palatial home offer much better things on a stormy night? 
 
 THE SUNKEN GARDEN 
 
 Page 136. (From Motley) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer tu preceding poem.) 
 
 What gives this poem the touch of mystery "spookiness," as one of 
 my pupils put it? ("The Listeners" is another famous one of this 
 type. ) Louis Untermeyer has parodied this trait deliciously in his 
 volume " and Others," where Walter de la Mare is supposed to tell the 
 story of Jack and Jill. You w r ould enjoy reading that and other take- 
 offs in the book, too. 
 
 What gives you the impression that the garden is an old one? 
 
 THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 Page 137. (From Pictures of the Floating World) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Bombardment.") 
 One of Miss Lowell's passions is gardens. She has written many othe/ 
 poems about them; you will find three in this same volume. A par- 
 ticularly gorgeous one describes a garden in bright sunshine. Which 
 subject should you think offered more possibilities for effective treat- 
 ment? 
 
 From the artistic standpoint, what is gained by the introduction of 
 the black cat? 
 
 Compare and contrast this poem with the preceding one by Mr. de la 
 Mare. 
 
 TO MY BROTHER 
 
 Page 141. (From Service and Sacrifice) 
 
 Corinne Roosevelt Robinson was the "Conie" of Theodore Roosevelt's 
 boyhood diary his younger sister, to whom he was always devoted. In 
 her early twenties she married Douglas Robinson, the capitalist. Her 
 two hobbies have been poetry of which she has published several 
 volumes and politics, a game in which she has proved herself a forceful 
 and vivacious speaker. 
 
 On the death of our great ex-President, many poetic tributes were 
 paid to him as an official, a statesman, and a leader. (The two best 
 known, perhaps, are by Kipling and Masters "Greatheart" and "At
 
 242 NOTES 
 
 Sagamore Hill.") This tribute by his sister shows a side of greatness 
 which popular estimation is apt to overlook. 
 
 The rhyme-scheme here is the one immortalized by Tennyson in a 
 poem about a dear friend of his who had died. Do you know it? 
 
 A MILE WITH ME 
 
 Page 142. ( From the Poems of Henry van Dyke ) 
 
 Henry van Dyke was born in Pennsylvania, 1852. He took his B.A. at 
 Princeton in 1873, and studied further at several other universities, 
 from which he holds other degrees. He was ordained a Presbyterian 
 minister in 1877. Later he was professor of English at Princeton. 
 From 1913-16 he was American minister to the Netherlands and 
 Luxembourg. Besides poetry, he has written many essays. 
 
 Why would this poem be a good one to copy in an autograph album? 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 
 Page 143. (From Echoes and Realities) 
 
 Walter Prichard Eaton was born in Massachusetts, 1878. He took 
 his A. B. at Harvard in 1900. He has been dramatic correspondent and 
 critic on various newspapers, and lately for the American Magazine. 
 He has written fiction and sketches, especially for boys. 
 
 A certain fine reserve between even the best of friends is very char- 
 acteristic of New Englanders. Do you like it, or do you prefer to share 
 all your friends' secrets? What did Emerson say on this subject? 
 Bacon? What two splendid traits does "my friend" possess? Do you 
 think the comparison employed throughout is an apt one? 
 
 PEOPLE 
 
 Page 143. (From Spring Morning) 
 
 Frances D. Cornford is the granddaughter of Charles Darwin, She 
 Was born in 1886. She married in 1909, her husband (Francis Mac- 
 donald Cornford) being a Fellow of and Lecturer of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. She has published a morality play, Death and the Princess, 
 and two volumes of poems. 
 
 Dickens emphasizes this same idea in the opening paragraph of 
 Chapter III, A Tale of Two Cities. Do you remember it ? The last lines 
 of the preceding poem, also, have this thought with what difference? 
 Mrs. Cornford originally called this poem "Social Intercourse." Does 
 that suggest another difference?
 
 NOTES 243 
 
 SONG 
 
 Page 144. (From Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Soldier.") 
 
 Rupert Brooke was simple, normal, healthy, balanced, to a fine degree. 
 Such people rarely need to fear their emotions, for they find them 
 spontaneous, deep, and oddly familiar. What two false emotions which 
 mark the unbalanced type of person are suggested in the first two 
 stanzas? Can you think of others? 
 
 THE LOOK 
 
 Page 145. (From Love Songs) 
 
 Sara Teasdale (Mrs. Filsinger) was born in St. Louis, 1884, and 
 educated at private schools. She has traveled much abroad. She was 
 married in 1914, and now lives in New York City. Love Songs, pub- 
 lished in 1917, was awarded the Columbia prize of $500 for that year. 
 She has brought out other volumes of verse, and an anthology of love- 
 poems by women. 
 
 What trait of human nature makes this little poem ring true? Would 
 it be good set to music? 
 
 TO A DISTANT ONE 
 
 Page 146. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Shadow People.") 
 
 This poem was written while Francis Ledwidge was in barracks, 
 shortly before his death. Its prophecy, therefore, was never fulfilled on 
 earth. But I can never read it without thinking of the young hero of 
 a war-play Across the Border, by Beulah Marie Dix. All his life he has 
 been looking for the girl who shall be "fragrance, light and life" to 
 him, without finding her. She is found at last, in the world beyond 
 ours. 
 
 Ought a man to wait until he has something and that doesn't mean 
 merely money to offer a girl? Why does the poet say, "Till Fame 
 and other little things were won"? 
 
 MARY, HELPER OF HEARTBREAK 
 
 Page 147. (From The Old Road to Paradise) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Factories.") 
 
 A sixteenth century sonnet by Micliael Drayton, "Since there's no
 
 244 NOTES 
 
 help, come let us kiss and part" has this same idea that the best of 
 reasoning is often but a crumbling wall against the sweeping tide of 
 emotion, the most carefully marshaled arguments a vain defense against 
 "the defeat we love better than victory." It is stated in the same way, 
 too, with the unexpected twist at the end. Read the sonnet and see 
 which of the two poems you consider more forceful. 
 
 GARDEN OF THE ROSE 
 
 Page 148. (From Star-Glow and Song) 
 
 Charles Buxton Going was born in Westchester County, 1863. He is 
 a Columbia graduate, and his vocation is engineering. During the war 
 he was a major in the Ordnance Department. He has published two 
 volumes about engineering, and three of poems. 
 
 A famous Elizabethan love-song "Cherry-Ripe" compares a girl's 
 face to a garden of flowers; but this comparison is rather new. Do you 
 think it is effective? 
 
 Mediaeval romances are full of brave knights, each of whom wor 
 shiped one maiden 
 
 "by years of noble deeds 
 Until they won her." 
 
 Their fair but over-capricious lady-loves often kept them waiting fot 
 a length of time which must have sorely tried the lovers' patience. Yet 
 even in this day of rapid-fire action, the wise lover will wait patiently. 
 For if reverent respect for another's personality is a fine quality of 
 friendship, it is indispensable in the most perfect but most difficult 
 relationship of all. 
 
 THE LITTLE GOLDEN FOUNTAIN 
 
 Page 149. (From The Little Golden Fountain) 
 
 Mary MacMillan was born in Ohio, and educated there and at Bryn 
 Mawr College. She is a writer of plays (Short Plays and More Short 
 Plays) articles, stories, and verse. She has a second volume of the 
 latter in preparation. 
 
 Here is another "conceit,"' as old John Donne would have called it, 
 still more elaborately carried out. Does its elaborateness detract from 
 or add to the thought so old and yet forever new "Mon coeur est plein 
 de toi"? (Do you know Tosti's setting of that song?)
 
 NOTES 245 
 
 SONGS OF A GIRL 
 
 Page 149. (From Youth Riding) 
 
 Mary Carolyn Davies was married in 1919, but still writes under her 
 maiden name. She is by birth a Far- Westerner; she studied at the 
 University of California, 1911-12, and later at New York University. 
 She was among the founders of Others, a group of free verse writers. 
 She has published several volumes of poems and plays. 
 
 What feeling is here shown to be the foundation of true love? 
 
 PSALM TO MY BELOVED 
 
 Page 150. ( From Body and Raiment ) 
 
 Eunice Tietjens (Mrs. Head) was born in 1884, in Chicago. She 
 studied much abroad, and after her first marriage completed a tour of 
 the world. She was formerly an associate editor of Poetry. Her first 
 book was Profiles from China. 
 
