BOOKS.

A CANADIAN POET.* A VOLUME of verse published at Ottawa, and full at once of the influence of Canadian scenery and of classical culture, arrests the reader's attention at once. And though there is nothing exactly demonstrating true genius in this volume, there is so much in it of truth, simplicity, vivacity, and of something that fairly deserves the name of passion, that it is very pleasant and sometimes even impressive reading, almost from beginning to end. The very last page, for instance, which is devoted to a by no means ambitious theme, is sufficient evidence that Mr. Lampman has a true eye and a true sense of humour. It is in its way a droll photograph both of the dog (probably an irregular Dachshund), and of the frigid and un- sympathetic criticism with which his arrival was received:—

" Grotesque !' we said, the moment we espied him, For there he stood, supreme in his conceit, With short ears close together and queer feet

Planted irregularly : first we tried him With jokes, but they were lost ; we then defied him With bantering questions and loose criticism : He did not like, I'm sure, our catechism, But whisked and snuffed a little as we eyed him.

Then flung we balls, and out and clear away, Up the white slope, across the crusted snow, To where a broken fence stands in the way, Against the sky-line, a mere row of pegs, Quicker than thought we saw him flash and go, A straight mad scuttling of four crooked legs."

Nor is the sonnet called "March," which is for the most part a sketch of the demeanour of what Mr. Lampman calls the "British sparrows" in a Canadian March, less charming in its graphic realism and the genial feeling with which the sparrows are painted for us :— "Over the dripping roofs and sunk snow-barrows,

The bells are ringing loud and strangely near, The shout of children dins upon mine ear Shrilly, and like a flight of silvery arrows Showers the sweet gossip of the British sparrows, Gathered in noisy knots of one or two, To joke and chatter just as mortals do Over the day's long tale of joys and sorrows ; Talk before bed-time of bold deeds together, Of thefts and fights, of hard-times and the weather, Till sleep disarm them, to each little brain

Bringing tucked wings and many a blissful dream, Visions of wind and sun, of field and stream,

And busy barn-yards with their scattered grain."

When Mr. Lampman deals with what is now called "the modern spirit," we cannot say that he satisfies us equally well;

• Among the Mittct, and other Poems. By Archibald Lampnaan. Ottawa: Dark and Sons. for is it not one of the characteristics of the modern spirit to look at the universe with so much passionate sympathy in so many different aspects, that it is difficult to conceive the mind which delights in this exercise holding fast by any truth at all? It delights to sit "holding no form of creed, but con- templating all." And so Mr. Lampman laments over the vanishing of •! the Martyrs" as if they were beautiful but almost necessarily obsolete moral phenomena, and writes of Truth as if loyalty to it could only be adequately proved by silence and the refusal to limit it by any sort of enunciation. We fear that the man who really tries to think of "the Truth" as the following sonnet suggests that he should, will very soon persuade himself that in such a kaleidoscope as this world, it is of little use thinking of it at all :—

Friend, though thy soul should burn thee, yet be still.

Thoughts were not meant for strife, nor tongues for swords.

He that sees clear is gentlest of his words,

And that's not truth that hath the heart to kill.

The whole world's thought shall not one truth fulfil.

Dull in our age, and passionate in youth, No mind of man hath found the perfect truth, Nor shalt thou find it; therefore, friend, be still.

Watch and be still, nor hearken to the fool, 'The babbler of consistency and rule : Wisest is he, who, never quite secure, Changes his thoughts for better day by day : To-morrow some new light will shine, be sure, And thou shalt see thy thought another way."

Nor can we admire the substance of the sonnet which precedes it, and which describes the poet as 4. half-god, half- brute," and again, half-brutish, half-divine, but all of earth." That is a description which applies to some poets, but we should say to very few indeed of the greater,—perhaps to Burns, certainly not to Homer, or Dante, or Milton, only in a very forced sense to Shakespeare or Goethe, and not in the least to Cowper, or Wordsworth, or Matthew Arnold. There is in that sonnet the same tendency to exaggerate the force of the lowest element in the imaginative life which belongs to the pessimism of the day. Far nobler in its drift, and far truer too, and more powerfully expressed, is this little poem on the nature of the poet which we will quote,—leaving the sonnet on "The Poets" unquoted,—in order to show Mr. Lampman not in his pessimistic, but in his idealistic mood — "What do poets want with gold, Cringing slaves and cushioned ease ; Are not crusts and garments old

Better for their souls than these ?

Gold is but the juggling rod Of a false usurping god, Graven long ago in hell With a sombre stony spell, Working in the world forever.

