MR. STEPHEN GWYNN'S POEMS.
Readers of the Spectator need not to be reminded that Mr. Stephen Gwynn is a writer who can give articulate and graceful expression in verse to a variety of moods, impassioned, reflective, critical, or whimsical. In the little volume of poems put forth under the title of The Queen's Chronicler, and other Poems (John Lane, 3s. 6d.), this range of sympathy and this many-aided accomplishment are charmingly illustrated. Sometimes it is the nostalgia of the Irish exile:— 4. Wanderer an I like the salmon of the rivers ; London is my ocean, murmurous and deep, Tossing and vast ; yet through the roar of London Comes to me thy summons, calls me in sleep."
Again, the gift of easy narrative is exhibited in the piece which gives its name to the collection, of criticism in the lines "On Reading Weir of Hermiston,' while the fire of indignation lights the fine poem on "The Royal House of France," from which we may cite the following ;—
" Merchants of hate, their game they play
With counterfeiting face ; The blood of old Egalit6 Still rankles in the race.
Like him, they hail the general wnick, Like him no sword they draw, But tempt a frantic folk to sack The citadel of law,
Not theirs the path of France to shape,
To speak her mind aloud,
Who coldly in their wisdom ape The madness of a crowd.
Whatever shame and black mischance May, in the scheme of things, Await distracted, staggering France, God send her no such Kings."
Nor is Mr. Gwynn less successful in the lighter vein. Indeed the lines on " Denny" and "My Lady Nowadays" are so excellent of their kind that we wish Mr. Gwynn would more often indulge his genuine talent for vers de societe. The picture of the emancipated but unspoilt and attractive young woman of to-day is admirably hit off in the last-named piece, from which we may quote the concluding stanza
"What's new will soon be old, dear Jenny;
Time tramples with relentless gait
On fads and faddists, au how many I But you'll be always up to date.—
Virtue may fall, and so may passion, But charm is never out of fashion."
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