 Every one acknowledges that the Psalms, though written as prose, 
 are poetry in a very true sense of the word. This little poem is 
 deliberately modeled on their long, flowing cadences, and their trick of 
 repetition. It is particularly a poem that needs reading aloud. 
 
 One of the most beautiful of all German love-songs, "Widmung," by 
 Riickert, (the famous setting is by Schumann) has somewhat this idea, 
 especially in the line, "Du bist die Rub. du bist der Frieden." 
 
 Page 151. (Fiom The Rocking Horse) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Smells Junior.") 
 
 Is the woman mother, sister, or wife? What is the secret of her per- 
 sonal influence over the man? Is she conscious of it? Is he? When 
 you finally meet people of whom you have heard a great deal, do you 
 find the reality the same as "the reflection" ? 
 
 A LYNMOUTH WIDOW 
 
 Page 152. (From In Deep Places) 
 
 Amelia Josephine Burr was born in New York City, 1878, and is a 
 graduate of Hunter College. During the war she did interesting volun- 
 teer work of various kinds. Recently she has made a trip around the 
 world She has published fiction, plays, and verse.
 
 246 NOTES 
 
 Why is this short poem so powerful? What good bit of psychology 
 does it contain? 
 
 PARTING 
 
 Page 152. (From Poetry) 
 
 Alice Corhin was born in St. Louis. In 1905 she married William 
 Penhallow Henderson, the artist. Since 1912 she has been an associate 
 editor of Poetry, and although severely handicapped by ill-health, has 
 done much for the magazine, especially by her researches among old folk- 
 songs. With Miss Monroe, she compiled The New Poetry (1917). She 
 has published verse and plays. 
 
 This is an "interpretation," rather than an exact translation, of an 
 old Indian poem. A splendid anthology, Cronyn's Path on the Rainbow, 
 containing many other poems of this same sort, indicates the awakening 
 interest of modern Americans in the oldest American literature. Inci- 
 dentally, we don't feel so modern when we discover that all these poems 
 were in free verse. 
 
 What famous poem did Burns write about a dear old couple who had 
 almost reached the end of a happy life together? 
 
 THE PENALTY OF LOVE 
 
 Page 153. (From Poems of the Unknown Way) 
 
 Sidney Royse Lysaght is a scholarly, wealthy, widely-traveled Irish 
 author, now middle-aged. He has published volumes of verse and novels. 
 
 How does this differ from the other love-poems you have just read? 
 What is "the penalty" of love, even when one's love is returned? Did 
 Elaine think that the joy of her own love was worth this penalty, when 
 her love was not requited? Did Sydney Carton? Why is any one 
 "poor" if he turns love from his door? 
 
 BARTER 
 
 Page 157. (From Love Songs) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Look.") 
 
 Seventy-odd years ago, with the spirit of the Puritans still strong 
 upon him, James Russell Lowell wrote : 
 
 "Earth gets its price for what earth gives us; 
 
 At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
 
 Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; 
 
 For a cap and bell our lives we pay. 
 
 Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking."
 
 NOTES 24? 
 
 Is the view of this poem Pagan, in contrast? Or are the things to be 
 bartered of a slightly different sort? What are some other bits of 
 loveliness that Life has sold to you? 
 
 TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN 
 
 Page 157. (From Poems) 
 
 Ralph Hodgson has always shunned publicity of any kind. Therefore, 
 little is known of him, except that he is about forty, lives a quiet life 
 in the country, and is very fond of animals. He has published only two 
 volumes of poems (in 1907 and 1917) and those very small ones, but 
 the quality of his verse is the opposite of the quantity. 
 
 Humor and solemnity are not usually supposed to exist at the same 
 time. How does the poet introduce the former without detracting from 
 the latter? 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Page 159. (From Poems, First Series) 
 
 John Collings Squire was born in 1894; educated at Blundell's and 
 Cambridge. He has published clever parodies and a good deal of 
 original verse, and has been interested in the editing of literary maga- 
 zines. His latest venture is The London Mercury, a delightful monthly 
 covering poetry, novels, essays, etc. 
 
 Do you think this sonnet is more effective than it would be if it were 
 written from the point of view of Columbus and his sailors? (By the 
 way, do you know a famous poem about Columbus ? ) What were 
 "caravels"? Why are they called "doom-burdened"? 
 
 PROVINCETOWN 
 
 Page 159. (From The Independent) 
 
 Marie Louise Hersey (Mrs. Forbes) was born in Hartford, Con- 
 necticut, in 1894; educated in schools there and in Denver, Colorado; 
 graduated from Radcliffe College in 1916, married in 1918. She has not 
 yet published a volume of verse, but her work has appeared in magazines 
 and anthologies. 
 
 This, as you may guess, is a "tercentenary" poem. In few towns along 
 the New England coast is the contrast between the old America and 
 the new more sharply impressed on one than in Provincetown. 
 
 What are some particularly beautiful bits of description in the poem?
 
 248 NOTES 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 Page 161. (From Mushrooms) 
 
 Alfred Kreymborg was born in 1883, in New York City, where he still 
 lives. He has published several books of original verse, been the founder 
 and editor of anthologies of Imagist verse, and been the first to intro- 
 duce free verse into drama, in his Plays for Poem Mimes. 
 
 Because of Mr. Kreymborg's whimsical fancies and fearless humor, 
 critics have accused him of flippancy. His friends know him to be a 
 tireless, quiet, earnest toiler with a deep vein of seriousness. Do you 
 see both sides of him in this poem, or does one predominate? 
 
 Why is the "boy" calling "All, One"? 
 
 RECESSIONAL 
 
 Page 161. (From Rudyard Kipling's Poems; Inclusive Edition) 
 Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 1897, was the occasion of such 
 rejoicing and splendor as England had seldom known. Poets outdid 
 themselves in florid tributes to the greatness of their Queen and their 
 country. You can judge what an effect this poem produced, under the 
 circumstances. Why did the poet choose this title? Why has the poem 
 been so often quoted within the last few years? Is it at all applicable 
 to America? 
 
 The best-known musical setting of this poem is by Reginald de Koven. 
 
 IF 
 
 Page 163. (From Rudyard Kipling's Poems; Inclusive Edition) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Feet of the Young Men.") 
 Emerson once called parody a "saucy homage." This poem has had 
 that sort of homage paid to it time and time again. Why is it worth 
 serious admiration, as well? Which "if" would be the hardest one for 
 you? 
 
 COURAGE 
 
 Page 164. (From Moods, Songs, and Doggerel) 
 
 John Galsworthy was born in 1867. He began writing young, and 
 has had a most successful career as essayist, novelist, and dramatist; 
 he has also published one volume of poems. During part of the war, 
 he gave his services at an English hospital for French soldiers. He haa
 
 NOTES 249 
 
 made several lecture-tours of the United States, and done much to 
 strengthen the friendly relations between Britons and Americans. 
 
 Courage not only the kind that rises to emergencies, but the kind 
 that holds on with a bulldog grip through a long, weary ordeal has 
 always been a superlative virtue of the English. A superb anthology 
 might be made of English poems glorifying courage. Can you think 
 of five or six famous ones ? 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 Page 164. (From Challenge) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Highmount." ) 
 
 What aspirations mark this "prayer" as being one of the twentieth 
 century? Why should one pray to be kept from "sleek contentment" 
 and from "compromise"? What line in the poem reminds you of the 
 two you have just read? 
 
 A CREED 
 
 Page 165. (From The Shoes cf Happiness) 
 
 Edwin Markham was born in Oregon, 1852, and his boyhood years 
 were spent on a ranch, where he learned everything from farming to 
 blacksmithing. He attended San Jose Normal School and two Western 
 colleges, and was in succession a teacher, a school principal, and a super- 
 intendent of schools in California. He began writing poetry when young, 
 and since 1899, has devoted himself almost entirely to that and 
 lecturing. 
 
 "The Man with the Hoe," (a poem inspired by Millet's famous paint- 
 ing) which Mr. Markham published in 1899, created a great sensation. 
 It emphasizes the age-long oppression of the poor, the power dormant 
 in the masses, and the responsibility of the ruling class toward them 
 a responsibility which they may realize too late, in the hour of rebellion. 
 We appreciate that fact quite fully to-day. This poem, however 
 dedicated by a Christian to a Jew emphasizes another significant fact 
 which is not yet fully appreciated. Do you think it will be within the 
 next twenty years? You notice it's a rather broader question than 
 that of mere religious toleration. 
 
