of his volumes are instances of his fondness for the brief melody, the sudden snatch of song: Madrigals and Catches (1887), Lyrics for a Lute (1890), Little-Folk Lyrics (1892), Lyrics of Joy (1904). A sumptuous, collected edition of his poems was published, with an Introduction by Clinton Scollard, in 1917.

AT MIDNIGHT

See, yonder, the belfry tower

That gleams in the moon's pale light— Or is it a ghostly flower

That dreams in the silent night?

I listen and hear the chime
Go quavering over the town,

And out of this flower of Time
Twelve petals are wafted down.

BACCHUS

Listen to the tawny thief,
Hid beneath the waxen leaf,
Growling at his fairy host,
Bidding her with angry boast
Fill his cup with wine distilled
From the dew the dawn has spilled:
Stored away in golden casks

Is the precious draught he asks.

Who, who makes this mimic din
In this mimic meadow inn,
Sings in such a drowsy note,

Wears a golden-belted coat;

Loiters in the dainty room
Of this tavern of perfume;
Dares to linger at the cup
Till the yellow sun is up?

Bacchus 'tis, come back again
To the busy haunts of men;
Garlanded and gaily dressed,
Bands of gold about his breast;
Straying from his paradise,
Having pinions angel-wise,-
'Tis the honey-bee, who goes
Reveling within a rose!

Louise Imogen Guiney

Louise Imogen Guiney was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1861. Although she attended Elmhurst Academy in Providence, most of her studying was with private tutors. In 1901 she went to England, where she lived until her death.

Traditional in form and feeling, Miss Guiney's work has a distinctly personal vigor; even her earliest collection, The White Sail and Other Poems (1887), is not without individuality. Her two most characteristic volumes are A Roadside Harp (1893) and Patrins (1897).

Miss Guiney died at Chirping-Camden, England, November

3, 1920.

THE WILD RIDE

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,

All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! But alert to the saddle

Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,

With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and

morasses;

There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:

What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.
A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty;
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and
neighing.

We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers
that follow.

Bliss Carman

(William) Bliss Carman was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, April 15, 1861, of a long line of United Empire Loyalists who withdrew from Connecticut at the time

of the Revolutionary War. Carman was educated at the University of New Brunswick (1879-81), at Edinburgh (1582-3) and Harvard (1886-8). He took up his residence in the United States about 1889 and, with the exception of short sojourns in the Maritime Provinces, has lived there ever since.

In 1893, Carman issued his first book, Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics. It was immediately successful, running quickly into a second edition. A vivid buoyancy, new to American literature, made his worship of Nature frankly pagan as contrasted to the moralizing tributes of most of his predecessors. This freshness and irresponsible whimsy made Carman the natural collaborator for Richard Hovey, and when their first joint Songs from Vagabondia appeared in 1894, Carman's fame was established. (See Preface.)

Although the three Vagabondia collections contain Carman's best known poems, several of his other volumes (he has published almost twenty of them) vibrate with the same glowing pulse. An almost physical radiance rises from Ballads of Lost Haven (1897), From the Book of Myths (1902) and Songs of the Sea Children (1904).

A VAGABOND SONG

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir; We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

HEM AND HAW

Hem and Haw were the sons of sin,
Created to shally and shirk;

Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on
While God did all the work.

Hem was a fogy, and Haw was a prig,
For both had the dull, dull mind;
And whenever they found a thing to do,
They yammered and went it blind.

Hem was the father of bigots and bores;
As the sands of the sea were they.
And Haw was the father of all the tribe
Who criticize to-day.

But God was an artist from the first,
And knew what he was about;

While over his shoulder sneered these two,

And advised him to rub it out.

They prophesied ruin ere man was made; "Such folly must surely fail!"

And when he was done, "Do you think, my Lord, He's better without a tail?"

And still in the honest working world,

With posture and hint and smirk,

These sons of the devil are standing by
While man does all the work.

They balk endeavor and baffle reform,
In the sacred name of law;

And over the quavering voice of Hem
Is the droning voice of Haw.