Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/48

POETRY: A Magazine of Verse

ITH this number begins its fourth year. Three years have passed of the five assured to us by the generosity of more than one hundred lovers of the art.

" has a fighting edge," an editor wrote to us recently by way of compliment. And no doubt we should keep the edge polished, since art, whose quest is beauty, which is truth, needs to carry a sword for her enemies. But today let us sheathe that august weapon—if we can find it—and bury the hatchet which might open a path through all thickets. Let us seek a clearing in these western woods, and light our three candles, and invite the fairies, and gather around the birthday cake for a love-feast.

For art is love as well as war. As artists we are imitators of God, engaged in a sublime—or preposterous—effort to give ourselves away, to present to the world the life that is in us in some form so beautiful that it can not die. How far are we living up to our role? How far are we creators of life, diviners of truth, singers at the cross-roads pointing out the way? How far are we seers and prophets, minds illumined who read the centuries—backward and forward—as astronomers read the suns?

Or, if we are not great enough for the supreme vision and the crown of fire, what are we doing to immortalize the fleeting moment, to tell the "tale of the tribe" to the next