CALENDAR OF WAR VERSE ON SALE

The American Red Cross has issued a "Calendar of War Verse," the proceeds of whose sale go toward the work of the organization. It is now on sale at the Co-operative at 75 cents a copy. The CRIMSON prints the following review of the calendar:

The first official contribution on the American Red Cross to the ever-growing collection of war poetry has appeared in the form of "A Calendar of War Verse." Although in our busy world the calendar of quotations, once so popular, has given way to the more useful "Memorandum," this little desk calendar deserves special notice.

Aside from the motto, the cover is attractive; the decorative design is simple and dignified, and the color scheme harmonious. Amid bursting shrapnel stands the Red Cross, partially hidden by branches of laurel and by a gleaming sword. The motto alone is weak. It is hard to see how one could have made a poorer choice than the singsong couplet:

"Starry-Vision'd songs of Fame

Crown with Love the Warrior's Name!"

After a simple dedication "to the mem- ory of Alan Seeger, our soldier-poet, who met death in July, 1916, fighting for the high cause to which now all America is consecrated," the calendar contains a page for each week, and on each page a bit of war verse. Wisely governed by the rule that a poem should be given completely or not at all, the editor has collected the best of the shorter poems dealing with the war. Most of these are the work of American authors, but France, Belgium and England have each at least one representative. To name all the authors would be unprofitable, for the list is amazingly complete. Among them are Noyes, Mackaye, Brooke, van Dyke, Hagedorn, Service, Bourdillon, Seeger, Phillpotts, Woodberry, Cammaerts, Binyon, Masters, Eliot, Dole, Katherine Lee Bates, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Edith Wharton.

Equally well selected and equally various are the subjects. One finds Rupert Brooke's "The Dead" and "The Soldier." Cammaert's "Song of the Belgians," and Bourdillon's "The Call." One poem seems, for the moment, a bit out of place in the Collection--Miss Burr's "Holy Russia," a glorification of the new (now wavering) democracy.

Rupert Brooke is too well known to quote; Mary Raymond Shipman Andrew's "Vigil" too long. Miss Winifred Letts, in a whimsically said little lyric, speaks thus of the Oxford men in service:

"I saw the spires of Oxford

As I was passing by,

The grey spires of Oxford

Against a pearl-grey sky.

My heart was with the Oxford men

Who went abroad to die.

* * *

God rest you, happy gentlemen,

Who laid your good lives down,

Who took the khaki and the gun

Instead of cap and gown.

God bring you to a fairer place.

Than even Oxford town."

The Red Cross has asked our help in the past not in vain; surely our response to this new call will be as prompt and as willing.  R. W. GORDON