RECENT VERSE.* THE poetry of diablerie is a realm into

which modern poets rarely stray. Perhaps we have lost the art of it, for it demands half-faith at the least. Like the Middle Ages, our scoffing must be credulous, and a shiver should run through our defiance. Coleridge, who was a master in it, once spoke of "images from another world," such as Shakespeare's

"The fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf."

The seven short poems by "E. H. W. M." have caught some- thing of the mingled earthiness and unearthliness of true witch- craft. It must be homely, for therein lies its horror : it trans-

forms the intimate simple things of life into a mystery of darkness. In one piece the witch watches the blazoned Scrip- tural legends on the church windows, and then turns the hillside stone nine times and rides off on her ragwort staff. Inp.nother

a monk and a nun tread with devils the dance of death. Black cats, tailed mannikins, Incubus, Pan, and all the denizens of the shadows haunt these rhymes, and over all is the

"Sense of the half-corporeal things That lie where only the night-bird sings." '

The common supernatural is fatally easy of achievement, but such effects as these demand a cunning art. "E. H. W. M.'s"

fancies grip the imagination because of their homely realism and the hint of immeasurable deeps beyond. All is in keeping, from the dancing, elfish rhythm to the haunting

images which open sudden windows into the dark :- "They flit as in the moon's eclipse

Flutters some krne enchanted bird."

It is a pleasure to have Mr. Maurice Baring's poems collected in one volume. He has not reprinted all his earlier plays, but there are scenes from the Black Prince and an exquisite little masque, Proserpine, which both in its dialogue and in its lyrics seems to us Mr. Baring's most successful experiment in the dramatic form. But his real achievement is to be sought elsewhere. " Sigurd " is what Browning would have called a dramatic idyll, telling how the hero was allowed to choose the nature of his immortality, and how he chose dreamless sleep. It is a noble conception, wedded to stately verse. The sonnets contain Mr. Baring's most characteristic work-an almost feminine subtlety of feeling, great richness of colour and music, dropping on occasion to a somewhat cloying • (1) The Boor. By E. H. W. M. Oxford : Blackwell. [1s. net.]-(2) The Collected PlIeM8 of Maurice Baring. London John Lane. (5s. net.]-%2ligms Green Helmet and, Other Poems. By W. B. Yeats. Dundram : The Cuala

[10s. 6d.]-(4) Eyes of Youth. By various writers. London : Herbert and

[3s. 6d. net.]-(5) The Story of Nefrekepta. By Gilbert Murray. Oxford At the Clarendon Press. L4. 6d. net.]-(6) Sele ctions front Ancient Ina h Poetry. Translated by Eitno Meyer. London : Constable and Co. [38. 65. net.] -(7) Trobador Poets. Translated by Barbara Smythe. London : Chatto and Windt:a [5s. net.]-(8) The Piper. By Josephine Preston Peabody. London : Constable and Co. [5e. neta---(9) Juana of Castile. By May Earle. London: W. Heinemann. [58. net.}-(10) The Accuser, dal The Tragedy of Pardon. London: Sidgwielt and Jackson. [Each 3e. 6d. net. -(11) Songs of the Road. By A. Conan Doyle. London : Smith, Elder an Co. (5e.)-(12) Clyds Songsand Other Verses. By J. J. Bell. Glasgow : Ciowans and Gray. (2s. 6d. net.3-(13) Weels-Day Poems. By H. 0. Meredith. London: E. Arnold. ru. net.1-(14) Manhood : A Plea for a larger Faith. By David Scott Moncned. London: Began Paul. net.]-(15) Voldsingers' Verse. London T. M. Dent and Sons. [2s. ad, net.]-(16) Lyre Ifigeni4341. By Adsmu. Loudon: 1. Fisher Vitwin. [3s. 6d. net.]

sweetness. We quote an example, "The Dying Reservist," where the author is at his simplest and beet :—

" I shall not see the faces of my friends, Nor hear the songs the rested reapers sing After the labours of the harvesting, In those dark nights before the summer ends; Nor see the floods of spring, the melting snow, Nor in the autumn twilight hear the stir Of reedy marshes, where the wild ducks whirr And circle black against the afterglow. 35137 mother died ; she shall not have to weep ; My wife will find another home ; my child, Too young, will never grieve or know; but I Have found my brother, and contentedly I'll lay my head upon his knees and sleep. 0 brother death—I knew you when you smiled."

Mr. W. B. Yeats' slim volume, The Green Helmet—issued from an Irish press in as sumptuous a form as any poet could desire—is less notable for the title-poem than for some of the snatches of verse which accompany it, and which he calls " Momentary Thoughts." The book is not a very serious -effort of Mr. Yeats, but there is one reader who will hot easily get "The Young Man's Song" out of his head. Here is its

beginning

:- "I whispered am too young,' And then, 'I am old enough,' Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love; Go and love, go and love, young man,

If the lady be young and fair,' Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair."

Eyes of Youth—delightful title—is a collection by several -bands, with a ":Foreword" by Mr. Chesterton, who seems far enough in spirit from most of the writers. Of the four poems lay Francis Thompson not one represents him at his best, though the last two lines of the "Arab Love Song "— " And thou—what needest with thy tribe's black tents Who hast the red pavilion of my heart ? "— 'have the familiar magic. Mr. Padraic Colum and Mr. Shane Leslie are too self-conscious in their simplicity, and the poignancy of the latter smacks of artifice. We like best Miss Viola Meynell's The Dream„ which is a quaint fancy delicately expressed, and Mr. Maurice Healy's In the Midst of Them, -which has something of Francis Thompson's grave exalta-

tion.

