CONTRIBUTORS TO THE JANUARY NUMBER

JOSEPHINE WEYMAN lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

ROSE HENDERSON is a resident of New York City.

ROBERT C. WHITFORD, a professor of English in Knox College, Illinois, wrote "The Seeker" in the Texas Review of October, 1919.

IGNACIO INGIANNI lives in Brooklyn, New York.

FANNIE E. RATCHFORD is a graduate of the University of Texas and Assistant in the Wrenn Library.

BENJAMIN M. WOODBRIDGE, professor of Romance languages in the University of Texas, has been a frequent contributor to the Review and to various other magazines. THORNTON S. GRAVES, an authority on English stage history,

is professor of English in the University of North Carolina. W. J. ROMAIN lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

THE PALISADES

BY JOSEPHINE WEYMAN

The night is hot with fever-brittle, dry-
And in the murky ferry-house we wait
In dormant weariness: a child's shrill cry
Disturbs two Jews, who wrangle and debate
In seeming wrath, gesticulating hate;
And when the gong resounds, like fluttered hen
The mother shoos her flock up to the gate,
While all the motley crowd mills forward then,
Like maddened cattle in a swiftly closing pen.

Strange shadows lurk within the dingy boat
As both the decks with pallid people teem:
Along the bank as we are set afloat

We catch a glimpse of swimmers in the stream.
Their naked bodies wan and ghostly seem
(The molten river's phosphorescent flies),
And far behind, distinct as in a dream,

The mighty Palisades majestic rise,

Communing with the stars and with the godlike skies.

Relief and peace are in the river breeze;
Upon the shore we spurn the lighted park

To mount the mammoth heights, where friendly trees
Envelop us in quiet and in dark.

Slow, wilted souls revive, and cares that cark

Are locked into the casket of the night:

Below, the river black-beyond, a spark
Shot from the stifling city's spangled height,

From here a land of wonder and of rare delight.

TWO POEMS

BY ROSE HENDERSON

Cottonwoods

Close about my tiny shack the cottonwoods cluster,
Bringing lavender shadows and the soft flutter of bird wings.
They temper the blinding glare of the yellow desert.
They reassuringly take the hands of my spirit
When the vast emptiness threatens to overwhelm me.

White Poppies

Frail, white butterflies fastened on swaying stems,
Fluttering snow petals in the hot desert sunshine,
Ghostly dream flowers under the rising moon,
My soul cries out to you. Fragile and strong,
Pungent and pale and elusive,

You are something to touch and look at.

You soothe the mocking silence of the songs I cannot sing.

THE HOLINESS OF LEARNING

BY ROBERT CALVIN WHITFORD

Abased between two lamps of yellow flame,
The scholar bows above his sacred book,
Bending his reverent eyes in awe to look
Beyond the word, the black, sharp-cornered name
Of thought subtle and difficult to frame
In symbol,-to discover that which took
Corporeal substance thus, and thus forsook
Ideal existence and incarnate came

To men of earth.

The perishable clay

Of human mind can seize immortal truth
Only as truth comes in the earthly way,
Mortal, imperfect, sordidly uncouth.

And priests among us are the men who see
In drossy print some deathless verity.

IN DEFENCE OF THE NEW POETIC MOVEMENT

By IGNAZIO INGIANNI

these and more branching forth into

numberless branches.

Always the free range and diversity!

Always the continent of Democracy!"

-Walt Whitman.

Vers libre is so atrociously and non-understandingly reviled and jeered at in the daily press and the periodicals that it is no wonder that most people think it a sort of deceptive substitute for poetry, assiduously trying to establish itself in the realm of art; while others are of the opinion that it is a mere advertising term with nothing basic. And so the dilettante upholders of the old school, proud of their heredity, denounce the new pioneers of art as rebels and revolutionists. "The poetical war is on. The flag of rebellion is waving; the battle rages between the old school of poets and the new,' says Mr. Stanton A. Coblentz in the April issue of the Texas Review. The poet of "The All-Beholding," possibly has forgotten, that art like life is a subject of evolution; that the artist must express himself in form natural to him at his time; that he must create new images, discover new forms of expressions, revolt, we may say, against tradition which hampers him. The true artist knows too well that hackneyed expressions moulder in the dusky nooks of our minds and fail to give rise to the intended emotions. It is his mission to restore vitality and reality to those faded and half-forgotten thoughts and feelings.

Limiting, then, this phase of poetic growth to a temporary attempt to overthrow "the ancient strongholds of poetry," he tries with all the ingenuity of a craftsman of war to crush the revolutionists. This he accomplishes, however, not by sound argument, but by means of strategy; by means of