Long years I dwelt in that dark hall, There was no mirror on the wall, I never saw my face at all, (Hail Mary.) In a great peace they kept me there, A straight white robe they had me wear, And the white bands about my hair. I did not know that I was fair. (Hail Mary.)... The sweet chill fragrance of the snow, More fine than lilies all aglow Breathed around--he saw me so, In garments spun of fire and snow. (Holy Mother, pray for us.) His hands were on my face and hair, His high, stern eyes that would forswear All earthly beauty, saw me there. Oh, then I knew that I was fair! (Mary, intercede for us.)... Then I raised up to God my prayer, I swept its strong and circling air, Betwixt me and the great despair. (Sweet Mary, pray for us.) But when before the sacred shrine I knelt to kiss the cross benign, Mary, I thought his lips touched mine. (Ave Maria, Ora Pro Nobis.) Although some of her poems have an intensity almost terrible, Anna Branch has written household lyrics as beautiful in their uncrowded simplicity as an eighteenth century room. The _Songs for My Mother,_ celebrating her clothes, her her words, her stories breathe the unrivalled perfume of tender memories. And if _Lazarus_ is a sword, two of her most original pieces are poppy-seeds, _To Nature_ and THE SILENCE OF THE POETS I better like that shadowed side of things In which the Poets wrote not; when they went Unto the fullness of their great content Like moths into the grass with folded wings. The silence of the Poets with it brings The other side of moons, and it is spent In love, in sorrow, or in wonderment. After the silence, maybe a bird sings. I have heard call, as Summer calls the swallow, A leisure, bidding unto ways serene To be a child of winds and the blue hazes. "Dream"--quoth the Dreamer--and 'tis sweet to follow! So Keats watched stars rise from his meadows green, And Chaucer spent his hours among the daisies. This productive leisure has borne much fruit in the poetry of Anna Branch; her work often has the quiet beauty rising from tranquil meditation. She is an orthodox poet. She uses the old material--God, Nature, Man--and writes songs with the familiar notation. She has attracted attention not by the strangeness of her ideas, or by the audacity of her method, but simply by the sincerity of her thought and the superior quality of her singing voice. There is no difficulty in distinguishing her among the members of the choir, and she does not have to make a discord to be noticed.