own request to the 165th Infantry. In spite of his avowed militancy, Kilmer was a poet trying to be a soldier;" he made no effort to glorify war; his one hope was to wring some spiritual satisfaction out of the brutality.

On July 28, 1918, the five-day battle for the mastery of the heights beyond the river Ourcq was begun. Two days later, Sergeant Kilmer was killed in action.

Death came before the poet had developed or even matured his gifts. His first volume, Summer of Love (1911), is wholly imitative; it is full of reflections of a dozen other sources, ' a broken bundle of mirrors." Trees and Other Poems (1914) contains the title-poem by which Kilmer is best known and, though various influences are still strong (one cannot miss the borrowed accents of Patmore, Belloc, Chesterton, Housman and-vide "Martin "-E. A. Robinson), a refreshing candor lights up the lines. Main Street and Other Poems (1917) is less derivative; the simplicity is less self-conscious, the ecstasy more spontaneous.

Besides his own poetry, Kilmer edited a selection of Verses by Hilaire Belloc (1916) and Dreams and Images, An Anthology of Catholic poets (1917).

TREES 1

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

1 From Trees and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer. Copyright, 1914, by George H. Doran Company, Publishers.

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

MARTIN1

When I am tired of earnest men,

Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen

Or counting metal disks forever,
Then from the halls of shadowland
Beyond the trackless purple sea
Old Martin's ghost comes back to stand
Beside my desk and talk to me.

Still on his delicate pale face

A quizzical thin smile is showing,
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,
His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.

He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,

A suit to match his soft gray hair,

A rakish stick, a knowing hat,

A manner blithe and debonair.

1 From Trees and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer. right, 1914, by George H. Doran Company, Publishers.

Copy

How good, that he who always knew
That being lovely was a duty,
Should have gold halls to wander through
And should himself inhabit beauty.
How like his old unselfish way

To leave those halls of splendid mirth And comfort those condemned to stay Upon the bleak and sombre earth.

Some people ask: What cruel chance
Made Martin's life so sad a story?
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance
And wore an overcoat of glory.

A fleck of sunlight in the street,

A horse, a book, a girl who smiled,— Such visions made each moment sweet For this receptive, ancient child.

Because it was old Martin's lot

To be, not make, a decoration,
Shall we then scorn him, having not
His genius of appreciation?

Rich joy and love he got and gave;
His heart was merry as his dress.
Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave
Who did not gain, but was, success.

Shaemas O Sheel (Shields) was born September 19, 1886, in New York City. After graduating from high school, he revived the ancient Gaelic form of his family name and identified himself with the cause of Ireland in America.

O Sheel's two volumes, The Blossomy Bough (1911) and The Light Feet of Goats (1915), owe their chief impetus to the Celtic renascence and to W. B. Yeats in particular. But O Sheel's poetry, although influenced, is not merely derivative. His ancestry speaks through him with unmistakable accents; he is typically the Irish bard of whom Chesterton has written: For the great Gaels of Ireland

Are the men that God made mad;

For all their wars are merry

And all their songs are sad.

A recurring if sometimes too determined mysticism and a muffled heroism individualize the best of his work.

THEY WENT FORTH TO BATTLE, BUT
THEY ALWAYS FELL

They went forth to battle, but they always fell;
Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;
Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,
And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.

They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,
They were not weak, as one who vainly wields
A futile weapon; yet the sad scrolls tell
How on the hard-fought field they always fell.

It was a secret music that they heard,

A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;

And that which pierced the heart was but a word, Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease

On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase. Ah, they by some strange troubling doubt were stirred, And died for hearing what no foeman heard.

They went forth to battle, but they always fell ;
Their might was not the might of lifted spears;
Over the battle-clamor. came a spell

Of troubling music, and they fought not well.

Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears;

Their names are old sad stories in men's ears; Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell, Who went to battle forth and always fell.

Roy Helton

Roy Helton was born at Washington, D. C., in 1886. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1908. He studied art-and found he was color-blind. He spent two years at inventions-and found he had no business sense. After a few more experiments, he became a schoolmaster in West Philadelphia.

Helton's first volume, Youth's Pilgrimage (1915), is a strange, mystical affair, full of vague symbolism with a few purple patches. Outcasts in Beulah Land (1918) is entirely different in theme and treatment. This is a much starker verse; a poetry of city streets, direct and sharp.