The Second Book of Modern Verse / A Selection from the Work of Contemporaneous American Poets

by Unknown

IV

The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent.
The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh
its bright colours.
But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted,
He has descended, like a god, to his rest.

Over the uproar of cities,
Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing,
In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring,
Rises one white tomb alone.

Beam over it, stars,
Wrap it round, stripes — stripes red for the pain that he bore for you —
Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish;
Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law.

Strew over him flowers:
Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus
From the east, and from the west rich orange blossom,
And from the heart of the land take the passion-flower;

Rayed, violet, dim,
With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet,
And beside it there lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia,
Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed.

Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight. [Vachel Lindsay]

(In Springfield, Illinois)

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us: — as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

Prayer during Battle. [Hermann Hagedorn]

Lord, in this hour of tumult,
Lord, in this night of fears,
Keep open, oh, keep open
My eyes, my ears.

Not blindly, not in hatred,
Lord, let me do my part.
Keep open, oh, keep open
My mind, my heart!

Prayer of a Soldier in France. [Joyce Kilmer]

My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).

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, Thou 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.

The White Comrade. [Robert Haven Schauffler]

Under our curtain of fire,
Over the clotted clods,
We charged, to be withered, to reel
And despairingly wheel
When the bugles bade us retire
From the terrible odds.

As we ebbed with the battle-tide,
Fingers of red-hot steel
Suddenly closed on my side.
I fell, and began to pray.
I crawled on my hands and lay
Where a shallow crater yawned wide;
Then I swooned. . . .

When I woke, it was yet day.
Fierce was the pain of my wound,
But I saw it was death to stir,
For fifty paces away
Their trenches were.
In torture I prayed for the dark
And the stealthy step of my friend
Who, stanch to the very end,
Would creep to the danger zone
And offer his life as a mark
To save my own.

Night fell. I heard his tread,
Not stealthy, but firm and serene,
As if my comrade's head
Were lifted far from that scene
Of passion and pain and dread;
As if my comrade's heart
In carnage took no part;
As if my comrade's feet
Were set on some radiant street
Such as no darkness might haunt;
As if my comrade's eyes,
No deluge of flame could surprise,
No death and destruction daunt,
No red-beaked bird dismay,
Nor sight of decay.

Then in the bursting shells' dim light
I saw he was clad in white.
For a moment I thought that I saw the smock
Of a shepherd in search of his flock.
Alert were the enemy, too,
And their bullets flew
Straight at a mark no bullet could fail;
For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright;
But he did not flee nor quail.
Instead, with unhurrying stride
He came,
And gathering my tall frame,
Like a child, in his arms . . .

I slept,
And awoke
From a blissful dream
In a cave by a stream.
My silent comrade had bound my side.
No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke, —
A mastering wish to serve this man
Who had ventured through hell my doom to revoke,
As only the truest of comrades can.
I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him,
And urgently prayed him
Never to leave me, whatever betide;
When I saw he was hurt —
Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer!
Then, as the dark drops gathered there
And fell in the dirt,
The wounds of my friend
Seemed to me such as no man might bear.
Those bullet-holes in the patient hands
Seemed to transcend
All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands
Had known or would know till the mad world's end.
Then suddenly I was aware
That his feet had been wounded, too;
And, dimming the white of his side,
A dull stain grew.
"You are hurt, White Comrade!" I cried.
His words I already foreknew:
"These are old wounds," said he,
"But of late they have troubled me."

Smith, of the Third Oregon, dies. [Mary Carolyn Davies]

Autumn in Oregon is wet as Spring,
And green, with little singings in the grass,
And pheasants flying,
Gold, green and red,
Great, narrow, lovely things,
As if an orchid had snatched wings.
There are strange birds like blots against a sky
Where a sun is dying.
Beyond the river where the hills are blurred
A cloud, like the one word
Of the too-silent sky, stirs, and there stand
Black trees on either hand.
Autumn in Oregon is wet and new
As Spring,
And puts a fever like Spring's in the cheek
That once has touched her dew —
And it puts longing too
In eyes that once have seen
Her season-flouting green,
And ears that listened to her strange birds speak.

Autumn in Oregon — I'll never see
Those hills again, a blur of blue and rain
Across the old Willamette. I'll not stir
A pheasant as I walk, and hear it whirr
Above my head, an indolent, trusting thing.
When all this silly dream is finished here,
The fellows will go home to where there fall
Rose-petals over every street, and all
The year is like a friendly festival.
But I shall never watch those hedges drip
Color, not see the tall spar of a ship
In our old harbor. — They say that I am dying,
Perhaps that's why it all comes back again:
Autumn in Oregon and pheasants flying —

Song. [Edward J. O'Brien]

She goes all so softly
Like a shadow on the hill,
A faint wind at twilight
That stirs, and is still.

She weaves her thoughts whitely,
Like doves in the air,
Though a gray mound in Flanders
Clouds all that was fair.

Lonely Burial. [Stephen Vincent Benet]

There were not many at that lonely place,
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.
— We were most silent in those solitudes —
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin — and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.

I have a Rendezvous with Death. [Alan Seeger]

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
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 hill
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.

Rouge Bouquet. [Joyce Kilmer]

In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugle sing:
"Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.
Danger's past;
Now at last,
Go to sleep!"

There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band.
St. Michael's sword darts through the air
And touches the aureole on his hair
As he sees them stand saluting there,
His stalwart sons;
And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill
Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
The Gael's blood runs.
And up to Heaven's doorway floats,
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,
A delicate cloud of buglenotes
That softly say:
"Farewell!
Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,
Shield us here.
Farewell!"

Francis Ledwidge. [Grace Hazard Conkling]

(Killed in action July 31, 1917)

Nevermore singing
Will you go now,
Wearing wild moonlight
On your brow.
The moon's white mood
In your silver mind
Is all forgotten.
Words of wind
From off the hedgerow
After rain,
You do not hear them;
They are vain.
There is a linnet
Craves a song,
And you returning
Before long.
Now who will tell her,
Who can say
On what great errand
You are away?
You whose kindred
Were hills of Meath,
Who sang the lane-rose
From her sheath,
What voice will cry them
The grief at dawn
Or say to the blackbird
You are gone?

April on the Battlefields. [Leonora Speyer]

April now walks the fields again,
Trailing her tearful leaves
And holding all her frightened buds against her heart:
Wrapt in her clouds and mists,
She walks,
Groping her way among the graves of men.

The green of earth is differently green,
A dreadful knowledge trembles in the grass,
And little wide-eyed flowers die too soon:
There is a stillness here —
After a terror of all raving sounds —
And birds sit close for comfort upon the boughs
Of broken trees.

April, thou grief!
What of thy sun and glad, high wind,
Thy valiant hills and woods and eager brooks,
Thy thousand-petalled hopes?
~The sky forbids thee sorrow, April!~
And yet —
I see thee walking listlessly
Across those scars that once were joyous sod,
Those graves,
Those stepping-stones from life to life.

Death is an interruption between two heart-beats,
That I know —
Yet know not how I know —
But April mourns,
Trailing her tender green,
The passion of her green,
Across the passion of those fearful fields.

~Yes, all the fields!~
No barrier here,
No challenge in the night,
No stranger-land;
She passes with her perfect countersign,
Her green;
She wanders in her mournful garden,
Dropping her buds like tears,
Spreading her lovely grief upon the graves of man.

Earth's Easter. [Robert Haven Schauffler]

(1915)

Earth has gone up from its Gethsemane,
And now on Golgotha is crucified;
The spear is twisted in the tortured side;
The thorny crown still works its cruelty.
Hark! while the victim suffers on the tree,
There sound through starry spaces, far and wide,
Such words as in the last despair are cried:
"My God! my God! Thou hast forsaken me!"

But when earth's members from the cross are drawn,
And all we love into the grave is gone,
This hope shall be a spark within the gloom:
That, in the glow of some stupendous dawn,
We may go forth to find, where lilies bloom,
Two angels bright before an empty tomb.

The Fields. [Witter Bynner]

Though wisdom underfoot
Dies in the bloody fields,
Slowly the endless root
Gathers again and yields.

In fields where hate has hurled
Its force, where folly rots,
Wisdom shall be unfurled
Small as forget-me-nots.

In Spite of War. [Angela Morgan]

In spite of war, in spite of death,
In spite of all man's sufferings,
Something within me laughs and sings
And I must praise with all my breath.
In spite of war, in spite of hate
Lilacs are blooming at my gate,
Tulips are tripping down the path
In spite of war, in spite of wrath.
"Courage!" the morning-glory saith;
"Rejoice!" the daisy murmureth,
And just to live is so divine
When pansies lift their eyes to mine.

The clouds are romping with the sea,
And flashing waves call back to me
That naught is real but what is fair,
That everywhere and everywhere
A glory liveth through despair.
Though guns may roar and cannon boom,
Roses are born and gardens bloom;
My spirit still may light its flame
At that same torch whence poppies came.
Where morning's altar whitely burns
Lilies may lift their silver urns
In spite of war, in spite of shame.

And in my ear a whispering breath,
"Wake from the nightmare! Look and see
That life is naught but ecstasy
In spite of war, in spite of death!"

Wide Haven. [Clement Wood]

Tired of man's futile, petty cry,
Of lips that lie and flout,
I saw the slow sun dim and die
And the slim dusk slip out . . .
Life held no room for doubt.

What though Death claim the ones I prize
In War's insane crusade,
Last night I saw Orion rise
And the great day-star fade,
And I am not dismayed.

To Any one. [Witter Bynner]

Whether the time be slow or fast,
Enemies, hand in hand,
Must come together at the last
And understand.

No matter how the die is cast
Nor who may seem to win,
You know that you must love at last —
Why not begin?

Peace. [Agnes Lee]

Suddenly bells and flags!
Suddenly — door to door —
Tidings! Can we believe,
We, who were used to war?

Yet we have dreamed her face,
Knowing her light must be,
Knowing that she must come.
Look — she comes, it is she!

Tattered her raiment floats,
Blood is upon her wings.
Ah, but her eyes are clear!
Ah, but her voice outrings!

Soon where the shrapnel fell
Petals shall wake and stir.
Look — she is here, she lives!
Beauty has died for her.

The Kings are passing Deathward. [David Morton]

The Kings are passing deathward in the dark
Of days that had been splendid where they went;
Their crowns are captive and their courts are stark
Of purples that are ruinous, now, and rent.
For all that they have seen disastrous things:
The shattered pomp, the split and shaken throne,
They cannot quite forget the way of Kings:
Gravely they pass, majestic and alone.

With thunder on their brows, their faces set
Toward the eternal night of restless shapes,
They walk in awful splendor, regal yet,
Wearing their crimes like rich and kingly capes . . .
Curse them or taunt, they will not hear or see;
The Kings are passing deathward: let them be.

Jerico. [Willard Wattles]

Jerico, Jerico,
Round and round the walls I go
Where they watch with scornful eyes,
Where the captained bastions rise;
Heel and toe, heel and toe,
Blithely round the walls I go.

Jerico, Jerico,
Round and round the walls I go . . .
All the golden ones of earth
Regal in their lordly mirth . . .
Heel and toe, heel and toe,
Round and round the walls I go.

Jerico, Jerico,
Blithely round the walls I go,
With a broken sword in hand
Where the mighty bastions stand;
Heel and toe, heel and toe,
Hear my silly bugle blow.

Heel and toe, heel and toe,
Round the walls of Jerico . . .
Past the haughty golden gate
Where the emperor in state
Smiles to see the ragged show,
Round and round the towers go.

Jerico, Jerico,
Round and round and round I go . . .
All their sworded bodies must
Lie low in their tower's dust . . .
Heel and toe, heel and toe,
Blithely round the walls I go.

Heel and toe, heel and toe, —
I will blow a thunder note
From my brazen bugle's throat
Till the sand and thistle know
The leveled walls of Jerico,
Jerico, Jerico, Jerico. . . .

Students. [Florence Wilkinson]

John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau —
'T was Toussaint, just a year ago;
Crimson and copper was the glow
Of all the woods at Fontainebleau.
They peered into that ancient well,
And watched the slow torch as it fell.
John gave the keeper two whole sous,
And Jeanne that smile with which she woos
John Brown to folly. So they lose
The Paris train. But never mind! —
All-Saints are rustling in the wind,
And there's an inn, a crackling fire —
(It's `deux-cinquante', but Jeanne's desire);
There's dinner, candles, country wine,
Jeanne's lips — philosophy divine!

There was a bosquet at Saint Cloud
Wherein John's picture of her grew
To be a Salon masterpiece —
Till the rain fell that would not cease.
Through one long alley how they raced! —
'T was gold and brown, and all a waste
Of matted leaves, moss-interlaced.
Shades of mad queens and hunter-kings
And thorn-sharp feet of dryad-things
Were company to their wanderings;
Then rain and darkness on them drew.
The rich folks' motors honked and flew.
They hailed an old cab, heaven for two;
The bright Champs-Elysees at last —
Though the cab crawled it sped too fast.

Paris, upspringing white and gold:
Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled
War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic —
Fierce chargers, angels histrionic;
The royal sweep of gardened spaces,
The pomp and whirl of columned Places;
The Rive Gauche, age-old, gay and gray;
The impasse and the loved cafe;
The tempting tidy little shops;
The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops;
Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays;
Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways.

