of the incessant rain. It does not lend itself to excerp-
tion^ and is too long for present quotation. But the
finest poem in the volume is the superb ' Hymn to
Colour,' which, with ' Love in the Valley," I should
rank foremost among the sensuous poems of George
Meredith. There is not a line that is not exquisite in
beauty. There is a gorgeousness, too, which is rare
with this author, even in such in one sense hueless
words as
' Look now where colour, the soul's bridegroom, makes
The house of heaven splendid for the bride.'
It is almost a shame to detach portions of so perfect a
poem, but it would be worse to pass on without quota-
tion. The last six stanzas, which belong to ' Love's
Song,' and are so far descriptive of Dawn, may best be
excerpted. Artists, at any rate, will know how abso-
lutely true is the unconventional inversion of epithets
in the first stanza : —
' Of thee to say behold, has said adieu :
But love remembers how the sky was green,
And how the grasses glimmered lightest blue ;
How saiiU-like grey took fervour ; how the screen
Of cloud giew violet ; how thy moment came
Between a blush and flame.
Love saw the emissary eglantine
Break wave round thy white feet above the gloom ;
Lay finger on thy star ; thy raiment line
With cherub wing and limb ; wed thy soft bloom,
Gold-quivering like sun-rays in thistle-down,
Earth under rolling brown.
They do not look through love to look on thee.
Grave heavenliness ! nor know they joy of sight,
Who deem the wave of rapt desire must be
Its wrecking and last issue of delight.
Dead seasons quicken in one petal-spot
Of colour unforgot.
This way have men come out of brutishness
To spell the letters of the sky, and read
A reflex upon earth, else meaningless.
With thee, O fount of the Untimed ! to lead ;
Drink they of thee, thee eyeing, they unaged
Shall on through brave wars waged.
More gardens will they win than any lost ;
The vile plucked out of them, the unlovely slain.
Not forfeiting the beast with which they are crossed,
To stature of the gods will they attain.
They shall uplift their earth to meet her Lord,
Themselves the attuning chord.
The Song had ceased : my vision with the song.
Then of those Shadows, which one made descent
iieside me I knew not : but Life ere long
Came on me in the public ways, and bent
Eyes deeper than of old ; Death met I too,
And saw the dawn glow through.'
And saw Ihe dawn glow Ihrough Death — words as noble
and beautiful as they are characteristic.
In conclusion — though, perhaps, no worthier close
could be than the stanza just quoted — here is the last
of the few sonnets : —
Winter Heavens. ' Sharp is the night, bat stars with frost alive Leap off the rim of earth across the dome. It is a night to make the heavens our home iVIore than the nest whereto apace we strive. Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive. In swarms out-rushing from the golden comb. They waken waves of thought that burst to foam : The living throb in me, the dead revive. Yon mantle clothes us : there, past mortal breath, . Life glistens on the river of the death. It folds us, flesh and dust ; and have we knelt. Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs Of radiance, the radiance enrings : And this is the soul's haven to have felt.'
If Mr. George Meredith will speak to us oftener in his vocation as poet, as vales, he will strengthen immeasurably the bond which already unites him in sympathy with all who love high thinking, and never better than when wedded with words transfigured by the spirit of poetry. William Sharp.
LAURENCE OLIPHANT.
MAN who begins life at seventeen byitaking coffee with the Sultan of Mocha, who as a diplomat visits most of the countries of the world, and has the entree to the most distinguished London society, who then by way of a change works as a day-labourer and domestic servant, and teams 'as a common teamster
through the rigours of a Canadian winter,' and finally passes the last two or three years of his life on the slopes of Mount Carmel, may be expected to produce works of somewhat varied and cosmopolitan interest! Surely never did any man combine in himself the characters of the society-man, the man of action and adventure, and the mystical man or seer, as did Laurence Oliphant ; and his writings accordingly fall into three groups — his novels, Piccadilly, Masollam, and Alliora Veto; his books of travel and personal adventure. Episodes, Reminiscences, descriptions of Palestine, etc., and his inspirational works, of which Sympneumata and Scientific Religion are the chief If none of these are quite first-class in their various departments, still that is an attainment which could hardly be expected ; the interest of Oliphant lies, as might well be predicted, not in the special thoroughness, or depth, or even intensity of any of his work, but in the breadth of his nature, and the strange and fascinating lights cast by his many-sided character and
