It might seem as though enough anthologies of religious verse
existed to satisfy all tastes : but the compilers of The Sundays of Man's Life (S.P.C.K., 6s.) have hit upon an original idea, which should make a wide appeal to all lovers of poetry in the Anglican Church. The plan follows the Prayer
Book ; the collect, epistle or gospel of each Sunday or Major Feast being illustrated by a group of poems. The range of selection is wide, and the standard on the whole very high. There are many felicitous and unusual choices—the superb passage from William Drummond, which is allotted to Trinity Sunday, Emily Bronto's " Doubter's Prayer " for the Feast of St. Thomas, the ingenious quotations from Walt Whitman and Blake. Here and there, it is true, inferior verse has been admitted, in the desperate effort to fit every Sunday with its appropriate poem ; and here and there a priceless opportunity seems to have been missed, e.g.Southwell's " Burning Babe ' for Christmas, or Baxter's noble " He wants not friends " for All Souls' Day. Blake's Land of Dreams," however, is an excellent and unexpected substitute. Amongst modern religious poets whose absence we note with some surprise, are Coventry Patmore, Frederick Myers, Gerard Hopkins and Eva Gore Booth.
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