THE BEST POETRY OF 1914

I. TEN BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A SMALL LIBRARY.

* Certain volumes of new poetry and collected editions are drawn to the individual reader’s notice by an asterisk employed to indicate special poetic distinction.

* The East I Know. By Paul Claudel. Translated from the French by Teresa Frances and William Rose Benét. (Yale University Press: $1.25 net.) A volume of prose poems by one of the greatest poets living in the world to-day. Although Paul Claudel is unknown to English readers, his influence is the strongest shaping force there is on the young poetry of most European countries. This volume is as much of a literary event as the publication of John Synge’s first volume in this country. I know of no living writer of whom we may more confidently predict immortality for his work. The present volume reveals the soul of China in wonderful strophes, and though perhaps the slightest of Claudel’s books, is the volume by which Claudel may be most fittingly introduced to the American public. If any reader can set down this volume without realizing that a great new force in literature and life has been born into the world, he is incapable of imaginative appreciation.

* The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime. By Emily Dickinson. (Little, Brown, & Co.: $1.25 net.) A new volume by one of the world’s great spiritual artists, which contains much poetry that is imperishable as an integral part of American literature. With Blake’s naked uncompromising vision, and his absorption in the eternal shadows of mortality, she has a personal and fragrant beauty of feeling and expression which is unique and incomparable. Her verses are like flashes of lightning illumining the chaos of our material existence. The Single Hound is the rich legacy of a great spiritual imagination. There are few books in American poetry of which we can more confidently predict immortality.

* Collected Poems. By Norman Gale. (Macmillan: $1.50 net.) The poet’s choice of the lyrics and longer poems by which he wishes to be definitely remembered. Indispensable to every library. No poet since the Elizabethans has managed to convey such an infectious joy into pastoral poetry, and the best of these poems are permanent treasure trove for the anthologist. Such a volume as this would alone dignify a season.

* Georgian Poetry. Edited by E. M. (Putnam: $1.50 net.) A superb collection of representative poems by the younger English writers who have won their reputation in the last four or five years. This book, which has gone through nine English editions already, should meet with as great success in this country. Here, and here only, will you find the authentic younger singers adequately represented by hitherto unpublished work. If this volume introduces Rupert Brooke and Lascelles Abercrombie to America, it will have done our literature a service great enough to justify its publication.

* The Congo and Other Poems. By Vachel Lindsay. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A new volume of verse by Mr. Lindsay, whose first book was the most significant publication in American poetry last year. While this book does not mark an advance, many of the poems written to be chanted aloud fully sustain the poet’s reputation, and the volume is graced with a selection of the best and less strident of the Rhymes to be Traded for Bread. As the poetic interpreter of the Middle West, Mr. Lindsay is performing a great social service, as well as a great service to poetry by bringing it into the homes and hearts of the people. The Firemen’s Ball and I Heard Immanuel Singing have qualities of permanence, and in the former Mr. Lindsay has perfected a new medium of poetic expression. But we are in danger of losing sight of Mr. Lindsay’s more delicate talent by virtue of which he is preëminently a poet

* The Present Hour: A Book of Poems. By Percy MacKaye. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) The poems dealing with the present war reaffirm Mr. MacKay’s authority of utterance, and the best of the sonnets surpass William Watson’s “The Purple East.” But it is in “Fight” and “School” that the poet has at last found himself and invented a medium admirably fitted to express what he desires. These two poems have all the distinction of Masefield with the originality and shrewdness of New England feeling, and a homeliness which is unique in contemporary poetry. The volume includes many poems of occasion, all adequate, and in the case of “Goethals” and one or two others, noble. So far, Mr. MacKaye’s best volume of poems.

* The Complete Poems of S. Weir Mitchell. (Century Co.: $2.00 net.) The definitive edition of Dr. Mitchell’s poetry revised according to his final wishes. It should serve to make known to the present generation the graceful contemplative poetry of that rival to America’s other distinguished physician-poet, Dr. Holmes. Dr. Mitchell’s poems of occasion at their best are equal to the best of Dr. Holmes, while his “Ode to a Lycian Tomb” surpasses “The Chambered Nautilus.” It is one of the anomalies of literature that Dr. Mitchell’s novels have so long overshadowed his poetry. In this volume the best of his dramatic work is included, and “Drake” is a play of poetic distinction in its way. The volume may rest pleasantly with its peers on the same library shelf with the poems of Longfellow and Holmes. It is the harvest of sixty years devoted to poetry.

