To warm themselves at some flower down a lane: You, too, may long, grown tired of the aloof, For the sweet surety of the common air.

WILD CHERRY

Why make your lodging here in this spent lane,
Where but an old man, with his sheep each day,
Twice through the forgotten grass goes by your way,
Half sees you there, and not once looks again?
For you are of the very ribs of spring,

And should have many lovers, who have none.
In silver cloaks, in hushed troops down the sun
Should they draw near, oh, strange and lovely thing!
Beauty has no set weather, no sure place;
Her careful pageantries are here as there,
With nothing lost. And soon, some lad may start
A strayed Mayer in this unremembered space-
At your tall white, and know you very fair,
Let all else go to roof within your heart.

OWNERSHIP

Love not a loveliness too much,
For it may turn and clutch you so,
That you be less than any serf,
And at its nodding go.

Be master; otherwise you grow
Too small, too humble, like to one

Long dispossessed, who stares through tears
At his lost house across the sun.

Wild carrot in an old field here,
Or steeple choked with music there,
Possess, as part of what is yours;
Thus prove yourself the heir.

Your barony is sky and land,

From morning's start to the night's close;
Bend to your need Orion's hounds,
Or the small fagot of a rose.

FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN

Frank Dempster Sherman was born at Peekskill, New York, May 6, 1860. He entered Columbia University in 1879, where, after graduation and a subsequent instructorship, he was made adjunct professor in 1891 and Professor of Graphics in 1904. He held the latter position until his death, which occurred September 19, 1916. Sherman never wearied of the little lyric; even the titles 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

Louise Imogen Guiney was born in 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 collections, Songs at the Start (1884) and The White Sail and Other Poems (1887), are not without individuality. Her two most characteristic volumes are A Roadside Harp (1893) and Patrins (1897). A more recent publication, Happy Ending, appeared in 1909.

Though a great part of her work is poeticizing rather than poetry, there is no mistaking the high seriousness of her aim. Responding to the influence of the Cavalier Poets whom she greatly admired, her best lines vibrate with a pulsing vigor, an almost galloping

courage. Aware of the nobility of the poet's mission, she held her pen "in trust to Art, not serving shame or lust"; a militant faith is the very keynote of her writing.

Miss Guiney died at Chipping-Campden, near Oxford, 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.

(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 (1882–83) and Harvard (1886-88). 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 bestknown 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.