BOOKS.

MISS BAUGHAYS POEMS.*

READERS of the Spectator will not be unfamiliar with some of the poems in Miss Baughan's volume,—with "The Ship and Reaben, and other Poems. By B. B. Daugban. London; A. Constable and Ob. [2s. Cd. net.]

the Sea," that fine picture of the "strong sea-worthy skip" voyaging on her solitary way, but informing the void, peopling the solitude, bringing a "burden of warm breath upon the emptiness "; with "Young Hotspur," in which a young New Zealander, just off to the war in South Africa, bids farewell to his sheep-farm ; and with another New Zealand song of parting, "The Old Place," which vividly sums up in thirty lines the struggles and hopes and failures of fifteen years :—

" Well ! I'm leaving the poor old place, and it cuts as keen as a knife ;

The place that's broken my heart—the place where I've lived my life."

But besides these pieces and others reprinted from the Speaker there is new matter, in which Miss Baughan's claim to a hearing rests on a basis of more ambitious and serious effort, notably the long idyll in blank verse which gives its name to the collection. "Reuben,' the poem in question, is the story of a childless couple,—an old sailor and his wife who live in a hollow in the downs not far from the coast :— " For the sea, though hid,

Was not far off ; on stone and bark she wrote Her salty runes, refresh'd the brooding air With her frank breath, and with her mighty voice The stately stillness more majestic made; Never remitting from that shelter'd spot Plain signs of her eternal neighbourhood."

There husband and wife, Reuben and Mercy, had lived on their small farm "through forty years of mutual tenderness," until Mercy's health failed and the doctor had pronounced a sentence of death. As her strength failed Mercy was forced to call in the aid of her widowed sister Sarah, a good woman according to her lights :— "Godly, ungracious, with a caustic tongue, Capable hands, and critical shrewd eyes, That saw too well to see aright, too much To see sufficient; thoroughly ransack'd Foibles, and left large virtues out of view."

Sarah's assistance in the household is dearly bought at the loss of the old harmonious atmosphere :— " Sheath'd by no shame and edged with judgment cold,

That steely scrutiny could wound, and though, Untemper'd in the fires of sympathy, Oft it must glance aside and leave him still 17nsearch'd, unviolated : none the less Its neighbourhood was a perpetual daunt.

It chill'd his spirit, his small innocences Rebuk'd, pena'd in and paralysed his powers, And from a life of happiness bereft Filch'd comfort also. Little heeded ho.

What is the loss of Less when All is gone ?

Yet drearier is the bleak November down For the dead stalks of its once-colour'd flowers."

Sarah's constant interference and suspicion, in spite of her helpful service, embitter the last months of Reuben's com- panionship with his dying wife, and it is only after her death that he is able to convince Sarah that so far from being a miser who bad stinted his suffering wife, all his savings had gone, and he is a ruined man, with rent in arrears, and nothing to look forward to but "the House." Once the truth is known, offers of help and comfort pour in upon him, but his mind is firmly made up. He will be beholden to none :—

" The spring was back, The air had softened ; but the tree was dead. Reuben, long toss'd upon vicissitudes, A. calm had reach'd where no man touch'd him more."

By night, alone on the "blank cliff-edge," he ha3 one moment of passionate rebellion, but soon- " Reverence inborn, habitual humbleness, Just-dealing memory, and. Life's great gift—

The heart's gain'd knowledge ineradicable

Of Love—of proven, real, all-vital Love—

These on his thought laid compensating stress And sway'd the fair scale back. Nay, more, his soul Even from out the matrix of despair Plucled forth strong reassurance ; her bared brow, And emptied world, discovering to her The infinitesimal smallness of herself.

Whence power ensued ; and as night sped, such words Now and again unconscious broke from bins:

It is impossible that all should be Waste—our love nothing, all her pain no use, Worthless this land and sea, and all those stars ! There must be some real reason lies beyond, Sure—some complete plan running fore and aft. (Could we but see it) why we should be born, And die, and, this and then betwixt, have pain. What ? How can / tell ? Little of dry land Live corals know, that make it, when they die.

'The years are very many, and the world Enormous. For a moment, in the midst, I, I—one atom—ask about my lot !

