17 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 3

Tho Times - of Wednesday publishes a fine and singularly timely poem

headed " Mare Liberum," addressed to Germany by Mr. Henry Van Dyke, one of the most distinguished American men of letters, a former colleague of President Wilson at Princeton, and from 1913 to 1916 United States Minister to the Netherlands. We quote the second stanza :- "Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave - Where you have murdered, cry you down ; And seamen whom vou would not save, Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown Of -shame for your imperious head,— A dark memorial of the dead,—'

Women and children 'whom you left to drown.