Poems. By Annette F. C. Knight. (Henry S. Sing and
Co.)—There are flowers of many kinds and diverse dignities, but there are none which, if they are sweet and pretty, do not add at least some moments of pleasure to life ; and such flowers, though only of the lesser sort, are the little poems in this volume. They are musical to read, they give true and pleasant pictures of common things, and they tell sweetly of the deeper moral and religions harmonies which sustain us under the discords and the griefs of actual life. But if Miss Knight thus follows in the steps of Wordsworth and Tennyson, it is not in a way of mere imitation; she has a style of her own, and as often reminds us of the songs of Ben Jenson and Shakespeare, as of those later poets. Here is a pretty " Message from the Country in a Town Garden ":— " The Feast of Whitsuntide has oome, And lilies, clematis, and rose, Small rounded tender buds disclose ; And all the churches yesterday Bloomed out in spring-tide colours gay,— For Whitsuntide has come.
I have not roam'd the flowery meads,
But I can picture how they look,—
Bluebells, and marigolds by the brook, And the wealth of purple and yellow flowers, Which lavish, cheery spring-tide showers About the gorgeous meads.
In my town garden comes to me, Borne on the wings of old church bells,
A tale of which the spring-tide tells,—
Of country people bearing posies,
Rockets, and wall-flowers, stocks, and roses,
Making the market gay. And a message caws from overhead, Saying, In elm-trees far away Books have made nests for many a day ; Rich golden gorse bursts out at last, Old hawthorn bushes whiten fast : So comes the glad old story."
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