Men-of-war
From the United States,
And the green and red portraits
Of King Francobollo
Of Italy.

I don't believe in God
I do believe in avenging gods
Who plague us for sins we never sinned
But who avenge us.
That's why I'll never have a child,
Never shut up in a chrysalis in a match-box
For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.

Alfred Kreymborg is also very free, and only sometimes musical, but he
hammers in his images with a vengeance. But of all the new Americans,
Vachel Lindsay's jolly fantasies, with a slightly heard banjo
accompaniment, are the most fascinating and least tiresome of all the
New.

When one has wallowed for a time with the Imagists and carefully
examined the _vers librists_, with the aid of a catalogue and
explanations, one turns to the "Collected Poems" of Walter de la Mare.
Come, now! Listen to this:

When slim Sophia mounts her horse
And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
She paces to.

Each narrow hoof is lifted high
Beneath the dark enclustering pines,
A silver ray within his bit
And bridle shines.

His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,
And streams upon the shadowy air,
The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,
His mistress' hair.

Her habit flows in darkness down,
Upon the stirrup rests her foot,
Her brow is lifted, as if earth
She heeded not.

'Tis silent in the avenue,
The sombre pines are mute of song,
The blue is dark, there moves no breeze
The boughs among.

When slim Sophia mounts her horse
And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
She paces to.

It is difficult for the simple minded to understand why Walter de la
Mare, who is a singer with something to sing about, cannot be classed as
an Imagist. He uses the language of common speech and tries always to
say exactly what he means; he suits his mood to his rhythm, and his
cadences to his ideas; he believes passionately in the artistic value of
modern life; but he does not seem to see why he should not write about
an old-fashioned a[:e]roplane of the year 1914, if he can make it the
centre of something interesting.

The professional Imagist tries to produce poetry that is hard and clear
and never blurred or indefinite, and he holds that concentration is the
very e