Chapter I: Front Matter

MODERN AMERICAN POETRY

(_Revised and Enlarged Edition_)

BY

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

Author of “_Challenge_,” “_Including Horace_,” “_The New Era in American
Poetry_,” etc.

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1921, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
THE QUINN & SODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N J

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For permission to reprint most of the material in this volume, the editor wishes to thank not only the poets whose coöperation has been of such assistance, but also the publishers, all of whom are holders of the copyright. The indebtedness is alphabetically acknowledged to:

RICHARD G. BADGER—for the poems from _Sun and Saddle Leather_ and
_Grass-Grown Trails_ by Badger Clark.

BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY—for two poems from _The Complete Works of James
Whitcomb Riley_.

BRENTANO’S—for two poems from _Chanteys and Ballads_ by Harry Kemp.

NICHOLAS L. BROWN—for the poem from _Blood of Things_ by Alfred
Kreymborg.

THE CENTURY COMPANY—for the selections from _Merchants from Cathay_ by
William Rose Benét and _War and Laughter_ by James Oppenheim.

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE—for “Lake Song” by Jean Starr Untermeyer.

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY—for the two poems from _Lyrics of Lowly Life_ and
one poem from _Lyrics of Love and Laughter_ by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY—for the selections from _Moons of Grandeur_ by
William Rose Benét, _Banners_ by Babette Deutsch, _Trees and Other
Poems_ by Joyce Kilmer, and _Hide and Seek_ by Christopher Morley.

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY—for the selections from _In Other Words_ and
_Tobogganning on Parnassus_ by Franklin P. Adams, _The Man with the
Hoe_ and _Lincoln and Other Poems_ by Edwin Markham.

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY—for the selections from _The Vale of Tempe_ by
Madison Cawein and _Lanterns in Gethsemane_ by Willard Wattles.

FOUR SEAS COMPANY—for the quotations from _The Charnel Rose_, _The Jig
of Forslin_ and _The House of Dust_ by Conrad Aiken.

HILLACRE BOOKHOUSE—for the quotations from _Arrows in the Gale_ by
Arturo Giovannitti.

HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY—for the selections from _A Miscellany of
American Poetry—1920_; _Canzoni_ and _Carmina_ by T. A. Daly,
_Piping and Panning_ by Edwin Meade Robinson, _Smoke and Steel_ by
Carl Sandburg, _Challenge_ and _The New Adam_ by Louis Untermeyer,
and _The Roamer and Other Poems_ by George Edward Woodberry.

HARPER & BROTHERS—for the selections from _Fables for the Frivolous_
by Guy Wetmore Carryl and _Dreams and Dust_ by Don Marquis.

HARR WAGNER PUBLISHING CO.—for the selections from _The Complete
Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller_.

HENRY HOLT & COMPANY—for the selections from _Wilderness Songs_ by
Grace Hazard Conkling, _Portraits and Protests_ by Sarah N.
Cleghorn, _A Boy’s Will_, _North of Boston_, and _Mountain Interval_
by Robert Frost; _Outcasts in Beulah Land_ by Roy Helton, _Chicago
Poems_ and _Cornhuskers_ by Carl Sandburg, _These Times_ by Louis
Untermeyer, and _Factories_ by Margaret Widdemer.

The selections from _The Complete Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_,
_The Complete Works of Bret Harte_, _The Shoes That Danced_ by Anna
Hempstead Branch, _Davy and the Goblin_ by Charles E. Carryl, _Grimm
Tales Made Gay_ by Guy Wetmore Carryl, _Riders of the Stars_ and
_Songs of the Trail_ by Harry Herbert Knibbs, _Poems and Poetic
Dramas_ by William Vaughn Moody, _Lyrics of Joy_ by Frank Dempster
Sherman, _Poems_ by Edward Rowland Sill, _Sea Garden_ by “H. D.,”
and the quotations from _Some Imagist Poets—1916_ and _Some Imagist
Poets—1917_ are used by permission of, and by special arrangement
with HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, the authorized publishers.