May — Robinson's, the chestnut trees —
Were ever crowds as gay as these?
The quick pale waiters on a run,
The round, green tables, one by one,
Hidden away in amorous bowers —
Lilac, laburnum's golden showers.
Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard,
And nightingales quite undeterred.
And then that last extravagance —
O Jeanne, a single amber glance
Will pay him! — "Let's play millionaire
For just two hours — on princely fare,
At some hotel where lovers dine
A deux and pledge across the wine!"
They find a damask breakfast-room,
Where stiff silk roses range their bloom.
The garcon has a splendid way
Of bearing in grand dejeuner.
Then to be left alone, alone,
High up above Rue Castiglione;
Curtained away from all the rude
Rumors, in silken solitude;
And, John, her head upon your knees —
Time waits for moments such as these.

Tampico. [Grace Hazard Conkling]

Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon,
Or gather me a star,
But leave the sultry passion-flowers
Growing where they are.

I fear their sombre yellow deeps,
Their whirling fringe of black,
And he who gives a passion-flower
Always asks it back.

Which. [Corinne Roosevelt Robinson]

We ask that Love shall rise to the divine,
And yet we crave him very human, too;
Our hearts would drain the crimson of his wine,
Our souls despise him if he prove untrue!
Poor Love! I hardly see what you can do!
We know all human things are weak and frail,
And yet we claim that very part of you,
Then, inconsistent, blame you if you fail.
When you would soar, 't is we who clip your wings,
Although we weep because you faint and fall.
Alas! it seems we want so many things,
That no dear love could ever grant them all!
Which shall we choose, the human or divine,
The crystal stream, or yet the crimson wine?

Apology. [Amy Lowell]

Be not angry with me that I bear
Your colours everywhere,
All through each crowded street,
And meet
The wonder-light in every eye,
As I go by.

Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,
Blinded by rainbow haze,
The stuff of happiness,
No less,
Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds
Of peacock golds.

Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way
Flushes beneath its gray.
My steps fall ringed with light,
So bright,
It seems a myriad suns are strown
About the town.

Around me is the sound of steepled bells,
And rich perfumed smells
Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud,
And shroud
Me from close contact with the world.
I dwell impearled.

You blazon me with jewelled insignia.
A flaming nebula
Rims in my life. And yet
You set
The word upon me, unconfessed
To go unguessed.

The Great Hunt. [Carl Sandburg]

I cannot tell you now;
When the wind's drive and whirl
Blow me along no longer,
And the wind's a whisper at last —
Maybe I'll tell you then —
some other time.

When the rose's flash to the sunset
Reels to the wrack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it's no use to beckon or say, "So long" —
Maybe I'll tell you then —
some other time.

I never knew any more beautiful than you:
I have hunted you under my thoughts,
I have broken down under the wind
And into the roses looking for you.
I shall never find any
greater than you.

Dialogue. [Walter Conrad Arensberg]

Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate,
And when he enters let him be at home.
Think of the roads that he has had to roam.
Think of the years that he has had to wait.

~But if I let Love in I shall be late.
Another has come first — there is no room.
And I am thoughtful of the endless loom —
Let Love be patient, the importunate.~

O Life, be idle and let Love come in,
And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin.

~But Love himself is idle with his song.
Let Love come last, and then may Love last long.~

Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last.
Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed.

Song. [Margaret Widdemer]

The Spring will come when the year turns,
As if no Winter had been,
But what shall I do with a locked heart
That lets no new year in?

The birds will go when the Fall goes,
The leaves will fade in the field,
But what shall I do with an old love
Will neither die nor yield?

Oh! youth will turn as the world turns,
And dim grow laughter and pain,
But how shall I hide from an old dream
I never may dream again?

The Bitter Herb. [Jeanne Robert Foster]

O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
I search for you in vain;
You are the only growing thing
Can take away my pain.

When I was young, this bitter herb
Grew wild on every hill;
I should have plucked a store of it,
And kept it by me still.

I hunt through all the meadows
Where once I wandered free,
But the rare herb, Forgetfulness,
It hides away from me.

O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
Where is your drowsy breath?
Oh, can it be your seed has blown
Far as the Vales of Death?

Behind the House is the Millet Plot. [Muna Lee]

Behind the house is the millet plot,
And past the millet, the stile;
And then a hill where melilot
Grows with wild camomile.

There was a youth who bade me goodby
Where the hill rises to meet the sky.
I think my heart broke; but I have forgot
All but the smell of the white melilot.

Men of Harlan. [William Aspinwall Bradley]

Here in the level country, where the creeks run straight and wide,
Six men upon their pacing nags may travel side by side.
But the mountain men of Harlan, you may tell them all the while,
When they pass through our village, for they ride in single file.
And the children, when they see them, stop their play and stand and cry,
"Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by!"

O the mountain men of Harlan, when they come down to the plain,
With dangling stirrup, jangling spur, and loosely hanging rein,
They do not ride, like our folks here, in twos and threes abreast,
With merry laughter, talk and song, and lightly spoken jest;
But silently and solemnly, in long and straggling line,
As you may see them in the hills, beyond Big Black and Pine.

For, in that far strange country, where the men of Harlan dwell,
There are no roads at all, like ours, as we've heard travelers tell.
But only narrow trails that wind along each shallow creek,
Where the silence hangs so heavy, you can hear the leathers squeak.
And there no two can ride abreast, but each alone must go,
Picking his way as best he may, with careful steps and slow,

Down many a shelving ledge of shale, skirting the trembling sands,
Through many a pool and many a pass, where the mountain laurel stands
So thick and close to left and right, with holly bushes, too,
The clinging branches meet midway to bar the passage through, —
O'er many a steep and stony ridge, o'er many a high divide,
And so it is the Harlan men thus one by one do ride.

Yet it is strange to see them pass in line through our wide street,
When they come down to sell their sang, and buy their stores of meat,
These silent men, in sombre black, all clad from foot to head,
Though they have left their lonely hills and the narrow creek's rough bed.
And 't is no wonder children stop their play and stand and cry:
"Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by."

Have you an Eye. [Edwin Ford Piper]

Have you an eye for the trails, the trails,
The old mark and the new?
What scurried here, what loitered there,
In the dust and in the dew?

Have you an eye for the beaten track,
The old hoof and the young?
Come name me the drivers of yesterday,
Sing me the songs they sung.

O, was it a schooner last went by,
And where will it ford the stream?
Where will it halt in the early dusk,
And where will the camp-fire gleam?

They used to take the shortest cut
The cattle trails had made;
Get down the hill by the easy slope
To the water and the shade.

But it's barbed wire fence, and section line,
And kill-horse travel now;
Scoot you down the canyon bank, —
The old road's under plough.

Have you an eye for the laden wheel,
The worn tire or the new?
Or the sign of the prairie pony's hoof
Was never trimmed for shoe?

After Apple-Picking. [Robert Frost]

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
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.

Autumn. [Jean Starr Untermeyer]

(For my Mother)

How memory cuts away the years,
And how clean the picture comes
Of autumn days, brisk and busy;
Charged with keen sunshine.
And you, stirred with activity;
The spirit of these energetic days.

There was our back-yard,
So plain and stripped of green,
With even the weeds carefully pulled away
From the crooked, red bricks that made the walk,
And the earth on either side so black.

Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air;
And winter comforts coming in like a pageant.
I shall not forget them:
Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles,
Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch,
Exhaling the pungent dill;
And in the very center of the yard,
You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper
Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down
Like jolly monks in a drunken dance.
And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load,
Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons
Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers.
Such feathery whiteness — to come to kraut!
And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust,
Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire;
And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance
But were bitter to taste.
And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces,
And long string beans floating in pans of clear water
Like slim, green fishes.
And there was fish itself,
Salted, silver herring from the city . . .

And you moved among these mysteries,
Absorbed and smiling and sure;
Stirring, tasting, measuring,
With the precision of a ritual.
I like to think of you in your years of power —
You, now so shaken and so powerless —
High priestess of your home.

Autumn Movement. [Carl Sandburg]

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

God's World. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! 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.

Overtones. [William Alexander Percy]

I heard a bird at break of day
Sing from the autumn trees
A song so mystical and calm,
So full of certainties,
No man, I think, could listen long
Except upon his knees.
Yet this was but a simple bird,
Alone, among dead trees.

When the Year grows Old. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old —
October — November —
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget —
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old —
October — November —
How she disliked the cold!

In the Monastery. [Norreys Jephson O'Conor]

Cold is the wind to-night, and rough the sea,
Too rough for even the daring Dane to find
A landing-place upon the frozen lea.
Cold is the wind.

The blast sweeps round the chapel from behind,
Making the altar-light flare fitfully,
While I must kneel and pray with troubled mind.

Patrick and Brigid, I have prayed to ye!
The night is over, and my task resigned
To Colum. Though God's own dwelling shelter me,
Cold is the wind.

The Narrow Doors. [Fannie Stearns Davis]

The Wide Door into Sorrow
Stands open night and day.
With head held high and dancing feet
I pass it on my way.

I never tread within it,
I never turn to see
The Wide Door into Sorrow.
It cannot frighten me.

The Narrow Doors to Sorrow
Are secret, still, and low:
Swift tongues of dusk that spoil the sun
Before I even know.

My dancing feet are frozen.
I stare. I can but see.
The Narrow Doors to Sorrow
They stop the heart in me.

— Oh, stranger than my midnights
Of loneliness and strife
The Doors that let the dark leap in
Across my sunny life!

"I Pass a Lighted Window". [Clement Wood]

I pass a lighted window
And a closed door —
And I am not troubled
Any more.

Though the road is murky,
I am not afraid,
For a shadow passes
On the lighted shade.

Once I knew the sesame
To the closed door;
Now I shall not enter
Any more;

Nor will people passing
By the lit place,
See our shadows marry
In a gray embrace.

Strange a passing shadow
Has a long spell!
What can matter, knowing
She does well?

How can life annoy me
Any more?
Life: a lighted window
And a closed door.

Doors. [Hermann Hagedorn]

Like a young child who to his mother's door
Runs eager for the welcoming embrace,
And finds the door shut, and with troubled face
Calls and through sobbing calls, and o'er and o'er
Calling, storms at the panel — so before
A door that will not open, sick and numb,
I listen for a word that will not come,
And know, at last, I may not enter more.

Silence! And through the silence and the dark
By that closed door, the distant sob of tears
Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores
The spectral sea; and through the sobbing — hark!
Down the fair-chambered corridor of years,
The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors.

Where Love once was. [James Oppenheim]

Where love once was, let there be no hate:
Though they that went as one by night and day
Go now alone,
Where love once was, let there be no hate.

The seeds we planted together
Came to rich harvest,
And our hearts are as bins brimming with the golden plenty:
Into our loneliness we carry granaries of old love . . .

And though the time has come when we cannot sow our acres together,
And our souls need diverse fields,
And a tilling apart,
Let us go separate ways with a blessing each for each,
And gentle parting,
And let there be no hate,
Where love once was.

Irish Love Song. [Margaret Widdemer]

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!~)

Nirvana. [John Hall Wheelock]

Sleep on — I lie at heaven's high oriels,
Over the stars that murmur as they go
Lighting your lattice-window far below;
And every star some of the glory spells
Whereof I know.
I have forgotten you, long long ago;
Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells
Vanished, or music fading faint and low.
Sleep on — I lie at heaven's high oriels,
Who loved you so.

A Nun. [Odell Shepard]

One glance and I had lost her in the riot
Of tangled cries.
She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet
Deep in her eyes
As though she heard the muted music only
That silence makes
Among dim mountain summits and on lonely
Deserted lakes.

There is some broken song her heart remembers
From long ago,
Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embers
Smothered in snow,
Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her
Fail now, and cease . . .
And this has given the deep eyes of God's sister
Their dreadful peace.

Silence. [Edgar Lee Masters]

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 of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths,
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field 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 an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
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 sorrows, 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.

The Dark Cavalier. [Margaret Widdemer]

I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover:
My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired;
I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness,
Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired.

I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness,
I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose;
Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me;
I will not go from you when all the tired world goes.

I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover;
I promise faithfulness no other lips may keep;
Safe in my bridal place, comforted by darkness,
You shall lie happily, smiling in your sleep.

Indian Summer. [William Ellery Leonard]

(After completing a book for one now dead)

(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,
She is not by, to know my task is done.~)
In the brown grasses slanting with the wind,
Lone as a lad whose dog's no longer near,
Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned,
Lone on the loved hill . . . and below me here
The thistle-down in tremulous atmosphere
Along red clusters of the sumach streams;
The shrivelled stalks of golden-rod are sere,
And crisp and white their flashing old racemes.
(. . . forever . . . forever . . . . forever . . .)
This is the lonely season of the year,
This is the season of our lonely dreams.

(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,
She is not by, to know my task is done!~)
The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plain
Show like an Indian village of dead days;
The long smoke trails behind the crawling train,
And floats atop the distant woods ablaze
With orange, crimson, purple. The low haze
Dims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea,
Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glaze
Await yon full-moon of the night-to-be,
(. . . far . . . and far . . . and far . . .)
These are the solemn horizons of man's ways,
These are the horizons of solemn thought to me.

(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,
She is not by, to know my task is done!~)
And this the hill she visited, as friend;
And this the hill she lingered on, as bride —
Down in the yellow valley is the end:
They laid her . . . in no evening autumn tide . . .
Under fresh flowers of that May morn, beside
The queens and cave-women of ancient earth . . .

