TO A KATYDID

I rather like the music

You make at night for me;

From far and near your song I hear,
From weed and bush and tree.

The roses long have faded,

The wild flowers in the vale

Are overthrown and widely strewn
By every little gale.

The pleasant sea of summer

Is more than half waycrossed,

And now you sing-not of the spring,
But "Frost-six weeks of frost!"

I know as well as you do

That summer's on the wane,
A shadowy brown is settling down

On valley, hill and plain.

But I would fain forget it,

Which I perhaps might do

But for your song, which all night long

My window echoes through.

Six weeks and all the glamour
Of outdoor work is lost,

Is that a thing for one to sing?

"Six weeks! Six weeks to frost!"

JAMES J. MONTAGUE.

Copyright, 1924, by The Bell Syndicate, Inc.

A DESERTED FARM

One April when the harrowed fields were dark
Beside the home one set this apple-tree,
And both grew old together: men could see
The lichens gathering on roof or bark.
Others grew old as well, and all could mark
The gray hairs where the yellow used to be.
The wind arose, the loosened leaf went free,
And two there were that heard the lark no more.

GEORGE STERLING.

From The Century Magazine.

PAN ADDRESSES MODERN POETS

Sunsets, rainbows, birds and flowers
Are the themes of which you sing.
Brooks and mountains, stars and moonlight
In unending songs you bring.
Thus each poet in succession
Empties to the world his soul.
But eternal repetition

Should not be the poet's goal.
Blind and deaf to all about you,

You forget to soar and dream.
Have you lost prophetic vision,
Source of each poetic stream?
Men are still upon you leaning
As they did long, long ago,
Seeking from you inspiration
For their days of weal and woe.

There are epics in the making
Which a Homer would create-
Wondrous tragedies enacted

Daily here beside your gate.
Yours the task these themes heroic
To emblaze with form sublime
For the unborn generations,
Welded by immortal rhyme.

I would summon all you poets

Round Olympus' mountain-side
For a world-flight, well equipping
Each his Pegasus to ride.
Greater vision I would give you

As beneath the heights you throng,
And in thunder-tones command you:
Off for universal song!

From Interludes, Baltimore.

CRESCENT MOON

The sight, I think, is more than odd:
Outside the roadhouse kept by God,
The lounging stars, with youthful din,
Shout down the banqueting within,
And with their socialistic roar
Persuade the Landlord to the door.

JOHN H. HORST.

The stars with mocking laughter fly
Across the prairies of the sky,
While after the vexatious gang
God hurls a silver boomerang.
I hope it will not turn and strike
A kind old Gentleman I like!

VINCENT STARRETT.

POETS AND POETRY

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

[MR BRYANT'S INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.]

So large a collection of poems as this demands of its compiler an extensive familiarity with the poetic literature of our language, both of the early and the later time, and withal so liberal a taste as not to exclude any variety of poetic merit. At the request of the Publishers I undertook to write an Introduction to the present work, and in pursuance of this design I find that I have come into a somewhat closer personal relation with the book. Ir its progress it has passed entirely under my revision, and, although not absolutely responsible for the compilation of its arrangement, I have, as requested, exer cised a free hand both in excluding and in adding matter according to my judgment of what was best adapted to the purposes of the enterprise. Such, however, is the wide range of English verse, and such the abundance of the materials, that a compilation of this kind must be like a bouquet gathered from the fields in June, when hundreds of flowers will be left in unvisited spots as beautiful as those which have been taken. It may happen, therefore, that many who have learned to delight in some particular poem will turn these pages, as they might those of other collections, without finding their favorite. Nor should it be matter of surprise, considering the multitude of authors from whom the compilation is made, if it be found that some are overlooked, especially the more recent, of equal merit with many whose poems appear in these pages. It may happen, also, that the compiler, in consequence of some particular association, has been sensible of a beauty and 2 power of awakening emotions and recalling images in certain poems which other readers will fail to perceive. It should be considered, moreover, that in poetry, as in painting, different artists have different modes of presenting their conceptions, each of which may possess its peculiar merit, yet those whose taste is formed by contemplating the productions of one class take little pleasure in any other. Crabb Robinson relates that Wordsworth once admitted to him that he did not much admire contemporary poetry, not because of its want of poetic merit, but because he had been accustomed to poetry of a different sort, and added that but for this he might have read it with pleasure. I quote from memory.