RECENT VERSE.*

Ma. BINT0N possesses one shining merit which is rare in a poet of his imaginative equipment. He condescends to lucidity. He refines and clarifies his fancy till there emerges that sincere simplicity which comes only from the taking of infinite pains. This serious art is apparent throughout all his work, which may now and again fail in inspiration, but never • a.) England, and other Poems. By Laurence Binyon. London : Elkin Mathews. [3s. 6d. net.]-(2) Songs from London. By Ford Madox Hueffer. Same publisher. [Is. net.]-(3) A Hundred Verses from Old Japan. By W. N. Porter. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. [2s. 6d. net.]-(4) The Master-Singers of Japan. By Clara A. Walsh. London : John Murray. [2s. net.]-(5) Sword and blossom Poems from the Japanese. By Shotaro Kimura and Charlotte M. A. Peake. Tokyo: Hasegawa. [3s. 6d.]-- (6) The Pilgrimage. By Yone Noguchi. 2 vola. Kamakura The Valley Press. [8s. net.]-(7) Songs and Sonnets. By Logan Pearsall Smith. London : Elkin Mathews. [1s. 6d. net.]-(8) Poems. By Leonard Shoobridge. London : John Lane. [3s. 6d. net.]--(9) Mingled Wine. By Anna Bunston. London :

Lonamans and Co. 6d. net.]-(10) Luaus. By Christopher Stone. Oxford : B. H. Blackwell. 5s. net.]-(11) A New Rook of Verse. By Arthur L.

Salmon. London . Blackwood and Sons. [2s. 6d. net.]-(12) Land of the Morning. By Jessie Mackay. London : Whitcombe and Tombs. [3s. 6d. net.] -(13) Ballads of a Cheechako. By R. W. Service. London : T. Fisher lJnwin. [3s. 6d. net.]-(141 Nunc Dimittis. By J. A. Nicklin. London : Sidgwick and Jackson. [2s. 6d. net. (15) Five Lyriml Poems. By Vivian Locke Ellis. London Author. [6d. net.]-(16) Seafoam and Firelight. By Dermot O'Byrne. Hampstead : Orpheus Press. [8d. net.]-(17) Sea Spray : Verses and Trans- lations. By T. W. Rolleston. Dublin Maunsel. [1s. net.]-(18) Lesser Lyrics. By Constance Evan Jones. London : J. Nisbet and Co. [2s. net.]- (19) Sonnets and Songs. By Mary C. Christie. Glow: J. MacLehoee and Sons. [Is. 6d. net.]-(20) Verses of the Country. By M. D. Ashley Dodd. Oxford : B. H. Blackwell. [2s. net.)-(21) A Broken Silence ; or, Brays and Bleats. By William Corner. Glasgow: Laidlaw and Fraser. [1s. 6d1- (221 The Poems of Sappho. Translated by Percy Osborn. London : Elkin

Mathews. [1s. net.] (23) The Meadows of Play. By Margaret Arndt London : Same publisher. [2s. 6d. net.]

in the higher sort of craftsmanship. He is extraordinarily

successful in his descriptions of natural beauty, showing a constructive power in detail as well as in atmosphere which is uncommon among the professed poets of Nature. Poems like "Solicitude," " Ricordi," and " Bablock-Hythe " are perfect in their way, for picture and music are subtly com- bined to reproduce the single impression. A stanza from "Love's Portrait" will show Mr. Binyon's peculiar quality :-

"Let it be dawn, and such low light increase, As when from darkness pure the hills emerge ; And solemn foliage trembles through its peace As with an ecstasy ; and round the verge Of solitary coppices cold flowers

Freshen upon their clustered stalks; and where Wafts of wild odour sweeten the blue air, Drenched mosses dimly sparkle on old towers."

