I am the weakling of that helpless strength That throws this broken body you despise Before your carelessness, to find at length The faith that sleeps behind your faithless eyes. _Babette Deutsch_ Babette Deutsch, one of the most promising of the younger poet-critics, was born September 22, 1895, in New York City. She received her B.A. at Barnard College in 1917, doing subsequent work at the new School for Social Research. Since 1916, a year before she took her degree, Miss Deutsch has been contributing poems and critical articles to _The New Republic_, _The Dial_, _The Yale Review_, etc. _Banners_ (1919) is the title of her remarkable first book. The rich emotional content is matched by the poet’s intellectual skill. Unusually sensitive, most of these lines strive for—and attain—a high seriousness. THE DEATH OF A CHILD[64] Are you at ease now, Do you suck content From death’s dark nipple between your wan lips? Now that the fever of the day is spent And anguish slips From the small limbs, And they lie lapped in rest, The young head pillowed soft upon that indurate breast. No, you are quiet, And forever, Tho for us the silence is so loud with tears, Wherein we hear the dreadful-footed years Echoing, but your quick laughter never, Never your stumbling run, your sudden face Thrust in bright scorn upon our solemn fears. Now the dark mother holds you close.... O, you We loved so, How you lie, So strangely still, unmoved so utterly Dear yet, but oh a little alien too. IN A MUSEUM Here stillness sounds like echoes in a tomb. The light falls cold upon these antique toys Whereby men sought to turn the scales of doom: Jade gods, a ritual of rigid boys. Warm blood was spent for this unwindowed stone Tinct with the painted pleasures of the dead; For secrets of unwithering flesh and bone— With these old Egypt’s night was comforted. We lean upon the glass, our curious eyes Staring at death, three thousand years remote. And vanity, the worm that never dies, Feeds on your silver ring and Pharaoh’s coat. And are these heartbeats, then, less perilous? Since death is close, and death is death for us. _Alter Brody_ Alter Brody was born at Kartúshkiya-Beróza, Province of Grodno, Russia, November 1, 1895. He came to New York City at the age of eight and, after a cursory schooling, wrote translations for certain Jewish and American newspapers. His first poems appeared in _The Seven Arts_ in 1916-17.