"I will be your own," she said, "Because your voice is like the rain, So I took her where she spoke, And the blackbirds wheeling south. H. M. Streets and Faces, by Scudder Middleton. The Little Book Publisher, Arlington, N. J. It is not often that a first book of verse creates an impression of selection and reserve as definite as that occasioned by this small volume. To be true, not all the poems achieve the same level of excellence. Mr. Middleton's style is in process of formation, it is not the developed style of an older man; but it has indications of individuality. When I say this I am thinking of the poems that are most individual— Arophe, The Stranger, The Heavenly Intrigue, Interlude and others—not of those poems which may be said to belong to a class, that of the "subject" poem so dearly loved by the magazines. Mr. Middleton has done very well with these, has lifted them above the ruck; still, poems like The Wax Museum for Men, or The Waiting Woman, do definitely belong to this class and it is a genre hard to reconcile with poetry. I should like to see the poet discard it. Mr. Middleton has absorbed of the "new movement" some of its best qualities instead of its worst as so many others have done. His "free verse" is by no means "loose" and it does not record an observation of life purely stenographic. To An Old Couple is one of the best in this form: The years unravel the designs of youth, Yet time brings at the last The serene illusion of accomplishment. When your two wrinkled hands meet in the night- It is this subtle perception of experience that gives life to this poet's work. One finds it in The Clerk, where the released worker can still do nothing but go on counting up figures in Heaven: and one finds it in an unusual degree in that truly remarkable little poem called Children. This is by all means the finest poem in the book. Not that it has the perfection of Keats' odes or Shelley's songs; it may not have the rounded, final perfection of art, but it has the frailty of earth-passion about it, and it is very delicately expressed. A. C. H. Swords for Life, by Irene Rutherford McLeod. B. W. Huebsch. This second book by the young author of Songs to Save a Soul strengthens the first impression that she is a poet of unusual promise. In both little volumes are strains of the lyric cry of youth, fainter perhaps in the second than the first, but in both authentic-the cry of a free spirit, full of love and fire. She should beware of certain temptations, however. On the accommodating slip-cover the London Times calls this book "an advance" over the other, because "there is less in it of the mere recording of moods; there is now conviction and purpose behind most of the poems." Of some of them that is unfortunately true-the first one, for example, with its Yours not to falter and shrink! A girl poet which almost persuades one to read no more. of twenty or less is entitled to moods, but conviction and purpose are dangerous things in her inexperienced hands. They lead her to exclamatory advice, preaching and other banalities. Spring and a Larch Wood has in it the joy of discovering beauty in the wood: I dared not breathe nor look nor stir I was so hushed in holiness. I was so strangely close to her I dared not move to touch her dress I was so bound in quietness. The hoyden wind, abashed like me, Crept to her very wistfully, With little mournful gusty sighs. The brief lyrics in this book are not quite so good as two or three in the earlier volume; but this, part of Love's Guard, is very delicate: When first I awake, Half seeing, half dreaming, Morning shadows take A little sweet ghost Calls me, enchants me; Of memories haunts me. His hand seeks my face Like little leaves falling." There is no quiet place It is not well with thee, O my darling! It is not well with thee, H. M. The Dance of Youth, by Julia Cooley. Sherman, French & Co. One is softly moved by this book because of its girlishness. It is so solemn, so thoughtful, so burdened with knowledge and experience, and yet withal so young and ignorant. We have the typical educated American girl— talented moreover in this case-who has been typically protected and withdrawn, and who is piteously fumbling for life and art through the fuzzy cottonwool of conventionalities. She has in her the makings of both woman and poet, but one feels the blur of self-consciousness getting in the way of both. She would give herself away, as woman and poet must, but, unconsciously and in spite of herself, a thousand tendencies of her blood and breeding-all the nicegirl niceties that tend to make a perfect lady of her-get in the way of the gift and she can't break through. Not yet at least. Life may break a way for her of course, if it dashes her on the rocks and tears her to pieces. But the trouble is, in many of these cases life also acts like a lady and holds aloof. Life seems daunted by the smooth undaunted front these girls put up-it would be too cruel a task to break them on the wheel, even though they say, Smite, Life, that I may know you well! The makings of a poet-yes, but most of this first book should go into the discard. When the poet is made, if that day comes, she will find the proudest efforts of her maiden A shadow lurks in the Milky Way, Ye are Laïs and Thaïs now, Ye are the fruit of the hour. Sway we and sing like a summer bough In Spring Sorrow is another soft fine tune, and a few brief and simple poems show a delicate touch-She Bends above a Flower, Magic Moonlight, Success, Futility. And there is a bit of cosmic irony in The Anthem. A POET'S UPBRINGING H. M. Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, by William Butler Yeats. Macmillan Co. Soberly and lucidly Mr. Yeats sets down in these pages his reveries, ending at the threshold of his creative period. Then there is a postscript wherein the poet says: For some months now I have lived with my youth and childhoodnot always writing indeed, but thinking of it almost every day; and I am sorrowful and disturbed. It is not that I have accom |