I read the poems of Richard Watson Gilder, of Edith Thomas, of Robert Underwood Johnson--whose "Italian Rhapsody" and "The Winter Hour" can never be forgotten--and certain verses of Edmund Clarence Stedman. But _les jeunes_ prefer the new verse makers. There is even a kind of cult for the Imagists. A spokesman for the Imagists tells us briefly that "free verse" is a term that may be attached to all that increasing amount of writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than that of prose, but which is not so violently or so obviously accented as the so-called "regular verse." Richard Aldington's "Childhood" is a very typical example of _vers libre_. It is also an Imagist poem. It will be remarked that it is so free that there is no cadence that any musician could find. It is a pretty little joyful trifle! There was nothing to see, Nothing to do, Nothing to play with, Except that in an empty room upstairs There was a large tin box Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, Of the Declaration of Independence, And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada; There were also several packets of stamps, Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, Indians and 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.