Sonnets of the Sacred Year. By the Rev. S. J.
Stone. (Religious Tract Society.)—Some of these sonnets are sweet and graceful, all of them show considerable skill in versification. The anther has chosen the form of the sonnet that he may better avoid the appearance of rivalry with the "Christian Year." He has done well, for another reason. A young poet finds in the difficulties which the sonnet presents a test of his skill, and its brevity and the rigour of its laws restrain the too exuberant facility which is so common a fault. Hero is the poem for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, in the Gospel for which day one of the miracles of the loaves and the fishes is related, in words that begin, "And a great multitude followed Him :"—
" 'Follow,' the voice said from the wilderness ; But, oh! the long-loved joys I leave behind, The dear delights of flesh, and eye, and mind, I' the fair and lordly city! Can he bless To the height and depth of these?' So in distress Of sordid doubt I paused. Yet on the wind Still came the calling 'They who lose shall find.' Whereon I rose, and followed in the press. Oh ! rugged was the path, and long the day, And bare the wild ! But then the Prophet turned And taught me, and my heart within me burned, And I forgot those sorrows of the way. And then, 0 Master, resting at Thy feet!
I knew no joys like Thine, no Food so sweet."
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