We gape to
Hear them end,

And are in
Terror,

And dread

it is

Devil's Work!

Where the howl of an owl vexed his foes

from their intent:

Then that fowl for a holy bird of reverence made he!

"A catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan!

Pastmasters of disasters, our desert cara

van

Won through all peril to his sunset barbican,

Where he wields his seignorie!

And crowns he gave us! We end where we began:

A catch and a carol to the great, grand

stripèd beasts did beat

The market-square suddenly with hooves of beaten gold!

The ground yawned gaping and flamed beneath our feet!

They plunged to Pits Abysmal with their wealth untold!

And some say the Chan himself in anger dealt the stroke

For sharing of his secrets with silly, common folk:

But Holy, Blessed Mary, preserve us as

Lest once

you may

more those mad Merchants come chanting from Cathay!

HOW TO CATCH UNICORNS

Its cloven hoofprint on the sand

Will lead you-where?

Into a phantasmagoric land-
Beware!

There all the bright streams run up-hill.
The birds on every tree are still.

But from stocks and stones, clear voices come
That should be dumb.

If you have taken along a net,

A noose, a prod,

You'll be waiting in the forest yet .
Nid-nod!

...

In a virgin's lap the beast slept sound,

They say

but I

I think (Is anyone around?)

That's just a lie!

If you have taken a musketoon

To flinders 'twill flash 'neath the wizard moon.

So I should take browned batter-cake,

Hot-buttered inside, like foam to flake.

And I should take an easy heart
And a whimsical face,

And a tied-up lunch of sandwich and tart,
And spread a cloth in the open chase.

And then I should pretend to snore
And I'd hear a snort and I'd hear a roar,

The wind of a mane and a tail, and four
Wild hoofs prancing the forest-floor.
And I'd open my eyes on a flashing horn-
And see the Unicorn!

Paladins fierce and virgins sweet

But he's never had anything to eat!

Knights have tramped in their iron-mong'ry ...
But nobody thought-that's all!-he's hungry!

ADDENDUM

Really hungry! Good Lord deliver us,
The Unicorn is not carnivorous!

John Hall Wheelock

John Hall Wheelock was born at Far Rockaway, Long Island, in 1886. He was graduated from Harvard, receiving his B.A. in 1908, and finished his studies at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, 1908-10.

Wheelock's first book is, in many respects, his best. The Human Fantasy (1911) sings with the voice of youth-a youth which is vibrantly in love with existence. Rhapsodic and obviously influenced by Whitman and Henley, these lines beat bravely. A headlong ecstasy rises from pages whose refrain is "Splendid it is to live and glorious to die."

SUNDAY EVENING IN THE COMMON

Look-on the topmost branches of the world
The blossoms of the myriad stars are thick;
Over the huddled rows of stone and brick,
A few, sad wisps of empty smoke are curled
Like ghosts, languid and sick.

One breathless moment now the city's moaning Fades, and the endless streets seem vague and dim; There is no sound around the whole world's rim, Save in the distance a small band is droning

Some desolate old hymn.

Van Wyck, how often have we been together
When this same moment made all mysteries clear;
-The infinite stars that brood above us here,
And the gray city in the soft June weather,
So tawdry and so dear!

LOVE AND LIBERATION

Lift your arms to the stars
And give an immortal shout;
Not all the veils of darkness
Can put your beauty out!

You are armed with love, with love,

Nor all the powers of Fate

Can touch you with a spear,
Nor all the hands of hate.

What of good and evil,
Hell and Heaven above-,
Trample them with love!
Ride over them with love!

Joyce Kilmer

(Alfred) Joyce Kilmer was born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, December 6, 1886. He was graduated from Rutgers College in 1904 and received his A.B. from Columbia in 1906.

In 1917 Kilmer joined the Officers' Reserve Training Corps, but he soon resigned from this. In less than three weeks after America entered the world war, he enlisted as a private in the Seventh Regiment, National Guard, New York.

On July 28, 1918, the five-day battle for the mastery of the heights beyond the river Ourcq was begun. Two days later, Sergeant Kilmer was killed in action.

Death came before the poet had developed or even matured his gifts. His first volume, Summer of Love (1911), is wholly imitative; it is full of reflections of a dozen other sources, "a broken bundle of mirrors." Trees and Other Poems (1914) contains the title-poem by which Kilmer is best known and, though various influences are here, a refreshing candor lights up the lines. Main Street and Other Poems (1917) is less derivative; the simplicity is less self-conscious, the ecstasy more spontaneous.

TREES'

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

'From Trees and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer. right, 1914, by George H. Doran Company, Publishers.

Copy