This is the hill . . . and over my city's towers,
Across the world from sunset, yonder in air,
Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic dome
Of piled masonry, which shall be ours
To give, completed, to our children there . . .
And yonder far roof of my abandoned home
Shall house new laughter . . . Yet I tried . . . I tried
And, ever wistful of the doom to come,
I built her many a fire for love . . . for mirth . . .
(When snows were falling on our oaks outside,
Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) . . .
(. . . farewell . . . farewell . . . farewell . . .)
We dare not think too long on those who died,
While still so many yet must come to birth.

Death — Divination. [Charles Wharton Stork]

Death is like moonlight in a lofty wood,
That pours pale magic through the shadowy leaves;
'T is like the web that some old perfume weaves
In a dim, lonely room where memories brood;
Like snow-chilled wine it steals into the blood,
Spurring the pulse its coolness half reprieves;
Tenderly quickening impulses it gives,
As April winds unsheathe an opening bud.

Death is like all sweet, sense-enfolding things,
That lift us in a dream-delicious trance
Beyond the flickering good and ill of chance;
But most is Death like Music's buoyant wings,
That bear the soul, a willing Ganymede,
Where joys on joys forevermore succeed.

The Mould. [Gladys Cromwell]

No doubt this active will,
So bravely steeped in sun,
This will has vanquished Death
And foiled oblivion.

But this indifferent clay,
This fine experienced hand,
So quiet, and these thoughts
That all unfinished stand,

Feel death as though it were
A shadowy caress;
And win and wear a frail
Archaic wistfulness.

In Patris Mei Memoriam. [John Myers O'Hara]

By the fond name that was his own and mine,
The last upon his lips that strove with doom,
He called me and I saw the light assume
A sudden glory and around him shine;
And nearer now I saw the laureled line
Of the august of Song before me loom,
And knew the voices, erstwhile through the gloom,
That whispered and forbade me to repine.
And with farewell, a shaft of splendor sank
Out of the stars and faded as a flame,
And down the night, on clouds of glory, came
The battle seraphs halting rank on rank;
And lifted heavenward to heroic peace,
He passed and left me hope beyond surcease.

Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in Aeternum Fidelitas.
[John Myers O'Hara]

With all the fairest angels nearest God,
The ineffable true of heart around the throne,
There shall I find you waiting when the flown
Dream leaves my heart insentient as the clod;
And when the grief-retracing ways I trod
Become a shining path to thee alone,
My weary feet, that seemed to drag as stone,
Shall once again, with wings of fleetness shod,
Fare on, beloved, to find you! Just beyond
The seraph throng await me, standing near
The gentler angels, eager and apart;
Be there, near God's own fairest, with the fond
Sweet smile that was your own, and let me hear
Your voice again and clasp you to my heart.

Afterwards. [Mahlon Leonard Fisher]

There was a day when death to me meant tears,
And tearful takings-leave that had to be,
And awed embarkings on an unshored sea,
And sudden disarrangement of the years.
But now I know that nothing interferes
With the fixed forces when a tired man dies;
That death is only answerings and replies,
The chiming of a bell which no one hears,
The casual slanting of a half-spent sun,
The soft recessional of noise and coil,
The coveted something time nor age can spoil;
I know it is a fabric finely spun
Between the stars and dark; to seize and keep,
Such glad romances as we read in sleep.

Pierrette in Memory. [William Griffith]

Pierrette has gone, but it was not
Exactly that she died,
So much as vanished and forgot
To tell where she would hide.

To keep a sudden rendezvous,
It came into her mind
That she was late. What could she do
But leave distress behind?

Afraid of being in disgrace,
And hurrying to dress,
She heard there was another place
In need of loveliness.

She went so softly and so soon,
She hardly made a stir;
But going took the stars and moon
And sun away with her.

The Three Sisters. [Arthur Davison Ficke]

Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.

Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.

Song. [Adelaide Crapsey]

I make my shroud, but no one knows —
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows,
I make my shroud, but no one knows.

In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.

The Unknown Beloved. [John Hall Wheelock]

I dreamed I passed a doorway
Where, for a sign of death,
White ribbons one was binding
About a flowery wreath.

What drew me so I know not,
But drawing near I said,
"Kind sir, and can you tell me
Who is it here lies dead?"

Said he, "Your most beloved
Died here this very day,
That had known twenty Aprils
Had she but lived till May."

Astonished I made answer,
"Good sir, how say you so!
Here have I no beloved,
This house I do not know."

Quoth he, "Who from the world's end
Was destined unto thee
Here lies, thy true beloved
Whom thou shalt never see."

I dreamed I passed a doorway
Where, for a sign of death,
White ribbons one was binding
About a flowery wreath.

Cinquains. [Adelaide Crapsey]

Fate Defied

As it
Were tissue of silver
I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.

Night Winds

The old
Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?

The Warning

Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . . as strange, as still . . .
A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown
So cold?

The Lonely Death. [Adelaide Crapsey]

In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them aflame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.

Exile from God. [John Hall Wheelock]

I do not fear to lay my body down
In death, to share
The life of the dark earth and lose my own,
If God is there.

I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet might
Of color and sound, —
His tangible loveliness and living light
That robes me 'round.

If to His heart in the hushed grave and dim
We sink more near,
It shall be well — living we rest in Him.
Only I fear

Lest from my God in lonely death I lapse,
And the dumb clod
Lose him; for God is life, and death perhaps
Exile from God.

Loam. [Carl Sandburg]

In the loam we sleep,
In the cool moist loam,
To the lull of years that pass
And the break of stars.

From the loam, then,
The soft warm loam,
We rise:
To shape of rose leaf,
Of face and shoulder.

We stand, then,
To a whiff of life,
Lifted to the silver of the sun
Over and out of the loam
A day.

Hills of Home. [Witter Bynner]

Name me no names for my disease,
With uninforming breath;
I tell you I am none of these,
But homesick unto death —

Homesick for hills that I had known,
For brooks that I had crossed,
Before I met this flesh and bone
And followed and was lost. . . .

And though they break my heart at last,
Yet name no name of ills.
Say only, "Here is where he passed,
Seeking again those hills."

The Last Piper. [Edward J. O'Brien]

Dark winds of the mountain,
White winds of the sea,
Are skirling the pibroch
Of Seumas an Righ.

The crying of gannets,
The shrieking of terns,
Are keening his dying
High over the burns.

Grey silence of waters
And wasting of lands
And the wailing of music
Down to the sands,

The wailing of music,
And trailing of wind,
The waters before him,
The mountains behind, —

Alone at the gathering,
Silent he stands,
And the wail of his piping
Cries over the lands,

To the moan of the waters,
The drone of the foam,
Where his soul, a white gannet,
Wings silently home.

The Provinces. [Francis Carlin]

~O God that I
May arise with the Gael
To the song in the sky
Over Inisfail!~

Ulster, your dark
Mold for me;
Munster, a lark
Hold for me!

Connaght, a `caoine'
Croon for me;
Lienster, a mean
Stone for me!

~O God that I
May arise with the Gael
To the song in the sky
Over Inisfail!~

Omnium Exeunt in Mysterium. [George Sterling]

The stranger in my gates — lo! that am I,
And what my land of birth I do not know,
Nor yet the hidden land to which I go.
One may be lord of many ere he die,
And tell of many sorrows in one sigh,
But know himself he shall not, nor his woe,
Nor to what sea the tears of wisdom flow;
Nor why one star is taken from the sky.
An urging is upon him evermore,
And though he bide, his soul is wanderer,
Scanning the shadows with a sense of haste —
Where fade the tracks of all who went before:
A dim and solitary traveller
On ways that end in evening and the waste.

Moth-Terror. [Benjamin De Casseres]

I have killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies upon the floor. (O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!) My will against its will, and no more will it fly at my night-light or be hidden behind the curtains that swing in the winds. (But O who will shatter the Change-Moth that leaves me in rags — tattered old tapestries that swing in the winds that blow out of Chaos!) Night-Moth, Change-Moth, Time-Moth, eaters of dreams and of me!

Old Age. [Cale Young Rice]

I have heard the wild geese,
I have seen the leaves fall,
There was frost last night
On the garden wall.
It is gone to-day
And I hear the wind call.
The wind? . . . That is all.

If the swallow will light
When the evening is near;
If the crane will not scream
Like a soul in fear;
I will think no more
Of the dying year,
And the wind, its seer.

Atropos. [John Myers O'Hara]

Atropos, dread
One of the Three,
Holding the thread
Woven for me;

Grimly thy shears,
Steely and bright,
Menace the years
Left for delight.

Grant it may chance,
Just as they close,
June may entrance
Earth with the rose;

Reigning as though,
Bliss to the breath,
Endless and no
Whisper of death.

====

Biographical Notes

[The format of these notes has been slightly altered. Most notably, dates (hopefully correct, but not entirely certain for the lesser known poets) have been added — when available — in square brackets after each name, and the number of entries for that author in this anthology is in parentheses. In some cases there are several short poems under one entry. These notes (first included in 1920, whereas the selections were made in 1919) combined with the searchability of electronic texts, renders the original Indexes of Authors and of First Lines obsolete, and so both have been dropped. Occasionally, relevant comments follow in angled brackets. — A. L., 1998.]

Aiken, Conrad. [1889-1973] (3) Born at Savannah, Ga., Aug. 5, 1889. Received the degree of A.B. from Harvard University in 1912 and in August of the same year married Miss Jessie McDonald, of Montreal, Canada. Mr. Aiken's first volume of poetry, "Earth Triumphant", was published in 1914, and has been followed by "Turns and Movies", 1916; "Nocturne of Remembered Spring", 1917; and "The Charnel Rose", 1918. Mr. Aiken is a keen and trenchant critic, as well as a poet, and his volume on the modern movement in poetry, "Skepticisms", is one of the finest and most stimulating contributions to the subject. [Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1930 for "Selected Poems". — A. L., 1998.]

Akins, Zoe. [1886-1958] (1) <Zoe"> Born at Humansville, Mo., Oct. 30, 1886. Educated at home and at Monticello Seminary, Godfrey, Ill. Miss Akins began her literary work by contributing poems and critical articles to `Reedy's Mirror', St. Louis, and in 1911 published her volume of poems, "Interpretations". The drama, however, soon began to absorb her, and she has had several plays produced, including "The Magical City", "Papa", a comedy, and "Declasse", which won a great success with Ethel Barrymore in the leading role.

Anderson, Margaret Steele. [1867-1921] (2) Born in Louisville, Ky., and educated in the public schools of that city, with special courses at Wellesley College. Since 1901 Miss Anderson has been Literary Editor of the `Evening Post' of Louisville, and is known as one of the most discriminating critics of the South. She has published but one volume of verse, "The Flame in the Wind", 1914, but it is choice in quality. Miss Anderson is also a critic of Art and is the author of "A Study of Modern Painting".

Arensberg, Walter Conrad. [1878-1954] (2)
Mr. Arensberg has been active in the new movement in poetry and was
one of the group who contributed to the yearly collection called "Others".
He is the author of "Idols", 1916.

Baker, Karle Wilson. [1878-1960] (2) Born in Little Rock, Ark., Oct. 13, 1878. Educated in public and private schools at Little Rock and at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Baker taught for several years in Virginia and in the High Schools of Little Rock, but in 1901 took up her residence in Texas, whither her family had preceded her, and in 1907 was married to Thomas Ellis Baker, of Nacogdoches, which is her present home. Mrs. Baker is one of the promising new writers, her first volume of verse, "Blue Smoke", having been published in 1919, by the Yale Press.

Bates, Katharine Lee. [1859-1929] (1) Born at Falmouth, Mass., Aug. 12, 1859. Was educated at Wellesley College, from which she received the degree of A.B., in 1880 and that of A.M. in 1891. She also had the honorary degree of Litt.D. conferred upon her by Middlebury College and by Oberlin. She was continuously in educational work, teaching first at Dana Hall and then in Wellesley College, where she was professor and head of the English Department. Miss Bates spent four years in foreign travel and study and published numerous books in the field of education. Her best-known volumes of verse are: "America the Beautiful", 1911; "Fairy Gold", 1916; and "The Retinue", 1918.

Benet, Stephen Vincent. [1898-1943] (1) <Bene/t> Born at Bethlehem, Pa., 1898. Was educated at the Summerville Academy at Augusta, Ga., and at Yale University, taking the degree of A.B. in 1919 and of A.M. in 1920. His first volume, "Young Adventure", was brought out by the Yale University Press in 1918 and he also contributed largely to the "Yale Book of Student Verse", published in 1919. Mr. Benet is a gifted young writer from whom much may be expected. [Brother of William Rose Benet. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929 for "John Brown's Body" and in 1944 (posthumous) for "Western Star". See note to William Rose Benet. — A. L., 1998.]

Benet, William Rose. [1886-1950] (2) <Bene/t> Born at Fort Hamilton, N.Y. Harbor, Feb. 2, 1886. Graduated at the Academy of Albany, N.Y., in 1904, and took the degree of Ph.B. from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1907. In 1912 he was married to Teresa Frances Thompson, of San Francisco, who died in 1919. Mr. Benet was connected for several years with the `Century Magazine', first as reader and then as assistant editor, a position which he resigned to enter the Aviation Corps of the Army, during the World War. He is now one of the literary editors of the `Evening Post', of New York. His successive volumes of verse are: "Merchants from Cathay", 1912; "The Falconer of God", 1914; "The Great White Wall", 1916; "The Burglar of the Zodiac", 1918; and "Perpetual Light", 1919. [Brother of Stephen Vincent Benet. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1942 for "The Dust Which Is God". Both were members of a talented family, in both military and literary affairs, descended from Minorcan settlers who lived in St. Augustine, Florida. — A. L., 1998.]

