POETRY.—May Blossoms. By " Lilian." (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)— This volume

contains verses written by a child, or, in some cases, dictated before she could write. They are certainly surprising, con- sidering the authorship ; but it would have increased the interest, which of course mainly lies in the circumstances of their pro- duction, if we had been told in every case the age at which the poems were written. "The Flower Alphabet" is a really remark- able piece of work for a child of seven, or anything near it.— In Selections from the Poems of Jeanie Morison (Blackwood and Sons), we have selections from six volumes published at intervals during the last eighteen years. Some of the more ambitious efforts are scarcely successful, but such poems as "Quickening," the sonnets and the ballads, are full of feeling gracefully expressed.—Words Wooing Music. By A. Stephen Wilson. With an Introduction on Song-Writing by Gavin Greig, M.A. (John Rae Smith, Aberdeen.)—Mr. Greig thinks that "artistic song in this country will never be what it should be, until, as in Germany, the poet receives equal recognition with the musician." We heartily agree ; but then, his work must be as good. Unhappily, in the average song we get music commonly passable, and sometimes good, but very seldom indeed even passable words. The fact is, that it is but rarely that a man attempts to compose music who has not some kind of gift for it ; whereas every one fancies that he can write verse. We are bound to say that Mr. Wilson's efforts at song-writing will not advance the cause which Mr. Greig has at heart. Need we go further than the two stanzas that follow

loved me and he left me, Though my heart was all his own; But he could not steal the Idol

In my bosom crowned alone ; Adoration there for ever, He will meet in praise aud song,

For the heart he loved can never To another heart belong ; The heart he loved can never, never, To another heart belong.

His eye had grand ambitions, And the sacrifice of love, Tore my arms from off the pinions Of an eagle bound above; But my claims his pledge deliver And forgive the kingly wrong, Tho' the heart he loved can never To another lord belong ;

The heart he loved can never, never, To another lord belong."

-What sort of "recognition" is due to the author of such stuff as this P—Love's Victory. By John Arthur Blackie. (Percival and Co.)—Mr. Blackie sometimes seems to be about to say some- thing good, but does not say it. "Sunrise upon Atlas," with which he begins his volume, has some fine lines ; but then, there are quite unaccountable lapses into something that is not far from nonsense. Why should cedar woods be said to moan with the hollow sound "Of horns rising sullen, slow and regal "?

Why " regal" ? What, again, is the good of spoiling the simple tale of Hylas with the sickly sentiment of the poem called by this name ? Was Hylas a minor poet, that

"He bade farewell within his heart of hearts To all but love, in death supreme of all, To all but love,—to life and all its smarts, To poets' fellowship, ambition's call"?

And who was it that survived him, described in the concluding stanza ?—

"Here the pale nympholept o'er flowers and shells, Pores long and oft to solve that secret deep, And on that lake's sad shore for ever dwells 'Twist contemplation and a haunted sleep."

The "Ode on the Death of Thomas Chatterton" challenges a com- parison which is scarcely prudent with " Adonals."—Laurence : Scenes of a Life, by Croasdaile Harris (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.), is styled a "new poem ; " but we cannot see anything new about it. With what wearisome iteration do verse-writers repeat the meaningless melancholy of such lines as the following :— " Ah, for one gleam of light, one hour of peace !

The dead noon of the night is full of dreams Of pleasure, fancy, and of grace, long sunk Beneath the horizon—but the jealous hands Of day wrench off what kind night gives me back. That one such moonlit dream might hold its own

And through the stern realities of day

Give stuff to ease the pangs of piteous want ! I hunger and I hunger, but there comes No sail across the curling waste of life.

My soul—such as I have—is as a ship Lost in the northern seas, 'mid crag.s of ice

And briny mist ; the hand that holds the helm

Is weak and helpless ; though it fain would guide The ship to port, its deadened nerves are drugged With one dark dream of ever-deepening doubt :

So on and on I plunge—I dare not say—

I dare not guess which iceberg brings release."

It would be too complimentary to say that such voices from "the mouldered ledges of the past" are " sweet " as well as " vague ;" but we are quite agreed in thinking that we had best "stuff our ears with wool and so pass by."—A Life's Requiem, and other Poems. By Kate Bishop. (Marlborough and Co. ; Campion, Northampton.)—The publisher is good enough to tell us the author's age. Doubtless he tells us right; but he is not to be trusted when he says that the "beautiful spirit of Tennyson's In Memoriam' is here." We certainly do not see it in the stanza that follows :— "Oh gloomy death, mysterious thing, Why dost thou come to shroud our own, With the black shadow of thy wing, And make our hearts a charnel throne? And seeing hope with shattered wings, I would that thou wart never known."

The author does not always sink so low as this ; but whatever favour she may have met with from readers of tho People, we cannot encourage her to go on writing verses.—lireanting. By Blancor Dash. (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.)—Is the origin of this volume too candidly explained by what we find on p. 66 ? :— " THE CHALLENGE.

I sonnet in a quarter of an hour I'

How of t fair fancie3 come a id fill our mind With yearning, dreaming, visions sweet and kind, Its drought refreshed as earth by summer shower !

Yet are they phantoms thu., and void of power All indistmgui-hable, undefined,

And vanish like the mist-wreath on the wind. Or like the song that silence doth devour

And so the mind is rapt intent, from air

To seize those nothings, and the cunning brain Toils to enchain in words the spirit's worth, That through their dead, dull form her beauty fair May flash in living power, and prove not vain The poet's art to 'bind fresh charm to earth."

If the writer had given us exactly the time in which he composed his other poems, they might have had a certain interest. They read as if they had been dashed off in breathless haste, with but the faintest regard to meaning.—Of Joyous Gard. By .IElian Prince. (G. W. Allen.)—Mr. Prince takes his subject from the Arthurian legend, and his style, we fancy, from "Sordello." We might admire what he writes, could we but construe it.—We have also received :—Verses, by Gertrude Hall (W. Heinemann) ; Poems, by M. G. Buddon (Digby and Long) ; Cosmo Venucci, Singer, by May Earle (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.) ; The Shadows of the Lake, and other Poems, by F. Leyton (same publishers) ; Man and the Deity, and other Poems, by Lieutenant-Colonel Fife Cookson (same publishers) ; Songs of Syracuse, by William Burt Harlow (W. B. Harlow, Syracuse, N.Y.) ; The Golden Quest, and other Poems, by Mrs. Moss Cockle (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.) ; Julian the Apostate, and other Poems, by "D. M. P." (J. Palmer, Cambridge) ; King James I. and King Charles : Two Dramas, by A. E. Tregelles (Tregelles, Darlington) ; Lyrics for a Lute, by Frank Dempster Sherwin (Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., New York) ; Annie of Tharau, translated from the German of Franz Hirsch by C. Adolf Rehder (Siegle) ; Tintinnabuk, by Charles Newton-Robinson (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.); A Play and Fifteen Sonnets, by George Herbert Kersley (Bickers and Son) ; Poems, by the late George John Young (printed for private circulation); Messaiina : a Tragedy, by Algernon Sydney Logan (Lippincott, Philadelphia) ; and Pansies, by " Anctores Ignoti " (Richardson, Greenwich).