Hate is not so strong to sever Beating human heart from heart.

Soul from soul we shrink and part, And no longer hail each other With the ancient name of brother.

Give the simple poet gold, And his song will die of cold.

He must walk with men that reel On the rugged path, and feel Every sacred soul that is Beating very near to his.

Simple, human, careless, free.

As God made him, he must be : For the sweetest song of bird Is the hidden tenor heard In the dusk, at even-flush, From the forest's inner hush, Of the simple hermit thrush.

What do poets want with love ? Flower a that shiver out of hand, And the fervid fruits that prove • Only bitter broken sand ?

Poets speak of passion best, When their dreams are undistressed, And the sweetest songs are sung, E'er the inner heart is stung. Let them dream; 'tis better so ; Ever dream, but never know.

If their spirits once have drained All that goblet crimson-stained, Finding what they dreamed divine, Only earthly sluggish wine, Sooner will the warm lips pale, And the flawless voices fail, Sooner come the drooping wing, And the afterdays that bring,

No such songs as did the spring."

We are sure that Goethe would not have given in his adhesion to this doctrine that "poets speak of passion best when their dreams are undistressed." And it may be that it only applies to the very highest class of imagination. Goethe certainly made experience serve as stimulus to his poetry quite as habitually as he made imagination take the place of experience. All his finer lyrics were the products of some temporary passion, and he was as much afraid of losing the impulse to poetry with which these successive passions supplied him, as he was of letting passion go beyond the point at which it would find him in poetic motives, of letting it pass into the phase where it would hamper his life. None the less Mr. Lampman is quite right that not a few of the highest strains of the poets who delineate the deeper passions have been independent of any immediate experience,—for example, Scott's grand delineation of the pas- sion of revenge in the ballad in which he paints the assassination of Murray, and doubtless Shakespeare's delineation of blood- thirsty ambition in Macbeth, and of the heavy burden of a supernatural or preternatural injunction to revenge a father's murder in Hamlet.

Perhaps, however, Mr. Lanvin= is at his best in his fine pictures of the Canadian scenery. There are two pictures, one called Among the Timothy," though we are quite ignorant as to what "the Timothy" may be (apparently, long grass), and one called "Winter Hues Recalled," which are almost Wordsworthian in the genuineness of their passionate delight in the beauty of the summer and winter scenery of Canada. But the piece which has, we think, given us most pleasure is the one called "Between the Rapids," a Canadian boatman's eclogue, which has somehow a flavour in it of Clough's exquisite poem on the Swiss girl who is driving her cows home through a storm, while musing on her distant lover. We can only quote the concluding stanzas, but they will, we think, convince our readers that Mr. Lampman can write verse in which there is a true "lyrical cry:"—

"The shore, the fields, the cottage just the same, But how with them whose memory makes them sweet?

Oh if I called them, hailing name by name, Would the same lips the same old shouts repeat ?

Have the rough years, so big with death and ill, Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet ?

Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never still, Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and pale Lisette, The homely hearts that never cared to range, While life's wide fields were filled with rush and change.

And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie ?

I cannot tell ; the fields are all a blur.

The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see, Oh do they wait and do they call for her ?

And is she changed, or is her heart still clear As wind or morning, light as river foam ?

Or have life's changes borne her far from here, And far from rest, and far from help and home ?

Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile.

For arms grow tired with paddling many a mile.

The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours steal ; Like ghosts adown the river's blackening floor The misty fumes begin to creep and reel.

Once more I leave you, wandering toward the night,

Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held me in ; Whither I go I know not, and the light Is faint before, and rest is hard to win.

Ah sweet ye were and near to Heaven's gate; But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late.

Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark ! The freshening roar ! The chute is near us now, And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark The water whispering from the birchen prow.

One long last look, and many a sad adieu, While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet, I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you, A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette, A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee, A sigh for Jeanne, a sob for Verginie.

Oh, does she still remember ? Is the dream Now dead, or has she found another mate ? So near, so dear ; and ah, so swift the stream ; Even now perhaps it were not yet too late. But oh, what matter; for before the night Has reached its middle, we have far to go : Bend to your paddles, comrades ; see, the light Ebbs off apace ; we must not linger so.

Aye thus it is ! Heaven gleams and then is gone. Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on."

Of the human studies, The Organist" is the most pathetic, and "Easter Eve," a study of religious remorse, and apparently insanity, perhaps the most striking. But "An Athenian Reverie" is a poem that gave us much pleasure, and. that shows the thorough culture of the author.