RECENT VERSE.*

" Q " GIVE,13 the world little of his verse, though there are. certain catches of his which cling to memories only . too • (1) The Vigil of Venus and other Poems. By "Q." London : Methuen and Co. [36. 6d. net.](2) The Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson. London : John -Lane. [5s. nett.}---.(3) Biros tBooks By.Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, London : Elkin Mathews. [1s. net each.] —(4) Nature and other Poems., By Alfred 'Williams. London : Erskine Macdonald. [3s., 6d. net.]—(5) By Lady garreret Seekvine,.• Loudon.: Herbert and Daniel. [3s. 6d. net. j- (6) Enchantments. By John Garden. London: Erskine Macdonald. [2.. 65. net.] —(7) 4 Lsgerui .of Porten ,sind oilier Poems. By A. I). B. Tennyson. London: W. Heinemisnia. [5s. net.] —(81 The Agate Lamp. By. Era Gore- Booth, Loudons Longman, paid Col. [2.s..6d.-net.]---(9) Deborah. By unretentive‘of modern, strains:. We would -welcome more, for few singers have his • fastidious scholarship,. hia sense of the " piety of speech," and his power of creating atmospheres and recalling forgotten moods, The Vigil of Venus is a successful attempt, so far as it lies-in a modern's power, to translate that strange poem of the Roman decadence, the Pereigiltium Veneris. He has been happy in his handling of the refrain-.

"Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew

is no had version of

" Cras amet qui nunquam amavit ; quique amavib eras &met." For the rest-there are beautiful lines, and much of the self= conscious and elaborate eluberance -of -the original.' •" The Regent " is a short tragedy, delicately done,- and lit by one haunting lyric. But foraurselves we prefer the shorter pieces —the ballad grimness of " Vashti's Seeng," the Elizabethan echo of " Two Duets," the lines "To a Friend who sent-me a Box

of Violets," full of the sonorous majesty of place-names; the beautiful and melodious fancifulness of " Three Children Choosing a Chaplet of Verse," and the splendid rhythms of the " Chant Royal of High Virtue." If we had to decide upon " Q's special gift in poetry, we should find it in a kind of poem, easy and almost conversational, but full of lovely cadences,-in which he moralizes with more gravity than Thackeray's ballads, but with something of the same mellow phildsophy and sudden poignancy. Such are " Alma Mater "—one of the best of

recent Oxford poems—and " Christmas Eve." It 'is a genre which no one need attempt who is not a master of his craft, and " Q's " success in it is a proof of that rare facility which can wear the singing robes lightly. The late Mrs. Marriott

Watson had much of this happy talent. We have often had occasion in these pages to praise the fresh and bracing individnality of her work and her remarkable gift of melody. Now in this complete edition we have the whole body of her poetry, a fitting memorial to a weaver of exquisite words and a true lover of Nature and mankind.

The two new books of Mr. Wilfrid Gibson's Fires are worthy of their predecessor. He has constituted himself a modern Crabbe, aiming at telling the stories of all sorts and conditions of humble lives, and seizing some dramatic moment which elevates the record into poetry. He has great gifts, both of imagination and human sympathy, and he has created a perfect medium —a style unadorned and yet musical, and capable at

times .of both exquisiteness and, fire, The lighthouse-keeper finds two naked survivors from the sea; children going borne from school all but perish in a snowdrift ; the would-be murderer is checked by the sight of -lox-cubs at play; the

wastrel crouching by the furnace fire finds a new hope in the chance of saving a fellow, mortal; the lonely worker on a skerry goes mad. at the sight of the dancing seals, They are all incidents of common life lit -by • the glamour of poetry.,

Mr. Gibson reaches his' highest point in those pieces where some fantastic allegory hovers behind his narrative; as in " The Lilac Tree" or " The Hare." This last is, indeed, a poem which it is difficult to overpraise. It is like a tale of • Nathaniel Hawthorne. told in verse'which in' the strangeness • of its lilt intensifies the beauty and mystery of the con- ception. Mr. Alfred Williams is a poet of a school uncommon in these days. His intense joy in Nature is tempered with 'no misgivings, and his robust and shapely verse is a counterpart

of his wholesome philosophy of_ life. In his prefatory soneiet he prays that his style may be

" Strong in substance, native to the deed, Where the most stubborn wit could plainly read, Like those cleat-voiced immortal bards of old."

