Whence do you come, oh silken shapes, Across the silver sky? We come from where the wind blows And the young stars die. Why do you move so fast, so fast Across the white moon's breast? The cruel wind is at our heels And we may not rest. Are you not weary, fleeing shapes, That never cease to flee? The forkéd tree's chained shadows are Less weary than we. Whither do you go, O shadow-shapes, Across the ghastly sky? We go to where the wind blows And the old stars die. This is just a short and rather exuberant message to LITTLE REVIEW readers, because I think they really deserve the pleasure of discovering Cronyn for themselves. * * * * * _Songs for the New Age_, by James Oppenheim. [The Century Company, New York.] One of the phenomena of the evolution of man is the constant broadening of consciousness. We become accustomed to the sharing of our feelings with larger and larger numbers of people; our identity with the race,--and even with inanimate things,--becomes increasingly plain to us through both the findings of science and heightened emotional receptivity. And yet this wider consciousness by no means lessens the value or quality of personality. By a splendid paradox, the more we realize our inseparability with all life the more does our selfhood become accentuated. Thus is achieved the marriage of Democracy and Individualism. We find that, in the end, the cultivation of one is the nourishing of the other. I need hardly mention that I am not alluding to that similacrum of equality: political democracy. This must be known to appreciate the message of James Oppenheim. For it is pre-eminently as a message that these poems should be treated. They are of essential value as one of the most articulate efforts to translate that which in most people is mute. There is an unmistakable kinship with Whitman in this work; not merely in the form,--which is here termed "polyrhythmic,"--but in the spirit, without hint of plagiarism or of abject imitation. Also we have the same breezy contempt for the petty trappings of civilization. Here is an extract from the poem, _Tasting the Earth_, which has beauty as well as truth: