OLD TIMER

His legs were bowed in leather chaps,
His, hair was sun-bleached brown,

No barber's hand had touched his beard
Since he was last in town.

Beneath his high sombrero's brim
His gait was wide and free;

He walked as if he rode the range,

He hardly seemed to see

The shops or windows of the street,

But passed as if he dreamed.

His pale blue eyes were desert-dimmed,

His face was desert-seamed.

He had an air of open space
About him as he walked;
He was a priest of mystery,
Because he never talked.

He ate in silence; the café

Was hushed about his chair,

He brought the mountains to the town,

The mesas' blinding glare.

He brought siestas of high noon,

Sierras bleak and lone

Where sunlight builds on sunlit hills
A sun-bronzed overtone.

He brought the breath of all outdoors-
Close-shut within himself

He kept his wisdom all inside;

I only guessed his wealth!

PEDRO MONTOYA OF ARROYO HONDO

Pedro Montoya of Arroyo Hondo

Comes each day with his load of wood

Piled on two burros' backs, driving them down
Over the mesa to Santa Fé town.

He comes around by Arroyo Chamisa-
A small grey figure, as grey as his burros-
Down from the mountains, with cedar and pine
Girt about each of the burros with twine.

As patient as they are, he waits in the plaza

For someone who comes with an eye out for wood,
Then Pedro wakes up, like a bantam at dawn-
Si, Señor, si Señor-his wood is gone.

Pedro Montoya of Arroyo Hondo

Rides back on one burro and drives the other,

With a sack of blue corn-meal, tobacco and meat,

A bit to smoke and a bit to eat.

Pedro Montoya of Arroyo Hondo

If I envied any, I'd envy him!

With a burro to ride and a burro to drive,

There is hardly a man so rich alive.

IN THE SIERRAS

Do not bring me riches
From your store in the Andes,
Do not bring me treasures
From deep ocean caves.
Bring me but yourself
And I'll gladly go with you,
Bring me but yourself,

And I will not be sorry.

Do not bring me patterns
Of silks or of satins,
Do not bring me silver
Or gold wrung from slaves.
Bring me but yourself,
And my heart will rest easy,
And your head will be light
With my breast as its pillow.

Do not bring me servants
Or oxen or cattle,

Or sheep for the shearing
Or ships from the waves.
Bring me but yourself

For my share and my treasure,
Then our fortune will grow
And will never diminish.

A SONG FROM OLD SPAIN

What song of mine will live?
On whose lips will the words be sung
Long years after I am forgotten-

A name blown between the hills
Where some goat-herd

Remembers my love and passion?

He will sing of your beauty and my love,
Though it may be in another tongue,
To a strange tune,

In a country beyond the seas

A seed blown by the wind

He will sing of our love and passion.

Alice Corbin

COMMENT

A WORD TO THE CARPING CRITIC

N examining the editorial conscience, as I have been forced to do of late, in order to decide whether POETRY ought to continue to serve the art at the expense of its guarantors, I have been brought face to face with modern immensities. Of old—indeed, not so long ago—each artist, each poet, worked for a little group in a little city; his appeal was direct and immediate. Now each artist exhibits his work from Rome to San Francisco; and each poet, in English at least, throws his voice to the ends of the earth.

the editorial conide whether Porter pught to

This sounds inspiring, but that is not the effect. In this case one bird in the hand is worth a whole bushful overseas. The far-flung audience is too remote and distracted- -art becomes "irrelevant," as a writer in the New Republic, Mr. George Soule, said some time ago. The relation betwen artist and audience, which should be intimate, becomes strained to a hair or snaps altogether. The artist wearies of speaking into a vacuum, and the audience wearies of art's egoistic demands, begins to think art a luxury, a mere ornament, which may be accepted or dispensed with at will. Art tends to become, not a necessity of joyous and rational and expressive life, but merely one among too many demands. As Mr. Soule says:

Too much of the best has been written, in too many languages. If one has to spend a life in study before one can recognize an authentic poem, true recognition will vanish. vital, must be related to the community.

Art, to keep How is it to