The times., 1898-06-12
arn This Our World.

In This Our World by Charlotte Per
kins Stetson, is moi exactly a new book
for some of the poems it contains have
been before the public for several years
in a smaller volume by the same name
But the present edition contains many
new poems. and is gotten up rather more
deliberately than the first. Mrs. Stetson
is California woman, and her personal
ity as well as her work is familiar 10
those who have attended the woman s
suffrage conventions
Many of the poems describe the climate
and fora of California. When Mrs Stet-
son deals with this subject it is quite evil
dent that she thoroughly enjoys the work.
Sometimes the poem IS reflection on
the difference between California skies
and those OF other regions, as in this:
WINDS AND LEAVES
(From England)
Wet winds that flap the sodden leaves!
Wet leaves that drop and fall
Unhappy, leafless trees the wind bereaves!
Poor trees and small!
All of color. solemn in your green;
All OF a color, somber in your brown;
All Of color, dripping gray between
When leaves are down!
. for the bronze-green eucalyptus spires
Far-hashing up against the endless blue!
Shifting and glaBcing in the steady fires
or sun and moonlight too.
Dark orange groves! Pomegranate hedges bright.
And vanished fringes of the pepper trees!
And o, that wind of sunshnei Wind of light!
Wind of Pacific seas!
There is a joyous superabundance of
life, of strength, of health in Mrs. Stet-
sons verse, which seems born of the
glorious sunshine and rich gardens of
California, where life is less austere and
subdued than at the East. All through
the book are found bits OF verse describ-
ing this southwestern climate, and con-
trasting II with that of the East There
is An Invitation from California" be-
ginning in this way:
Aren't you tired of protection from the weather?
OF defenses, guards and shields?
Aren't you tired of the worry as TO whether
This year the farm land yields?
And there is a humorous Protest from
California" entitled Their Grassr'
They say we have no grassl
To hear them talk
You'd think that grass could walk
And was their bosom friend-no day to pass
Between them and their grass
''No grass!' they say who live
Where hot bricks give
The hot stones all their heat and back again
baking hell for men.
go but" they haste to say, eve have our parks
Where fat policemen check the children's larks:
And sign to sign repeats in glass,
Keep of the grassi'
We have our cities parks and grass you see!'
Well, so have we!
But it's the country that they sing of most
Alas
They sing, for our wide acres of soft grass!
To please us living and to hide us dead
You'd think Walt Whitman's first was all they
read
You'd think they all went out upon the quiet
Nebuchadnezzar TO outdo in diet.
You'd think they found no other green thing
fair,
Even its seed an honor in their hair.
You'd think they had this bliss the whole year
round
Evergreen grassland we, plowed ground
And 1t is in the verse which describes
California that there is most of that
subtle quality which may be called poetic
Here, for example, is a little poem to the
hills of San Francisco:
The flowing waves Of our warm sea
Roll TO the beach and die,
But the soul of the waves forever fills
The curving crests OF our restless hills
That climb so wantonly.
There is real music in this, and the
work of this Western poet is not al
ways musical. In fact, this book of hers
is that anomalous thing, a volume of po-
etry which is seldom really poetic. Its