 THE GREAT LOVER 
 
 Page 166. (From Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Soldier.") 
 
 Do you see any significance in the fact that this poem was written
 
 250 NOTES 
 
 while Brooke was visiting one of the most beautiful places in the 
 world? Why do some people love life more intensely than others? 
 What is the danger in the "catalogue" type of poem? How does 
 Brooke avert it? 
 
 GIFTS 
 
 Page 168. (From Factories) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Factories.") 
 
 Do you think it is pessimistic to anticipate the difference between hope 
 and achievement? Why, as one grows older, should he appreciate the 
 little things more and more? Does such appreciation make him give up 
 struggling for the big things? What did Browning say about a man's 
 reach and his grasp? 
 
 RICHARD CORY 
 
 Page 170. (From Children of the Night) 
 
 Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in Maine, 1869. From 1891-1893 
 he was at Harvard. Children of the Night was his first publication. 
 From 1905-1910 he was in the New York Custom House. The Man 
 Against the Sky (1916) won great praise. He now devotes himself 
 entirely to literature. The volume of his collected poems won the first 
 Pulitzer prize for poetry, in 1921. 
 
 Do you see any connection between the story of this poem and the 
 Tenth Commandment? How does Richard Cory dhow himself "a gentle- 
 man of the old school"? What might have driven him to suicide? 
 Technically speaking, do you consider this a well-written poem? 
 
 A FARMER REMEMBERS LINCOLN 
 
 Page 170. (From Grenstone Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Little Pan.") 
 
 Many fine poems have been written by Americans about this great 
 President. Five of them (four besides this) will be found in Unter- 
 meyer's Modern American Poetry. This one my own particular classes 
 have usually liked the best, because they say it "sounds the most 
 human." 
 
 SUNSET 
 
 Page 172. (From The Sistine Eve) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Baby Pantomime.") 
 
 Is the double concept novel? Appealing? What was the impression
 
 NOTES 251 
 
 ot life in general, and especially of old age, given by Jaques in his 
 famous speech about the "seven ages"? Contrast with that the im- 
 pression given by the sestet here. 
 
 SILENCE 
 
 Page 172. (From Songs and Satires) 
 
 Edgar Lee Masters was born in Kansas, 1869. In his boyhood he 
 lived on a farm. His father was anxious he should become a lawyer; 
 so he attended Knox College, practised in an office, and was admitted 
 to the bar in 1891. His law career has been very successful; he has 
 also been interested and influential in Illinois politics; but his heart 
 has always been in his writing, which his family opposed and which for 
 many years failed to gain him recognition. But since the publication 
 of Spoon River Anthology, fame, though tardy, has made up to him 
 for lost time. He has published many volumes since. 
 
 Which conception of silence a consolation, a refuge, a weapon, a 
 promise, appeals to you most? 
 
 THE COWBOY'S DREAM 
 
 Page 175. (From Cowboy Songs) 
 
 John A. Lomax is a professor in the University of Texas. He is a 
 graduate of that university and of Harvard. As Sheldon Fellow for 
 the Investigation of American Ballads he traveled far and wide to 
 make this collection a task for which he was particularly fitted be- 
 cause his boyhood was spent on the old Chisholm Trail in Texas. He 
 liar recently published a second collection called Songs of the Cattle 
 Trail and Cow Camp. 
 
 Though interest in these ballads is recent, their composition belongs 
 mainly to the '60's and '70's, when the old fashioned cowboy was a 
 familiar figure and a real force in Western civilization. They grew up 
 in much the same manner that the old English ballads did; they often 
 have as many different versions; like their prototypes, they are usually 
 sung. This particular one has been selected partly because it is set to 
 a tune familiar enough for you to sing it. Shut the classroom door and 
 try! 
 
 The note of moralizing, and even of melancholy, is quite as evident in 
 these songs as the note of rollicking cheer and daring. Do you see why? 
 
 The term "dogie" (o long) meant originally a motherless calf; it 
 came to be generally applied to any cattle. "Maverick" means the same.
 
 252 NOTES 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS INTO 
 HEAVEN 
 
 Page 176. (From General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and 
 Other Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "An Indian Summer Day on the 
 Prairie.") 
 
 Mr. Lindsay has a peculiar and effective method of reciting his 
 poetry. He chants it (with or without musical accompaniment), and 
 by his rich and flexible voice creates almost orchestral effects. The 
 English poet Siegfried Sassoon, after hearing him in America, wrote 
 an "impression" of the recital which begins : 
 
 "Switch on the golden lights and set him going; 
 Foam-flowers and dragons; rag-time glorious." 
 
 The catchy rhythms and dramatic delivery often result in just that. 
 
 Do you think the poem represents the spirit of the Salvation Army? 
 One of my boys said he thought the treatment of the subject was over- 
 theatrical and resulted in cheapness. (Do you agree with him?) But 
 he went on to give two reasons why he liked the poem. What do you 
 think they were? 
 
 THE DEVIL 
 
 Page 179. (From Poetical Works) 
 
 William Henry Drummond was a Canadian, born in 1854. He was 
 educated at McGill and Bishops University (Montreal). By vocation 
 he was a physician, but by avocation a writer of verse and a lecturer. 
 He was widely known in the United States as well as in Canada. He 
 was a great athlete and lover of the outdoors ; thus he knew, first-hand, 
 a great deal about rural French-Canadian life, the chief subject of his 
 verse. He died in 1907. 
 
 The idea of a man's selling his soul to the devil in return for material 
 gifts in this world is a very old one. What is one of the famous 
 versions? How does this one differ? How do you suppose a story like 
 this might begin and grow, in a small settlement of superstitious 
 people? Would they take it seriously, or regard it as an entertaining 
 "fish story"? 
 
 By "election man" is meant the typical honey-tongued politician who 
 stumps the more remote districts to get votes for his party.
 
 NOTES 253 
 
 THE HOST OF THE AIR 
 
 Page 185. (From Poems) 
 
 William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, 1865. He attended schools 
 at Hammersmith and Dublin, his early interest being in the study of 
 art. But at twenty-one, he decided he preferred literature as a career. 
 He did memorable work as a founder of the Abbey Theater, thus laying 
 the foundation for the re-awakening of Irish national interest in the 
 drama, and has written several plays for its stage. (You would like, 
 especially, The Land of Heart's Desire.) He has also written many 
 poems. Last year he made a lecture tour in the United States. 
 
 A very interesting collection of Irish folk-lore may be found in Lady 
 Gregory's book, Visions and Beliefs of the West of Ireland. In 
 the Preface, she sums up the various superstitions concerning the 
 "Sidhe" or "host of the air." These strange beings have been since the 
 foundation of the world. Not every one can see them, and they often 
 change their own shapes in any way they choose. "They are as many 
 as the blades of grass. . . . Fighting is heard among them, and music 
 that is more beautiful than any of this world." Often they bewitch 
 strong young men or beautiful young women to come and live with them 
 for seven years, or twice seven years, or perhaps their whole allotted 
 lifetimes, sending them back to earth only to die. "While these are 
 away, a body in their likeness, or the likeness of a body, is left lying 
 in their place." Not only mortals but those who have recently died, 
 may be found among the Sidhe. "When the Sidhe pass by in a blast 
 of wind we should say some words of blessing, for there may be among 
 them some of our own dead." 
 
 THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY 
 
 Page 187. (From Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to preceding poem.) 
 
 This has been set to very jolly music, by Sidney Homer. 
 
 By the way, what qualities must a poem possess, if it is to be given 
 a musical setting? What poet, himself a musician, indicated the proper 
 relation of words to music, when he said : 
 
 I "Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 
 
 Married to immortal verse"? 
 
 THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 
 Page 188. (From Images Old and New) 
 
 Richard Aldington was born in 1892, educated at Dover College and 
 London University. Leaving before completion of his course, he did 
 newspaper work for awhile, then traveled on the Continent. In 1913
 
 254 NOTES 
 
 he became assistant editor of the Egotist. In 1916 he joined the army, 
 goon being promoted to officer's rank for great bravery. Since 1918, he 
 has been on the staff of the London Times. He is regarded as the leading 
 "Imagist" poet in England. In 1913 he married "H. D.'' (Hilda 
 Doolittle), one of the young American Imagists. He was for a time 
 the London correspondent of Poetry. 
 
 Mr. Aldington's intense admiration for the poetry of ancient Greece 
 has influenced many of his own verses, not only in subject-matter, but 
 in beauty and in finish. 
 
