LORD HOUGHTON'S "STRAY VERSES."

THE only criticism that forces itself on the render of this little volume of graceful and harmonious verse, is that it is too exactly described by the title, Stray Verses. Usually one hopes that such a title is a sort of modest mask for something more than it professes, that the stray verses will now and then -deepen down into poems that touch the heart. But Lord Hough- ton's verses almost uniformly evade any attempt to strike a -deeper chord than that of graceful irony or social banter. He discourses pleasantly on the people who ride in Rotten Row "from Eight to Tea," and ends with a sort of laughing sigh at the anxieties which have to be kept beneath the sur- face ; or he describes how, two or three hundred years ago, a lady who said" Yes" meant Yes," and would " peril her neck to show it;" or he describes the conversation of cousins who were once dear to each other, and yet when they grow old hardly dare to look into each other's eyes; or he questions whethes his verses are or are not "mere waste of time," when they are written to please some particular pair of blue eyes. Hardly anywhere else does he reach even so serious an attitude of feeling as when he describes a dream of love which came to nothing externally, but which left beneath the cold surface of the imaginary hero's heart a warmer current than any other dream by which he had been haunted. It seems, indeed, to be one of the favourite tendencies of the present day, to represent fife as more or less of an illusion, of which the end will only come, if it comes at all, with the close. Perhaps the most serious of these poems is that on "The Wayside Inn," et propos of Epietetus's saying that a man should not seek to make himself a permanent home on the journey of life, since life is a journey

* &ray Forgo, 1880-1800, By Robort, Lord Houghton. London: John Murray.

which only has its home beyond life, and that all the pleasant resting-places encountered on the way should be used only as resting-places, not as the final object of the journey Pause, if thou wilt, a summer's day,

Wisely enjoy the proffered cheer, But oh, forbear to stretch thy stay From week to month, from month to year ; Press on ! press on 'twas not for this

With wistful hopes thy course began ; An emptied aup,--a loveless kiss,— Be these thy gods, 0 godlike man P And if in truth thou wilt press on,

Past ilex shade, and flowery sward, What then the gods' high benison, And what the Traveller's reward Some Elerakleian glory-roll ?— Some errantry by land or sea P- A Minotaur's unvanquished toll P-

A pale Andromeda to free F-

Nay rather, 'neath a sullen sky To bear a useless-seeming load,

Averted looks of passers-by.

A quenchless thirst, a toilsome road;

Until at last, in rain or sun,

In lonely vale, or mirthless town, Soft to thy aide approaches One, And bids thee lay thy burden down, An home of fuller brotherhood

Thus, Traveller, "tis thine to win, Merged in the Infinitely Good,

Oblivious of the Wayside Inn," That is the highest note struck in this little collection of graceful verse; yet even that, though it might be worthy of Epictetus, is hardly what we should expect from a poet of the

present century. Surely a vision of "the Infinitely Good," if it is to be really reached at the end of life, must be reached long before life closes, and not only at the end. Surely it is not a true description of our lot, with all its shadows, to paint it as destined—

"'heath a sullen sky To bear a useless-seeming load, Averted looks of passers-by,

A quenclilosa thirst, a toilsome road."

All this there is, but a good deal more than this,—many gleam of the "light that never was on sea or land," many a break in the thickest clouds to testify that life,

even here, is much more than an illusion,—a commence- ment, and more than a foretaste, of life that is life indeed, And this is just what we want the poets to keep before us, and what Lord Houghton, we think, is well furnished with the power to keep before us, if he would be a little less afraid of seeming in earnest, and would oftener drop that superficial irony which seems rather a fashion than a habit with him. Perhaps he would say that in such a poem as " Gone " he strikes a deeper note, the note of suffering that recalls the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched. No

doubt he does; but then, he strikes it in a way that suggests angry despair of a truer life rather than remorse for having, voluntarily wasted. the opportunities of that truer life.

On the whole, this volume of verse seems intended to show that human life, in the present day at all events, just misses what is most loveable; that as a sagacious old woman of the type of Juliet's nurse once put it, "man appoints, but God disappoints ;" that if you try to get too much out of life,

you miss even those flashes of sweet suggestion which are only sweet while you do not follow them up too seriously. Here, for

instance, is a very characteristic as well as very graceful little poem of Lord Houghton's To Donis.

['As! oonsorroz-wai Won tous oos jolis odros Dont van tar: so oomposo. Ei jaunts quelquenn you; inatruit, Tout 1111111 1302111011.1. Fern. liana Bans quo vow y gagnioz grancTehoml

If, my Doris, I should find,

That you seem the least inclined

To explore the depths of Mind,

Or of Art,— Should such fancies ever wake,

Understand, without mjatake,

Though our hearts (perhaps) might break,— We must part.

I'd as soon your little head Should be lumbered up with lead,

As with learning, live or dead,

And with brains ;

I have really doted less

On its outline, I confess, Than the charming Nothingness It contains. No, suppose by hook or crook People try to make you look At some tiresome crabbed book, Mind you don't !

If they hint you ought to know Sophoclos or Cicero, Bacon, Goethe, or Rousseau,

Say won't ! '

Do you think the summer rose Ever cares or over knows By what law she buds and blows On the stem ?

If the peaches on the wall Must by gravitation fall, Do you fancy it at all Troubles thorn ?

Then, as sun or rain is sent, And the golden hours are spent, Be unaskingly content

As a star Yes, be ever of the few Neither critical nor blue. But be just the perfect You

That you are !"

This is the general impression left upon the reader by these poems :—'Be content with hints of what is beautiful, or you will be disappointed ; don't ask too much; when you see any- thing that is externally lovely, don't expect something deeper to correspond with it, but lavish all the love you can on the charming Nothingness" that lies behind it.' Lord Houghton shows us that he could easily write what we should better care to read and even to learn by heart, than these too often cynically playful verses. We meet, for instance, so often, even in prose, with sneers like the following, that we do not care to have them in the rarer and more perfectly expressive language of the poet :—

"ART.

[ Roses, you are not so fair after all '3

Prer cheek is so pink.

And it don't seem to vary ; Must we say what we think ?- Her cheek is so pink : From reflections we shrink, And of comments are chary ;— Her cheek is so pink,

And it don't seem to vary !"

Lord Houghton has a great deal better stuff in him than that, and it is because he has so much better stuff in him, that we regret the preponderance of more society-banter in a volume that shows his insight into the nature of true lyrical feeling.