The one fault we find with this work is that sometimes it is too intellectual. The perfect appositeness of an image may require a moment's reflection to perceive, and this lack of spontaneity detracts from the poetic effect. But Mr. Binyon has other manners. In the present volume there is an excel- lent ballad, " Ruan's Voyage," with all the true ballad vigour; at least one beautiful sonnet, "A Picture Seen in a Dream "; and songs, like " A Spring Song " and " Day's End," which

show a high degree of lyrical accomplishment. It is a pleasure to find modern work so sane, well balanced, and conscientious, and at the same time so rich in the elemental stuff of poetry. Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer makes homelier verses to a more vagabond air. His Songs from London are

often imitative and a thought too mannered, but they have a haunting note in them at their best which, like Mr. Binyon's perfection, is not, common. We like especially the last piece, "Every Man : a Sequence," and the little fantasy, " Finchley Road," which has something of W. E. Henley's gift of poignant contrast. We would fain quote this poem, and we advise our readers to make speedy acquaintance with it.

Recent weeks have seen an unexpected but most welcome output of Japanese poetry in English. There is first Mr. W. N. Porter's Oxford anthology, A Hundred Verses from Old Japan. They are in the curious five-lined " Tanks" form, and the dates of the originals stretch from about 670 A.D. to the

present year. These little poems have an odd charm, not unlike some of the snatches in the " Greek Anthology." They are in the fullest sense of the word "occasional " verses, casual reflections and descriptions of scenery. The translations are always musical, and manage to convey to the reader a certain

pleasing exotic flavour. Then comes Miss Walsh's The Master- Singers of Japan, a volume of the " Wisdom of the East " Series, which is mainly concerned with older, more philosophic

poetry. The translation seems to us very well done, but the collection has scarcely the individual charm of the Orford

book. Next we have the Sword and Blossom Poems, put into English verse by Mr. Kimura and Mrs. Peake. The Blossom Songs belong to an early period, while the Sword Songs are more modern. These latter are neither philosophic nor "occasional," but rather grim lyrics of war, and the " Sword

Dance of the Satsuma Clan," though fifty years old, might well have been written six years ago. The little book is exquisitely

illustrated by Japanese pictures, and produced in the Japanese manner. So also is Mr. Noguchi's The Pilgrimage, which has the additional interest that it contains, not translations, but

original poems written in English by a Japanese. It is impossible in a few words to describe the quality of these poems. They are as evasive and fantastic as notes of music.

Images, drawn from the different senses, merge into each other, and the poet's thought flits from metaphor to symbol, and from symbol to fact, till the English reader is bewildered. But there is a coherence somewhere ; and out of the many colours comes a rainbow. Some of Mr. Noguchi's verses seem to us to be fine poetry, authentic, but not to be classified. We quote his " Proem " :-

" Beckoned by an appointed hand, unseen yet sure, in holy air, We wander as a wind; silver and free,

With one song in heart, we, the children of prayer.

Our song is not of a city's fall.; No laughter of a kingdom bids our feet wait; Our heart is away, with sun, wind, and *in ; We, the shadowy roamers on the holy highway."

Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith's Songs and Sonnets has some- thing of Mr. Binyon's distilled simplicity, but the metrical

forms are simpler and the whole workmanship is less ambitious. We like best the delightful verses which are described as translations from the Chinese, but some of the lyrics are full of delicate imagery and music, and the sonnet, " The New Jerusalemr is a fine conception. Mr. Leonard Shoobridge's Poems suffer a little from lack of workmanship.

..The thoughts and emotions are apt to remain suspended in air, the raw material rather than the finished form of poetry. In his own phrase, there is too much "unshapen misty sense."