Bradley, William Aspinwall. [1878-1939] (1) Born at Hartford, Conn., Feb. 8, 1878. Educated at Columbia University where he received the degree of A.M. in 1900. Married Miss Grace Goodrich in 1903. From 1900 to 1908 Mr. Bradley was art director and literary advisor to McClure, Phillips & Co. and the McClure Co. and left them to become typographical designer and supervisor of printing at the Yale University Press, where he remained until 1917, when America entered the World War. He then became connected with the War Camp Community Service in which he did excellent work for the period of the war. Mr. Bradley is the author of several books and brochures upon art and particularly upon prints and etchings, such as "French Etchers of the Second Empire", 1916. In poetry, he is the author of "Garlands and Wayfarings", 1917; "Old Christmas and Other Kentucky Tales in Verse", 1917; "Singing Carr", 1918. The last two books are based upon Kentucky folk-tales and ballads gathered by Mr. Bradley among the people of the Cumberland Mountains.

Branch, Anna Hempstead. [1875-1937] (3) Born at Hempstead House, New London, Conn. Graduated from Smith College in 1897 and from the American Academy of Dramatic Art, in New York City, in 1900. While at college she began writing poetry and the year after her graduation won the first prize offered by the `Century Magazine' for a poem written by a college graduate. This poem, "The Road 'Twixt Heaven and Hell", was printed in the `Century Magazine' for December, 1898, and was followed soon after by the publication of Miss Branch's first volume, "The Heart of the Road", 1901. She has since published two volumes, "The Shoes That Danced", 1902, and "Rose of the Wind", 1910, both marked by imagination and beauty of a high order.

Burnet, Dana. [1888-1962] (1) Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 3, 1888. Graduated at the Woodward High School of Cincinnati and took the degree of LL.B. at the Cornell University College of Law in 1911. Married Marguerite E. Dumary, of Brooklyn, in 1913. Mr. Burnet has been associated with the `Evening Sun', of New York, since 1911, in various capacities, from that of reporter to editor of the magazine page. He is the author of "Poems", 1915, and "The Shining Adventure", 1916.

Burr, Amelia Josephine. [1878-?] (2) <New works published in the 1930's> Educated at Hunter College in the City of New York. Miss Burr has published successively the following books of verse: "A Roadside Fire", 1913; "In Deep Places", 1914; "Life and Living", 1916; "The Silver Trumpet", 1918; and "Hearts Awake", 1919. The last two volumes relate chiefly to the World War.

Burt, Maxwell Struthers. [1882-1954] (1) Born at Baltimore, Md., Oct. 18, 1882. Early education at private schools, Philadelphia. Received the degree of A.B. from Princeton University in 1904 and later studied at Merton College, Oxford University. After two years of teaching at Princeton University, Mr. Burt took up the life of a rancher at Jackson Hole, Wyo., though he usually returns to Princeton for the winter months. In 1913 he married Katharine Newlin, a writer of fiction. Mr. Burt is the author of two volumes of verse, "In the High Hills", 1914, and "Songs and Portraits", 1920; he has also written many short stories.

Bynner, Witter. [1881-1968] (5) Born at Brooklyn, Aug. 10, 1881. Graduated at Harvard University in 1902. After his graduation, until 1906, he served as assistant editor of `McClure's Magazine' and literary editor of McClure, Phillips & Co. Since that time he has devoted himself exclusively to the writing of poetry and drama, with the exception of a year spent as a special lecturer upon Poetry at the University of California. While at the University, Mr. Bynner's "Canticle of Praise", written to celebrate peace after the World War, was given in the open-air Greek Theatre at Berkeley to an audience of 8000 persons. Mr. Bynner's first volume, "An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems", was published in 1907, and was followed in 1913 by the poetic drama, "Tiger"; in 1915 by "The New World", amplified from his Phi Beta Kappa Poem delivered at Harvard in 1911; in 1917 by "The Little King", a poetic drama; in 1917 also by "Grenstone Poems", a collection of his lyric work to date. In 1916, in connection with his friend, Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Bynner perpetrated the clever literary hoax of "Spectra", a volume of verse in the ultra-modern manner, designed to establish a new "school" of poetry that should outdo "Imagism" and other cults then in the public eye. These poems, published under the joint authorship of Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, created much comment, and in spite of their bizarre features were taken seriously by well-known critics, who were much discomfited when the truth of the matter was known. In 1919 Mr. Bynner published "The Beloved Stranger", a volume of `vers libre', written in a style that grew out of the "Spectra" experiment, but divested of its extravagant features.

Carlin, Francis (James F. C. MacDonnell). [1881-?] (2) Born April 7, 1881, at Bay Shore, L.I., N.Y. Educated at St. Mary's Parochial School, Norwalk, Conn. Author of "My Ireland", privately printed, 1917 (taken over by Henry Holt & Co. and republished in the following year), "The Cairn of Stars", 1920. Mr. Carlin takes his pen-name from that of his grandfather who was a cottage weaver of linen and a local rhymer in Tyrone, Ireland.

Cleghorn, Sarah N. [1876-1959] (1)
Born in Manchester, Vt. Educated at Burr and Burton Seminary, of Manchester.
Miss Cleghorn is the author of "Portraits and Protests", 1917.

Conkling, Grace Hazard. [1878-1958] (3) Born in New York City. Graduated at Smith College in 1899, and later studied music and languages at the University of Heidelberg and at Paris; was for several years a teacher of English, Latin, and Greek in Woodstock, Conn., and in the schools of New York City. In 1905 she married Roscoe Platt Conkling at San Antonio, Texas, and spent her early married life in Mexico, which inspired some of her most charming lyrics. Since 1914, Mrs. Conkling has been teaching in the English Department of Smith College. She has published "Afternoons in April", 1915, and "Wilderness Songs", 1920. Mrs. Conkling is a poet of exceedingly delicate and beautiful touch, and her gift seems to have been transmitted to her daughter, Hilda, whose poems written, or told, between the ages of five and eight, and published in a volume in 1920, prove her to be a child of remarkable poetic talent.

Corbin, Alice (Mrs. Wm. Penhallow Henderson). [1881-1949] (1) Born in St. Louis, of Southern parentage. Educated at the University of Chicago. Since its founding in 1912, Mrs. Henderson has been associate editor, with Harriet Monroe, of `Poetry, A Magazine of Verse', and also co-editor, with Miss Monroe, of "The New Poetry", an anthology of modern English and American poets. She is the author of "Adam's Dream and Two Other Miracle Plays for Children" (in verse), and of a collection of poems called "The Spinning Woman of the Sky".

Cox, Eleanor Rogers. [?-1936(possibly 1931)] (2) Born at Enniskillen, Ireland. Came with family to the United States in childhood; citizen; educated at St. Gabriel's High School and private tuition. Although Miss Cox has lived in America since childhood, her poetic inspiration has come chiefly from the myths and legends of Ireland, her mother country, to which she returns at intervals. Her two volumes of verse, "A Hosting of Heroes", 1911, and "Singing Fires of Erin", 1916, are instinct with the Celtic spirit. Miss Cox also lectures upon Irish legendry.

Crapsey, Adelaide. [1878-1914] (3) Born in Brooklyn, Sept. 9, 1878. Her young girlhood was spent in Rochester, N.Y., where her father, Algernon S. Crapsey, was rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. After preparatory work in Kemper Hall, Kenosha, Wis., she entered Vassar College, graduating, as a Phi Beta Kappa, in 1901. After two years of teaching at Kemper Hall, Miss Crapsey went to Italy and became a student at the School of Archaeology in Rome, at the same time giving lectures in Italian history. Upon returning to America she taught history and literature for two years in a private school at Stamford, Conn., but gave up her work because of ill health and spent the following two years in Italy and England, working upon her "Study of English Metrics". Recovering sufficiently to do so, she returned to this country in 1911 and took a position as Instructor of Poetics at Smith College, but in 1913 was obliged to resign because of renewed illness and died on the 8th of October, 1914. After her death, the Manas Press of Rochester brought out a small volume of her poetry, and her "Study of English Metrics" was published in 1918 by Alfred Knopf. Adelaide Crapsey had a rarely beautiful and original poetic gift, and her early death is greatly to be regretted.

Cromwell, Gladys. [1885-1919] (1) Born in Brooklyn, but lived the greater part of her life in New York City. She was educated at private schools in New York, and had a period of study in Paris, supplemented by extensive foreign travel. At the outbreak of the World War, Miss Cromwell and her twin sister volunteered for service in the Red Cross and were actively engaged both in canteen work and in hospital service. The strain proved too great and induced a mental depression, which, acting upon the highly sensitive nature of the sisters, caused them to feel that they had no longer a place in a world which held no refuge for beauty and quiet thought, and on their way home from France, in January of 1919, they committed suicide by jumping from the deck of the steamer Loraine. Three months later they were buried in France with military honors and the French Government awarded them the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de Reconnaissance francaise. The poetry of Gladys Cromwell is deeply thoughtful and almost sculptural in its chiseled beauty. It shows the reaction of a finely tempered spirit to a world at variance with it. Had Miss Cromwell lived she would almost certainly have added some distinguished work to our poetry, since the lyrics contained in the volume of her verse issued after her death are of so fine a quality.

Dargan, Olive Tilford. [1869-1968] (1) Born in Grayson County, Ky., and educated at the University of Nashville and at Radcliffe College. She became a teacher and was connected with various schools in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas until her marriage. Mrs. Dargan's first work was in poetic drama in which she revealed gifts of a high order. Her dramatic volumes are: "Semiramis, and Other Plays", 1904; "Lords and Lovers", 1906; and "The Mortal Gods", 1912. As a lyric poet Mrs. Dargan has done some beautiful work, most of which may be found in her collection "Path Flower", 1914, and she has also published a sequence of fine sonnets under the title of "The Cycle's Rim", 1916.

Davies, Mary Carolyn (Mrs. Leland Davis). [?] (3) Miss Davies was born and educated in California and came to New York from her home in that state, where she soon began to attract attention by the fresh and original quality of her verse, which appeared frequently in the magazines. In 1918 she married Leland Davis. In the same year she published "The Drums in Our Street", a book of war verse, and in 1919 brought out a much finer and more characteristic collection of her poems under the title, "Youth Riding". Miss Davies has also written several one-act plays, one of which, "The Slave with Two Faces", has had successful presentation.

Davis, Fannie Stearns (Mrs. Augustus McKinstrey Gifford). [1884-?] (2) Born at Cleveland, Ohio, March 6, 1884. Educated at Smith College, from which she graduated in 1904. She is the author of two volumes of poetry: "Myself and I", 1913; and "Crack o' Dawn", 1915, both marked by unusually sensitive feeling and delicate artistry.

De Casseras, Benjamin. [1873-1945] (1) Born in Philadelphia in 1873, of old Spanish and American stock and educated in the public schools of Philadelphia. He entered the office of the `Philadelphia Press' in 1889 and served for ten years on the paper in every capacity from that of proof-reader to theatrical critic and editorial writer. In 1899 he came to New York and entered the newspaper field, working successively on the `Sun', the `Herald', and the `Times'. For a short time he was engaged in journalistic work in Mexico, having been co-founder, in 1906, of `El Diario' in the City of Mexico. Since that time he has been a voluminous contributor to magazines and has published books in many fields, since he is poet, essayist, critic, and satirist. As a poet his best-known work is in "The Shadow-Eater", 1915. Among his other volumes are "The Chameleon", "Forty Immortals", "Edelweiss and Mandragora", and "Counsels of Imperfection", translated into French by Remy de Gourmont.

Driscoll, Louise. [1875-1957] (1) Born in Poughkeepsie, educated by private teachers and in the public schools of Catskill, N.Y. Miss Driscoll first attracted attention by a poem called "Metal Checks" which received a prize of $100 offered by `Poetry: A Magazine of Verse', for the best poem on the European war. Since then Miss Driscoll has been a constant contributor to the best magazines, but has not yet published a collection of her verse.

Ficke, Arthur Davison. [1883-1945] (2) Born Davenport, Iowa, Nov. 10, 1883. Educated at Harvard University where he graduated in 1904. Later he studied at the College of Law of the Iowa State University and was admitted to the bar in 1908. In 1907 he married Evelyn Bethune Blunt, of Springfield, Mass. Mr. Ficke has published many books of verse of which the best-known are "The Earth Passion", 1908; "Sonnets of a Portrait Painter", 1914; "The Man on the Hilltop", 1915; "An April Elegy", 1917. Mr. Ficke has also written two volumes upon "Japanese Painting" and "Japanese Prints", in part the outcome of a trip to Japan, taken in company with his friend Witter Bynner. As mentioned in the sketch of Mr. Bynner, Mr. Ficke was associated with him in writing the volume, "Spectra".

Fisher, Mahlon Leonard. [1874-?] (2) Born in Williamsport, Pa., July 20, 1874. Educated in private study and in the schools of his native city. Mr. Fisher took up architecture and practiced this profession for seventeen years, but although he still retains connection with it in a consulting capacity, he has given up its active practice to be the publisher and editor of a small magazine called `The Sonnet', which he founded. Mr. Fisher has written some of the finest sonnets that have appeared in America in recent years and has brought out the first collection of them under the title, "Sonnets: A First Series", 1918.

