Night's discord ceased:

The visible universe moved in an endless rhythm: The wheel of the heavens turned to the pulse of a cricket in the grass.

Alice Corbin

1

Alice Corbin (Mrs. William Penhallow Henderson) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She has been Associate Editor of Poetry; A Magazine of Verse since 1912, co-editing (with Harriet Monroe) The New Poetry, An Anthology (1917). Since 1916 she has lived in New Mexico.

The Spinning Woman of the Sky (1912) contains few hints of originality. It is cast in an entirely different key than Miss Corbin's later efforts. Her recent verses, many of them uncollected, are much richer; they reveal a close contact with primitive people and native folk-lore. Her southern and far western sketches are particularly colorful; a volume of New Mexico studies, Red Earth (1920), being full of noteworthy and sympathetic records.

UNCLE JIM

ECHOES OF CHILDHOOD

(A Folk-Medley)

Old Uncle Jim was as blind as a mole,
But he could fiddle Virginia Reels,

Till you felt the

sap run out of your heels, Till you knew the devil had got your soul—

Down the middle and swing yo' partners,
Up agin and salute her low,

Shake yo' foot an' keep a-goin',

Down the middle an' do-se-do!

Mind yo' manners an' doan git keerless,
Swing yo' lady and bow full low,

S'lute yo' partner an' turn yo' neighbor,
Gran'-right-an'-left, and aroun' you go!

Delphy's breast was wide and deep,
A shelf to lay a child asleep,

Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low;
Rocking like a lifted boat

On lazy tropic seas afloat,

Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low.

Delphy, when my mother died,

Taught me wisdom, curbed my pride,
Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low;
And when she laid her body down,
It shone, a jewel, in His crown,
Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low.

MANDY'S
RELIGION

BETSY'S BOY

I'se got religion an' I doan care
Who knows that God an' I are square,
I wuz carryin' home my mistis' wash
When God came an' spoke to me out'n de
hush.

An' I th'ew de wash up inter de air,
An' I climbed a tree to de golden stair,
Ef it hadn't a been fur Mistah Wright
I'd had ter stayed dere all de night!

Betsy's boy could shuffle and clog,

Though you couldn't get him to saw a log,
Laziest boy about the place

Till he started to dance-and you saw his

face!

It was all lit up like a mask of bronze
Set in a niche between temple gongs-
For he would dance and never stop
Till he fell on the floor like a spun-out top.
His feet hung loose from his supple waist,
He danced without stopping, he danced
without haste.

Like Shiva the Hindu his feet were bound In the rhythm of stars and of streams underground:

Banjo playin' and de sanded floor,
Fiddle cryin', always callin' more,

Can't help dancin' though de preacher

says

Can't git to heaven doin' no sich ways, Can't help dancin' though de devil stan's With a pitch-fork waitin' in his brimstone han's;

Got-ter-keep-dancin',-can't-stop

-now,

Got-ter-keep-dancin', I-doanknow-how

Banjo playin' and de sanded floor, Fiddle cryin', always callin' more, People's faces lookin' scared an' white, Hands a clappin' an' eyes starin' bright. Can't help dancin' though de candle's dyin',

Can't help dancin' while de fiddle's cryin'; Got-ter-keep-dancin', can't-stop

now,

Got-ter-keep-dancin', -I-doanknow-how!

Lola Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland, leaving there in infancy and spending her childhood in Sydney, Australia. After living some years in New Zealand, she returned to Australia to study art. In 1907, she came to the United States, supporting herself for three years by writing fiction for the popular magazines. She stopped this work only, as she says, "because I found I would have to do so if I wished to survive as an artist." For several years she earned her living in a variety of ways-as organizer for an educational movement, as advertisement writer, as illustrator, artist's model, factory-worker, etc. In 1918, The New Republic published her long poem The Ghetto and Miss Ridge, until then totally unknown, became the "discovery" of the year.

Her volume The Ghetto and Other Poems (1918) contains one poem that is brilliant, several that are powerful and none that is mediocre. Her title-poem is its pinnacle; in it Miss Ridge touches strange heights. It is essentially a poem of the city, of its sodden brutalities, its sudden beauties. Swift figures shine from these lines, like barbaric colors leaping out of darkness; images that are surprising but never strained glow with a condensed clarity. In her other poems-especially in "The Song of Iron," "Faces" and "Frank Little at Calvary"-the same dignity is maintained, though with less magic.

Sun-Up (1920) is less integrated, more frankly experimental. But the same vibrancy and restrained power that distinguished her preceding book are manifest here. Her delineations are sensitive and subtle; she accomplishes the maximum in effects with a minimum of effort.

PASSAGES FROM "THE GHETTO"

Old Sodos no longer makes saddles.

He has forgotten how

Time spins like a crazy dial in his brain,

And night by night