11 JULY 1914, Page 18

RECENT VERSE *

Miss ROSE MACAULAY in her slim book of verses, The Two Blind Countries,' seeks a different prize from most poets. It is magic that she would capture-not the common magic of poetry, which is only a rarefied beauty, but that authentic thing which gives one a strange thrill and shudder and makes the solid earth seem an unsubstantial vapour. It is homely magic, too, springing out of common incidents, for the other world is always there, with only a gossamer veil between its strangeness and our high noontide. Both worlds are blind, and the ear that listens at the door gets no comfort, nothing to illumine its own country or tell it clearly about the other, only a sense of the infinite multiplications of the soul. In these verses we have all the gusto of ordinary life, and a singular gift of sharp delineation, but their charm is the

imminence of "The dream country,

While the round world hums like the far-off tale Of a foolish bee."

The magic has many forms. Sometimes it is the wild past crowding upon the orderly present :-

" As I walked in Petty Cury on Trinity Day, While the cuckoos in the fields did shout,

Bight through the city stole the breath of the may, And the scarlet doctors all about Lifted up their heads to sniff the breeze, And forgot they were bound for Great St. Mary's To listen to a sermon from the Master of Caius, And ' How balmy,' they said, 'the air is !' And balmy it was; and the sweet bells rocking Shook it till it rent in two And fell, a torn veil ; and like maniacs mocking The wild things from without peered through."

Sometimes, as in Mr. De La Mare's verse, it is the mystery of the blind, silent house to the adventurer in the orchard ; some- times it is plain witchcraft, as in "St. Mark's Day "; or a fancy of the normal poetic kind, like "The City on the Lee Shore "; or a tale of ghosts, like " Moonrise." But it is most • (1) The Tiro Blind Countries. By Bose Macaulay. London : Sidgwick and

ackson. [2s. 6d. net.]-(2) The Living Chalice. By Susan L. Mitchell. Dublin : Maunsel and Co. [2s. 13d. net.J-(3) Aids to the Immortality of Certain Persons in Ireland Charitably Administered. Same author, publishers, and price.-(4) The Sea is Kind. By T. Sturge Moore. London Grant Richards. [6s. net.)-(5) Collected Poems. By Ford Madox Hueffer. London : Max Gosehen. I3s. net.1-(6) Poems and Legends. By Charles Stratford Catty. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. [Ss. net.]-(7) Nadir the Persian, and other Poems. By Herbert Sherring. London: Methuen and Co. [65.]- (8) Aid in Gortiand, and other NMI. By Henry Bansome. Oxford : B. H. Blackwell. [2e. 6d. net.]-(9) The Golden Heresy. By Max Plowman. London : 48 Fitzroy- Street. [2s. 6d. net.]-(10) Later Poems. By Emily Hickey.

London : Grant Richards. [2s. 6e1. net.] (11 Vision : a Book of Lyrics. By W. H. Abbott. London : Elkin Mathews. [2s. 6d. nst.]-(12) Farming Lays. By Bernard Gilbert. London : Frank Palmer. [2s. net.j-(13) From Across the German Ocean. By Margaret Arndt. London : Elkin Mathews. [2s. 6d. net.] - (14) England Over Seas. By Lloyd Roberts. Same publishers and price.-(15) More Rhodesian Rhymes. By Cullen Goulds- TW. Bulawayo : Philpott and Williams. [Ss. net.]-(16) The Ballades of odore de Banvilie. Translated by Archibald T. Strong. London: Macmillan and Co. [Ss. net.]-(17) Poems from the Portuguese. Translated by Aubrey p. (I. Bell, Oxford; B, H. Blaokwell. [8e, 6d, set.]

potent when Miss Macaulay weaves her spell about something homely or grotesque-a wastrel wolfing food in the thick grasses of an English meadow, or the trumps movingendlessly in the chalky dust. Out of familiar things she contrives to

draw a magic which sets all our definitions tottering • -

"The grey dust on the by-roads Is shuffled and blurred

By the dragging feet of beaten men,

And a quiet sound is heard-

A drawing of slow breath, as if

A thousand sleepers stirred."

