Reviews Part 24

And the dark doubt she fain Would banish, sees the shuddering fear remain, And ever presses near with stealthy tread.

But not for ever will the misty s.p.a.ce Close down upon her meekly-patient eyes.

The steady light within them soon will ope Their heavy lids, and then the sweet fair face, Uplifted in a sudden glad surprise, Will find the bright reward which comes to Hope.

I myself am rather inclined to prefer this sonnet on Mr. Watts's Psyche.

The sixth line is deficient; but, in spite of the faulty _technique_, there is a great deal that is suggestive in it:

Unfathomable boundless mystery, Last work of the Creator, deathless, vast, Soul--essence moulded of a changeful past; Thou art the offspring of Eternity; Breath of his breath, by his vitality Engendered, in his image cast, Part of the Nature-song whereof the last Chord soundeth never in the harmony.

'Psyche'! Thy form is shadowed o'er with pain Born of intensest longing, and the rain Of a world's weeping lieth like a sea Of silent soundless sorrow in thine eyes.

Yet grief is not eternal, for clouds rise From out the ocean everlastingly.

I have to thank Mr. William Rossetti for kindly allowing me to reproduce Dante Gabriel Rossetti's drawing of the auth.o.r.ess of Goblin Market; and thanks are also due to Mr. Lafayette, of Dublin, for the use of his photograph of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales in her Academic Robes as Doctor of Music, which served as our frontispiece last month, and to Messrs. Hills and Saunders, of Oxford, and Mr. Lord and Mr. Blanchard, of Cambridge, for a similar courtesy in the case of the article on Greek Plays at the Universities.

(1) Canute the Great. By Michael Field. (Bell and Sons.)

(2) Life of Elizabeth Gilbert. By Frances Martin. (Macmillan and Co.)

(3) Ourselves and Our Neighbours. By Louise Chandler Moulton. (Ward and Downey.)

(4) Warring Angels. (Fisher Unwin.)

(5) A Song of Jubilee and Other Poems. By Mrs. De Courcy Laffan. (Kegan Paul.)

(6) Life of Madame de Stael. By Bella Duffy. 'Eminent Women' Series.

(7) Life of Mrs. G.o.dolphin. By John Evelyn, Esq., of Wooton. Edited by William Harcourt of Nuneham. (Sampson Low, Marston and Co.)

THE POETS' CORNER--V

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 15, 1888.)

Mr. Heywood's Salome seems to have thrilled the critics of the United States. From a collection of press notices prefixed to the volume we learn that Putnam's Magazine has found in it 'the simplicity and grace of naked Grecian statues,' and that Dr. Jos. G. Cogswell, LL.D., has declared that it will live to be appreciated 'as long as the English language endures.' Remembering that prophecy is the most gratuitous form of error, we will not attempt to argue with Dr. Jos. G. Cogswell, LL.D., but will content ourselves with protesting against such a detestable expression as 'naked Grecian statues.' If this be the literary style of the future the English language will not endure very long. As for the poem itself, the best that one can say of it is that it is a triumph of conscientious industry. From an artistic point of view it is a very commonplace production indeed, and we must protest against such blank verse as the following:

From the hour I saw her first, I was entranced, Or embosomed in a charmed world, circ.u.mscribed By its proper circ.u.mambient atmosphere, Herself its centre, and wide pervading spirit.

The air all beauty of colour held dissolved, And tints distilled as dew are shed by heaven.

Mr. Griffiths' Sonnets and Other Poems are very simple, which is a good thing, and very sentimental, which is a thing not quite so good. As a general rule, his verse is full of pretty echoes of other writers, but in one sonnet he makes a distinct attempt to be original and the result is extremely depressing.

Earth wears her grandest robe, by autumn spun, Like some stout matron who of youth has run The course, . . .

is the most dreadful simile we have ever come across even in poetry. Mr.

Griffiths should beware of originality. Like beauty, it is a fatal gift.

Imitators of Mr. Browning are, unfortunately, common enough, but imitators of Mr. and Mrs. Browning combined are so very rare that we have read Mr. Francis Prevost's Fires of Green Wood with great interest. Here is a curious reproduction of the manner of Aurora Leigh:

But Spring! that part at least our unchaste eyes Infer from some wind-blown philactery, (It wears its breast bare also)--chestnut buds, Pack'd in white wool as though sent here from heaven, Stretching wild stems to reach each climbing lark That shouts against the fading stars.

