A Prayer

Until I lose my soul and lie Blind to the beauty of the earth, Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by, Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length And I have left the land of men, Oh, let me love with all my strength Careless if I am loved again.

If the two pieces just cited are not poetry, then I have no idea what poetry may be.

Another young woman poet is Fannie Stearns Davis (Mrs. Grifford). The quality of her mind as displayed in her two books indicates possibilities of high development. She was born at Cleveland, on the sixth of March, 1884, is a graduate of Smith College, was a teacher in Wisconsin, and has made many contributions to various magazines. Her first book of poems, Myself and I, appeared in 1913; two years later came the volume called Crack o' Dawn. She is not much given to metrical adventure, although one of her most original poems, As I Drank Tea Today, has an irregular rime-scheme. For the most part, she follows both in subject and style the poetic tradition. She has the gift of song--not indeed in the superlative degree--but nevertheless unmistakable; and she has a full mind. She is neither optimist nor pessimist; I should call her a sympathetic observer. The following poem sums up fairly well her accumulated wisdom:

I have looked into all men's hearts. Like houses at night unshuttered they stand, And I walk in the street, in the dark, and on either hand There are hollow houses, men's hearts.

They think that the curtains are drawn, Yet I see their shadows suddenly kneel To pray, or laughing and reckless as drunkards reel Into dead sleep till dawn.

And I see an immortal child With its quaint high dreams and wondering eyes Sleeping beneath the hard worn body that lies Like a mummy-case defiled.

And I hear an immortal cry Of splendour strain through the sodden words, Like a flight of brave-winged heaven-desirous birds From a swamp where poisons lie.

--I have looked into all men's hearts. Oh, secret terrible houses of beauty and pain! And I cannot be gay, but I cannot be bitter again, Since I looked into all men's hearts.

There is one commandment that all poets under the first class, and perhaps some of those favoured ones, frequently break: the tenth. One cannot blame them, for they know what poetry is, and they love it. They not only know what it is, but their own limited experience has taught them what rapture it must be to write lines of flawless beauty. This unconquerable covetousness is admirably and artistically expressed in Fannie Davis's poem, After Copying Goodly Poetry. It is an honest confession; but its author is fortunate in being able to express vain desire so beautifully that many lesser poets will covet her covetousness.

Theodosia Garrison was born at Newark, New Jersey, on the twenty-sixth of November, 1874. She has published three volumes of verse, of which perhaps the best known is The Joy of Life (1909). At present she is engaged in war work, where her high faith, serene womanliness, and overflowing humour ought to make her, in the finest sense of the word, efficient. Her short poem on the war is a good answer to detractors of America.

APRIL 2nd

We have been patient--and they named us weak; We have been silent--and they judged us meek, Now, in the much-abused, high name of God We speak.

Oh, not with faltering or uncertain tone-- With chosen words we make our meaning known, That like a great wind from the West shall shake The double throne.

Our colours flame upon the topmost mast,-- We lift the glove so arrogantly cast, And in the much-abused, high name of God We speak at last.

Another war alchemist is Mary Carolyn Davies, poet of Oregon and Brooklyn. She knows both coasts of America, she understands the American spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice, and her verses have a direct hitting power that will break open the hardest heart. In her book, The Drums in Our Street (1918), the glory and the tragedy of the world-struggle are expressed in terms of individual feeling. There is decided inequality in this volume, but the best pieces are so carefully distributed among the commonplace that one must read the whole work.

Harriet Monroe was born in Chicago and went to school in Georgetown, D. C. In connection with the World's Exposition in Chicago she received the honour of being formally invited to write a poem for the dedication. Accordingly at the ceremony commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, 21 October, 1892, her Columbian Ode was given with music.

Harriet Monroe's chief services to the art of poetry are seen not so much in her creative work as in her founding and editing of the magazine called Poetry, of which I made mention in my remarks on Vachel Lindsay. In addition to this monthly stimulation--which has proved of distinct value both in awakening general interest and in giving new poets an opportunity to be heard, Miss Monroe, with the assistance of Alice Corbin Henderson, published in 1917 an anthology of the new varieties of verse. Certain poets are somewhat arbitrarily excluded, although their names are mentioned in the Preface; the title of the book is The New Poetry; the authors are fairly represented, and with some sins of commission the selections from each are made with critical judgment. Every student of contemporary verse should own a copy of this work.

In 1914 Miss Monroe produced a volume of her original poems, called You and I. There are over two hundred pages, and those who look in them for something strange and startling will be disappointed. Knowing the author's sympathy with radicalism in art, and with all modern extremists, the form of these verses is surprisingly conservative. To be sure, the first one, The Hotel, is in a kind of polyphonic prose, but it is not at all a fair sample of the contents. Now whether the reading of many manuscripts has dulled Miss Monroe's creative power or not, who can say? The fact is that most of these poems are in no way remarkable either for feeling or expression and many of them fail to rise above the level of the commonplace. There is happily no straining for effect; but unhappily in most instances there is no effect.

Alice Corbin (Mrs. Henderson) is a native of Virginia and a resident of Chicago. She is co-editor with Miss Monroe of The New Poetry anthology, wherein her own poems are represented. These indicate skill in the manipulation of different metrical forms; and they reveal as well a shrewd, healthy acceptance of life as it is. This feeling communicates itself in a charming way to the reader; it is too vigorous for acquiescence, too wise for blind optimism, but nearer optimism than pessimism. It seems perhaps in certain aspects to resemble the philosophy of Ralph Hodgson, although his command of the art of poetry is beyond her range.

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn was born at Norfolk, Virginia, on the fourth of February, 1876, but since childhood has lived in Vermont. She studied at Radcliffe College, and has written much verse and prose. In 1915 a number of her lyrics were printed between the short stories in a volume by her friend, Dorothy Canfield, called Hillsboro People. In 1917 she published a book of verses, Portraits and Protests, where the portraits are better than the protests. No one has more truly or more sympathetically expressed the spirit of George Herbert's poetry than Miss Cleghorn has given it with a handful of words, in the lyric In Bemerton Church. But she is above all a country mouse and a country muse; she knows her Vermont neighbours to the skin and bone, and brings out artistically the austere sweetness of their daily lives. I think I like best of all her work the poem