CURRENT LITERATURE
FOR THE LUNCHEON INTERVAL. By A. A. Milnei (Methuen. Is. 6d.) FOR THE LUNCHEON INTERVAL. By A. A. Milnei (Methuen. Is. 6d.)
Tirusu " cricket and other verses " have been taken from two of Mr. Milne's earlier books, The Day's Play and The Sunny Side, with the exception of a few recent poems reprinted from Punch. The little collection is one which we are glad to have, though it will disappoint many readers who have revelled in " When We Were Very Young." In the present volume Mr. Milne reveals himself less as an original creator than as a highly accomplished " occasional " poet in the best Punch tradition. His technique is skilful, his rhymes often ingenious.
But we are sometimes a little too conscious of the mechanism, and the poet is apt to fall back upon familiar tricks and familiar sentiments. He is, unquestionably, at his best in his parodies. How delightful, for example, are the opening lines of " Poets at Bridge " :—
" At Robert Browning's, on a winter's night, The dinner done, the women passed away, We others sat around the fire and played, Four of our circle, and the game was Bridge. Then Walter Whitman, that almighty man, He who by stroke of fate had won the deal, Looked at his cards, and found his hand was weak.
So in all faith he left it, murmuring ' Yours,
Brave camarado,' and the make was mine."
The game is described in the manner of Tennyson, Whitman, Browning and Wordsworth, and it would be difficult to say in which Mr. Milne most excels. Poems like " Golden Memo- ries," recalling the delight of salmon mayonnaise at Cambridge, or " The Two Visits," contrasting a boy's impressions of the Crystal Palace in 1882 with those of a " demobbing officer " in 1919, are pleasant enough in their conventional way. But Mr. Milne has taught us to expect something better of him.
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