POETRY. — Songs of a Wayfarer. By F. Wyville Home. (Picker-
ing.)—We think well enough of Mr. Home's performance and promise to make it seem worth while to speak plainly. He has no common gifts of poetical thought, of imagination, and of expression, but he is in danger of turning them to ill-account. Such poems as "Art and the Creeds" and "Nature and the Creeds" may pass, if they are but the expressions of casual moods ; if they are the deliberate expression of a perthanent attitude of thought and feeling, they are full of deadly mischief. Again, there is a series of sonnets, preceded by a poem called " The Shadow Teaches," which have a certain merit as 'literary exercises, but as expressive of feeling have a very sickly and unmanly character. In the spirit of " voluntary humility," if we may borrow the phrase, which breathes through them, we are reminded of the extravagances and affectations of the most unreal love-poetry of the Elizabethan age. Mr. Home is a young man, and may be desirous to show us what he can do, but this is not the song that will touch the heart or conquer the judgment of this generation. In refreshing contrast to these faults is the excellence of not a few of the poems, of those especially which de- scribe nature. Here, a delicate fancy and an uncommon gift of melody show themselves at their best. What needs correction is nothing more serious than an occasional carelessness. " Abashless " .seems to us a quite impossible word. What, again, are " footless mountains P" We suppose from the context that the poet means that when the sunlight breaks on the summit, we do not think of the foot,—but the expression is not a happy one. Here are some stanzas on "Spring," which the poets, with a faith pathetically enduring, still continue to sing :—
4' 0 comest thou hither ! our pride, Our darling, and frer32 as a bride, Field-flowers at thy feet, and blue skies overhead, and our lore by thy side ?
We have seen thee, anointed with dew, Stoop where the North Wind blew, And breathe on the brooding snow, and draw thy Wind-flower through.
We have seen thee soften the skies, With sweet tears shed from thine eyes, And fill with odour the fallow-land where the lark's nest lies.
We have seen thee in field and wood Unfurl the leaf from the bud, As a sun-flash out of a cloud on the sea and the flight of the scud.
We have seen thy virginal blush When the dawn's voice broke the night's hush With thy praise in the song of the lark, and thy love in the throat of the thrush."
—The Marriage before Death. By George Barlow. (Remington.) The principal poem in this volume we shall pass by with brief notice. We are sorry to see that so much power, which Mr. Barlow shows in a strangely intermittent way, should have been wasted on it. It seems to us an ignoble lesson, from the philosophy of " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Nor can we say that "Tux-The," "a tale of love and savage superstition," is much to our taste. The other poems show a power of expression which sometimes seems quite to master the writer. Here is an instance of extravagance of thought, as well as expression :- " So I swoon on for ever, without shadow of endeavour, As a passively-receiving image well content to serve ; While her presence winds about me, stealing steathily throughout me,— Wakening musicarre-echo of response in every nerve.
Yielding up, without resistance, individual existence, With every gate of being thrown wide open to receive, First, a consciousness of Alice—second, of the great world-palace, With its rainbow-rippling echoes—in full triumph I achieve.
As a river to the ocean, with mute majesty of motion, Rolls the river of her consciousness convolving into mine— And our consoiousnesses plighted, in a bridal band united, Roam from region unto region, a world-consciousness to twine' In the poem "To Mazzini Triumphant," this power is at its best. The writer has a noble theme and a definite belief to express, and he rises to his subject, though he does not always keep to the level, and falls notably below it at the end. His facility in wielding the difficult Spenserian stanza is remarkable. Mr. Barlow has elevated himself somewhat above what we remember of his last volume of poems, but much is yet needed before his undoubted power can be worthily em- ployed.—The Thames : a Poem. By John Stapleton. (C. Began Paul.) Mr. Stapleton quotes a passage from Lord Macaulay's " Journal " which justifies his choice of a theme. Certainly, sibs, sent consuls dignce, but the muse is not equal to the task. The verse of this volume is decidedly prosaic; we cannot say anything better of it than that it is fairly correct. Every one who knows the Thames will allow the truth of the complaint of the following stanza:— "But worse the crews of little launches are,
By steam impelled with wild impetuous speed, Who twirl the rudder from each greater jar, But rarely in his punt the helpless fisher heed,"
(" twirling the rudder from each greater jar" being interpreted to mean "getting out of the way of big boats,") but we can scarcely commend the expression. It cannot be said, " Facit indignatio versum."—The Four Gardens. (Elliot Stock.) It requires some- thing more than an ordinary courage to try the same theme as Milton. We know the fate which Horace predicted for the imitator of Pinder ; and the flight of Milton is scarcely less perilously high. If any one wants to see how the venture succeeds, let him compare the writer's account of the scheme of Redemption, as contrived in what he calls the "August Assemblage of the Blessed Trinity" with the third book of the Paradise Lost. The author has taken, it is clear, a vast amount of trouble with his poem, and has incorporated into it, not without some skill, no little of the language of Scripture. His verse is cor- rect, but it wants dignity and power.
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