* Songs for the New Age. By James Oppenheim. (Century Co.: $1.25 net.) The most significant volume of new poetry of the year 1914, as Vachel Lindsay’s General William Booth Enters Into Heaven was the most significant volume of 1913. With more self-conscious art than Whitman, in the verse form which Whitman was once thought to have perfected, Mr. Oppenheim sings the joys and sorrows of the race now and to come. The vision of these poems is swift and sure: their philosophy, mature and American. If there is one volume of verse this year which we might safely recommend to every American man and woman who has not read poetry before, it is this book, where they will find their dreams and strivings sung and interpreted in a book which has qualities of greatness. The form of these poems is so difficult to shape perfectly that Mr. Oppenheim’s technical achievement can only be characterized as masterly. The volume is the only one in which the use of “polyrhythmic verse” can claim complete justification since Leaves of Grass, and its art is as individual as its matter. Songs for the New Age may reaffirm much of Whitman, but they do not echo him. The volume will prove more and more satisfying with each rereading. And its message to the American people may not pass unheeded.

* The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems. By Henry Van Dyke. (Scribner: $1.25 net.) Poetry of the quality familiar to Dr. Van Dyke’s readers, and fully equal to the poetry in his earlier volumes. To the more serious poems are added several delightfully humorous poems of occasion, among which Ars Agricolaris is a classic of its kind.

* The Flight, and Other Poems. By George Edward Woodberry. (Macmillan $1.25 net.) Mr. Woodberry’s finest volume of verse, in which he gives expression to many moods of intellectual beauty and a philosophy of the ideal akin to Shelley. It contains one lyric, Comrades, absolutely peerless and worthy to be set beside Browning’s The Guardian Angel, if it does not surpass it. These poems are the fruit of a ripe culture and a passionate idealism thoroughly American in its voicing of its message. One of the most completely satisfying volumes of the year.

II. TWENTY-FIVE BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A LARGER LIBRARY.

The List of ten books printed above and the following fifteen titles:—

* In Deep Places. By Amelia Josephine Burr. (Doran: $1.00 net.) Fine dramatic monologues and narrative poems, which represent a great advance over Miss Burr’s previous book. Jehane is a worthy sequel to The Haystack in the Floods by William Morris. Allah is With the Patient and other narrative poems are related in a blank verse of firm yet varied texture. Miss Burr’s dramatic imagination interprets Italy and England in human terms, and travel has afforded her lyric opportunities to which she has responded sensitively and well. With this volume Miss Burr has come to stay.

* The Little King. By Witter Bynner. (Kennerley: $.60 net.) A stark one-act play in verse of swift sure dramatic nerve about the little son of Marie Antoinette. With great economy of material and vivid historic imagination, Mr. Bynner has made The Little King human and poignant in his brief little tragedy.

* Earth Deities, and Other Rhythmic Masques. By Bliss Carman and Mary Perry King. (Kennerley: $1.50 net.) Four masques of earth with Mr. Carman’s old familiar lyric quality directed into fresh and living channels. Each of them would afford a rare delight to an audience, particularly if accompanied by the rhythmic dances which have been designed for them by Mary Perry King.

* Poetical Works. By Edward Dowden. In two volumes. (Dutton: $4.00 net.) A permanent and integral part of English literature. It is gratifying to find tardy justice done at last to the merits of the late Professor Dowden as a poet. Those who care for the work of Mr. Woodberry will find the same qualities in Dowden’s poetry, but in a larger and more authoritative voice. Moreover, he is one of the great nineteenth century sonneteers. His many hymns to intellectual beauty have not an undistinguished line in them, and as a lyric poet his singing quality is infectious. This is the first edition of his poems since 1876, and contains many which have never been collected before. The second volume is a pleasant translation of Goethe’s, The West Eastern Divan. It will not greatly interest admirers of Prof. Dowden’s work, and should be sold separately.

* Borderlands and Thoroughfares. By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) Mr. Gibson’s fourth volume in three years. Though not equal to his earlier books, it will well repay the lover of poetry. The first section, entitled Borderlands consists of three dramatic dialogues in free verse which aim with some success to be simple, sensuous, and passionate. Hoops is one of Mr. Gibson’s most satisfactory poems. The second section, entitled Thoroughfares comprises shorter poems, many of which are dramatic monologues, and of these Solway Ford and The Gorse represent Mr. Gibson’s best. As we have said elsewhere, Mr. Gibson’s art “satisfies our æsthetic emotions and fulfils our social needs.”