His favourite measure is an unrhymed• irregular line of six accents, which he handles, as in_!‘ The—Testament," with a

rugged dignity and power.

" I will go on till my death ; I will follow and continue. I have .drawn •a strange breath, I have smelt life with troy nostrils,

I have imbibed secrets, I have drunk at.the well otmystery ;.

I have seen Beauty playing with her sisters under the trees in the meadows,- - Laseelles Abercrombie. London John Lane. [2ii. 65. net.]—(10) The Dreamer. By Mrs. Percy-Dearmer, London: A. B. Mowbray an Co.. [18. 6d, net,j—(11) The Story or the .Twelve. By Arthur Hay Storrowi • London: Clarke and Co. [2s. 6d. net.]—(12) The Bird of Time. By Sarofini Naidu. London W. Heinemann. [3s. net.]—(13) Gitaiijali. By -Bahindra...Nath Tngore. London :India Society.' [10o26d. net.]—(14) Sonnets. By T. W. H. Crosland. London: John Hehmond. [1s. net.]—(15) The 'Poem Book of the Gael. Seleeted by Eleanor Hall. London : Chatte and Windus. [6s. net.] --(16' A Posy of Folk Bongs.. By -B. L. Gales. London: Herbert and DanieL.

[3s. 61. net.] • And naked Love, purer than a lily, bathing in the sunlight. . . . I will live in the world of my thought, in the palace of my imagination."

4‘I care not for your Politics ".is an admirable expression of a.. strong and contented soul, and the lyric " The Immortal " shows how out of strength can come forth sweetness. The

next two volumes on our list are of a different class. Few living writers excel Lady Margaret Sackville in her own sensuous and delicate form of music. In her Lyrics she has adopted a measure nearer the ballad lilt,-sometimes as in "Lines" and "Sea Song," gay and adventurous, and sometimes as in " Hark to the Rain!" full of the old haunting ballad sadness.

The stateliness of her earlier manner is recalled in the fine Ballade of the Journey's End" and the beautiful "Songs of Aphrodite." Mr. John Garden's Enchantments is full of intricate music and much fine scholarly fancy. He has both thought and imagination, but his chief gift is that of sheer intense music, which haunts the ear like some of Swinburne's cadences quite irrespective of the sense. Such a lyric as " All in Vain " is a sufficient proof of a true poetic talent.

Mr. A. B. S. Tennyson's A Legend of Old Persia contains the raw materials, and in some cases the finished product, of good poetry. At his best, as in his songs, he has a wild felicity which is wholly charming ; and his "Stories in Verse " are in the main excellent. But a more rigorous discipline would not be amiss, for in a fine passage a sudden harshness, an unexpected rococo phrase, often spoils the effect. In. The Agate Lamp Miss Eva Gore-Booth has left the realm of Celtic mysticism to write little apologues on the masterpieces of Italian art. They are exquisitely done, in their curious mingling of religious and artistic sympathies. In her own words-

" Thus be it said of him : Here was a man Whose faith in God was very deep and wide, Yet did he keep a little shrine for Pan,

And wise Athene by his heart's wayside."

Few poets can moralize so tunefully, and " The Inner Egeria " and " The Immortal Soul" have a content of thought adequate to their metrical perfection.

Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie's former work had scarcely prepared us for his new play, Deborah. Here is none of the rather tortured brilliancy of phrase and the freakish imagi- nation of, say, his Mary and Cie Bramble. The story is as grim as the marshes amid which it is laid, and the style is as undecorated as the conception. His one quest is drama, and be finds it in full measure. The first act, with its terrible picture of the cholera-stricken village fighting for the doctor's services, grips the mind like some witnessed scene, and the last act, in which the crazed mother hears " the Gabriel Hounds " hunting her unchristened babe outside in the storm, is as strong a piece of work as we have read for years. There is beauty, too—the beauty of truth and spacious imagination—behind the terror. Mr. Abercrombie, even in the present renaissance of song, is one of the few writers whose future is unpredictable because of the abundance of his promise. The other two dramas on our list are religious. Mrs. Percy Dearmer's The Dreamer is a drama of the life of Joseph treated both historically and symbolically. It is skilfully done, and the full dramatic value is drawn from one of the most romantic of the Scripture tales.

