WORK IS OF HIGH CALIBRE IN MAY HARVARD MAGAZINE

The editors of the Harvard Magazine and the contributors to the May number are to be congratulated: the quality of the prose and of the verse is unusually high.

Dr. Odell Shepard's masterly study, "The poetry of War", puts us all in his debt. Critical insight, and learning enlivened by touches of humor, the artist's feeling for the inevitable phrase--all these qualities combine to make it an enduring contribution to literature. The truth about war, Dr. Shepard points out, is not to be found in Othello's "Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!" but rather in Falstaff's "food for powder, food for powder." And this is the truth that the poets of the present war have expressed. In his "Dead Boche" Robert Graves writes:

To you who'd read my songs of War

And only hear of blood and fame

I'II say (you've heard it said before)

"War's Hell!"

And J. H. Knight-Adkins in his "Patrol":

"I've forgotten many a thing, but this I shan't forget:

A crawl by night in No-Man's Land with never a sight or sound

Except the fiares and the rifle flash and the blind death whimpering round."

But it is impossible to write adequately in a few lines of Dr. Shepard's article: everyone should read it.

Miss Lee's keen and vigorous paper on Tolstoi's "What Shall We Do Then?" is of vital interest. She shows how Tolstoi unerringly exposes the root of the problem of poverty. Prince and pauper are brothers under their skins. "The social problem is the individual problem, and individual reform is the only means of social regeneration."

Fiction in the May number upholds, on the whole, the standard. The verse is strong evidence of accomplishment and of promise. Mr. Botkin's "Rondel" is distinguished for simplicity and charm.

"The weather lays his cloak away

Of Wind and Cold and Rain."

And whenever we read, it is May for us again. The rich texture of Mr. Snow's "Ave atque Vale" is almost palpable Color and sumptuous description recall in lines like.

"Our purple garmented parade" the sensuousness of Keats. It is interesting to compare the melody of Tennyson's "Ave atque Vale, Fratrer," more poignant in its greater simplicity. If Mr. Snow's poem is decorative, its decorative is decoration deluxe. In "The Seventh Wave" by J. J. Ryan, the little picture of sea and sky is exquisitely painted: the music is subtle and haunting. Through his eyes for us the ocean lives.

"Immortal with the mystery of its roar." Mr. Ryan's work is full of promise: we are glad that he is with us.

In his spirited "home Thoughts," Mr. Hood makes skillful use of alternate stress. His poem gives us a number of sharply-etched little pictures of phases of life in the active navy. the reader will remember the line: "The daylight strikes its colors in the West."

Mr. Smith's lively and been comment "Happiness," "The Thunderbolt," and "A Sleepless Night," Plays now running in Boston, ends a number to which it is a pleasure to accord high praise.