NOTES.

That eve was left to us: and hush'd we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing :
The nodding elders mix'd good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life's greatest pleasure lay
With us, and of it was our talk. "Ah, yes!
Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less
She yearn'd to me that sentence to unsay.
Then when the fire domed blackening, I found
Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift
Up the sharp scale of sobs her heart did lift:
Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

XXIX.

Am I failing? for no longer can I cast

A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould-
Not like the consecration of the Past!

Is my soul beggar'd? Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace

In having Love upon a mortal lease.

I cannot take the woman at her worth!

Where is the ancient wreath wherewith I clothed

Our human nakedness, and could endow

With spiritual splendour a white brow

That else had grinned at me the fact I loath'd?

A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave

Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.

But, as you will! we'll sit contentedly,

And eat our pot of honey on the grave.

XLIII.

Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back'd wave !

Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave;

Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
And dart their hissing tongues far up the sand;

In hearing of the ocean, and in sight

Of those ribb'd wind-streaks running into white.

If I the death of love had deeply plann'd,

I never could have made it half so sure,

As by the unbless'd kisses which upbraid

The full-waked sense; or, failing that, degrade!
'Tis morning but no morning can restore
What we have forfeited. I see no sin:
The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot;

We are betray'd by what is false within.

307

XLIX.

He found her by the ocean's moaning verge,
Nor any wicked change in her discern'd;
And she believed his old love had return'd;
Which was her exultation and her scourge.

She took his hand, and walked with him, and seem'd

The wife he sought, tho' shadowlike and dry.
She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
And tell her loudly she no longer dream'd.
She dared not say, "This is my breast, look in."
But there's a strength to help the desperate weak.
That night he learned how silence best can speak
The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.
About the middle of the night her call
Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.
"Now kiss me, dear! it may be now!" she said.
Lethe had pass'd those lips, and he knew all.

L.

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.

Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,

They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:

But they fed not on the advancing hours:

Their hearts held craving for the buried day.
Then each applied to each the fatal knife,

Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore !

As to the single sonnet proper by Mr. Meredith which I have given in my selection, it is quite unnecessary to point to its imaginative power-its sense of vastness. It is from his Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth.

Nos. cxxxviii.-cxl. ALICE MEYNELL. Mrs. Meynell, notwithstanding that she has only published one slight volume of verse, is generally acknowledged to be one of the sweetest singers among living poets. With the exception of "Renouncement" her sonnets are to be found in her volume Preludes, illustrated by her sister, Mrs. Butler (Elizabeth Thompson): several of them show a very marked affinity

to the love sonnets of Mrs. Browning. In this class I know no nobler or more beautiful sonnet than "Renouncement," and I have so considered it ever since the day I first heard it, when Rossetti (who knew it by heart), repeating it to me, added that it was one of the three finest sonnets ever written by women. I add here another sonnet from Preludes :

A DAY TO COME.

Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,

Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances

Of time and change upon your happiest fancies.

I keep your golden hour and will restore it.

If ever, in time to come, you would explore it—

Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies,
Look unto me: no mirror keeps its glances;

In my unfailing praises now I store it.

To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging,
I shall be then a treasury where your gay
Happy and pensive past for ever is.

I shall be then a garden charmed from changing,
In which your June has never passed away.
Walk there awhile among my memories.

No. cxli. COSMO MONkhouse. Mr. Monkhouse is the author of a volume of verse entitled A Dream of Idleness: and other Poems. Mr. Monkhouse has made a reputation for careful critical knowledge and sympathetic insight, both in art and poetic literature.

No. cxlii.-cxliv. ERNEST MYERS. Mr. Myers is one of the few among our younger poets from whom work of high quality may be expected. He has published Poems; The Defence of Rome and other Poems; and recently a volume, which I have not yet seen, entitled The Judgment of Prometheus: and other Poems. There is, in the sonnets I have selected, a breadth which is specially noteworthy. No. cxliv. was prefixed by Mr. Mark Pattison to his "Parchment” edition of Milton's sonnets. Other fine sonnets by Mr. Myers are those on Pindar and Darwin, and that on Achilles, prefixed to the joint translation of the Iliad.

