POITET.—Bongs from the Golden Gate. By Ina Coolbrith. (Houghton, Mifflin,

and Co., Boston, U.S.A.)—This is a volume of really good verse, as good as anything that we have seen of late from poets not of the first or second rank. What the writer wants is a theme. Here, in one hundred and fifty-nine pages, we have one hundred separate pieces. So much occasional verse is wearying. Strength so dissipated is largely wasted. There is nothing finer among these Songs from the Golden Gate than "The Captive of the White City," suggested by the fact that the Sioux Indian, Rain-in-the-Face, by whose hand General G. A. Custer was killed at the Little Big Horn, was to be seen in a log cabin at the World's Fair in Chicago. Here are the concluding verses : —

"And the throngs go up, go down,

In the streets of the wonderful town ;

And jests of the merry tongue, And the dance, and the glad songs sung, Ring through the sunlit spaoe. And there, in the wild, free breeze, In the House of the Unbewn Trees,

In the beautiful Midway Place,

The captive sits apart, Silent, and makes no sign. But what is the word in your heart, Oman of a dying race ?

What tale on your lips for mine, 0 Rain-in-the-Pace?"

Does not this suggest a subject which Mrs. Coolbrith might make her own ? Here is another specimen of her work, but it might be sung by any one, and difficite est proprie communia dicere :— "The birds flit in and out the trees,

Their bright, sweet throats strained full with song The flower-beds, the summer long Are black and murmurous with beet.

Tle unrippled leaves hang faint with dew In bushes of the breezeless morn. At eventide the stars, new born,

And the white moonlight, glimmer through.

Therein are all glad things whereof Life holdeth need through changing years; Therein sweet rest, sweet and of tears,

Therein sweet labors, born of love."

—Poems. By Jennings Carmichael (Mrs. Francis lAullis). (Longmans and Co.)—Miss Jennings Carmichael, to give her the name under which she has published her verse, has achieved considerable reputation as a poet in Australia. We can see that she sings of life and nature in the land of the South with no common force. Nor does she fail when she takes a common theme. as in " Ours to Keep," where the child rebels against the mother's explanation :—

"God only lent him,

And could ask His own again."

We may give as a specimen of her powers some verses from " Late Laurels," written in memory of another Australian poet, A. L. Gordon

Somewhere thine eyes are open, and thy hands Quiver on perfect keys on mystic strands Thy mush" sways and swings.

0, may there be no oriel in that refrain, No minor measures slipping Into yaiu,

Nor jar of broken strings.

But all our discords harmonised, no note Dying sob-silenced in the singing throat, In broken melodies.

But music into pass'onste fulness grown, Rounding the stammering numbers we have known

In earthly minstrelsies.

I. singing in the underworld of song,

Hear haunting lilt of metres tense and strong, That to the spirit dine ; Thy mournful note has lingered In the land, Our songs are sad before we understand The sadness that we sing ! "

—Sunshine and Cahn. By Mary Rowles Jarvis. (R.T.S.)—The "Songs by the Way" are mostly of a meditative and devotional kind. The hymns and songs seem to us to be somewhat wanting in lyrical force ; the reflective verses are more successful.—My Garden, and other Poems, by Margaret Henderson (D. Douglas, Edinburgh), is a volume of the same character as that last mentioned, only that the devotional feeling, though strongly marked, has less of a theological character. It has been published in memory of the author, and it is sufficient to say that it is full of a simple and earnest piety expressed in the language of a cultivated mind.—Day-Dreams. By Alfred Gurney, M.A. (Longmans and Co.)—This, again, is a volume of devotional verse. "A Song for Lady Day," perhaps, shows the author at his best ; though, indeed, the verses are scarcely to be called a song :— "A home she makes where'er our Lady goes : Her bosom is the garden of the rose,

At her approach the Winter turns to Spring, Beneath her feet the flowers laugh and sing With bloom and fragrance, perfuming the air, So glad are they her presence to declare.

With diamond dew the paths she treads are Wet :

The snowdrop pure, the contrite violet, The primrose meek, the ardent croons, all

The children of the Spring kept festival ; And, more than all, the lilies! oh, how fair,

Or in her golden zone, or golden hair!

—Our Lord Jesus Christ "Made Known through the Church. By Henry Arnold Olivier. (H. Frowde).—This is a volume on the plan of the "Christian Year," giving a series of versified reflec- tions on Gospels, Epistles, &c., for Sundays and Holidays from Advent to Trinity. We cannot give the author credit for more than good intentions. — A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts, by Frederick Langbridge (R.T.S.), is a modest little volume of some- thing less than fifty pages, full of good things which are well worth thinking about and storing up in the memory. Here are some specimens of them : — "GM= PASTURIO.

When all thy soul with c ty dust is dry, Seek some green spot where a brook tinkles by t But, if thy lot deny thee nook and brook, Turn to green thoughts in a fresh leafy book."

" NOT IN TEMPLES MADE WITH II•NDB.

God dwells not only where, o'er saintly dust, The sweet bells greet the fairest morn of seven ; Wherever simple folk love, pray, and tract. Behold the House of God, the gate of heaven "

" BROKEN LIGHTS. If some old doctrine of thy youth Thou may'st no more repeat, Gaze not as though God's very truth Lay shattered at thy feet.

What though the broken moonbeam spill Its silver o'er the tide, See theough the clouds how sore and still The fair round moon doth ride ! "

" COMPENSATIONS.

The darkoninp streets shoot me lie, The shame, the fret, the squalid Jars: But ewatlows' wings go It .Ablrav And in the puddles there are stars."

Mr. Langbridge's verse will refresh, we hope and believe, many spirits.—The Flower Seller, and other Poems. By Lady Lindsay, (Longmans and Co.) —There is so much good matter in Lady Lindsay's volume that we cannot but wish that it were com- mended to the reader by a more carefully shaped form. She writes, we imagine, too fast, and dislikes the labour of correc- tion. One of the principal poems is "The Worth of a Song." It has a central idea which might have been worked out into something really effective. But as a whole it wants com- pression and clearness, while the details of style are too often

feeble and bald. One of the three brothers whose story is told goes to the wars. Here are the two stanzas in which his end is described :—

...nu, on the eve of a decisive day, To lead some hope forlorn he chose to stray, And met his death at outset of the fray.

Alas! to him from thenceforth mattered not The issue of the fight—he cared no jot; His limbs on alien soil must lie and rot."

Surely this is quite unequal to the occasion. 'Chose to stray" and "he cared no jot" are inexcusable carelessnesses. There can be no justification for slovenly work in a volume of verse. There are things that must be written, be they written ill or well, but for verse, if you cannot make it satisfy you in a week, take a month, and if a month will not suffice, toss it into the fire. Here is a sonnet with which little fault can be found. Why not more like it ?—

" Foxe Soeoe. Our lives are tunes by untaught voices sung In widest range. Some breathe but few bars' lease, And thenceforth silence; some a minor piece. From pallid lips are grievous dirges wrung; By valiant knights loud trumpet-bla-ts are flung; While say bearts trip to dancing jigs at ease. Strange hands oft add what harmony they please, Roanilag the wide world's ivory keys among. Yon cantos haply with full chords is set; Through this the florid counterpoint flits fast. And here, 'mid changeful notes that throb and fret. One deep-toned chime of pain's recurrent east. If grief's our figured bee., let none regret— God's Perfect ()adobe° closes Life at last."