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A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT 
 
A TREE WITH A 
 BIRD IN IT: 
 
 A SYMPOSIUM OF CONTEMPORARY 
 
 AMERICAN POETS ON BEING 
 
 SHOWN A PEAR-TREE ON 
 
 WHICH SAT A CRACKLE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET WIDDEMER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "factories." " THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE," 
 "cross CURRENTS," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 WILLIAM SAPHIER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A BY 
 
 THE QUINN ft BODEN COMPANV 
 
 RAHWAY. N. J. 
 
 OCT 24 "22 
 
 5)CUG83807 
 
THIS IS DEDICATED 
 
 WITH MY FORGIVENESS IN ADVANCE 
 
 TO THE POETS PARODIED IN THIS BOOK 
 
 AND THE POETS NOT PARODIED IN THIS BOOK 
 
FOREWORD 
 By the Collator 
 
 A little while since, I had the fortune to live 
 in a house, outside of whose windows there grew 
 a pear-tree. On the branches of this tree lived 
 a green bird of indeterminate nature. I do not 
 know what his real name was, but the name, to 
 quote our great exemplar Lewis Carroll, by which 
 his name was called was the Grackle. He seemed 
 perfectly willing to be addressed thus, and ac- 
 cordingly was. 
 
 Aside from watching the Pear-Tree and the 
 Grackle, my other principal occupation that win- 
 ter was watching the Poetry Society of America 
 now and then at its monthly meetings. It oc- 
 curred to me finally to invite such members of 
 it as cared to come, following many good ex- 
 amples, to an outdoor symposium under the tree. 
 The result follows. 
 
 Margaret Widdemer. 
 
 P. S.— The tree died. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword : By the Collator 
 
 Jessie B. Rittenhouse . Resignation . . . 
 Edwin Markham . . . The Bird with the Wo 
 Witter Bynner .... The Unity of Oneness 
 
 Amy Lowell Oiseaurie .... 
 
 Edgar Lee Masters . . . Imri Swasey . . , 
 
 Edwin Arlington Robinson Rambuncto 
 
 Robert Frost The Bird Misunderstood 
 
 Carl Sandburg . . 
 Edith M. Thomas . . 
 
 Charles Hanson Towne 
 Sara Teasdale . . 
 Ezra Pound . . . 
 Margaret Widdemer . 
 Richard Le Gallienne 
 
 Angela Morgan . 
 Conrad Aiken . . . 
 Mary Carolyn Davies 
 
 Chicago Memories . 
 Frost and Sandburg To 
 night .... 
 
 The Unquiet Singer 
 At Autumn . 
 
 Rainuv 
 
 The Sighing Tree 
 
 Ballade of Spring Chick 
 
 ens .... 
 Oh! Bird! . . . 
 The Charnel Bird . 
 
 A Young Girl to < 
 Young Bird . 
 
 The Rune of the Nude 
 
 Marguerite Wilkinson 
 
 Aline Kilmer Admiration . . . 
 
 William Rose and 
 
 Stephen Vincent Benet The Crackle of Grog 
 
 Lola Ridge Preenings .... 
 
 Edna St. Vincent Millay Tea o' Herbs . 
 
 John V. A. Weaver . . . The Weaver Bird 
 
 vii 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 17 
 18 
 20 
 21 
 24 
 
 27 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 34 
 35 
 Z7 
 
 38 
 42 
 46 
 50 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 David Morton Sonnet : Trees Are Not 
 
 Ships 52 
 
 Elinor Wylie The Crackle Is the Loon 53 
 
 Leonora Speyer . . . . A Landscape Gets Per- 
 sonal 54 
 
 CoRiNNE Roosevelt Robin- The Symposium Leading 
 
 SON Nowhere .... 57 
 
 RiDGELY ToRRENCE . . . The Fowl of o Thousand 
 
 Flights .... 59 
 
 Henry van Dyke . . . The Roiling of Henry . 61 
 Cale Young Rice .... P anting s .... 6?) 
 
 Bliss Carman The Wild ^5 
 
 Grace Hazard and 
 
 Hilda Conkling . . . They See the Birdie . 67 
 Theodosia Garrison . . . A Ballad of the Bird 
 
 Dance of Pierrette 69 
 
 William Griffith . . . Pierrette Remembers an 
 
 Engagement ... 71 
 
 Edgar Guest Ain't Nature Wonderful! 72 
 
 Don Marquis ....... The Meeting of the 
 
 Columns .... 75 
 
 Christopher Morley '. . The Mocking-Hoarse- 
 
 Bird 80 
 
 Franklin Pierce Adams . To a Crackle .... 83 
 
 Thomas Augustin Daly . Carlo the Cardener . . 84 
 Vachel Lindsay .... The Hoboken Crackle 
 
 and the Hobo . . 85 
 
 Percy Mackaye ^ . _„ . o- j x 
 
 y T-. Ti (Dies Ilia: A Bird of a 
 
 Josephine Preston Peabody j- Masque .... 89 
 
 Isabel Fiske Conant ) 
 
 Arthur Guiterman . . . A Tree with a Bird in 
 
 It: Rhymed Review 101 
 
 viii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACE 
 
 Edwin Markham 5 
 
 Witter Bynner 6 
 
 Carl Sandburg 15 
 
 Margaret Widdemer 25 
 
 Conrad Aiken 31 
 
 The Benets 39 
 
 Lola Ridge 43 
 
 Edna St. Vincent Millay . . . -47 
 
 Leonora Speyer 55 
 
 Edgar Guest 73 
 
 Don Marquis and Christopher Morley . 77 
 
 Vachel Lindsay 87 
 
 IX 
 
A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT 
 
Jessie B. Rittenhouse 
 
 (She steps brightly forward with an air of 
 soprano introduction.) 
 
 RESIGNATION 
 
 I look from out my window, 
 
 Beloved, and I see 
 A bird upon a pear bough. 
 
 But what is that to me? 
 
 Because the thought comes icy; 
 
 That bird you never knew — 
 It's not your bird or pear tree, 
 
 And what is it to you? 
 
Edwin Markham 
 
 (who, though he had to lay a cornerstone, 
 unveil a bust of somebody, give two lectures 
 and write encouraging introductions to the 
 works of five young poets before catching 
 the three-ten for Staten Island, offered his 
 reaction in a benevolent and unhurried 
 manner.) 
 
 THE BIRD WITH THE WOE 
 
 Poets to men a curious sight afford; 
 Still they will sing, though all around are bored; 
 But this wise grackle does a kinder thing; 
 Silent he's bored, while all around him sing! 
 
Witter Bynner 
 
 (Prefaced by a short baritone talk on Chinese 
 architecture.) 
 
 THE UNITY OF ONENESS 
 
 Celia, have you been to China? 
 
 There upon a mystic tree 
 Sits a bird who murmurs Chinese 
 
 Of the Me in Thee. 
 
 'Neath that tree of willow-pattern 
 Twice seven thousand scornful go 
 
 Paraphrasers and translators 
 Of the long-deceased Li-Po: 
 
 Chinese feehngs swift discerning 
 Without all this time and fuss 
 
 Let us eat that bird, thus learning 
 Of the Him in Us! 
 
Amy Lowell 
 
 (Fixing her glasses firmly on the rest of the 
 Poetry Society in a way which makes them 
 with difficulty refrain from writhing.) 
 
 OISEAURIE 
 
 Glunk! 
 
 I toss my heels up to my head . . . 
 
 That was a bird I heard say glunk 
 
 As I walked statelily through my extensive, expen- 
 sive English country estate 
 
 In a pink brocade with silver buttons, a purple 
 passementerie cut with panniers, a train, 
 and faced with watered silk: 
 
 But it 
 
 Is dead now! 
 (The bird) 
 Probably putrescent 
 And green. . . . 
 
 I scrabble my toes . . . 
 Glunk! 
 
