ENVOY.

   Dear, ’twas a dozen lives ago;
   But that I was a lucky man
   The Toyokuni here will show: 
   I loved you—­once—­in old Japan!

This rondel, too—­how light it is, and graceful!—­

   We’ll to the woods and gather may
   Fresh from the footprints of the rain. 
   We’ll to the woods, at every vein
   To drink the spirit of the day.

   The winds of spring are out at play,
   The needs of spring in heart and brain. 
   We’ll to the woods and gather may
   Fresh from the footprints of the rain.

   The world’s too near her end, you say? 
   Hark to the blackbird’s mad refrain! 
   It waits for her, the vast Inane? 
   Then, girls, to help her on the way
   We’ll to the woods and gather may.

There are fine verses, also, scattered through this little book; some of them very strong, as—­

   Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
   I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

   It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
   I am the master of my fate: 
      I am the captain of my soul.

Others with a true touch of romance, as—­

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon,
And you were a Christian slave.

And here and there we come across such felicitous phrases as—­

In the sand
The gold prow-griffin claws a hold,

or—­

The spires
Shine and are changed,

and many other graceful or fanciful lines, even ’the green sky’s minor thirds’ being perfectly right in its place, and a very refreshing bit of affectation in a volume where there is so much that is natural.

However, Mr. Henley is not to be judged by samples.  Indeed, the most attractive thing in the book is no single poem that is in it, but the strong humane personality that stands behind both flawless and faulty work alike, and looks out through many masks, some of them beautiful, and some grotesque, and not a few misshapen.  In the case with most of our modern poets, when we have analysed them down to an adjective, we can go no further, or we care to go no further; but with this book it is different.  Through these reeds and pipes blows the very breath of life.  It seems as if one could put one’s hand upon the singer’s heart and count its pulsations.  There is something wholesome, virile and sane about the man’s soul.  Anybody can be reasonable, but to be sane is not common; and sane poets are as rare as blue lilies, though they may not be quite so delightful.

Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow;
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare,
And we can conquer, though we may not share
In the rich quiet of the afterglow,

            What is to come,