Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,
Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,
By every cup of sorrow that you had,

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright
How each hath back what once he stayed to weep:
Homer his sight, David his little lad!

SPICEWOOD

The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,
In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,

That whips it all before, and all behind,
Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high.
It is the first, the homeliest thing of all-
At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,
Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airs-
A thing so honey-colored and so tall!

It is as though the young Year, ere he pass,
To the white riot of the cherry tree,
Would fain accustom us, or here, or there,
To his new sudden ways with bough and grass,
So starts with what is humble, plain to see,
And all familiar as a cup, a chair.

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 lightOr 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 (1882-3) 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.