Fletcher, John Gould. [1886-1950] (2) Born at Little Rock, Ark., Jan. 3, 1886. He was educated in the public schools of Little Rock, in Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Harvard University, but becoming restive under the formal curriculum did not stay to take his degree, but went instead to Europe where he might find an atmosphere more in harmony with his tastes and interests. Italy first attracted him and he remained there for several years, but went in May of 1909 to London where he has spent most of the time since that date. In 1913 he published five small books of verse, all of which are now out of print, but it was not until the publication of "Irradiations — Sand and Spray" in America in 1915 that his true poetic quality was evident. In the same year several poems of his appeared in "Some Imagist Poets", the first joint collection of the Imagist group, which embraced the work of Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, "H. D.", F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and Mr. Fletcher himself. This allied him with the Imagist movement, though his work was too individual to conform to any school. The war drove Mr. Fletcher back to America where he remained two years, and in April of 1916 he published in this country "Goblins and Pagodas"; the following month he returned to England and married Miss Florence Emily Arbuthnot. He continues to make England his home and brought out there his latest volume, "The Tree of Life". [John Gould Fletcher won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1939 for "Selected Poems". — A. L., 1998.]

Foster, Jeanne Robert. [1879-1970] (1) Born in the Adirondack Mountains in the town of Johnsburg, N.Y., of English and French stock. Attended the schools of the neighborhood and at the age of sixteen began teaching. Two years later she came to New York, studied at the Stanhope-Wheatcroft Dramatic School, and played upon the stage for one year. Not satisfied with this life, however, she went to Boston, took special courses in the Radcliffe-Harvard Extension and at Boston University, and began writing for the press. Married Matlock Foster and came to New York in 1911 where she became associated with the `Review of Reviews' as literary editor, holding this position until 1919. Mrs. Foster has published two books of verse, "Wild Apples" and "Neighbors of Yesterday", both 1916. In the latter she writes, with much narrative skill, of the isolated mountain folk whom she knew in her girlhood.

Frost, Robert. [1874-1963] (4) Born in San Francisco, March 26, 1875 [sic]. Studied at Dartmouth College and Harvard University from 1892 to 1899. Married Miss Elinor M. White, of Lawrence, Mass., and went to live upon a farm at Derry, N.H., where he followed the occupation of farming from 1900 to 1905. Finding it, however, scarcely adequate to the needs of his family, he began teaching English at the Pinkerton Academy at Derry and held this position until 1911 when he became a teacher of psychology in the State Normal School at Plymouth, N.H. In 1912 he took perhaps the most important step in his life up to that period, and with his wife and four young children went to England where he might find a more sympathetic atmosphere for creative work. Most of the poems in "A Boy's Will", his earliest collection, were written prior to his residence in England, but few had been published, and the book was not finally issued in America until after the appearance of "North of Boston", the volume upon which his recognition was based. This book, published first in England, and reprinted in America in 1914, was received with enthusiasm by the foremost English critics who recognized in it a note distinctively individual and distinctively American, and Mr. Frost came back to this country after three years of delightful and fruitful life in England, where he had enjoyed the close companionship of Masefield, Gibson, Abercrombie, and others of the English group — to find his work widely known and appreciated. Nothing finer nor more significant has come out of our poetic revival than Mr. Frost's work, which reflects the life of New England in its more isolated aspects, and interprets the spirit of the people with the keenest insight and the most sympathetic understanding. In the way of form, Mr. Frost has also been a path-finder, building his poems primarily upon the rhythms of the speaking voice. "North of Boston" was followed in 1916 by "A Mountain Interval", containing some beautiful lyric as well as narrative work. [Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1924 for "New Hampshire", in 1931 for "Collected Poems", in 1937 for "A Further Range", and in 1943 for "A Witness Tree". — A. L., 1998.]

Garrison, Theodosia (Mrs. Frederick J. Faulks). [1874-1944] (1)
Born at Newark, N.J. Educated at private schools in New York.
Mrs. Garrison was for several years a constant contributor to the magazines,
but has written less of late. Her volumes of verse are: "Joy o' Life", 1908,
"The Earth Cry", 1910, and "The Dreamers", 1917.

Giltinan, Caroline. [1884-?] (1) <Mrs. Leo P. Harlow> Born in Philadelphia, Pa. Educated in the public schools of that city and at the University of Pennsylvania. Miss Giltinan served very conspicuously abroad during the World War, as an army nurse, and later in an important position in the Department of Sick and Wounded. She is the author of "The Divine Image", 1917.

Griffith, William. [1876-1936] (2) Born Memphis, Mo., Feb. 15, 1876. Educated in public schools. Married Florence Vernon, of Brooklyn, in 1909. Mr. Griffith has had an active career in the newspaper profession, having been on the staff of several of the New York papers, managing editor of `Hampton's Magazine', 1906-10; editor, `McCall's Magazine', 1911-12; editorial director of the `National Sunday Magazine', a large newspaper syndicate, 1912-16; since then associate editor of `Current Opinion'. His best-known books of verse are: "City Views and Visions", 1911; "Loves and Losses of Pierrot", 1916; "City Pastorals", 1918; "The House of the Sphinx and Other Poems", 1918.

Guiterman, Arthur. [1871-1943] (2) Born, of American parentage, at Vienna, Austria, Nov. 20, 1871. Graduated at the College of the City of New York in 1891. Married Vida Lindo, of New York, 1909. Mr. Guiterman did editorial work on the `Woman's Home Companion' and the `Literary Digest' from 1891 to 1906, and published several books of verse, now out of print, before doing those which contain his representative work: "The Laughing Muse", 1915; "The Mirthful Lyre", 1917; and "Ballads of Old New York", 1920. While Mr. Guiterman is widely known as a humorous poet, he is also an accomplished poet in other moods.

"H. D." (Hilda Doolittle). [1886-1961] (2) Born at Bethlehem, Pa., Sept. 10, 1886. Educated at the Gordon School and the Friends' Central School of Philadelphia and at Bryn Mawr College. Miss Doolittle went to Europe in 1911 and, after a tour of the Continent, settled down in London, where she was soon caught into the current of the poetic movement then shaping itself under the innovating genius of Ezra Pound and a little band of his fellow poets. Under this stimulus Miss Doolittle began to write those brief, sharply carved poems, purely Greek in their chastity and mood, of which the first group appeared in `Poetry' for Jan., 1913, under the name of "H. D. — Imagist". Among the London poets interested in experiments with new forms was Richard Aldington, whose own inspiration came largely from the Greek, and in October of 1913 he and Miss Doolittle were married and the work of both appeared in the little volume, "Des Imagistes", published in New York in April, 1914. This was the first grouping of the Imagist school, whose work, without that of Ezra Pound, its founder, who withdrew from the movement, continued for several years to appear in America under the title of "Some Imagist Poets". Since then one volume of "H. D.'s" own work has been published, "Sea Garden", London and Boston, 1917. For the finest and most comprehensive study of "H. D.'s" work see "Tendencies in Modern American Poetry", by Amy Lowell, 1917.

Hagedorn, Hermann. [1882-1964] (2) Born in New York City, July 18, 1882. Educated at Harvard University and University of Berlin. Served as Instructor at Harvard from 1909 to 1911. Married Dorothy Oakley of Englewood, N.J., 1908. Mr. Hagedorn is the author of "The Silver Blade, a Play in Verse", 1907; "The Woman of Corinth", 1908; "A Troop of the Guard", 1909; "Poems and Ballads", 1911; "The Great Maze and the Heart of Youth", 1916; and "Hymn of Free Peoples Triumphant", 1918. Mr. Hagedorn is an ardent American and organized "The Vigilantes", a body of writers to do patriotic work with the pen during the World War. Edited "Fifes and Drums", a collection of war poetry, 1917.

Harding, Ruth Guthrie. [1882-?] (1) <Ruth Guthrie Thomson Harding Burton>
Born at Tunkhannock, Pa., Aug. 20, 1882. Educated at Wyoming Seminary,
Kingston, Pa., and at Bucknell University. Married John Ward Harding
of Pateson, N.J., Oct. 1901. Mrs. Harding is the author of
"A Lark Went Singing", 1916.

Hoyt, Helen. [1887-1972] (1) <There appear to have been two poets with this name writing at the same time. The dates are possibly 1897-1930.> Born at Norwalk, Conn. Educated at Barnard College. Has been connected with `Poetry', of Chicago, as associate editor. Miss Hoyt has contributed to the best magazines for several years, but has not, as yet, published a volume of verse.

Johns, Orrick. [1887-1946] (3) Born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1887. Educated at the University of Missouri and at Washington University in St. Louis. Was associated for a short time with `Reedy's Mirror'. In 1912 he received the first prize, of $500, for a poem entitled "Second Avenue", contributed to the contest of "The Lyric Year" and afterwards published in that volume. Since then Mr. Johns has written "Asphalt", 1917, which contains his charming group of poems, "Country Rhymes", the best of his lyric work.

Jones, Thomas S., Jr. [1882-1932] (3) Born at Boonville, N.Y., Nov. 6, 1882. Graduated at Cornell University in 1904. He was on the dramatic staff of the `New York Times' from 1904 to 1907, and associate editor of `The Pathfinder' in 1911. His published volumes are: "Path of Dreams", 1904; "From Quiet Valleys", 1907; "Interludes", 1908; "Ave Atque Vale" (In Memoriam Arthur Upson), 1909; "The Voice in the Silence", with a Foreword by James Lane Allen, 1911; and "The Rose-Jar", originally published in 1906, but taken over in 1915 by Thomas B. Mosher and made the initial volume of "Lyra Americana", his first series of American poetry. Mr. Mosher has also added "The Voice in the Silence" to this series. Mr. Jones is a poet of rare delicacy and fineness whose work has gathered to itself a discriminating group of readers.

Kemp, Harry. [1883-1960] (1) Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Dec. 15, 1883, but came East in his childhood. Mr. Kemp has had a most romantic and picturesque career. He ran away from High School to go to sea, shipping first to Australia. From there he went to China, and eventually returned to America via California. Coming East again, he prepared for college at Mt. Hermon school, N.J., and entered the University of Kansas, where he remained until his graduation in his twenty-sixth year. Since then, with the exception of a winter in London, he has lived in New York, where he is associated with the Greenwich Village group of dramatic folk, both playwrights and actors. Mr. Kemp has written many brief dramas and produced them with his own company at a small theater in New York, but it is in poetry that he has done his best work thus far. He has the true lyric quality, as shown in his two volumes, "Poems", and "The Passing God", 1919.

Kilmer, Aline (Mrs. Joyce Kilmer). [1888-1941] (3) Born Norfolk, Va. Daughter of the poet Ada Foster Murray. Educated in public schools and at the Vail-Deane School of Elizabeth, N.J. Married in 1908 to Joyce Kilmer, who met death in France during the World War. Mrs. Kilmer is the author of "Candles that Burn", 1919, which contains some of the sincerest and most moving lyric poetry that has come out of our present revival.

Kilmer, Joyce. [1886-1918] (4) Born at New Brunswick, N.J., Dec. 6, 1886. Educated at Columbia University. After a short period of teaching he became associated with the Funk and Wagnalls Company, where he remained from 1909 to 1912 when he assumed the position of literary editor of `The Churchman'. His next step was to associate himself with the staff of the `New York Times', where he became a well-known feature writer, doing in particular a series of interviews with literary people which were later incorporated into a book. During this period he contributed poetry to the leading magazines and published several collections, of which the first, "A Summer of Love", was published in 1911 and was followed by "Trees, and Other Poems", 1914, and "Main Street and Other Poems", 1917. His work, human in mood, mellow in quality, full of tenderness and reverence for the old sanctities, soon drew to itself a large audience, an audience greatly enhanced by the poet's personal contacts. His kindly and whimsical humor, his charm of personality, his enthusiasm and sympathy, won for him a large group of friends and radiated to the wider group who became his readers. In 1908 he married Aline Murray, herself a poet, and several children were born to them, celebrated in the poems of both parents. Upon America's entry into the World War, Joyce Kilmer enlisted, and after a short period of training was sent to France with the 165th Infantry, formerly the "Fighting 69th", a regiment of Irish blood and of the Catholic religion, to which he had himself become an adherent. He was made a sergeant and served with conspicuous gallantry, so much so, indeed, that it was said of him by the chaplain of the regiment that he "had a romantic passion for death in battle." He was promoted to the Intelligence Department of the service where the personal risk was the greatest, and was killed in action at the battle of the Ourcq, July 30, 1918. He was buried within sound of the river. Since his death two volumes containing his complete work in prose and verse, his letters from abroad, and an excellent memoir written by his friend, Robert Holliday, have been published and will do much to perpetuate the memory of this beloved soldier-poet.

Kreymborg, Alfred. [1883-1966] (2) Born in New York City and educated in the public schools of New York. Mr. Kreymborg was the founder and editor of a little magazine called `Others', which became the organ of a group of insurgent poets. Also under the title of "Others", he has issued at intervals selections from the work of these poets, forming a novel and interesting anthology. In addition to writing poetry which he has published in a collection called "Mushrooms", 1917, Mr. Kreymborg is the author of several brief poetic plays which he presents as "Poem-Mimes", performed by puppets.

Lee, Agnes (Mrs. Otto Freer). [1868-1939] (2) Born in Chicago, Ill. Educated in Switzerland. Married, 2d, Otto Freer, 1911. Author of "The Round Rabbit", 1898; "The Border of the Lake", 1910; "The Sharing", 1914; translator of the poems of Theophile Gautier, and of "The Gates of Childhood", by Fernand Gregh. A contributor of poems to the leading magazines, particularly `Poetry', of Chicago.

Lee, Muna. [1895-1965] (1) Miss Lee spent her early life in Oklahoma, and first came into notice as a poet by gaining a prize given by `Poetry', of Chicago, for the best lyric verse by a young writer. She afterward came to New York and married Luis Marin, of South America. Is at present living in Porto Rico; has not, as yet, published a volume of poetry.