* Aroun’ the Boreens: A Little Book of Celtic Verse. By Agnes I. Hanrahan. (Badger: $1.00 net.) A slight volume of Irish songs equal to the very best by Eva Gore-Booth or Mrs. Hinkson, and tipped with a more delicate art. The volume should be on every shelf beside Moira O’Neill’s Songs of the Glens of Antrim.

* The Cry of Youth. By Harry Kemp. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.) Terse ringing ballads of modern life with much of Buchanan’s quality and keen technique. Despite the propagandist note, which is less insistent than in most poetry of a socialistic tendency, Mr. Kemp has succeeded with some quiet reserve in making the reader feel the pity of lonely outcast life, and in expressing his philosophy in genuine poetry. The sincerity of his work is unquestionable, and the volume merits a critical attention on its merits which we should be anxious to assist. The Cry of Youth is not written solely for an audience of poets and critics. It is genuine poetry of cruelly naked emotion borne unflinchingly.

* Songs of the Dead End. By Patrick MacGill. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.) Poetry of labor and poetry without a brief in about equal measure. Though the former is fine, Mr. MacGill’s best work is to be found in the latter. The poet has been a navvy, a miner, a switchman, a car-coupler, a tramp, and a plate-layer, and out of grinding poverty and toil his poetry has emerged. There is danger of a wrong emphasis on his social poetry. It is good, but not better than that of several others. The less premeditated lyrics will give the greatest pleasure to the reader, and to many of them one will turn again and again.

* Philip the King, and Other Poems. By John Masefield. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A one-act play in verse which is competent but would not be distinctive were it not for a superb ballad of the Armada, which challenges comparison with Drayton. Four other poems of strong beauty which redeem the rest of the volume, and make it necessary to poetry lovers. The notable war-poem entitled August, 1914, is included.

* The Wine-Press: A Tale of War. By Alfred Noyes. (Stokes: $.60 net.) A tale of the horror of war and its blind futility, whose scene is laid in the Balkans. It is told with all of Mr. Noyes’s art and its awful lesson should be particularly timely in the midst of the present struggle. The poem is a hymn to liberty passionately voiced, and brings death and suffering home in relentless poetry.

* Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. By Morris Rosenfeld. Translated from the Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. (Badger: $.75 net.) An excellent translation of the poems of an American Yiddish poet of poignant beauty, whose work has hitherto not been accessible to English readers except in an incomplete prose version. The present translation includes many poems now published for the first time, and is adorned with two remarkable illustrations in black and white which reveal new possibilities in line. A volume which deserves to go through many editions.

* Poems. By Clinton Scollard. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) A selection of Mr. Scollard’s best poems from his numerous volumes. It should serve to define his place in American poetry, which is beside Mr. Cawein. Delicate fancy and a love of nature which is not vague are united to an opulence of expression which has not always done Mr. Scollard service, but which in almost every poem in this volume results in giving the pleasure of fine poetic sensation to the discriminating reader.

Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time. (Lane: $.75 net.) A collection of the best poems by English poets inspired by the war, issued for the benefit of the Prince of Wales Fund. The total profits of the volume are turned over to this fund for relief work, and the purchaser will not only procure a volume whose significance will be more and more realised as time passes, but will be contributing in small measure to this charitable work.

* Challenge. By Louis Untermeyer. (Century Co.: $1.00 net) One of the most significant new volumes of the year. With much of Shelley’s social enthusiasm and a genuine inspiration, he sings the strength and weakness of our democracy with the eagerness of youth. This is a volume whose significance will grow as the years go by, and it should be associated with Mr. Oppenheim’s new volume on which comment will be found elsewhere. Although democracy is the substance of his song, yet the feeling for beauty’s essence which here finds lyrical expression is the most substantially satisfying quality of his work.

III. SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF SIGNIFICANT BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A LARGE LIBRARY

* Earth Triumphant, and Other Tales in Verse. By Conrad Aiken. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) Three narrative poems of distinction, followed by shorter poems interpreting the philosophy of youth. They suggest comparison with the longer poems of John Masefield, but have a firm independent technique of their own. With genuine beauty they relate tales which reveal the heart of modern life in various phases of youth, and contain a reading of earth which differs in essentials from that of Meredith. The volume deserves a wider audience than the usual public which cares for poetry. It has a message which every American will appreciate, and if it helps to spread an interest in poetry among new circles of readers, it will only be fulfilling its mission. It is a distinguished first book of verse.