Mr. Arthur Hay Storrow, in his The Story of the Twelve, has a more ambitious aim. His drama is the whole life of Christ, and he has adopted the device of imagining the disciples assembled in conclave at various stages in the Master's career. The characterization is admirably done, and the blank verse, always scholarly and accomplished, rises at times to a sonorous beauty. The religious drama to-day is a form little cultivated, and in this sphere we welcome Mr. Storrow as a writer of exceptional grace and power.

The one volume of Sonnets on our list is that of Mr. T. W. H. Crosland. There are only twenty of them, but they exhibit

a. wide range of feeling. Mr. Crosland has nothing to learn in craftsmanship. Though he makes too much use of the

extra syllable for our own taste, he shows an astonishing variety in his cadences and a true sense of form in construc- tion. Sometimes, as in " For Remembrance," "Leda," and "Death,"- he is so exquisite as to make the sonnet almost lyrical. Elsewhere he has caught the note of Mr: Henley's Hospital Verses, and gives us grim little sketches of character

and -scene; such as " The Baby in the Ward " and " The Student." But to our mind he is at his beat when he is

satiric and declamatory. 'In satire, indeed, he has the 'ola rasp and fire of the eighteenth-century Churchill ; 'witness "To a Certain Knight," " Mr. Asquith Wept," and " Freedom." We venture to quote as an example of his eloquent declamation the sonnet called " Ulster."

"The savage leopardess, and she-wolves and bears Cherish their offspring in the solitude,

. And red-eyed tigresses whose trade is blood, And female panthers, and jackals in their lairs. The lowliest, sullenest mother-creature wears In her hot heart a jewel of motherhood, And knoweth darkly that the only good Is to defend and succour her rude heirs.

And thou whose might is from the East unto the 'West, Whose front is of chilled iron and fine gold, Who yet in glory and honour goeth drest, 0 great-thewed mother of us all, behold How this thy sturdy child, who is foully sold, Fights that he be not banished from thy breast "

Our two volumes of Indian poetry represent, the one an Occidental culture working in an Oriental atmosphere, the other the pure inspiration of the East. Mrs. Naidu's charming The

Bird of Time, for which Mr. Gosse has written an appreciative preface, gives in the classic measures of English verse the classic

passions, but with an exotic colouring. " A Rajprrt Love Song" is not different, except in its metaphors, from • Western love- songs, and the beautiful " The Call to Evening Prayer" shows a catholicity of religious feeling -which is cosmopolitan rather than Indian. Sometimes, however, as in the folk songs, in " Pasant Panchani " and "In Salutation to the Eternal Peace" we find a mood which is different in kind- from our own. The Gitanjali or " Song Offerings " of Rabindra Nath Tagore are wonderful in their way, though Mr. Yeats's introduction is perhaps written in too hyperbolical a- strain. The author

is a thinker of the Brama-Samaj school, and his poetry, Mr. Yeats tells us, is widely read and reverenced among his countrymen. Even in a prose translation it is possible to realize something of the spacious wisdom and joy of the original

There remain two collections. Miss Eleanor Hull's Poem- Book of the Gad is a volume of translations of Irish Gaelic poetry into English prose and verse. The -selection ranges. from Ossianic literature and the early Christian poems down to the work of Mangan and Ferguson and the folk songs of Lady Gregory. It is a most useful little anthology, and gives to the reader unlearned in Gaelic the chance of tasting the flavour of a great literature. Mr.;R. L. Gales; in his Posy of Folk Songs, has drawn from many countries, but mainly -France and Germany, and some of the hest are his own. He is a perfect translator for such songs, for he can ring the. most musical of changes on the simplest words. Among the best" to our- mind are "Bethlehem," "A Burgundian• Noel," "Trio Shepherds' Gifts," " The Complaint of the WanderingleW," "Jesus s'habille en pauvre," "The Temptation of Saint Anthony," "The Pursuit," and "Lest they also-Come." But as good as any is Mr. Gales's own "Doleful History," in which he expounds the mystery of the Shakespearean information that the owl was once a baker's daughter: