MR. GRAVES'S POEMS.* WE are inclined to doubt whether Mr.

Graves always puts his whole heart into his work. Like others of his countrymen, he possesses sentiment, pathos, and humour, all of the lighter order, and an undeniable poetical faculty. He would. be able to boast of an almost more than human power of self-restraint, if, with all these advantages, he were to deny himself the indulgence of occasionally writing and publishing volumes of poems. The difficulty would be enhanced by the fact that not a few of his efforts are thoroughly charming,—such things as one finds a real pleasure in reading, and would be sorry not to have read. And if Mr. Graves would always maintain this highest standard, we should be able to welcome him as a genuine addition to the brotherhood of lyrical poets. But either he does not know when he has done his best, or else he is of opinion that if his best is good, his second-best is good enough, and his third-best by no means bad. Were he more distinguished than he is by originality, this claim might con- ceivably be admitted; for there is generally some interest in an original point of view, even when the workmanship is imperfect. But originality is a quality in which Mr.

Graves is often deficient. His most faultless poems read more or less like echoes.. There is no great harm in that, for such echoing commonly consists more in phraseology

and versification than in motif; and. Mr. Graves's motif is more than usually apt to be fresh and good. So many

verses are published now-a-days that have nothing but form to recommend them, and which would be all the better if they had never taken form at all, that anything which derives its merit from any other source is deserving of commendation. But Mr.

Graves is so possessed with his sentiment, that once he has made sure of that being right, he is liable to let other matters look out for themselves. The lyrical faculty or feeling is a rare one, but it is not of itself sufficient to the production of true lyrics. The German Heine is the inimitable master of this species of poetry, and it might be well if our present author could have brought himself to exercise a system of excision which would have at least kept his productions as nearly on a level with one another as Heine's are, even though that level should fall—as it must—indefinitely below that of the great German. As it is, the sudden descents and remountings have the effect of disconcerting the judgment, so that the reader is prone to doubt both whether the inferior poems are so bad, and the better ones so good, as may really be the case. The volume is divided into the songs, and ballads and the Rustic Poems, which occupy the first hundred pages, and which, on the whole, we prefer to the rest ; following these, the Anglo-Irish ballads, none of which are particularly note- worthy ; and finally, the Celtic adaptations, and the songs and sketches, where, again, some charming work is to be found. In the appendix a number of the songs are set to music, and in the notes information is given as to the sources whence some of the pieces were derived or suggested. We have marked several specimens for quotation, but, for want of space to reproduce them all, we shall content ourselves with alluding to two or three of them. In the song entitled "Herring is King" we have a very spirited description and eulogy of the herring fishery, in which, as often happens with Mr. Graves, the lilt of the verse admirably carries out and heightens the sentiment. The fourth verse is especially felicitous :—

"It was in with the sails and away to shore,

With the rise and swing, the rise and swing, Of two stout lads at each smoking oar, After herring, our king, herring, oar king ; Sing, ` Hugamar Min an sewra lie', 'Tis we have brought the summer in.'"

It would be difficult to say here in what the charm consists ; but whether by the words or by the movement, or what not, the freshness of the sea and the fervour and spirit of the struggle are vividly brought before us. Another excellent piece, somewhat similar in character to the last, is the "Mill Song." In this, the progress of the corn, from the sowing to the grinding, is poetically paralleled with the progress of human love, courtship, and marriage. The first hinting of the green corn blades on the hill-side is made contemporary with the earliest attacks and parryings of the lads and lasses in whose hearts the seed of love has been planted. As the golden ear begins to show, the lasses yield their assent; and by the time the grain is ready for the miller, the marriage bells are ringing. Again the sowing

• Irish Seaga sad Boned.. By Alfred Pereetal owe& Manchester Almonds/ Ireland and Co.

follows, even as the bodies of the aged are borne to their resting- place in God's Acre. But,—

" The green corn is glistening once more with the spring; Children are christening, glad mothers sing,

Thus our life runs around like the mill with its corn; Young folk are marrying, old folk are burying, Young folk are born.'

A deep and tender subject could scarcely have been more grace- fully touched.

In "The Smith's Song," the poetical aspects of the life of the maker of horse-shoes arc well indicated, and the harmony of sound with sense is ingeniously and successfully wrought out. Considering how many poets have tried their bands at this subject, Mr. Graves deserves credit for the independence and vivacity of his treatment :—

" Ding dong, didilium ! the big sledge is swinging,

Ding dong, didilium ! the little hammer's ringing, Ding dong, didilium ! set the bellows snoring, Ding dong, didilium ! the red fire is roaring.

Hush, boys, and hark, boys, I hear a pair eloping, Hash, boys, and hark, boys, they'll go free, I'm hoping! Ding dong, didilium ! I hear a shoe clinking, Ding dong, didilium ! there's need of nails, I'm thinking.

For Heaven's sake, a shoe, smith!' ' Your honor, here, 'tis ready.'

Won, mare, and so, mare, and steady, girl, steady !

Ding dong, didilinm ! off goes the carriage, Ding dong, didilium! good-luck be with the marriage!"

There are other verses, but scarcely equal to these in lightness and picturesqueness. We are of opinion that Mr. Graves is better in poems of this character than in his more purely senti- mental pieces. Such stanzas as those to "Maureen," " Myr- tilla," "Kitty Bhan," and the rest of the blue-eyed and rosy- cheeked enchantresses, have nothing in them which can be accounted either original or poetically meritorious. Ever since the days of Tom Moore, better and worse staff of that kind has been written, and might be produced indefinitely by any person with a knack for versification, and a dearth of material. Mr. Graves is one of the most tender-hearted of poets, and seldom allows himself to exercise his pathetic faculty at its full strength, and hardly arrives at actual tragedy at all. Most of his lovers' partings and bickerings have a happy ending, or if not quite happy, then the next poem will read like a new and more jocund chapter of the same romance. We are, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, very far from depre- cating this optimist vein; we only wish that the diseased, morbid, and dyspeptic young poetasters, whose despairs fill so many" tasteful" volumes now-a-days, would take a leaf—a great many leaves, for that matter—out of Mr. Graves's book. The chief faults to be found with him are of a negative kind.

The most ambitious poem in the collection is a story in blank verse, called "The Fairy Branch," founded, as we learn in the notes, on a Celtic prose tale. The verse is done in a smooth and workmanlike manner, but we are inclined to doubt (with- out having seen the original) whether the matter might not as well have been left to its native prose. It is very difficult just now to write any sort of blank verse without reminding the reader of Mr. Tennyson. We prefer to this tale a little piece of three verses called "Companions," with which we shall close our notice of Mr. Graves's handsome volume :—

"Smile farewell to Sorrow.;

• Give to Joy good-morrow, And charge him to continue A quiet reign within you.

Smile farewell to Gladness Take the hand of Sadness, And wistfully beseech her To be your tender teacher. So shall both befriend you, And to the grave attend you ; There sorrow from you sever; joy go with you ever."