New Lyre's second issue features a delicate and complementary balance of Eastern and Western classical styles. Each tradition expresses the universal creative spark common to all humanity in its original manner. We believe the unique expression of these principles in both Eastern and Western traditions serves as a prime example of Plato's "One and the Many" paradox. While there is something different, there is something unchanging. While the techniques, forms, traditions, languages, and cultures may vary greatly, we find a common universal longing for beauty, the sublime, and the eternal. Moreover, we believe the fine arts constitute the realm in which this innate and universal longing common to all humanity becomes most visible, and consequently, serves as one of the most important bridges between civilizations.

Issue two offers a rich selection of traditional Japanese haiku, ancient Chinese odes (whose importance Confucius greatly emphasized), original translations of Goethe's finest ballads, as well as a wealth of new modern classical English verse. Along with translations and original works, we offer a scholarly and ambitious essay on Ezra Pound -- the father of Modernism -- and his vision for a new age of Western art. As essayist Adam Sedia examines, despite having some very bad politics, and a considerable amount of opaque Modernist verse, Pound's Cantos contain ambitious ideas concerning the history and relationship between classical Eastern art and philosophy and the Western classical tradition. Although Pound himself admitted that he was unsuccessful in the realization of his ultimate project, his interests remain an auspicious and worthy challenge for all twenty-first century artists and thinkers.

As Ezra Pound, William Empson, and many other accomplished poets and critics recognized, we believe any serious reader or writer will be struck by the complementarity of Eastern and Western classical traditions. This is especially clear in the case of Chinese Classical Painting, which contributor Hanniel Lim examines in his essay, "Chinese Classical Painting: Exploring the Landscape of the Soul." Indeed, a closer look at the relationship between Eastern and Western styles of painting illustrates the common dreams, desires, and yearning of all human beings in a most vivid way. These are the dreams, desires, and yearnings best echoed by the great poets and artists.

We can observe that many cultures throughout history have experienced classical ages. From the epics and tragedies of ancient Greece, the verses and architecture of Moorish Spain, the ballads of Italian and Provencal troubadours, the paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance, the landscapes of the Song and Tang dynasties, Japanese haiku, the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, the dramas of Shakespeare, the ballads of Schiller and Goethe, to the odes of Keats and Shelley, each rich artistic tradition offers new insights into the endless depths of the human soul. We believe a careful rediscovery of our own relationship to these traditions may serve as the quickest road to awakening a new "age of the muses" today.

We therefore invite you, gently to read, and kindly to judge, our journal.

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