"THE PRINCE'S QUEST," AND OTHER POEMS.* So far as "The

Prince's Quest" is concerned, we cannot say that we see the least reason for the author's statement that he recognises "the crudity and immaturity of many things in this volume." The poem is a youthful poem, but it is neither a crude nor an immature poem in the sense of suggesting anything unripe. There is a ripeness of youth as well as of maturity, and this, though a youthful poem in the sense that it images the dreams and visions of youth, could hardly be riper, sweeter, and more mellow than it is as a picture of those dreams and visions. It is a fairy-tale in verse, but such a fairy-tale as the romantic and innocent reverie of a healthy fancy, glowing with all the light of a visionary imagination, would summon up. There is no revelling in costly jewels and luxurious banquets such as fascinated the Arabian imagination in the Thousand-and-One Nights. Beauty, youth, and mystery are the subject-matters of Mr. Watson's youthful dream; and such marvel as there is, is the marvel of a faintly descried predestination, the hope-deferred of a long and fiercely con- tested quest, and of the ultimate triumph of the inward vision, over the outward hindrances. The imagination is all lavished on the beauty of the dream, the irresistible spell which it exerts, the mystery that bars the way, the greater mystery that sweeps the obstacles from the Prince's path, and the rapture of the final joy. The ripeness and radiance of youth is on every page, and the poem flows with all the ease and buoyancy of a fanciful but coherent dream. From the very first the youthful poet defies the sad lessons of experience to daunt him :— " There was a time, it passeth me to say

How long ago, but sure 'twas many a day Before the world had gotten her such store Of foolish wisdom as she hath,—before She fell to waxing grey with weight of years

And knowledge, bitter knowledge, bought with tears,—

When it did seem as if the feet of time Moved to the music of a golden rhyme, And never one false thread might woven be Athwart that web of world-wide melody."

In a world of such melody as this, a dream is something more than dream as we know it. It is the vision of an emanci- pated soul. And that is the sort of dream to which the hero of this poem gave himself up, and which is supposed to trans- form his whole life by its enchantment. The mystery and the wonder of sleep, with its seeming death in life, and its mysterious life in death, impresses the healthy imagination of youth as it cannot impress the weary and disappointed imagination of age :— "A. fearful and a lovely thing is Sleep, And mighty store of secrets bath in keep ;

And those there were of old who well could guess What meant his fearfulness and loveliness, And all his many shapes of life and death, And all the secret things he uttereth. But Wisdom lacketh sons like those that were, And Sleep bath never an interpreter : So there be none that know to read aright The riddles he propoundeth every night."

It is impossible to conceive more vividly the vision which turns the Prince's life into a quest, than the poet has con- ceived it in the following exquisite picture of a foretaste of love, and of its sudden vanishing as the waters of oblivion rush in upon the dreamer's mind :— "Scarce had his mouth made answer when there rose

Somewhat of tumult, ruffling the repose Of the wide splendid street ; and lifting up His eyes, the Prince beheld a glittering troop Of horsemen, each upon a beauteous steed, Toward them coming at a gentle speed. And as the cavalcade came on apace, A sudden pleasure lit the stripling's face Who bore him company and was his guide ; Arid 'Lo, thou shalt behold our queen,' he cried,— ' Even the fairest of the many fair ; With whom was never maiden might compare For very loveliness!' While yet he spake, On all the air a silver sound 'gan break Of jubilant and many-tongued acclaim, And in a shining car the bright queen came, And looking forth upon the multitude Her eyes beheld the stranger where he stood, And roundabout him was the loyal stir : And all his soul went out in love to her.

But even while her gaze met his, behold, The city and its marvels manifold

The Prince's Quest, and other NOMA By William Watson. London: Elkin. Mathews and John Lane. 1893.

Seemed suddenly removed far off, and placed Somewhere in Twilight ; and withal a waste Of sudden waters lay like time between ; And over all that space he heard the queen Calling unto him from her chariot ; And then came darkness. And the Dream was not."

The mystery of that inward quickening of the soul during the sleep of the senses, which now and then exalts sleep into intui- tion (as A always exalts, or else shrivels, death into a new inten- sityof being, whether good or evil), was surely never delineated the a happier grace than this. Indeed, what strikes us in h Whole of this charming poem is the perfection of its youth- fulness,--the simplicity of its ardour, the ease and brilliancy of its marvels, the patience of its disappointments, and the reticence of its final ecstasy. Throughout, the poet harps on the central idea that sleep is really a gate of life, and not a temporary paralysis of power. Towards the middle of his poem, he returns to it in these charming lines, which have all the glow, without any of the immaturity, of youth :— " But Sleep, who makes a mist about the sense, Doth ope the eyelids of the soul, and thence Lifteth a heavier cloud than that whereby He veils the vision of the fleshly eye.

And not alone by dreams doth Sleep make known The sealed things and covert—not alone In visions of the night do mortals hear The fatal feet and whispering wings draw near, But dimly and in darkness doth the soul Drink of the streams of slumber as they roll, And win fine secrets from their waters deep : Yea, of a truth, the spirit doth grow in sleep."

A poet who could write that in his early youth ought, in our Opinion, to do great things in his maturity, if he keeps his visionary life untroubled.

We cannot say that, except the exquisite sonnet on Beet- hoven, there is anything in the little volume to compare with the loveliness of "The Prince's Quest." "Angelo" is a sort of nightmare, apparently meant to show that the visions of youth are not always fair and innocent, but can be very much disordered without being even impressive. "The Questioner" is beautiful in its way, but seems to assume that time is not even of the same essence as eternity, in which case life is, as Shelley thought, only given us, like a dome of many-coloured glass, to "stain the white radiance of eternity ;" though for ourselves we think better of life than that. The sonnet on Beethoven is a very remarkable production for early youth. It has a ripeness in it which is not the ripeness of youth, but rather the ripeness of experience, and which seems to anti- cipate some of the greater efforts which Mr. Watson has since achieved. It is in curious contrast to "The Prince's Quest"

" BEETHOVEN.

0 master, if immortals suffer aught

Of sadness like to ours, and in like sighs And with like overflow of darkened eyes Disburden them, I know not; but methought, What time to-day mine ear the utterance caught Whereby in manifold melodious wise Thy heart's =restful infelicities Rose like a sea with easeless winds distraught, That thine seemed angel's grieving, as of one Strayed somewhere out of heaven, and uttering Lone moan and alien wail; because he bath Failed to remember the remounting path, And singing, weeping, can but weep and sing Ever, through vasts forgotten of the sun."

That will not, we trust, prove an omen of anything but the singular power with which Mr. Watson can interpret the "still sad music of humanity." Indeed, his later poems have shown us how vividly he can paint the brightness of the world as well as its shadows.