MR. BINYON'S NEW POEMS.*

MR. BINYON'S new book disappoints in one respect the expectations raised by some of the best work in the two volumes of Lyric Poetry he published nearly two years ago.

The influence of Matthew Arnold, so markedly traceable in the earlier verses, is felt again in the present book ; but whereas

in Lyric Poetry the mind of the master seemed to mould not

• only the thought but the form in the collection now before us we do not find so many reminders of Arnold's manner and echoes of his cadences, though we still recognise his inspira- tion in a certain clear sobriety of aesthetic conception, and still more in the undercurrent of melancholy stoically repressed. On the other hand, there is a diminution of vigour in the rhythm, and some loss of musical charm. This new volume gives the impression that Mr. Binyon is deliberately casting off the formal likeness to Matthew Arnold, and feeling his way towards the form that shall be ultimately his own.

Reculer pour inieux &Inter expresses the attitude of mind in which most of these poems seem to have been composed. They are full of strength and truth and earnestness, and entirely free from tricks of false sentiment and secondhand present- ment. They make their strongest—often a very strong impres-

sion—at the first reading ; it is on the second or third reading only that one begins to be troubled by the not infrequent im- perfections of form, the ronghnesses and bluntnesses of rhythm, and the defective proportion in the development of ideas which are the faults of the book. These faults certainly hinder full enjoyment of some of the best pieces, but in so far as they arise out of a determination to achieve genuine successes or none, they may be said to be faults of good promise. A very good example of Mr. Binyon's power of calling up a scene with something more than a merely picturesque vividness, is the poem describing a storm sweeping over London, in which every word communicates a distinct physical sensation. One feels " in one's bones " the shiver before the outburst, and the serene glory of the "expanded heavens" after it. This poem illustrates, perhaps better than any other single piece, what we have said, both as to the faults and the excellences of the book ; but it does not lend itself well to partial quotation, and it is too long to be given whole.

To the streets of London Mr. Binyon owes many of his best inspirations; and it is a point of great attractiveness in his work that these inspirations are inspirations of love. Without using any medium of false sentiment, he discerns beauty, human and artistic, amid the squalor of Whitechapel Road at night ; grace and dignity in the dancing of gutter-children in a back alley lighted by the flaring gas-lamp of a gin-shop; and all the poetry of spring in a whiff of fragrance from a flower- woman's basket on the steps of St. Martin's-le-Grand. Among the poems embodying more personal sentiment should

be mentioned especially "May Evening" and "The Birch- Tree," in both of which the form is more finished and the movement of the rhythm more consistently melodious than in most of the pieces. One's enjoyment of "May Evening" is just dashed by the awkwardness with which the sentiment is clenched in the last stanza. But in "The Birch-Tree"

there is no fault of this kind; the thought moves serenely to a conclusion of hope and beauty, and the poem has at least four lines of perfectly satisfying richness and beauty :-

" And I regret not June's impassioned prime,

When her deep lilies banqueted the air, And this now ruined, then so fragrant lime Cooled with clear green the heavy noon's high glare."

• Poems. By Laurence Binyon. Oxford: Daniel. 1893. The most ambitions poem is " The Threshold," which comes at the end of the volume. In this Mr. Binyon endeavours to give expression to his philosophy of life. The philosophy is vague but elevated ; and in the expression of it, and still more

in the very beautiful opening stanzas, which are not philoso- phical, we feel again very strongly the influence of Matthew Arnold :-

" I walked beside full•flooding Thames to-night Westward, where on my face the sunset fell. The hour, and spacious evening, pleased me well. Buoyant the air breathed after rain, and kind To senses shattered with soft sound and light From merry waves that leapt against the wind; As broadly heaving barge and boat at rest The River came at flood, from burning skies Issuing through arches, black upon the West, To flame beneath the sunset's mysteries.

Far off to-night, as in a tender dream, That different Thames, familiar as a friend, That youthful Thames, to whom his willows bend With secret whisper, where my boat would come Heaped with fresh flowers, and down the noiseless stream Follow his green banks through the twilight home.

Far from these paven shores, these haughty towers, Where waves with beams glorying together run, As though they would disown those cradling flowers, And gushed immediate from the molten sun.

Dazzled I turn : and lo ! the solemn East Before me comes. Soft to my eyes, yet bright, London her vastness stretches in hushed light Murmuring : wharf and terrace curve afar Past bridge and steeple, thronging great with least, To Paul's high cross that sparkles like a star."

We do not attempt to conceal our opinion that this little volume, in spite of many beauties, is to be welcomed more for its promise than its achievement. And one very hopeful element in its promise is the reserve and moderation of its moral and spiritual emotion. There is about all the poems that are especially poems of thought or sentiment, an attitude of expectancy—the attitude of one who waits for a fuller revelation of truth, which, when it comes, shall set free a multitude of energies now in leash. At a moment when so many of our young poets are giving the rein to an absolutely fatuous licence of idea and expression, it is no small praise to say of a volume of extremely original verse, what we can say truly of this one, that it carries restraint almost to the point of fault.