Professor Gilbert Murray's Story of Nefrekepta done into Terse from Dr. Griffith's translation of a. Demotic papyrus, is a -charming piece of literary virtuosity. "To the neglect of more urgent duties," so he says, he has versified this strange

Egyptian tale of the theft of the Book of Hermes from the dead Nefrekepta and of all the ills that befel therefrom. 'he story has a curious spell in it, for the dead and living mingle and the events fall in a sequene,e and atmosphere scarcely earthly, like some land at the bottom of the sea. For his medium he has chosen Fitzgerald's stanza, and the choice is

justified, for the slow, lapsing measure is in accord with the spirit of the tale. The stanza seemed to us out of place in epic - translation, such as Mr. Mackail's Odyssey, but no more per-

led form could be found for this Egyptian idyll. The ease aof its movement gives the whole poem a curious Biblical

simplicity. With Professor Murray's experiment we may mention Professor Kuno Meyer's Selections from Ancient Irish _Poetry. He gives us literally translated specimens of herdic poetry, of love songs, of epigrams, of nature lyrics, and of religious verse. Such a collection is a better introduction to the spirit of Celtic literature than the more sophisticated versions of modern imitators. Miss Smythe in her Trobador Poets gives us specimens, prefaced by admirable introductions, of such poets as Rudel and Peire 'Vidal and Bertran de Born. Some of the translations are in prose, but the majority are in

verse, and very graceful verse it is. From it the English reader may get some notion of that impassioned scented poetry which held all the longings of the Renaissance and the Age of Adventure before its dawn.

Of the four volumes of dramatic verse on our list The Piper is the most accomplished in form and the most original in conception. It tells of the sequel to Browning's Pied Piper—

how the children were led into the hill and brought back again toe. chastened Hamelin. There is much delicate fancy in it, and at times the verse rises to a high level of melodious beauty. Take such lines as these:— "Think some Breath Wakened you early—early on one morning, Deep in a garden (but you knew not whose), Where voices of wild waters bubbling ran, Shaking down music from glad mountain-tops-

the still peaks were burning in the dawn, Like /jury snow—down into greenest valleys, That do off their blue mist only to show Some deeper blue, some haunt of violets. No voice you heard, nothing you felt or saw, Save in your heart the tumult of young birds, A nestful of wet wings and morning-cries, Throbbing for flight !"

Juana of Castile is in form a monologue, with a background of drama. It tells one of the most tragic tales in history, in verse which is a fitting medium for the soliloquies of such a storm-tossed soul. Miss May Earle is at her best when she is most fervent, and there are many passages filled with a fine

rhetoric of emotion. Our one complaint is that the form she has chosen makes for monotony, in spite of the varied nature

of the metres. The five plays contained in the two volumes, The Tragedy of Pardon and The Accuser are, we are

told in the preface, by a writer, now dead, who wished his work to be nameless. They are the productions of a sensitive, cultivated mind, with a quick imagination and a fine sense of ragio dignity. There is little of ordinary dramatic movement in them, for the appeal throughout is to the intellect rather than to the emotions. The characters are undetermined, the action often inexplicable, and the charm is to be sought rather in the many beautiful descriptive passages and the delicate fanciful atmosphere which envelops the playa. It is scholarly and accomplished work, which reveals often a rare gift of exquisite phrase.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle disarms criticism by the modesty of his "Foreword." His Songs of the Road are what we should

expect from him, breezy lyrics of wholesome joys. He pre- tends to no high inspiration or subtle purpose. He can tell a. good story like "The Groom's Encore" and "Bendy's Sermon" as well in verse as in prose : and the fetters of rhyme in no way weaken the merits of the swift tale. His "philosophic verses" are good sense, born of a sound heart and head. He pretends to nothing more. For ourselves, we like best "The Arab Steed," which has humour as well as spirit. We can predict for these verses a long popularity with those who recite and

who listen to recitations. Clyde Songs, the work of another

novelist, show something of the same facility. Mr. J. J. Bell resembles Mr. Alfred Noyes in his easy rhythms, but he never comes within hail of poetry. He seems to ua best in the

domestic pieces ; the sea and the men who go down to it are subjects too great and rough for his trim muse. Mr. Hugh Owen Meredith in his Week-Day Poems makes a bold bid for reality. He draws his subjects mainly from poverty, and his manner is abrupt, slangy, and dogmatic. To us there is an academic feeling over it all ; the sympathy may be real enough, but the facts have a second-band air. When he deals with the more normal subjects of poetry he is only a cultivated conventional versifier. We like best the piece "Robert Burns in London," which for all its laboured naturalness has spirit and music in it. Mr. David Scott Moncrieff's Manhood is "a plea for a larger faith" in the metre of In Memoriam. It is an able and honest expression of modern humanism in theology ; but

theology fits ill with the muses, and the verse is apt at times to come perilously near to prose.

We close our list with two little volumes from overseas. Treldsingers' Verse is a compilation prepared by a South African Club whose members are united by their love of poetry. The object is so excellent that we should welcome the little

volume even if the contents were far less good than they are. Curiously enough, there is little that is idiomatic and local.

The members sing melodiously of books, and of the first sight

of spring daffodils in town, just as if they lived in London. Poetic conventions trans mare currunt. Only a few poems, such as "The Voortrekker " and "Drought," have a definitely South African inspiration. We like especially "To a Dove at Evening," by Mr. Theodore van Beck, a poet who has already made his name in South African literature. " Adamu's " Lyra Nigeriae is a collection of verses after the pattern of Departmental Ditties. The author can write good, galloping verse, and these grim and humorous ballads have the interest which belongs to all genuine records of life. Behind the barrel-organ measures we catch an echo of a strange elemental country, very raw, very cruel, but well worth telling of.