RECENT VERSE.*

n) On the Death of Madonna Laura. By Francesco Tetrarchs. Rendered into English by Agues Tobin. London W. Heinemann. [78. 6d. set.]— (2) Ecclesiaetes in the Metre of Omar. By William Byron Forbush. London : A. Constable and Co. [Sr. net.]—(3) Old S.ge of the Elizabethans, with Note Songs in Reply. Edinburgh W. J. Hay.—(4) By Still Waters Lyrical Poems, Old and New. By A. E. Dundrum • The Dun Emer Press, 6d.1—(5) Selection from the Versos of John .B. TOM,. Made by Alice Meynell* London Burns and Cate.. [2s. 8d. net.]—(6) Collectzon of Pore's.. By Ernest Radford. London Gibbings and Co. Rs. 8d. net.] — (7) The Truce of God, and other Poems. By William Steven.. London Dent and Co. (2.e. Scl. net.] —(8) The Death of /cares, and other Poems. By Arthur K. Sabin. Glasgow: J. MacLehoee and Sons. [4a. sot.]— (9) Poems. By R. G. T. Coventry. London : Elkin Mathews. [U. net.] —(10) Songs from the Classics. By Charles F. GrindrocL Some publisher. [3s. ed. net.J—(11) London Streets. By Arthur H. Adams. Leeds,: T. N. Poulin (2e. 6d. net.]—(12) Rainbows and Witches. By Will H. Ogilvie. London: Elide Mathews. 11s. net.]—(13) Nor Poems, By William N. Davies. Same publisher. (ls_ 6d. net.1—(14) The Triumph of Man, a Dramatic Poem. By Percy Schofield. London: Elliot Stock. [3e. 6c1.] —(15) Kings in Babylon: a Drama. By A. M. Bookies. London: Methuen and Co. ils. net.1—(16) Desiderio : a Drama In Three Acts. By Maurice Baring. Orford B. H. Blackwell. [3s. net.]—(.17) Fables. By Ronald Roes. LisePool: at the University Press. [2s. 8d.1—(18) Siyna Severe. By R. A. X. Eton College: Spottiswoode 550 Co. OF the eighteen volumes before us, the most valuable and the most original are either translations or adaptations. Easily first stands Miss Tobin's translation of Petrarch'e Madonna , Laura. We call it a translation, but if close to the spirit of the Italian poet, it takes considerable liberties with his language. Indeed, it is rather a new work inspired by Petrarch than a version of an old. The author has a singular mastery of style; no roughness or crudity impairs the form; but both sonnets and canzones move with a passionate dignity like that of the Elizabethans. The long-drawn- out sorrow is apt to seem unreal if the poem is read as a whole, but the parts if taken by themselves will delight all lovers of poetry. We quote one sonnet, not because it is the best, but because it is a fair specimen of the level of Miss Tobin's work,—and in this sphere it would be hard to find better :— " When all her golden beauty did unclose

In Love's great noon and glory of desire, Slipping her sheath, and yearning higher, higher, Laura, my life, did leave me to my foes, And living, lovely, disembodied, rose To the white wicket and the shimmering choir.

Alt, why does not that 'last day' come and tire My soul for Heaven ?—that last day one knows But as the first in Heaven. The same way

That an my thoughts go, and as feather light, My soul would rise, a pilgrim clean and gay.

Why must I wait, dear Christ ? Why must I stay ?

Bitter and ever bitterer grows the fight. Had I but died three years ago to-day !"

Mr. Forbush has been happily inspired in his idea of putting Ecclesiastes into the metre of Omar. Our one complaint is that many of the phrases in the original are in themselves poetry of so pure a quality that any other version seems odd and irreverent. The concluding stanzas, for example, with their metaphors of the lamp, the pitcher, and the well wheel, can find no form so adequate to the thought as that of the Canon. Otherwise we have nothing but praise for the fine stanzas in which is enshrined a philosophy so like and yet so unlike Omar's. Sometimes the voice is truly that of the Preacher :— " Oft have I dream'd upon my lonely throne,

Whose noisy cares ne'er leave my heart alone, Of the dear Kingdom of encloister'd Thought, And I have wept to claim it as my own.