 Have you ever heard Debussy's "L'Apres-Midi d'une Faune," with its 
 atmosphere of summer warmth and perfume, and sunlight shimmering 
 through green leaves? If you have, you can imagine all the better the 
 impotent anger, dismay, and misery of this poor creature who finds 
 himself shivering in the midst of a world he has never known before. 
 Yet you have to laugh at him. Why! 
 
 The epithets and allusions employed are most appropriate. Can you 
 explain them all? 
 
 ETIQUETTE 
 
 Page 189. (From The Laughing Muse) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Rag Dolly's Valentine.") 
 This is an amusing variation of a story told over five hundred years 
 ago by Geoffrey Chaucer about a fox who got a rooster into his power 
 by flattering him and then was in turn foiled by the rooster. It's The 
 Nun's Priest's Tale. Read it, in the original if you can, and if not in 
 The 'Modern Reader's Chaucer, by Tatlock and MacKaye. The animal 
 story is more in vogue now than it has been since the Middle Ages 
 the difference being, however, that they endowed their animal-heroes 
 with human attributes, and we do not, usually. 
 
 THE POTATOES' DANCE 
 
 Page 190. (From The Chinese Nightingale) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "An Indian Summer Day on the 
 Prairie.") 
 
 This is a "poem game," a form with which Mr. Lindsay has experi- 
 mented a good deal. The volume from which this is taken contains an 
 interesting preface to the "poem games," the substance of it being as 
 follows: The poem is chanted, and with the chanting of each line a 
 dancer illustrates the action or idea of the line by steps or by ex- 
 pressive pantomime. (As you will guess at once, the repetition of the 
 lines is necessary to give time for the dancer's illustrative motions.) 
 "But neither the dancing nor the chanting nor any other thing should 
 toe allowed to run away with the original intention of the words."
 
 NOTES 255 
 
 (This particular poem was once chanted for the Florence Fleming Noyes 
 school of dancers, who made it into "a veritable whirlwind.") The 
 audience, also, may take its part in playing certain games where re- 
 sponses are necessary. (See "King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.") 
 The whole point is to sweep the audience into the poet's own mood, 
 and to make them realize the tremendous suggestiveness of the rhythms 
 of English speech. 
 
 If any of you are interested in interpretative dancing, why not try 
 this yourselves? 
 
 DAGONET, ARTHUR'S FOOL 
 
 Page 192. (From Aldebaran] 
 
 Muriel St. Clare Byrne was born in 1895. She was educated, at The 
 Belvedere School (Liverpool), and Somerville College, Oxford, of which 
 University she is an M.A. She has taught school, been to France as a 
 Y. M. C. A. staff-lecturer in English in the Army Schools, and is now 
 an assistant-tutor in Oxford. 
 
 In which one of Tennyson's Idylls does one hear most of Dagonet? 
 
 Show that this little noem stops at just the right minute. 
 
 FORTY SINGING SEAMEN 
 
 Page 194. (From Collected Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Barrel-Organ.") 
 
 For several hundred years after the Crusades, Europeans were ex- 
 tremely curious and densely ignorant about the strange, dim "rich 
 East." In 1420, or so, everybody was talking about a book called 
 Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Handeville, supposedly by a returned 
 traveler who had seen all the wonders of Asia. It told of one-eyed 
 giants, dwarfs with no tongues, wild geese with two heads apiece, kings 
 whose thrones, tables and chairs were of gold and jewels, a huge lake 
 made of the tears which Adam and Eve had wept when they were 
 driven out of Paradise, etc. A long time afterward, it was discovered 
 that "Sir John" never existed, and his literary creator had never been 
 to Asia, but had merely drawn on old books of travel and a very fertile 
 imagination. But the book is still vastly entertaining reading for a 
 stormy afternoon. Chapter 27 is the one in which Prester John is 
 mentioned. He was a supposed Christian king and priest, reputed to 
 rule over a huge and marvelously wealthy territory in Asia. 
 
 Do you remember who Polyphemus was? What is the force of the 
 comparison in stanzas 1 and 2? What do you consider the most 
 ludicrous part of the sailors' experience? What was the Phoenix? 
 Why represent the men, finally, as not sure what had happened?
 
 256 NOTES 
 
 WHEN SHAKESPEARE LAUGHED 
 
 Page 199. (From The Rocking-Horse) 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Smells Junior.'') 
 In what plays by Shakespeare do we laugh with or at Falstaff, 
 Puck and Caliban? What other plays have you read which show what 
 a keen sense of humor the great dramatist must have possessed? What 
 are the little touches here which make the whole picture lifelike? (Ben 
 Jonson was very fat.) Alfred Noyes' Tales of the Mermaid Tavern 
 give elaborately and quite wonderfully the "local color" which is just 
 suggested here. 
 
 Perhaps you have noticed that the verse-form is exactly that of "In 
 Flanders Fields." Why is the effect here utterly different? 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE COVER OF A VOLUME OF 
 KEAT'S POEMS 
 
 Page 199. (From A Dome of Many-Colored Glass) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "The Bombardment.") 
 
 Miss Lowell has always admired greatly the works of John Keats. 
 
 (When did he live, and what are some of his most famous poems?) As 
 
 perhaps you remember, he died of consumption when he was only 
 
 twenty-six. 
 How would you know that the author of this poem was a lover of the 
 
 great out-doors? 
 
 Page 201. (From The Transcript) 
 
 Agnes Kendrick Gray was born in 1894. She has lived on army posts 
 in this country and the Philippines and traveled in China, Japan, and 
 Hawaii. She graduated from Leland Stanford in 1915, and studied at 
 Radcliffe 1916-1917. She has been Assistant Editor and Translator of 
 The New France, and published a translation of a French book on 
 spiritualism. Her poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies. 
 
 How many people do you know whose opinion of poets resembles the 
 shepherd's? Do you think these "benighted brethren" could ever ba 
 converted? What makes a man useful, jn this, world?
 
 NOTES 257 
 
 TO YOURSELF 
 
 Page 201. (From Grenst one Poems) 
 
 (For biographical note, refer to "Little Pan.") 
 
 What element present in most good poetry is emphasized here? Do 
 you think the poetic instinct is inherent in the majority of people, 
 needing merely a chance for expression? Can one cultivate the habit 
 of expressing himself in poetry? Would such a habit be worth while? 
 Have any poems in this book made you wish that you could write poetry ?
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST 
 
 Here are one hundred and seventy-five additional titles of 
 recent poems you may like. All but a few may be found in 
 volumes published by the poets themselves, and if you have 
 access to a good library, it is fun to hunt them up in those 
 volumes. But since the average school library contains merely 
 anthologies of modern verse, only those poems are given here 
 which may also be found in one or more of twelve well-known 
 collections, as follows : 
 
 Braithwaite, Golden Treasury of Magazine Verse. 
 
 Braithwaite, Modern British Verse 
 
 Clarke, Treasury of AYar Poetry (2 series) 
 
 Foccroft, War Verse 
 
 Monroe and Henderson, The New Poetry 
 
 Poetry Bookshop (publishers), Georgian Poetry, 1911-1919 
 
 (separate volumes) 
 Richards, High-Tide 
 
 RittenJioiise, Little Book of Mbdern Verse 
 Rittcnhouse, Second Book of Modern Verse 
 Wilkinson, New Voices 
 Untermeyer, Modern American Poetry 
 Untermeyer, Modern British Poetry 
 
 With this limitation, the list is by no means a complete one. 
 It omits some poems not yet released to anthologies, like 
 "Greatheart" by KIPLING, and "Smoke and Steel" by SAND- 
 BURG; long poems like "Dauber" by MASEFIELD (part of this, 
 however, is given in Modern British Poetry) ; Crescent Moon 
 by TAGORE (translated from the Bengali), and Peacock Pie by 
 DE LA MARE, volumes of child poems; negro songs and cow- 
 boy ballads, like Fifty Years and Other Poems, by JAMES 
 WELDON JOHNSON and the two anthologies, Cowboy Songs and 
 Songs of the Cattle Trail by JOHN A. LOMAX. 
 
 All these you would enjoy. However, by the time you have 
 finished even half of the poems mentioned here, you will be 
 familiar enough with the names of contemporary poets to 
 continue your researches for yourself. 
 
 258
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST 259 
 
 Aiken, Miracles, Morning Song of Senlin 
 
 Aldington, In the Trenches, In the British Museum, To a 
 
 Greek Marble 
 Anonymous (Foxcroft), The Voices, "They Also Serve ..." 
 