 8 
 
Edgar Lee Masters 
 
 (Making a statement which you may take or 
 leave, but convincing you entirely.) 
 
 IMRI SWAZEY 
 
 I was a shock-headed boy bringing in the 
 
 laundry ; 
 Why did I try for that damn bird, anyway? 
 I suppose I had been in the habit of aiming for 
 
 the pears. 
 But I chucked a stone, anyhow, 
 And it ricocheted and hit my head. 
 And as it hadn't any brains inside the stone 
 
 busted it 
 And there I was, dead. 
 
 And dead with me were all the improper things 
 I'd got out of the servants about their employers 
 Bringing in the laundry; 
 But the grackle sings on. 
 Sing forever, O grackle! 
 I died, knowing lots of things you don't know! 
 
Edwin Arlington Robinson 
 
 (He mutters wearily in an undertone.) 
 
 RAMBUNCTO 
 
 Well, they're quite dead, Rambuncto; thoroughly 
 
 dead. 
 It was a natural thing enough; my eyes 
 Stared baffled down the forest-aisles, brown and 
 
 green. 
 Not learning what the marks were. Still, who 
 
 learns? 
 Not I, who stooped and picked the things that 
 
 day. 
 Scarlet and gold and smooth, friend . . . smooth 
 
 enough I 
 And she's in a vault now, old Jane Fotheringham, 
 My mother-in-law; and my wife's seven aunts, 
 And that cursed bird that used to sit and croak 
 Upon their pear-tree — they threw scraps to 
 
 him — 
 My wife, too. Lord, that was a curious thing I 
 Because — "I don't like mushrooms much," I 
 
 said, 
 And they ate all I picked. And then they died. 
 But . . . Well, who knows it isn't better that 
 
 way? 
 
 10 
 
It's quieter, at least. . . . Rambuncto — friend — 
 Why, you're not going? . . . Well — it's a stupid 
 
 year, 
 And the world's very useless. . . . Sorry. . . . 
 
 Still 
 The dusk intransience that I much prefer 
 Leaves place for little hope and less regret. 
 I don't suppose he'd care, to stay to dine 
 Under the circumstances. . . . What's life for? 
 
 II 
 
Robert Frost 
 
 (Rather nervously, retreating with haste in the 
 wake of Mr. Robinson as soon as he had 
 finished.) 
 
 THE BIRD MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 There was a grackle sat on our old pear tree — 
 Don't ask me why — I never did really know; 
 But he made my wife and me feel, for really 
 
 the very first time 
 We were out in the actual country, hindering 
 
 things to grow; 
 
 It gave us rather a queer feeling to hear the 
 
 grackle grackle, 
 But when it got to be winter time he got up 
 
 and went thence 
 And now we shall never know, though we watch 
 
 the tree till April, 
 Whether his curious crying ever made song or 
 
 sense. 
 
 12 
 
Carl Sandburg 
 
 (Striking from time to time a few notes on 
 a mouth-organ, with a wonderful effect of 
 human brotherhood which does not quite 
 include the East.) 
 
 CHICAGO MEMORIES 
 
 Crackles, trees — 
 
 I been thinkin' 'bout 'em all: I been thinkin' 
 
 they're all right: 
 Nothin' much — Gosh, nothin' much against God, 
 
 even. 
 God made little apples , a hobo sang in Kankakee, 
 Shattered apples, I picked you up under a tree, 
 
 red wormy apples, I ate you. . . . 
 That lets God out. 
 There were three green birds on the tree, there 
 
 were three wailing cats against a green 
 
 dawn. . . . 
 'Gene Field sang, ^'The world is full of a number 
 
 of things," 
 'Gene Field said, "When they caught me I was 
 
 living in a tree. . . ." 
 'Gene Field said everything in Chicago of the 
 
 eighties. 
 
 13 
 
Now he's dead, I say things, say 'em well, 
 too. . . . 
 
 'Gene Field . . . back in the lost days, back 
 in the eighties, 
 
 Singing, colyumning . . . 'Gene Field . . . for- 
 gotten . . . 
 
 Back in Arkansaw there was a green bird, too, 
 
 I can remember how he sang, back in the lost 
 days, back in the eighties. 
 
 Uncle Yon Swenson under the tree chewing 
 slowly, slowly. . . . 
 
 Memories, memories! 
 
 There are only trees now, no 'Gene, no eighties 
 
 Gray cats, I can feel your fur in my heart . . . 
 
 Green grackle, I remember now, 
 
 Back in the lost days, back in the eighties 
 
 The cat ate you. 
 
 14 
 
jAPHice. 
 
Edith M. Thomas 
 
 (She tells a friend in confidence, after she is 
 safely out of it all.) 
 
 FROST AND SANDBURG TONIGHT 
 
 Apple green bird on a wooden bough, 
 
 And the brazen sound of a long, loud row, 
 
 And "Child, take the train, but mind what you 
 
 do — 
 Frost, tonight, and Sandburg too!" 
 
 Then I sally forth, half wild, half cowed. 
 Till I come to the surging, impervious crowd. 
 The wine-filled, the temperance, the sober, the 
 
 pied. 
 The Poets that cover the countryside! 
 
 The Poets I never would meet till tonight! 
 A gleam of their eyes in the fading light, 
 And I took them all in — the enormous throng — 
 And with one great bound I bolted along. 
 
 If the garden had merely held birds and flowers! 
 But I hear a voice — they have talked for hours — 
 "Frost tonight — " if ^twere merely he! 
 Half wild, half cowed, I flee, I flee! 
 
 17 
 
Charles Hanson Towne 
 
 (Who rather begrudged the time he used up 
 in going out to the suburbs.) 
 
 THE UNQUIET SINGER 
 
 He had been singing, but I had not heard his 
 
 voice; 
 He had been bothering the rest with song; 
 But I, most comfortably far 
 Within the city's stimulating jar 
 Feeling for bus-conductors and for fiats, 
 And shop-girls buying too expensive hats, 
 And silver-serviced dinners. 
 And various kinds of pleasant urban sinners, 
 And riding on the subway and the L, 
 Had much beside his song to hear and tell. 
 
 But one day (it was Spring, when poets ride 
 
 Afield to wild poetic festivals) 
 
 I, innocently making calls 
 
 Was snatched by a swift motor toward his tree 
 
 (Alas, but lady poets will do this to thee 
 
 If thou art decorative, witty or a Man) 
 
 And heard him sing, and on the grass did 
 
 bide. 
 
 i8 
 
But my whole day was sadder for his words, 
 And I was thinner 
 
 Because, in spite of my most careful plan 
 I missed a very pleasant little dinner . . . 
 In short, unless well-cooked, I don't like Birds. 
 
 19 
 
Sara Teasdale 
 
 (Who got Miss Rittenhouse to read it for her.) 
 
 AT AUTUMN 
 
 I bend and watch the grackles billing, 
 And fight with tears as I float by; 
 O be a fowl for my heart's filling! 
 O be a bird, yet never fly! 
 
 20 
 
Ezra Pound 
 
 (Mailed disdainfully by him from anywhere 
 but America, and read prayerfully by a 
 committee from Chicago.) 
 
 RAINUV: A ROMANTIC BALLAD FROM 
 THE EARLY BASQUE 
 
 ... so then naturally 
 
 This Count Rainuv I speak of 
 
 (Certainly I did not expect you would ever have 
 heard of him; 
 
 You are American poets, aren't you? 
 
 That's rather awful ... I am the only Ameri- 
 can poet 
 
 I could ever tolerate . . . well, sniff and pass. . . .) 
 
 Therefore . . . well, I knew Rainuv. 
 
 (My P. G. course at Penn, you'll remember; 
 
 A little Anglo-Saxon and Basuto, 
 
 But Provencal, mostly. Most don't go in for 
 that. . . . 
 
 You haven't, of course . . , What, no Provencal? 
 
