But when Mr. Rodd leaves the problem of the
Unconditioned to take care of itself, and makes no attempt to solve the
mysteries of the Ego and the non-Ego, he is very pleasant reading indeed.
A Mazurka of Chopin is charming, in spite of the awkwardness of the fifth
line, and so are the verses on Assisi, and those on San Servolo at
Venice. These last have all the brilliancy of a clever pastel. The
prettiest thing in the whole volume is this little lyric on Spring:

Such blue of sky, so palely fair,
Such glow of earth, such lucid air!
Such purple on the mountain lines,
Such deep new verdure in the pines!
The live light strikes the broken towers,
The crocus bulbs burst into flowers,
The sap strikes up the black vine stock,
And the lizard wakes in the splintered rock,
And the wheat's young green peeps through the sod,
And the heart is touched with a thought of God;
The very silence seems to sing,
It must be Spring, it must be Spring!

We do not care for 'palely fair' in the first line, and the repetition of
the word 'strikes' is not very felicitous, but the grace of movement and
delicacy of touch are pleasing.

The Wind, by Mr. James Ross, is a rather gusty ode, written apparently
without any definite scheme of metre, and not very impressive as it lacks
both the strength of the blizzard and the sweetness of Zephyr. Here is
the opening:

The roaming, tentless wind
No rest can ever find--
From east, and west, and south, and north
He is for ever driven forth!
From the chill east
Where fierce hyaenas seek their awful feast:
From the warm west,
By beams of glitt'ring summer blest.

Nothing could be much worse than this, and if the line 'Where fierce
hyaenas seek their awful feast' is intended to frighten us, it entirely
misses its effect. The ode is followed by some sonnets which are
destined, we fear, to be ludibria ventis. Immortality, even in the
nineteenth century, is not granted to those who rhyme 'awe' and 'war'
together.

Mr. Isaac Sharp's Saul of Tarsus is an interesting, and, in some
respects, a fine poem.

Saul of Tarsus, silently,
With a silent company,
To Damascus' gates drew nigh.

* * * * *

And his eyes, too, and his mien
Were, as are the eagles, keen;
All the man was aquiline--

are two strong, simple verses, and indeed the spirit of the whole poem is
dignified and stately. The rest of the volume, however, is
disappointing. Ordinary theology has long since converted its gold into
lead, and words and phrases that once touched the heart of the world have
become wearisome and meaningless through repetition. If Theology desires
to move us, she must re-write her formulas.

There is something very pleasant in coming across a poet who can
apostrophise Byron as

transcendent star
That gems the firmament of poesy,

and can speak of Longfellow as a 'mighty Titan.' Reckless panegyrics of
this kind show a kindly nature and a good heart, and Mr. Mackenzie's
Highland Daydreams could not possibly offend any one.