MR. BOURDILLON'S NEW POEMS.* IN virtue of certain well-marked and

engaging qualities Mr. Bourdillon occupies an honourable and even distinguished

position among the lyrists of the later Victorian age; and the modest volume before us, though its contents are of un- equal merit, will certainly maintain the reputation he has earned by his earlier achievements. The mere technique of his verses is not invariably above reproach, but at least he does not lay himself open to the reproach which applies to so many minor poets; it cannot be said of his poems materiain superavit opus. There is nearly always something in them

that was worth saying, and it is generally expressed with grace and always with brevity. There is only one poem in the whole book of more than fifty lines in length, and even here compression has been rigorously exercised by the writer. We may quote from it the following stanzas—the poem takes the form of a protest against realism in art

a propos of the Shelley Memorial at Oxford—because they illustrate with no little felicity Mr. Bourdillon's use of poetry as a vehicle for criticism, besides defining his outlook on art:— "Not his the fault, the sculptor's! Is it ours,

Who leave no more to Art her old domain Of Fancy, and though sky and sea she scours No more allow her to present us plain Her aery visions, or to unseen things Lend bodies visible and birdlike wings ?

• Minuscular Lyrics of Nature, Art, and Love. By Francs William Boar- iBloa. London: Lawrence and Bonen. She bears Egyptian bondage, set to make

No likeness but what workman souls may see And test by finger touch—the fowler's lake, The fisher's river-side, the woodman's tree, The face in soulless hours of common life The body naked for the surgeon's knife.

Here had the Greek made plain in mortal form

The seed of the Immortals, the half-god ; Here had the Florentine shown flesh all warm

With mystic fire-tints from the Rose of God ; The rudest missal-scribe, his rough child-way

Had drawn the soul-shape 'scaping from the clay.

We only, lords of lightning and of light,

All Nature's magic working to our wand, Are yet forbidden the most simple eight Of the informing soul in sea or land, In hills and clouds and the blue deeps above, And woman's beauty, and tho face we love."

That is an eloquent plea for the continuance.of the idealising

method in art, the only method which could recommend itself to the finely imaginative mind which has given us the following remarkable sonnet entitled " Shadows "

:- "Most strange it is to stand when shades are free—

Loosed from the light that chained them here and there,.

To hold their hushed dominion everywhere—

To stand and commune with them silently.

For one was bound by daylight's tyrant glare, The faithful follower of a cur to be ;

And one was forced—light fetters needed he—

To wait all day upon a maiden fair.

And each wore then the shape of love or loathing Of him whom Day their daylong master made ; Now all have doffed their loved or hated clothing And mingle o'er the earth in shapeless shade.

And we, when Death shall loose our souls from Se If, Shall shudder to have served so foul an elf."

In the foregoing sonnet there is perhaps more of the true poetic quality than in any other poem in the volume. This is all the more worthy of notice, because Mr. Bourdillon is by no means uniformly successful in his handling of the sonnet form. For subtleness of external observation nothing is. better than the stanzas headed " An English Eden"

"Roses drop their petals all around

In that enchanted ground, And all the air is murmurous with sound

From the white-tumbling weir ; So that all lesser voices heard anear Do half unreal appear.

As one half waking from a dreamless sleep Is fain his thoughts to keep, Thus floating ever 'twixt the night's black deep And the blank glare of day ; So in that Eden pauses life half-way, 'Twixt dawning and full day."

The lines we have italicised convey with admirable simplicity and truth what one has often felt but never put into words. Here, again, is a beautiful little poem in which the affinity between the moods of Nature and of the human heart is expressed with singular charm and picturesqueness :—

" The storm is dying with the day, And crimson fringes fret the gray ; The shifting clouds show lakes of blue, And in the West the sun looks through.

Listen, through all the woods is plain The music of melodious rain, And from the oak the blackbird's psalm Hushes the weeping woods to calm.

0 Nature, whom thy children trust, Mother of myriads, it is just ! My grief has had thy tears awhile, Smile now for others who can smile!"

The poems grouped under the head of " Love," "Man's Love," and "Maiden's Love" please us lees. In their brevity and concentration of thought they challenge com- parison with the lyrics of Heine, but fall short of the poignant sincerity of utterance of the great German lyrist. We may single out, however, " The Bird and the Beacon" as representative of Mr. Botirdillon's happiest achievement in

giving poetic expression to the cri du cceur :— " Poor bird that battiest with the storm To gain the beacon-light, Then fall'st a wounded woeful form Into the gulfs of night !

A thousand lips that light may bless : To thee'tie the last bitterness.

A light was given to the earth, Wearing a woman's name ; A thousand tongues have told her worth And duatbless is her fame.

But I Wfli the f;pc,n1-, bird, that there

Salvation sought, and found despair."

ft is not often that one finds so much imaginative, insight, delicacy of observation, and distinction of style in a volume of such diminutive proportions.