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.

IN PASSING

Through the dim window, I could see
The little room-a sordid square
Of helter-skelter penury:

Piano, whatnot, splintered chair.

It is so small a room that I

Seem almost at the woman's side:
Galled jade-too fat for vanity,

And far too frankly old for pride.

Her greasy apron 'round her waist;
The dish cloth by her on the chair;
As if in some wild headlong haste,
She has come in and settled there.

Grimly she bends her back and tries
To stab the keys, with heavy hand;
A child's first finger exercise

Before her on the music stand.

David Morton

David Morton was born at Elkton, Kentucky, February 21, 1886. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1909, engaging in newspaper work immediately thereafter. After ten years of writing for various papers in the South, Morton came to New Jersey, where he now lives, being teacher of English at Morristown High School.

The greater part of Morton's work is in the sonnet form, a

form into which he has carried a new warmth without sacrificing the old dignity. The best of these verses are to be found in his first volume, Ships in Harbor and Other Poems.

Beautiful words, like butterflies, blow by,

With what swift colors on their fragile wings!Some that are less articulate than a sigh,

Some that were names of ancient, lovely things. What delicate careerings of escape,

When they would pass beyond the baffled reach, To leave a haunting shadow and a shape, Eluding still the careful traps of speech.

And I who watch and listen, lie in wait,
Seeing the cloudy cavalcades blow past,
Happy if some bright vagrant, soon or late,
May venture near the snares of sound, at last-
Most fortunate captor if, from time to time,
One may be taken, trembling, in a rhyme.

OLD SHIPS

There is a memory stays upon old ships,
A weightless cargo in the musty hold,-
Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips,
Of stormy midnights, and a tale untold.

1 Reprinted, by permission, from Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.