And then (the hideous laugh
Of fiends in full possession, keen to quaff
The wine of one new soul not weak with tears,
Pealing like ruinous thunder in mine ears)
I fell, and heard no more. The pale day broke
Through lazar-windows, when once more I woke,
Remembering I might no more dare to pray.

The idea of the story is extremely powerful, and Venetia Victrix is
certainly the best poem in the volume--better than Ophelion, which is
vague, and than A Friar's Story, which is pretty but ordinary. It shows
that we have in Miss Fitz Gerald a new singer of considerable ability and
vigour of mind, and it serves to remind us of the splendid dramatic
possibilities extant in life, which are ready for poetry, and unsuitable
for the stage. What is really dramatic is not necessarily that which is
fitting for presentation in a theatre. The theatre is an accident of the
dramatic form. It is not essential to it. We have been deluded by the
name of action. To think is to act.

Of the shorter poems collected here, this Hymn to Persephone is, perhaps,
the best:

Oh, fill my cup, Persephone,
With dim red wine of Spring,
And drop therein a faded leaf
Plucked from the Autumn's bearded sheaf,
Whence, dread one, I may quaff to thee,
While all the woodlands ring.

Oh, fill my heart, Persephone,
With thine immortal pain,
That lingers round the willow bowers
In memories of old happy hours,
When thou didst wander fair and free
O'er Enna's blooming plain.

Oh, fill my soul, Persephone,
With music all thine own!
Teach me some song thy childhood knew,
Lisped in the meadow's morning dew,
Or chant on this high windy lea,
Thy godhead's ceaseless moan.

But this Venetian Song also has a good deal of charm:

Leaning between carved stone and stone,
As glossy birds peer from a nest
Scooped in the crumbling trunk where rest
Their freckled eggs, I pause alone
And linger in the light awhile,
Waiting for joy to come to me--
Only the dawn beyond yon isle,
Only the sunlight on the sea.

I gaze--then turn and ply my loom,
Or broider blossoms close beside;
The morning world lies warm and wide,
But here is dim, cool silent gloom,
Gold crust and crimson velvet pile,
And not one face to smile on me--
Only the dawn beyond yon isle,
Only the sunlight on the sea.

Over the world the splendours break
Of morning light and noontide glow,
And when the broad red sun sinks low,
And in the wave long shadows shake,
Youths, maidens, glad with song and wile,
Glide and are gone, and leave with me
Only the dawn beyond yon isle,
Only the sunlight on the sea.

Darwinism and Politics, by Mr. David Ritchie, of Jesus College, Oxford,
contains some very interesting speculations on the position and the
future of women in the modern State.