POETBF. — /laria, and other Poems. By Ernie S. Johnson. (Kegan Pan],

Trench, and Co.)—Mr. Johnson chooses a variety of themes, some of them, as " Cephalus and Aurora" and "The Sibyl" (offering her prophetic volumes to Tarquin), scarcely susceptible of novelty of treat- ment, and deals with them with moderate success. His verse and 'expression are generally respectable, though we sometimes come across a line which scarcely admits of being scanned, as, e.g. :— "And, Cephalus, rest your bright.cinctured head and an expression which is of doubtful taste, as :— " Simple was their home, And elegant with natural growths of briar."

But there is nothing that touches or raises the reader; not a single poem that he will care to turn to again. Perhaps the beat thing in the volume is "The Quest of Psyche," in which the difficult Spenserian stanza is handled with some force. Here is a really good couplet :—

"Contempt and Sloth, and Fear with quivering knees, Passion and pale Excess, with his sick son, Disease."

But then, two pages further on, we find a stanza beginning thus :— " Beside the margin of a trickling flood. Anon alighting on a mossy brink.

He laves his hot face in the waters good."

Is it too much to say that this one word " good " is fatal to Mr. Johnson's claim to be a poet P—A Summer Christmas. By Douglas B. W. Sladen. (Griffith, Ferran, and Co.)—This volume of verses comes, as we may guess from its title, from the Antipodes. It

begins :—

"At Waratah one Christmastide

Were sitting by the ball fireside,

With fire unlit, a company Gathered for the festivity. 'Twas Christmas-eve, and they were at A station beyond Ballarat. Out on the plains. The paddocks were Well cleared of timber, scrub and burr, And English-grassed, the house, no hut Built of bark slabs, or boarded cot, But such a mansion as you see In passing by the Werribee, Stone-built, with gardens well laid out

In gay beds, planted all about

With choice exotic shrubs and trees And all that could subserve or please."

This is a kind of verse of which one can easily have too much. It is fatally easy to write, but not so easy to read. But it is relieved by occasional poems, stories told by the assembled guests, which touch a loftier level. It would have been better, we are inclined to think, if these had been given without such superabundance of setting. These, however, are of very unequal merit. "The Legend of Helen at Sparta," for instance, is quite unworthy of a place. "Odysseus in aerie" is somewhat better, but more in virtue of the subject than of its treatment. Here is as good a specimen of Mr. Sladen's verse as we can find. It describes the setting forth of Ulysses:— "Down in the hollow of the ship they made

Well in the stern a bed, and thereon laid Soft cloths of wool and linen, that he might Rest easy 'mid the roekings of the night. And then with sound of flutes and many a shout They from the capstan paid the cables out Which moored the ship alongside of the quay, And cast her out into the stream; and she. Unlike man's ship, slow forging at the start, Leant straightway into swiftness like a hart, Or like a four-horse chariot in the ring, Or hawk that cleaves the wind on lightning wing."

But this is the author's third volume of verse, and we might fairly look for better things.—Plays and Poems. By Albert E. Drink- water. (Griffith, Ferran, and Co.)—Mr. Drinkwater's plays have some sort of a story in them, and, as they are of moderate length, may be read for the story. But the poems have no such recommenda- tion. What can be said for each verse as this P- " Through all the dreary desert way,

Where naught around beside is fair; Through cheerless night and cheery day The stream is still meandering there. And so it wends its course along, Like other streams to join its sea, Until its trace is lost among The oceans of eternity."

—Under a Fool's Cap. By Daniel Henry, Junior. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—Nursery rhymes suggest to Mr. Henry some serious themes, which he treats with no little skill. Sometimes the incongruity is too much for the writer; sometimes he turns the seemingly idle motto into some deep meaning with no little felicity. In versification and power of expression he is somewhat above the average of minor poets. Here is a specimen :—

" MY LITTLE WIFE.

I had a little wife, the prettiest ever seen, She wash'd all my dishes, and kept the house clean; She baked me my bread, she brew'd me my ale, She sat by the fire and told a fine tale.

The tale of a time that is cloudless noon, Made sweet with the smells of the ripening Stine, Made taneful with all the fresh voices of life— The tale of our Honeymoon, little wife

When we ramble alone through our dream of dreams, A tale that is rhythmed with the dance of sunbeams. And set to the music of thrushes and brooks, There is not such another in all fairy books.

I've looked forward to this happy time many years, In bright smiling dreams, ay, and sometimes through tears. Though it hasn't come yet, I am certain it will, The dear same story thou tollest me still.

It may be thy story will never coins true In this world, where the happenings of dreams are few ; No matter! we'll wait till we're under the sod, There are other worlds after this, thank God !

When to each the other is all in all, Let betide what will, let what can befall, There are not sorrows enough on earth To dull love's glamour, or cheapen its worth.

Meanwhile, we will live, and keep telling our tale, Abiding its coming, though all else fail : For all things that man can withhold or give Must die, but our love is from God : it will live.

Trae face! which I never have look'd on in vain When I wanted strength to be patient again, Though thy lines grow dim, thy fresh colour dies, And twilight has come in the dear, clear eyes,

Come sit down beside me, and tell me once more The tale that has helped me so often before. I am sick of waiting, and hungry to laugh : Come I tell it once more, little photograph l" —Wandering Echoes. By "J. E. D. G." (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—" J. E. D. G." writes verse, it would seem, with great facility. Here are some five thousand lines, to reckon roughly the contents of this volume, of themes suggested by travel and story, all written, we should guess, within narrow limits of time. But beyond a certain fluency, we can see little or no merit in them. Vigour of expression and power of thought they wholly lack. These are volumes which it is not unfair to judge from a single stanza. Here is a sample from Wandering Echoes — "There is a sapphire bay, with islets violet, golden, Whose very stones do smile;

Where palace tow'rs vie with temples olden, Where only man is vile."

Did anyone ever so rashly provoke a dangerous comparison P And why " tow're ?" The only possibility of scanning the line is by making it a dissyllable. Is it not a strange phrase, to take at random another poem, to say,— " My Cambrian sky gave them birth '7 Are skies ever said to give people birth ? Why, too, are these elegies called " epithalamia "? Perhaps on the same principle that the geese of the Capitol are said to have been the "Birds of Ares," as curious a combination of blunders as we have seen.—We have also received Ballads and other Poems, by George Hedley (Walter Scott) .—Flowers and Poesy, by F. J. Cox (H. Nisbet, Glasgow).—Fragments from an Old Inn, by Lillian Rozell Messenger (G. P. Patnam's Sons,- New York and London).—Tuberose and Ideadowsweet, by Mark Andre Raffalovitch (Bogae).—The Lady of the Town, by Edward Croasdale (Elliot Stock).—Leonides ; or, the Bridal of Thanatos, by Frederic Harvey Barling (Wyman and Sons).—Poems of the Fancy and Imagination, by Frederic J. Chancellor (printed by Burdett and Co.), and, by the same author, The Water Nymphs.