POETS AND POETRY.
BEHIND THE EYES.* MR. RICKWOBD'S book of poems is one that will make his reviewers write his name down in that little list that I suppose we all keep—the list of writers whose next productions are to be watched for. Behind the Eyes has a great many bad lines in it and several bad poems. There is, besides, a certain sameness about the general tone of the verse. There are too many " jewelled birds " and " white petals." Above all, there are too many assorted girls. Sometimes they are " sea cold," some- times "flat breasted," sometimes "low laughing," sometimes " dank haired." However adjectived, they swarm in the less successful poems. But there are quite half a dozen poems in the book that are quickened by real beauty: It is difficult to know whether to show the reader stanzas from " Beauty invades the sorrowful heart," or " Sick Thoughts," or a passage from
These are strange woods that call," or from " Lovers." Per- haps " The sorrowful heart," though the poem is not of superior merit to the others, will give the reader the best idea of the flavour of Mr. Rickword's work. Beauty, complains the poet, still follows him even beyond his dreams. Why will she not seek instead some mind that, like a warm forest, is rich in flowers and gay-feathered birds ?
" Come not to my faint meadows and pale skies To trouble the quiet waters with your smile, For at your bright feet weary birds arise, Beating their sorrow-laden wings the while ; And spreading storms of pain
Across the countries of my brain.
Where they, poor starved desires, had found some peace Beside the sombre marshes. But your ghost Approaching, like the morning, with increase Of visions dark with meaning, stirs their host, And as bats in a lair They wake with mazed, dream-haunted stare.
Musing who comes to quicken their dead lands, And silver pallid streams, and with rich green Paint the dun grass, and gild the deathly sands, And waken them with singing. You wild Queen At whose victorious voice
The solemn trees uplift them and rejoice."
There is some such fullness of content in all Mr. Rickword's
• Behind the Eyes. By Edgell Elckword. London : 131dgwick and Jaoloon.
poetry. His verse is sometimes clumsy, but time will cure that.
It is never thin and never forced. A. WirasAms-Eraas.
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