At seventeen he published a small book containing six dramatic portraits, _Five Men and Pompey_ (1915), a remarkable set of monologues which, in spite of distinct traces of Browning and Alfred Noyes, was little short of astounding, coming from a schoolboy. In Benét’s next volume, _Young Adventure_ (1918), one hears something more than the speech of an infant prodigy; the precocious facility has developed into a keen and individual vigor. _Heavens and Earth_ (1920), the most representative collection, has a greater imaginative sweep. Like his brother, the younger Benét is at his best in the decoratively grotesque; his fancy exults in running the scales between the whimsically bizarre and the lightly diabolic. PORTRAIT OF A BOY After the whipping, he crawled into bed; Accepting the harsh fact with no great weeping. How funny uncle’s hat had looked striped red! He chuckled silently. The moon came, sweeping A black frayed rag of tattered cloud before In scorning; very pure and pale she seemed, Flooding his bed with radiance. On the floor Fat motes danced. He sobbed; closed his eyes and dreamed. Warm sand flowed round him. Blurts of crimson light Splashed the white grains like blood. Past the cave’s mouth Shone with a large fierce splendor, wildly bright, The crooked constellations of the South; Here the Cross swung; and there, affronting Mars, The Centaur stormed aside a froth of stars. Within, great casks like wattled aldermen Sighed of enormous feasts, and cloth of gold Glowed on the walls like hot desire. Again, Beside webbed purples from some galleon’s hold, A black chest bore the skull and bones in white Above a scrawled “Gunpowder!” By the flames, Decked out in crimson, gemmed with syenite, Hailing their fellows by outrageous names The pirates sat and diced. Their eyes were moons. “Doubloons!” they said. “The words crashed gold. Doubloons!” _Hilda Conkling_ Hilda Conkling, most gifted of recent infant prodigies, was born at Catskill-on-Hudson, New York, October 8, 1910. The daughter of Grace Hazard Conkling (see page 207), she came to Northampton, Massachusetts, with her mother when she was three years old and has lived there since, a normal out-of-doors little girl.