Sometimes you see a hungry dog pass by, And there are always buzzards in the sky. Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell, A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell. Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell That holds the town asleep, save, once a year, The Easter festival.... I come from there, And when I tire of hoping, and despair Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far, Beyond that length of lazy street, to where The lonely green trees and the white graves are. V Tropical House When the winter comes, I will take you to Nicaragua-- You will love it there! you will love my home, my house in Nicaragua, So large and queenly looking, with a haughty air That seems to tell the mountains, the mountains of Nicaragua, "You may roar and you may tremble for all I care!" It is shadowy and cool, Has a garden in the middle where fruit trees grow, And poppies, like a little army, row on row, And jasmine bushes that will make you think of snow They are so white and light, so perfect and so frail, And when the wind is blowing they fly and flutter so. The bath is in the garden, like a sort of pool, With walls of honeysuckle and orchids all around; The humming birds are always making a sleep sound; In the night there's the Aztec nightingale; But when the moon is up, in Nicaragua, The moon of Nicaragua and the million stars, It's the human heart that sings, and the heart of Nicaragua, To the pleading, plaintive music of guitars! [signed] Salomon De La Selva. Latin America and the War In common with many other parts of the world, even some of those immediately involved, Latin America received the outbreak of the European War with dismayed astonishment, with a feeling that it could not be true, with mental confusion as to the real causes and objects of the conflict. A survey of newspapers from Mexico to Cape Horn during August, 1914, to the end of that year shows plainly that for several months public opinion had not cleared up, that the conflict seemed to be a frightful blunder, a terrific misunderstanding, that might have been avoided, and for which no one nation in particular was to blame. The deep love of Latin America for Latin Europe undoubtedly meant great sympathy for France; England, too, the great investor in and developer of South America, was watched with good feeling; but Germany has done much for Latin America commerce and shipping facilities, a work performed with skillfully regulated tact, and very many sections of the southern republics were loath to believe that a nation so friendly and so industriously commercial had deliberately planned the war.