 Well, of course, I know 
 
 Rather more than you do. That's my specialty. 
 
 But then — Omnis Gallia est divisa — but no mat- 
 ter. 
 
 21 
 
Not fit, perhaps you'd say, that, to be quoted 
 Before ladies. . . . That's your rather amusing 
 
 prudishness. . . .) 
 Well, this Rainuv, then, 
 A person with a squint like a flash 
 Of square fishes . . . being rather worse than 
 
 most 
 Of the usual literati 
 
 Said, being carried off by desire of boasting 
 That he knew all the mid-Victorians 
 Et ab lor bos amies: 
 (He thought it was something to boast of.) 
 
 We'll say he said he smoked with Tennyson, 
 And — deeper pit — pax v obis cum — went to vespers 
 With Adelaide Anne Procter; helped Bob Brown- 
 ing elope 
 With Elizabeth and her lapdog (said it bit him) 
 Said he was the first man Blake told 
 All about the angels in a pear-tree at Peckham 
 
 Rye 
 Blake drew them for him, he said; they were 
 
 grackles, not angels — 
 (Blake's not a mid- Victorian, but you don't know 
 
 better) 
 So ... we come, being slightly irritated, to 
 facing him down. 
 
 22 
 
". . . And George Eliot?" we ask lightly. 
 ^'Roomed with him,'' nodded Rainuv confidently, 
 *^At college!" . . . Ah, bos amid bos amid 
 Rainuv is a king to you. .... 
 Three centuries from now (you dead and messy) 
 
 men whispering insolently 
 (Eeni meeni mini mo . . .) will boast that their 
 
 great-grand-uncles 
 Were kicked by me in passing. . . . 
 
 23 
 
Margaret Widdemer 
 
 (Clutching a non-existent portiere with one 
 hand.) 
 
 THE SIGHING TREE 
 
 The folk of the wood called me — 
 
 "There sits a golden bird 
 Upon your mother's pear-tree — '^ 
 
 But I never said a word. 
 
 The Sleepy People whispered — 
 
 "The bird is singing now." 
 But I felt not then like leaving bed 
 
 Nor listening beneath the bough. 
 
 But the wronged world beat my portals — 
 "Come out or be sore oppressed!" 
 
 So I threw a stone at the grackle 
 And my throbbing heart had rest. 
 
 24 
 
Richard Le Gallienne 
 
 (Advancing with a dreamy air of there still 
 being a Yellow Book.) 
 
 BALLADE OF SPRING CHICKENS 
 
 Spring comes — yet where the dream that glows? 
 
 There only waves upon the lea 
 A lonely pear-bough where doth doze 
 
 A bird of green, and merely he: 
 
 Why weave of him our poetry? 
 Why of a Crackle need we sing? 
 
 Ah, far another fowl for me — 
 I seek Spring Chickens in the Spring. 
 
 Though May returns, and frisking shows 
 
 Her ankles through this white clad tree, 
 Alas, old Spring's gone with the rose. 
 Gone is all old romance and glee — 
 Yet still a joy remains to me — 
 Softly our lyric lutes unstring. 
 
 Far from this Crackle we shall flee 
 And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! 
 
 Too soon Youth's mss must close, 
 (Omar) its rose be pot-pourri: 
 
 27 
 
What of this bird and all his woes I 
 
 Catulla, I would fly to thee — 
 
 Bright bird of luring lingerie, 
 Of bushy bob, of knees aswing, 
 
 This golden task be mine in fee, 
 To seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! 
 
 Envoi 
 
 Prince, let us leave this grove, pardie, 
 
 A flapper is a fairer thing: 
 Let us fare fast where such there be, 
 
 And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring 1 
 
 28 
 
Angela Morgan 
 
 (Carefully lifting her Greek robe off the wet 
 grass, and patting her fillet with one white 
 glove, recites passionately.) 
 
 OH I BIRD I 
 
 I heard a flaming noise that screamed — 
 "Man, panting, crushed, must be redeemed! 
 Man! All the crowd of him! 
 Quiet or loud of him! 
 Men! Raging souls of them! 
 Heaps of them, shoals of them! 
 Hurtling impassioned through fiery-tongued rap- 
 ture! 
 Leaping for glories all avid to capture 
 Bounteous seons of star-beating bliss!" 
 I heard a voice cry, and I'm sure it said this: 
 Though the cook said the noise was a tree and 
 
 a bird . . . 
 But I heard! Gods, I heard! 
 
 20 
 
Conrad Aiken 
 
 (Creeping mysteriously out of the twilight, 
 draped in a complex.) 
 
 THE CHARNEL BIRD 
 
 Forslin murmurs a melodious impropriety 
 Musing on birds and women dead aeons 
 ago. . . . 
 Was he not, once, this fowl, a gay bird in society? 
 Can any one tell? . . . After an evening out, 
 who can know? 
 Perhaps Cleopatra, lush in her inadequate wrap- 
 pings, 
 Lifted him once to her tatbebs. . . . Perhaps 
 Helen of Troy 
 Found him more live than her Paris ... a bird 
 among dead ones. . . . 
 Perhaps Semiramis . . . once ... in a pink 
 unnamable joy * * * 
 
 I tie my shoes politely, a salute to this bird in 
 his pear-tree; 
 . . . What is a pear-tree, after all. . . . What 
 is a bird? 
 What is a shoe, or a Forslin, or even a Senlin? 
 
 30 
 
What is ... a what? ... Is there any one 
 who has heard? . . . 
 What is it crawls from the kiss-thickened, Freud- 
 ian darkness, 
 Amorous, catlike . . . Ah, can it be a cat? 
 I would so much rather it had been a scarlet 
 
 harlot. 
 There is so much more genuine poetry in 
 that. . . . 
 
 (Note by the Collator: It was, in fact, Fluff urns, the 
 Angora cat belonging to the Jenkinses on the corner; and 
 the disappointment was too much for Mr. Aiken, who 
 fainted away, and had to be taken back to Boston before 
 completing his poem, which he had intended to fill an 
 entire book.) 
 
 33 
 
Mary Carolyn Davies 
 
 (Impetuously, with a floppy hat.) 
 
 A YOUNG GIRL TO A YOUNG BIRD 
 
 When one is young, you know, then one can sing 
 
 Of anything: 
 One is so young — so pleasurably so — 
 
 How can one know 
 If God made little apples, or yet pears, 
 
 Or ... if God cares? 
 
 You are young, maybe, Grackle; that is why 
 
 I want to cry 
 Seeing you watch the poems that I say 
 
 To-night, to-day . . . 
 
 This little boy-bird seems to nod to me 
 
 With sympathy: 
 He is so young: it must be that is why . . . 
 
 As young as I! 
 
 34 
 
Marguerite Wilkinson 
 
 (Advancing with sedate courtesy in a long- 
 sleeved, high-necked lecture costume.) 
 
 THE RUNE OF THE NUDE 
 
 I will set my slim strong soul on this tree with 
 no leaves upon it, 
 I will lift up my undressed dreams to the nude 
 and ethical sky: 
 This bird has his feathers upon him: he shall 
 not have even a sonnet: 
 Until he is stripped of his last pin-plume I will 
 sing of my mate and I! 
 
 My ancestors rise from their graves to be shocked 
 at my soul's wild climbing 
 (They were strong, they were righteous, my 
 ancestors, but they always kept on their 
 clothes) 
 My mate is the best of all mates alive: his voice 
 is a raptured rhyming: 
 He chants ''Come Down!" but it cannot come, 
 either for him or those! 
 
 35 
 
My ancestors pound from their ouija-board: my 
 mate leaps in swift indignation: 
 I must tell the world of their wonders, but I 
 must be strong and free — 
 Though all sires and all mates cry out in a runic 
 incantation, 
 My soul shall be stripped and buttonless — 
 it shall dwell in a naked tree! 
 
 36 
 
Aline Kilmer 
 
 (With a certain aloofness.) 
 
