TWO NOTABLE POETS.* Wit call these poets rather notable than

distinguished because, while it is impossible to doubt that both of them possess a certain remarkable faculty for verse, neither of them carries away the reader in their present performances with the sense of true power. Mr. Phillips is, we think, as yet little known in English literature, while Mr. Bridges is well known and has earned a good deal of genuine appreciation. But of these two evidently studied efforts,—for both of them seem to suggest a good deal of original conception and elaborate exe- cution,—we are certainly more impressed by the former in spite of its singularly dreamy and though elaborate, yet elabo- rately incoherent, character. On the title-page Mr. Phillips says nothing to suggest that his poem is the product of a rather fantastic than considerate imagination, but on the first page of his poem he speaks of it as a " Phantasy," which it certainly is. It has a dreamlike unity of incoherence. It takes our Lord into the Greek Hades, and yet is very reverently written. It confronts him with Persephone with Agamemnon and Tantalus and Ixion, and especially with Prometheus, and appears on the the whole to assign to Prometheus a greater power of apprehending the ulti- mate destiny of man than to Christ himself, though it is Christ and not Prometheus whose presence in Hades appears to inspire that world of disembodied spirits with the yearning hope of a brighter future, in fact with the sense of a new spring of life. Mr. Phillips's view of Christ is the view of a dreamer whose head has been filled with the human beauty and wonder of the great sacrifice for man, but whose sleeping imagination has lost its hold of the power which the Saviour exerted to fulfil the hopes which the beauty of his life inspired in all who gazed upon him. The poet realises in his dream. as it were, the singular attractive- ness of this great redeeming love, but sinks back in a sort of

helpless impotence when he considers the magnitude of the task which this mighty homo desideriorum, this marvel of all but hopeless aspiration, has attempted. There is, of course,

something exactly like the incoherence of a dream in con- fronting our Lord with a crowd of mythical figures rather than with historic persons. If the Hades of the Greeks had but dreamt of such a figure as the Son of Man it would hardly have been inspired by any sense of power at all. But to bring him in his real humanity to visit a host of mere shadows of the imagination, was indeed the kind of " phantasy " which only a dream could create. Still, it is a worderful dream, a dream that stirs the heart in almost every line, though Christ himself never utters a word through- out the poem, but only brings his sad countenance and bleed- ing brow and torn hands into that imaginary world of half- conceived and chaotic gloom. The following will give our readers some conception of this strange poem. It is, we sup- pose, the sort of language in which the dreamer imagined that Virgil might have addressed our Lord. Indeed, Virgil is the single historic figure whom the powerless redeemer, as the poet's mind represented him, is supposed to find in Hades :- " But in his path a lonely spirit stood ;

A Roman, he who from a greater Greek Borrowed as beautifully as the moon

The fire of the sun : fresh come he was, and still Deaf with the sound of Rome : forward he came Softly ; a human tear had not yet dried.

Whither,' he said, 0 whither dost thou lead In such a calm all these embattled dead ? Almost I could begin to sing again, To see these nations burning run through Hell, Magnificently anguished, by the grave

Untired ; and this last march against the Powers. Who would more gladly follow thee than I ? But over me the human trouble comes.

Dear gladiator pitted against Fate, I fear fcr thee : around thee is the scent Of over-beautiful, quick-fading things, The pang, the gap, the briefness, all the dew, Tremble, and suddenness of earth : I must Remember young men dead in their hot bloom, The sweetness of the world edged like a sword, The melancholy knocking of those waves, The deep unhappiness of winds, the light That comes on things we never more shall see. Yet I am thrilled : thou seemest like the bourne Of all our music, of the hinting night,

• (1.) Christ in Hades, and other POONA. By Stephen Phillips. London : Elkin Mathews.—(2.) Ode for the Bicentenary Commemoration of Henry Purcell, with other Poems and a Preface on the Mission! Setting of Poetry. By Robert Bridges. London: Elkin Mathews. Of souls under the moonlight opening.' Now after speaking, he bowed down his head, Faltered, and shed wet tears in the vain place. And Christ half-turned, and with grave, open eyes, Looked on him : but behind there was a sound Of vast impatience, and the murmurous chafe Of captains sick for war ; and poets shone All dreaming bright, and fiery prophets, seized With gladness, boded splendid things ; and scarred Heroes, as desperate men, that see no path, Yet follow a riddled memorable flag,

Pressed close upon that leader world-engraved."

For the rest, as we have said, the figures our Lord finds in Hades are mythical figures. Here is Prometheus who is supposed to assure the Son of God that his advent to Hades is premature, though the time may yet come when he will give more help than he can then :— " 'Stay, mighty dreamer, though thou comest on Attracting all the dead, to thy deep charm Resigned and bright ; yet stay, and look on me ! Do I not trouble thee ? Dost thou not swerve Smelling my kindred blood on the great track ? Full in tby path I menace. After me

Canst thou go on ? ' The storm carried his voice From them, and veiled with rushing hail his face.

Thy hands are too like mine to undo these bonds,

Brother, although the dead world follow thee,

Deep-fascinated: love hath marred us both, And one yearning, as wide as is the world. 0 how thy power leaves thee at this cross !

