n or another, fulfilled
their poetic promise. The thousand poems which it contains are more
striking, in fact, for their promise than for their performance. They
are intimations of what American men and women would have liked to do
or to be. In this sense, it is a precious volume, but it is certainly
not commensurate, either in passion or in artistic perfection, with the
forces of that American life which it tries to interpret. Indeed, Mr.
Stedman, after finishing his task of compilation, remarked to more than
one of his friends that what this country needed was some "adult male
verse."

The _Poems of American History_ collected by Mr. Stevenson are at least
vigorous and concrete. One aspect of our history which especially lends
itself to Mr. Stevenson's purpose is the romance which attaches itself
to war. It is scarcely necessary to say nowadays that all wars, even
the noblest, have had their sordid, grimy, selfish, bestial aspect; and
that the intelligence and conscience of our modern world are more and
more engaged in the task of making future wars impossible. But the
slightest acquaintance with American history reveals the immense
reservoir of romantic emotion which has been drawn upon in our national
struggles. War, of course, is an immemorial source of romantic feeling.
William James's notable essay on "A Moral Substitute for War"
endeavored to prove that our modern economic and social life, if
properly organized, would give abundant outlet and satisfaction to
those romantic impulses which formerly found their sole gratification
in battle. Many of us believe that he was right; but for the moment we
must look backward and not forward. We must remember the stern if rude
poetry inspired by our Revolutionary struggle, the romantic halo that
falls upon the youthful figure of Nathan Hale, the baleful light that
touches the pale face of Benedict Arnold, the romance of the Bennington
fight to the followers of Stark and Ethan Allen, the serene voice of
the "little captain," John Paul Jones:--"We have not struck, we have
just begun our part of the fighting." The colors of romance still drape
the Chesapeake and the Shannon, Tecumseh and Tippecanoe. The hunters of
Kentucky, the explorers of the Yellowstone and the Columbia, the
emigrants who left their bones along the old Santa Fe Trail, are our
Homeric men.

The Mexican War affords pertinent illustration, not only of romance,
but of reaction. The earlier phases of the Texa