BOOKS.

LORD HOUGHTON'S POEMS.* IT is a pity that Lord Houghton did not act, in his preface to this edition of his collected poems, on the hint which he

* The Poetical Worie of (Richard Monekton Milne.) Lord Houghton. Collected Edition. 2 vole. With *Portrait. London: John Murray. 1876. gives us in it of his power to appreciate them quite impartially, and with the sang-froid of an external critic. There would have been something original in the attempt of an able man of the world to determine precisely what was best and what poorest

in his own productions, and though we have little doubt that few critics would have entirely agreed with bim,—for even the coolest man of the world must have a soft corner in his heart for the verses with which vivid feelings (perhaps inade- quately expressed, if expressed at all) are associated, and this soft corner must now and them have biassed an otherwise calm and independent judgment,—still, the criticism would hare been both amusing and instructive, for Lord Houghton has, at least, as much of the critic in him as of the poet, probably, like most men of the world with a vein of quick sympathy in them, something more. Even where his verse is poorest, his criticism is sometimes striking, as, for instance, in the lines on "The Return of Ulysses to Ithaca," which are nothing at all as a poem, but which

embody a fine and delicate criticism on the wonderful beauty of that touch in the Odyssey which makes Ulysses reach bin home at last in deep sleep, and lays him like a weary child on the shore of the island home for which he has been yearning 89 long. But when Lord Houghton says that what- ever little hold his poems "may have taken on their time is owing to their sincerity of thought and simplicity of ex- pression," he hardly does justice to his own critical faculty.- 'Sincerity of thought and simplicity of expression' are, no doubt,. the greatest possible excellences in poetry, but taken alone, they do not constitute even the smallest poetic claim on us. It is possible to be sincere in thought and perfectly simple in expres-

sion, without having even the gleam of a poetic feeling; aunt though every one will admit that these qualities add greatly to the charm of poetry when you have got it, it would be far nearer-

the truth to say that poetical feeling, as such, tends to sin- cerity of thought and simplicity of expression, than to say that

sincerity of thought and simplicity of expression, as such, tend to any poetic charm. If we were asked what it is which constitutes the specific claim of Lord Houghton's poetry

to a certain modest place of its own in the poetry of our day, we- should say it was the intertwining in his mind between the threads of tender sentiment and that kind of knowledge of the world which is so apt to take all the melody out of sentiment. Of course, there are poems of Lord Houghton's, and taking ones too, which do not show this mingling of very different mental strands, like

the song by which he is perhaps best known,—" I wandered by the brook-side, I wandered by the mill." That is simply a pretty little sentimental song, but not one sufficiently unique in its kind to tell us at once by whom it had been written. It might be referred, without any blunder of msthetic insight, to a considerable number of other poets, by whom indeed, had occasion favoured, it might perhaps really have been written. So, again, there are bits of clear, statuesque description which Lord Houghton has written which are admirable of their kind, but of which, again, no one would be able to discover the individual stamp, or to know the authorship except by the aid of memory. Take this, for instance, written at Mycelia), on a vision of Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, and Orestes,— which appears to us almost as good of its kind as one or two of Shelley's descriptive sonnets, but not marked by any authentic seal of the author's :—

" I saw a weird procession glide along

The vestibule before the Lion's gate ; A Man of godlike limb and warrior state,.

Who never looked behind him, led the throng Next a pale Girl, singing sweet sorrow, met My eyes, who ever pointed to a fleck Of ingrained crimson on her marble neck ;- 11er a fierce Woman, armed with knife and net, Close followed, whom a Youth pursued with smile,.

Once mild, now bitter-mad, himself the while Pursued by three foul Shapes, gory and grey : Dread family . . . I saw another day The phantom of that Youth, sitting alone,

Quiet, thought-bound, a stone upon a stone."

It is not often that Lord Houghton describes his vision as nervously as he does here. As a poet of description, we do not rate him high. His eye is clear, but the bubbles of personal sentiment rise too fast to the surface of his mind to give us many strong pictures such as this. As a rule, we cannot say that we greatly admire either the poems of pure sentiment or the- poems intended to be descriptive. The former want ides,. coherence, intensity, and depth ; the latter are too diffuse, snd, sometimes also too much coloured with elements which disturb. the unity of the picture. Both classes are apt to strike one as expressions of cultivated, but ordinary and tnunesserahle, feeling_

But it is different when Lord Houghton combines, as he does not nnfrequently contrive to combine, the thrill of the poet with the subtle insight of the man of the world. Sometimes he misses the latter, and then he is a poet, but a common-place one.

Sometimes he misses the former, and then he is a subtle observer of the world, but not a poet. But sometimes he combines the two, and then his poetry is poetry of a kind which one does not meet with elsewhere. The poem, "I wandered by the brook-side," which he tells us was parodied by the negroes in the Western States of America within ten years of its composition, is one of the former kind. It has the echo of a somewhat superficial tender- ness and rapture in it, but it has no mark of Lord Houghton's acute mind. And here is an instance of the latter kind,—of verse which has missed the true rhythm and music of poetry, and yet which contains the subtle vision of the man of the world :—

"PLEASURE AND PAIN.

