POUTRY.—The Bridal Wreath, and other Poems, by W. F. Buokland
(Charing Cross Publishing Company), seems to have been written in Now Zealand. We would not insult the colony by supposing that they cannot write as good verse there as we do here,—one poet of no mean order has certainly risen there. Yet verso is not so natural an outcome of colonial life, as it is of the very different conditions of society in the old country. Whatever credit is due to Mr. Buckland for writing under these circumstances, he Bbould have, but we cannot allow him much more.—Anthony Baington, by Violet Fano (Chapman and Hall), is a tale told in verse of fair quality, intermingled with prose, of the Babington conspiracy. It calls itself a drama, but we can see nothing dramatic about it ; it is simply a narrative in dialogue. This is not an attractive or effective form.—Songs of the Semitic, in English Verse, By G. G. W. (Triibner.) We do not care to follow the critical specula- tions of the writer. It is enough, to exhibit his competence for the task of interpreting poetical thought, to give a specimen of what he would put for the most pathetic words in the English language :— " Oh! hinder not my steps in following thee;
Place no obstruction in my way.
Thy loving face lo all the world to me ; Dearest, withstand me not, I pray.
Thou art to me my one Bole thought and care,
ThAynidopwtohgerterothsteuthg000esot I h,wpill.alygolt inc share. To me a mother's kindness show.
Where diest thou, in that same spot I die; Where dwelleet thou, I also dwell; Idy grave beside thine own obeli peaceful lie,
Our bodies twain in one small cell."
—Lochclere, a Poem (Longmans), is the work of a writer who regrets the disastrous effect of the Norman Conquest on our language, and would fain go back to the "well of English undefiled" by Norman corruptions. This English, however, he has helped out with some inventions of his own. The reader shall have a specimen of the result :— " Loohlare I although you mostly indeed have meant well, Death is your wage well earned; and In no wise can you Live by appeal to might; for you have neither Striven mill all your power to keep the Drighten'e Laws; nor Indeed, if so you had striven, would your Striving have aught forstood you. 'You never kept them. God, who geetighis by truth to Hie laws scoppendom, Neither is weak in milts nor Is loose in teright Neither can clear man's guilt, nor allow his folly. Therefore, for one deed evil of yours, although none Other theretwere, tnd tboug hl doing iteomodei Soto the mark itself or your beet endeavour, Lost is the lire which God to you eret had given, Sidi it has fallen off from the fultramed goodoeg, Lying on which alone it had any being,"
We own that any attempt at literary criticism is quite baffled by this sort of thing.
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