• POEMS BY MR. MAURICE BARING.* Tim general level of
the verse in Mr. Maurice Baring's new book
is so high that it brings irresistibly before the reader a vision of a wastepaper-basket overflowing with the rejected. Each one of the fourteen or fifteen poems has its particular excellence. From the
gravely touching melodies of the poem on the death of Lord Lucas, with which the volume begins, to the charming felicity of the two or three pieces of vers de sociOteg, every poem possesses charm, distinction, and cohesion. Because of this last quality quotation is rather difficult. The following will, however, give the reader some idea of the war poems :— " And after days of watching, days of lead, There came the certain news that you were dead. You had died fighting, fighting against odds, Such as in war the gods "Ethereal dared when all the world was young. Such fighting as blind Homer never sung, Nor Hector nor Achilles never knew ; High in the empty blue. High, high, above the clouds, against the setting sun, The fight was fought, and your great task was done."
" Juliet's Owl" must stand as type of the other mood:— " Juliet has lost her little downy owl, The bird she loved above all other birds. He was a darling bird, so white, so wise, Like a monk hooded in a snowy cowl, With sun-shy scholar's eyes. He hooted softly in diminished thirds ; And when he asked for mice, He took refusal with a silent pride— And never pleaded twice.
He was a wondrous bird, as dignified As any diplomat That ever sat By the round table of a Conference."
Ales! lack of space forbids us the quotation of the charmingly turned compliment which ends this delightful divertissement.
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