Grace Fallow Norton (1876 Grace Fallow Norton was born in Minnesota, and is at present living in Paris. Some years ago the poem we include appeared in one of the American magazines. We have read more of Miss Norton's poetry since then in her Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's (1912), The Sister of the Wind (1914), Roads (1916), What is Your Legion? (1916), but "Love is a Terrible Thing" is the poem that lingers, for its exact expression of a mood essentially of youth, essentially feminine. It possesses unusual clarity and intensity. LOVE IS A TERRIBLE THING* I WENT out to the farthest meadow, And I said unto the earth, "Hold me,' And I begged the little leaves to lean Then to the stars I told my tale: "And O, I know that I shall return, But let me lie first mid the unfeeling fern. * Copyright, 1910, by The Century Magazine, and reprinted by the permission of The Century Company. "For there is a flame that has blown too near, And there is a name that has grown too dear, And there is a fear. . And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I made moan, "The heart in my bosom is not my own! "O would I were free as the wind on the wing; Love is a terrible thing!" Willa Sibert Cather (1876- > Miss Cather, a Virginian by birth, is one of our most distinguished American novelists. She comes from the Middle West. She graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1895, and has engaged in teaching and journalism, and was from 1906 to 1912, associate editor with S. S. McClure in the conducting of the old McClure's Magazine, at that time particularly distinguished for the fine quality of its fiction and poetry. Miss Cather contributed some of her earlier stories and poems to McClure's. They revealed a writer of rare ability. Some years passed, however, before the worth of Miss Cather's work was very widely recognized, and it is only recently that she has been accorded a place long due her in American fiction. Her book of poems, April Twilights, appeared in 1903. She has written, among other novels, O Pioneers, The Song of the Lark, My Antonia, and One of Ours. Youth and the Bright Medusa is the title of a recent volume of her short stories; and A Lost Lady her masterpiece in fiction. SPANISH JOHNNY THE Old West, the old time, The old wind singing through The red, red grass a thousand miles— And, Spanish Johnny, you! He'd sit beside the water ditch When all his herd was in, And never mind a child, but sing The big stars, the blue night, His speech with men was wicked talk- But those were golden things he said To his mandolin. The gold songs, the gold stars, And the hand so tender to a child- The night before he swung, he sang Arthur Upson (1877-1908) Arthur Upson was a Minnesota poet, though born in Camden, N. Y. He led a brief and tragic existence and finally perished by drowning. He produced some three or four small volumes of delicate poems, including the fragile and beautiful Octaves in an Oxford Garden, which he wrote at Wadham College, Oxford. He seemed to possess a nostalgia for the old world. His academic training and passion for the classics set his soul at odds with modern industrialism in America. "After a Dolmetsch Concert" is, to my mind, the most perfect of his poems, exquisite in feeling and execution. In it he has expressed the deepest intuition he was ordained to leave us. AFTER A DOLMETSCH CONCERT * OUT of the conquered Past Hearts that are dew and dust Wine that was spilt in haste Arising in fumes more precious; Garlands that fell forgot Rooting to wondrous bloom; Copyright, by Thomas Bird Mosher, Portland, Me., and reprinted by his permission. |