Perhaps the poem, " Nor Yes nor No," defines the writer's poetic creed, in which case he attains to something of his ambition. We like best the sketches of strange plades, where description and reflection melt into one, and the little poem " Oasis," where Mr. Shoobridge's usual indeterminateness for once forsakes him. Miss Anna Bunston's Mingled Wine is the work of a true scholar, and where models, often recondite, are forgotten, of a poet with an original talent. We like especially "Ad Extremes Tenebras," the delightful " Gardening Song," and " Sic itur ad Astra," while many of the devotional pieces are very fine. Mr. Christopher Stone in the collection which he calls Lusus is at his happiest in verse. His prose pieces are too often frigid and affected. But his stanzas on " Burford " and " To L. P. S." have much grace of expression and sincerity of feeling. Mr. Arthur Salmon's A New Book of Verse contains many surprises. His previous work has been serious and accomplished, with an occasional tendency to the sententious; but it had not prepared us for the magic of some of the pieces in his new volume. He can be simple without being barren, as in the beautiful " Vision," and can contrive a new melody, as in the first of the " Autumn Hush- Songs." Mr. Salmon deserves wider recognition as one of the few mature and individual poetic talents of our time. What his gift lacks in reach it makes up for in intensity and perfection of form.

The next two books on our list are the work of Colonial poets. Miss Mackay's Land of the Morning is a collection of lyrics and ballads in which New Zealand and the Celtic tradition compete as the fount of inspiration. Her ballads have the true ring, and " For Love of Appin" and " Stmth- never No More " have all the poignancy of exile in them.

Excellent, too, are the pieces with a direct Colonial interest, such as "The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie," " Mother and Child," and the beautiful " Morning Glory." Miss Mackay in the dual element in her verse reminds us of Mr. Bliss Carman, and we are glad to find another true singer from the outlands of the Empire. Mr. Service's new book, Ballads of a Cheechako, is, we confess, a disappointment. He has kept all Mr. Kipling's mannerisms, but he has not advanced in the know- ledge of his craft. The strong imaginative force is there, as in " The Telegraph Operator " and " Lost," but he is apt to spoil his effects by a redundance of rhetoric. New scenes and climates do not impair the validity of old rules of art. Mr. Nieklin's Nunc Dimittis is a collection of fluent verse where the accomplishment is more marked than the originality. Mr. Locke Ellis'a Five Lyrical Poems are more promising, and in " Nocturne " and " The Pipers " there is a freshness both of melody and thought which augurs well. Mr. O'Byrne's Seafoam and Firelight is a good specimen of the sonorous mysticism which we are accustomed to associate with Irish poets. "To Ireland," "In Galway Bay," and "A Country Song " possess not only great verbal beauty, but a vague haunting magic which is as indefinable as the charm of the land of which he sings. We quote his "Behind the Wind" as an instance of his remarkable quality :—

" I will go east and west through bog and hill

Until I learn the secret of the wind.

All night those crowdinc, aged mysteries fill My heart, and I'll not rest until I find

Some old dull wretch crouching beneath a thorn With bleared eyes blinking at the rain, and ears Housing the mighty songs of dusk and morn.

We twain will talk as kings talk. The grey fears Blown from the sea at dusk shall round us stand

Revealed and naked, and the awful forms Of primal beauty, that the whirling sand Darkens for darkened eyes, shall charm the storms And pass before us, whispering all they knew Before the first star gleamed or the wind blew."

In Mr. Rolleston's Sea Spray we find something of the same magic, but his Muse is more sedate, more world-wise, and more scholarly. He studiously cultivates Irish music, but he is not unmindful of other more elaborate harmonies. Some of the translations, especially the one from Aeschylus, [teem to us highly successful, Miss Constance Jones's Lesser Lyrics are not unaptly named. They are pleasant reflective verses showing consider- able metrical skill; and the same may be said of Miss Christie's Sonnets and Songs and Mr. Dodd's Verses of the Country. All three books are sincere and occasionally tuneful, but they have nothing of the true fire. Mr. Corner's A Broken Silence is more promising, for though the sonnets are poor, some of the lyrical snatches have a touch of originality, and "A Cowboy Song" is an excellent ballad. We would mention Mr. Percy Osborn's translation of The Poems of Sappho, mainly in the original metres, which shows scholarship and a feeling for the more delicate shades of cadence and emotion. Mrs. Arndt's The Meadows of Play is as charming a book of verses for and about children as we have met with for a long time. Some of the pieces are almost worthy of the author of A Child's Garden of Verses, and Mr. G. K. Chesterton has prefaced the collection with a letter which seems to us one of the happiest things he has ever written.