 ADMIRATION 
 
 Kenton's arrogant eyes watch the Widdemer pear- 
 tree, 
 
 His thistle-down-footed sister puts out her tongue 
 at him. . . , 
 
 Kenton, what do you see? That yonder is only 
 a bare tree; 
 
 Come, carry Deborah home; she is gossamer- 
 light and slim. 
 
 "Aw, mother, but I don't want to!" Kenton re- 
 plies with devotion, 
 
 "I've gathered you stones for the bird; come on, 
 don't you want to throw 'em?" 
 
 Ah, Kenton, Kenton, my child, who but you 
 would have such an emotion? 
 
 But in spite of it I admire you, as you'll see 
 when you read this poem. 
 
 37 
 
The Benet Brothers 
 
 (They sing arm in arm, Stephen Vincent hav- 
 ing rather more to do with the verse and 
 William Rose with the chorus. Their sister 
 Laura is too busy looking for a fairy under 
 the tree to add to the family contribution.) 
 
 THE CRACKLE OF CROC 
 
 It was old Yale College 
 
 Made me what I am — 
 You oughto heard my mother 
 
 When I first said damn! 
 I put a pin in sister's chair, 
 
 She jumped sky-high . . . 
 I don't know what'll happen 
 
 When I come to die! 
 
 But oh, the stars burst wild in c glorious crimson 
 
 whanghy 
 There was foam on the beer mile-deep, mile-high, 
 
 and the pickles were piled like seas, 
 Nxara^s hair was a flapper^s bob that turned to 
 
 a ten-mile tangle. 
 And the forests were crowded with unicorns, and 
 
 gold elephants charged up trees! 
 38 
 
5/}p^feR, 
 
Forceps in the dentist's chair, 
 
 Razors in the lather . . . 
 Lord, the black experience 
 
 I've had time to gather . . . 
 But I've thought of one thing 
 
 That may pull me through — 
 I'm a reg'lar devil 
 
 But the Devil was, too! 
 
 There were thousands of trees with knotholed 
 knees that kicked in a league-long rapture. 
 Birds green as a seasick emerald in a million- 
 mile shrieking row — 
 It was sixty dollars or sixty days when the cop 
 had made his capture. . . . 
 But God! the bun was a gorgeous one, and 
 the Faculty did not know! 
 
 41 
 
Lola Ridge 
 
 (Who apparently did not care for the suburbs.) 
 
 PREENINGS 
 
 I preen myself. . . . 
 I . . . 
 
 Always do . . . 
 
 My ego expanding encompasses . . . 
 
 Everything, naturally. . . . 
 
 This bird preens himself . . . 
 It is our only likeness. . . . 
 
 Ah, God, I want a Ghetto 
 
 And a Freud and an alley and some Immigrants 
 
 calling names . . . 
 God, you know 
 How awful it is. . . . 
 Here are trees and birds and clouds 
 And picturesquely neat children across the way 
 
 on the grass 
 Not doing anything 
 Improper . . . 
 
 (Poor little fools, I mustn't blame them for that 
 Perhaps they never 
 Knew How. . . .) 
 
 42 
 
SflPH'fJ?. 
 
But oh, God, take me to the nearest trolley line! 
 This is a country landscape — 
 I can't stand it! 
 
 God, take me away — 
 There is no Sex here 
 And no Smell! 
 
 45 
 
Edna St. Vincent Millay 
 
 (Recites in a flippant voice which occasionally 
 chokes up with irrepressible emotion, and 
 clenching her hands tensely as she notices 
 that the Grackle has hopped twice.) 
 
 TEA O' HERBS 
 
 O I have brought in now 
 
 Bergamot, 
 A packet o' brown senna 
 
 And an iron pot; 
 In my scarlet gown 
 
 I make all hot. 
 
 And other men and girls 
 
 Write like me 
 Setting herbs a-plenty 
 
 In their poetry 
 (Bergamot for hair-oil, 
 
 Bergamot for tea!) 
 
 And they may do ill now 
 Or they may do well, 
 (Little should I care now 
 
 What they have to sell — ) 
 
 46 
 
But what bergamot and rue are 
 None of them can tell. 
 
 All above my bitter tea 
 
 I have set a lid 
 (As my bitter heart 
 
 By its red gown hid) 
 They write of bergamot 
 
 Because I did. . . . 
 
 (From its padded hangers 
 They've snatched my red gown, 
 
 Men as well as girls 
 And gone down town, 
 
 Flaunting my vocabulary, 
 Every verb and noun!) 
 
 And the grackle moans 
 
 High above the pot. 
 He is sick with herbs . . . 
 
 And am I not, 
 Who have brought in 
 Bergamot? 
 
 49 
 
John V. A. Weaver 
 
 (With a strong note of infant brutality.) 
 
 THE WEAVER BIRD 
 
 Gosh, kid! that bird a-cheepin' in the tree 
 All green an' cocky — why, it might be me 
 Singin' to you. . . . Wisht I was just a bird 
 Bringin' you worms — aw, you know, things I've 
 
 heard 
 'Bout me — an' flowers, maybe . . . Like as not 
 Somebody'd get me with an old slingshot 
 An' I'd be dead . . . Gee, it'd break you up! 
 Nothin' would be the same to you, I bet, 
 Knowin' my grave was out there in the wet 
 And we two couldn't pet no more . . . Say, kid, 
 It makes me weep, same as it always did. 
 To think how bad you'd feel. . . . 
 
 I got a thought. 
 An awful funny one I sorta caught — 
 Nobody never thought that way, I guess — 
 When I get blue, an' things is in a mess 
 I map out all my funeral, the hearses 
 An' nineteen carriages, an' folks with verses 
 
 so 
 
Sayin' how great I was, an' all like that, 
 
 An' wreaths, an' girls with crapes around their 
 
 hat 
 Tellin' the world how bad their hearts was broke, 
 An' you, just smashed to think I had to 
 
 croak. . . . 
 
 I can't stand that bird, somehow — makes me 
 
 cry. . . . 
 The world'll be darn sorry when I die! 
 
 SI 
 
David Morton 
 
 (Who, being very polite, only thought it.) 
 
 SONNET: TREES ARE NOT SHIPS 
 
 There is no magic in a living tree, 
 And, if they be not sea-gulls, none in birds: 
 My soul is seasick, and its only words 
 Murmur desire for things more like a sea. 
 In this dry landscape here there seems to be 
 No water, merely persons in large herds, 
 Who, by their long remarks, their arid girds, 
 Come from the Poetry Society. 
 
 What could be drier, where all things are dry? 
 What boots this bird, this pear-tree spreading 
 
 wide? 
 Oh, make this bird they all discuss to pie, 
 Hew down this tree and shape its planks to ships. 
 Send them to sea with these folk nailed inside, 
 That I may have great sonnets on my lips! 
 
 52 
 
Elinor Wylie 
 
 (With an air of admitting the tragic and all- 
 important fact.) 
 
 THE GRACKLE IS THE LOON* 
 
 Never believe this bird connotes 
 
 Jade whorls of carven commonness: 
 
 Nor as from ordinary throats 
 
 Slides his sharp song in ice-strung stress. 
 
 He is the cold and scornful Loon, 
 Who, hoping that the sun shall fail, 
 
 Steeps in the silver of the moon 
 
 His burnished claws, his chiseled tail. 
 
 53 
 
Leonora Speyer 
 
 (Speaking, notwithstanding, with unshaken 
 poise.) 
 
 A LANDSCAPE GETS PERSONAL 
 
 Beloved. . . . 
 
 I cannot bear that Bird 
 
 He is green 
 
 With envy of My Songs: 
 
 ''Cheep! Cheepr 
 
 This Tree 
 
 Has a furtive look 
 
 And the Brook 
 
 Says, "Oh . . . Splash. . . ." 
 
