"THE LIEGE OF LOITERERS."

LAIRS. BYRON has made a very pretty book. It is an anthology of love songs (" The Garden of Love," Mry Byron : Hodder and Stoughton. 3s. Gd.), an offering to the "purblind wayward boy" whom Shakespeare in a certain mood called " The liege of all loiterers and malcontents."

The anthologist claims for her work that it is "the most representative collection of love poems that has hitherto been compiled." This is a bold claim, and each reader must judge for himself how far she makes it good. If he spends long among her wares, however, he will fall too completely under their charm to be able to give an unbiassed judgment. Here if he is young—if

" Oh let the solid earth not fail beneath my feet

Until my life bath found what some have found so sweet"

still expresses the undercurrent of his thoughts, he will see the reflection of his own soul glorified in the light of "the Divine fire." If he has left off being young be will remember the songs of his youth, the poetry which lent voice to his passion "when Cupid first did scale the fort." He will begin to hum tunes and count memories and to reflect idly how very much he has gained in taste and lost in sentiment. But whatever his age or condition, if he has but the hearing ear, he can abandon himself to the spell of lovely words, pass- ing before him " like a silver chain of evening rain," and will find himself not only bowing before inspiration but before the art which simulates it so nearly, listening not only

for the lyrical cry but for the practised notes of the perfectly trained voice.

The lover speaks from Mrs. Byron's pages, but we are surprised to find so little of Wordsworth, only "She was a phantom of delight "—no " Lucy" poems. Can it be said that they are not love songs, products though they be of an ce-bound passion? Anyway, we think they should have found a place in a " representative " collection-

" Nowhere but here doth meet Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet."

Was she afraid they would melt altogether away among the "hot burning coals " of Browning and the Scotch peasant whose loves were literature ? Perhaps, but we miss Lucy. There is, however, we must admit, a limit of gravity beyond which no song is a love song. How much tragedy and how much rollicking is permissible it is also hard to decide.

Might we not have had " I would I were where Helen lies," or does that outstep the tragic limit ? We are glad to have Burns in high spirits as well as in the height of his inspira-

tion. The woman of his fancy was truly in love, though she was in a rollicking mood when she sang

"Last May a brow wooer cam down the Lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did cleave me; I said there was naething I hated like men,

The deuce gae wi'm, to believe me, believe me, The deuce goo wi'm, to believe me."

Blake's whispering lines have also a right to their place, we think, offered, as they seem to be, to the liege of malcontents :

"Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be ; For the gentle wind cloth move Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart;

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears, Al! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me, A traveller came by, Silently, invisibly : He took her with a sigh."

There are critics, we think, who must regret to see Moore admitted so often among such good company. But one has to remember that it is the critic—not the lover—who turns a cold shoulder to Moore. He has something to say to boys and girls which they rejoice in and forget. What was it ? We look to him for explanation. The following lines throw a light :—

"'Twee morning's winged dream

'Twas a light that ne'er can shine again On Life's dull stream.'

The present writer had no sooner entered this garden of song than he looked eagerly for Matthew Arnold's

"Come to me in my dreams, and then, By day I shall be well again."

To his delight he found it. Matthew Arnold gets more and more homage as a poet year by year ; but does he get the credit he ought as an exponent of passion ? As a rule he gets none at all. Yet surely passion is here in several of the Margaret poems.

The supreme art which made a thing of true beauty out of an affectation is admirably illustrated by Mrs. Byron's selec- tions. Poems of the "Drink to me only with thine eyes" type abound, and many of the most charming are very little known, and, apart from their poetic significance, many of them are subtly analytical and throw a curious light upon the recurrent attraction of the highly sophisticated woman with whom from time to time and with long intervals the world falls in love. The education of women is not a new thing but a revival. Take the following r-

" Wit bath she without desire,

To make known how much she bath, And her anger flames no higher

Than may fitly sweeten wrath."

We doubt the right of those highly polished verses which in imitation of Heine turn to mockery at the close to find a place among love songs. We do not, of course, allude to such excellent fooling as is contained in the older poems of affectation, but, for instance, to those verses of Mrs. Browning's which begin— "Love me sweet with all thou art, Feeling, thinking, seeing," and ends— "I will love thee half a year As a man is able."

New ballads are not like old ballads ; all the same some new ballads are very poetic, and delight us with their imagery, all " Tapestried with dreams of days gone by." William Morris's " In praise of my lady" is a case in point :— " Not greatly long my lady's hair Nor yet with yellow colour fair

But thick and cusped wonderfully, Beata mea • • " Beneath her brows the lids fall low The lashes a clear shadow throw Where I would wish my lips to be, Beata mea Domino.

" Her great eyes standing far apart Draw up some memory from her heart, And gaze out very mournfully, Beata mea Domina,

" So beautiful and kind they are, But most times looking out afar, Waiting for something—not for me, Beata mea Domina."

Rossetti and Christina Rossetti of course worked such tapestries also. Take those gorgeous lines of Christina's called "My Birthday, " whose colours no familiarity can pale.

Mrs. Byron herself can write a charming ballad. She puts some of her own verse into her collection. Should she have done so, should she have appeared amid the galaxy she brings before us ? muses the critic. The following poem will surely disarm him :—

" The Queen is young and the King is old, For hairs of grey wed tresses of gold ; He, garrulous-foul ; she, maiden-cold,

Than lilies of Eden fairer.

Woven glances might intertwine, Wordless missives of hers and mine,

Looks that cross o'er the light o' the wine,—

But I am the King's cupbearer.

Rose or amber, the brimming cup

At the boisterous banquet I proffer up : The Queen but sips where the King doth sup, Her crown overweights its wearer.

Once for a moment her fingers slim Touched with mine on the carven

Cool as dew in the twilight dim— But I am the King's cupbearer.

Thro' the shattered gateway the rabble brawls The guards lie slain by the blazing walls,

There is fire and blood in the trampled halls—

If he be slain they will spare her,

I might carry her far to a love-bright land . . But I drink to the dregs. Here, sword in hand, For his last defence, at his door I stand,— For I am the King's cupbearer."