almost exclusively of pieces regular in form. There are only two or three in free verse, although good love poems have been written in that mood. And always the poems are delicate, in mood as well as texture; although woman is not always delicate. There are no poems of rebellion against love, against the hampering it works or against its compulsion. Love is a Terrible Thing may be excepted, but here too the expression is almost too dainty. There is one poem taunting a man with his unworthiness to be loved, but never any mood of arraignment toward love or toward man in general. The book is perfectly entitled, and perhaps the title in its turn put constraint upon the selection of content. One regrets that none of the compiler's own songs are included. H. H. Poems of Heinrich Heine, Selected and Translated by Louis Untermeyer. Henry Holt & Co. Mr. Untermeyer's selection does justice to Heine's range; the translation itself may be fairly tested by: First, Ich kam von meiner Herrin Haus, from Die Traumbilder. This is Heine's Spoon River bit. It has a romantic glamour adequate to ghosts who gibber woeful tales, a compelling atmosphere of a lyric graveyard. The tales lose their horror and hence the poetry its shiver in this translation. Lack of space forbids a verbal parallel of the two versions. Second, Die Nordsee, a strenuous test of any translator, invites several comparisons, which cannot be made in a brief review. Mr. Untermeyer's interpretation of this sea poem makes one wish he had keener insight into the many subtle identities between German and English. The two languages have too many root intergrowths to justify (that is, if a translation is to retain the essence of the original) Mr. Untermeyer's too free rendering of a poem which is at once the one high-wrought piece of Heine and the sure proof of his small command of really great poetry. The third type of lyric-the patriotic-will illustrate how this too free rendering of the German not only does not make for vigor in English, it totally mispresents Heine's meaning. To illustrate the translator's method here is one stanza of Germany, a poem which should be quoted entire as it is a sinister prophecy-though the poet may have been unaware of it: Germany's still a little child: The sun's her nurse, she'll feed him This is the German of the third and fourth verses: Sie säugt es nicht mit stiller Milch, Sie säugt es mit wilder Flamme. Poem after poem might be shown turned in this way from its real meaning by a too loose rendering. A translator should translate. One wishes that Mr. Untermeyer had given instead of all these poems a searching criticism of Heine. Heine is a force in poetry of a certain kind. None knew better than he how to distil the verse of others into his own. No poet better demonstrates the evil of being too facile. This is why in reading Heine entire one comes to care for his Much of his poetry transtranslator Heine himself is prose more than for his poetry. lates well into prose, and as a a success. His Byron pieces in German are better than Byron. There is in Heine, too, an American interest which as yet has not been fully noted. Heine was not only read byAmerican poets at the time when many of them were flowering in the thirties, forties and fifties-he was absorbed by them. This was the period when German was the second tongue of educated Americans, and it was Heine's ready verse, his Liebkosen sentiment, easily read, easily adopted, with which they weakened their own poetry. Mr. Untermeyer's introduction is a start for a real controversy as to Heine's worth as a poet. There are many reasons why he is not a great poet; his lyric sweetness is too often only sweetish, and his lyric cry is never anything but a personal hurt, or at best only what he himself called his Westöstliche Spleen. STRAINS OF YESTERDAY Ellen Fitzgerald Glad of Earth, by Clement Wood. Laurence Gomme. Main Street and Other Poems, by Joyce Kilmer. George H. Doran Co. With the War has come to all the want, sudden where it did not exist before, emphatic where it did, of intenser realization of life; and the problems and aspirations that are Mr. Wood's themes, on which he plays with insufficient or unconvincing mastery, and the fancies and sentiments Mr. Kilmer has chosen to sing, with a simplicity of style that almost exasperates, seem pale by the light of what have become common hopes and fears. There is little peace, even in Main Street; and to quarrel with Social Doctors and to slap mayors vigorously on the back, seem unworthy futile things to do. The world is out of tune with songs that yesterday might have charmed or quickened it. The pity of these books is chiefly that they were born beyond their time. Magic potency they have none to cheat this nightmare present; their virtue is rather one that requires whole heartedness on the part of the reader to become effectual, and the reader's heart is out of him and "over there." But of both poets the critic faculty may observe that their utterance, at its best-Mr. Wood's in New Roads and Mr. Kilmer's in The Proud Poet-does possess "a past of experience and a future of power." Mr. Kilmer is already at the front, in Flanders or in France; although he has a growing family, he was one of the first to volunteer. That gesture is worthy many a volume, and to such a poet the experience of war cannot but prove ennobling and enriching. We pray, as for victory, that he may return to us having tasted, in the sleep between battles, the "milk of Paradise." As for Mr. Wood, we know his lyric restlessness and do not imagine him asleep over the laurels the city of Newark grew for him; but, fully awake to the spectacle of these tremendous years, rising to the full measure of his day. Salomón de la Selva OUR CONTEMPORARIES ACADEMIC BACK-WATER The difficulty of getting progressive work done through academic channels is illustrated by a recent episode at the University of Chicago. A year ago some patron of generous intentions presented a fund for the securing of lectures from "leaders of thought" outside the institution, the fund yielding an income of about $1,500 a year. By way of further distinguishing the endowment, and of honoring at the same time the memory of a poet whose work had honored the university, the faculty entitled the course the William Vaughn Moody Memorial Lectures. This title seemed to give the projected lectures a slant toward modern poetry, and the more progressive members of the English department, including a high-hearted Poetry Club of students, felt confident that now at last the art which Mr. Moody followed would be fitly recognized in the person of one or more distinguished living poets of America or England. Apparently, however, no one especially interested in modern poetry has been allowed any voice in the selection of lecturers. A committee, consisting of the head professors of Greek and of history and an associate professor of English, affronted Mr. Moody's memory by inviting Alfred Noyes to give the initial lecture. The result was what might have been expected; as one of the professors of English remarked the next day to his class, "the lecture was a marvellous exhi |