Poems. By Walter Conrad Arensberg. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.00 net.) The most artistic volume of poetry this year in its technique. Aloofness, controlled emotion, conscious art, are the characteristics of his poetry. Despite an occasional bizarrerie, despite echoes of Verlaine and Laforgue, Mr. Arensberg is a classicist. His technique is faultless. Each line is not only exquisite in itself, but it is perfectly coördinated with every other line. If these poems leave the reader cold, they offer an abundant intellectual compensation for the “thrills” of other poets. The special qualities of his verse are unique in American poetry, and will surely appeal to a discriminating circle, though his work is unlikely to become popular.

The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont. Edited by Eloise Robinson. (Houghton-Mifflin: $5.00 net.) An authoritative text of Joseph Beaumont’s minor poems edited from a manuscript in the possession of Professor George Herbert Palmer. The poems are preceded by a critical introduction and followed by a brief but careful textual apparatus. While Beaumont was a very minor poet, the fact remains that he was a significant member of the group of metaphysical poets of whom Vaughan was the greatest, and this volume must take its place in any collection of English poetry which claims to be even reasonably complete.

The Falconer of God, and Other Poems. By William Rose Benét. (Yale University Press: $1.25 net.) Mr. Benét’s second collection marks an advance in facility combined with a greater restraint and reticence. It includes many fine ballads, and several dramatic soliloquies only surpassed this year by those in Miss Burr’s new volume. Although there is much which is experimental in the book, it is successful experiment, and Mr. Benét’s range of expression is continually broadening.

* Auguries. By Laurence Binyon. (Lane: $1.00 net.) One of the most satisfying collections of verse of a noteworthy poet who is too little known and appreciated in this country. Its grave classical beauty will never assure it popularity, but at its best it is worthy to stand beside Mr. Bridges, and it contains no poem that is not excellent. Ferry Hinksey is a lyric which no future anthologist can overlook. Next to Mr. Arensberg’s poems, the most satisfying new volume artistically of the year. It demands silence and complete surrender.

Broad-Sheet Ballads. With An Introduction by Padraic Colum. (Norman, Remington: $.75 net.) A narrow, but good, selection of the best of the Broad-Sheet Ballads which occupy so definite a place in Irish poetry. These waifs and strays have been gathered previously in various collections, but never before in a volume calculated to appeal to the general public. An introduction telling the story of this form of art and the characteristics of its audiences and appeal to them is prefixed.

* Syrinx: Pastels of Hellas. By Mitchell S. Buck. (Claire-Marie: $1.25 net.) A volume of prose poems of reticent Pagan art, suggestive of the best work of Pierre Louys. Unique in American poetry, and really beautiful.

In the High Hills. By Maxwell Struthers Burt. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) The verse in this volume is of a kind that has eminent qualities without eminent distinction. The earnestness and sincerity of Mr. Burt’s poetic moods give to his poetry those sound qualities which at least compel attention, if they do not excite the emotions. The elements of poetry are not fused with imaginative heat in his work, and hence it lacks magic, but it reflects the gentlemanly feeling of a lover of poetry in verse which demands respect.

The Sun-Thief, and Other Poems. By Rhys Carpenter. (Oxford University Press: $1.75 net.) Competent academic verse on classical models, including a new version of the Prometheus legend.

The Poet and Nature: What He Saw and What He Heard. By Madison Cawein. (John P. Morton & Co.: Louisville, Kentucky. $1.50.) A volume of prose and verse designed to encourage a love of poetry in children. The first half of the volume is in the form of a juvenile story with previously published lyrics of Mr. Cawein interspersed as examples of poetic beauty: the second half of the volume consists of hitherto uncollected poems of nature by Mr. Cawein now gathered together under the title of The Morning Road. This part of the volume should give especial pleasure to Mr. Cawein’s readers.

Green Days and Blue Days. By Patrick R. Chalmers. (Norman, Remington: $1.00 net.) A pleasant volume of light verse by a contributor to Punch. The verses do not pretend to be more than agreeable diversions, and reflect the lighter moods of life happily and in delicate numbers.

At the Shrine, and Other Poems. By George Herbert Clarke. (Stewart and Kidd: $1.25 net.) A pleasant unassuming collection of somewhat academic verse reflecting a life of scholarly leisure. The closing section of letters in verse to departed novelists is particularly happy, recalling at no great distance the similar work of Austin Dobson.

