its heroine. "Sam Davis" is a war drama, built around the name of the young Tennessee hero who declared on trial that he would rather be hanged a thousand times than to tell one lie or betray one friend; and who, scorning proffered freedom as the price of infidelity, was hanged as a spy by the Federal authorities. These plays have been highly commended by competent critics, and are soon to be produced. Judge Malone's later poems are finished and classic. Whatever there may have been of the crude, the callow, or immature in his earlier writings has all vanished. His later productions are literary cameos. They betray infinite pains and striving for perfection. About them there is no suggestion of haste. "Poco tiempo" seems to have been his motto. The children of his fancy are not permitted to go forth into the world deformed, dowdily dressed or over-dressed. Over them all he has exercised a parental care, and in them he has taken the pride of the true artist. He is intensely Southern. Even his cosmopolitanism savors of the Southern soil; has the flair of Southern flowers, and its sheen reflects the glory of Southern suns. He has imagination, feeling, sincerity, and a charming indifference to the praise or blame of the unthinking multitude. In a sordid and material age, he has demonstrated that there remain soul and music in the land. For Judge Malone there is still much light. Eight years must elapse ere he reaches the age of fifty, the period beyond which no poet has ever done work as good as his best. In these eight years there is warrant to expect much.

MN Connolly

OPPORTUNITY

First published in Munsey's Magazine, and used here by permission of the
Frank A. Munsey Company.

[The first four poems are from 'Songs of East and West,' published by John P. Morton and Company, Louisville, Kentucky, 1906. The remaining selections are from 'Poems,' published by Paul and Douglass Company, Memphis, Tennessee, 1904. Copyright by Walter Malone, and used here by permission of author and publishers.]

They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.

Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
Each night I burn the records of the day-
At sunrise every soul is born again!

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,

To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come.

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;
I lend my arm to all who say "I can!"
No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep,
But yet might rise and be again a man!

Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous Retribution's blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
And find the future's pages white as snow.

Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

THE WOOD THRUSH

Bird of the brown wing and the dotted breast,

He dwells in deep woods, cool and dark and green; In dewy, dim retreats he rears his nest,

By all save bare-foot truants left unseen.

In Spring and Summer, at the dusk and dawn,
He floods the forest with his liquid trill;
At burning noon, in solitude withdrawn,
The hours doze on while all his songs are still.

Like rival troubadours, from every spray,
To all his notes his brethren make reply;
They speed the splendid sunrise on his way,
And chant a requiem when the light must die.

When morning like a tulip flecked with fire,
In scarlet and in orange breaks in bloom,
Bird answers bird, and in one heavenly choir
They hail him from their forest-temple's gloom:

"O day of joy, haste, haste thy nimble feet! All earth is happy, like a sweet love-story.

Come on, come on, where Youth and Pleasure meet, To crown thee as thou risest in thy glory!"

When sunset lingers over Western hills

In ashen purple, like an exiled king, Bird answers bird in melancholy trills

Ah me, that song the wild wood-thrushes sing!

"O perfect day, how soon thy joys shall end! Thou wilt return, O never, never, never; Far, O how far, thy weary feet must wend;

O day of joy, farewell, farewell, forever!"

THE READING BOY

Sunk in the cushion of a high arm-chair,

A volume resting where his knees are crost,
With one hand slowly fumbling through his hair,
There sits the boy in magic pages lost.

At times he lifts a grave, though youthful face,
Revealing depths of eyes of liquid brown;
He seems a traveler from some far-off place
Who flees us as his flitting glance turns down.

O, dreamy boy, with fair May-morning brow,
What realms of wonders lure your restless feet?
In what far kingdom are you treading now?
What distant ocean bears your wandering fleet?

You sail with Sindbad through enchanted seas,
Your pockets stuffed with diamonds from his caves;
You and Aladdin gather gems from trees;

You give your orders to a thousand slaves.

With Crusoe you have rifled rich old wrecks,
You tame his parrot and you herd his goats;
With Captain Kidd you rake the foeman's decks,
And smiling, cut freebooting rivals' throats.

Columbus-like, you find another world,

You help Magellan sail the globe around; Your flags with Drake and Raleigh float unfurled From Dutch Guiana unto Puget Sound.

You sit with Alexander on his throne,

Yet conquer other worlds beyond his wake; With Cæsar you have bridged the Rhine and Rhône, Yet worn the crown which Cæsar dared not take.

And yet, my sturdy boy, you soon shall see

Youth's peerless poem dwindle into prose; And soon your nimble feet, so wild and free,

Shall bleed from thorns of each caressing rose.

Boy-Cæsar, in the Future's sullen shade,

Some envious Casca plans his traitorous part;
Some lean and hungry Cassius whets his blade,
Some much-loved Brutus waits to stab your heart.

Yet I salute you, ere your dreams go wrong;
To you, young master, see my head bowed down;
O, prince of romance, story, and of song,
O, lord of gladness, glory and renown!

FLORIDA NOCTURNE

Through midnight shadows purple-brown,
The stars are peeping open-eyed;

There in her glowing, silvery gown
The moon comes like a radiant bride.
Now sweet and clear

From citron coppice near,

I hear a mocking-bird repine

In gurgle, gurgle, gurgle of his melodies divine.

From lemon orchards, starred with blooms,

And bending low with fragrant fruit,

Soft odors haunt the purple glooms

Like whispers of a lover's lute.

I wait alone

For you, for you, my own,

With love more spirit-like and sweet

Than all the fragile blossoms that I scatter at your feet.

Through green pomegranate trees

I see the swelling globes of gold;

Through jasmine vines I feel the breeze

Trip like a cherub, silken-stoled;

Magnolias loom

With creamy clouds of bloom;

With pining they are pale, my dear,

But not more pale with pining than the one who waits you here.