POBTRY.—Verse-Tales, Lyrics, and Translations. By Emily H, Hickey. (Elkin Matthews.)—Miss

Hickey's volume is full of -thought and feeling, expressed, for the most part, in melodious verse. "Creeping Jenny," where the bed-ridden child in a town garret talks to the plant of which this is the popular name; • "Katey," a piteous tale of a wrong done to a woman ; "In Shadow Ono, and One in Light," a powerful expression of the contrasts Of life, are among the best of the poem. But, on the whole, we -think "Margery Dew" (which has been already published, we .see, in Longman's Magazine) is the happiest effort of all. Seldom has a nursery-rhyme been interpreted in a more beautiful fashion. Margery Paw, who "sells her bed and lies upon straw," is a wealthy woman who gives up her state to share the lot of the .poor :— "Oh, riches are good to have, and riches are good to spend,

And she might have been rich, and yet to the poor a helper and friend; For the poor with grateful hearts should take what the rich can spare ;— 0 mad little Margery flaw, what a foolish girl you wore! Soo-saw, Margery Davi. You might have girdled your life with all the fairest and best Of colour and perfume and form ; and made a beautiful rest In pleasant places ; a palace of glory anti fair delight ;— And you live with tho poor by day, and lie in the straw by night. Seaqiatr, Margery Data.

Yes, Margery Dom, you go in simplest clothing clad,

And your soul through your body shines, and maketh all men glad : You tread not on velvet soft, nor food from costly ware ;—

But wherever you come straightway all things grow good and fair. Scessaw, 3fargery Dew."

One more example of Miss Hickey's verse we must quote, a not unworthy treatment of a great theme :—

" EMPEROR EVERMORE.'

Who bad thee do and suffer bids thee rest : Sleep, greatest Hohenzollern, on His breast.

He gave thee strength of body and soul, and then He gave thee will to do and think for men.

He taught thee to possess thy soul and wait : Recalled thee to the ruler's high estate, Soldier and statesman, great in field and reds, Strong in thy thought and glorious in thy deed; Yet mightier strength and brighter glory shod Kaiser, on thee, by suffering Perfected

For more than empire welded, battle won. Is to have learnt to say Thy will to done.

So, on thy life of life Ho wrote it plain, All the divine significance of pain.

Thee, when the great death-angel name, he found King nuanointed, emperor unorowned.

Better than gold and oil of sovranty, His patience crowned thee and anointed thee; Thee, by His grace Who loved and did and bore, King over pain, and suffering's emperor."

Poems. By Nina F. Layard, (Longmans.)—Thore is some good verse in Miss Layard's volume, but a great part of it is too much like what we have seen before, and where she essays to be original in form, as in "The Dead Day," "A Song of Tears," and "Life Lore," she scarcely pleases. Yet she can sometimes write with real originality and power, The Rout of the Rooks" and "A March Howl" are excellent. It is pleasant to get out of the close atmosphere of sentiment into the fresh breezes of Nature, Here is an extract from the first of these two, what Farmer Johnson's little daughter said when the farmer, provoked out of all patience by the ravage of the rooks, sent her to shoot them, and what

followed thereupon :—

"‘ Dear black robbers of rye and oats,

With your silky heads and your glossy coats, Dear black robbers of oats and rye, I always liked Robin Hood on the sly, And would take his part if I dared be true, For I think he was handsome and bold, liko you. Have no fear of one or my gun, For I love you well as I watch the sun Kissing your necks with a sheeny light, Till your feathers are purple and smooth and bright, Afar I thought you as 'black as ink, But a rook is beautiful near, I think.'

(law! caw! caw What of the 111X0110118 beak and craw ?

What of the pecking and picking and prigging. The delving and diving, the drilling and digging P Suddenly from the field uprose That hungry army of rooks and crows; Suddenly did the sunlight fade From the golden hair of the little maid, For over the face of the morning sky They spread the a funeral canopy ; Spread, and moved, and sailed away As the night that is leaving the new.come day.

But the farmer's daughter, who watched the while, Smiling a little wistful smile, Said, 'Dear robbers, I loved you so ; You were good to come, but better to go : I may not say it, but still I think It is bad for 'birds to want food or drink ; And when I go to the church to pray,

"Give us Thy bounty day by day,'

I shall whisper low white the prayer is said,

" And give to the rooks their daily breed."'" This is the vein which Miss Layard should work.—ra Middle Harbour, and other Verse. By Thomas Honey. (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—Mr. Honey has seized, and to some purpose, the opportunity which is given to the poets of a young country. He describes with force unfamiliar scenes of life and Nature. His verse is "chiefly Australian." "A Squatter of 'GB," speculating in stock and ruined by drought ; a" Shearer," a skilful workman and good comrade, drowned, no one knows how, in some safe bathing- place ; "Found Dead," a traveller discovered in the bush, with photographs which tell the story of his life, are among his subjects, and he handles them with a certain power, though his command of metro and language is far from complete. Hero is a picture of the more dismal kind ("In the Lignum "):— "When slimmer reigns in a land drought.smitten The ohaunels red are agape with thirst,

And the grey low fiats whore his hand has written Sentence, shrink like a fees a =sod.

And ever are silent of all sweet voices—

The crow's harsh note or the swan's wild scream, The shrill alarm of the ducks, and noises Of parrots, mix like a sick man's dream, The eve is filled with the colours pallid, Bush.groy, glaueous, or pale (Nil green, Faint as if summer long and eat's]. Blended all to a dreary mean.

Up from the bare ground white and rotten The lignum is black in a desolate plain, Dead of despair in a place forgotten Of sweet cool air and of gentle rain. From dawn to dusk of the long day's shining, Dark to dawn of the hot long night, Blackened and blasted with hopeless pining,

Withered and broken if by spite."

"The Return of the Contingent" looks like an imitation of Walt Whitman, a fancy which we recommend Mr. Haney to eschew for the future. The chief poem of the volume, from which it takes its name, is an unsuccessful effort, as far as the blank verse is con- cerned. Such lines as-

" Evoning came. Down from the western hills," are quite impossible. But here too the interest of these subjects redeems the faults of expression.—There is some vigorous verse of a kind not often essayed in these days, in the melancholy tale which bears the appropriate title of lifiserrima : a Narrative Poem of the Present Day (Griffith, Farran, and Co.) Here is a sample:— " I loved. And he P—Oh I misery, oh I my woo,

Life has antagonists we little know ; Its tangible perils, fates by land or sea, For these our natural filiation holds the key, Assail what will, the postern-gates of sense

Keep, night and day, their vantage of defense;

But the wild brood that gender in the brain, Delusion', honeyed lies, hope's legerdemain, What entail. to can salvo their hidden bane, Whence spring they P—There be phantom powers of ill That warp the credulous fancy to the will ; Nay, ofttimes, in this earth and girdling air Strange mystery works, to cozen and ensnare, Fair, trieksome shapes that lure us to our doom, Caught in the iron mesh of some remorseless loom;

But ah I fur me a defter craftsman wrought

Its entwing aoreeries in belief and thought ; —The juggler was myself, the lie home-taught I There crept into my soul, by that still more, A thoneand whisperings of hops—and fear ;

Fear, for love's newborn blossom dwells unseen, A meek.eyed hermit, in its bower of green,

Throws not one glance across the wastes of sky That part it from that homaged fire on high ; But then comes hope, and with a Zephyr's wing Fans the weak, timorous nursling of the spring, Bids the young life aspire, and, one by one,

Lifts its delighted petals to their sun.',