“ Sang the sunning vineyard,
"Lo, the lyric sap
Sets his heart a-throbbing
Like a purple grape!"
~Mother of the wheatlands,
Mother of the plums,
Mother of the vineyard —
All that loves and grows —
Such a living glory
To the dreamer comes,
Mystic as a wheat-song,
Mighty as a rose!
Star-glint, moon-glow,
Gathered in a mesh!
Spring-hope, white fire
By a kiss beguiled!
Something of the world-joy
Dreaming into flesh!
Bird-song, vine-thrill
Quickened to a child!~
Ambition. ”

“ The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
The Dark Cavalier. [Margaret Widdemer]
I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover:
My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired;
I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness,
Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired.
I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness,
I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose ”

“ The Water Ouzel. [Harriet Monroe]
Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!
Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters!
Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges —
Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?
How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty —
Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff?
Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?
Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug
the rocks? ”

“ Irish Love Song. [Margaret Widdemer]
Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me,
The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free,
Far too clever a lover not to be having still
A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill —
Love on the field and love on the path and love in the woody glen —
(Lad, will I never see you, never your face again?) ”

“ Indeed no dedication made by youth to the ideal of the war was more complete than his. During his period with the Legion he wrote the poems by which he will be remembered, "Champagne, 1914", "Ode to the American Volunteers Fallen for France", and his exquisite "Rendezvous", published in this collection. All are beautiful and all have the exaltation which marked the soldier's spirit in the earlier years of the war. Not only did his poems foreshadow his own death, but they showed the willingness, almost eagerness, with which he offered himself. ”

“ Harbury. [Louise Driscoll]
All the men of Harbury go down to the sea in ships,
The wind upon their faces, the salt upon their lips.
The little boys of Harbury when they are laid to sleep,
Dream of masts and cabins and the wonders of the deep.
The women-folk of Harbury have eyes like the sea,
Wide with watching wonder, deep with mystery. ”

“ I have killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies upon the floor. (O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!) ”

“ Who sang the lane-rose
From her sheath,
What voice will cry them
The grief at dawn
Or say to the blackbird
You are gone?
April on the Battlefields. [Leonora Speyer]
April now walks the fields again,
Trailing her tearful leaves
And holding all her frightened buds against her heart:
Wrapt in her clouds and mists,
She walks,
Groping her way among the graves of men. ”

“ Conkling is a poet of exceedingly delicate and beautiful touch, and her gift seems to have been transmitted to her daughter, Hilda, whose poems written, or told, between the ages of five and eight, and published in a volume in 1920, prove her to be a child of remarkable poetic talent. ”

“ Listen long to their unstirred lips. From your hostages to silence,
Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting,
No victory but to him who has given all."
IV The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent.
The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh
its bright colours. ”

“ At the outbreak of the World War, Miss Cromwell and her twin sister volunteered for service in the Red Cross and were actively engaged both in canteen work and in hospital service. The strain proved too great and induced a mental depression, which, acting upon the highly sensitive nature of the sisters, caused them to feel that they had no longer a place in a world which held no refuge for beauty and quiet thought, and on their way home from France, in January of 1919, they committed suicide by jumping from the deck of the steamer Loraine. ”

“ Miss Monroe was chosen to write the ode for the dedication of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892. After some years in literary work, chiefly as an art critic, Miss Monroe founded, in October of 1912, `Poetry; A Magazine of Verse', an organ which has done much to stimulate interest in poetry and also its production, since it has become the recognized vehicle for the work of the newer school. The first "Imagist" poems appeared in its pages and it was the first to print the work of Carl Sandburg and other well-known poets of the poetic revival. ”

“ During this period he contributed poetry to the leading magazines and published several collections, of which the first, "A Summer of Love", was published in 1911 and was followed by "Trees, and Other Poems", 1914, and "Main Street and Other Poems", 1917. His work, human in mood, mellow in quality, full of tenderness and reverence for the old sanctities, soon drew to itself a large audience, an audience greatly enhanced by the poet's personal contacts. ”

“ The Chinese Nightingale. [Vachel Lindsay]
"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,
"San Francisco sleeps as the dead —
Ended license, lust and play:
Why do you iron the night away?
Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,
With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.
While the monster shadows glower and creep,
What can be better for man than sleep?"
"I will tell you a secret," Chang replied;
"My breast with vision is satisfied,
And I see green trees and fluttering wings,
And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings."
Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. ”

“ Miss Widdemer is both poet and novelist, having published several books in each field. In poetry her work includes: "The Factories with Other Lyrics", 1915; and "The Old Road to Paradise", 1918. This volume shared with that of Carl Sandburg the Columbia University Prize of $500 for the best book of poems published in 1918. In the same year Miss Widdemer was married to Robert Haven Schauffler, author of "Scum o' the Earth". She is a poet of much delicacy, and several of her poems, notably "The Dark Cavalier" in this volume, are among the best lyric work of the period. ”

