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 Page 
 
 COVER DESIGN 
 3 SIMPLY SUGAR-PIE 
 15 THE SAINTS OF SAN ATOLL 
 22 THE SON 
 25 THE BONFIRE 
 
 29 CAGED 
 
 30 FLOTSAM 
 
 32 NIGHT AND THE MADMAN 
 
 34 THE CHILD OF GOD 
 
 47 AMERICA AND THE ARTS 
 
 52 EDITORIALS 
 
 57 ENTERPRISE 
 
 61 "291 FIFTH AVENUE" 
 
 66 "LAZY" VERSE 
 
 73 EMERGING GREATNESS 
 
 79 THE DANCE 
 
 82 SHAW AND RELIGION 
 
 89 THE AMERICAN COMPOSER 
 
 95 A PREFACE TO THE DECEMBER NUMBER 
 
 Charles Rollo Peters, Jr. 
 Barry Benefield 
 Allen Upward 
 Katherine Baker 
 Robert Frost 
 Jean Starr Untermeyer 
 Amy Lowell 
 Kahlil Gibran 
 Louise D rise oil 
 Romain Rolland 
 
 Van Wyck Brooks 
 Peter Minuit 
 James Oppenheim 
 Waldo Frank 
 Louis Untermeyer 
 Floyd Dell 
 Paul Rosenfeld 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from j 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bonfirerobertOOfrosrich 
 
The Bonfire 
 
 By Robert Frost 
 
 '' y^^ H let's go up the hill and scare ourselves, 
 \^^ As reckless as the best of them tonight, 
 By setting fire to all the brush we piled 
 With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. 
 Oh let's not wait for rain to make it safe. 
 The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough 
 Down dark converging paths between the pines. 
 Let's not care what we do with it tonight. 
 Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile 
 The way we piled it. And let's be the talk 
 Of people brought to windows by a light 
 Thrown from somewhere upon their wall-paper. 
 Rouse them all, both the free and not so free 
 With saying what they'd like to do to us 
 For what they'd better wait till we have done. 
 Let's all but bring to life this old volcano, 
 If that is what the mountain ever was — 
 And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose 
 We will ..." 
 
 "And scare you too?" the children said. 
 
 "Why wouldn't it scare me to have a fire 
 Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know 
 That still, if I repent, I may recall it. 
 But in a moment not: a little spurt 
 
 [25] 
 
 
The Bonfire 
 
 Of burning fatness, and then nothing but 
 
 The fire itself can put it out, and that 
 
 By burning out, and before it burns out 
 
 It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars 
 
 And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, 
 
 Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle — 
 
 Done so much and I know not how much more 
 
 I mean it shall not do if I can bind it. 
 
 Well if it doesn't with its draft bring on 
 
 A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter. 
 
 As once it did to me upon an April. 
 
 The breezes were so spent with winter blowing 
 
 They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them 
 
 Short of the perch their languid flight was toward ; 
 
 And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven 
 
 As I walked once round it in possession. 
 
 But the wind out of doors — you know the saying. 
 
 There came a gust. You used to think the trees 
 
 Made wind by fanning since you never knew 
 
 It blow but that you saw the trees in motion. 
 
 Something or someone watching made that gust. 
 
 It put that flame tip-down and dabbed the grass 
 
 Of overwinter with the least tip-touch 
 
 Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand. 
 
 The place it reached to blackened instantly. 
 
 The black was all there was by daylight. 
 
 That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke — 
 
 And a flame slender as the hepaticas, 
 
 Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now. 
 
 But the black spread like black death on the ground, 
 
 And I think the sky darkened with a cloud 
 
 Like winter and evening coming on together. 
 
 There were enough things to be thought of then. 
 
 , [26] ., 
 
Robert Frost 
 
 Where the field stretches toward the north 
 
 And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it 
 
 To flames without twice thinking, where it verges 
 
 Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear 
 
 They might find fuel there, in withered brake, 
 
 Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod, 
 
 And alder and grape vine entanglement, 
 
 To leap the dusty deadline. For my own 
 
 I took what front there was beside. I knelt 
 
 And thrust hands in and held my face away. 
 
 Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating. 
 
 A board is the best weapon if you have it. 
 
 I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew. 
 
 And said out loud, I couldn't bide the smother 
 
 And heat so close in ; but the thought of all 
 
 The woods and town on fire by me, and all 
 
 The town turned out to fight for me — that held me. 
 
 I trusted the brook barrier, but feared 
 
 The road would fail ; and on that side the fire 
 
 Rose till it made a noise of crackling wood — 
 
 Of something more than tinder grass or weed — 
 
 That brought me to my feet to hold it back 
 
 By leaning back myself, as if the reins 
 
 Were round my neck and I was at the plough. 
 
 I won. But I'm sure no one ever spread 
 
 Another color over a tenth the space 
 
 That I spread coal black over in the time 
 
 It took me. Neighbors coming home from town 
 
 Couldn't believe that so much black had come there 
 
 While they had backs turned, that it hadn't been there 
 
 When they had passed an hour or so before 
 
 Going the other way and they not seen it. 
 
 They looked about for someone to have done it. 
 
 But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering 
 
 [27] 
 
The Bonfire 
 
 Where all my weariness had gone and why 
 I walked so light on air in heavy shoes 
 In spite of a scorched Fourth of July feeling. 
 Why shouldn't I be scared remembering that?" 
 
 "If it scares you, what will it do to us?" 
 
 "Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared, 
 What would you say to war if it should come? 
 That's what for reasons I should like to know — 
 If you can comfort me by any answer." 
 
 "Oh, but war's not for children — it's for men." 
 
 "Now we are digging almost down to China. 
 
 My dears, my dears, you thought that — we all thought it. 
 
 So your mistake was ours. Haven't you heard, though, 
 
 About the ships where war has found them out 
 
 At sea, about the towns where war has come 
 
 Through opening clouds at night with droning speed 
 
 Further o'erhead than all but stars and angels, — 
 
 And children in the ships and in the towns? 
 
 Haven't you heard what we have lived to learn? 
 
 Nothing so new — something we had forgotten : 
 
 War is for everyone, for children too. 
 
 I wasn't going to tell you, and I mustn't. 
 
 The best way is to come up hill with me 
 
 And have our fire and laugh and be afraid." 
 
 [28]