A Vision of Souls, with other Ballads and Poems. By

W. J. Dawson. (Elliot Stock.)—Mr. Dawson has a certain command of melody, and now and then shows a larger sort of power, as, for example, in the poem called "Salome," a poem on the subject of Herodias and John the Baptist,—and also in that on " Stradivarius," the maker of the violin. We take the opening passage from the former :—

" Not that I ease co much, but who could tell The i-sue, like a hungry lightning glare Flasbt from clear heavens ? I never danced so well, That said be, said they all. I feel my hair Stir still with magic motions, perfumed wind

Lashed into eddies, bea•ing on the bare

Smooth limbs and breast ; and then I throw behind, Over my shoulder, so, a sudden glance.

And catch their faces smitten by its light Into a hungrier ercle. Then I smile, And suddenly all the spirit of the dance Consumes me, rends me, blots and blurs my sight With a fiery wind, their great eyes all the while Burning yet closer, eating into my heart.

Who cares what comes? There's nothing good nor vile.

The world whirls round, I'm lifted like a part

Of a giant whole; a spirit's in my feet.

He rends my raiment, shakes my black hair down,

SMtes my lips into song, so shrill and sweet It frightens me. Ah, that's my own, my own ! Limbs, hair, song, face.! know to-night to be Best beautiful. Look, my lords, there's a foot Worthy a throne at least ! What's the decree ? Half of his kingdom Herod gives to me ? I cannot tell ; but all the great lamps shoot An angry light, and suddenly, like a tide, The fire runs out of say heart, and still I stand As though I had never moved ; and there's a hand Laid on me, and Herodias, crafty-eyed, Is bin.ziog at my ear."

And here is a passage from the latter, which speaks for itself :—

"Ear-downward I see him, intent, while the lithe anxious finger Sweeps over the strings, in whose dumbness such harmonies linger.

Then mallow as song of the thrush ii, the stillne s of even, Or clear as the voice of a child singing far up la heaven ; Or sad as the wail of a world heart-broken and dying,

The magical sounds burst, yearning and siaring and sighing.

And gladder the light on his face, as the chords throb, till slowly It spreads like a sunrise, and broadens and glows clear and holy Amid the confusion and dust, till the workshop seems rather A niche of God's heaven, made bright by the Infinite Father, Whose angels, like flakes in a snowstorm of glory, unnumbered,

Crowd silent, to hear this new song that for ages had slumbered."

The poet who wrote these verses could, we think, have achieved a much higher average level of poetry than we find in Mr. Dawson's volume, very much of which we have read with neither disappoint- ment nor delight, but simply with the feeling that the verse is not bad, but that it does not surprise us into admiration and pleasure as true poetry should.