" THE FAIR AND FATAL KING."
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."'
SIR,—The above quotation cited by Major Ormsby-Johnson in your issue of the 4th inst. from my article on the late J. H. Shorthouse is from a too-little-known poem by the late Lionel Johnson. Lionel Johnson was an exquisite if rare
poet, and the poem quoted below is perhaps the finest he ever wrote :—
" To THE STATUE Or KING CHARLES I. AT CHARING CROSS.
Comely and calm, he rides Hard by his own Whitehall : Only the night wind glides : No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court : and yet, The stars his courtiers are : Stars in their stations set ; And every wandering star.
Alone he rides, alone, The fair and fatal King : Dark night is all his own, That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate, The stars ; or those sad eyes ? Which are more still and great, Those lions ; or the dark skies ?"
These verses first appeared, I fancy, in the " First Book of the Rhymers' Club" (Matthews and Lane, 1893). Some pub- lisher might do worse than reprint Lionel Johnson's verse, a selection from which was published in a limited edition by Mr. W. B. Yeats at his Irish Press not long ago.—I am,
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