Silent I pace the Shrine and hear within The vows of Fools, the Levites' empty din.

Above, the silent Stars reproachful pass, And stainless kneel the voiceless Seraphin."

At other times the form is too modern, for all its beauty, to express the exact emotion:—

" Then, while the bending rose-trees all are shorn, The poppies naked in the cool, wet morn,

The lawless winds shall herd the pitiless rains, The muttering clouds from the cold North return."

The anonymous little book of Old Songs of the Elizabethans, with new songs in reply, is a whimsical and successful adventure. The author has caught the right Elizabethan manner, with its general formality of phrase and sudden simplicity of passion. Take this reply of Lucasta to Lovelace's "Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind "

"'Tis honour calls thee, then I wis 'Tis honour must obey; My woman's heart no craven is That it would bid thee stay.

His to the wars where dauntless deed By thee shall still be done ;

My part, to pray that Heaven lead Thee, dear, unscathed on.

Once more, once more, within thine arms I AI; brave heart, need I tell Love grows more firm for love's alarms, More fond for love's farewell F"

The next four volumes are reprints of verses already published elsewhere. Of "A. H's" By Still Waters we need only say that it contains the lovely "Dawn," and the 'poem beginning "I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'" and that the Dun Emer Press is to be congratulated on as beautiful a piece of bookmaking as we have seen. Nothing could be more exquisite than the type and paper. Mrs. Meynell has made a good selection from Mr. Tabb's poems, and we miss nothing we should desire to see reprinted. At his best he has the quaintness and poignancy of Craahaw, but he is not always at his best ; and when his conceits master him he is guilty of doubtful taste, as in the verses "Out of Bounds" on p. 111. Sometimes, as in the sonnet " lInmoored," he attains a fine dignity of rhythm ; but his strength lies usually in simple catches, in which a thought or an emotion is delicately wedded to a metaphor. A good instance is "The Playmates" :— "Who are thy playmates, boy ?

'My favourite is Joy,

Who brings with him his sister, Peace, to stay

The livelong day. I love them both ; but he Is most to me.'

And where thy playmates now, 0 man of sober brow?

'Alas ! dear Joy, the merriest, is dead.

But I have wed Peace ; and our babe, a boy New-born, is Joy."

Mr. Ernest Radford's Collection of Poems is good occasional. verse, but little more. He has his felicities, but, save. perhaps in his "Song in the Labour Movement," he suffers. from a triteness of matter and diction.

"We may not reach the higher art, And yet may taste the purest life," Mr. Stevens has written in his Truce of God, and the lines modestly describe his work. He learned to write verse when Tennyson was the idol of young men, and be is faithful to his model. Be has little originality, but there is an earnestness and a sincerity about his verses which give them a certain charm.

Six lyric poets follow, of whom by far the most accomplished is Mr. Sabin. His blank verse has all the stateliness of the Tennysonian tradition, and sonnets like "The Bouquet," and lyrics such as "The Sea-Weed's Song" and "Dante," show that to an exceptional degree he possesses the gift of melody. He has imagination also, but in this be has not fully learned the lesson of his master, for it is apt to be too dim and form- less, leaving upon. the reader a sense of the iteration of a vague passion. He plays too much with metaphysical counters to produce the concrete impression of good poetry. But he is a writer to be reckoned with, and we have nothing but praise for his fragment of Dante translation in terra rima. Mr. Coventry's Poems are also overshadowed by greater names, chiefly Poe and Stevenson. He is always wandering at night among lonely woods in the Poe manner, and like Poe his fancy is apt to be crude and spasmodic. He is best when he is simplest, as in the charming first poem, in "A Pastoral," "The Malvern Hills," and "Sic Requiem:am." We quote from the last-named :— "I would not have my grave dug deep, But plant a wild red rose to heap

Its dying petals on my tomb.