* Path Flower. By Olive Tilford Dargan. (Scribner: $1.25 net.) With this volume of lyrical poems Olive Tilford Dargan definitely takes her place as one of our foremost younger poets. With much of Francis Thompson’s vision of an overarching heaven and a shadowed earth, and also much of Thompson’s mannerism, she is herself in the best of these poems, in which she treats high themes with high artistic fervor. Her feeling for landscape is English in its delicacy, and she has interpreted the influence of nature on human life and its incidence with clear insight and sympathy. No one will deny Mrs. Dargan’s poetic inspiration or the refinement of her vision.

Florence on a Certain Night, and Other Poems. By Coningsby Dawson. (Holt: $1.25 net.) A volume of undistinguished literary verse by a distinguished novelist.

* America and Other Poems. By W. J. Dawson. (Lane: $1.25 net.) The expression of an ideal America as seen by one with an alien tradition. The volume includes several fine ballad narratives, notably “The Kiss,” “Salome,” and the swift sure rhythmic “Last Ride of the Sheik Abdullah;” above all, “Blake’s Homecoming,” a member of the royal line of English ballads. In addition to competent lyrics on various themes, special attention should be called to the poems of childhood and the delicately imagined meditative poems of religious feeling. So many religious poems rely wholly on a good intention, “more fit to pave Hell than cause rejoicing in Heaven,” as a French critic says, that exceptions should be noted. The volume marks an appreciable advance over Dr. Dawson’s previous collections.

A Pageant of the Thirteenth Century for the Seven Hundredth Anniversary of Roger Bacon. The Text by John Erskine. (Columbia University Press.) A pageant reflecting the culture and endeavor of the thirteenth century in every field. The text is in verse of fine texture and imaginative expression by Professor Erskine of Columbia University. While the pageant itself has been deferred because of the war, it is still possible to enjoy the text, and to look forward to the pageant’s representation in the near future.

Lux Juventutis: A Book of Verse. By Katharine A. Esdaile. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) The first volume of a young English poet who shows considerable promise. It is characterised by classical restraint and a fine feeling for form, and does not lack singing quality.

* Sonnets from the Patagonian. By Donald Evans. (Claire-Marie: $1.25 net.) Eighteen impressionistic sonnets of exotic workmanship, suggesting the fantasy of Laforgue, but more extremely composed in disembodied words. They rely on tone color for much of their effect, and are bizarre to the point of irony. However, they grow on the reader as he becomes familiar with them, and their consummate art is unquestionable.

* Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter. By Arthur Davison Ficke. (Kennerley: $1.00 net.) A sequence of fifty-seven sonnets in an undeservedly neglected form, which do not recall too definitely Meredith’s Modern Love. They are extremely subtle and their intellectual content is very closely woven, so that they will prove difficult reading, but they repay careful study, and in many sonnets the lyric impulse has happily overmastered the poet completely. A collection which is worthy of several readings.

* Arrows in the Gale. By Arturo Giovannitti. (Hillacre Bookhouse, Riverside, Connecticut: $1.25 net.) One of the more important volumes of new verse this year. A passionate voicing of social injustice in imaginative strophes, which introduce a new poetic form with considerable art. The Cage, when printed in the Atlantic Monthly, last year, was called the most significant poem published in that periodical since Moody’s Ode in Time of Hesitation. The volume claims a hearing as fine poetry rather than as an expression of Syndicalism. There is an appreciative introduction by Helen Keller which is good criticism.

* My Lady’s Book. By Gerald Gould. (Kennerley: $1.00 net.) Twenty lyrics of pure song quality which are almost faultless in their perfection, though in a minor key. A volume to afford pure delight by its unaffected lyric quality.

Poems. By Katharine Howard. (Sherman, French: $1.00 net.) Minor verse in vers libre, which is frequently pleasing and always individual. It is the expression of a whimsical personality who wears her singing robes lightly, and who is most successful in verse of macabre suggestion.

* Des Imagistes: An Anthology. (Boni: $1.00.) The best collection of “imagiste” poetry, in which the work of Ford Madox Hueffer, F. S. Flint, Amy Lowell, and others is represented. There are many poems in the volume which will give pleasure, but as a collection it is uneven and rather tenuous. The work of F. S. Flint which it contains justifies the volume’s purchase.

