MR. LANGBRIDGE'S POEMS.* MR. LANGBRIDGE has hitherto been best known

to us as a lively Trish poet with a large dash of humour. Here he appears for the first time as an idealist of the deepest, and we might.almost say most passionate, convictions. And there are many of his serious poems that are both pathetic and graceful, though we cannot think that he succeeds so well in

his later style as he did in his former. To the hnmourist a genuine love of exaggeration is not only natural, it is even appropriate. Humour as such gains by that delicate exaggera- tion of some of the mistakes or excesses or defects of human nature which serve to bring out its many disproportions. To the humouriat as such the detection of false emphasis or of undue shortcoming is of the essence of his art. It is by

the subtlety and force of the touches through which the poet effects this discovery of inconsistencies and irrelevancies that he sets.loose the springs of our laughter. But if in a serious poem the poet introduces unintentionally the same disposition to over-colour or under-colour the sentiments or passions with which he deals, he jars the feelings to which he intends to appeal, and diminishes instead of carrying with him the sympathies of his audience. And Mr. Langbridge seems to us to err in this direction in not a few of the most serious of his poems. For instance, in the poem which he puts earliest in his volume," The Scales of Heaven," he not only represents truly enough the elements of impurity which enter into a good deal of the most earnest eloquence of the pulpit, a good deal of the most benevolent philanthropy of the laity, and a good deal of the most strenuous fidelity of the martyr, but he appears to us to exaggerate the virtue of an act of warm and disinterested impulse into the highest kind of deliberate nobility :—

"Again the warden of the scales Pointed to earth, and they who watched beheld Rainbows that dawn'd and died: and, after that, A city cellar, crowded with coarse lives,

Fetid and dank, and heavy with the reek Of drink and smoke : and there were evil jests And dreadful laughter. Into that safe earth . Burrow'd by human vermin, lo ! there ran,

• In limping wise, yet swiftly, a young lad, Ancient as sin, wilted and wizen'd and warp'd

• 'With ten black years, all winter : to his bare Breast-bone, beneath his fringed and pennon'd rags, Hugging a piece of offal newly claw'd

From some rank guest-house floor : and after him, Drawn by the savour of the hidden meat, A small dog of the city. Having crawled

To his close corner, darting here and there Looks fierce and furtive, forth he brought the meat

• The Sbelea of Heaven : Poems, Narrative, Legendary, and Meditative, with a POO &Midi. By Frederick Langbridze. London: Elliot Stock.

And tore it with his glance. Yet ere his teeth Clash'd on the bite, his quick and roving eyes Lit on the dog beside him. Lank it was, With ribs that hoop'd stark famine, and one foot Dangled as broken. So the ravenous boy, Owning superior hunger, rent the meat And flung the dog a morsel. Then he thought Himself to eat, but ere the bit could pass His snarling lips, a paw was on his knee, Urging remembrance. That piece too he flung, And so went on feeding the gulping dog Till all was given. Then on the sopping straw The child lay down, and, curling close for warmth,

The dog beside him. And the wounded thing

Shiver'd and moan'd, lifting its paw in pain, Till, tearing off a streamer of his rags, The boy made shift to bind it. Eased at length,

His little trembling neighbour lick-'d his face,

And thrust the sound foot fondly in the grasp Of the strong patron. So they lay awhile, Blest in each other's warmth and fellowship, And soon were sleeping. Then the deed arose Mounting to Heaven, and, on the crystal scales Falling, demanded judgment. And, behold! Even as a stone that sinks in a clear well, Down drave the scale that held it, and its peer Flung up the outweighted diamond, and all Heaven Shouted : 'The crown is won !'

That deed of sincere human pity and self-sacrifice is no doubt pure and laudable in a high degree ; but is there not a touch of exaggeration in the sentiment which makes that single act of eager self-renunciation take "the crown of Heaven" for "the best deed of earth " ? We are far from saying that its spirit may not be purer than that of any other of the three more ambitions actions which are weighed and come up for judgment before it. But this selection of one single act of pure impulsive pity as the climax and perfec- tion of human virtue, has in it, to our ear, that slight extra- vagance of sentiment which accords too much with the popular sympathies of the day. Surely to illustrate the justice of "The Scales of Heaven," some deed should have been chosen which was the perfect flower of a long endeavour, and not a mere victory of pure and noble but transient impulse.

Mr. Langbridge's execution, too, inclines a little too much to the more ornate effects rather than the perfect simplicity of art. His colours are a little too glowing, and often dazzle more than they delight. For example, take the following sonnet on The Great Day," the day of judgment :—

"Lo, the great day that sees God's purpose wrought ! Time in His lap doth die, a woven skein, Sin is His awful aureole, and pain On His forefinger shines, a pearl sun-caught. Yea, the great day, the end of all God's thought : The stars roll anthems, all the airy main Washes bright rapture, mingled with the strain Of human cycles to the vintage brought.

Creation praises. Lo, God lifts His hand,

Spreading mild lightning on from sphere to sphere ; The tide of triumph stops ; the planets stand ; Yea, the worlds hearken, as high God speaks clear : Broken is all the harmony I plann'd :- There is a gnat whose voice I do not hear."