" Who can determine the frontier of Pleasure? Who can distinguish the limit of Pain ? Where is the moment the feeling to measure ? When is experience repeated again ?

Ye who have felt the delirium of passion— Say, can ye sever its joys and its pangs? b there a power in calm contemplation To indicate each upon each as it hangs?

I would believe not ;—for spirit will languish

While sense is most blest and creation most bright ; And life will be dearer and clearer in anguish Than ever was felt in the throbs of delight.

See the Fakeer as he swings on his iron, See the thin Hermit that starves in the wild; Think ye no pleasures the penance environ, And hope the sole bliss by which pain is beguiled?

No! in the kingdoms those spirits are reaching, Vain are our words the emotions to tell; Vain the distinctions our senses are teaching, For Pain has its Heaven and Pleasure its Hell !"

That is thin, sing-song, and utterly cold ; it has nothing in it of the lyric cry, but it is true and keen in thought. We see Lord Houghton at his best, however, when he contrives to combine, as he frequently does, real feeling happily embodied in rhythm with the cool and subtle vision of the man of the world. Here, for instance, we have him at his best :— " THE WORLD TO THE SOUL. " Sad ! that may'st have been divine, Now I claim and take thee mine; Now thy own true Vasa will be In thy loyalty to me.

Though thou seemest without stain, There is evil in thy grain ; Thou haat tasted of the fruit Of which Knowledge is the root.

So I must not let thee rest, Lull'd on Faith's maternal breast ; Faith and Fancy mar the plan Of the making of a man.

So thy tender heart I bare To Ambition's frosty air; So I plunge thee deep in doubt, That thou may'st grow hard and stout.

So I bid the eager Boy Sense in every form enjoy ;

Stinting not the moment's pleasure, Save to gain some fuller measure.

Thou wilt lose at last the zest, Thou wilt need some higher qaest ; Then I bid thee rise a Man, And laid thee all I can.

Fix thee on some worthy aim, Proving danger, fronting shame; Knowing only friends or foes, As they speed thee or oppose: Trampling with thy rapid feet Feelings fond and pleas discreet ; Only for excuses sue In the great things thou canst do.

If what shone afar so grand, Turn to nothing in thy hand, On, again—the virtue lies In the struggle, not the prize; Only rest not: failure-curst Turn to Pleasure at the worst.

That may calm thy conscience-cry- Death may give thee peace, not I."

We should take exception to that ethically, perhaps, but we .cannot deny that it is singularly subtle in its analysis of the sort of defence the world might make for the temptations she puts before the soul. Or again, take the striking poem on the in- capacity of man at the different ages of life to enjoy adequately the experience proper to that age,—in other words, on the apparently untimely anticipation which induces human beings

to borrow from the future what not only spoils the present, but robs even that future, when it comes, of its due strength :-

' TIIE EXHAUSTION OF LIFE.

"The Life of man is made of many lives, His heart and mind of many minds and hearts, And he in inward growth most surely thrives Who lets wise Nature order all the parts: To each disposing what befits their scope, To boyhood pleasures without care or plan, To youth affections bright and light as hope, Deep-seated passions to the ripened man.

Oh! well to say, and well if done as said: But who himself can keep each separate stage ? Stand 'twist the living feelings and the dead, And give its special life to every age ?

Who can forbid the present to encroach On what should rest the future's free domain, Holding the past undimmed by self-reproach, Nor borrow joy at usury of pain ?

Boyhood invades the phantasies of youth, Rocked in imagination's golden arms, And leaves its own delights of healthy truth For premature and visionary charms.

Youth, to whom Poesy by right belongs, And every creature of the fairy race, Turns a deaf ear to those enchanting songs, And sees no beauty in that dreamy face, But will, though by experience uninured, Plunge into deepest gulfs of mental fire, Trying what angels have in vain endured— The toils of Thought—the struggles of Desire; So that when Manhood in its place at last Comes and demands its labours and its powers, The Spirit's energies are worn and past, And Life remains a lapse of feeble hours."

The line describing how we "borrow joy at usury of pain" is expressed with even more nice felicity than Lord Houghton usually reaches, and is a line which the English people are likely to popularise as well as preserve. The same discriminating know- ledge of the world, blended with true feeling, is to be found in most of the semi-political poems, like that, for instance, on " The Voice of the People," in which the poet remarks finely on the

rarity of the power,—

"Through the long progress of our kind,

To read with eyes undimmed and true The blotted book of public mind ;"

and again, in the fine verses on "The Patience of the Poor." It is the same quality, too, which is discernible in the piece called "Unspoken Dialogue," and several of the rather striking seta of verses called "Shadows," where Lord Houghton measures and appraises with a keen eye the various blunders of the affections,—how some men and women will think to live too exclusively in love and repent their error, and others fail to discern it when it might constitute their highest happiness. It is the blending of sentiment with knowledge of the world,—not a cynical, but a sympathetic blending,—which gives the unique character to the best of Lord Houghton's poems.