 Crocuses at Nottingham 
 Belloc, The South Country 
 Benet, 8. V., Portrait of a Boy 
 Bewsher, Searchlights 
 Botiomley, Netted Strawberries 
 Branch, Songs for My Mother 
 Brooke, The Dead, The Fish 
 Brown, A. F., The Heritage 
 Burnet, Gayheart 
 
 Burr, Lie-Awake Songs, Kitchener's March, Where Love Is 
 Bynner, A Thrush in the Moonlight 
 Campbell, J., I am the Mountainy Singer 
 Campbell, N., The Monkey 
 Campbell, W., Langemarck at Ypres 
 Carma-n, Lord of My Heart's Elation 
 Carruth, Each in His Own Tongue 
 Gather, " Grandmither, Think Not I Forget" 
 Cawein, An bade 
 Chapman, Song of the Zeppelin 
 Chesterton, The Song of Elf, Lepanto 
 Coates, Indian-Pipe 
 Conk-ling, Refugees 
 Corbin, Echoes of Childhood 
 Crapsey, Cinquains 
 
 Daly, Da Leetla Boy, Mia Carlotta, Song of the Thrush 
 Dames, W. H., The Ptain 
 Davis, F. S., Souls 
 De la Mare, The Listeners, Nod 
 Dobson, "When There Is Peace" 
 H. D., Orchard, Oread, The Shrine 
 Doyle, The Guards Came Through 
 
 Drinkwater, Symbols, Politics, May Garden, The Midlands 
 Drummond, Little Bateese, Little Lac Grenier 
 Dun-bar, Hymn, A Coquette Conquered 
 Dunsany, Songs from an Evil Wood 
 Ficke, "I am in love with far, high-seeing places"
 
 260 SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST 
 
 Fletcher, Rain in the Desert, Lincoln 
 
 Forman, The Three Lads 
 
 Frank, The Jew to Jesus 
 
 Freeman, Music Comes, November Skies 
 
 Frost, Mending Wall, The Gum-Gatherer 
 
 Gibson, Color, Oblivion, Gold, The Messages 
 
 Gilbert, The Mandrake's Horrid Scream 
 
 Glasgow, A Lullaby 
 
 Gore-Booth, The Waves of Breffny 
 
 Graves, It's a Queer Time 
 
 Guiney, Tryste Noel 
 
 Guiterman, In the Hospital 
 
 Hardy, The Man He Killed 
 
 Hodgson, Eve 
 
 Housman, Reveille 
 
 Hovey, The Sea Gypsy 
 
 Hueffer, Children's Song 
 
 Kilmer, J., Martin 
 
 Kipling, The Choice, Road-Song of the Bandar Log, Gunga 
 
 Din, The Conundrum of the Workshops 
 Kreymborg, A., Idealists, Old Manuscript 
 Lawrence, D. H., Piano 
 Ledwidge, Behind the Closed Eye 
 Lee, A., Motherhood 
 
 Letts, Chaplain to the Forces, The Call To Arms in Our Street 
 Lindsay, The Santa Fe Trail, Abraham Lincoln Walks at 
 
 Midnight, The Congo, The Chinese Nightingale 
 Lowell, Patterns, Madonna of the Evening Flowers, To A Lady 
 MacDonagh, Wishes For My Son 
 MacGill, Before the Charge 
 MacKaye, School 
 Markham, Lincoln, The Man of the People; The Man with 
 
 the Hoe 
 
 Masefield, Tewksbury Road, The Island of Skyros 
 Masters, Lucinda Matlock 
 Monro, Milk for the Cat, Solitude 
 Monroe, Love Song, On the Porch 
 Morgan, Work, The Choice 
 Morley, To the Oxford Men in the War 
 Morton, Symbol 
 Neibardt, Let Me Live Out My Years
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY BEADING LIST 261 
 
 Newbolt, Drake's Drum 
 
 Nichols, The Assault, The Full Heart 
 
 Norton, I Give Thanks 
 
 Noyes, Kilmeny, A Song of Sherwood, Unity 
 
 Oppenheim, The Lonely Child, The Slave 
 
 Owen, Three Hills 
 
 Patch, My Rosary 
 
 Peabody, A Dog, Cradle Song, The House and the Road 
 
 Phillips, The Kaiser and Belgium 
 
 Phillpotts, Death and the Flowers 
 
 Pound, Piccadilly 
 
 Kendall, The Wind 
 
 Reese, A Christmas Folk-Song 
 
 Rice, The Immortal, Chanson of the Bells of Oseney 
 
 Robinson, E. A., Cassandra, Flammonde 
 
 Sandburg, Cool Tombs, Loam, Grass 
 
 Sassoon, Dreamers, Aftermath 
 
 Schauffler, R. H., "Scum o' the Earth" 
 
 Scollard, The King of Dreams 
 
 Seaman, Thomas of the Light Heart 
 
 Service, Fleurette 
 
 Shepard, A Nun 
 
 Simms, The Bridge-Builders 
 
 Sorley, To Germany 
 
 Squire, To a Bull-Dog 
 
 Stephens, In the Poppy Field, What Tomas An Buile Said in 
 
 a Pub 
 
 Sterling, Omnia Exeunt in Mysterium 
 Teasdale, The Lamp, Spring Night 
 Tietjens, The Most-Sacred Mountain 
 Torrence, The Son 
 Trotter, The Poplars 
 
 Tynan, High Summer, The Making of Birds 
 Tyrrell, My Son 
 JJntermeyer, J. S., Autumn 
 
 Untermeyer, L., Summons, Caliban in the Coal-Mines 
 Upcott, Brother Fidelis 
 Watson, The Battle of the Bight 
 Wheelock, Earth, Spring 
 Widdemer, A Cyprian Woman 
 Williams, Sicilian Emigrant's Song
 
 262 SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST 
 
 Woodberry, The Child 
 
 Yeats, The Ballad of Father Gilligan 
 
 A short list of books containing criticism or discussing mat- 
 ters of poetic technique is also given. Most of them are fairly 
 difficult reading, but if you are really interested to pursue the 
 subject further, they are well worth while. 
 
 Aiken, Skepticisms 
 
 Fletcher, Preface to Irradiations 
 
 Fletcher, Preface to Goblins and Pagodas 
 
 Lowes, Convention and Revolt in Poetry 
 
 Lowell, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, Preface to 
 
 Sword Blades and Poppy Seed 
 Newbolt, A New Study of English Poetry 
 Perry, A Study of Poetry 
 Phelps, The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth 
 
 Century 
 Untermeyer, The New Era in American Poetry
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 For biographical sketch of author see note for first poem listed. 
 
 A Poem Note 
 
 A. E., see RUSSELL, GEORGE W. 
 ALDINGTON, RICHARD, 
 
 The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time 188 25t> 
 
 B 
 
 BAKER, KARLE WILSON, 
 
 Good Company 70 225 
 
 The Small Town Celebrates Ill 235 
 
 BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK, 
 
 My Dog 133 240 
 
 BENET, WILLIAM ROSE, 
 
 The Horse Thief 75 227 
 
 BEWSHER, PAUL, 
 
 The Dawn Patrol 103 234 
 
 BINYON, LAURENCE, 
 
 The Dead to the Living 97 232 
 
 BRIDGES, ROBERT, 
 
 A Vignette 67 224 
 
 BROOKE, RUPERT, 
 
 The Soldier 95 231 
 
 Song 144 243 
 
 The Great Lover 166 249 
 
 BROWN, ABBIE FARWELL, 
 
 Pirate Treasure 16 213 
 
 BURNET, DANA, 
 
 Roses in the Subway 25 216 
 
 The Park 29 217 
 
 BURR, AMELIA JOSEPHINE, 
 
 A Lynmouth Widow 152 245 
 
 BYNNER, WITTER, 
 
 Little Pan 125 238 
 
 A Farmer Remembers Lincoln 170 250 
 
 To Yourself 201 257 
 
 263
 
 264 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 BYRNE, MURIEL ST. CLARE, Poem Note 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's Fool 192 255 
 
