An interesting little book for reading during spare moments has lately been published, called "Poems and Verses," by E. S. Martin '77. There are some thirty poems occupying 100 pages, with a longer piece, "Eben Pynchot's Repentance," at the end.

The occasional poems, five in number, are greatly superior to the others, showing care for detail and more ease and polish in the verification. The author's ideas are good and plentiful but unfortunately seem frequently to run away with the language they are couched in. For example, this bit from "Uncertainty," an otherwise serious bit of work:

"Now that again the nearing sun slants warm each southern slope on, Belinda, of a sudden, leaves the noisy town behind,

And slowly fares across the field (with rubbers, let us hope, on)."

Much of the verse, on the other hand, is graceful, dignified and highly suggestive. "The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory," read before the Phi Beta Kappa in 1898, is perhaps the best work in the book. The moral it teaches might be remembered to great advantage today by many of those in quest of the strenuous life. One bit, in a description of a recent Harvard-Yale football game, seems at this time particularly apropos:

"Still granting a sport is a right good sort, must we make it religion too?

Must we add to the cross we've had so long another upright pole,

And shove the bar along a bit, till it's what they call a goal,

And say you must drive between the posts as you hope to save your soul.