And they'll build you twenty more.

Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of verse which have sold rather
more than John Masefield usually sells--at least, until the publication of
_Reynard the Fox. Candles That Burn_ created her audience and _Vigils_ has
been that audience's renewed delight. From _Vigils_ I take the poem "The
Touch of Tears." In it "Michael" is, of course, her own son:

Michael walks in autumn leaves,
Rustling leaves and fading grasses,
And his little music-box
Tinkles faintly as he passes.
It's a gay and jaunty tune
If the hands that play were clever:
Michael plays it like a dirge,
Moaning on and on forever.

While his happy eyes grow big,
Big and innocent and soulful,
Wistful, halting little notes
Rise, unutterably doleful,
Telling of all childish griefs--
Baffled babies sob forsaken,
Birds fly off and bubbles burst,
Kittens sleep and will not waken.

Michael, it's the touch of tears.
Though you sing for very gladness,
Others will not see your mirth;
They will mourn your fancied sadness.
Though you laugh at them in scorn,
Show your happy heart for token,
Michael, you'll protest in vain--
They will swear your heart is broken!

I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire prefers his serious poems
to those parodies of which he is such an admitted master. It seems only
decent to defer, in this place, to the author's own feeling in the matter.
Mr. Squire is the author of _The Birds and Other Poems_ and _Poems: Second
Series_. My present choice is the beginning and the close of the poem,
"Harlequin"--which is in both books:

Moonlit woodland, veils of green,
Caves of empty dark between;
Veils of green from rounded arms
Drooping, that the moonlight charms:
Tranced the trees, grass beneath
Silent ...
Like a stealthy breath,
Mask and wand and silver skin
Sudden enters Harlequin.

Hist! Hist! Watch him go,
Leaping limb and pointing toe,
Slender arms that float and flow,
Curving wand above, below;
Flying, gliding, changing feet;
Onset merging in retreat.

Not a shadow of sound there is
But his motion's gentle hiss,
Till one fluent arm and hand
Suddenly circles, and the wand
Taps a bough far overhead,
"Crack," and then all noise is dead.
For he halts, and for a space
Stands erect with upward face,
Taut and tense to the white
Message of the Moon's light