 C 
 
 CARMAN, BLISS, 
 
 A Mountain Gateway 53 221 
 
 A Vagabond Song 58 222 
 
 COLUM, PADRAIC, 
 
 An Old Woman of the Roads 127 239 
 
 CONKLING, GRACE HAZARD, 
 
 Rheims Cathedral 1914 88 229 
 
 CONKLING, HILDA, 
 
 The Dew-Light 121 237 
 
 CORNFORD, FRANCES D., 
 
 People 143 242 
 
 D 
 DALY, T. A., 
 
 Een Napoli 22 215 
 
 Da Younga 'Merican 124 238 
 
 DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN, 
 
 Songs of a Girl 149 245 
 
 DAVIES, WILLIAM H., 
 
 A Greeting 57 222 
 
 DAVIS, FANNIE STEARNS, 
 
 Wild Weather 4 208 
 
 The Ancient Beautiful Things 128 239 
 
 DAWSON, A. J. E., 
 
 Night in Mesopotamia 102 233 
 
 DE LA MARE, WALTER, 
 
 The Ship of Rio 6 211 
 
 The Sunken Garden 136 241 
 
 DRINKWATER, JOHN, 
 
 In Lady Street 31 218 
 
 DRUMMOND, WILLIAM HENRY, 
 
 The Devil 179 252 
 
 DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE, 
 
 My Sweet Brown Gal 135 240 
 
 E 
 EATON, WALTER PRICHARD, 
 
 My Friend 143 242
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 265 
 
 F 
 
 FLECKER, JAMES ELROY, P em Note 
 
 The Old Ships 12 213 
 
 FLETCHER, JOHN GOULD, 
 
 Irradiations, III , 11 212 
 
 Irradiations, X 70 225 
 
 FROST, ROBERT, 
 
 To the Thawing Wind 48 219 
 
 After Apple-Picking 60 223 
 
 Birches 63 224 
 
 G 
 
 GALSWORTHY, JOHN, 
 
 Courage 164 248 
 
 GARRISON, THEODOSIA, 
 
 The Green Inn 43 218 
 
 GIBSON, WILFRID WILSON, 
 
 The Return 83 227 
 
 Retreat 101 233 
 
 GOING, CHARLES BUXTON, 
 
 Garden of the Rose 148 244 
 
 GRAVES, ROBERT, 
 
 To Lucasta on Going to the War For the Fourth 
 
 Time 100 233 
 
 GRAY, AGNES KENDRICK, 
 
 The Shepherd to the Poet 201 256 
 
 GUITERMAN, ARTHUR, 
 
 The Rag Dolly's Valentine 119 237 
 
 Etiquette 189 254 
 
 H 
 HAGEDORN, HERMANN, 
 
 Broadway 23 215 
 
 The Peddler 24 216 
 
 HENDERSON, ALICE CORBIN, 
 
 Parting 152 246 
 
 HERSEY, MARIE LOUISE, 
 
 Provincetown 159 247 
 
 HODGSON, RALPH, 
 
 Time, You Old Gypsy Man 157 247 
 
 HOOKER, BRIAN, 
 
 A Man-Child's Lullaby 117 236
 
 266 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 HORNE, CYRIL MORTON, Poem Note 
 
 The Devout Highlander 91 230 
 
 HOVEY, RICHARD, 
 
 A Vagabond Song 58 222 
 
 HOYT, HELEN, 
 
 Ellis Park 28 217 
 
 HUEFPER, FORD MADOX, 
 
 The Old Houses of Flanders 87 229 
 
 J 
 JOHNSON, BURGES, 
 
 The Anxious Farmer 120 237 
 
 Incorrigible 123 238 
 
 K 
 KILMER, ALINE, 
 
 Justice 118 236 
 
 KILMER, JOYCE, 
 
 Trees 71 225 
 
 Prayer of a Soldier in France 110 235 
 
 KIPLING, RUDYARD, 
 
 The Feet of the Young Men, 1897 44 219 
 
 Recessional 161 248 
 
 If 163 248 
 
 KREYMBORG, ALFRED, 
 
 America 161 248 
 
 L 
 
 LEDWIDGE, FRANCIS, 
 
 The Shadow People 122 238 
 
 To a Distant One 146 243 
 
 LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD, 
 
 Brooklyn Bridge at Dawn 21 214 
 
 May is Building Her House 51 220 
 
 LETTS, W. M., 
 
 The Spires of Oxford 94 230 
 
 In Service 134 240 
 
 LINDSAY, VACHEL, 
 
 An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie 56 222 
 
 General William Booth Enters into Heaven 176 252 
 
 The Potatoes' Dance.. 190 254
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 267 
 
 LOMAX, JOHN A., Poem Note 
 
 The Cowboys Dream (Editor) 175 251 
 
 LOWELL, AMY, 
 
 The Bombardment 84 228 
 
 The Garden by Moonlight 137 241 
 
 Suggested by The Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems 199 256 
 
 LYSAGHT, SIDNEY ROYCE, 
 
 The Penalty of Love 153 246 
 
 M 
 
 McCRAE, JOHN A., 
 
 In Flanders Fields 96 231 
 
 MACKAYE, PERCY, 
 
 Baby Pantomime 117 236 
 
 Sunset 172 250 
 
 MAt'MiLLAN, MARY, 
 
 The Little Golden Fountain 149 244 
 
 MARK HAM, EDWIN, 
 
 A Creed 165 249 
 
 MASEFIELD, JOHN, 
 
 Sea-Fever 3 207 
 
 Cargoes 12 213 
 
 Sing a Song o' Shipwreck 14 213 
 
 The Final Spurt 72 226 
 
 MASTERS, EDGAR LEE, 
 
 Silence 172 251 
 
 MAYNARD, THEODORE, 
 
 The World's Miser 68 225 
 
 MILLAY, EDNA ST. VINCENT, 
 
 God's World 60 223 
 
 MONROE, HARRIET, 
 
 At Twilight 30 217 
 
 MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER, 
 
 Smells Junior 119 237 
 
 The Reflection 151 245 
 
 When Shakespeare Laughed 199 256 
 
 N 
 NICHOLS, ROBERT, 
 
 Noon 99 232
 
 268 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 NOYES, ALFRED, Poem Note 
 
 The Barrel-Organ 34 218 
 
 An Open Boat 105 234 
 
 "The Avenue of the Allies" 107 235 
 
 Forty Singing Seamen 194 255 
 
 P 
 PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON, 
 
 You, Four Walls, Wall Not in My Heart 132 240 
 
 R 
 RICE, GALE YOUNG, 
 
 Brother Beasts 62 223 
 
 RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB, 
 
 Mister Hop-Toad 49 220 
 
 ROBINSON, CORINNE ROOSEVELT, 
 
 To My Brother 141 241 
 
 ROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON, 
 
 Richard Cory 170 250 
 
 RUSSELL, GEORGE W. (A. E.), 
 
 Continuity 114 235 
 
 S 
 
 SANDBURG, CARL, 
 
 Fog 21 214 
 
 Prayers of Steel 27 216 
 
 Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn 58 223 
 
 SASSOON, SIEGFRIED, 
 
 Night-Piece 71 226 
 
 Counter- Attack 98 232 
 
 Does It Matter? 103 234 
 
 SEEGER, ALAN, * 
 
 I Have a Rendezvous with Death 95 231 
 
 SERVICE, ROBERT W., 
 
 Funk 90 230 
 
 SIGERSON, DORA, 
 
 The Road of the Refugees 83 227 
 
 SMITH, CICELY Fox, 
 
 Sailor Town , 5 210 
 
 Admiral Dugout 105 234 
 
 SQUIRE, J. C., 
 
 Sonnet , 159 247
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 269 
 
 STRONG, L. A. G., Poem Note 
 
 Rufus Prays 126 239 
 
 T 
 TEASDALE, SARA, 
 
 The Look 145 243 
 
 Barter 157 246 
 
 THOMAS, EDWARD, 
 
 Haymaking 54 221 
 
 TIETJENS, EUNICE, 
 
 Psalm to My Beloved 150 245 
 
 TOWNE, CHARLES HANSON, 
 
 City Roofs 22 215 
 
 TRENCH, HERBERT, 
 
 Old Anchor Chanty 7 211 
 
 TYNAN, KATHERINE, 
 
 The Old Soldier 89 229 
 
 U 
 
 UNTERMEYER, JEAN STARR, 
 
 High-Tide 5 208 
 
 UNTERMEYER, Louis, 
 
 Highmount 65 224 
 
 Prayer 164 249 
 
 V 
 VAN DYKE, HENRY, 
 
 A Mile with Me 142 242 
 
 W 
 
 WELLS, CAROLYN, 
 
 To a Poet , 50 220 
 
 WIDDEMER, MARGARET, 
 
 The Factories 26 216 
 
 "Mary, Helper of Heartbreak" 147 243 
 
 Gifts 168 250 
 
 Y 
 YEATS, WILLIAM B., 
 
 The Host of the Air 185 253 
 
 The Fiddler of Doonev.. 187 253
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 A 
 
 Poem Note 
 
 Admiral Dugout C. Fox Smith 105 234 
 
 After Apple-Picking Robert Frost 60 223 
 
 America Alfred Kreymborg . . 161 248 
 
 Ancient Beautiful Things, The Fannie S. Davis 128 239 
 
 Anxious Farmer, The Burges Johnson .... 120 237 
 
 At Twilight Harriet Monroe 30 217 
 
 "Avenue of the Allies, The" Alfred Noyes 107 235 
 
 B 
 
 Baby Pantomime Percy MacKaye 117 236 
 
 Barrel-Organ, The Alfred Noyes 34 218 
 
 Barter Sara Teasdale 157 246 
 
 Birches Robert Frost 63 224 
 
 Bombardment, The , Amy Lowell 84 228 
 
 Broadway Hermann Hagedorn . 23 215 
 
 Brooklyn Bridge at Dawn Rich. Le Gallienne. . . 21 214 
 
 Brother Beasts Gale Young Rice 62 223 
 
 C 
 
 Cargoes John Masefield 12 213 
 
 City Roofs Charles H. Towne. . . 22 215 
 
 Continuity A. E 114 235 
 
 Counter- Attack Siegfried Sassoon ... 98 232 
 
 Courage John Galsworthy . . . 164 248 
 
 Cowboy's Dream, The Anon 175 251 
 
 Creed, A Edwin Markham 165 249 
 
 D 
 
 Da Younga 'Merican T. A. Daly 124 238 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's Fool M. St. Clare Byrne. . 192 255 
 
 Dawn Patrol, The , . .Paul Bewsher 103 234 
 
 Dead to the Living, The Laurence Binyon ... 97 232 
 
 Devil, The Wm. H. Drummond. 179 252 
 
 Devout Highlander, The Cyril M. Home 91 230 
 
 271
 
 272 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Poem Note 
 
 Dew-Light, The Hilda Conkling 121 237 
 
 Does It Matter? Siegfried Sassoon . . 103 234 
 
 E 
 
 Een Napoli T. A. Daly 22 215 
 
 Ellis Park Helen Hoy t 28 217 
 
 Etiquette Arthur Guiterman . . 189 254 
 
 F 
 
 Factories, The Margaret Widdemer. 26 216 
 
 Farmer Remembers Lincoln, A. ... Witter Bynner 170 250 
 
 Faun Sees Snow for the First Time, 
 
 The Richard Aldington . . 188 J53 
 
 Feet of the Young Men, The Rudyard Kipling ... 44 219 
 
 Fiddler of Dooney, The W. B. Yeats 187 253 
 
 Final Spurt, The John Masefield 72 226 
 
 Fog Carl Sandburg 21 214 
 
 Forty Singing Seamen Alfred Noyes 194 255 
 
 Funk Robert W. Service. . 90 230 
 
 a 
 
 Garden by Moonlight, The Amy Lowell 137 241 
 
 Garden of the Rose Charles B. Going 148 244 
 
 General William Booth Enters 
 
 Heaven Vachel Lindsay 176 252 
 
 Gifts Margaret Widdemer. 168 258 
 
 God's World Edna St. Vincent 
 
 Millay 60 223 
 
 Good Company Karle W. Baker 70 225 
 
 Great Lover, The Rupert Brooke 166 249 
 
 Green Inn, The Theodosia Garrison. . 43 218 
 
 Greeting, A William H. Davies. . . 57 222 
 
 H 
 
 Haymaking Edward Thomas 54 221 
 
 Highmount Louis Untermeyer. . . 65 224 
 
 High-Tide J S. Untermeyer 5 208 
 
 Horse Thief, The Wm. Rose Benet 75 227 
 
 Host of the Air, The. W. B. Teats. . . 185 253
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 273 
 
 I 
 
 Poem Note 
 
 I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . Alan Seeger 95 231 
 
 If Rudyard Kipling ... 163 248 
 
 In Flanders Fields John McCrae 96 231 
 
 In Lady Street John Drinkwater. ... 31 218 
 
 In Service W. M. Letts 134 240 
 
 Incorrigible Surges Johnson .... 123 238 
 
 Indian Summer Day on the Prairie, 
 
 An Vachel Lindsay .... 56 222 
 
 Irradiations, III John G. Fletcher 11 212 
 
 Irradiations, X John G. Fletcher 70 225 
 
 J 
 
 Justice Aline Kilmer 118 236 
 
 L 
 
 Little Golden Fountain, The Mary MacMillan 149 244 
 
 Little Pan Witter Bynner 125 238 
 
 Look, The Sara Teasdale 145 243 
 
 Lynmouth Widow, A Amelia J. Burr 152 245 
 
 M 
 
 Man-Child's Lullaby, A Brian Hooker 117 236 
 
 "Mary, Helper of Heartbreak" Margaret Widdemer. 147 243 
 
 May Is Building Her House Rich. Le Gallienne.. . 51 220 
 
 Mile with Me, A Henry van Dyke .... 142 242 
 
 Mister Hop-Toad James Whitcumb 
 
 Riley 49 220 
 
 Mountain Gateway, A Bliss Carman 53 221 
 
 My Dog John Kendrick Bangs 133 240 
 
 My Friend Walter P. Eaton 143 242 
 
 My Sweet Brown Gal Paul L. Dunbar 135 240 
 
 N 
 
 Night in Mesopotamia A. J. E. Dawson. . . . 102 233 
 
 Night-Piece Siegfried Sassoon ... 71 226 
 
 Noon (I from "Battle") Robert Nichols 99 232 
 
 
 
 Old Anchor Chanty Herbert Trench 7 211 
 
 Old Houses of Flanders, The Ford M. Hueffer 87 229
 
 274 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Poem Note 
 
 Old Ships, The James E. Flecker 12 213 
 
 Old Soldier, The Katherine Tynan 89 229 
 
 Old Woman of the Roads, An Padraic Colum 127 239 
 
 Open Boat, An Alfred Noyes 105 234 
 
 P 
 
 Park, The Dana Burnet 29 217 
 
 Parting Alice C. Henderson. . 152 246 
 
 Peddler, The Hermann Hagedorn. . 24 216 
 
 Penalty of Love, The Sidney R. Lysaght. . 153 246 
 
 People Frances D. Cornford 143 242 
 
 Pirate Treasure Abbie F. Brown 16 213 
 
 Potatoes' Dance, The Vachel Lindsay 190 254 
 
 Prayer Louis Untermeyer. . . 164 249 
 
 Prayer of a Soldier in France Joyce Kilmer ,110 235 
 
 Prayers of Steel Carl Sandburg 27 216 
 
 Provincetown Marie L. Hersey .... 159 247 
 
 Psalm to My Beloved Eunice Tietjens 150 245 
 
 R 
 
 Rag Dolly's Valentine, The Arthur Guiterman. . . 119 237 
 
 Recessional Eudyard Kipling . . . 161 248 
 
 Reflection, The Christopher Morley. . 151 245 
 
 Retreat Wilfrid W. Gibson. . 101 233 
 
 Return, The Wilfrid W. Gibson. . 83 227 
 
 Rheims Cathedral 1914 Grace H. Conkling. . 88 229 
 
 Richard Cory Edwin A. Robinson. . 170 250 
 
 Road of the Refugees, The Dora Sigerson 83 227 
 
 Roses in the Subway Dana Burnet 25 216 
 
 Rufus Prays L. A. G. Strong 126 239 
 
 S 
 
 Sailor Town C. Fox Smith 5 210 
 
 Sea-Fever John Masefield 3 207 
 
 Shadow People, The Francis Ledwidge. . . 122 238 
 
 Shepherd to the Poet, The Agnes K. Gray 201 256 
 
 Ship of Rio, The Walter de la Mare. . 6 211 
 
 Silence Edgar Lee Masters. . 172 251 
 
 Sing a Song o' Shipwreck John Masefield 14 213 
 
 Small Town Celebrates, The Karle W. Baker 111 235 
 
 Smells Junior Christopher Morley. . 119 237 
 
 Soldier. The Rupert Brooke 95 231
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 275 
 
