e reluctant to confess directly.

A lighter phase of this foreign enthusiasm for the American tang is
confessed by Signor Marinetti, the Italian "futurist", when in his
article on 'Futurism and the Theatre', in 'The Mask', he urges the
revolutionary value of "American eccentrics", citing the fundamental
primitive quality in their vaudeville art. This may be another statement
of Mr. Lindsay's plea for a closer relation between the poet and his
audience, for a return to the healthier open-air conditions, and
immediate personal contacts, in the art of the Greeks and of primitive
nations. Such conditions and contacts may still be found, if the world
only knew it, in the wonderful song-dances of the Hopis and others of
our aboriginal tribes. They may be found, also, in a measure, in the
quick response between artist and audience in modern vaudeville. They
are destined to a wider and higher influence; in fact, the development
of that influence, the return to primitive sympathies between artist and
audience, which may make possible once more the assertion of primitive
creative power, is recognized as the immediate movement in modern art.
It is a movement strong enough to persist in spite of extravagances and
absurdities; strong enough, it may be hoped, to fulfil its purpose and
revitalize the world.

It is because Mr. Lindsay's poetry seems to be definitely in that
movement that it is, I think, important.

Harriet Monroe.

Table of Contents

Introduction. By Harriet Monroe

First Section

Poems intended to be read aloud, or chanted.

The Congo
The Santa Fe Trail
The Firemen's Ball
The Master of the Dance
The Mysterious Cat
A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten
Yankee Doodle
The Black Hawk War of the Artists
The Jingo and the Minstrel
I Heard Immanuel Singing

Second Section

Incense

An Argument
A Rhyme about an Electrical Advertising Sign
In Memory of a Child
Galahad, Knight Who Perished
The Leaden-eyed
An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie
The Hearth Eternal
The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit
By the Spring, at Sunset
I Went down into the Desert
Love and Law
The Perfect Marriage
Darling Daughter of Babylon
The Amaranth
The Alchemist's Petition
Two Easter Stanzas
The Traveller-heart
The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son