POETRY. — From America we have three small books, the first of
which, Songs and Lyrics, by Ellen Mackay Hutchinson (Osgood and Co.), notwithstanding a few little affectations, belonging to what one might call the Sunflower Superstition, is full of tender and beautiful sentiment, which does not degrade itself into sentimentality. Amongst these poems, all of them short and all musical, we select the " Wind-flower " as a fair specimen :- "I thought to find my darling waiting in the wood,—
Did anybody see her, to-day or yesterday ?
She wears a snowy gown, And the softest cloak of down.
Its a timid air she has, and a modest little way.
It's no use to ask the Wind, for he's jealous of my dear ; Ile wants her for himself, and he woos her all the time ; But woo her all he dare, My darling doesn't care,— She shakes her little head to his reason and his rhyme.
I thought to Sod her hidden in the brown and rustling leaves ;
The days are long and sunny warm, where can my treasure stay? Ah! here you are, my sweet,
Mere, smiling at my feet,
Spite of all your timid air, and your modest little way."
—Come for Arbutus, and other Wild Bloom, by S. L. Oberholtzer (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia), notwithstanding its flowery title and its dedication to J. G. Whittier, cannot be equally commended. The lady, who prefixes her portrait also to her volume of poems, may please her own friends by the combination ; but to the outside world, though the thoughts and feelings are all to be admired, the expres- sion is too poor a vehicle for them to give pleasure. We shall do her a greater service by passing them over, than by quoting them.— The third, and larger volume, is called Three Vows, and other Poems, by William Batchelder Greene. (Putnam, Now York ; Sampson Low and Co., London.)—The longest of the poems, the one which gives its name to the book, tells its story well ; but, after all, is more readable than poetical, and is unequal in its style. The next, " Satan of the Sea," is a rendering of a fierce, wild, Scandinavian legend, scarcely so clearly told, and it is a pity that any one should write "billet's crest," or speak of "cadent tears," or of the "skipping earth," thus giving just the opposite idea to the one we naturally and thankfully asso- ciate with the unfelt movement of our planet. That moment is a happy one for a poet in which he is able ruthlessly to cut out. epithets which, however striking to himself, are to others incongruous and forced.—Turning to the productions of our own island, we have from the Lake District, Sonnets of the English Lakes, by Hardwicke D. Rawnsley (Longmnns), dedicated to the memory of C. T. Turner, and not unworthy of their association. They will, of course, give moat pleasure to those who know the district well ; but some of them appeal to all, such as xiv., " The Larch," and xxxvi., " The Squirrel"—
Light-hearted dweller in the voiceless wood, Pricking thy tweelled airs in hope to tell Where, under, in thy baste, the acorn fell ; Now, for excess of summer in thy blood, Running through all thy tricksy change of mood, Or vaulting upward to thy citadel,
T•i seek the mossy nest, the miser-cell, And chuckle o'er thy winter's hoard of food. Miser ? I do thee wrong to call thee PO ; For, from the swinging larch plumes overhead, In showers of whispering music thou dust shed Gold, thick as dust where'er thy light feet go. Keep, busy almoner, thy gifts of gold ! Be still! mine eyes ask only to behold?'
—From a little farther north we have the Upland Tarn : a Village Idyll. (David Douglas, Edinburgh.)—It occupies the whole of the small volume, and is, in fact, a novelette in verse ; but we regret to be unable to find either originality in the tale or beauty in the verse. —Far more interesting, though not free from faults, is the True Tragedy of Rienzi, by John Todhunter. (Kegan Paul and Co.)— The drama, although indebted, as its author says, to the late Lord Lytton's well-known romance, is, for the most part, founded on the statements of old chroniclers. The life and death of a patriot make a fine study, and the writer of this play has, we fancy, felt this, more than he has been able to make his readers feel it. Yet there are some very good passages, and a few fine lines. The author says he intended it for the stage, and as the scenes are many of them striking, and the outward show of that time was 41.
eminently picturesque, we should think it might be easily adapted for private nse.—Satan Bound, a lyrical drama, by Wimsett Bould- ing (Bemrose and Sons), is a longer poem, and dealing with a sub- ject of proportionate difficulty, perhaps one of the most difficult with which any human mind can deal. To found, on what is scarcely more than a hint, in the last mysterious book of the New Testament, a connected narrative in which personages hardly realised by human minds shall play their parts consistently, and above all, to present as a dread personality the central figure, is no slight task ; especially as it provokes comparison with the work of some of the greatest poets, for though the actual point in the history of Satan here selected is not the same as that of Milton, any attempt to delineate the great enemy of man must recall to our minds the " Satan" of his grand epic. It would not be possible in a short notice like this to enter fully on such a subject, therefore we advise readers who have leisure to judge for themselves. In several passages the author shows, as we think, a very true conception of the diabolical nature of sneering mockery. It is so much more mean to sneer and mock, than to take up a position of lofty contempt. "The Chant of the Winds," almost at the end of the poem, has in it a good deal of thought and beauty of expression, and might almost be taken by itself as a picture of millennial harmony. It is something not to have failed entirely on ground which has proved fatal to some who showed a high degree of power elsewhere.—We can only jest men- tion Sir Hervey's Bride, and other Poems (Marcus Ward and Co.), by F. G. Reilly Hoey, and pass on with mach more pleasure to notice a small collection called Poems of English Heroism, edited by A. C. Auchmuty (Kogan Paul and Co.), which really answers to its name, and includes all our well-known favourite passages, such as St. Cris- pin's Day in Henry V., as well as the modern renderings of old English ballads, and, in one instance, that of Simon de Montfort's victory at Lewes, of a contemporary Latin poem. It will be a useful book to teachers, and we are glad to see in it Longfellow's verses on Florence Nightingale, which show another side of heroism to the young.
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