The Thresher’s Wife. By Harry Kemp. (Boni: $.40 net.) A narrative poem well told in the manner of Masefield, whose influence upon it has been great.

* Trees, and Other Poems. By Joyce Kilmer. (Doran: $1.00 net.) The spirit of youth and grave faith expressed in lyric numbers. This slight little book defines a personality of poetic interest. The book shows less alien influence than most recent American poetry, and is quite individual in its affirmations. Though unassuming, the book will not meet with just treatment unless we recognize the fine lyric accomplishment of such poems as Trees and Martin. Is this volume the prelude of a little Catholic Renaissance in American poetry?

* The Shadow of Ætna. By Louie V. Ledoux. (Putnam: $1.00 net.) Severely chaste poetry on classical models of distinguished beauty. They reveal fine intellectual feeling that recalls Shelley in its intensity and Arnold in its disciplined reticence. They have all the warmth of life seen against an eternal background, and a passionate message which cannot go unheeded.

* The Sharing. By Agnes Lee. (Sherman, French: $1.00 net.) Agnes Lee’s new book has all her familiar qualities, but in addition it presents a new criticism of life which reveals a feeling for human values akin in many respects to that of Browning. In its brevity and search for the polished word, it suggests the sculptor’s art, and many of these poems would have pleased Landor for their freight of suggestion and elemental simplicity.

* Sword Blades and Poppy Seed. By Amy Lowell. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A volume, not only of interesting experiment in vers libre and exotic rhythms, but of notable accomplishment in poetry. Though associated with the “imagiste” school of English poetry, Miss Lowell’s talent is independent of it, and in her narrative and lyric poems alike one feels an artistic firmness and restraint which results in clear vision clearly sung. Best of all, this “imagiste” poetry is healthy and able to fight for its existence. In so far as it is derivative from French influences it adds a new note to English verse, and reveals a subtle use of free cadenced rhythms which is fully responsive to the mood and feeling of the poem. Far more genuine and spontaneous than Miss Lowell’s first volume.

The Passing Singer and Other Poems. By Samuel Henry Marcus. (Stratford Pub. Co.: $1.00 net.) A modest first volume which is likely to receive less attention than it deserves. Mr. Marcus has not yet found himself in poetry, but he sings the present condition of humanity sincerely and passionately. When he sings it simply, he will be more satisfying, but this volume will give pleasure to any one who really cares for poetry.

* Poems. By Edward Sandford Martin. (Scribner: $1.50 net.) The collected verse of the Editor of Life. Mellow Horatian philosophy and wit not yet frost-bitten by a man whom Dr. Johnson would have pronounced clubbable and with whom Boswells must feel uncomfortable.

You and I. By Harriet Monroe. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A bulky volume of verse by the editor of Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse. In it the social note is voiced strongly, and expression is given to many phases of modern effort, but its intellectual content rather overshadows its lyric quality.

* The Sea is Kind. By T. Sturge Moore. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.50 net.) This is the first collection issued in America of the poems of an English craftsman of great distinction and power, whose chief weakness is an over-proportion of intellectual substance. He lacks the glow of beauty, and perhaps of beauty’s realization, but his work is literary craftsmanship of the highest order, and his metrical experiments are almost as significant as those of Mr. Bridges. Altogether the artistic product of a richly stored mind without aspiration or imaginative vision.

* Saloon Sonnets: With Sunday Flutings. By Allen Norton. (Claire-Marie: $1.25 net.) A volume less bizarre than its title implies. The sonnets bear evidence of ueberkultur, but occasionally surprise the reader by their pleasant lyric charm. They do not lack virility and enthusiasm.

The Sister of the Wind. By Grace Fallow Norton. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.00 net.) A new volume by the author of Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph’s which is most disappointing. In a poet of Miss Norton’s quality, it is inevitable that there should be always something to repay the reader, but this volume is singularly unrepresentative of Miss Norton’s real powers.

Celtic Memories. By Norreys Jephson O’Conor. (Lane: $1.00 net.) A first volume of some promise by a recent graduate of Harvard, whose Irish feeling is drawn directly from experience, but whose expression is still drawn chiefly from books.

* The Ebon Muse and Other Poems by Léon Laviaux. Englished by John Myers O’Hara. (Smith and Sale: $2.00 net.) Translations from the work of a young Creole poet, glorifying the “fille de couleur” in love poetry of original beauty. Differing from Latin and Oriental passion alike, it reveals a type of feminine beauty which is wholly new to Northern readers.

