In the summer term Oxford teaches the exquisite art of idleness, one of
the most important things that any University can teach, and possibly as
the first-fruits of the dreaming in grey cloister and silent garden,
which either makes or mars a man, there has just appeared in that lovely
city a dainty and delightful volume of poems by four friends. These new
young singers are Mr. Laurence Binyon, who has just gained the Newdigate;
Mr. Manmohan Ghose, a young Indian of brilliant scholarship and high
literary attainments who gives some culture to Christ Church; Mr. Stephen
Phillips, whose recent performance of the Ghost in Hamlet at the Globe
Theatre was so admirable in its dignity and elocution; and Mr. Arthur
Cripps, of Trinity. Particular interest attaches naturally to Mr.
Ghose's work. Born in India, of purely Indian parentage, he has been
brought up entirely in England, and was educated at St. Paul's School,
and his verses show us how quick and subtle are the intellectual
sympathies of the Oriental mind, and suggest how close is the bond of
union that may some day bind India to us by other methods than those of
commerce and military strength.

There is something charming in finding a young Indian using our language
with such care for music and words as Mr. Ghose does. Here is one of his
songs:

Over thy head, in joyful wanderings
Through heaven's wide spaces, free,
Birds fly with music in their wings;
_And from the blue, rough sea
The fishes flash and leap_;
There is a life of loveliest things
O'er thee, so fast asleep.

In the deep West the heavens grow heavenlier,
Eve after eve; _and still
The glorious stars remember to appear_;
The roses on the hill
Are fragrant as before:
Only thy face, of all that's dear,
I shall see nevermore!

It has its faults. It has a great many faults. But the lines we have
set in italics are lovely. The temper of Keats, the moods of Matthew
Arnold, have influenced Mr. Ghose, and what better influence could a
beginner have? Here are some stanzas from another of Mr. Ghose's poems:

Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet
In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows;
Forget the shining of the stars, forget
The vernal visitation of the rose;
And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.

'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,
Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep:
Some birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure;
And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,
And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.

'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;
Then follow, till around thee all be sere.
Lose not a vision of her passing face;
Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here
Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'

The second line is very beautiful, and the whole shows culture and taste
and feeling. Mr. Ghose ought some day to make a name in our literature.

Mr. Stephen Phillips has a more solemn classical Muse.