Critical Studies

feeling and simplicity of expression. The verses, of which this small volume is full, resemble the stornelli and rispetti of Italian songs rather than any kind of verse which has p

new liberties and ideal creeds; in this tiny azure booklet he is also a poet, or, as he would rather himself say, a singer. The verse springs from the

t is the go

t king goes

t the purp

from foo

nd and loo

art is cle

the visio

for the d

ute beneath the moon. He who has killed his heart in the pressure of the world will find nothing in them. They who are steeped in the chill indifference of mundane interests will no more heed them than such heed the skylark's or the linnet's song, which they resemble. They were not written in the study, or fashioned with the pruning-knife; they were born by the edg

here is an added charm in these tender blossoms in the fact that they spring from the same intelligence as that w

of Rydal, or as Coleridge strove with the rebellious forces of a halting sonnet when lying down face foremost amongst 'the common grass.' They are spontaneous utterances, as natural as the ripple of the water over the cresses in a brook's bed beneath willow and alder. It may be easy to dismiss them with indifference, to underrate them with hypercritic sneer, and assuredly those who take pleasure in the strained archaic obscurities of much modern verse will find no more charm in them than the languid ?sthete, musing over the pages of Ver

Swinburne; a charm much calmer and more peaceful, but not less strong. Many of these little poems speak of the sea only; are full of that happy sense of return and recognition which so many amongst us feel when, after absence from the sea, we tread again its wet salt sands, and feel its white spray dance against ou

other' he calls th

hers, from whom

tired, I c

crooning the

! sing it a

ent as the ho

eep with the

s away, wash all

ains that to

side I plac

nses are ste

adings have ceas

pirit float

et ag

ong sea, fast l

urneying

blue the star

ut love

ossession

my lif

of dust I g

stray pa

O storm, are

ridest ove

hy breath fro

s clean

ou comest on

with fores

is woe for th

rrow will

l go and you

the pale

hill that hu

er days

come your l

, you pal

u mean for t

you mean

hey look on

er true

changing gle

at face o

ese verses impressionist. They have the quickly-captured forms, the frail fugitive colour,

se eigh

rest-for the

with the ha

shadow creep

hes in si

t stops in its f

or a while t

d wakes from its

n and glory

he sudden flashing as of a million spears with which the sea, when smitten by the sword of the Sun, ris

thi

t of land-

ng face on th

as well migh

ach other our

t times, and at

a path that

is with you fr

you are I dar

thi

of youth the y

ith pride w

d," he cried, "to

of the bur

rs passed and

to the ol

my word and n

t world roll

thi

look, and we

icture and te

ok, and the bl

oubles that on

ah! well, and l

enchanter w

ve-stories to

ur dreams the

thi

weet, and pati

far from

myself that th

en rich wi

e an image fro

ewilderi

ew proud and I t

aceful ho

re light, and I

e false fr

drawn where the

wonder stra

itter to heart

e the folly

I can from the

nce more at

peasant to express so many of the deepest chords of human feeling. These English verses might, like those Italian canzone, be created by one to whom all the stores of knowledge and of culture were sealed books. They are cast in the simplest of all possible forms of expressi

s, not from poverty of resources, but from correctness of instinct. These songs are na?f as a child's prayer at its mother's knee at eventide; were they orna

t in noisy railway train, or metropolitan library, or fashion-filled country house; but in the solitude of some quiet rural plac

tween the hymns of George Herbert and those earliest love-songs whic