' Poems. By Morse Macdonald. (A. D. louses and Co.)—This
is a volume of scholarly verse, the work, it is clear, of a cultivated man, who adds to a fair mastery of the technique of verse com- position, no small amount of feeling and fancy. "Iona" and "Ruth" have the look of prize poems. Of the two we prefer the former, in which the heroic couplet is used with a fair amount of success. The seven-line stanzas of " Ruth " with a triple rhyme in each, do not seem to us so good. There is nothing among them, for instance, so vigorous as the following lines :— "'TLS not on relics that the Faints depend For immortality when labours end.
They loss no honour who on Nebo die, Gotes sunsets leave no scar upon the sky. Think ye the dead are angered in their sleep BECItIISO for them a world has ceased to weep ? Or dream less ca'mly, though upon the tomb Myrtle and amaranth forget to bloom?"
Among the occasional poems, we prefer, "On a Lady's Violin" and "Idonea." Here is a fine stanza from the former :—
" Then straight in quest of her they go,
And gather round her where she stands Quickening the nerves with quivering bow,
A realm of sound in her young hands; One wields the sceptre, swift and fine, The other moves from line to line, A.se-sing with unconscion. care
.7Eolian tribute of the air."
The last lines of the latter are especially simple and sweet :—
"Little had her tender feet
Trod in this world's du=ty street,—
They are white, and walk s cure In the gardens of the pure.
Who this star of virgins lit He alone was worthy it ; He has touched the sleeping maid, She has followed unafraid.
We will don the mail of light. Each whom Love has "nee a Knight, Raising eyes. howevr dim, For Idonea, unto Him."
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