social vision, his spirit a passionately energized command of the forces of justice."

Challenge was succeeded by These Times (1917), evidently an "interval" book which, lacking the concentration and unity of the better known collection, sought for larger horizons. The New Adam (1920) is a more satisfactory unit; here the varied passions are fused in a new heat.

Besides this serious poetry, Untermeyer has published three volumes of critical parodies: "— and Other Poets" (1917), Including Horace (1919) and Heavens (1922). He has also printed a strict metrical translation of three hundred and twenty-five Poems of Heinrich Heine (1917); a volume of prose criticism, The New Era in American Poetry (1919); and three text-books. He was one of the Associate Editors of The Seven Arts (1916-17) and has lectured at various universities in the Eastern and Middle Western States.

CALIBAN IN THE COAL MINES

God, we don't like to complain

We know that the mine is no lark—
But there's the pools from the rain;
But there's the cold and the dark.

God, You don't know what it is

You, in Your well-lighted sky—
Watching the meteors whizz;

Warm, with the sun always by.

God, if You had but the moon
Stuck in Your cap for a lamp,

Even You'd tire of it soon,

Down in the dark and the damp.

Nothing but blackness above

And nothing that moves but the cars.

God, if You wish for our love,

Fling us a handful of stars!

frena

SUMMONS

The eager night and the impetuous winds,
The hints and whispers of a thousand lures,
And all the swift persuasion of the Spring,
Surged from the stars and stones, and swept me on
The smell of honeysuckle, keen and clear,
Startled and shook me, with the sudden thrill
Of some well-known but half-forgotten voice.
A slender stream became a naked sprite,
Flashed around curious bends, and winked at me
Beyond the turns, alert and mischievous.

A saffron moon, dangling among the trees,
Seemed like a toy balloon caught in the boughs,
Flung there in sport by some too mirthful breeze.

And as it hung there, vivid and unreal,

The whole world's lethargy was brushed away;
The night kept tugging at my torpid mood
And tore it into shreds. A warm air blew
My wintry slothfulness beyond the stars;
And over all indifference there streamed
A myriad urges in one rushing wave

Touched with the lavish miracles of earth,
I felt the brave persistence of the grass;
The far desire of rivulets; the keen,
Unconquerable fervor of the thrush;
The endless labors of the patient worm;
The lichen's strength; the prowess of the ant;
The constancy of flowers; the blind belief
Of ivy climbing slowly toward the sun;
The eternal struggles and eternal deaths-
And yet the groping faith of every root!

Out of old graves arose the cry of life;
Out of the dying came the deathless call.
And, thrilling with a new sweet restlessness,
The thing that was my boyhood woke in me—
Dear, foolish fragments made me strong again;
Valiant adventures, dreams of those to come,
And all the vague, heroic hopes of youth,
With fresh abandon, like a fearless laugh,
Leaped up to face the heaven's unconcern.
And then-veil upon veil was torn aside-
Stars, like a host of merry girls and boys,
Danced gaily 'round me, plucking at my hand;
The night, scorning its stubborn mystery,

Leaned down and pressed new courage in my heart;
The hermit-thrush, throbbing with more than Song,
Sang with a happy challenge to the skies.
Love and the faces of a world of children
Swept like a conquering army through my blood.
And Beauty, rising out of all its forms,
Beauty, the passion of the universe,

Flamed with its joy, a thing too great for tears,
And, like a wine, poured itself out for me
To drink of, to be warmed with, and to go
Refreshed and strengthened to the ceaseless fight;
To meet with confidence the cynic years;
Battling in wars that never can be won,
Seeking the lost cause and the brave defeat.

ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD

Lo-to the battle-ground of Life,

Child, you have come, like a conquering shout,

Out of a struggle-into strife;

Out of a darkness-into doubt.

Girt with the fragile armor of Youth,

Child, you must ride into endless wars,
With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth,
And a banner of love to sweep the stars.

About you the world's despair will surge;
Into defeat you must plunge and grope—
Be to the faltering, an urge;

Be to the hopeless years, a hope!

Be to the darkened world, a flame;
Be to its unconcern a blow!

For out of its pain and tumult you came,
And into its tumult and pain you go.

PRAYER

God, though this life is but a wraith,
Although we know not what we use,
Although we grope with little faith,
Give me the heart to fight-and lose.

Ever insurgent let me be,

Make me more daring than devout; From sleek contentment keep me free, And fill me with a buoyant doubt.

Open my eyes to visions girt

With beauty, and with wonder lit

But let me always see the dirt,

And all that spawn and die in it.

Open my ears to music; let

Me thrill with Spring's first flutes and drums

But never let me dare forget

The bitter ballads of the slums.

From compromise and things half-done,
Keep me, with stern and stubborn pride;
And when, at last, the fight is won,
God, keep me still unsatisfied.

Jean Starr Untermeyer

Jean Starr was born at Zanesville, Ohio, May 13, 1886, and educated at the Putnam Seminary in the city of her birth. At sixteen, she came to New York City, pursuing special studies at Columbia. In 1907 she married Louis Untermeyer and, although she had written some prose previous to the poetic renascence, her first volume was published more than ten years later.

Growing Pains (1918) is a thin book of thirty-four poems, the result of eight years' slow and self-critical creation. Perfection is almost a passion with her; the first poem in the book declares:

I would rather work in stubborn rock

All the years of my life;

And make one strong thing

And set it in a high, clean place,

To recall the granite strength of my desire.

But it is not only her keen search for truth and an equally keen eye for the exact word that make these poems distinctive. A sharp color sense, a surprising whimsicality, a translation of the ordinary in terms of the beautiful, illumine such poems as "Sinfonia Domestica," "Clothes," "Autumn." Her purely pictorial poems establish a swift kinship between the most romantic and most prosaic objects. The tiny "Moonrise" is an example; so is "High Tide," that, in one extended metaphor, turns the mere fact of a physical law into an arresting and noble fancy.

Dreams Out of Darkness (1921) is a ripening of this author's powers with a richer musical undercurrent. This increase of melody is manifest on every page, possibly most obvious in the persuasive music and symbolism of "Lake Song."