Ah, in that little darkened room

Their scent would haunt me in my sleep.

I want to have the wide blue space

Of Heaven above my resting-place; I want the dews, and dreams, and flowers Around my everlasting hours,

And just a green turf on my face."

Mr. Grindrod in his Songs from the Classics retells in elegant verse some of the most famous Greek myths. He is always polished, fluent, and correct, and now and then he has a really fine stanza. His' Song of Charon" and "The Burden of Medea" give evidence of a force of imagination which redeems the triteness of much of the rest. With Mr. Arthur Adams we reach a very different kind of work. His songs of London Streets, with strange little human comedies interspersed, have much originality and power. London appeals to him—a colonial, as we assume—with a strangeness which she has lost for her own children. He has a gift of vivid and memorable phrase, a keen eye to observe, and the wide vision which sees the stars over the house-tops. The romance of a great city has rarely been more fully caught, whether it is St. Paul's brooding above the crowd "like an old Buddha swathed in dreams," or a carved jade god watching from a Bond Street window the crowd with the same smile "As from his temple-dusk he saw The passing of the centuries."

Mr. Adams's volume is in many ways the most notable on our list, and we shall watch with interest for his future work. Mr. Will Ogilvie, whose name will not be unfamiliar to readers of the Spectator, has also originality, but his Rainbows and Witches is marred by an excess of fluency. Sometimes, as in "The Front Rank," his verses have the real ere: du cceur, but in general we prefer his poems on the Scottish Border, where a long-remembered sentiment finds musical expression. The Tweed makes a more intimate appeal to him than the waters of Damascus. The New Poems of Mr. W. H. Davies is the work of a man who has seen and suffered much. A passionate love of the simplicities of Nature and a pained sense of the tragedies of life are its chief qualities. It is full of technical imperfections, but his earnest realism and sincerity raise many of the verses to the level of poetry. Whatever his faults, his is no second-hand message.

Next come three dramatic poems of varying quality. Mr. Schofield in his Triumph of Man has attempted a drama on lines not unlike Mr. Hardy's Dynasts. His characters are cosmic fancies and passions, and the interest is metaphysical rather than human. Much of it is too incoherent, but there are stately passages, and many of the lyrics are fall of beauty. Miss Bnckton's Kings in Babylon is a more normal type of poetical play, where the dramatic interest is never allowed to be overburdened by a desire to say fine things finely. It is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Hebrew children, and so firmly and clearly does the action move that we cannot but think that it would make a good acting play. The figure of the old exile, Ben Israel, is powerfully drawn, and skilful use is made of the great words of Hebrew prophecy. The poem would lend itself well to scenic treatment, though the last act would make heavy demands upon any manager's powers of staging. In Mr. Maurice Baring's Desiderio the scene is laid in Corsica in the seventeenth century, and the story is of a stranger appointed King to be the tool of the nobles, and of his defection to the popular cause. As in all Mr. Baring's work, there is great skill in versification and occasional snatches of poetry, but the structure is too loose and the characters too indeterminate to make the work successful as drama. He is happier, we think, in his lyrics.

Last on our list come two books in a lighter vein. Professor Ronald Ross has written some amusing fables, mainly about animals, wherein many appropriate morals are pointed. He has learned the art of easy verse, but every now and again in lines and phrases he betrays an imagination which seems to point to real poetic force. We welcome this evidence of versatility in one so distinguished in other spheres. The slim little book of Eton verses by "B. A. K." called Signa Severa, of which the fifth impression is before us, deserves a word of high commendation. The verses are limited in their appeal, being wholly concerned with things Etonian, but the talent shown is remarkable in one who must still be very young. They especially recall the work of Mr. A. D. Godley, both in their extreme rhythmical skill and their academic wit. The author is no mere parodist. He can catch the flavour of other poets very neatly, as in the prize poems on "Siberia" and "The Judgment of Oetone" ; but he can also, as in" The Eton Memorial," attain to something which is very near that rare product, original humour.