 And the Grass ... the terrible Grass . . . 
 It waves at me. . . . 
 It is too flirtatious! 
 
 Beloved, 
 
 Let us leave swiftly . . . 
 
 / fear this Landscape! 
 It would vamp me! 
 
 54 
 
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 
 
 (Who, having engagements to speak at ten 
 unveilings, and nine public schools and 
 twelve other symposiums, stayed away, but 
 sent this handsome tribute by wire.) 
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM LEADING NOWHERE 
 
 I sing of the joy of the Small Paths 
 
 The paths that lead nowhere at all, 
 (Though I never have gone on them nevertheless 
 
 They are admirable, and so small!) 
 I go out at midnight in motors 
 
 But, being a Roosevelt, I drive 
 Straight ahead on the neatly paved highway, 
 
 For I wish with much speed to arrive. 
 
 Oh, the joy and effulgence of Small Paths 
 
 Surrounded with Birds and with Trees 
 I would love to go down on a Small Path 
 
 And sit in communion with these ! 
 Oh, Grackle, I yearn to be with you, 
 
 For poetic communion I yearn 
 But I have ten engagements to speak in the 
 suburbs 
 
 And alas, I've no time to return. 
 
 57 
 
Oh alas, the undone moments, 
 
 Oh, the myriad hours bereft 
 Trying to be twenty people 
 
 And to do things right and left. 
 I would sit down by a Small Path 
 
 And would make me a Large Rhyme 
 I should love to find my soul there 
 
 But I haven^t got the time! 
 
 S8 
 
Ridgely Torrence 
 
 (Who felt that the Bird did not sufficiently 
 uphold Art.) 
 
 THE FOWL OF A THOUSAND FLIGHTS 
 
 Crackle, Crackle on your tree, 
 
 There's something wrong to-day, 
 In the moonlight, in the quiet evening. 
 
 You will rise and croak and fly away; 
 Oh, you have sat and listened till you're wild for 
 flight 
 
 (And that's all right) 
 But you have never criticised a single song 
 
 (And that's all wrong) 
 Lo, would you add despair unto despair? 
 Do you not care 
 
 That all these lesser children of the Muse 
 Shall sing to you exactly as they choose? 
 
 You are ungrateful. Fowl. I wrote a poem. 
 Once, in the middle of August, intending to show 
 
 'em 
 That you should not 
 Be shot: 
 
 What saw I then, what heard? 
 
 59 
 
Multitudes — multitudes, under the tree they 
 
 stirred, 
 And with too many a broken note and wheeze 
 They sang what each did please. . . . 
 
 And Thou, 
 
 O bird of emeraldine beak and brow, 
 Thou sawest it all, and did not even cackle, 
 Crackle ! 
 
 60 
 
Henry van Dyke 
 
 (Who, although for different reasons, did not 
 care for the Crackle either.) 
 
 THE ROILING OF HENRY 
 
 (A Song of the Grating Outdoors) 
 
 Bird, thou art not a Veery, 
 
 Nor yet a Yellowthroat, 
 Ne'erless, I knew thy gentle song, 
 
 Long, long e'er I could vote; 
 Thou art not a Blue Flower, 
 
 Nor e'en a real Blue Bird; 
 Yet there's a moral high and pure 
 
 In all thy liltings heard: 
 ''Grack-grack-grack-grack'grack'grack — 
 
 Go on and ne'er look back!'' 
 
 The noble tow'rs of Princeton 
 
 Hear high thy pensive trill, 
 And eke my ear has heard thee 
 
 The while I fished the rill; 
 Thy note rings out at daybreak 
 
 Before I rise to toil; 
 Thou counselest Persistence; 
 
 Thy song no stone can spoil ; 
 ''Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack — 
 
 Go on and ne'er look back!'' 
 6i 
 
Yet, Bird, there is a limit 
 
 To all I've undergone; 
 From five o'clock till five o'clock 
 
 Thou'st chanted o'er my lawn; 
 I cannot get my work done . . . 
 
 I give thee. Bird, advice; 
 If thou wouldst save thy skin alive, 
 
 Let me not warn thee twice, 
 ^^Grack'grack-grack-grack-grack-grack- 
 
 Go on and ne'er look back!'* 
 
 62 
 
Cale Young Rice 
 
 (Who came out rather tired from trying to 
 choose a new suit, and could not get it off 
 his mind.) 
 
 PANTINGS 
 
 Pantings, Pantings, Pantings! 
 
 Gents' immanent furnishings! 
 On a mystic tide I ride, I ride. 
 
 Of the clothes of a million springs! 
 I take the train for the suburbs 
 
 Or I sweep from Pole to Pole, 
 But where is the window that holds them not, 
 
 Gents' furnishings of my soul! 
 
 Pantings, Pantings, Pantings! 
 
 Shirtings and coatings too! 
 How can I think of mere birds, nor blink 
 
 In the Cosmic Hullaballoo? 
 The hot world throbs with Immenseness, 
 
 The Voidness plunks in the Void, 
 And all of it doubtless has something to do 
 
 With Employer and Unemployed! 
 
 63 
 
Pan tings! Pantings! Pantings! 
 
 Trousers through all the town! 
 And the tailors' dummies with iron for tummies 
 
 Smirk in their blue and brown; 
 I float in a slithering simoon 
 
 Of fevered and surging tints, 
 And my ears are dulled with the mighty throb 
 
 Of the Male Best Dressers' Hints: 
 
 Pantings! Pantings! Pantings! 
 
 My wardrobe, they send it fleet. , . . 
 Ah, the I sand the Was and the Never Does. . . . 
 
 And the Cosmos at last complete! 
 
 64 
 
Bliss Carman 
 
 (Who, incidentally, happened to be correct.) 
 
 THE WILD 
 
 Ho, Spring calls clear a message. . . . 
 
 The Grackle is not green. . . . 
 The Mighty Mother Nature 
 
 She knows just what I mean. 
 
 The lilac and the willow 
 
 The grass and violet 
 They are my wild companions 
 
 Where I was raised a pet. 
 
 The secrets of great nature 
 From childhood I have heard; 
 
 Oh, I can tell a wild flower 
 Swiftly from a wild bird; 
 
 And Gwendolen and Marna 
 
 And Myrtle (dead all three . . . 
 
 Among my wildwood sweethearts 
 Was much mortality). 
 
 65 
 
If they my loves returning 
 
 Might gather 'neath these boughs 
 (Oh, they would sniff at pear-trees 
 
 Who loved the Northern Sloughs), 
 
 Their wild eternal whisper 
 Would back me up, I ween: 
 
 "This bird is not a Crackle: 
 A Crackle is not green." 
 
 66 
 
Grace Hazard and Hilda Conkling 
 
 THEY SEE THE BHIDH^: 
 
 (Mrs. Conkling points maternally.) 
 Oh, Hilda! see the little Birdl 
 If you will watch, upon my word 
 He will come out; a Veery * he 
 As like an Oboe as can be: 
 He shall be winged, with a tail, 
 Mayhap a Beak him shall not fail! 
 And I will tell him, ''Birdie, oh, 
 This is my Hilda, you must know — 
 And oh, what joy, if you but knew — 
 She shall make poetry on you!" 
 
 (The Birdie obliges, whereupon Hilda recites 
 obediently, while her mother, concealing 
 herself completely behind the bird, takes 
 dictation.) 
 
 Oh, my lovely Mother, 
 
 That is a Bird: 
 
 Sitting on a Tree. 
 
 I am a Little Girl 
 
 * Note by the Collator : I do not pretend to explain the 
 veery-complex of American poets. They all seemed pos- 
 sessed to rub it into the poor bird that he wasn't one. 
 
 67 
 
Standing on the Ground. 
 I see the Bird, 
 The Bird sees me. 
 
 Bird! 
 
 Color of Grass I 
 
 I love my Mother 
 More than I do You! 
 
