Greetings, my brother, strange and uncouth beast, Flat-bellied, wrinkled, broad of nose! You are not beautiful—and yet at least Contentment spreads your scaley toes. The keeper thwacks you and you grunt at me, Two hundred pounds of sleepy spleen. He tells me that your cranial cavity Will just contain a lima bean. How seems it, brother, you who are so old, To lie and squint with curtained eye At these ephemera, born in the cold, These human things so soon to die? You were scarce grown, a paltry eighty years, Too young to think of breeding yet, When Christ the Nazarene loosed the salt tears Which on man’s cheeks today are wet. Mohammed rose and died—you churned the mud And watched your female laying eggs. Columbus passed you—with an oozy thud You scrambled sunward on your legs. So now you doze at ease for all to view And bat a sleepy lid at me, You eat a little every year or two And count time in eternity. So, brother, which is wiser of us twain When words are said and meals are past? I think, and pass—you sleep, yet you remain, And where shall be the end at last? [2] _I cannot vouch for the science of this. It is “Alligator Joe’s” estimate._ Villon’s Epitaph[3] WITTER BYNNER I who have lived and have not thought But gone with nature as I ought, Letting good things occur, And now amazed and cannot see Why death should care so much for me. I never cared for her. Scarron’s Epitaph[3] WITTER BYNNER He who now lies here asleep None would envy, few would weep: A man whom death had mortified A thousand times before he died. Peaceful be the step you take, You who pass him—lest he wake. For his first good night is due. Let poor Scarron sleep it through. [3] From the French of François Villon. Editorials and Announcements _Our Credo_ I have lost patience: people are still asking “What does THE LITTLE REVIEW stand for?” Since we have been so obscure—or is it that people have been so dull?—I shall try to answer all these plaintive queries in a sentence. May it be sufficient: I cannot “explain” every day why the sunrise seems worth while or, as Mr. Hecht would say, why the brook rises from the rocks.