I only know there came to me Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,- Sent instant tears into my eyes; Thou canst not move across the grass But my hushed voice will answer Thee. The world stands out on either side THE PEAR TREE In this squalid, dirty dooryard, Where the chickens scratch and run, White, incredible, the pear tree Stands apart and takes the sun, Mindful of the eyes upon it, Like the waste-man's little daughter Stephen Vincent Benét Stephen Vincent Benét, the younger brother of William Rose Benét, was born at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in July, 1898. He was educated in various parts of the country, graduating from Yale in 1919. At seventeen he published a small book containing six dramatic portraits, Five Men and Pompey (1915), a remarkable set of monologues which, in spite of distinct traces of Browning, was little short of astounding, coming from a schoolboy. In Benét's next volume, Young Adventure (1918), one hears something more than the speech of an infant prodigy; the precocious facility has developed into an individual vigor. Heavens and Earth (1920), the most representative collection, has a greater imaginative sweep. His novel, The Beginning of Wisdom, appeared in 1921. Like his brother, the younger Benét is at his best in the decoratively grotesque; his fancy exults in running the scales between the whimsically bizarre and the lightly diabolic. PORTRAIT OF A BOY After the whipping, he crawled into bed; Fat motes danced. He sobbed; closed his eyes and dreamed. Warm sand flowed round him. Blurts of crimson light Splashed the white grains like blood. mouth Past the cave's Shone with a large fierce splendor, wildly bright, Here the Cross swung; and there, affronting Mars, Their eyes were moons. Léonie Adams Léonie Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York, December 5, 1899. After a public school preparation, she became a member of the class of 1922 at Barnard, writing her first published poems as an undergraduate. The few poems by Miss Adams which have appeared show an unusual distinction of thought. They establish a kinship with Emily Dickinson by their intellectual restraint, with Edna St. Vincent Millay by their spiritual fervor. APRIL MORTALITY Rebellion shook an ancient dust, And bones bleached dry of rottenness The earth, the sky, in their bright dress. Heart, heart, dost thou not break to kno And traced it dimly upon stone. With all the drifting race of men The lonely Beauty yet unborn. And if thou dreamest to have won Some touch of her in permanence, 'Tis the old cheating of the sun, The intricate lovely play of sense. Be bitter still, remember how Four petals, when a little breath HOME-COMING When I stepped homeward to my hill Dusk went before with quiet tread; The bare laced branches of the trees Were as a mist about its head. Upon its leaf-brown breast, the rocks Like great gray sheep lay silent-wise; Between the birch trees' gleaming arms, The faint stars trembled in the skies. The white brook met me half-way up And laughed as one that knew me well, To whose more clear than crystal voice The frost had joined a crystal spell. |