And here is a copy of Mr. Browning's mannerisms. We do not like it quite so well:

If another Save all bother, Hold that perhaps loaves grow like parsnips: Call the baker Heaven's care-taker, Live, die; Death may show him where the farce nips.

Not I; truly He may duly Into church or church-day shunt G.o.d; c.h.i.n.k his pocket, Win your locket;-- Down we go together to confront G.o.d.

Yet, in spite of these ingenious caricatures there are some good poems, or perhaps we should say some good pa.s.sages, in Mr. Prevost's volume. The Whitening of the Thorn-tree, for instance, opens admirably, and is, in some respects, a rather remarkable story. We have no doubt that some day Mr. Prevost will be able to study the great masters without stealing from them.

Mr. John Cameron Grant has christened himself 'England's Empire Poet,'

and, lest we should have any doubts upon the subject, tells us that he 'dare not lie,' a statement which in a poet seems to show a great want of courage. Protection and Paper-Unionism are the G.o.ds of Mr. Grant's idolatry, and his verse is full of such fine fallacies and masterly misrepresentations that he should be made Laureate to the Primrose League at once. Such a stanza as--

Ask the ruined Sugar-worker if he loves the foreign beet-- Rather, one can hear him answer, would I see my children eat--

would thrill any Tory tea-party in the provinces, and it would be difficult for the advocates of Coercion to find a more appropriate or a more characteristic peroration for a stump speech than

We have not to do with justice, right depends on point of view, The one question for our thought is, what's our neighbour going to do.

The hymn to the Union Jack, also, would make a capital leaflet for distribution in boroughs where the science of heraldry is absolutely unknown, and the sonnet on Mr. Gladstone is sure to be popular with all who admire violence and vulgarity in literature. It is quite worthy of Thersites at his best.

Mr. Evans's Caesar Borgia is a very tedious tragedy. Some of the pa.s.sages are in the true 'Ercles' vein,' like the following:

CAESAR (starting up).

Help, Michelotto, help! Begone! Begone!

Fiends! torments! devils! Gandia! What, Gandia?

O turn those staring eyes away. See! See He bleeds to death! O fly! Who are those fiends That tug me by the throat? O! O! O! O! (Pauses.)

But, as a rule, the style is of a more commonplace character. The other poems in the volume are comparatively harmless, though it is sad to find Shakespeare's 'Bacchus with pink eyne' reappearing as 'pinky-eyed Silenus.'

The Cross and the Grail is a collection of poems on the subject of temperance. Compared to real poetry these verses are as 'water unto wine,' but no doubt this was the effect intended. The ill.u.s.trations are quite dreadful, especially one of an angel appearing to a young man from Chicago who seems to be drinking brown sherry.

Juvenal in Piccadilly and The Excellent Mystery are two fierce social satires and, like most satires, they are the product of the corruption they pillory. The first is written on a very convenient principle. Blank s.p.a.ces are left for the names of the victims and these the reader can fill up as he wishes.

Must--bl.u.s.ter,--give the lie, --wear the night out,--sneer!

is an example of this anonymous method. It does not seem to us very effective. The Excellent Mystery is much better. It is full of clever epigrammatic lines, and its wit fully atones for its bitterness. It is hardly a poem to quote but it is certainly a poem to read.

The Chronicle of Mites is a mock-heroic poem about the inhabitants of a decaying cheese who speculate about the origin of their species and hold learned discussions upon the meaning of evolution and the Gospel according to Darwin. This cheese-epic is a rather unsavoury production and the style is at times so monstrous and so realistic that the author should be called the Gorgon-Zola of literature.

(1) Salome. By J. C. Heywood. (Kegan Paul.)

(2) Sonnets and Other Poems. By William Griffiths. (Digby and Long.)

(3) Fires of Green Wood. By Francis Prevost. (Kegan Paul.)

(4) Vanclin and Other Verses. By John Cameron Grant. (E. W. Allen.)

(5) Caesar Borgia. By W. Evans, M.A. (William Maxwell and Son.)

(6) The Cross and the Grail. (Women's Temperance a.s.sociation, Chicago.)