And the lake reaches down to the hem of its gown With its cool curved wind of a hand, And throws out its petticoat lacy and white With a swish-swish over the sand. Its blue dress fluttering, tinted with the sun, Hangs from its girdle white-spaced, And a far ship riding with its nose in hiding Stands black like a buckle at its waist. It begins to rain and the lake birds fly With a whir and an angry screech, As the thin grey fingers reach down from the sky And tap, tap faintly on the beach. Digging little holes for an elfin folk, Pointing up the water like a grate; And the sky moves closer like a gust of smoke And behind it crouch and wait Great half shapes and grey cloud apes, And a grey, old water crew, And the lake birds fly with their wings awry, Searching in their faces for the blue. Now the long rain chants in the grasses on the hill, And the lake runs in with a frightened sound, And sullen and wet the sand sinks low, Like a heavy brown cloud on the ground. On the hill top green the trees bend away And brood as they lower and bend, And grey things walk beyond the grey Where the sands and the waters end. The rain has stopped and the earth like a bride Has hung white petals in her hair, And the sky draws back till the white clouds ride Like soft white gardens in the air. And a butterfly flutters like an endless note Over the lake’s thin brink, And the sand takes off its heavy brown coat And the cloud apes vanish and sink. The gay water dawns and the grasshopper pipes And the lake glides in anew, Dressed in greens and in awning stripes, And little birds leap toward the blue. The Dionysian Dreiser Theodore Dreiser is the greatest novelist in America. It is not a distinction. He has written poor novels. His latest novel, The “Genius” published by John Lane Company is loose in parts. It limps. It loses its breath. It grows thin. But it is a novel of sweep and magnitude, of sledge hammer blows and fine chiseling. In the caramel chorus of America’s chirping fictionists Dreiser raises the smooth, virile voice of an artist. And there is no voice like his in America.