 Poem Note 
 
 Song Rupert Brooke 144 243 
 
 Songs of a Girl Mary C. Davies 149 245 
 
 Sonnet J. C. Squire 159 247 
 
 Spires of Oxford W. M. Letts 94 230 
 
 Suggested by the Cover of a Volume 
 
 of Keats's Poems Amy Lowell 199 256 
 
 Sunken Garden, The Walter de la Mare. . 136 241 
 
 Sunset Percy MacKaye 172 250 
 
 T 
 Three Pieces on the Smoke of 
 
 Autumn Carl Sandburg 58 223 
 
 Time, You Old Gypsy Man Ralph Hodgson 157 247 
 
 To a Distant One Francis Ledwidge . . . 146 243 
 
 To a Poet Carolyn Wells 50 220 
 
 To Lucasta on Going to the War 
 
 For the Fourth Time Robert Graves 100 233 
 
 To My Brother Corinne Roosevelt 
 
 Robinson 141 241 
 
 To the Thawing Wind Robert Frost 48 219 
 
 To Yourself Witter Bynner 201 257 
 
 Trees Joyce Kilmer 71 225 
 
 V 
 
 Vagabond Song, A Bliss Carman and 
 
 Richard Eovey 58 222 
 
 Vignette, A Robert Bridges 67 224 
 
 W 
 
 When Shakespeare Laughed Christopher Morley. . 199 256 
 
 Wild Weather Fannie S. Davis 4 208 
 
 World's Miser, The Theodore Maynard. . 68 225 
 
 Y 
 
 You, Four Walls, Wall Not in 
 
 My Heart Josephine Preston 
 
 Peabody.... 132 240
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A black cat among roses 137 
 
 A lady loved a swaggering rover 16 
 
 A miser with an eager face 68 
 
 A quiver in the hot and breathless air 102 
 
 A wan-cheeked girl with faded eyes 25 
 
 A winged death has smitten dumb thy belis 88 
 
 Across the seas of Wonderland to Mogadore we plodded 194 
 
 After night's thunder far away had rolled 54 
 
 Along de road from Bord a Plouffe 179 
 
 Along the wharves in sailor town a singing whisper goes 5 
 
 All day long the traffic goes 31 
 
 All day the children play along the walks 29 
 
 All summer in the close-locked streets the crowd 159 
 
 Among the meadows 67 
 
 At the sixth green field came the long slow climb 72 
 
 Behold where Night clutches the cup of heaven 172 
 
 Booth led boldly with his big bass drum 176 
 
 Broken, bewildered by the long retreat 101 
 
 Come with rain, loud Southwester 48 
 
 Courage is but a word, and yet, of words 164 
 
 Dagonet, Arthur's fool 192 
 
 Does it matter? losing your leg 103 
 
 "Down cellar," said the cricket 190 
 
 God does not give us, when our youth is done 168 
 
 God of our fathers, known of old 161 
 
 God, though this life is but a wraith 164 
 
 Good morning, Life and all 57 
 
 277
 
 278 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 He had done with fleets and squadrons, with the restless, roam- 
 ing seas 105 
 
 He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea 14 
 
 He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue 152 
 
 He went, and he was gay to go 83 
 
 Her heart is like a garden fair 148 
 
 Here een Noo Yorka, where am I 22 
 
 Hills, you have answered the craving 65 
 
 How like the stars are these white, nameless faces 23 
 
 Howdy, Mister Hop- Toad! Glad to see you out 49 
 
 I am all alone in the room 128 
 
 I edged back against the night 5 
 
 I guess I'm bad as I can be 123 
 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 95 
 
 I have been so great a lover; filled my days 166 
 
 I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea 172 
 
 I have no dog, but it must be 133 
 
 I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face 151 
 
 I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep 12 
 
 I have shut my little sister in from life and light 26 
 
 I know a vale where I would go one day 53 
 
 I loved you for your loving ways 141 
 
 I must down to the seas again, to tl^e lonely sea and the sky . . 3 
 
 I, Mysal', I feela strange 124 
 
 I peddles pencils on Broadway 24 
 
 I saw the spires of Oxford 94 
 
 I sicken of men's company 43 
 
 I think that I shall never see 71 
 
 If I should die, think only this of me 95 
 
 If Love should count you worthy, and should deign 153 
 
 If you can keep your head when all about you 163 
 
 In Flanders fields the poppies blow . . . , 96 
 
 In the darkening church 126 
 
 In the gray skirts of the fog seamews skirl desolately 11 
 
 It doesn't matter what's the cause 100 
 
 It is midday : the deep trench glares 90 
 
 It was awful long ago 120 
 
 Last night as I lay on the prairie 175 
 
 Lay me on an anvil, God 27
 
 INDEX 279 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lest the young soldiers be strange in Heaven 89 
 
 Life has loveliness to sell 157 
 
 Like to islands in the seas 143 
 
 "Lincoln T' 170 
 
 Listen, laddies : Gin ye go into the battle, be devout 91 
 
 Listen to the tramping! Oh, God of pity, listen ! 83 
 
 Little groping hands that must learn the weight of labor 117 
 
 Little Nellie Cassidy has got a place in town 134 
 
 Little park that I pass through 28 
 
 Lo, I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being 150 
 
 May is building her house. With apple blooms 51 
 
 Michael, come in ! Stop crying at the door 118 
 
 My Daddy smells like tobacco and books 119 
 
 My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 60 
 
 My shoulders ache beneath my pack 110 
 
 No sign is made while empires pass 114 
 
 Now I go, do not weep, woman 152 
 
 Now the Four-way Lodge is opened, now the Hunting Winds 
 
 are loose 44 
 
 0, to have a little house 127 
 
 O, what is that whimpering there in the darkness 105 
 
 0, who will walk a mile with me 142 
 
 O world, I cannot hold thee close enough 60 
 
 0, you that still have rain and sun 97 
 
 Och, what's the good o' spinnin' words 201 
 
 O'Driscoll drove with a song 185 
 
 Oh, it's "ah, fare you well," for the deep sea's crying 6 
 
 "Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings" 144 
 
 Oh, nay heart is a little golden fountain 149 
 
 Old lame Bridget doesn't hear 122 
 
 Out of the cleansing night of stars and tides 21 
 
 Out on the hill by an autumn-tree 125 
 
 Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir 12 
 
 Roof-tops, roof-tops, what do you cover 22 
 
 Serene, he sits on other shores 117 
 
 Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city 84
 
 280 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Smoke of autumn is on it all 58 
 
 Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea 103 
 
 Speak not whisper not 136 
 
 Strephon kissed me in the spring 145 
 
 Talking to people in well-ordered ways is prose 201 
 
 The Dew-Man comes over the mountains wide 121 
 
 The fog comes on little cat feet 21 
 
 The friend I love is like the sea to me 143 
 
 The Gossips tell a story of the Sparrow and the Cat 189 
 
 The old houses of Flanders 87 
 
 The sea was wild. The wind was proud 4 
 
 The sun is a huntress young 56 
 
 The trees, like great jade elephants 70 
 
 There he moved, cropping the grass at the purple canyon's lip . 75 
 
 There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street 34 
 
 There is a destiny that makes us brothers 165 
 
 There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood . . 58 
 
 There was a ship of Rio 6 
 
 There was an Indian, who had known no change 159 
 
 This is the song of the wind as it came 107 
 
 Though others think I stare with eyes unseeing 119 
 
 Through wild by-ways I come to you, my love 146 
 
 Time, you old gypsy man 157 
 
 To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees 70 
 
 Up and down he goes with terrible, reckless strides 161 
 
 We'd gained our first objective hours before 98 
 
 We tumbled out into the starry dark Ill 
 
 Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me 147 
 
 W'en de clouds is hanging heavy in de sky 135 
 
 "When I play on my fiddle in Dooney 187 
 
 When I see birches bend to left and right 63 
 
 When Shakespeare laughed, the fun began 199 
 
 When your marrer bone seems 'oiler 90 
 
 Whenever Richard Cory went down town 170 
 
 Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign 199 
 
 Winter is here . ... 62
 
 INDEX 281 
 
 PAGE 
 
 With a long heavy heave, my very famous men 7 
 
 Within the little house 149 
 
 Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan 71 
 
 Yes, Poet, I am coming down to earth 50 
 
 You are a painter listen 30 
 
 You, Four Walls 132 
 
 Zeus> Brazen-thunder-hurler 188
 
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