by Legge Miss Ethel Lacey afforded one of the most delightful afternoons possible at the American Woman's Club on Tuesday by reading various translations of ancient Chinese poetry. The meeting was in the charge of the Literary Department and, in her introduction, Mrs. 'A. Wilbur said that the' poetry of nation, perhaps more than any other manifestation, represented its thought and feeling.
The particular odes which Miss Lacey read were those of the Shang and Chow dynasty, translate ed by Legge. The Book of: Poetry or She King which is one of the Confucian classics contains 305 poems, 300 of which are of the Chow dynasty, while five are of the Shang. These poems were collected by Confucius on tablets of wood or bamboo or on silk and were 311 in number originally but six "f these have been lost.
The selection of poems which Miss Lacey read illustrated many phases of ancient life, those in praise of the rulers of the time, those praising the beauty of a great lady, poems of love, poems of description. There were those which had a satirical touch, also such the poem in which the author deplored the way in which the new generation was getting away from the ways of the old and that in which the "rule for obtaining a wife" was laid down. A charming poem called The Cloudy River" (The Milky Way) translated by Mrs. Florence Ayscough and rendered by Amy Lowell was read.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.