Helen Parry Eden

“ Bellows beneath his borrowed baldaquin.
Cocytus still sobs past him, on its brink
He lays nice odds which souls emerge or sink,
Paddles his bovine hoofs in the spilt bliss
Of Love, and in the tearfullest abyss
Angles for little jests. ”

“ Big girls and little, ranged in sizes,
All waiting for the Personage
To make the speech and give the prizes.
And there, all rosy from her rôle, [Pg 39]
Betsey with sturdy valiance bore her,
Nor did she recognize a soul
But braved the buzzing room before her
With such resolve that guest on guest,
And many a smiling nun behind them,
Met her eyes obviously addressed
To proving that she did not mind them.
(So might a kitchen kitten see—
Whose thoughts round housemaids' heels are centred—
The awful drawing-room's company
He inadvertently has entered.) ”

“ And strut to meet their sovereign on strips of scarlet baize;
But Peter, Peter Pigeon, salutes his cradle days.
The pigeons build in Bloomsbury; they rear their classic homes
Where pedants clamber sable steps to search forgotten tomes ”

“ Eden at once secures for herself a place by her first volume in the distinctively literary class of her day. It is the best volume of light verse that has been issued for many a year."—Clement Shorter, in The Sphere. ”

“ If Ann and Jane Taylor had lived in the twentieth century and taken to keeping poultry for profit in war time, they would probably have had a laudable desire to inculcate the principles and practice of hen-keeping among the young. ”

“ Morning Post: "Once again these clever collaborators play up to the cheery souls on the Western Front, and their new consignment of the munitions of merriment will be even more sought after than the first volume. ”

“ G. K. Chesterton, in The New Witness.
"Poems ... which competent critics consider the noblest devotional poetry written since the death of Francis Thompson."—Joyce Kilmer, in the New York Independent.
"She can work innocence into art without damaging the dew on it: the very cunning of her verse seems indeed a kind of added candour—a sort of celestial mischief that proves the possession of the full freedom of heaven."—Dixon Scott, in the Liverpool Daily Courier.
[Pg 86]
RECENT VERSE
CHRIST IN HADES
By Stephen Phillips. ”

“ With a Foreword by M. P. Willcocks, and nine Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
Land and Water: "I cannot forbear the pleasure of quoting from a book that will soon be by the side of Lindsay Gordon's poems on the shelves of all those who love the poetry of out-of-doors."
THERE IS NO DEATH
Poems by the late Richard Dennys. With an Introduction by Captain Desmond Coke,
and a Photogravure Portrait of the Author.
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
Globe: "This graceful verse is distinguished by its manly tone and vigorous quality."
THE DAY and Other Poems
By Henry Chappell. ”

“ Caress the children's knees.
But he, betrothed to etiquette,
Betrays nor head nor heart;
Lone as the Ark on Ararat,
A monument of fur and fat,
Decorum and the butcher's cat
Are seldom far apart.
[Pg 55] PETER PIGEON
THE pigeons dwell in Pimlico ”

“ This Christmas the Dennys Girl will become as well established as the Gibson Girl."
ODES TO TRIFLES, and Other War Rhymes
Poems by R. M. Eassie (Sergt. 5th Canadian Infantry)
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
The Times: "Humorous verse, by a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, in which every stanza gets well home; written with a refreshing air of conviction and a real wit which scintillates the more sharply because not a word of it could be spared."
FLOWER-NAME FANCIES
Designed and Written by Guy Pierre Fauconnet. ”