TWO VOLUMES OF VERSE.*

DR. HARE is not and never can be a popular poet. He writes for the elect,—indeed, we might almost say, for a small sect of poetry-lovers who, like the late Dante Rossetti, can appreciate his peculiar gift. His originality will not be questioned, and he has a poet's imagination ; but to his verse, even at its best, the reader will give more admiration than love. Some of these sonnets, written in the Shakespearian form, show his art in its maturity, for there are no symptoms of decline in the author of The Snake-Charmer, although we believe he has passed his

eightieth year.

The volume is dedicated to "W. T. W., the friend who has gone with me through the study of Nature, accompanied me to her loveliest places at home and in other lands, and shared with me the reward she reserves for her ministers and inter- preters." Mr. Theodore Watts may well be proud of the generous praise and high esteem expressed in this fine series of sonnets ; and if the praise, in the judgment of an impartial reader, sometimes appears too high, it is easy to pardon the enthusiasm of the poet when, as in the following lines, he invokes his friend as the singer of the "New Day :"—

" The thousand volumes of poetic lore

By turns have fortunes and misfortunes made; One day these piles shall meet the eye no more, And in their own still honoured dust be laid.

Great work leaves only greater to be done.

New goals are straight a-head; then onward press,—

On Nature's open course the gauntlet run; She basks in glory at a new success.

The poetry of old is built on dream—

A dream of beauty never coming true !— But Science shadows forth the nobler theme Of wondrous Nature; be it sung by you!

Science and Nature, waiting hand in hand, Now on the threshold of the New Day stand."

The same belief in Mr. Watts's power as the poet best fitted to harmonise Nature and Science is uttered still more forcibly in the fifty-first sonnet :— "Complete your task, still read Urania,'s mind,

You are loved Nature's best biographer; With what she gives to you endow mankind;

Your worship is, has ever been, of her.

You know how she through every living feature Prepared for man yet far back in the past; Looked forth for him, her only fellow-creature, Who could gaze upward in her face at last. The world turns toward you with attentive ears, When you recite the story of your soul: Show Nature's face as she to you appears,

When she unfolds the rubric of her scroll. My time may now be short, yours long may be ; But, long or short, give all to poetry."

Many a fine passage of praise might be quoted so aptly ex- pressed that the reader is reminded of the enthusiasm that "made beautiful old rhyme" in the wonderful sonnets of Shakespeare. The warmth of Dr. Hake's love for his "almost first poetic friend" is also beautifully expressed :—

"Friendship is love's full beauty unalloyed With passion that may waste in selfishness,

Fed only at the heart and never cloyed; Such is our friendship, ripened but to bless. It draws the arrow from the bleeding wound With cheery look that makes a winter bright ; It saves the hope from falling to the ground, And turns the restless pillow towards the light.

• (1.) The New Hay. By Thomas Gordon Hake. With a Preface by W. Earl Hodgson. London: Remington and Co.—(2.) Corn and Poppies. By Cosmo Monkhonse. London : Mathews.

To be another's in his dearest want,

At struggle with a thousand racking throes, When all the balm that Heaven itself can grant Is that which friendship's soothing hand bestows ! How joyful to be joined in such a love, We two,—may it portend the days above ! "

Mr. Hodgson, who edits Dr. Hake's ninety-three sonnets, would, we think, have done better had he made less effort in his preface, and been content with simply giving the informa- tion needed for the full enjoyment of the verse. Some of his remarks are questionable, and some, if true, might have been stated more simply. What does the editor mean by the assertion that, owing to the neglect of poetry, Society's view of life has been gradually becoming superficial ? Society's view of the finest of all arts must be, and always has been, superficial. It admires what it is told to admire; and it is solely through the appreciation of a fit audience that a poet's fame is won. But this audience is, we think, wider now than it has ever been, and in the age of Browning and Tennyson, of Matthew Arnold and of William Morris, it would be as just to say the poets are silent as to say that poetry is neglected. Mr. Hodgson's discursive opinions in his elaborate introduction may be left to the taste and judgment of his readers ; but it is interesting to read of Dr. Hake's close friendship with Borrow and Rossetti, and of the scenes associated with that fellowship and with his verse.

