Jeanne d'Arc, and other Poems. By Robert Steggall. (A. W.
Ben- nett.)—This volume shows in its author a considerable poetical taste, which, however, does not seem to be always awake; a faculty, if not always exercised, of harmonious versification ; and a general power of thought. and expression which, could it always keep to its highest level, would promise very well. Mr. Steggall's verse reminds us, but not by a servile or even a pronounced imitation, of Mr. Tennyson, and in a still greater degree of Mr. Alexander Smith. The following passage, which is about as happy a specimen of his style as we can find, will illustrate this.
remark :—
"So went she forth. And from his topmost tower The King looked down upon the restless throng That waved with plume and pennon to and fro, Hopeful as grain just spindling into oar; Gazed, till the clang and clamour died away To murmurous sound, the murmur to repose, Till all was lost below the upland verge, To the last jaunty plume and gleaming pike, And up the sheer steep of the hills beyond Moved something like the shadow of a cloud."
So, again, wo have this fine image :—
"That last Courage that fights astride the come of hope.
This is less happy :—
" Far beyond To westward, while half the landscape seemed to frown Upon the brightness of the other half, The gold and purple clouds hung drenched and stained In royal rags about the fallen sun."
Mr. Steggall is at his worst when he writes :— " Prelates and Doctors and Carmelites, whose beards In foaming falls of cataractous hair Rolled to their girdles."
More than one of the lines which we have quoted the reader will observe to be faulty in rhythni. A superfluous syllable in the middle of the verse, a licence wholly inadmissible in narrative, may aft= be. • noticed, as
"Mingled, and, save sudden upburst here and there." "Leaped headlong into the stream; and heaps upon heaps." "In vulgar hieroglyphics—constrained her, sad."
Worse than these, in a different way, is
"As an abominable heretic."
We believe that Mr. Steggall will give us something more evenly good.
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