I! What am I? That's not it—what am I

For ? If there's reason in it—and there is— And if God knows his business—which He does—

Each atom must ha' got its atom's use, Each mite o' dust its work. Take any plan: There's ne'er a single separate thing in it But's there to help the others : must be there, To help the rest bring out the whole thing right. Not for a sitting softly, but for use : That's sense—the standing-ways they must stay fiat, The sliding-ways must travel and not stop,

The cradle must keep faithful to the keel—

Ay, and the ropes to check her, an' the blocks Needed to steady as she makes her plunge The vessel that's to tread mid-ocean, must Break—but they all help ! . . .

Ah, that helps me out ! Old, broken, mazed, or young and strong and sure, We're just like that. What are we in the end, What are we meant for, what's the good of us, But each to eke out everybody else, An' all to do His work? So, then, for me, / must be wanted, else I'd be put out. . .

A kind o' block, perhaps, that's being broke. .

Well, an' if that's my business, turn it round !

If good to others must mean ill to me, That ill to me is others' good, and God's.

My breaking is their making—I'm of use !

An' whether it's all just, how can I judge, Lord God ? Or care to, neither. For it's Thou! Ay, it all lies in that. It is Thyself Stands back and forth it, everyway. I see, Now that I must look closely, nought but Thee. For the plan's Thine, the stuff, the tools are Thine, The making—and the breaking, Lord—all's Thine; Break me, then, if I'm usefullest that way ; Break me, and let me help Thee. It's Thy hand; It's been Thy hand all thro' and—she was broke.

. . . Man's mind's a little thing, but this is sure- Where'er I'm wrong, I'm right there—Work o' His Must go straight thro', no shirking and no sham. She never shirk'd. An' if it's hard, 'tie hard : But all the time it's what He needs. 0 God, Master o' men ! You need me. I'll not fail! I'll e'en bide out my breaking to the end.'

The solemn hours paced on, darkness and stars And silence. There he stood but spoke no more.

Then came a comfortless and foggy dawn.

He left the cliff, and to the hollow came Once more—paus'd, look'd—pass'd on, and went his way, First to deliver up his house keys, then

To seek the parish workhouse, far inland."

That Miss Baughan leaves something to be desired in mere technical accomplishment will be seen from the foregoing extracts. But in our view, her occasional angularities are more than redeemed by the wholesome vigour, the fearless- ness, the strenuous optimism, that animate her poems. Her motto is "Work while there is light," and the mad quest of futile pleasure fills her with indignation in the lines on "Brighton Front" :— "Carriages thud along toward revelries, And, fain of nothings, jewell'd and in rags,

Deaf by dumb brother,

Prick'd by Vacuity's unsparing goad, Man thrusts and presses o'er the clanking flags.

0, is the city clean forgot of Peace ? Can nothing put the spangled squalor by, And bid the futile buzzing tension cease? Ah, then, to escape the unvaluable strife !

To front large issues, and achieve release From this mad flow of triviality, This ebb of life !"

But though her indignation be poignant, it does not vent itself in mere bitter recrimination. She turns from "the staled air, the loud and empty life," to find succour in the "strong sea" :—

"Here is clean outlook, here doth no lie come, No littleness abide, Here freedom yet retains her ancient home, Beauty here issues freshly from the foam, And the Soul's wings are wide."

Yet though oppressed by the fever and futility of city life, Miss Baughan is very far from commending a career of unsocial isolation. In her philosophy there is plenty of room for good-fellowship, witness the delightful West Country ballad, "Outside o' the Mail into Mennen," the quality of which may be tested by a final quotation

"Like little white ghostes, the lonely mile postes Lagg'd by, and the horses went weary. So we help'd 'ern along wi' a bit of a song That we all of us knew, only some knew it wrong, But still it was wonderful cheery. An' just at the end, where the lady says Yes,' (An' Master bent over, bit tender, I guess), Ow !' cries Grace Annie, the rain off his hat Clean down her neck. We did laugh over that ! But, Gracey, 'tis lucky,' says I in her ear, That love can't be quenched wi' waters, my dear.' 0, 'tie more weatherproof than my jacket, I fear,' Says she, but we'll soon be in Mennen."