We do not know whether this is Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse's first excursion into the joyous land of verse, but we venture to predict that, if this is his first volume, it will not be the last. That he is, or is like to prove in the future, a poet of high mark, we do not pretend to say ; but linnets can sing as well as nightingales, and Mr. Monkhouse has some charming notes, which will be listened to with pleasure. Occasionally, however, he fails altogether, as in a poem called "Love's Holiness," in which the long series of rhymes, consisting for the most part of two words in a line, has a most ludicrous effect.

It would be unkind to quote these verses, for they would give a false idea of the author's poetical capacity. Mr. Monkhouse is an admirable writer of society verses, and of those half- mirthful, half-pathetic lyrics in which Mr. Locker and Mr. Dobson display such graceful art. There is a poem addressed to a baby-daughter worthy of these writers, although it is more felicitous in execution than original in conception. By another piece called "Mysteries," in which a working man utters in a pious way his sorrow and perplexity over a child born stone-blind, we are reminded of a remarkable poem with a noble moral written many years ago by Mr. George Mere- dith, entitled "Martin's Puzzle." The volume opens with a poem called "Any Soul to any Body," which will perhaps make the reader curious to see more of Mr. Monkhouse's handiwork. Three stanzas must suffice for quotation :— "So we must part, my body, you and I, Who've spent so many pleasant years together,

'Tis sorry work to lose your company,

Who clove to me so close, whate'er the weather, From winter unto winter, wet or dry ; But you have reached the limit of your tether, And I must journey on my way alone, And leave you quietly beneath a stone.

They say that you are altogether bad (Forgive me, 'tis not my experience), And think me very wicked to be sad At leaving you, a clod, a prison, whence

To get quite free I should be very glad.

Perhaps I may be so some few days hence, But now, methinks, 'twere graceless not to spend A tear or two on my departing friend.

But you must stay, dear body, and I go, And I was once so very proud of you ; You made my mother's eyes to overflow When first she saw you, wonderful and new, And now with all your faults, 'twere hard to find

A slave more willing, or a friend more true. Ay, even they who say the worst about you, Can scarcely tell what I shall do without you."

A happy specimen of the poet's grace and charm will be found in "The Secret," which shall be quoted without abridgment :— " She passes in her beauty bright Amongst the mean, amongst the gay, And all are brighter for the sight, And bless her as she goes her way.

And now a beam of pity pours, And now a spark of spirit flies, Uncounted, from the unlocked stores Of her rich lips and precious eyes.

And all men look, and all men smile, But no man looks on her as I: They mark her for a little while, But I will watch her till I die.

And if I wonder now and then,

Why this so strange a thing should be—

That she be seen by wiser men, And only duly loved by me; I only wait a little longer, And watch her radiance in the room ; Here making light a little stronger, And there obliterating gloom.

(Like one who in a tangled way Watches the broken sun fall through, Turning to gold the faded spray, And making diamonds of dew.) Until at last, as my heart burns.

She gathers all her scattered light, And undivided radiance turns Upon me like a sea of light.

And then I know they see in part That which God lets me worship whole : She gives them glances of her heart, But me, the sunshine of her soul."

Mr. Monkhouse, like most poets of our day, has exercised his craft as a writer of sonnets, and he has done so, we think, with success. A sonnet headed " Elisha," suggested by a picture by Sir Frederick Leighton, is itself a picture in verse, every line of which adds something to the effect of the composition. We prefer, however, to quote the following, "On One not Beautiful," which, if it be less poetical, claims recognition from the feeling that has prompted it :—

" Dear Soul, how different were you from those Who, clothed in more than mortal loveliness, Have but to speak, or move, or smile, t' express The virtue rare their eloquent forms enclose! More different still from them whose beauty throws A glamour round their real unsightliness, With hearts less tender than their least caress, And minds less graceful than their idlest pose. 0 Soul most beautiful ! to whom was given A form that hid you as a cloud a star, Bearing no semblance to the light disguised, When you within the crystal streams of Heaven Shall see yourself as lovely as you are, How happy you will be, and how surprised !"

Mr. Monkhouse's Corn and Poppies gives us a pleasant impression of the writer. That his little volume has con- siderable merit, no one will doubt who reads, in addition to the verses quoted, "To a New-Born Child," "Under the Oak," "Montanus and Campestris," and the sonnet, "On a Portrait of Faraday."