The iron head,

Set on a monstrous jointed neck,

Glides here and there, lifts, settles on the red
Moist floor, with nose dropped in the dirt, at beck
Of some incredible control.

He snorts, and pauses couchant for a space;
Then slowly lifts, and tears the gaping hole
Yet deeper in earth's flank. A sudden race
Of loosened earth and pebbles trickles there
Like blood-drops in a wound.

But he, the monster, swings his load around,-
Weightless it seems as air—

His mammoth jaw

Drops widely open with a rasping sound,
And all the red earth vomits from his maw.

O thwarted monster, born at man's decree,
A lap-dog dragon, eating from his hand
And doomed to fetch and carry at command,
Have you no longing ever to be free?
In warm electric days to run a-muck,
Ranging like some mad dinosaur,

Your fiery heart at war

With this strange world, the city's restless ruck,
Where all drab things that toil, save you alone,
Have life;

And you the semblance only, and the strife?
Do you not yearn to rip the roots of stone
Of these great piles men build,

And hurl them down with shriek of shattered steel,

Scorning your own sure doom, so you may feel,

You too, the lust with which your fathers killed? Or is your soul in very deed so tame,

The blood of Grendel watered to a gruel,

That you are well content

With heart of flame

Thus placidly to chew your cud of fuel

And toil in peace for man's aggrandizement?

Poor helpless creature of a half-grown god,
Blind of yourself and impotent!

At night,

When your forerunners, sprung from quicker sod, Would range through primal woods, hot on the

scent,

Or wake the stars with amorous delight,

You stand, a soiled, unwieldy mass of steel,
Black in the arc-light, modern as your name,
Dead and unsouled and trite;

Till I must feel

A quick creator's pity for your shame:

That man, who made you and who gave so much, Yet cannot give the last transforming touch; That with the work he cannot give the wageFor day, no joy of night,

For toil, no ecstasy of primal rage.

Reprinted from Body and Raiment by Eunice Tietjens, by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., authorized publishers.

Caliban in the Coal Mines

Louis Untermeyer

For biographical note concerning the author, see "Landscapes," page 33.

Do not read this poem in a weak, complaining way. Rather let it be the medium for heroic resignation. Do not neglect the magnificent emotional outburst in the last two lines.

GOD, we don't like to complain—

We know that the mine is no lark-
But there's the pools from the rain;
But-there's the cold and the dark.

God, You don't know what it is-
You, in Your well-lighted sky-
Watching the meteors whizz;

Warm, with the sun always by.

God, if You had but the moon
Stuck in Your cap for a lamp,

Even You'd tire of it soon,

Down in the dark and the damp.

Nothing but blackness above

And nothing that moves but the cars.

God, if You wish for our love,

Fling us a handful of stars!

From Challenge by Louis Untermeyer. Copyright, 1920, by Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, Inc.

The Stone

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was born at Hexam, England, in 1878. His early work was sentimental and romantic, but in his later works he has set forth boldly the life of the working people. His later books include "The Stonefolds," published by the Samurai Press, London, "Daily Bread," published by Elkin Mathews, London, and "Fires," also published by Elkin Mathews and The Macmillan Company, New York.

Great restraint should characterize the reading of this poem. All the varying moods are felt under the spell of the great mastermood of tragedy.

"AND will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?

And will you cut a stone for him-
A stone for him?" she said.

Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead-
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of the warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired-
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired.
A flash, a shock,

A rumbling fall. . .

And, broken 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.

I went to break the news to her;
And I could hear my own heart beat
With dread of what my lips might say.
But some poor fool had sped before;
And flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,

And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard.

And when I came, she stood, alone,
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.

Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan.
His mother wept:

She could not weep.

Her lover slept:

She could not sleep.

Three days, three nights,

She did not stir:

Three days, three nights,

Were one to her,

Who never closed her eyes

From sunset to sunrise,

From dawn to evenfall: