SOME BOOKS OF TIIE WEEK.
/Notice in this column does not neees.iarily preclude subsequent rsefete.1
Mr. De La Mare and Miss Pamela Bianco have in Flora (Heinemann, 25s. net) between them produced a slight but a most enchanting volume. We are introduced into a world of gentle magic. It is impossible to keep the word " pretty " out of any criticism of such a work. Pretty it is. Both pictures and verses are pretty, but not cloying or sickly sweet, and neither verse nor picture is ever without a touch of distinction and scholarliness. A poem which matches a lovely pencil drawing of a head will give the reader an idea of the sort of verse which
Mr. De La Mare has here written for us :-
" Gaze now thy fill, beguiling face, Life which all light and hue bestows
Stealeth at last from youth its grace, From cheek its firstling rose.
Dark are those tresses ; grave that brow ;
Drink, happy mouth, from Wisdom's well ;
Bid the strange world to sigh thee now
All beauty hath to tell.'
Another delightful poem is " Safina," which begins :-
" Black lacqueys at the wide flung door Stand mute as men of wood.
Gleams like a pool the ball-room floor, A burnished solitude."
Of the drawings, perhaps " Spring " is tho most attractive, and some of the decorative heads. In the pictures where a number of figures are introduced the grouping is rarely very satisfactory.
In " Fairyland," for instance, not even the charming flowers and butterflies quite atone for the tangled babes. Among the decorative heads, "The Strong Child" is interesting, for in it Miss Bianco has made a rather more independent excursion from Botticelli.
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