SOME VOLUMES OF VERSE.* IF there were room for impressionism

in the making of verse, Mr. Phillimore might attain higher rank as an artist than be at present holds. Unfortunately, we cannot stand at a distance from some effort of imagination or thought and judge of its value by the general effect. We have to ask,— Do the lines scan ? Are the pauses effective and the rhymes complete ? Does the sense dominate the metre, or the metre the sense ? How does Mr. Phillimore fare under such an examination? Not altogether well. Take this, the first stanza of "Summer ":— " Her cloak is of the purple dusk that rims

Beaches remote of Mediterranean seas ;

She stars her hair with sparks the dolphin frees From moonless calms round Sicily as he swims."

This sounds very well—at a distance, so to speak ; but it will hardly bear inspection. The dolphin cannot be said to "free" sparks. The word is a chemical term, as an acid may be set free. Then, again, the inversion in "round Sicily as he swims" is inadmissible. It makes " swims " too emphatic. Both are cases of metre dominating. Nevertheless, Mr. Phillimore has some of the qualities of a poet, a certain afflu- ence of thought and language, and an opulent fancy. " Viator" (xxiv.), though not free from the faults indicated above, is a fine poem, with its reminiscences of Italian landscapes, as, for instance :—

" How that first sunbeam on Assisi fell

To wake Saint-Mary-of-the-Angels' bell, Before the tides of noonday washed the pale Mist-bloom from off the purple Umbrian vale !

Multitudinous colonies of my love !

But there's a single village dear above Cities and scenes, a township of kind hearts

The quick Bolts laughs to and departs Burying his snowy leaps in pools of green.

My tower that climbs to see what can be seen Towards Three Crosses or the high Glen daisies, Or where the great white highway southward blazes !"

Any reader who may remember "The Disciples" will cer- tainly be disappointed when be looks into Mrs. E. Hamilton- King's new volume, The Hours of the Passion. There is some- thing of the same technical skill, and touches of imagination and subtlety of thought, but the spirit seems to us fettered. Here, however, is some blank verse which it would be difficult to match in any singer of the day :— " No month is unenchanted of the merle,

Whose world is here, who keeps his world with him, Singing out of the heaven of his own breast :— The most unearthly music of the year, Down in those low dim dawns of Candlemas, Drawn from a depth ineffable of peace.

Sweetest of all at this suspense of time, Where night and day are one veiled borderland,

In many-shaded greys of gauzy air,

Pencilled with filmy February trees, And luminous with glistening globes of rain."

Mr. Lysaght has accomplished in Poems of the Unknown Way what the writer of minor verse very seldom accom- plishes,—he has made some, at least, of his work really in- teresting. It is in the set of poems to which he gives the name of "A Ritual" that we find this quality. He begins with "A Confession of Unfaith," a truly powerful utter- ance of "honest doubt." The attitude of the speaker in "A Confession" is less clear, and the " Psalm " has a certain echo of epicureanism about it. What can the Psalmist mean when among his aspirations is to— "Take our heritage as sharers In the wonder and the strife, And the glory and the sin"?

In the other "Psalm" also which divides the two "Lessons" we find an utterance which, whatever spiritual meaning may be read into it, is of dubious worth in the face of actual facts :—

" Let Fear its graven tables break,

And Love our ten commandments make."

• (1.) Poems. By John Svrinnerton Phillimore. Glasgow : James MacLehose and Sons. [4e. 6d.]—(2.) The Boars of the Passion, and other Poems. By Harriet Eleanor Harailton•King. London : Grant Richards. [5s. net..1—(3.) Poems of the Unknown Way. By Sidney Horse Lysaght. London : Macmillan and Co. [44.6d. net. J—(4.) Mirth and Music. By F. B. Doveton. London : J. Baker and Son. [2a. 6d. net.]—(5.) Verses. By Charles Lusted. London : Grant Richards. [5e. net.]—(6.) The Christmas Rom. By Hugh Macmillan, D.D. London : Macmillan and Co. [2s. net.]—(7.) For Charlie's Sake, and ether Lyrics and Ballads. By John Williamson Palmer. London : Funk and Wagualls Company.—(8.) Rainbows. By Olive Cadence. London : John Lane. [3s. 6&]—(9.) Poems, By Sir Edward J. Reed. London : Grant Richards. [Is. net.]—(10.) Lyra Pastorali& By Richard Wilton, M.A. London : Methuen and Co. [25. 6d.]

We are very far from reaching the time when we can do without the "Thou shalt not." The "Lessons," of which we may say generally that they tell us of human progress, are both fine. Here is the concluding passage of "A Second Lesson" (from the Apocalypse)

"I heard

The voice of the Eternal:—' Ask no more.

The road must ever be an unknown road On which man fares, and this alone his faith, To love and labour asking not the end.' So passed the voice, and once again there reigned A silence in the everlasting hills, And o'er the hills for ever rolled away, And ever formed itself anew, the cloud Whose name is Death, and on the cloud there fell The wonder of the light whose name is Love; And stretching far away, here lost in mist, Here in the light emerging, I beheld The unknown road.

Then from my dream I woke.

