William Ellery Leonard was born in New Jersey in 1876. He has been a professor of English in the University of Wisconsin only since 1909, so he is not, as yet, so closely connected with the state in the thought of the alumni of the University as are most of the men whose works have just been discussed and illustrated. But if what he has produced may fairly be taken as an earnest of his future work, his name will be one which all lovers of our University will be proud to associate with that institution. One needs read scarcely more than a paragraph at almost any point in his published works to realize that Mr. Leonard is a man of keen and kindly interest in all things that he hears and sees, and that he has traveled and studied and lived widely and wisely. He has published several volumes, both of poems and prose,—notable among them being "Sonnets and Poems," "The Poet of Galilee," "Aesop and Hyssop," "The Vaunt of Man and Other Poems," and "Glory of the Morning." The selections given are taken from the last two volumes mentioned.

One acquainted with modern English poetry may sense a marked likeness between Mr. Leonard's poems and those of Swinburne, though the former says he is not conscious of any such resemblance. There is a warmth of passion, a fluid quality in the rhythm, markedly like those elements in the great English poet. The selection from "Glory of the Morning" here given begins at that point in the play where Half Moon, the Chevalier, the white trapper, comes back to his Indian wife to bid her farewell and to take their two children with him to his home in France. The reader will feel, even in this brief extract, the sweep toward a climax of emotion, and will be impelled to read the whole play at his first opportunity.

(One of the most interesting features of the editorial work of this volume has been the adjustment of the choice of selections respectively of the editors and authors. The editors' choice of the poems from Mr. Leonard's volume, "The Vaunt of Man," was "Love Afar"; the author, on the other hand, tells us that he thought so little of this poem that he even considered omitting it from the volume. His preference is "A Dedication." What does the reader say?)

GLORY OF THE MORNING

Copyright, 1912, by the author.

The Chevalier: I will take care of the children. They are both young. They can learn.

Glory of the Morning: They can learn?

The Chevalier: Oak Leaf is already more than half a white girl; and Red Wing is half white in blood, if not in manners—ca ira.

Glory of the Morning (Beginning to realize): No, no. They are mine!

The Chevalier (Reaching out his arms to take them): No.

Glory of the Morning: They are mine! They are mine!

The Chevalier: The Great King will give them presents.

Glory of the Morning: No, no!

The Chevalier: He will lay his hands on their heads.

Glory of the Morning: He shall not, he shall not!

The Chevalier: I have said that I will tell him you were their mother.

Glory of the Morning: I am their mother—I am their mother.

The Chevalier: And he will praise Glory of the Morning.

Glory of the Morning: They are mine, they are mine!

The Chevalier: I have come to take them back with me over the Big Sea Water.

Glory of the Morning (The buckskin shirt falls from her hands as she spreads her arms and steps between him and her children): No, no, no! They are not yours! They are mine! The long pains were mine! Their food at the breast was mine! Year after year while you were away so long, long, long, I clothed them, I watched them, I taught them to speak the tongue of my people. All that they are is mine, mine, mine!

The Chevalier (Drawing Oak Leaf to him and holding up her bare arm): Is that an Indian's skin? Where did that color come from? I'm giving you the white man's law.

Glory of the Morning (Struggling with the Chevalier): I do not know the white man's law. And I do not know how their skin borrowed the white man's color. But I know that their little bodies came out of my own body—my own body. They must be mine, they shall be mine, they are mine! (The Chevalier throws her aside so that she falls.)

The Chevalier: Glory of the Morning, the Great Spirit said long before you were born that a man has a right to his own children. The Great Spirit made woman so that she should bring him children. Black Wolf, is it not so?

Black Wolf: It is so.

The Chevalier (To Glory of the Morning, standing apart): Black Wolf is the wise man of your people.

Black Wolf: And knows the Great Spirit better than the white men.

The Chevalier: Indeed, I think so.

Black Wolf: And the Great Spirit made the man so that he should stay with the squaw who brought him the children,—except when off hunting meat for the wigwam or on the warpath for the tribe.

Glory of the Morning (With some spirit and dignity): The white man Half Moon has said that he believes Black Wolf.

The Chevalier: The white man has not come to argue with the Red Skin, but to take the white man's children.

Black Wolf (In his role of practical wisdom): The Half Moon will listen to Black Wolf.

The Chevalier (With conciliation): If the Black Wolf speaks wisely....

Black Wolf: Neither Oak Leaf nor Red Wing is a mere papoose to be snatched from the mother's back.

The Chevalier: The Half Moon shares Black Wolf's pride in the Half Moon's children.

Black Wolf (Pointing to the discarded cradle-board): The mother long since loosened the thongs that bound them to the cradle-board, propped against the wigwam.

The Chevalier: And when she unbound the thongs of the cradle-board they learned to run toward their father.

Black Wolf: But invisible thongs may now bind them round, which even the Half Moon might not break, without rending the flesh from their bones and preparing sorrows and cares for his head.

The Chevalier: Let us have done, Black Wolf.

Black Wolf: Thongs which none could break, unless Oak Leaf and Red Wing themselves should first unbind them. (To the children.) Will Oak Leaf, will Red Wing unbind the mystic thongs of clan and home? Let the children decide.

The Chevalier: Black Wolf is wise. My children are babes no longer. They can think and speak.

Black Wolf: Let them speak....

Glory of the Morning: Yes. Let the children decide.

Black Wolf: Oak Leaf, do you want to leave Black Wolf and Glory of the Morning to go with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?

Oak Leaf (Looking up at her mother): O do I, mother?

Glory of the Morning: I cannot tell. I love you, Oak Leaf.

Oak Leaf (Withdrawing toward her father): Mother, make father Half Moon take you with us too.

Glory of the Morning: The Half Moon has told you that he no longer needs Glory of the Morning.

The Chevalier (Taking Oak Leaf's hand caressingly): Oak Leaf, you are too beautiful to wither and wrinkle here digging and grinding and stitching, though the handsomest brave of the Winnebago bought you for his squaw. Beyond the Big Sea Water you won't have to dig and grind and stitch. And sometime a noble brave of my nation will come in a blue suit with gold braid to the chateau and say: "I love Oak Leaf; will you give Oak Leaf to me?"

Oak Leaf (Gladly): And you'll give me to him, father! ... (Oak Leaf leans against her father, with a half frightened glance at Glory of the Morning.)

The Chevalier: You see, Glory of the Morning.

Glory of the Morning (With restraint): I will say good-bye to Oak Leaf.

Black Wolf: Red Wing, are you going with your sister and with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?

Red Wing: Sister, are you really going?—You are always making believe.

Oak Leaf: O, father,—tell him.

The Chevalier: She is going, Red Wing.

Red Wing: There is nothing for me beyond the Big Sea Water.

The Chevalier: Over there your father is a famous chief, and you might wear a sword and fight beside the Great King.

Red Wing: I shall not fight beside the Great King; and I shall not wear the white man's sword.

The Chevalier (Takes his arm, coaxingly): Little chief, why not? Why not, my son?

Glory of the Morning (Coldly and firmly): Because he is my son.

Red Wing (Standing off; to the Chevalier with boyish pride): Because I am a Winnebago.

LOVE AFAR

From "THE VAUNT OF MAN AND OTHER POEMS," p. 75. Copyright, 1912, by B. W. Huebsch.

THE IMAGE OF DELIGHT

A DEDICATION

(For a privately printed collection of verse.)