Ledoux, Louis V. [1880-1948] (3) Born in New York City, June 6, 1880. Educated at Columbia University where he graduated in 1902. He is a poet who writes chiefly upon Greek themes and is the author of "Songs from the Silent Land", 1905; "The Soul's Progress", 1907; "Yzdra: A Poetic Drama", 1909; "The Shadow of Aetna", 1914; "The Story of Eleusis: A Lyrical Drama", 1916.

Leonard, William Ellery. [1876-1944] (2) Born at Plainfield, N.J., Jan. 25, 1876. A.B. Boston University, 1898; A.M. Harvard, 1899. Fellow of Boston University in philology and literature, 1900; student University of Gottingen, 1901; University of Bonn, 1902; fellow of Columbia University, 1902-03; Ph.D. Columbia, 1904. After receiving these various degrees, Mr. Leonard began his work as Instructor of Latin at Boston University, going from there to the University of Wisconsin where he has remained continuously since 1906, as Assistant Professor of English. He has written extensively on classic subjects, in addition to his work in poetry, and has also published volumes in the field of literary criticism. His best-known works are: "Byron and Byronism in America", 1905; "Sonnets and Poems", 1906; "The Fragments of Empedocles", 1908; "The Poet of Galilee", 1909; "The Vaunt of Man", 1912; "Glory of the Morning", a play, 1912; "Aesop and Hyssop", 1913. Mr. Leonard has also made a remarkable blank-verse translation of Lucretius, which was published in 1916, and has translated from the Greek and the German.

Lindsay, Vachel. [1879-1931] (4) Born in Springfield, Ill., Nov. 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College, Ohio. His first intention was to enter the field of art and he became a student at the Art Institute of Chicago where he remained from 1900 to 1903, continuing his work at the New York School of Art, 1904-05, under the personal instruction of Wm. Chase and Robert Henri. For a time after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical relation to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield, Ill., issued what might be termed his manifesto in the shape of "The Village Magazine", divided about equally between prose articles pertaining to the beautifying of his native city, and poems, illustrated by his own drawings. Both the verse and drawings showed a delightful imagination; the poetry in particular, unlike the more elaborate technique of his later work, had a Blake-like simplicity. Soon after the publication of "The Village Magazine", Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the journey, "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread", made a pilgrimage on foot through several Western States, going as far afield as New Mexico. The story of this journey is given in his volume, "Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty", 1916. Mr. Lindsay had taken an earlier journey on foot, from Jacksonville, Fla., to Springfield, Ill., which he has recorded in "A Handy Guide for Beggars", also 1916. This is much the finer volume of the two and should take its place with the permanent literature of vagabondage. In 1913 Mr. Lindsay came into wide notice by his poem, "General William Booth Enters into Heaven", which became the title poem of his first volume of verse, published in 1913. This was followed by "The Congo", 1914; "The Chinese Nightingale", 1917; and "Golden Whales of California", 1920. He based all his later work upon the idea of poetry as a spoken art and developed it along the line of rhythm. His work is unique, he adhered to no "school", nor has he found imitators. He rendered his own work so as to bring out all of its rhythmic possibilities and became quite as well known for his interpretations of his work as for the work itself. Much of his verse is social in appeal, but he was at his best in poems of more imaginative beauty, such as "The Chinese Nightingale".

Lowell, Amy. [1874-1925] (5) Born in Brookline, Mass., Feb. 9, 1874. Educated at private schools. Author of "A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass", 1912; "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed", 1914; "Men, Women and Ghosts", 1916; "Can Grande's Castle", 1918; "Pictures of the Floating World", 1919. Editor of the three successive collections of "Some Imagist Poets", 1915, '16, and '17, containing the early work of the "Imagist School" of which Miss Lowell became the leader. This movement, of which we have spoken in the notes upon the work of "H. D." and John Gould Fletcher, originated in England, the idea having been first conceived by a young poet named T. E. Hulme, but developed and put forth by Ezra Pound in an article called "Don'ts by an Imagist", which appeared in `Poetry; A Magazine of Verse'. As previously stated, a small group of poets gathered about Mr. Pound, experimenting along the technical lines suggested, and a cult of "Imagism" was formed, whose first group-expression was in the little volume, "Des Imagistes", published in New York in April, 1914. Miss Lowell did not come actively into the movement until after that time, but once she had entered it, she became its leader, and it was chiefly through her effort in America that the movement attained so much prominence and so influenced the trend of poetry for the years immediately succeeding. Miss Lowell many times, in admirable articles, stated the principles upon which Imagism is based, notably in the Preface to "Some Imagist Poets" and in the Preface to the second series, in 1916. She also elaborated it much more fully in her volume, "Tendencies in Modern American Poetry", 1917, in the articles pertaining to the work of "H. D." and John Gould Fletcher. In her own creative work, however, Miss Lowell did most to establish the possibilities of the Imagistic idea and of its modes of presentation, and opened up many interesting avenues of poetic form. Her volume, "Can Grande's Castle", is devoted to work in the medium which she styled "Polyphonic Prose" and contains some of her finest work, particularly "The Bronze Horses". [Amy Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926 (posthumous) for "What's O'Clock". — A. L., 1998.]

Masters, Edgar Lee. [1869-1950] (2) Born Garnett, Kan., Aug. 23, 1869. Educated at Knox College, Ill. He studied law in his father's office and was admitted to the bar in 1891. Married Helen M. Jenkins, of Chicago, in 1898. Mr. Masters wrote several volumes of verse and several poetic dramas, which are now out of print, before he found himself in the "Spoon River Anthology", published first in `Reedy's Mirror' and in book form in 1915. This volume, written in free verse and containing about two hundred brief sketches, or posthumous confessions, shows Mr. Masters to be a psychologist of the keenest penetration, a satirist and humorist, laying bare unsparingly the springs of human weakness, but seeing with an equal insight humanity's finer side. "Spoon River Anthology", which had perhaps a wider recognition than that of any volume of verse of the period, was followed by "Songs and Satires", 1916; "The Great Valley", 1916; "Toward the Gulf", 1917; and "Starved Rock", 1920.

Middleton, Scudder. [1888-1959] (2)
Born in New York City, Sept. 9, 1888. Educated at Columbia University.
Was connected for several years with the publishing firm
of The Macmillan Company. Mr. Middleton is the author of
"Streets and Faces", 1917, and "The New Day", 1919.

Millay, Edna St. Vincent. [1892-1950] (3) Born at Camden, Maine, and educated at Vassar College. Before entering college, however, when she was but nineteen years of age, she wrote the poem, "Renascence", entered in the prize contest of "The Lyric Year", a poem showing a remarkable imagination in so young a writer. After leaving college Miss Millay came to New York and became associated with the Provincetown Players for whom she wrote several one-act plays in which she herself acted the leading part. Her plays have also been produced by other companies and have attracted the attention of critics, particularly the poetic drama, "Aria da Capo", 1920. Miss Millay is one of our most gifted young poets. Her volumes of verse to date are: "Renascence, and Other Poems", 1917, and "Poems", 1920. [Edna St. Vincent Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver", &c. — A. L., 1998.]

Monroe, Harriet. [1860-1936] (2) Born in Chicago. Graduated at Visitation Academy, Georgetown, D.C., March, 1891. Miss Monroe was chosen to write the ode for the dedication of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892. After some years in literary work, chiefly as an art critic, Miss Monroe founded, in October of 1912, `Poetry; A Magazine of Verse', an organ which has done much to stimulate interest in poetry and also its production, since it has become the recognized vehicle for the work of the newer school. The first "Imagist" poems appeared in its pages and it was the first to print the work of Carl Sandburg and other well-known poets of the poetic revival. Miss Monroe is the author of "Valeria and Other Poems", 1892; "The Passing Show, Modern Plays in Verse", 1903; "You and I", 1914, and was co-editor, with Alice Corbin Henderson, of "The New Poetry", an anthology, 1917.

Morgan, Angela. [1873/74-1957] (2) Born in Washington, D.C. Educated by private tutors, the public schools, and by special University courses. Miss Morgan entered the journalistic field while still a young girl and did very brilliant work on papers of Chicago and New York. Her work covered all phases of life from those of society to the slums. She visited police courts, jails, and all places where humanity suffers and struggles, and it was no doubt her early work in the newspaper field that gave to her later work, both in poetry and fiction, its strong social bias. Probably no poet of the present time responds more keenly to the social needs of the period, nor has a keener sense of the opportunity for service. Miss Morgan was one of the delegates to the First International Congress of Women, at The Hague, during the first year of the war, and has appeared frequently in readings from her own work. Her volumes of verse are "The Hour Has Struck", 1914; "Utterance and Other Poems", 1916; "Forward, March", 1918; and "Hail, Man", 1919. She has also published a volume of stories under the title "The Imprisoned Splendor".

Morton, David. [1886-1957] (3) Born in Elkton, Ky., Feb. 21, 1886. Educated in the public schools of Louisville, Ky., and at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., where he graduated with the degree of B.S. in 1909. Mr. Morton first took up journalism and was reporter and associate editor of various Southern periodicals up to 1915, when he entered the teaching profession as Professor of English at the Boys' High School of Louisville. He is now teacher of History and English at the Morristown High School, Morristown, N.J. In 1919 Mr. Morton took the first prize, of $150, for the best poem read at the Poetry Society of America during the current year, and in 1920 he was awarded a $500 prize for one of three book manuscripts considered the best submitted to the contest of "The Lyric Society". The volume, "Ships in Harbor, and Other Poems", will be published in the autumn of 1920. Mr. Morton is one of the finest sonneteers of this period and a poet of rare and authentic gifts.

Neihardt, John G. [1881-1973] (1) Born at Sharpsburg, Ill., Jan. 8, 1881. Removed in his early boyhood to Bancroft, Neb., his present home. He has made a special study of the pioneer life of the West and also of the Indian life, having spent some time among the Omaha Indians. His work has great virility and sweep and he has a fine gift of narrative. His first volume, "A Bundle of Myrrh", 1908, showed unmistakably that a new poet had appeared in the West. This was followed by the lyric collections, "Man-Song", 1909; "The Stranger at the Gate", 1912; and "The Quest", 1916. Mr. Neihardt then turned his attention to the writing of a trilogy of narrative poems, each devoted to some character identified with the pioneer life of the Far West. "The Song of Hugh Glass", 1915, and "The Song of Three Friends", 1919, have thus far been published. The material used by Mr. Neihardt is not only romantic and picturesque, but valuable in the historical sense and he is able to shape it with dramatic imagination.

Norton, Grace Fallow. [1876-?] (1)
Born at Northfield, Minn., Oct. 29, 1876. Author of
"Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's", 1912; "The Sister of the Wind", 1914;
"Roads", 1915; and "What is Your Legion?", 1916.

O'Brien, Edward Joseph. [1890-1941] (2)
Born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 10, 1890. Educated at Boston College
and Harvard University. Author of "White Fountains", 1917;
"The Forgotten Threshold", 1918. Editor of "The Masque of Poets", 1918.
Since 1915 Mr. O'Brien has been editing a collection of
"The Best Short Stories" of the current season.

O'Conor, Norreys Jephson. [1885-1958] (2) Born in New York City, Dec. 31, 1885. Was educated at Harvard University where he took the degrees of A.B. and A.M., making a special study of the Gaelic language and literature in which he has also done some valuable research work. Having, through his own Celtic descent, a particular interest in Ireland and its literature, and having spent a part of his time in that country, Mr. O'Conor's poetry naturally turns upon Celtic themes which have inspired some excellent dramatic as well as lyric work from his pen. His volumes in their order are: "Celtic Memories", 1914; "Beside the Blackwater", 1915; "The Fairy Bride: A Play in Three Acts", 1916; and "Songs of the Celtic Past", 1918.

O'Hara, John Myers. [1870-1944] (3) Born at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Educated at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. Was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Chicago for twelve years, when he gave up this profession and came to New York to become a stock-broker. Although Mr. O'Hara has followed this exacting occupation for the past ten years, it has not prevented him from writing and publishing several volumes of poetry, largely classic in theme, and handled with an adequate and beautiful art. "The Poems of Sappho", 1907, built upon the authentic fragments, are acknowledged to be among the finest in English literature. Mr. O'Hara's other volumes comprise: "Songs of the Open", 1909; "Pagan Sonnets", 1910; "The Ebon Muse", 1912; "Manhattan", 1915; and "Threnodies", 1918.

O Sheel, Shaemas. [1886-1954] (1) <also O'Sheel> Born in New York City, Sept. 19, 1886. Educated at Columbia University. His two volumes of verse are: "The Blossomy Bough", 1911, and "The Light Feet of Goats", 1915. Mr. O Sheel is a true poet, writing in the Celtic tradition.