 68 
 
Theodosia Garrison 
 
 (Who began cheerfully, but reduced her audi- 
 ence to tears, which she surveyed with com- 
 placence, by the third line.) 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE BIRD DANCE OF 
 PIERRETTE 
 
 Pierrette^ s mother speaks: 
 
 *'Sure is it Pierrette yez are, Pierrette and no 
 other? 
 (Och, Pierrette, me heart is broke that ye shud 
 be that same — ) 
 Pertendin' to be Frinch, an' me yer poor ould 
 Irish mother 
 That named ye Bridget fer yer aunt, a dacent 
 Dublin name! 
 Ye that was a pious girrl, decked out in ruffled 
 collars, 
 With yer hair that docked an' frizzed — if Fa- 
 ther Pat shud see ! 
 Dancin' on a piece o' grass all puddle-holes an' 
 hollers, 
 Amusin' these quare folk that's called a Pote- 
 Society!" 
 
 69 
 
But it was Bridget Sullivan, 
 
 Her locks flour-sprent, 
 That danced beneath the flowering tree 
 
 Leaping as she went. 
 
 "If there's folk to stare at ye ye'll dance for all 
 creation 
 (Since ye went to settlements 'tis little else I've 
 heard), 
 Letting yer good wages go to chat of ^inspiration/ 
 Flappin' up an' down an' makin' out yez are a 
 burrd! 
 Sure if ye got cash fer it 'tis little I'd be sayin' 
 (Och, Pierrette, stenographin' 'tis better wage 
 ye'll get,) 
 Sorra wan these long-haired folk has spoke till ye 
 o' payin', 
 Talkin' of yer art, an' ye a leppin' in the wet! 
 
 But it was Bridget Sullivan^ 
 
 Her head down-bent. 
 Went back on the three-thirteen, 
 
 Coughing as she went. 
 
 vAt J> 
 
 70 
 
William Griffith 
 (Who felt for her.) 
 
 PIERRETTE REMEMBERS AN ENGAGE- 
 MENT 
 
 Pierrette has gone — but it was not 
 
 Exactly that she lied; 
 She said she had to catch a train; 
 
 ''I have a date," she cried. 
 
 To keep a sudden rendezvous 
 
 It came into her mind 
 As quite the quickest way to flee 
 
 From parties of this kind; 
 
 She went most softly and most soon, 
 
 But still she made a stir. 
 For, going, she took all the men 
 
 To town along with her. 
 
 71 
 
Edgar Guest 
 
 (Who has an air of absolute belief in the True, 
 the Optimistic, and the Checkbook. He 
 seems yet a little ill at ease among the 
 others, and to be looking about restlessly 
 for Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) 
 
 AIN'T NATURE WONDERFUL! 
 
 How dear to me are home and wife. 
 The dear old Tree I used to Love, 
 
 The Pear it shed on starting life 
 And God's Outdoors so bright above I 
 
 For Virtue gets a high reward, 
 
 Noble is all good Scenery, 
 So I will root for Virtue hard, 
 
 For God, for Nature, and for Me! 
 
 72 
 
Don Marquis 
 
 (Who, it appears, refers to departments which 
 he and certain of his friends run in New 
 York papers. He swings a theoretical bar- 
 rel of hootch above his head, and chants:) 
 
 THE MEETING OF THE COLUMNS 
 
 Chris and Frank and I 
 
 Each had a column; 
 Chris and I were plump and gay, 
 But not so F.P.A.: 
 
 F.P.A. was solemn — 
 
 Not so his Column; 
 That was full of wit, 
 
 As good as My Column 
 Nearly every bit! 
 We sat on each an office chair 
 
 And all snapped our scissors; 
 Their things were pretty fair 
 
 But all of mine were Whizzers! 
 
 Frank wrote of Cyril, 
 
 An ungrammatic sinner, 
 But I wrote of Drink 
 
 And Chris wrote of Dinner; 
 
 And Frank kept getting thinner 
 
 75 
 
And we kept getting plump — 
 Frank sat like a Bump 
 
 Translating from the Latin, 
 Chris wrote of Happy Homes 
 I wrote of Alcoholic Foams, 
 
 And we still seemed to fatten; 
 Frank wrote of Swell Parties where he had been, 
 I wrote of Whisky-sours, and Chris wrote of Gin ! 
 But we both got fatter. 
 So the parties didn't matter, 
 Though F.P.A. he published each as soon as he'd 
 been at her. . . . 
 
 F.P.A. went calling 
 
 And sang about it sorely ... 
 ^^Pass around the shandygaff," says brave old 
 
 Morley! 
 F.P.A. played tennis 
 
 And told the World he did. . . . 
 / bought a stein of beer and tipped up the lid! 
 Frank wrote up all his evenings out till we began 
 
 to cry, 
 But we drowned our envy in a long cool Rye! 
 
 And then we got an invitation, Frank and Chris 
 
 and me. 
 To come and say a poem on a Grackle in a Tree: 
 
 76 
 
But Chris and I'd had twenty ryes, and we began 
 
 to cackle — 
 "Oh, see the ninety pretty birds, and every one 
 
 a Grackle! 
 A Grackle with a Hackle, 
 A ticklish one to tackle 
 A tacklish one to tickle . . . 
 To ticker . . . 
 To licker. . . ." 
 And we both began to giggle 
 
 And woggle, and wiggle. 
 And we giggled and we gurgled 
 
 And we gargled and were gay . . . 
 For we'd had an invitation, just the same as 
 F.P.A.I 
 
 79 
 
Christopher Morley 
 
 (Acting, in spite of himself, as if the Bird 
 were his long-lost brother, and locating the 
 Crackle, for poetic purposes, in his own 
 home.) 
 
 THE MOCKING-HOARSE BIRD 
 
 Good fowl, though I would speak to thee 
 With wonted geniality, 
 And Oxford charm in my address, 
 It's not quite easy, I confess: 
 Suaviter in modo's hard 
 When poets trample one's front yard, 
 And this is such an enormous crew 
 That you've got trailing after you ! 
 I'd washed my youngest child but four, 
 Put the milk-bottles out the door. 
 Paid my wife's hat-bill with no sigh 
 (Ah, happy wife! Ah, happy II) 
 Tossed down (see essays) then my pen 
 To be a private citizen. 
 Written about that in the Post, 
 When lo, upon the lawn a host 
 Of Poets, sprung upon my sight 
 Each eager for a Poem to write! 
 
 80 
 
To a less placid bard you'd be 
 
 A flat domestic tragedy, — 
 
 Bird — grackle — nay, I'd scarcely call 
 
 You bird — a mere egg you, that's all — 
 
 Only a bad egg has the nerve 
 
 To poach (a pun! ) on my preserve! 
 
 To P.Q.S. and X.Y.D. 
 
 (Both columnists whom you should see) 
 
 And L.M.N (a man who never 
 
 Columns a word that isn't clever,) 
 
 And B.C.D (who scintillates 
 
 Much more than most who get his rates) 
 
 A thing like this would be a trial. . . . 
 
 It is to me, there's no denial. 
 
 Why, Bird, if they would sing of you, 
 Or Sin, or Broken Hearts, or Rue, 
 Or what Young Devils they all are. 
 Or Scarlet Dames, or the First Star, 
 Or South-Sea- Jazz-Hounds sorrowing. 
 It would be quite another thing: 
 But, Bird, here they come mousing round 
 On my suburban, sacred ground, 
 And see my happiness — it's flat. 
 You wretched Bird, they'll sing of that! 
 They'll hymn my Happy Hearth, and later 
 The joys of my Refrigerator, 
 
 8i 
 
Burst into song about the points 
 Of Babies, Married Peace, Hot Joints, 
 The Jimmy-Pipe I often carol. 
 My Commutation, my Rain-Barrel, 
 And each Uncontroverted Fact 
 With which my poetry is packed . . . 
 In short, base Bird, they'll sing like me, 
 And then, where will my living be? 
 
