The Second Book of Modern Verse | Page 3

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The Second Book of Modern Verse
Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse
[Note on text: Italicized lines or stanzas are marked by tildes (~). Other
italicized words are capitalized. Lines longer than 78 characters are
broken and the continuation is indented two spaces. Some obvious
errors may have been corrected.]
The Second Book of Modern Verse
A Selection from the work of contemporaneous American poets Edited
by Jessie B. Rittenhouse
Editor of The Little Book of Modern Verse

[Selections made in 1919.]
Foreword
It was my intention, when preparing `The Little Book of Modern Verse',
published in 1913, to continue the series by a volume once in five years,
but as it seemed inadvisable to issue one during the war, it is now six
years since the publication of the first volume.
In the meantime, that the series might cover the period of American
poetry from the beginning, `The Little Book of American Poets' was
edited, confined chiefly to work of the nineteenth century, but ending
with a group of living poets whose work has fallen equally within our
own period. This group, including Edwin Markham, Bliss Carman,

Edith Thomas, Louise Imogen Guiney, Lizette Woodworth Reese, and
many others whose work has enriched both periods, was fully
represented also in `The Little Book of Modern Verse'; and it has
seemed necessary, therefore keenly as I regret the necessity, which
limits of space impose, to omit the work of all poets who have been
represented in both of my former collections.
Indeed the period covered by the present volume has been so prolific
that it became necessary, if one would represent it with even
approximate adequacy, to forego including many poets from `The Little
Book of Modern Verse' itself, and but twenty-eight are repeated from
that collection.
Even with these necessary eliminations in the interest of space for
newer poets, the general scheme of the series -- that of small, intimate
volumes that shall be typical of the period, rather than exhaustive -- has
made it impossible to include all whose work I should otherwise have
been glad to represent.
While I have not hesitated, where a poet's earlier work seemed finer
and more characteristic than his later, to draw upon such earlier work,
in the main `The Second Book of Modern Verse' has been selected
from poetry published since 1913, the date of my first anthology.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse
New York
September 23, 1919
Contents
Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight. [Vachel Lindsay]
Acceptance.
[Willard Wattles]
Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in
Aeternum Fidelitas. [John Myers O'Hara]
After Apple-Picking.
[Robert Frost]
After Sunset. [Grace Hazard Conkling]
Afternoon on
a Hill. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]
Afterwards. [Mahlon Leonard
Fisher]
Ambition. [Aline Kilmer]
The Ancient Beautiful Things.
[Fannie Stearns Davis]
Apology. [Amy Lowell]
April on the
Battlefields. [Leonora Speyer]
April -- North Carolina. [Harriet
Monroe]
Atropos. [John Myers O'Hara]
Autumn. [Jean Starr

Untermeyer]
Autumn Movement. [Carl Sandburg]
Ballad of a Child. [John G. Neihardt]
Behind the House is the Millet
Plot. [Muna Lee]
Berkshires in April. [Clement Wood]
Beyond
Rathkelly. [Francis Carlin]
Birches. [Robert Frost]
The Bitter Herb.
[Jeanne Robert Foster]
Blind. [Harry Kemp]
Blue Squills. [Sara
Teasdale]
The Breaking. [Margaret Steele Anderson]
Chanson of the Bells of Oseney. [Cale Young Rice]
The Chant of the
Colorado. [Cale Young Rice]
The Child in Me. [May Riley Smith]

The Chinese Nightingale. [Vachel Lindsay]
Choice. [Angela Morgan]

Cinquains. [Adelaide Crapsey]
The City. [Charles Hanson Towne]

City Roofs. [Charles Hanson Towne]
Compensation. [William
Ellery Leonard]
Convention. [Agnes Lee]
Cradle Song. [Josephine
Preston Peabody]
The Dark Cavalier. [Margaret Widdemer]
The Day before April.
[Mary Carolyn Davies]
Days. [Karle Wilson Baker]
Death --
Divination. [Charles Wharton Stork]
Dialogue. [Walter Conrad
Arensberg]
Dilemma. [Orrick Johns]
Doors. [Hermann Hagedorn]

Dream. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
The Dream of Aengus Og.
[Eleanor Rogers Cox]
Dusk at Sea. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Earth. [John Hall Wheelock]
Earth's Easter. [Robert Haven
Schauffler]
Ellis Park. [Helen Hoyt]
The Enchanted Sheepfold.
[Josephine Preston Peabody]
Envoi. [Josephine Preston Peabody]

Evening Song of Senlin. [Conrad Aiken]
Exile from God. [John Hall
Wheelock]
Eye-Witness. [Ridgely Torrence]
The Falconer of God. [William Rose Benet]
"Feuerzauber". [Louis
Untermeyer]
The Fields. [Witter Bynner]
Fifty Years Spent.
[Maxwell Struthers Burt]
The First Food. [George Sterling]

Flammonde. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
The Flower of Mending.
[Vachel Lindsay]
Four Sonnets. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Francis

Ledwidge. [Grace