No. cxlv.-cxlvii. FREDERICK W. H. MYERS. Mr. Frederick Myers is known as one of the most accomplished and fervid of living critics: his Essays are pleasant reading, combining polished elegance of style with wide knowledge and sympathetic insight. In 1882 he

published a volume of tender and high-toned verse, entitled The Renewal of Youth: and other Poems; and it is from this volume Nos. cxlvi. and cxlvii. are excerpted.

No. cxlviii. CARDINAL NEWMAN. All students of contemporary literature know what a master of prose is the celebrated author of the Apologia pro Vita Sua. That he is a poet as well is realised by all who have read his earnest and polished verse.

Nos. clxix.-cli. JOHN NICHOL, LL.D., &c. Professor Nichol, the distinguished son of a distinguished father, holds a high place in contemporary letters. Fortunate in obtaining at an early age the Regius Professorship of English Literature in Glasgow University, he was unfortunate in so far that his new labours entailed withdrawal from the highly cultivated sphere in which he was so well fitted to move, and also prevented his devoting himself as ardently to creative work as he would otherwise have done. His critical works, however, including his recent admirable American Literature, have won for him a deservedly high place. But here we are concerned with him as a poet. His classic drama, Hannibal, had an immediate and, as is now proved, no ephemeral success; and his reputation has further gained by The Death of Themistocles; and other Poems. In these volumes Professor Nichol owes nothing to any contemporary. He belongs to no school of poetry, save to that catholic school which would have each man do his work in the way most natural to him, and do it well. As a sonnet writer, however, he is not at his best.

Nos. clii.-cliii. J. ASHCROFT NOBLE. Mr. Ashcroft Noble is the author of The Pelican Papers: Reminiscences and Remains of a Dweller in the Wilderness (1873). An accomplished literary critic, he has also written some fine verse. He, moreover, some two or three years ago, wrote the article in the Contemporary Review on the sonnet to which I have already referred in the Introductory Essay. No. cliv. EDWARD H. NOEL (18—-1884). The late Mr. Edward Noel was one of those men who impress one more by their personality than by anything written. He was a man of true and liberal culture, with a temperament at once romantic and reserved, and with a nature so essentially noble and beautiful that no one could know him without gaining greatly thereby. His memory is a

treasured possession with the fortunate few who had his friendship. Until after his death, few, if any, of his friends knew that he had written anything, though a year or two previous he did let fall some hint to me of his poetic work. After his death, Miss Noel published (Elliot Stock, 1884) his collected Poems. They are characterised by deep meditative beauty-not underivative as regards expression, it is true-and a sad yet not despairing melancholy, the result of the great loss Mr. Noel sustained in the death of his dearly loved wife, which occurred during his long residence in Greece. No. clv. HON. RODEN NOEL. The Hon. Roden Noel is fairly widely known as a writer of tender and refined poetry. He has, however, written few sonnets.

No. clvi. FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE. Mr. Palgrave owes his reputation to his high critical faculty. His chief characteristic as a writer is refinement of taste, whether manifested in literature or in art. His Golden Treasury of English Songs and his Children's Treasury of Lyrical Poetry are charming compilations, as are his Herrick and Shakespeare's Songs and Sonnets. Quite recently he was elected to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, vacant by the death of the late Principal Shairp. Some thirty years ago Mr. Palgrave published his Idylls and Songs, and in 1871 his Lyrical Poems. No. clvi., however, is a hitherto unpublished sonnet: it was, as some will at once infer, written on the occasion of the tragic death of the author's late friend, Lord Frederick Cavendish.

No. clvii. SIR NOEL PATON, R.S.A., &c. It is many years since this

celebrated artist published his second little volume of verse. Several of his sonnets are characterised by distinct grace of expression and poetic feeling, but the exceedingly fine one which I give seems to me the strongest. It was first printed in Mr. Hall Caine's Anthology, and is of much later date than any included in Sir Noel's two published volumes.

Nos. clviii.-clx. JOHN PAYNE. Mr. Payne has published Intaglios, Lautrec, New Poems, &c., and ranks high among the younger men. His sonnets have been much admired by many good judges.

Nos. clxi.-clxiv. EMILY PFEIFFER.

Mrs. Pfeiffer is among the most

prolific of living poetesses. The fine sonnets I quote speak for

themselves.

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