B. W. HUEBSCH—for the selections from _A Family Album_ by Alter Brody,
_The Vaunt of Man_ by William Ellery Leonard, _The Ghetto_ and
_Sun-Up_ by Lola Ridge, _Optimos_ by Horace Traubel, _Growing Pains_
and _Dreams out of Darkness_ by Jean Starr Untermeyer, and _The
Hesitant Heart_ by Winifred Welles.

ALFRED A. KNOPF—for the selections from _A Canticle of Pan_ by Witter
Bynner, _Colors of Life_ by Max Eastman, _Poems_ by T. S. Eliot,
_Asphalt and Other Poems_ by Orrick Johns, _Mushrooms_ by Alfred
Kreymborg, _Songs for the New Age_ by James Oppenheim, _Lustra_ by
Ezra Pound, _Profiles from China_ and _Body and Raiment_ by Eunice
Tietjens.

THE LAURENTIAN PUBLISHERS—for the poem from _Motley Measures_ by Bert
Leston Taylor.

THE LIBERATOR—for a poem by Jean Starr Untermeyer.

LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY—for the selections from _Poems_ and
_Poems—Third Series_ by Emily Dickinson.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY—for the selections from _Poems_ by Gladys
Cromwell, _Youth Riding_ by Mary Carolyn Davies, _The Congo and
Other Poems_ and _The Chinese Nightingale_ by Vachel Lindsay, _Sword
Blades and Poppy Seed_ and _Pictures of the Floating World_ by Amy
Lowell, _Spoon River Anthology_ and _Songs and Satires_ by Edgar Lee
Masters, _The Quest_ by John G. Neihardt, _The Man Against the Sky_
by Edwin Arlington Robinson, _Love Songs_ and _Flame and Shadow_ by
Sara Teasdale, _Bluestone_ by Marguerite Wilkinson.

ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY—for the two poems taken from _From the
Hidden Way_ by James Branch Cabell.

THE MANAS PRESS—for the selections from _Verse_ by Adelaide Crapsey.

THOMAS B. MOSHER—for the selections from _A Quiet Road_ and _A Wayside
Lute_ by Lizette Woodworth Reese and _The Flower from the Ashes_ by
Edith M. Thomas.

THE NEW REPUBLIC—for a poem by Ridgely Torrence.

PAGAN PUBLISHING COMPANY—for two poems from _Minna and Myself_ by
Maxwell Bodenheim.

POETRY: A MAGAZINE OF VERSE—for the two poems by Edwin Ford Piper and
a sonnet by David Morton.

A. M. ROBERTSON—for the sonnet from _The House of Orchids_ by George
Sterling.

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS—for the selections from _Poems_ by Henry
Cuyler Bunner, _Poems_ by Eugene Field, _The Bashful Earthquake_ by
Oliver Herford, _Poems of Sidney Lanier_, _The Children of the
Night_ and _The Town Down the River_ by Edwin Arlington Robinson,
and _Poems_ by Alan Seeger.

FRANK SHAY—for the quotation from _Figs from Thistles_ by Edna St.
Vincent Millay.

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY—for the two poems from _The Human Fantasy_
and _The Belovèd Adventure_ by John Hall Wheelock.

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY—for the selections from _Ballads of Lost
Haven_ by Bliss Carman, _Along the Trail_ by Richard Hovey, _Songs
from Vagabondia_ and _More Songs from Vagabondia_ by Richard Hovey
and Bliss Carman, and the poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman.

THE SONNET—for _Frustrate_ by Leslie Nelson Jennings.

F. A. STOKES COMPANY—for the selections from _War Is Kind_ by Stephen
Crane, _Grenstone Poems_ by Witter Bynner, and _Poems by a Little
Girl_ by Hilda Conkling.

STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY—for the poem from _Monday Morning_ by James
Oppenheim.

VANITY FAIR—for “Wild Swans” and a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS—for selections from _Young Adventure_ by
Stephen Vincent Benét and _The Burglar of the Zodiac_ by William
Rose Benét.

THE YALE REVIEW—for “The Onset” by Robert Frost.

For several suggestions toward the preparation of this revised edition I am especially indebted to Professors Percy H. Boynton, John Livingston Lowes, Fred Lewis Pattee and Floyd Dell. This acknowledgment is a slight expression of my gratitude as well as a record of my obligation.

CONTENTS

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