Oppenheim, James. [1882-1932] (3) Born at St. Paul, Minn., May 24, 1882, but a resident of New York City, where he has spent most of his life. He was educated at Columbia University and first entered sociological work, becoming assistant head worker at the Hudson Guild Settlement, 1901-03. Married Lucy Seckel, of New York, June, 1905. Was teacher and acting superintendent of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls, New York, 1905-07, when he left to engage entirely in literary work. Mr. Oppenheim is a well-known short-story writer and novelist as well as poet, but we will confine ourselves to listing his work in poetry, which has in itself been voluminous. Since his first collection, "Monday Morning and Other Poems", 1909, his work has been written chiefly in free verse, or in "polyphonic poetry", to use his own term, usually in sweeping rhythms more akin to those of Whitman than to the later free-verse writers. In spirit, too, he has the Whitman mood, or rather, he is absorbed by the same great social and democratic aspects of life. Few poets see life so broadly as Mr. Oppenheim or look as deeply below its surface; his work, however, is beset technically by the danger that attends a poet who works in a semi-prose medium, and the art is not always commensurate with the thought. Mr. Oppenheim's other volumes of verse are: "Pioneers", a poetic play, 1910; "Songs for the New Age", 1914; "War and Laughter", 1916; "The Book of Self", 1917; "The Solitary", 1919.

Peabody, Josephine Preston (Mrs. Lionel Marks). [1874-1922] (3) Born in New York City. Educated at the Girls' Latin School of Boston and at Radcliffe College. Miss Peabody was Instructor of English at Wellesley College from 1901 to 1903. Her volumes in their order are: "The Wayfarers", 1898; "Fortune and Men's Eyes", 1900; "Marlowe, a Drama", 1901; "The Singing Leaves", 1903; "The Wings", 1905; "The Piper", a drama, awarded the Stratford-on-Avon Prize of $1500 in 1910; "The Singing Man", 1911; "The Wolf of Gubbio", a drama, 1913; and "The Harvest Moon", 1916. Miss Peabody's charming play, "The Piper", first produced at Stratford, was played also in New York at the Century Theater, having a successful run, and was revived in the winter of 1920 by the Drama League. Miss Peabody was a poet of a very delicate and individual art, whether in lyric or drama.

Percy, William Alexander. [1885-1942] (1) Born in Greenville, Miss., May 14, 1885. Was prepared for college chiefly by a Roman Catholic priest; went to the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn., where he received his B.A. degree. The next year he spent abroad, and the following entered Harvard Law School, where he took the degree of LL.B. He is now in the active practice of law in Greenville, Miss. His first book of poems, "Sappho in Levkas and Other Poems", was published in 1915, and his second, "In April Once", in 1920. During the World War, Mr. Percy had active service in France, having the rank of Captain.

Piper, Edwin Ford. [1871-1939] (1) Born at Auburn, Neb., Feb. 8, 1871. Spent his early youth on a farm near his native town and in various parts of the cattle country of the State. Took his degree of A.B. from the University of Nebraska in 1897 and of A.M. in 1900, and later took graduate-student work at Harvard. Mr. Piper was Instructor in English at the University of Nebraska from 1899 to 1903, when he went to Harvard, and returned to the University in the same capacity for the two years following, when he entered upon the same position at the University of Iowa, where he still remains. He has published but one collection of verse, "Barbed Wire", a volume dealing with life in the West, though he appears frequently in the magazines.

Rice, Cale Young. [1872-1943] (4) Born at Dixon, Ky., Dec. 7, 1872. Graduated from Cumberland University in 1893 and from Harvard University in 1895, where he remained to take the degree of A.M. in 1896. He is the author of many fine poetic dramas, some of which have had successful stage presentation, and of several volumes of lyric poetry. In poetic drama his best-known works are "Charles di Tocca", 1903; "David", 1904; "Yolanda of Cyprus", 1905; "A Night in Avignon", 1907; "The Immortal Lure", 1911; and "Porzia", 1913. Of late Mr. Rice has confined himself chiefly to lyric poetry, covering a wide range of subjects, since he has traveled extensively and finds inspiration for his work in the beauty of far countries and their philosophies, as well as in the more familiar life about him. His best-known lyric collections are: "Nirvana Days", 1908; "Many Gods", 1910; "Far Quests", 1912; "At the World's Heart", 1914; "Earth and New Earth", 1916; "Trails Sunward", 1917; "Wraiths and Realities", 1918; "Songs to A. H. R.", 1918; and "Shadowy Thresholds", 1919. With the exception of the last five titles, Mr. Rice's work, both in lyric and drama, may be found in his two volumes of "Collected Plays and Poems", 1915.

Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt. [1861-1933] (2) Born in New York City in 1861. Educated by private teachers, and at Miss Comstock's School in New York, supplemented by a short period of study in Dresden. Married Douglas Robinson, 1882. Mrs. Robinson, who is a sister to Col. Theodore Roosevelt, has always taken an active part in philanthropic and political affairs, and, since her brother's death, has given much of her time to speaking upon his life and work, in the interest of Americanization. Mrs. Robinson has written several volumes of verse: "The Call of Brotherhood", 1912; "One Woman to Another", 1914; and "Service and Sacrifice", 1919. All show the fine ideals and gracious spirit of their writer.

Robinson, Edwin Arlington. [1869-1935] (3) Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. Educated at Harvard University. Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of great subtlety; his poems are usually studies of types and he has given us a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized as one of the finest and most distinguished poets of our time. His successive volumes are: "Children of the Night", 1897; "Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town Down the River", 1910; "The Man Against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; and "Launcelot", 1920. The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five hundred dollars, given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript offered to it in 1919. In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson has written two prose plays, "Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine". [Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1922 for "Collected Poems", in 1925 for "The Man Who Died Twice", and in 1928 for "Tristram". — A. L., 1998.]

Sandburg, Carl. [1878-1967] (4) Born at Galesburg, Ill., Jan. 6, 1878. Educated at Lombard College, Galesburg. Married Lillian Steichen, of Milwaukee, 1908. Mr. Sandburg served several years as secretary to the Mayor of Milwaukee, then went to Chicago where he became associate editor of `System', leaving this magazine to become an editorial writer upon the `Chicago Daily News'. He first came into prominence by a poem on "Chicago" published in `Poetry', of that city, and was awarded the Levinson Prize for this poem, in 1914. The following year he published a collection of his verse under the title of "Chicago Poems", and in 1918 appeared his second volume, "Corn Huskers". This was one of two volumes to receive the Columbia University award of $500 for the best book of verse of the year. Mr. Sandburg belongs to the newer movement in poetry, using the `vers-libre' forms. He is a writer of rugged power, interested in the social aspects of modern life, but a poet who is also sensitive to beauty and a frequent master of the magic phrase. [Carl Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1919 for "Corn Huskers", and in 1951 for his "Complete Poems". (Same as the Columbia University Prize listed above.) — A. L., 1998.]

Schauffler, Robert Haven. [1879-1964] (2) Born at Brun, Austria, though of American parentage, on April 8, 1879. He studied at Northwestern University, but took his degree of A.B. from Princeton, in 1902, and afterwards spent a year in study at the University of Berlin. Mr. Schauffler was a musician before he took up literature and was a pupil of several famous masters of the 'cello. He has written upon musical subjects, notably in his volume, "The Musical Amateur", and in his delightful account of his musical experiences in the Army, "Fiddler's Luck", 1920. He is also the author of several books of travel, such as "Romantic Germany", and "Romantic America", but it was with his poem, "Scum o' the Earth", published in one of the magazines in 1912, that he first came into prominence as a poet. As its name implies, it is a poem taking up the question of America's debt to the immigrant, and looking at it with the vision of the poet. This poem furnished the title to Mr. Schauffler's collection of verse, published in 1912.

Seeger, Alan. [1888-1916] (1) Born in New York City, June 22, 1888. He spent his childhood upon Staten Island, where he was constantly in sight of the great steamships of all nations moving in and out of New York Harbor — the gateway to the Western Hemisphere. Returning to Manhattan, he was sent to the Horace Mann School, but while still a lad, the family removed to Mexico where the most impressionable years of his boyhood were spent. The influence of the romantic Southern life is shown in his earliest poetry. Upon his return to America, several years later, he was prepared for college at the Hackley School at Tarrytown, N.Y., and entered Harvard in 1906, where he remained to graduate in 1910. Then followed a period of indecision as to his future work, a period of two years spent in New York, seeking some adequate outlet for the gifts which he seemed unable to bring to a practical issue. Finally, his family decided to give him a period in Paris, and he had been living there, with excursions to other parts of the Old World, for nearly two years when the Great War broke out and furnished him with the incentive to high adventure which his spirit craved. He enlisted at once and was enrolled in the Foreign Legion which was soon sent to the front. For two years he played not only a gallant part as a soldier, but, as his letters and journal show, he developed personal qualities of the noblest. Indeed no dedication made by youth to the ideal of the war was more complete than his. During his period with the Legion he wrote the poems by which he will be remembered, "Champagne, 1914", "Ode to the American Volunteers Fallen for France", and his exquisite "Rendezvous", published in this collection. All are beautiful and all have the exaltation which marked the soldier's spirit in the earlier years of the war. Not only did his poems foreshadow his own death, but they showed the willingness, almost eagerness, with which he offered himself. Although America was not yet in the war, a tardiness which had been a great grief to Alan Seeger, there is a poetic coincidence in the fact that he met his death on July 4, 1916, while the Legion was carrying out an attack on the little village of Belloy-en-Santerre. After his death two volumes, containing his poems, letters, and diary, were issued, 1917, with an Introduction by William Archer.

Shanafelt, Clara. [?] (1) Miss Shanafelt has, as yet, published no collection of poetry, but has appeared in the magazines, particularly `Poetry', of Chicago, from whose pages we took the lyric included in this volume.

Shepard, Odell. [1884-1967] (1)
Born in Sterling, Ill., July 22, 1884. Educated at Harvard University.
Is now instructor in the English department of Yale University.
He is the author of "A Lonely Flute", 1917.

Smith, May Riley. [1842-1927] (1) Born in Rochester, N.Y., May 7, 1842. Educated at Tracey Female Institute, Rochester, and at Brockport, N.Y., Collegiate Institute. Married Albert Smith, of Springfield, Ill., in 1869. Author of "The Gift of Gentians", 1882; "The Inn of Rest", 1888; "Sometime and Other Poems", 1892. While Mrs. Smith has in recent years done work much more modern in character and finer as poetry, she is most widely known for her poem, "Sometime", written in her earlier life.

Speyer, Leonora. [1872-1956] (2) Born in Washington, D.C., in 1872. Studied music in Brussels, Paris, and Leipzig, and played the violin professionally under Nikisch, Seidl, and others. Married Sir Edgar Speyer, of London, and lived in that city until 1915, when they came to America and took up their residence in New York. Lady Speyer, who had never written poetry until her return to her native country, has since that time made for herself a place among the newer group and is doing excellent work both in the free forms and lyric. [Leonora Speyer won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1927 for "Fiddlers Farewell". — A. L., 1998.]

Sterling, George. [1869-1926] (3) Born at Sag Harbor, N.Y., Dec. 1, 1869. Educated at private schools and at St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md. Mr. Sterling is a poet to whom the sublimer aspects of nature and thought appeal and he has a style admirably suited to their portrayal. He is the author of "The Testimony of the Suns", 1903; "A Wine of Wizardry", 1908; "The House of Orchids", 1911; "Beyond the Breakers", 1914; "Exposition Ode", 1915; and "Lilith, A Dramatic Poem", 1919.

Stork, Charles Wharton. [1881-1971] (2) Born in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 12, 1881. Took the degree of A.B. at Haverford College, 1902; of A.M. at Harvard, 1903, and of Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, 1905. He then went abroad to do research work in the universities of England and Germany, where he spent several years. In 1908 he married Elisabeth, daughter of Franz von Pausinger, artist, of Salzburg, Austria, and, returning to America, took up his work at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained as instructor and associate professor until 1916, when he resigned to engage in literary work. Mr. Stork's first book of verse to become known was "Sea and Bay", 1916. Since then he has done a great deal of translating from the Swedish and German, having made admirable renderings of Gustaf Froding, 1916, as well as many other Swedish poets, whose work he published in an "Anthology of Swedish Lyrics", 1917. He has since made a translation of "Selected Poems of Verner Von Heidenstam", the Nobel Prize winner of 1916. In addition to his work in Swedish poetry, he has made an excellent rendering of the lyrics of Hofmansthal, the Austrian poet. Mr. Stork is the editor and owner of `Contemporary Verse', devoted to the poetry of the present group in America. A second collection of his own verse will soon appear.

Teasdale, Sara. [1884-1933] (4) Born in St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 10, 1884. Educated at private schools. Married Ernst B. Filsinger, 1915. She is the author of "Sonnets to Duse", 1907; "Helen of Troy and Other Poems", 1911; "Rivers to the Sea", 1915; "Love Songs", 1917, which was awarded the Columbia University Prize of $500 for the best book of poems of the current year. Miss Teasdale was also the editor of "The Answering Voice; A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women", 1917. She herself wrote some of the finest love songs of our period and was one of the purest and most spontaneous lyric poets of her generation. [Sara Teasdale won the first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1918 for "Love Songs". (Same as the Columbia University Prize listed above.) — A. L., 1998.]

Tietjens, Eunice. [1884-1944] (1) Born in Chicago, Ill., July 29, 1884. Educated in Europe, chiefly at Geneva, Dresden, and Paris. Married Paul Tietjens, musician, in 1904. Was divorced in 1914, and in 1920 married Cloyd Head, of Chicago. Was for several years associate editor of `Poetry'. Mrs. Tietjens has traveled extensively, especially in the interior of China. She also spent sixteen months in France as a war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. Mrs. Tietjens is the author of "Profiles from China", 1917, and "Body and Raiment", 1919.

