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The Second Book of Modern Verse
by Jessie B. Rittenhouse
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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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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.

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