* An Epilogue To the Praise of Angus and Other Poems. By Seumas O’Sullivan. (Norman, Remington Co.: $.75 net.) A thin sheaf of delicate poems by one of the foremost poets of the New Ireland. Akin in certain aspects of his vision to “Æ,” who does not surpass him, his verses have more singing quality, and he is a successful experimenter in various new verse forms which reproduce cadences in ancient Irish music.

* One Woman to Another, and Other Poems. By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson. (Scribner: $1.25 net.) Dramatic monologues and sonnets of sharply etched lines whose competence is unquestionable, and a more satisfying reality of human feeling than in Mrs. Robinson’s previous volume. The volume will give much intellectual and some emotional pleasure, and in two or three lyrics the poet has achieved high ground.

* Beyond the Breakers, and other Poems. By George Sterling. (Robertson: $1.25 net.) This is Mr. Sterling’s first thoroughly satisfying book. It includes the superb “Ode on the Centenary of the Birth of Robert Browning,” and poems of such importance as “Tidal, King of Nations,” “Willy Pitcher,” “The Mission Swallows,” “Past the Panes,” and “You Never Can Tell.” We must call particular attention to the vision of the noble ode entitled “Beyond the Sunset.” With less opulent diction and heady imagination than Mr. Sterling’s earlier volumes, Beyond the Breakers shows a disciplined vision expressed with a disciplined technique.

Open Water. By Arthur Stringer. (Lane: $1.00 net) A collection of delicate pictures expressing many frail and drifting moods phrased in vers libre not yet quite sure of itself. The volume contains much quiet beauty, and is prefaced by a plea for vers libre of considerable documentary and critical value. A volume which the lover of poetry can scarcely neglect.

Idylls of Greece. Third Series. By Howard V. Sutherland. (Fitzgerald: $1.00 net) Modest idylls of Greek fable telling with some passages of beauty the tales of “Idas and Marpessa,” “Rhodanthe,” “Sappho and Phaon,” and “Œnone.” The blank verse, though not firm, is of well-wrought texture, and Mr. Sutherland expresses feelingly the fleeting beauty of Pagan love and Hellenic landscape. Mr. Sutherland’s three volumes merit more attention than they have received.

The Poems of François Villon. Translated by H. De Vere Stacpoole. (Lane: $1.50 net) A convenient edition of Villon’s best work, in which a reasonably accurate text of the two Testaments and the best of the Ballades and Rondels is printed, together with a running commentary, a vivid introduction, and translations of some of the shorter poems with dubious success. However, the volume is the best popular service to Villon that has yet been performed in this country, and should be on the library shelf.

* Little Verse for a Little Clan. By F.D.W. (Published Privately: Not for Sale.) A slight little volume of thirty-five pages of delicate workmanship, which contain poems that make the book rank among the very best of the year. I know of very few books written by Americans which would afford the pleasure to discriminating readers that this volume would offer were it to be published in a form accessible to all. It is as delicate, at its best, as Beeching and Mackail’s Love in Idleness, and will please all lovers of A Shropshire Lad. It is just the sort of book which Mr. Mosher used to delight in finding for the American public. I shall be glad to give further information about it to inquirers.

Eris: A Dramatic Allegory. By Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff. (Moffat, Yard, and Co.: $1.00 net.) A short dramatic allegory in which the elements of poetry are present, but which is hardly successful in fusing them into life. There are several pages of genuine poetry which prove the certainty of the poet’s ultimate accomplishment, and much competent craftsmanship. This is an honest book, whose weakness is that the imagination of the reader has no suggestive substance to feed upon.

Justification: A Philosophic Phantasy. By John H. White. (Richard G. Badger: $1.00.) A poem in four short cantos and though philosophic in conception is full of abstract idealisms. The author has a fruitful imagination, but his reasoning on the origin and destiny of human life is profound. The verse, though concrete, is flexible.

* The Collected Poems of Margaret L. Woods. (Lane: $1.50 net.) The definitive edition of the poetry and drama of a great weaver of words and emotion, who unites to much of Lionel Johnson’s repressed sombreness a sustained beauty of musical effect which was characteristic of the earlier poet. Mrs. Woods has performed for Oxford the poetic service that Johnson performed for Winchester, and in other poems has added new immortalities to Westminster Abbey’s crown. The plays are finely wrought and deeply felt, and together with the lyrics, place Mrs. Woods in the authentic English poetic line.