I never see the newsboys run Amid the whirling street, With swift untiring feet, To cry the latest venture done, But I expect one day to hear Them cry the crack of doom And risings from the tomb, With great Archangel Michael near; And see them running from the Fleet As messengers of God, With Heaven's tidings shod About their brave unwearied feet. THE PATER OF THE CANNON Father of the thunder, Flinger of the flame, Searing stars asunder, _Hallowed be Thy Name!_ By the sweet-sung quiring Sister bullets hum, By our fiercest firing, _May Thy Kingdom come!_ By Thy strong apostle Of the Maxim gun, By his pentecostal Flame, _Thy Will be done!_ Give us, Lord, good feeding To Thy battles sped-- Flesh, white grained and bleeding, _Give for daily bread!_ _Frances Cornford_ The daughter of Francis Darwin, third son of Charles Darwin, Mrs. Frances Macdonald Cornford, whose husband is a Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, was born in 1886. She has published three volumes of unaffected lyrical verse, the most recent of which, _Spring Morning_, was brought out by The Poetry Bookshop in 1915. PREEXISTENCE I laid me down upon the shore And dreamed a little space; I heard the great waves break and roar; The sun was on my face. My idle hands and fingers brown Played with the pebbles grey; The waves came up, the waves went down, Most thundering and gay. The pebbles, they were smooth and round And warm upon my hands, Like little people I had found Sitting among the sands. The grains of sand so shining-small Soft through my fingers ran; The sun shone down upon it all, And so my dream began: How all of this had been before, How ages far away I lay on some forgotten shore As here I lie to-day. The waves came shining up the sands, As here to-day they shine; And in my pre-pelasgian hands The sand was warm and fine. I have forgotten whence I came, Or what my home might be, Or by what strange and savage name I called that thundering sea. I only know the sun shone down As still it shines to-day, And in my fingers long and brown The little pebbles lay. _Anna Wickham_ Anna Wickham, one of the most individual of the younger women-poets, has published two distinctive volumes, _The Contemplative Quarry_ (1915) and _The Man with a Hammer_ (1916). THE SINGER If I had peace to sit and sing, Then I could make a lovely thing; But I am stung with goads and whips, So I build songs like iron ships. Let it be something for my song, If it is sometimes swift and strong. REALITY