And lo! I stood in a familiar place At nightfall, and around me heard again Earth's woodland notes, and murmuring of the sea Borne on the south-west wind, and saw the lights Aglow in homely windows, and the path That led me to the door of those I loved ; And o'er the darkening woodland, and beyond

The dim horizon of the sea' arose

The Stars that shone upon the unknown way."

Mr. Doveton's Muse is certainly happier in her lighter than in her graver moods. The "Mirth" portion of his volume, where he is expressly comic, cannot indeed compare with the excellent humorous verse of Messrs. Godley and Owen Seaman, but it is fluent and easy ; and in the "Music," which occupies more than two-thirds of the volume, such poems as " Phyllis " show the ftviiter at his best, and such as "The Larger Hope" at his worst. From the literary point of view the following is mere doggerel :—

" For, to affirm that faith in dogmas vain Can dispel woe, or human sins remove, Snaps a firm link in that causation's chain Which binds Creation in a bond of love, Since, strictly, neither creed nor rite can cause Those same results which yet they can produce; Such ignorance of simplest natural laws Is in these latter days without excuse."

And surely of all ways of dealing with this subject the most harmful is to scoff at those who hold by a definite creed. Here is something for which Mr. Doveton is better fitted :—

" When Phyllis smiles I do not need the sun; My room is flooded with a golden glow; Murky the day may be, the landscape dun, But the glad sunlight I can well forego ! Bleak Britain ranks among the fairy isles When Phyllis smiles.

When Phyllis speaks her voice is music's own—

You think of fountains and the streamlet's song; Amid sweet sounds that voice I hear alone, And for celestial strains I cease to long.

How rare the flush that mantles o'er her cheeks When Phyllis speaks !"

The sentiment of Mr. Lusted's verse is sweet and whole- some, but the expression is feeble. It is a puzzle, not by any means suggested by this volume for the first time, how a cultivated man, familiar, it is easy to see, with good English literature, can bring himself to use words and phrases which he must know to be more or less out of place because they suit the rhyme. Here, for instance, is a little piece entitled *Herrick." The author, we feel quite sure, knows his Herrick and appreciates him, and yet has not studied him to much purpose, as far as the writing of verse is concerned :- "If Herrick you would read aright

And crowd the moments with delight."

Surely this second line does not suit the quiet leisureliness of Hers-ink's verse. How commonplace, again, is the third line in the following triplet:—

" Thus Herrick's welcome muse engage And wanton with his pleasing page Delightful both to youth and age."

We hope that Dr. Hugh Macmillan will not think it rude if we say that we prefer his prose to his verse. His keen observation of Nature, and his aptitude to find parables in the .growth of flower and leaf, make whatever he may write welcome, but we cannot feel that a metrical form gives his thoughts a stronger attraction. Anyhow he possesses the cardinal virtue of being interesting. Here is a specimen

which shows Dr. Macmillan both in his strength and in his weakness :—

" They tell us that the homely corn that grows, From russet stem and leaf, our daily bread, Was once a lily; which by various steps Of menial work, became degraded thus. It left its high-born sisters in their robes Of gorgeous idleness to clothe itself In this plain dress for common household use. Its bright-hued petals, nectar-cup, and store Of fragrance sweet, that insect lovers wooed, It sacrificed ; and only wandering winds, That have no sense of beauty or delight Now woo its sober blooms with heedless sighs. But for this noble humbling of itself, God has more highly honoured it, to be The chief support of human beings, made In His own image—rulers of the world."

Mr. Palmer gives us some good spirited verse in For Charlie's Sake. His patriotic ballads, written for occasions less known on this side of the Atlantic than on the other, are full of vigour, and have a lilt that cannot fail to conquer its way. "The Maryland Battalion" and "Reid at Fayal" are good speci- mens. But the poem that will win all suffrages, we think, is "For Charlie's Sake," a beautiful and tender expression of resignation. Here are some lines :—

" Row is it with the lad 2--'Tis welL

Nor would I any miracle Night stir my sleeper's tranquil trance, Or plague his painless countenance.

I would not any Seer might place His staff on my immortal's face Or lip to lip, and eye to eye, Charm back his pale mortality. No, Shunammite ! I would not break God's quiet. Let them weep who wake."

Rainbows is a volume of carefully wrought verse with more feeling than thought in it. Here is a piece which, though its meaning could be put into a very few words, has a quite un- common completeness of form :—

" THE LETTER.

They lit the fire and fairies came To dance in flying cloaks of flame.

They drew the curtains and the day Entered the room divine and gay, Still in her rainbow dawn disguise; With robe of rose and amethyst, And silver hood of morning mist Drawn down to hide her golden eyes.

And there was one came in with her, White-winged, a dainty messenger, A little page from Love's own court, And lovely news of you he brought, My fairy Prince so far away, So far away from fairy land, I find it hard to understand That I shall see your face to-day.

The morning only waits for you To make it perfect . . . how that blue Unclouded colour of the skies Reminds me of your great blue eyes, And that red rose-cup full of rain Wakes dreams of your dear month, and there The light is golden like your hair.

Oh, miracle of joy and pain, To hold you in my arms again!"

Some of Sir Edward Reed's Poems have been before the world for many years, and some hare received praise from excellent judges. This collection will doubtless be welcomed by many. So will Mr. Wilton's Lyra Pastoralis, a gathering from several volumes. Some of the pieces have found their way into anthologies of no small repute.