BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1150, 10 June 1911, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

. o VERSES OLD AND NEW. THE ROMANY SWAY. I wish I were a gipsy free To dance beneath the rowan tree, To wade in waters cool ami sweet Or press the thyme with naked feet. I wish I wore a scarlet gown, And ran upon tho windy dov, n To gather mushrooms in tho dew, Sloes and -whortleberries blue, Hips and haws and hazels brown, For selling in the narrow-town, Where every wide-eyed child would cry—, "There goes a gipsy passing by!" Ami run to buy my wares of me And wish that ho were half as free. Then with some tea to fill my can . Far out of sight of any man I'd light my fire and, sit and sup And watch the smoke climb up and up; Tho smoke upon its stairless way To greet tho pine-tree tops and say— "Those are- your boughs that burn so well." I'd gather bracken from the dell To make a pillow for my head, And overj' timo I turned in bed Between my eyelid and my cheek The stars should play at hide-and-seek. Or if the moon of dreams were high, I'd be a gipsy that could fly To visit with tho honey-bee, Or chase tho swallow o'er the sea; And in the early morning dark I'd rise beyond the boldest lark, And holding to some angel's frock, I'd enter heaven, and never knock; And onco insido they'd let me stay, For all would take my part and say— " 'Tis but a little gipsy free, Let be, good doorkeeper, let be!" —Anna Bunston, in the "Spectator." THOUGHTS. A morning sky that is clear and blue, Blackthorn boughs with the sky peeping through, They put me in mind of Katie's eyes Shining and blue tho like o' the skies. (But strange now an' hard are tho ways of fate, For someway I never have married Kate.) Waters grey at the fall o' the night Bdlectin; the last pale gleam of light, Lakes with dark rushes about tho rim, It's Tessy's eyes are the like o' tliim. (Scarce Christmas a year I had deep distress, For another made bold to marry Toss.) Pools in the. Dargle that hide the trout, Golden and clear when the sun conies oiit; Brown and green in the shade of a tree, It's Jlary's eyes are the eyes for me. (And now if she proves not too conthrary, When the hay is cut I'll marry Jlary.) —W. M. Letts. ' IMMANENCE. I come in tha little things, Saith tho Lord; Not borne on morning wings Of majesty; but I have set Jly Feet Amidst the delicato and bladed wheat That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod. There do I dwell, in weakness and in power; Not broken or divided, saith. our God! In your straight garden plot I come to flower; About your porch My Vine, Meek, fruitful, doth entwine; Waits, at tho threshold, Love's appointed hour. I come in the little things, Saith tho Lord; Yea! on tho glancing'wings Of eager birds, the soft and pattering feet Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes,.i u That peep from' out the brake,' I stand' contest. On every nest Where feathery Patience is content to Wood - And leaves her pleasure for the high emprizo Of motherhood— Thero doth my Godhead rest. I come in the little things, Saith tho Lord; My starry wings I do forsake, Love's highway of humility to take: Meekly I fit my stature to your need. In beggar's part About your gates I shall not cease to pleadAs man, to speak with manTill by such art I shall achieve Jly Immemorial Plan; I'ass the low- lintel of the human heart. —Evelyn Underbill, in the "Nation." THE TRAPPER. Las' moon Eloise, ma femme, go die. I burn ze candle for 'er soul. Say Father Pierre: "Come, dry ze eye, She'm weeth ze angel bunch on ' 'i»h, Eloise she'm safe in 'eavenly fol Eloise she'm weeth goot companee, She cook no more for 'ungree man. . Ze col' an' snow no trouble she. I wondaire do she tirtk of me Wot scet alone in the ole cabane? Les vieux temps . passent, an' mm' zo place She sce-ng no more 'er ole refrain. Ze doorway, no more, frame 'er face, But ven the nord win'' owl an' race .Forgotten voices spee-k again. Ven in my blankets warm Ah lie Ah 'ear ze win' make grand stampede. Ze stove he blink him small red eye, An| doux zo lottle voices cry "Wot do you 'ere—bec-g 'inky breed?" Ze shadows move an' thro' dem slinks A stripy coon, den in ze draf' Ah 'car zo cat-purr off a lynx. Along za bsam see-t clnske'o minks. An' soft ze loetle voices laugh— "In willow brush lip birch canoe; Remember 'ow she kiss zo stream? 'Ow light in portage? 'Ow she flew Thro' wild whit? wat.iire? 'Ow on blue Still lacs she float like sliee-p o' dream?" "You buckskin shirt 'an? on ze wall; You gun an' snowShee 'a.ng below. Ze caribou is fat zis Fall, Ze bull-moose by ze swamp-edge call." "Ba gar! Ah tin]; Ah'll go!!" - Cl osbic Garstm, in the "Wcstminst°r Gazette." SUCCESS IN LETTERS. The man to whom tho "Westminster Gazette" entrusted the reviewing of a recent manual cn "Success in Literature" contrived to say some interesting things. The book, he says, is a little chilling. 0 The first sentence of the author's '"Introductory" may partly explain this sense of gloom. What is Success? "Success is the reward of labours conducted with knowledge and judgment." That, of course, is sober truth. It is, indeed, a truth so sober that wo are hardly likely to think of it unless as a piece of advice for the use of others. It carries us straight back to (he drone and ennui of our copybook days. We long to turn it inside out: Success is the rapture of having failed in a forlorn cause; success is to breathe one's last just this side of immortality; success is the ironical lift of the poet's eyebrow as he passes on tho dish of Dead Sea fruit. But the authors of this irreproachable axiom have entirely esihcwed poetry. Their intention is sol/21* and righteous: "Authors are prone," they toll us in another passage, "to giving expression,'to their discontent, and "to savins, in their grey moods, all sorts of bitter tilings about their own work, and their profession. . . . But the results are both patent anil pertinent. The listeners readily lend their ears, and go away to discount at their leisure, by the light of his qwn admission of failure, their "previous opinion of the authors abilities." "Patent and pertinent —that too is true; and a lustier .Do profundi* than over whelms out of our hearts at Tordan: "The changeable world to our grief is' unjust," and we can only rninfort ourselves with tho remembrance that

it too will bo mouldy "a hundred years hence"—when, perchance, our bays will still I>> shilling on undimmed! Apropos of unforeseen success, again, wo read of Petrarch, who, "having fallen in love with Laura de Sade, wrote, partly to please tho lady and partly to please himself, a number of Italian lyrics." Is this irony, or is it only a chilling way of dishing the sentimental? Thoro is almost an uncanny mystery of life about a book. And though it may bo something Df an injustice to consider the actual personal effect of this particular kind of book, yet, in a fashion beyond all analysis, it is just that effect which will form our lasting impression and remembrance of _ it. Ueally, to have inspired, to have given that lang beloved of the gambler, to have succeeded in making writing seem for a while a thing less concerned with ink than with blood, and literature, however ornate and appetising and desirable, still, after all, as Cory said, only a side-dish, as compared with life itself—such, we feel, after all these maxims of prudence and pvactico and good sense, might have been the filial outcome of a volume like this. < As it is, the portals of tho profession which these pages rank so even for one who is well insule of them may still seem to lour with that awful "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' cntrate!