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dication of the new position that woman holds in society? War has always fallen heavily on the children and the mothers, and such poems as Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "The Messenger" have always been part of man's comment on the tragedy of battle. But in some of these poems the injustice that war does to womanhood is defined in a new way, with the implication that the tragedy might be avoided, and that women will no longer accept it as inevitable. So at least one may read the verses by Edith M. Thomas and those by Edna Valentine Trapwell. As in the rest of this collection the emphasis is upon the right of the common man to enjoy life, peace and safety, so in these fine poems the emphasis is upon woman's right to decide whether she will pay the penalty that war always exacts of her.

These are the attitudes that are most clearly discovered in these verses. As a whole the collection represents, so to speak, the nation's first impression of the war. It should have value as evidence of our instinctive reaction at a moment so searching.

Columbia University.

JOHN ERSKINE.}

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT

BY VACHEL LINDSAY

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or the shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or thru the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us, as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapt shoulders now

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He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come; the shining hope of Europe free;
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

Springfield, Illinois.

-The Independent.

THE NEW BEATITUDE

BY RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER

In gay Brabant I have danced till the night turned rose,
All the health and the wealth of a Rubens before my eye.
In meadows which only the tramper of byways knows,
I have tasted the peace of earth neath a kind calm sky,
Glad of the Angelus, gladdened by love-looks shy
And the laughter of children and songs of men who mow.
All that I hear to-day is the harsh dull cry:
Blessed are they which died a year ago!

In Picardy plain through which all joyance flows Like the tranquil Somme; and churches beautify

Every hamlet with noble shrines that spell repose;
And the simple peasant has never a thought to deny
A bed or a snack to the stranger wandering by,-
In gentle, smiling Picardy, all aglow

With poppies amid ripe wheat, I hear the sigh:
Blessed are they which died a year ago!

In Prussia the proud, whose boundaries enclose Full many a fireside happy once to vie

In soft content with any home that owes Its worth to toil and thrift, now gone awry;

Yea, in proud Prussia, not only those that fly

The Cossack, but women secure from death or blow,-
Do not their hearts confess (though lips may lie):
Blessed are they which died a year ago!

ENVOY

Lord Prince of Peace, who for men's sins didst die,
Let them not reap the whirlwind that they sow!
Twice-crucified, do not Thou too reply:
Blessed are they which died a year ago!

-The Bookman.

THE MAD WAR

BY RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER

Because one man, one man, was slain-
No more a man than you or I—
Must nations suffer murder's stain,
Millions be made to die?

They have no cruel wrong to right,
No wrong to rouse a righteous ire;
No noble cause for which to fight
With heart and soul on fire.

Austria's heir was killed by plan!
Ah, so is someone's hope each day:
Can vengeance give back life to man,
Though royal be his clay?

A ruler's death to punish? Then,
Punish the cowards and their tool;
But not a million guiltless men
With hungry homes to rule!

Attila and his wolfish Huns,

We read of them as horror past:
That "Scourge of God" before our guns
Were less than trumpet-blast.

Ponder how Death now bares his teeth,
Waiting the certain holocaust;

The vanquished torn and crushed beneath
A conqueror half lost.

War... this red madness of an hour

Whelped from base fear by baser pride Unbalanced by its lust for power?

The mailed fist defied!

One group of three who fraternise

To-day, though once close locked in hate,

To thwart another three must rise,
All blaming all on Fate.

Christians, they prate of "Triplices"
As if of pledges made to God.
What is the Trinity to these
Who trample life roughshod?

The civilised! The civilised!-
Smug irony of modern cant!
Culture so blind, self-idolised,
The East may well supplant.

And well may smile the pagan Mars
And grin the bloody Juggernaut:
Christendom rends its Saviour's scars
With weapons Judas-bought.

Harken, vain Europe

Nay, your ears

Can only hear your shout "To arms!" Deaf to your women's pleading tears, Your children's dazed alarms.

Yet could you hear, and heed the roar
Of sullen Asia, you would cease
Ruin's mad march, though cold before
Your flaunted Prince of Peace.

-The Bookman.

WAR

BY WITTER BYNNER

Fools, fools, fools,

Your blood is hot to-day.

It cools

When you are clay.

It joins the very clod

Wherein your foe shall be,—

Wherein you look at God,

Wherein at last you see

The living God,
The loving God,

Which was your enemy.

-The Nation.

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