Her tearless, staring eyes,

That seeing naught, saw all.

The fourth night when I came from work,

I found her at my door.

"And will you cut a stone for him?"

She said and spoke no more:

But followed me, as I went in,

And sank upon a chair;

And fixed her gray eyes on my face,

With still, unseeing stare.

And, as she waited patiently,

I could not bear to feel

Those still, gray eyes that followed me,

Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,

Those eyes that sucked the breath from me
And curdled the warm blood in me,

Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And pierced my marrow like cold steel.

And so I rose, and sought a stone;
And cut it, smooth and square:

And, as I worked, she sat and watched,

Beside me, in her chair.

Night after night, so still and white,

And like a ghost she came;

And sat beside me in her chair;

And watched with eyes aflame.

She eyed each stroke;
And hardly stirred;

She never spoke
A single word:

And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,

She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath:

And every stroke my chisel cut,

Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiseling,
Together, I and death.

And when at length the job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,

As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name; and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.

Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.

Reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, The Macmillan Company. Copyrighted by The Macmillan Company.

On a Subway Express

Chester Firkins

Chester Firkins was born at Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1882. He was educated at the University of Minnesota, and soon after took up journalism, being at his death in 1915, on the staff of the New York American. He wrote short stories as well as verse.

Anyone who has ridden in a subway express will appreciate the imaginative touch that has made the sordid ride a worshipful communion with God. If the poem is treated seriously it can be made to appeal to the imagination with great power.

I, WHO have lost the stars, the sod,
For chilling pave and cheerless light,
Have made my meeting-place with God
A new and nether Night—

Have found a fane where thunder fills
Loud caverns, tremulous; and these
Atone me for my reverend hills

And moonlit silences.

A figment in the crowded dark,
Where men sit muted by the roar,
I ride upon the whirring spark
Beneath the city's floor.

In this dim firmament, the stars
Whirl by in blazing files and tiers;
Kin meteors graze our flying bars,
Amid the spinning spheres.

Speed! speed! until the quivering rails

Flash silver where the headlight gleams,

As when on lakes the moon impales
The waves upon its beams.

Life throbs about me, yet I stand
Outgazing on majestic power;
Death rides with me, on either hand,
In my communion hour.

You that 'neath country skies can pray,
Scoff not at me-the city clod!

My only respite of the day

Is this wild ride-with God.

Songs for My Mother

Anna Hempstead Branch

Anna Hempstead Branch was born at New London, Conn. She entered Smith College in 1897 and later attended the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She won the first of the Century prizes awarded to college graduates for the best poem with "The Road 'Twixt Heaven and Hell." She has since written a number of poems and some prose and contributes to the leading magazines.

The tone of the following two selections is tender and affectionate. The time is even and moderately slow, for the most part. There is an atmosphere of reminiscence about these poems. The force employed in rendering the lines should be gentle. The pitch is moderately low. These selections should not be delivered in a childish manner, although the manner of the adult is tinged with childish inflections.

I

Her Hands

My mother's hands are cool and fair,

They can do anything.

Delicate mercies hide them there,

Like flowers in the spring.

When I was small and could not sleep,

She used to come to me,

And with my cheek upon her hand
How sure my rest would be!

For everything she ever touched
Of beautiful and fine,

Their memories, living in her hands,
Would warm that sleep of mine.

Her hands remember how they played
One time in meadow streams,-
And all the flickering song and shade
Of water took my dreams.

Swift through her haunted fingers pass
Memories of garden things;-

I dipped my face in flowers and grass
And sounds of hidden wings.

One time she touched the cloud that kissed Brown pastures bleak and far;—

I leaned my cheek into a mist

And thought I was a star.

All this was very long ago
And I am grown; but yet
The hand that lured my slumber so
I never can forget.