THIS is the complementary volume to Mr. de la Mare's
recent Collected Poems, and comprises his poems, originally intended f3r children omitted in that volume, and contains all the poems puffs listed separately as Peacock Pie, Songs of Childhood, &c. It 13 unnecessary today to attempt to do justice once again to the exquisite felicity of these verses. There are so many masterpieces in this volume that one tends to take them for granted ; but nowhere out of Shbakespeare and the Elizabethans shill one find a lyrical talent of such purity and variety. They are all arranged here in sections, which, though loosely designed, have a certain validity ; for example, the poem beginning:
When evening's darkening azure Stains the water crystal clear, It's a marvellous sweet pleasure
A small coracle to steer
To where, in reeds and rushes,
Squeak and chuckle, sup and suck
A multitudinous company Of duck.
comes into the section headed " All Creatures Great and Small." Everyone will have his own favourites in this collection, but perhaps the sections " Fairies, Witches, Phantoms " and " Moon, And Stars, Night, And Dream " contain the greatest number of small perfections.
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