“ Kemp has had a most romantic and picturesque career. He ran away from High School to go to sea, shipping first to Australia. From there he went to China, and eventually returned to America via California. Coming East again, he prepared for college at Mt. Hermon school, N.J., and entered the University of Kansas, where he remained until his graduation in his twenty-sixth year. Since then, with the exception of a winter in London, he has lived in New York, where he is associated with the Greenwich Village group of dramatic folk, both playwrights and actors. ”

“ Bynner perpetrated the clever literary hoax of "Spectra", a volume of verse in the ultra-modern manner, designed to establish a new "school" of poetry that should outdo "Imagism" and other cults then in the public eye. These poems, published under the joint authorship of Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, created much comment, and in spite of their bizarre features were taken seriously by well-known critics, who were much discomfited when the truth of the matter was known. ”

“ He is now teacher of History and English at the Morristown High School, Morristown, N.J. In 1919 Mr. Morton took the first prize, of $150, for the best poem read at the Poetry Society of America during the current year, and in 1920 he was awarded a $500 prize for one of three book manuscripts considered the best submitted to the contest of "The Lyric Society". The volume, "Ships in Harbor, and Other Poems", will be published in the autumn of 1920. Mr. Morton is one of the finest sonneteers of this period and a poet of rare and authentic gifts. ”

“ Oppenheim is a well-known short-story writer and novelist as well as poet, but we will confine ourselves to listing his work in poetry, which has in itself been voluminous. Since his first collection, "Monday Morning and Other Poems", 1909, his work has been written chiefly in free verse, or in "polyphonic poetry", to use his own term, usually in sweeping rhythms more akin to those of Whitman than to the later free-verse writers. In spirit, too, he has the Whitman mood, or rather, he is absorbed by the same great social and democratic aspects of life. Few poets see life so broadly as Mr. ”

“ Served as assistant librarian at the Astor and Lenox Libraries in New York City from 1897 to 1903. His volumes of poetry and poetic drama include: "The House of a Hundred Lights", 1900; "El Dorado, A Tragedy", 1903; "Abelard and Heloise: A Drama", 1907. Since Mr. Torrence published his last collection, he has done some of his finest work in lyric and narrative poetry, work that has appeared in the magazines and which will probably be collected soon into book form. He is a poet of vision, one of the truest voices of our day, though his work is sparse in output. ”

“ Educated at private schools and at St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md. Mr. Sterling is a poet to whom the sublimer aspects of nature and thought appeal and he has a style admirably suited to their portrayal. ”

“ After leaving college Miss Millay came to New York and became associated with the Provincetown Players for whom she wrote several one-act plays in which she herself acted the leading part. Her plays have also been produced by other companies and have attracted the attention of critics, particularly the poetic drama, "Aria da Capo", 1920. Miss Millay is one of our most gifted young poets. Her volumes of verse to date are: "Renascence, and Other Poems", 1917, and "Poems", 1920. ”

“ Mr. Aiken's first volume of poetry, "Earth Triumphant", was published in 1914, and has been followed by "Turns and Movies", 1916; "Nocturne of Remembered Spring", 1917; and "The Charnel Rose", 1918. Mr. Aiken is a keen and trenchant critic, as well as a poet, and his volume on the modern movement in poetry, "Skepticisms", is one of the finest and most stimulating contributions to the subject. [Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1930 for "Selected Poems". — A. L., 1998.] ”

“ Born in New York City and educated in the public schools of New York. Mr. Kreymborg was the founder and editor of a little magazine called `Others', which became the organ of a group of insurgent poets. Also under the title of "Others", he has issued at intervals selections from the work of these poets, forming a novel and interesting anthology. In addition to writing poetry which he has published in a collection called "Mushrooms", 1917, Mr. Kreymborg is the author of several brief poetic plays which he presents as "Poem-Mimes", performed by puppets. ”

“ Since his return to America he has been connected with the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons. His first volume, "The Human Fantasy", 1911, attracted attention by the faithfulness with which it depicted the motley life of New York. His second was "The Beloved Adventure", 1912; followed by "Love and Liberation", 1913, and "Dust and Light", 1919. The last volume, from which the selections in this anthology are taken, contains some of Mr. Wheelock's finest lyrical work, work full of the passion for beauty. ”

“ True mead slow brewed with brown malt;
But a good woman is savour and salt.
Plow, shove deep through gray loam;
Hack, sword, hack for straw-thatch home;
Guard, buckler, guard both beast and human —
God, send true man his true woman! ”

“ Mrs. Robinson has written several volumes of verse: "The Call of Brotherhood", 1912; "One Woman to Another", 1914; and "Service and Sacrifice", 1919. All show the fine ideals and gracious spirit of their writer.
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. [1869-1935] (3) Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. Educated at Harvard University. Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of great subtlety; his poems are usually studies of types and he has given us a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized as one of the finest and most distinguished poets of our time. ”

“ Graduated from Smith College in 1897 and from the American Academy of Dramatic Art, in New York City, in 1900. While at college she began writing poetry and the year after her graduation won the first prize offered by the `Century Magazine' for a poem written by a college graduate. This poem, "The Road 'Twixt Heaven and Hell", was printed in the `Century Magazine' for December, 1898, and was followed soon after by the publication of Miss Branch's first volume, "The Heart of the Road", 1901. ”