The ill-bred son of a livery-stable keeper-
Luxuriant song.

Hic

Why should you leave the lamp
Burning alone beside an open book,
And trace these characters upon the sands?
A style is found by sedentary toil
And by the imitation of great masters.

Ille

Because I seek an image not a book,

Those men that in their writings are most wise
Own nothing but their blind, stupified hearts.
I call to the mysterious one who yet

Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove if all imaginable things

The most unlike, being my anti-self,

And standing by these characters disclose
All that I seek; and whisper it as though
He were afraid the birds, who cry aloud
Their momentary cries before it is dawn,
Would carry it away to blasphemous men.

William Butler Yeats

COMMENT

WT

THESE FIVE YEARS

periodical

TH the present number POETRY celebrates its fifth birthday, and begins its eleventh volume and sixth year. The occasion seems appropriate for a few changes, either advisable or necessary. In the former class are the new cover, the inside table of contents, and a few slight typographical differences which our old friends will note. In the latter class are the changes in price and in paper required by the heavily increased cost of all materials and expenses during this period of war.

The present number inaugurates also what might be called the second period of our history, since the magazine began under a five-year endowment which expired with the September number, and will continue, it is hoped, under a second similar endowment of which about two-thirds has been already subscribed. Thus we may have reached the psychological moment for confidential reminiscence and examination of conscience. That searching question, "What hast thou done with thy stewardship?" may well demand an answer. We have assumed to be the organ of a great art, the exhibition-place for its best current products. We have demanded as the poets' right, and spent for their benefit (or at least tried to), over five thousand a year of our guarantors' money, besides a smaller amount from subscribers and advertisers. In so doing we have placed before the peopleindeed, we have uttered with a loud voice-the claim of

poetry, and the artists who practice it, to that public recognition of sympathy and financial support which is granted, unquestioningly and in lavish measure, to the other arts.

Five thousand a year may not be much money compared with the millions spent annually in this country for the endowment of painting and sculpture through exhibition space and dates, commissions, prizes and scholarships; and of music through orchestral and operatic associations, music schools, etc. Our prizes-three hundred or so a year-are very small compared with the three thousand given annually at a single exhibition in Pittsburgh, the nineteen hundred in Chicago's autumn exhibition, and similar amounts in other cities. And though scholarships are numerous for promising students in the other arts, and the American Academy at Rome is an over-luxurious endowment for them, no one has yet offered a poet's travelling scholarship, through this magazine or any other, or any university. Still, five thousand a year is a good deal as a starter for any project, and for five years POETRY has been privileged to spend it by way of maintaining its proud demands for the art.

It seemed a good deal to the frugal-minded founder of the magazine, one June day of 1911, when Mr. H. C. ChatfieldTaylor-novelist, historian and enlightened lover of the arts -proposed to her the financial scheme on the basis of which a poets' magazine might be published. I had been saying that the art needed an organ of its own, that the poets got from the ordinary magazines merely page-end spaces and few of those, and from the public merely neglect or ridicule. (Incredible though this seems today, yet so it was!)

"I agree with you," he said, "that the situation is desperate and something must be done. Perhaps it's up to youif you choose to undertake it, I believe you can get a hundred men and women in Chicago to give fifty dollars a year each for five years. Anyway I'll promise to head the list and do what I can to help you."

So the would-be editor started on an adventure which proved far less formidable than it seemed-less formidable and more interesting. Her office interviews with men prominent in the commercial and professional life of the greatest inland city brought her many an agreeable surprise. She had expected them to laugh at the project, so new and seemingly absurd; on the contrary, most of them received it in the highest spirit of idealism, often giving back her arguments better than she could state them herself. Accustomed to new and hazardous enterprises requiring to the utmost vision and daring, they were not daunted by this little venture for "the Cinderella of the arts," and willingly put their names on its roll of honor. In some cases she left their offices as if on wings, newly inspired for a high purpose; and the whole experience brought home to her the fact that the best and most imaginative minds of the country, through the formative era that may be passing with this war, have gone largely, perhaps chiefly, into big business; nor is this strange when we consider all that had to be done through the formative period of a great continental nation.

Thus the hundred guarantors were secured more easily than anyone had expected, and their loyalty has never wavered. Since one or two critics have printed their sus

picion that POETRY has been run in a spirit of compromise with the (inferred) tastes of its guarantors, this may be the occasion to state emphatically that never, by word or deed, has any guarantor attempted to influence the editorial policy of the magazine. Indeed, they have been, as a rule, overfearful of seeming to interfere by the expression even of friendly criticism-the editor would have welcomed more opinionating from them than she has ever received. The editorial policy of POETRY, for good or ill, has been the work of its editors, with the occasional assistance of its advisory committee. Its guarantors are guiltless.

The project became public property with the publication of a first-page article in the Chicago Tribune one Sunday of November, 1911. We were discovered!—the guarantor list was not complete, but the names were of a number and quality to inspire confidence. Toward the end they rolled in rapidly, and my only regret has been that I did not keep on while the scheme had such momentum, instead of stopping with an hundred names or so. We could use to the advantage of the art more money than we have ever had!

The next point of attack was the poets-I remember wondering, with some misgivings, whether they would respond as gracefully as the guarantors. During the summer of 1912 the following circular, accompanied in some cases by personal letters, was sent to many poets American and English:

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, is to be published for the encouragement of the art. More than one hundred persons have generously pledged subscriptions amounting to five thousand dollars annually for five years to make this experiment possible. Besides this, two hundred and fifty dollars will be awarded in one or two cash