My leisure has flowered: a new thing has come into my hands, Time has come. I possess time as though it were a thing. I lie still in the scented grass and the hours come into my hands. They float up as little balloons float from the hands of children,— Like golden, silken spheres sailing high into the air, One by one they mount slow and as fragile as dreams. The hours from my hands go up like kites,— I hold their slender thread, I move it faintly and they sway, Rocking in the clear blue of the sky. They do not return to me, but very gently they vanish.... Somewhere, While I hold their silken, slender thread in my hands. My leisure has come sharp, like a crystal: It glows and is pointed, The poignancy of weapons has come into my leisure. I possess time as though it were a thing. The hours come into my hands like spears— Flashing crystal spars of light That is winged. I seize them as they come to me. I throw the weight of my body Into my stroke and boldly I hurl them into space,—into the heart of my enemy The Stillness who lurks there in the depths of the dark. Dr. Williams says of _The Flower Smeller_: “It might have been a very fine thing indeed had the author known how to come to a conclusion properly. Parts of this poem have more promise than anything in the whole batch of manuscript.” It is, obviously, better. But it isn’t a gem by any means; it belongs rather with those almost fine things that make you impatient because they didn’t turn out to be gems. The Flower Smeller L. R. Bonham Bubbles, mist and visions colored shapes winging against the sky a sip from a brown Venetian glass. Meseems gauze drops are pulled upwards and confetti flung into the past. A fairy queen in a crystal coach opens the door, she beckons, the painted crest looks familiar. Six little men with sticks pass by, one taller than the rest laughs and points at a junkheap of keepsakes. Distant music in the park you and I at the bay window, gossiping neighbors, a cool breeze, old second hand furniture, ice cream and moonlight all painted as in one stroke. Spirals of smoke, crushed tissue paper, colored ribbons and black masks, floor sweepings after a ball— I twirl a flower between thumb and index I feel golden dust on the tip of my nose— a futile occupation yet something has happened. And this one, which was among Helen Hoyt’s choices, belongs also in the exasperatingly “somehow good” school. November Afternoon Marjorie Allen Seiffert Upon our heads The oak-leaves fall Like silent benedictions Closing autumn’s gorgeous ritual, And we Upborne by warship Lift our eyes to the altar of distant hills.