THE HERALDS OP THE DAWN.* Mn. WATSON excels in what
Stevenson called the "piety of speech." No poet of our day is more studiously reverent towards our tongue or more solicitous of its simplicity. But, though he has written in his time many stirring and passionate poems, he seems to lack the dramatic instinct. The present play has none of the unity of impression and the logical coherence of great drama. The revolt of Brasidas, the revolutionary, ebbs away inexplic- ably. There seems no particular reason why the king should behave as he does ; and the murder of the victorious general, Volmar, has no real significance in the development of the plot. What Mr. Watson has done is to make a story of little intrinsic) value the vehicle for some very beautiful poetry. Without rhetorical effect these simple, almost prosaic lines are kindled again and again into magic. His later verse is more austere than his earlier work, but it represents a maturer and more cunning art. Take such a line as
"Thou wart more callous than the lean-lipped sea"
or Parmenio's fine metaphor :
"How covetable that strictly bounded mind, No shreds of twilight hanging loose upon it! Mine own loans out into the dark, and so Hazards its very balance, in hope to catch The footfall of events are they arrive, And from the dark wins nothing."
At a lower height Mr. Watson's artistry is well exemplified in the scene where Hesperus and Venora examine Volmar's gift of jewels. No better instance could be found of deft cataloguing which is at the same time poetry.
"Do but mark The wondrous workmanship 1—stone after stone Carved into shape of life, or overwrought With fancies, dreams, out of old Grecian story. Hero Hermes binds Ixion to the wheel; Hero is the yet unfreed Andromeda ; Here Theseus slays the Minotaur ; and there A naked soul quails before Rhadamanthus, The cold judge of tho dead. On this is figured The maiden goddess of the bow and quiver; On this, Medea drives her dragon team, Lo, Psycho hero, at last made one with Eros, And all her sorrows over. And on that sard You may behold Achilles, not in wrath, But with a brow of pity, as when ho mourned Penthesilea."
If the dialogue on the whole lacks dramatic force, an exception must be made for the king's fine outburst in scene iii. and for the talk of the peasants, which is always vivid and memorable.
* The Heralds of the Daum. By William Watson. Loudon: John Lam. [48. ed. not.] •
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