In Fifty Years. By Madame Belloc. (Sands and Co. 2s.
GI net.) —These twenty-two poems represent the occasional utterances of half-a-century. Such a collection has nothing, so to speak, of the professional versifier about it ; now and then some strong impulse constrains the heart to express itself in verse, and the result is naturally one of special interest. It may be that such writers do not find their way into the company of recognised poets ; these must be men and women who give their life to the work ; but they give us things that find and deserve a place in anthologies. So one of Madame Belloc's poems, "The Dome," appears in Dr. Garnett's "Famous Literature." It is too long to quote, and many readers will be familiar with it. We will give a briefer specimen :—
" AN ARGYLLSHIRE MISSION.
Athwart the mountain side Sweep Ossisn's heroes, figures vast and dim, Cries each grey phantom, on Isis midnight ride, This land belongs to him Theirs were the cloudy steeps, the leaping springs, Theirs were the inlets filled with rushing waves, And moor and marsh and alltheir living wings, And mounds of nameless graves.
But these no more are theirs, another sound Vibrates across the water from Lochnell, The phantom legions melt into the ground ;— It is the Auzelus Bell I "
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