This specific gift is so rare in modern poetry that we may well hail it with enthusiasm. The rambling rhythms are cunningly adapted to further the strange power of a fancy which seeks, not to delight or to illumine or to build, but to disquiet. Yet it delights in spite of itself, for the blurring of common outlines gives the reader the freedom of great spaces.

We welcome a reprint of Miss Susan Mitchell's remarkable little books of verse. In The Living Chalice' she shows that at will she can call up the half-lit world of the Celt, but with a weightier thought and a sharper perception than are common in Celtic poetry, and she has a curious human tenderness which is rarely conjoined with mysticism. "Immortality '' shows the latter gift at its highest, but more characteristic are " The Roads of the Heart," " The Nursery of the Heart," and the beautiful "The Burden of the Doorkeeper

" We tend the bodies of the newly born, Stay with our hopeful hands the helpless head, And unto us they come the newly dead, You are all ours at evening and at morn."

In Aids to Inimortality2 a very different talent is revealed' In riotous and audacious verse she makes fun of every notable person or movement in Ireland; quite impartially, too, for Mr. Redmond suffers as much as Ulster. A quick sense of parody, wit, and a touch of rollicking humour make these skits a delight to the Saxon, and perhaps not less to

the victims, for there is no malice, though there is much point, in Miss Mitchell's catholic badinage. Mr. Sturge Moore's new volume, The Sea is Kind,* contains one masterpiece which no one but Mr. Moore could have written. The title poem, with its clean definiteness of detail, its sudden homeliness, and its moments of high fancy, has a slow subtle beauty which is far nearer the Greek spirit than more luscious verse. Beautiful, too, in the same manner is the letter " Sent from Egypt to a Sicilian vine-dresser." For the rest, the volume contains some fine sonnets, some charming verses about children, and one or two delightful lyrics such as "A Duet" and " Chorus of Greek Girls." Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer prefaces his Collected Poems' with a highly self- conscious essay which is sufficient to deter most readers. But they will be wise to disregard this piece of posturing, for the poetry is far better than the poet would have us believe. Mr. Hueffer is not always an attractive personality,

but he is a real one, and his verse has sometimes a startling imaginative vigour. Such a poem as "To all the Dead" is a pageant of history which enthrals the mind, for each move- ment and figure is sharply visualized. Poems like "Finehley Road" and " The Three-Ten" have the same haunting power of marrying past and present, the dream and the reality. Mr. Hueffer, too, has his moments of tenderness, when he is wholly charming. "To Christina and Katharine at Christ- mas " and " The Old Faith to the Converts" are so perfect of their kind that we dare not detach a stanza for quotation.

The next three volumes on our list are mainly concerned with narrative verse. Mr. Charles Stratford Catty° is a most accomplished weaver of metrical tales in the manner Of the elder poets. He does not imitate, but the influence of Browning and Swinburne is everywhere apparent. In his Greek tales he tells of the amours of the gods in dainty and melodious verse,

but he is most successful in his romantic ballads, such as "The Death of Loys" and " Blanchefleur," where he uses deftly the old machinery of rgramarye. Then he can draw portraits in the Browning fashion-"Discarded," "A Roadside Rhapsody," " Afdlle. Hippolyte Clairon to the Margravineof Anspach,"" A Man of Business "-full of shrewd observation and imaginative sympathy. It is difficult to select where all is so competent, but our favourites are the fishing poems, "Angler's Joy" and ".The Fisher," where the joy in natural beauty is expressed in verse unshadowed by any literary reminiscences. Mr. Herbert Sherring's Nadir the Persian7 is a collection of ballads in the

robust vein, eminently fitted for recitation. Most of them are too well fitted for this purpose, and are apt to slip into banal phrases and facile jingles. The Indian poems are the best, but we are inclined to think that Mr. Sherring's talent is better seen in his prose. The verses in lighter vein are good of their kind. The title poem of Mr. Henry Ransome's Atil in Gortlands is a finely restrained rendering of a fine theme. The other poems are too often echoes; " To a Ship at Anchor," for instance, recalls in subject and treatment a famous poem of Mr. Robert Bridges. But " The Ballad of a Dream " is an exquisite fancy, and "At the End of the Road" and "A Litany" show that Mr. Ransome has more than mere metrical accomplishment at his command.

Of the five little volumes of lyrics, Mr. Max Plowman's The Golden Heresy 9 (the title is taken from a line of " A. E.") is the most remarkable, and amply fulfils the promise of his earlier volume. He is never guilty of an otiose epithet or a weak phrase, and he is singularly free from contemporary influences. His thought is always simple and direct, but in his images he shows often a richness and subtlety which recall the seventeenth-century religious poets. " The Crazy Lad" is an instance of his potent simplicity, and such fine poems as " The Banquet" and " A Marriage Song " of his richness. "The Bather" and "Her Beauty" show how subtly he can work out a moral theme in the terms of physical allegory. Miss Emily Hickey's Later Poemsm are partly versions of Celtic legends and partly devotional exercises. We like the latter best, especially " After Our Lady's Presenta- tion" and "An Act of Faith," and most of all the charming lyric, "Eld to Youth." Mr. W. H. Abbott's Vision" is a collection of true lyric; for music never fails him, Such a poem as "A Cottage Garden," with its wealth of rich phrase and soft rhythm, is still a lyric in spite of its uncon- ventional form. Many of his sonnets are stately and melo- dious, especially " Trafalgar Square " and " To a Young Girl," and there are some good translations from Heine. Mr. Bernard Gilbert's Farming Lays," delightfully illustrated with thumb-nail sketches, give us a picture of the modern Lincolnshire farmer and peasant, in a dialect not too difficult, and with much shrewdness and humour. They are not poetry, as Barnes's Dorset poems are poetry, but they are a faithful and kindly version of life, and deserve a wide popularity. Mrs. Arndt's From Across the German Ocean" contains the poems of an Englishwoman written abroad, and pleasantly interweaves the traditions of her two homelands. The danger of simplicity is that it may slip into prose, and we like those pieces best where the simplicity is unforced, as in the poems on children, which are worthy of the author of The Meadows of Play.

Next come two volumes from the oversee Dominions. Mr. Lloyd Roberts's England Over Seas" sings of Canada with fervour and insight and a true giflof music. His love of Nature is no literary affectation, but sed on keen observation and long knowledge, and consequently his descriptions arrest us and linger in the memory. His very real originality is less of thought and phrase than of metre and rhythm, and in a poem like " England's Fields," though the theme has been sung a thousand times, he attains to a new rendering. Mr. Cullen Gouldsbury, whose African Year is one of the best books of its kind that we know, has given us in More Rhodesian Rhymes'3 another series of his strange ballads of the outposts. He is not quite free from the ordinary fashion in these things, which•began with Lindsay Gordon and is con- tinued in Mr. Service—the fashion of rhetoric and strong language and a slightly theatrical cynicism. But he is also a poet, and at his best he can write fine poetry. The grim humour of "His Last Will and Testament" would be hard to better, or the lyrical beauty of "In the Smoke." He is excellent, too, in a farcical vein, as in " The Buccaneer," and in some of the pieces in " Ingoldsby in Africa."

. Last upon our list stand two volumes of translations. Mr. Archibald Strong has given us a complete translation of the thirty-six ballades of Theodore de Banville,'6 those flawless exercises in modish verse, together with a judicious intro- duction. Andrew Lang has made one or two of these familiar through his own dainty versions, but Mr. Strong's enterprise in making a complete translation is amply justified by his skill. He is always faithful, musical, and exquisite, and very cunningly reproduces Banville's different moods in versifica- tion. The " Isles of Venus," the " Ballade of the-Sea," 'the

" Ballade of Women," and the " Ballade of his Mother' may be instanced to show the translator's complete competence. Mr. Aubrey Bell's Poems from the Portuguese% opens a field known to few English readers. Throughout Portuguese 'literature runs a lyric element, the cantigas, derived from the country folk-songs, and notable for their refrains. The greatest poets, Vicente, Camoes, Garrett, Joiio de Dens, have always used this fashion, even when some foreign influence was dominant in their literature. Mr. Bell has translated some fifty of these cantigas, giving the Portuguese texts along- side, and has made a charming volume of them. The lyrics of Camoes are especially beautiful, and we may single out for special mention the noble address " To Portugal " of Thomas Ribeiro.