 82 
 
Franklin P. Adams 
 
 (Coldly ignoring the roistering of his friends, 
 addresses the Crackle with bitterness:) 
 
 TO A CRACKLE 
 (Horace, Ode XVIXXV, p. 23) 
 
 Bird, if you think I do not care 
 To gaze upon your feathered form 
 
 Rather than converse with some fair 
 Or make my brow with tennis warm; 
 
 If you should think I'd liefer far 
 
 Hear your sweet song than fast be 
 driving 
 
 Within my costly motor car 
 
 And in my handsome home arriving, 
 
 If you should think I would be gone 
 Far sooner than you might expect 
 
 From off this uncolumnar lawn; 
 Bird, you'd be utterly correct! 
 
 83 
 
Tom Daly 
 
 (Showing the Italian's love of the Beautiful, 
 which he makes his own more than the 
 Anglo-Saxon dreams of doing.) 
 
 CARLO THE GARDENER 
 
 De poets dey tinka dey gotta da tree, 
 Dey gotta da arta, da birda — but me, 
 I lova da arta, I lova da flower, 
 (Ah, bella fiorettaf) I waita da hour: 
 I mowa da grass, I rake uppa da leaf — 
 I brava young Carlo — Maria! fine t'ief ! 
 I waita 
 Till later. 
 
 Da poets go homa, go finda da sup', 
 I creep by dis tree and I digga her up, 
 (Da Grackla, da blossom, da tree-a I love. 
 Per Dio ! and da art ! ) So I giva da shove, 
 I catcha da birda, I getta da tree, 
 I taka to Rosa my wife, and den she — 
 She gotta 
 In potta! 
 
 84 
 
Vachel Lindsay 
 
 (Bounding on toward the end of the proceed- 
 ings with a bundle over his shoulder, and 
 making the rest join in at the high spots.) 
 
 THE HOBOKEN GRACKLE AND THE 
 
 HOBO 
 
 (An Explanation) 
 
 As I went marching, torn-socked, free, [steadily] 
 With my red heart marching all agog in front 
 
 of me 
 And my throbbing heels 
 And my throbbing feet 
 Making an impression on the Ho- 
 
 [With energy] 
 
 boken street 
 Then I saw a pear-tree, a fowl, a bird, 
 And the worst sort of noise an 
 
 . ■!_ Ji [With surprise] 
 
 Illmoiser ever heard! 
 Banks — of — poets — round — that — tree — 
 All of the Poetry Society but me! 
 All a-cackle, addressed it as a [Chatteringly 
 
 grackle _^*^^ parrots] 
 
 Showed me its hackle (that proved it was a fly) 
 
 8s 
 
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, [Cooingly, yet 
 
 Gosh, what a packed street! tknce] ' 
 
 The Secretary, President and TREASURER 
 
 went byl 
 
 "That's not a grackle," said I to all of him, 
 
 Seething with their poetry, iron-tongued, grim, 
 
 '^That's an English sparrow on that limb!" 
 
 And they all went home 
 
 No more to roam. 
 
 And I watched their unmade poetry 
 
 Ti r [Intetnperately] 
 
 raise up like foam -^ 
 
 And I took my bandanna again on rrx/. , , 
 
 my stick majesty] 
 
 And I walked to the grocery and took my pick 
 And I bought crackers, canned [With domes- 
 
 shrimps, corn, Si?f '"' 
 
 Codfish like flakes of snow at morn. 
 Buns for breakfast and a fountain-pen 
 Laid down change and marched out again 
 And I walked through Hoboken, torn-socked, free, 
 With my red heart galumphing all agog in front 
 
 of me! 
 
 86 
 
DIES ILLA: A BIRD OF A MASQUE 
 
 Being a Collaboration by Percy Mackaye, 
 
 Isabel Fiske Conant and Josephine 
 
 Preston Peabody. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONiE 
 
 The Crackle (who does not appear at all) 
 
 The Spirit of the Rejection Slip 
 
 The Spirit of Modern Poetry 
 
 Chorus of Elderly Ladies Who Appreciate Poetry 
 
 Chorus of Correspondence, Kindergarten, Grammar, 
 High-School and College Classes in Verse- 
 Writing 
 
 Chorus of Young Men Running Poetry Magazines 
 
 Chorus of Poetry Critics 
 
 Chorus of Assorted Culture-Hounds 
 
 The Person Responsible for the Poetic Renaissance 
 IN America 
 
 The Non-Poetry Writing Public (Composed of two citi- 
 zens who have never learned to read or write) 
 
 Semi-Choruses of Magazine Editors and Book-Pub- 
 lishers 
 
 Ate, Goddess of Discord 
 
 The Muse 
 
 Time: Next year. Place: Everywhere. Scene: A level 
 stretch of monotony. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (Entering 
 despairingly) 
 Alas — in vain! Yet I have barred the way 
 As best I might, that this great horror fall 
 Not on the world. Returned with many thanks 
 And not because of lack of merit, I 
 
 89 
 
Have said to twenty million poets . . . nay . . . 
 Profane it not, that word ... to twenty million 
 Persons who wasted stamps and typewriting 
 And midnight oil, to add unto the world 
 More Bunk. ... In vain — in vain! 
 (She sinks down sobbing.) 
 
 (From right and left of stage enter Semi- 
 Choruses of Magazine Editors and Book 
 Publishers, tearing their hair rhythmic- 
 ally,) 
 
 SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS 
 
 We have mailed their poems back 
 To every man and woman-jack 
 Who weigh the postman down 
 From country and from town; 
 But all in vain, in vain. 
 They mail them in again! 
 
 SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS 
 
 Though we've sent them flying, 
 We are nearly dying, 
 From the books of poetry 
 Sent by people unto we; 
 In vain we keep them off our shelves, 
 They go and publish them themselves! 
 
 90 
 
SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIPS 
 
 All, bravely have ye toiled, my masters, aye, 
 And I've toiled with you ... All in vain, in 
 vain — 
 
 (Enter, with a proud consciousness of duty 
 well done, the Chorus of Correspondence, 
 Kindergarten, Grammar, High-School and 
 College Classes for Writing Verse. They 
 sing Joyously) 
 
 The Day has come that we adore, 
 The Day we've all been working for, 
 Now babies in their bassinets 
 And military school cadets, 
 And chambermaids in each hotel 
 And folks in slums who cannot spell, 
 Professors, butchers, clergymen, 
 And every one, have grabbed a pen: 
 The Day has come — tra la, tra lee — 
 Everybody writes poetry! 
 
 (They do a Symbolic Dance with Type- 
 writers, during which enters the Chorus of 
 Young Men who Run Poetry Magazines. 
 These put on horn-rimmed spectacles and 
 chant earnestly as follows) 
 91 
 
CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN WHO RUN POETRY MAGA- 
 ZINES 
 
 We're very careful what we put in; 
 
 This magazine is of highest grade; 
 
 If it doesn't appeal to our personal taste 
 
 There's no use sending it, we're afraid; 
 
 We don't like Shelley, we don't like Keats, 
 
 We don't like poets who're tactlessly dead; 
 
 If you write like us there will be no fuss — 
 
 That's the best of verse, when the last word's 
 said. . . . (Bursting irrepressibly into 
 youthful enthusiasm, and dashing their 
 horn spectacles to the ground) 
 
 Yale! Yale! Yale! 
 
 Our Poetry! 
 
 Fine Poetry! 
 
 Nobody Else's Poetry! 
 
 Raw! Raw! Raw! Raw! 
 
 (Enter, modestly , the Person Responsible for 
 
 the Poetic Renaissance in America. There 
 
 are four of him — or her, as the case may 
 
 be — Miss Monroe, Miss Rittenhouse, Mrs, 
 
 Stork, Mr. Braithwaite. The Person 
 
 stands in a row and recites in unison:) 
 92 
 
I've made Poetry 
 
 What it is today; 
 Or ... at least . . . 
 
