It
reads like something out of The Hunting of the Snark:

I'm a Smouse, I'm a Smouse in the wilderness wide,
The veld is my home, and the wagon's my pride:
The crack of my 'voerslag' shall sound o'er the lea,
I'm a Smouse, I'm a Smouse, and the trader is free!
I heed not the Governor, I fear not his law,
I care not for civilisation one straw,
And ne'er to 'Ompanda'--'Umgazis' I'll throw
While my arm carries fist, or my foot bears a toe!
'Trek,' 'trek,' ply the whip--touch the fore oxen's skin,
I'll warrant we'll 'go it' through thick and through thin--
Loop! loop ye oud skellums! ot Vikmaan trek jy;
I'm a Smouse, I'm a Smouse, and the trader is free!

The South African poets, as a class, are rather behind the age. They
seem to think that 'Aurora' is a very novel and delightful epithet for
the dawn. On the whole they depress us.

Chess, by Mr. Louis Tylor, is a sort of Christmas masque in which the
dramatis personae consist of some unmusical carollers, a priggish young
man called Eric, and the chessmen off the board. The White Queen's
Knight begins a ballad and the Black King's Bishop completes it. The
Pawns sing in chorus and the Castles converse with each other. The
silliness of the form makes it an absolutely unreadable book.

Mr. Williamson's Poems of Nature and Life are as orthodox in spirit as
they are commonplace in form. A few harmless heresies of art and thought
would do this poet no harm. Nearly everything that he says has been said
before and said better. The only original thing in the volume is the
description of Mr. Robert Buchanan's 'grandeur of mind.' This is
decidedly new.

Dr. Cockle tells us that Mullner's Guilt and The Ancestress of
Grillparzer are the masterpieces of German fate-tragedy. His translation
of the first of these two masterpieces does not make us long for any
further acquaintance with the school. Here is a specimen from the fourth
act of the fate-tragedy.

SCENE VIII.

ELVIRA. HUGO.

ELVIRA (after long silence, leaving the harp, steps to Hugo, and seeks
his gaze).

HUGO (softly). Though I made sacrifice of thy sweet life. The Father
has forgiven. Can the wife--Forgive?

ELVIRA (on his breast). She can!

HUGO (with all the warmth of love). Dear wife!

ELVIRA (after a pause, in deep sorrow). Must it be so, beloved one?

HUGO (sorry to have betrayed himself). What?

In his preface to The Circle of Seasons, a series of hymns and verses for
the seasons of the Church, the Rev. T. B. Dover expresses a hope that
this well-meaning if somewhat tedious book 'may be of value to those many
earnest people to whom the subjective aspect of truth is helpful.' The
poem beginning

Lord, in the inn of my poor worthless heart
Guests come and go; but there is room for Thee,

has some merit and might be converted into a good sonnet. The majority
of the poems, however, are quite worthless. There seems to be some
curious connection between piety and poor rhymes.

Lord Henry Somerset's verse is not so good as his music. Most of the
Songs of Adieu are marred by their excessive sentimentality of feeling
and by the commonplace character of their weak and lax form. There is
nothing that is new and little that is true in verse of this kind:

The golden leaves are falling,
Falling one by one,
Their tender 'Adieux' calling
To the cold autumnal sun.