POETRY.—The Tragedy of Lesbos. By E. H. Pember.

We do not care for Mr. Pember's subject. It is quite possible, we may say probable, that his view of Sappho's character is right ; that while the form of her surviving fragments "proclaims the poet, their contents disclose the passionate animal." But it does not follow that "the pas- sionate animal" is a fit subject of verse. It is but fair, however, to say that there is little objection ti be made to Mr. Pember's actual treat- ment of his theme. And the character of Atthis, Sappho's rival in the love of Phaon, is very tenderly and gracefully drawn. Mr. Pember's verse is carefully constructed, but it wants variety of cadence, and it admits too frequently the licence of the superfluous syllable at the end of the line. Is not Mr. Pember in error when he makes Sappho say of Aphrodite,—

The blood of a male Octirn on her altars" ? " She will not even brook,

Tacitus ("Hist." ii., 8), in his account of the Paphian Venus, says that there was no blood at all allowed upon her altars (" Sangninem arm obfun- dere vetitnm"), but that as to the victims offered for purposes of sooth- saying mares deliguntur.—Poems, by the late Hans Morrison (Chap- man and Hall), do not in all respects fulfil the intention with which they have been published, of honouring the author's memory. We cannot but think that the editor has failed in his duty of selection. The volume is a strange jumble of devotional and erotic pieces. One of the latter, a translation from Alfred do Musset, is so bad that we wonder a respectable publisher allowed it to pass. Then we have the ridiculous blunder, Ora pro mihi," repeated again and again in one piece. The best thing is "Waiting for the Day," of which we quote the last two stanzas :- "I thank the Lord I see the land, The land at last across the sea, And in the waves hold fast the hand That Peter saved on Galilee.

"So may the yearned-for, blest release Come quickly when the shadows Hy, Folding me in a quiet peace: And when the sun breaks let me diet"

—Fruit from Devon, and other Poems. By Alexander Teetgen. (Williams and Norgate.)— The poems that describe the north coast of Devon, and another set which the writer calls "Lea-Pictures," are of some value, real sketches from nature, with a certain freshness, vigour, and brilliancy of colour about them. We quote one, "Near Ilfracombe ":—

" Start suddenly, and catch the eye, 0 poppy! blowing to the morn, And under God's cerulean sky Glow scarlet through the golden corn.

" Stream out and on, 0 background seal Expanding with thy floor of blue,

Stretch out beyond the carpet turf,—

And brighten, broaden out of view.

"Swell„ billowy downs in leagues away, Roll backwards like another sea, With dell and dingle in your heart, With crop and herbage, farm and tree.

"And doming all, bang heavenly sky, Down trending over wave and sod ;

Miraculous roof to this wide world !—

Blue, like the limpid orb of God."

In his more ambitious efforts Mr. Teetgen is less successful. —Mr. J. Winnsett Boulding, in his Agues Dei (Longmans), has failed, not so much became he is without power of thought and expression—for of these we may discern some indications—bat because he has attempted too much. To describe the scheme of Redemption in eight books of Miltonic verse is a desperate undertaking, in which success is impossible ; we would advise the choice of some humbler theme.—Iphigene, by Alexander Lander (Hodder and Stoughton), is a poem on the subject of Jephthah. Bat what a strange notion to give to the Hebrew maiden the name of " Iphigene !" Mr. Lauder has an extraordinary flow of verse, which is often strong and spirited, though the changes of metre are not alwaya judicious. But we should imagine that he never makes a correction. How else could he pass such an expression as the last word of these, four lines :— "Lo! lion Judah treads the vine, To glad the heart of the Philistine; No more he ravens on the slain The mountain monarch is inane."

It is only fair to give a better specimen of his style :— " The people wait, with growing dread, As Night her bright pavilion spread; 1,fs,,aroth shines, the curtain light Veiling the chambers of the sun ; Orion in the orient bright, And swift Arcturus onward run ; And all the stars whose light intense Owns the sweet Pleiad's influence Roll on immutably the same, When on their chariot wheels of flame Jehovah came to Israel's aid; Why is His chariot now delayed?"

And this is about the level of the whole poem, some very deep falls excepted.—In Supplementary Stories and Poems by Edward Ciardley (Longman), the " Stories " have something of a quaint humour and fancy about them ; in the " Poems " we can discern little merit.— Poems, by William Wilson. (Arch. Wilson, Poughkeepsie, volume is a posthumous collection of the occasional poems of a self- taught man, some of them in literary English, fluent and melodious enough, but not remarkable, others much more characteristic and vigorous in the writer's native dialect.—Glaphyra and other Poems, by Francis Reynolds. (Longmans.)—Neither of the longer poems in this volume at all satisfies us. " Glaphyra " is obscure in expression, though the meaning of the whole is plain enough,—a dead husband rebuking his widow who has just contracted a third marriage, for the deterioration of her moral nature. The story of " CETI:mitts and Procris" is better though the tone of the poem is not, in our judgment, true to the classical spirit, being deficient especially in simplicity. We prefer to give a specimen of Mr. Reynolds' manner from the "Miscellaneous. Poems," the four last stanzas of " Alone ":— o 0 sharpest grief which few can know, Surpassing all the sting of death. By time untamed, thou mill dost grow As life seeks out the downward path.

"He feels thy presence in whose breast All night the festive lamps have burned, Who calls for some to share the feast, And finds his invitation spurned.

"Who sees the morning blank and grey,

Startle each pane with shivering light, To mock him with a sunless day Who turneth from a songless night.

"He feels a summons in the air ; The night,' he saith, ' is wholly gone ; The world awakes, but I must fare For evermore alone, alone !' "

—We can find nothing particular to Bay about a Toluene- ofT poem under the title of Lays of Love and Life, by T. P. Bell. (Provost) — What we have to say about a Metrical Paraphrase of the BJok of Job, by Henry John Marten (Hodder and Stoughton), is not laudatory. What can be the possible use of putting words in this form o But Troubles sore And trials such as thine, Spring not Chance sown From the won& soil except, indeed, one could command the price per line which report gives our great poet. Imagine getting a guinea for " But !"— aonavell, a Drama, by William Duckworth, jun. (Freeman), suggests a. preliminary remark, beyond which we decline to go, that a line of dramatic blank verse should ordinarily consist of ten syllables alter- nately emphasized. —Love's Triumph, a Play (Pickering), is in title, treatment, and style, a moderately good imitation of the Elizabethan, drama.—.—We have to acknowledge new editions of Poems, by Charles, Kent (Charlton Tucker); and Poems and Lancashire Songs, by Edwin Waugh, a volume of characteristic and vigorous verse, which our readers, willdo well to make acquaintance with, if they do not happen already to. have done so.