 That's what people say: 
 Earnest-minded effort 
 
 Never can be hid; 
 The Others think They did it— 
 
 But— I— Did! 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP, EDITORS AND 
 
 PUBLISHERS, (faintly:) 
 You did? (They rush out.) 
 Person Responsible (still modestly) 
 Well, SO they say — 
 But I have to go away. 
 I'm due at a lecture 
 
 I give at three today. (The Person goes out 
 in single file, looking at its watch. As 
 it does so, there enters a pale and di- 
 shevelled girl in Greek robes. It is the 
 Muse.) 
 muse; 
 
 In Mount Olympus we have heard a noise and 
 
 crying 
 As swine that in deep agony are dying, 
 A voice of tom-cats wailing, 
 A never failing 
 
 93 
 
Thud as of rolling logs: 
 
 A chattering like frogs, 
 
 And all this noise, unceasing, thunderous, 
 
 Making a horrible fuss. 
 
 Cries out upon my name. 
 
 Oh, what am I, the Muse and giver of Fame, 
 
 So to be mocked and humbled by this use? 
 
 I — I, the Muse! 
 
 (Enter Spirit of Modern Poetry, a lady with 
 bobbed hair, clad lightly in horn glasses 
 and a sex-complex.) 
 
 SPIRIT OF MODERN POETRY 
 
 You're behind the times; quite narrow. 
 Don't you want 
 Culture for the masses? 
 
 MUSE 
 
 No; I am Greek; we never did. 
 Besides, it isn*t culture. 
 
 CHORUS OF ELDERLY LADIES WHO APPRECIATE 
 
 POETRY, (trotting by two by two on their 
 
 way to a lecture, pause.) 
 Oh, how narrow! Oh, how shocking! 
 She's no Muse! She must be mocking! 
 
 94 
 
MUSE (sternly, having lost her temper by this 
 time) 
 I am a goddess. Trifle not with me. 
 
 ELDERLY LADIES (with resolute tolerance) 
 She looks like a pupil of Isadora Duncan, 
 But she says she's a goddess; what folly we'd 
 
 be sunk in 
 To believe a word she says; she needs broad'- 
 
 ning, we conjecture — 
 My dear, come with us to Miss Rittenhouse's 
 
 lecture ! 
 
 MUSE (lifting her arms angrily) 
 Ate, my sister! 
 
 ATE, (behind the scenes) I come! 
 
 (Enter from one side, Band of Poets — very 
 large — with lyres and wreaths put on 
 over their regular clothes. From the 
 other side, a chorus of Poetry Critics. At 
 their end steals Ate, Goddess of Discord, 
 disguised as a Critic by means of horn 
 glasses and a Cane. The Poets do not 
 see her — or anything but themselves, in- 
 deed. They sing obliviously) 
 95 
 
My maiden aunt in Keokuk 
 
 She writes free verse like anything; 
 My great-grandmother is in luck, 
 
 She's sold her three-piece work on Spring; 
 My mother does Poetic Plays, 
 
 My dad does rhymes while signing checks, 
 And my flapper sister — ^we wouldn't have 
 missed her — 
 
 She's writing an epic on Sin and Sex — 
 The world's as perfect as it can be, 
 Everybody writes Poetry! 
 
 CHORUS OF CRITICS, (chanting yet more loudly:) 
 The world's not quite as perfect as it yet might 
 
 be, 
 Excepting for our brother-critics' poetry! 
 
 The Spirit of Discord now creeps softly out from 
 among the Critics.) 
 
 SPIRIT OF DISCORD 
 
 Rash poets, think what you would do — 
 There's nobody left you can read it to! 
 
 POETS (aghast) 
 
 We never thought of that! 
 An audience, 'tis flat, 
 
 96 
 
Is our most pressing need, 
 To listen to our screed; 
 (Each turns to his neighbor) 
 Base scribbler, get thee hence 
 Or be my audience 1 
 
 Semi-chorus : 
 
 We want to write ourselves! We'll not! 
 
 Semi-chorus : 
 
 But what you write is merely rot! 
 Hush up and let me read 
 My great, eternal screed! 
 
 ATE (stealthily) Ha, ha! 
 
 (Each Poet now draws a Fountain Pen with 
 a bayonet attached, and kills the Poet 
 next him, dying himself immediately from 
 the wound of the Poet on the other side. 
 They fall in neat windrows. There are 
 no Poets left. Meanwhile the Non-Poetry- 
 Writing Public, two in number, who have 
 been shooting crap in a corner, rise up at 
 the sound of the fall, take three paces to 
 the front, and speak:) 
 What's the use o' poetry, anyhow? / always 
 say, 'if you wanta say anything you can say it a 
 lot easier in prose.' / never wrote no poetry, and 
 I get along fine in the hardware business. 
 
 97 
 
CHORUS OF CRITICS AND CULTURE-HOUNDS, 
 
 (thrilled:) 
 Ah, a new Gospel! 
 Let us write Reviews 
 About it! 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (entering, 
 and addressing the Editors and Publishers 
 who follow her.) 
 
 Now I shall pass from you. My task comes 
 to a close. 
 
 I wing my hallowed way 
 
 To the Fool-Killer's Paradise, and there for aye 
 
 Repose. 
 
 EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS 
 
 Nay, our great helper, nay! 
 
 Leave us not yet, our only comforter! 
 
 We'll need thee still; 
 
 Folks who write poetry 
 
 There's naught on earth can kill! 
 
 (During this the culture-hounds, critics, 
 etc., have clustered round the non-poetry- 
 WRiTiNG PUBLIC, whispcriug, urging, and 
 pushing. It rises and scratches its head 
 in a flattered way, and finally says:) 
 98 
 
B'gosh, I do believe, 
 
 Now that you speak of it, I could do just as 
 
 good 
 As any of those there fool dead fellers could! 
 
 (The late Non-Poetry-Writing Public are 
 both immediately invested with lyres, and 
 wreaths which they put on over their 
 derby hats.) 
 
 SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS (to Spirit of Rejection 
 Slip) 
 You see? Too late! 
 
 SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS 
 
 Who shall escape o'er mastering tragic fate? 
 (They go off and sob in two rows in the 
 corners, while the rest of the Masque, 
 except ATE, who looks at them as if she 
 weren't through yet, and the muse, form 
 up to do a dance symbolic of One Being 
 Born Every Minute, They sing:) 
 
 99 
 
The Day has come that we adore, 
 The Day we've all been working for; 
 The Day has come, tra la, tra lee! 
 Everybody writes Poetry! 
 
 THE MUSE (unnoticed in the background) 
 Farewell. 
 
 100 
 
 «D 10.8 
 
Arthur Guiterman 
 
 (He recites with appropriate gestures.) 
 
 A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT: A RHYMED 
 
 REVIEW 
 
 It seems that Margaret Widdemer 
 Possessed a Tree with a Bird in it, 
 
 And being human, prone to err, 
 
 Thought 'twould be pleasant to begin it. 
 
 Or christen it, as one might say, 
 By asking poets closely herded 
 
 To come around and spend the day 
 
 And sing of what the Tree and Bird did. 
 
 (Poor girl! When next she takes her pen 
 Some bromide critic's sure to say, 
 
 "Don't dare do serious work again — 
 This stuff is your true metier!") 
 
 No sooner said than done; the bards 
 Rush out in quantities surprising. 
 
 And, overflowing four front yards 
 They carol till the moon is rising; 
 
 lOI 
 
With ardor, or, as some say, "pash," 
 
 In song kind or satirical, 
 Asking, apparently, no cash. 
 
 They make their offerings lyrical. 
 
 I'd be the first a spear to break 
 For Poesy; but this to tackle . . . 
 
 It seems a lot of fuss to make 
 
 About one Tree and one small Crackle. 
 
 IQ2 
 
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