Torrence, Ridgely. [1875-1950] (2) Born at Xenia, Ohio, Nov. 27, 1875. Educated at Miami University, Ohio, and at Princeton. Served as assistant librarian at the Astor and Lenox Libraries in New York City from 1897 to 1903. His volumes of poetry and poetic drama include: "The House of a Hundred Lights", 1900; "El Dorado, A Tragedy", 1903; "Abelard and Heloise: A Drama", 1907. Since Mr. Torrence published his last collection, he has done some of his finest work in lyric and narrative poetry, work that has appeared in the magazines and which will probably be collected soon into book form. He is a poet of vision, one of the truest voices of our day, though his work is sparse in output.

Towne, Charles Hanson. [1877-1949] (3) Born at Louisville, Ky., Feb. 2, 1877. Educated at New York City College. Mr. Towne has been an active journalist, having been connected with several metropolitan magazines and successively editor of `The Smart Set', `The Delineator', `The Designer', and `McClure's Magazine'. Despite his journalistic work he has found time to write several volumes of poetry largely reflective of the life of to-day and particularly of Manhattan. The best-known are: "The Quiet Singer, and Other Poems", 1908; "Manhattan", 1909; "Youth, and Other Poems", 1910; "Beyond the Stars, and Other Poems", 1912; "To-Day and To-Morrow", 1916; and "A World of Windows", 1919.

Untermeyer, Jean Starr. [1886-1970] (1) Born at Zanesville, Ohio, in 1886. Educated in private schools of New York City and in special courses at Columbia University. Married Louis Untermeyer, the poet, 1907. Mrs. Untermeyer did not begin writing until the free verse movement was at its height, but she has done some excellent work and made a place for herself in the movement. Her volume of verse, "Growing Pains", was published in 1918.

Untermeyer, Louis. [1885-1977] (3) Born in New York City, Oct. 1, 1885. Educated in the public schools of that city. Mr. Untermeyer, in addition to writing poetry, has done much work in book reviewing, particularly for the `Chicago Evening Post', and is the author of a critical book, "The New Era in American Poetry", 1919, which discusses in a stimulating manner the work of a group of poets of the day. His own volumes of poems are: "First Love", 1911; "Challenge", 1914; "And Other Poets: A Book of Parodies", 1916; "These Times", 1917; "Including Horace", another volume of parodies, 1919. Mr. Untermeyer has made an excellent translation of the "Poems of Heinrich Heine", 1917, and has edited a school anthology of "Modern American Poetry", 1919.

Walsh, Thomas. [1875-1928] (2) Born in Brooklyn, Oct. 14, 1875. Educated at Georgetown University, where he took the degree of Ph.D. in 1892. Spent the years from 1892 to 1895, at Columbia University. In 1917 he received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Georgetown University and of LL.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of "The Prison Ships", 1909; "The Pilgrim Kings", 1915; "Gardens Overseas", 1917; and is the translator of a collection of the poems of the Nicaraguan poet, Ruben Dario. Mr. Walsh is much interested in Spanish literature and art and much of his work turns upon these themes.

Wattles, Willard. [1888-1950] (3) Born in Bayneville, Kan., June 8, 1888. Educated at the University of Kansas, where he took the degree of A.B. in 1909 (Phi Beta Kappa) and of A.M. in 1911. Mr. Wattles took up the profession of teaching and was instructor in English at the High School, Leavenworth, Kan., 1910-11, leaving this position to go East and become one of the staff of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, where he remained until 1914, when he returned to his alma mater, the University of Kansas. He is still assistant in the English department of that college. He has published as yet but one collection, "Lanterns in Gethsemane", 1917, a volume of poems pertaining to the life of Christ, but not written in the usual vein of religious poetry. He is also the compiler of "Sunflowers", a book of Kansas poems, 1916.

Wheelock, John Hall. [1886-1978] (4) Born at Far Rockaway, N.Y., in 1886. He took the degree of A.B. from Harvard University in 1908 and spent the next two years in Germany, studying during 1909 at Gottingen and during 1910 at the University of Berlin. Since his return to America he has been connected with the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons. His first volume, "The Human Fantasy", 1911, attracted attention by the faithfulness with which it depicted the motley life of New York. His second was "The Beloved Adventure", 1912; followed by "Love and Liberation", 1913, and "Dust and Light", 1919. The last volume, from which the selections in this anthology are taken, contains some of Mr. Wheelock's finest lyrical work, work full of the passion for beauty.

Widdemer, Margaret. [1884-1978] (4) Born at Doylestown, Pa. Educated by private teachers and at the Drexel Institute Library School of Philadelphia, where she graduated in 1909. Attention was first drawn to her work by a child-labor poem, "The Factories", which was widely quoted, the social movement in poetry being then at its height. Miss Widdemer is both poet and novelist, having published several books in each field. In poetry her work includes: "The Factories with Other Lyrics", 1915; and "The Old Road to Paradise", 1918. This volume shared with that of Carl Sandburg the Columbia University Prize of $500 for the best book of poems published in 1918. In the same year Miss Widdemer was married to Robert Haven Schauffler, author of "Scum o' the Earth". She is a poet of much delicacy, and several of her poems, notably "The Dark Cavalier" in this volume, are among the best lyric work of the period. [Margaret Widdemer won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1919 for "Old Road to Paradise". (Same as the Columbia University Prize listed above.) — A. L., 1998.]

Wilkinson, Florence (Mrs. Wilfrid Muir Evans). [1878-?] (1) <F. W. Evans> Born at Tarrytown, N.Y. Miss Wilkinson studied at Chicago University and other American colleges and afterwards at the Sorbonne and the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris. She is the author of several novels, of which the best known are: "The Lady of the Flag Flowers", "The Strength of the Hills", and "The Silent Door"; and also of one or two volumes of plays, but her best work is found in her poetry of which she has written two volumes: "The Far Country", 1906, and "The Ride Home", 1913.

Wilkinson, Marguerite Ogden Bigelow. [1883-1928] (2) Born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nov. 15, 1883. Educated at Northwestern University. Married James Wilkinson, 1909. Author of "In Vivid Gardens", 1911; "By a Western Wayside", 1912; "New Voices", a critical study of present-day poetry, with a supplementary anthology, 1919; and "Bluestone", a collection of her own poems, 1920. The title poem of this volume was awarded a prize of $150 by the Poetry Society of America for the best poem read at its meetings during 1919. Mrs. Wilkinson did a great deal of journalistic work, having conducted literary departments on various journals.

Wood, Clement. [1888-1950] (3) Born at Tuscaloosa, Ala., Sept. 1, 1888, but reared in Birmingham, Ala., where he attended Taylor's Academy and Birmingham High School. Received his degree of A.B. from the University of Alabama in 1909, and of LL.B. from Yale University in 1911. He returned to his home city of Birmingham and practiced law for several years, becoming assistant city attorney of Birmingham in 1912, and police magistrate of the Central District of Birmingham, 1912-13. The following year he came to New York for advanced work in sociology and literature and became a contributor of poems, essays, and short stories to various magazines. In 1917 he was awarded the first prize of $250 by the Newark Committee of One Hundred, as part of their Anniversary Celebration, for his poem, "The Smithy of God", and in 1919 he was also awarded one of the three Lyric Society Prizes, of $500 each, for his poem, "Jehovah". In 1914 Mr. Wood married Mildred M. Cummer, of Buffalo, N.Y., who is also a writer. In poetry he is the author of the following books: "Glad of Earth", 1917; "The Earth Turns South", 1919; and "Jehovah", 1920. He has also written a novel called "Mountain", published in 1920.

—— Rittenhouse, Jessie Belle. [1869-1948] Jessie Rittenhouse is best known as an editor and for her compilations, but she was also a poet — though she did not include her own work in her compilations. Her compilations and criticisms include: "The younger American poets", 1904; "The Little Book of Modern Verse", 1913; "The Little Book of American Poets, 1787-1900", 1915; "The Second Book of Modern Verse", 1919; "The Little Book of Modern British Verse: One Hundred Poets since Henley", 1924; "The Third Book of Modern Verse", 1927. Her own works include: "The Door of Dreams", 1918; "The Lifted Cup", 1921; "The Secret Bird", 1930; "My House of Life; an Autobiography", 1934; and "The Moving Tide; New and Selected Lyrics", 1939. Her compilations went through numerous printings, and are still a good guide to the poetry of the era. ——

Notes to the text:

Though most of the publishers only required acknowledgements in the section devoted to such, one apparently insisted that they also appear in the text. These intrusions have been removed from the text, but are noted here:

Edwin Arlington Robinson.
`Flammonde' & `Old King Cole', reprinted from "The Man against the Sky", 1916.

Vachel Lindsay.
`The Chinese Nightingale' & `The Flower of Mending', reprinted from
"The Chinese Nightingale, and Other Poems", 1917.
`General William Booth Enters into Heaven', reprinted from
"General William Booth Enters into Heaven, and Other Poems", 1913.
`Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight', reprinted from
"The Congo, and Other Poems", 1914.

Sara Teasdale.
`Love Songs' (only the first 4 out of 5) reprinted from "Love Songs", 1917.

Scudder Middleton.
`Interlude' & `Romance', reprinted from "The New Day", 1919.

Amy Lowell.
`Venus Transiens' & `Madonna of the Evening Flowers' , reprinted from
"Pictures of the Floating World", 1919.
`Patterns', reprinted from "Men, Women and Ghosts", 1916.
`A Lady' & `Apology', reprinted from "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed", 1914.

John G. Neihardt.
`Ballad of a Child', reprinted from "The Quest", 1916.

Louis V. Ledoux.
`Mater Dolorosa', reprinted from "The Story of Eleusis", 1916.

Edgar Lee Masters.
`Spoon River Anthology' (selections from), reprinted from
"Spoon River Anthology", 1915.
`Silence', reprinted from "Songs and Satires", 1915.

Mary Carolyn Davies.
`Smith, of the Third Oregon, Dies', reprinted from
"Drums in Our Street", 1918.

Hermann Hagedorn.
`Doors', reprinted from "Poems and Ballads", 1913.

In some cases, e.g. "Love Songs" and "Spoon River Anthology", there is a selection of short poems grouped together under the title of the book from which they were drawn — though in the case of "Love Songs", only the first four are actually from the book of the same name.

Due to the technical limitations of ASCII, accents were not included in the text. However, a complete list follows of each line where an accent occurred in the original. The "pipe" character (|) indicates a special character, and a marker for the accent follows, except in cases where two vowels make a combined character, as in C(ae)sar. The appropriate accents should be obvious. The affected lines are:

Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in |Aeternum Fidelitas.
Chanson of the Bells of Osen|\ey. [Cale Young Rice]
Reveill|/e. [Louis Untermeyer]
The Unknown Belov|\ed. [John Hall Wheelock]
Voyage |\a l'Infini. [Walter Conrad Arensberg]
The bells of Osen|\ey
(Hautcl|\ere, Doucement, Austyn)
The bells of Osen|\ey
Hautcl|\ere chants to the East
The bells of Osen|\ey
(Doucement, Austyn, Hautcl|\ere)
The loveliest f|^ete and carnival
These things do not remember you, belov|\ed, —
I am in love with all unveil|\ed faces.
Belov|\ed, till the day break,
Belov|\ed and my Love!
Bosomed with the Bless|\ed One,
Thinking, beside the pi|~nons' flame, of days
[changed to pinyon in text]
The bright Champs-Elys|/ees at last —
The impasse and the loved caf|/e;
|\A deux and pledge across the wine!"
Of bearing in grand d|/ejeuner.
And rich perfum|/ed smells
Of pil|\ed masonry, which shall be ours
Said he, "Your most belov|\ed
Here have I no belov|\ed,
Here lies, thy true belov|\ed
including "The Magical City", "Papa", a comedy, and "D|/eclass|/e",
which won a great success with Ethel Barrymore in the leading r|^ole.
the Croix de Guerre and the M|/edaille de Reconnaissance fran|,caise.
"The Sharing", 1914; translator of the poems of Th|/eophile Gautier,
"The Shadow of |Aetna", 1914; "The Story of Eleusis: A Lyrical Drama", 1916.
1900; student University of G|"ottingen, 1901; University of Bonn, 1902;
"Glory of the Morning", a play, 1912; "|Aesop and Hyssop", 1913.
Born at Br|"un, Austria, though of American parentage, on April 8, 1879.
having made admirable renderings of Gustaf Fr|"oding, 1916,
"Abelard and H|/eloise: A Drama", 1907. Since Mr. Torrence published
of the Nicaraguan poet, Rub|/en Dario. Mr. Walsh is much interested
in Germany, studying during 1909 at G|"ottingen and during 1910
the Sorbonne and the Biblioth|\eque Nationale of Paris.

Also all occurences of Ben|/et (Stephen Vincent & William Rose Ben|/et) and of Zo|"e for Zo|"e Akins.

The Acknowledgements section has been omitted.

Corrections to the text: (These were checked against copies of the volumes from which the poems were extracted.)

Spoon River Anthology. [Edgar Lee Masters]

"As Bryon's did, in song, in something noble,"
changed to
"As Byron's did, in song, in something noble,"

Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight. [Vachel Lindsay]

added subtitle: (In Springfield, Illinois)

"A famous high-top hat and plain worn shawl"
changed to
"A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl"

"The prairie lawyer, master of us all."
changed to
"The prairie-lawyer, master of us all."

Apology. [Amy Lowell]

"You blazen me with jewelled insignia."
changed to
"You blazon me with jewelled insignia."

Biographical Notes:

"H. D." was incorrectly identified as "Helena Doolittle".
This has been corrected to "Hilda Doolittle".

In addition, some information was added to the Biographical Notes, most notably dates for each author (when available) and which ones won a Pulitzer Prize, and in which year(s).