What can be meant by speaking of "sin" as "the awful aureole" of God? To us such language seems to have no legitimate meaning at all. The aureole is, we suppose, the light that discriminates for us the purity and perfection of the Saint. And when applied to God, it should mean that which discriminates the perfect and unapproachable glory of Deity from the poorer glories of created and imperfect beings. In what sense then can " sin " be this to God ? The line seems to us an attempt to catch at some overstrained and unintelligible attitude of a dreamer's thought. We gather from the notes which Mr. Langbridge has appended to his poems, that this sonnet was in part at least dreamed ; he tells us expressly that the grotesquerie of the last line was so dreamed, and we imagine that that would be the best apology for the very indefensible irrelevance of the expression we are criticising. But surely if the spirit of the prophets should be subject to the prophets, still more should the eccentricities of the dreamer be subject to his reason. Mr. Langbridge tells us that as a critic he had at first rejected the bizarrerie of the last line, and substituted another less likely to provoke the smile of his readers, but that on reconsidering the matter he regarded the " grotesquerie as only skin-deep," and had felt a scruple "against tampering with the gift of a dream.",

13nt if the automatic suggestions of dreamland are to be regarded with a sort of superstitions veneration as the oracles of a hidden wisdom, where is the use of reason at all ? We cannot safely supersede reason by the wild fancies and unbridled imaginations of sleep, unless we can really persuade ourselves that the bridle which reason has resigned is super- seded by that of some superior being's control. And such an assumption would open the mind to all sorts of superstitions, cruel ones no less than pious and humane. Mr. Langbridge has certainly too much respect for the bizarreries of his own fancy.

There are, however, many bright and happy poems in the volume, though we think the ornate predominate unduly.

One of the most taking is "The Miser," which describes bow a poor wretch who had amassed something like a thousand pounds by begging, died in the midst of riches rather than ask for help, lest he should be plundered of his store of notes and gold by those whose aid he might have invited. Mr. Langbridge finds himself reflecting on the moral of this too common story :—

" Then, while I sat with half-closed eyes,

My musings dimmed and clouded, Faint, flitting forms began to rise ; They rose, and cleared, and crowded.

I looked, not heeding rags or lace, Not weighing rank or role there, But peering down through every face To read the naked soul there.

And lo ! I read—my gaze sufficed :

Each depth I did examine— Soul after soul, 0 loving Christ !

Was lean and pinched with famine !

On, on before my view they passed, In endless turmoil thronging; Some wild, some dazed, and some that cast A look of hopeless longing.

A few did heed a tender Face, A Voice of pleading pity.

That pressed unmeasured gifts of grace On all the hungering city.

'Poor souls ! ' (on spake that Voice), what lie Blinds, dulls your ears, bewitches ? Poor souls ! why will ye starve and die 'Mid free, unbounded riches ? ' "

We admire many of the reflective pieces in blank verse. Mr. Langbridge is always on the side of the poor, and no doubt the virtues of the poor are virtues which have usually run the gauntlet of many very severe temptations; but may not the same be said of most of the virtues of the rich and fortunate, quite as truly as of all but the most miserable amongst the poor, though Mr. Langbridge very pardonably ignores the great temptations of the well-to-do. and is rather hard upon their conventional shallownesses ? We are inclined to believe that no temptations are more irre- sistible, because less accompanied by solemn warnings, than the temptations to the conventionalities and superficialities of the world, while the temptations of the poor are well hedged round by warnings of the most striking kind. This is the bitter satire which Mr. Langbridge utters against the shallow worldlings :

"And for thee-0 thou, Modish bereavement's dainty devotee, Whose face and garments measure to a hair The delicately-graduated pang; Whose vigilant woe ne'er lagg'd an hour behind Its fitting shade and texture—hold thee far.

Give us a dog to lay his true head down, And nestle, only lifting solemn eyes Of troubled question, conscious of an air He may not enter : give us e'en a cat With her sleek apathy : a sunny bird Shaking shrill music through the silent house : These live their life aloof, and let us-be.

Thou only comest, a thin made-up thing Of practised sighs and simpers, doling out Bereavement's well-bred dues, exhibiting The latest charming modes in sympathy, 'Twixt shopping and the park. Yea, hold thee far. What doest thou, poor sham, with God and night, And the deep waters, and a naked soul Suck'd into blackness, with its helpless hands, And eyes that clutch the void ? Go thou and learn Of those true comforters who came to Job, And sat three days, three days, without a word, Yielding a noble heart its ancient right To break in silence. Tact and garter'd grace And fine repression thou shalt get by rote Where light fans whisper, managed voices pace, And hearts beat under velvet : Sympathy Thy hands must pluck in other sort of night Where olive-boughs drop blackness on the dews Of still Gethsemane."

That is vigorously said, but if Mr. Langbridge had as much sympathy with the temptations inducing limited natures to fall into the beaten ways of those around them, as he has with the more stormy temptations of the passions, be would not con- fine his sympathy to the failures of the stronger and coarser natures, and deny it to the creatures of conventional habit.