POETS AND POETRY, THE ISLAND OF YOUTH.*

I THINK if a lover of the classics came to me, or a man who read Milton, Keats and Wordsworth and loved beauty and " the grand style," and told me that he desired to add the garden of

modern poetry to hispleasaunce, and asked me how he had best approach it, I should give him Mr. Edward Shanks' poetry to read.

There are, perhaps, those who would say that I should not b3 giving him modem poetry at all, that Mr. Shanks' work differs hardly perceptibly from the old tradition, but I think they would

be wrong. Of course, his methods perpetually make us think of the " old masters." There is a great deal of The Queen of China," which reminds us, not perhaps of any particular Eliza- bethan, but of the general body of Elizabethan dramatic blank verse. In the volume before me, The Island of Youth, the beautiful poem, "In Another Country," which appeared first in these columns, is full of echoes of "Endymion," and even here and there of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. There are Victorian qualities in "The Night Jars," just as in other of his titles there are definitely Wordsworthian qualities.

But Mr. Shanks is almost always using the old material for a new purpose, and that is why his work makes such a good introduction to modem verse. He nearly always gives us the content and purpose of modern verse, but hedoes network with quite the usual Georgian means, and it is the means, not the end, that appear for the most part to frighten conservative lovers of verse. If the reader expects me to tell him in so many words what the ends of modern poetry are, I am afraid he must be disappointed. If they could be stated in a sentence, it would not be necessary to take the great trouble of stating them in sonnets, epics and elegies. It must suffice to say that they have something to do with human psychology. We are all conscious that there are elements within us—things in our outlook upon ourselves and the universe—which are highly elusive and which are most difficult to express. The modern poet, like the seventeenth century metaphysical poet, finds himself for the most part engaged in a perpetual effort to show us some aspect or other of this irrational, but, as modem psychologists tell us, real and potent part of our make-up. Of course, all poets in all ages have done this, and the difference between, say Donne and Tennyson, in this respect is one of emphasis. Both Donne and Tennyson were concerned with beauty, pattern-making and the mind of man. Often Donne grew tired of his " hard sayings," and tried to express pure beauty ; often Tennyson grew tired of beauty or didactic exposition and tried to express the inexpressible. But, on the whole, modern poets put the emphasis as Donne put it and, moreover, turn to something a little like his methods of expression. But Mr. Shanks goes rather to the methods of Keats, Tennyson, and Wordsworth. In unsuccessful lines, that is, he is apt to fall into such a fault as :- " And long, long day, added to long, long day, In summer's fragrant count. . . ."

But the general conception of The Island of Youth is entirely modem. It tells the legend of how Thetis, by her

enchantments, carried her son Achilles to Scyros, and there hid him disguised among the maidens of the island, and how (the Oracle foretelling that the Greeks could not take Troy without

Achilles' help) -Ulysses was sent to find him out, which he did by means of a trick with a sword. Mr. Shanks has used the story to convey a sense of the irrevocable fate of Man. Thetis has thought to cheat the Oracle, to cheat Death, but her son is

mortal, like the rest of us, and his fate cannot be gainsaid. The beginning of the poim is concerned with the sweet enchantment that Thetis—her son hidden—in gratitude lays upon the island that has consented to be her child's asylum.

Sun, sweet airs, and a mild sea prosper the affairs of Scyros at never before :- " And in that summer Thetis' blessing lay Especially upon her. Fishermen Thanked the sea-goddess for continual calm

That lulled their storm-washed vessels near the rocks

And herded in their nets the plenteous fish.

The farmers watched their fields grow day by day

More fruitful, and the vines under the sun

More prosperously .ripen to the vintage,

Unvexed by creeping rot or summer tempest. Nor wolf nor murrain did the shepherd plague And on his thyme-grown hills he slept at night, Close by the dew-pond's green and glimmering round,

• The Island of Youth. By Edward Shanks. London : NV. Collins. pa net)

While all about him slept the peaceful flock Like white stones under the distant, kindly stars."

The psychology of Achilles, whose nature has been changed by his mother's spell, is delineated with a sure, light touch. The womanish enchantment makes him unhappy, and uneasi-

ness broods upon him. At last his hour comes. Ulysses' rile of the sword succeeds, not so much in revealing the truth

to its deviser, as in teaching Achilles his own nature. He climbs up the hillside and realizes a future :- "Dark to foresee, but heavy with a sense Of weariness and blame and shame and tears."

lie throws aside his maiden's garments and the hero's body rises, " from that eclipse for over freed." All night he wanders over the mountains and at last, sitting under an olive tree :- "flowed his hot forehead into cramped hands, Feeling a little world whose pulses beat Like earthquakes or annihilating wars."

There are two very curious poems in Mr. Shanks' new book, " The Emigration" and " The End." One describes the weary trek of a whole people from a valley which their increase has made too narrow for their support, the other a vision. In this the poet stands in a tangled wood and sees a rider, on a rough, thin horse, come slowly down an unused track. He is followed by a crowd of people—men and women of every day, clerks, workmen and tramps, young girls, children, all the cavalcade of life ; after them come beasts—all the homely animals that live about our houses. These in turn are followed by strange, unknown tropical creatures and strange birds that hover about the track. At last these, too, pass, and the poet sees

with a sort of terror that the trees seem to be " dragging their long roots " slowly out of the ground ; the smaller plants follow like a swarm of bees, and the poet is left alone in a lifeless world. These two strange imaginings show Mr. Shanks in a somewhat

new light, and when we take them in conjunction with the detachment and objectivity of such a poem as " The Swimmers," end the gaiety of "Fete Galante," wo see what a wide range