A swish of scythes goes running through the fields,
A shrill of voices where the reapers pass,
The wind moves the green flavor of the grass,
The clover goes to dust, the young stalks yield.
Up goes a flight of birds in a long file,
Dry dandelion seed by the brook's edge.

A ripple of wind sifts through the sultry hedge,
The swishing scythes are silent for a while.
Beyond the fences sour apples fall,
And torpid thistles wilt on the hill's brow,
Red currants wither by the pasture wall,
And bees are lean with sudden hunger now.
Low geese go over crying for a lake
Of water and the very meadows ache.

II

At this time shall new trees forget to sprout
Upon a hill and sap forget to stir,
Smooth bees grow weary of an endless whir
Over the orchards and a slim lad's shout
End by the frothy pool, dull butterflies.
Sink to the mown hay and spiders in the trees
Leave their webs dangling shabbily in the breeze,
And weeds brittle along the pasturesides.
Young girls cease singing and the inky crows
Go down the pastures and the bull frogs stifle
Their croaking by the banks and the winds rifle
The hush in the solid woods when a day goes.
Sweethearts move to the meadow end and sit
By the water there nor care to look at it.

"To labor on the land

It tames man like an ox:

For a wage he'll chew his cud in a cage And suffer his master's knocks.

"In towns he'll borrow new clothes,
Or burrow in old books,
Or crookle a knee to high degree
And climb the more he crooks.

"But the man who wants to climb By robbing his fellows' right

And grow to be master by their disasterHis name is not John White.

"On land, it's rob one another:

But Lord (Beg your pardon I do!), Rather than fish from my brother I'd lots rather fish from you.

"Seeing, Lord, you've enough of your own Lardered away in the tide

To last us both till the Judgment's blownAnd you never miss it beside.

"So what I'm praying for

Is us to be partners, Lord, With me to do a freeman's chore And you to give me your word.

"How I may earn my own

To mine and others' good, And lay the keel of a new world weal In a stubborn livelihood.

"Where a man takes the weather to wife And the sou' west by the bit

And speeds his course by the glory of life Whose spirit grows by grit,

"Where sun-dazzle sharps his eyes,
And fog-dark keens his ears,
And ache of the eating flaw and ice
Benumbs his landsman fears.

"So, of your bounty, God,

Knowing from marineers

How the western deeps are running with cod To fish for a thousand years,

"I ask your word: Am I wrong
Or right to want my wish?"
God said: "John White I guess you're right;
If I were you, I'd fish."-

So John White gathered his friends
And they sailed due west away

And builded fish-stages for all the ages
On Massachusetts Bay.

Palms comes from Galeana, Mexico, offering its contents anonymously. Perhaps it is intended that authorship be guessed. We shall not enter the competition:

ANTS

I read about a man who was tied down,
And the ants ate him;
His fingers

tongue. . . .

his ears... his eyes. . . his

All were eaten by the little things;
And at last

They emptied the bony cavity that held his brain,
Sucking and sucking.

...

I am tied down, and the little things are eating me....

The friend who calls me on the telephone and talks and talks,

The agent with new mops,

The husband who insists that I make love to him when I would make a song of love,

The children who quarrel and will not do their lessons,

The avalanche of sewing that threatens to smother me,

The letters from Cousin Anne and Brother Ben and Aunt Hattie that must be answered. The ice-man's short weight and the butcher's carelessness,

Even the rosy baby murmuring at my breast.... All, all are slowly eating me alive!

My fingers no longer obey me,

My ears cannot hear,

My eyes cannot see,

My tongue cannot sing,

And, slowly, the bony cavity that holds my brain Is being emptied. . . . But my husk smiles and smiles,

So that no one knows

I am being eaten
By little things!

DISILLUSION is surely at the bottom of the preceding, and one that follows after dealwith disillusion in woman, but this woman's poem has another note. It is from the New Republic:

HERE COMES THE THIEF

BY HAZEL HALL

Here comes the thief

Men nickname Time,

Oh, hide you, leaf,

And hide you, rhyme.

Leaf, he would take you

And leave you rust.

Rhyme, he would flake you
With spotted dust.
Scurry to cover,
Delicate maid
And serious lover.
Girl, bind the braid
Of your burning hair;
He has an eye
For the lusciously fair
Who passes by.
O lover, hide--
Who comes to plunder
Has the crafty střidé
Of unheard thunder.
Quick-lest he snatch,
In his grave need,
And sift and match,
Then sow like seed
Your love's sweet grief
On the backward air,

With the rhyme and the leat
And the maiden's hair.

The Wanderer is a new poetry magazine that comes from San Francisco, and its initial note is one of disillusion. Mr. Sterling is an old friend.

THE DAUGHTERS OF DISILLUSION
BY GEORGE Sterling
The girls that are singing today-
Of what despair is their art?
Are their faces bitter and fey
With the iron at the heart?

Were the grapes unripe and sour
That gave so acid a wine?
Did they have no sun in their hour?
Were the snows so long on the vine?

(Their eyes are frigid and clear

That turn to our troubled days; There is no illusion or fear In the enigmatic gaze.)

Are the strings of steel alone

On the newly-fashioned harp, That the songs are colder than stone. That the music is so sharp?

Was it thorn alone that crowned Each young and beautiful head And what mirage have they found That its dust is sweeter than bread"

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