Prepare thee for the anguish ! Thou shalt know Trouble so exquisite, that from this wheel Happy Ixion shall spare tears for thee ; And thou shalt envy me my shadowy crag And softly-feeding vulture. Thou shalt stand Gazing for ever on the earth, and watch How fast thy words incarnadine the world !

That I know all things is my torment; nothing, That ever shall befall, to me is new : Already I have suffered it far-off ; And on the mind the poor event appears The pale reflexion of some ancient pang.

Yet I foresee dim comfort, and discern A bleak magnificence of endless hope.

It seems that even thy woe shall have an end.

It comes upon thee! 0 prepare thee; ah, That wailing, those young cries, this smouldering smell !

I see the dreadful look of men unborn.

What halt thou said, that all the air is blood ? "

That, no doubt, is a strange dream of a Christ in tenderness, but a Christ without his power, and we should augur great things for the young poet who had had such a dream, if the little pieces which follow " Christ in Hades " did not for the most part repeat the same characteristic of rather incoherent conception, which is admissible in a " phantasy " but not in a waking imagination. " The Apparition" at least is as wanting in any distinct unity as "Christ in Hades" itself, and seems to

suggest a poetic power which leaves large lacuna unfilled up. Of the very few lyrics which follow " Christ in Hades," the two first are really lyrics, but the third and also " The

Apparition "remind us of that figure of " Adam walking across

the stage going to be created," of which one of William Taylor's old German translations gave us a glimpse. Mr.

Phillips, before he can gain the fame as a poet for which we hope that he may be destined, must show us that his imagination can create wholes, as well as hint impressive suggestions.

Mr. Robert Bridges' new poem is to our mind less interest- ing than Mr. Phillips's, because it has much less depth of feeling in it, and represents a colder and more rugged tem- perament. He prefixes to his " Ode to Music" an interesting preface on the musical setting of poetry. He comes to the conclusion, and seems to support it well, that " the best musical treatment of passages of great beauty is not to declaim them, but as it were to woo them, and court them, and caress them, and deck them with fresh musical beauties, approaching them tenderly now on one side, now on another, and to keep a delicate reserve which shall leave their proper

unity unmolested." But his "Ode to Music," though it has

several fine descriptive passages, has many which we think even a great musician would find it very difficult to " woo " or " caress " or "deck with fresh beauties," for example the opening of the " dirge " on Parcelrs death :-

" Man born of desire

Cometh out of the night, A wandering spark of fire

A lonely word of eternal thought

Echoing in chance and forgot." What does "echoing in chance" mean ? Does it mean that the echo which even a great man finds in the hearth of his fellow-men is an accident? If it does, it is hardly true, and besides being a doubtful opinion, is very ill expressed. Yet it is the only meaning which we can find for the words. And again, what does the word " trust " mean in the follow- ing verse ?—

" To thee, 0 man, the sun his truth hath given ;

The moon hath whisper'd in love her silvery dreams ; Night bath unlockt the starry heaven, The sea the trust of his streams : And the rapture of woodland spring Is stay'd in its flying ; And Death cannot sting Its beauty undying."

That night has unlocked to man the starry heaven, is a simple truth enough, but how does the sea unlock to man the " trust of his streams "? We have puzzled over this rather wilful obscurity in vain. Mr. Bridges, with all his brightness, seems to us to delight in introducing words which are almost conundrums where they actually stand, into the flow of his thought. The "Ode to Music" has fine passages, but, as a whole, it is cold, an elaboration of the mind, not of the heart. We like much better the little poem called November ":— " The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed ; The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.

Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands Crestfallen, deserted,—for now all hands Are told to the plough,—and ere it is dawn appear The teams following and crossing far and near, As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance The heavy rooks, and dawe grey-pated dance ;

Or awhile, surmounting a crest against the sky,

Pictured a whole team stands, or now near by Above the lane they shout lifting the share, By the trim hedgerow bloom'd with purple air ; Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out The small wrens glide With a happy note of cheer, And yellow amorete flutter above and about, Gay, familiar in fear.

And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter, All the afternoon to the gardens fly, From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel : And here and there, near chilly setting of sun, In an isolated tree a congregation Of starlings chatter and chide,

Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel : Suddenly they hush as one,— The tree top springs,—

And off, with a whirr of wings, They fly by the score To the holly-thicket, and there with myriad& more Dispute for the roosts ; and from the unseen nation A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing, Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing, Wrangling discordantly, incessantly, While falls the night on them self-occupied; The long dark night, that lengthens slow, Deepening with Winter to starve grass and tree, And soon to bury in snow The Earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen stole,

Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole Of how her end shall be."

That is an exquisite description of the flock of mountain finches settling in the garden for shelter, and yet what a lumbering monster of a line is that, " Of American rhodo- dendron or cherry-laurel." We defy any musician, however great, to "woo " or "caress" or " deck " that line with new beauties. It is like the lumbering of a traction-engine over new-laid stones. Why does Mr. Bridges take such delight in sowing his verses with these rough boulders, on which the reader cannot help breaking his shins ?