I climbed aloft.  My brain had grown one thought,
One hope, one purpose.  And I heard the hiss
Of raging disappointment, loth to miss
Its prey—­I heard the lapping of the flame,
That through the blenched figures went and came,
Darting in frenzy to the devils’ yell. 
I set that cross on high, and cried:  ’To hell
My soul for ever, and my deed to God! 
Once Venice guarded safe, let this vile clod
Drift where fate will!’

            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.

Venetia Victrix is followed by Ophelion, a curious lyrical play whose dramatis personae consist of Night, Death, Dawn and a Scholar.  It is intricate rather than musical, but some of the songs are graceful—­notably one beginning

   Lady of heaven most pure and holy,
      Artemis, fleet as the flying deer,
   Glide through the dusk like a silver shadow,
      Mirror thy brow in the lonely mere.

Miss Fitz Gerald’s volume is certainly worth reading.

Mr. Richard Le Gallienne’s little book, Volumes in Folio as he quaintly calls it, is full of dainty verse and delicate fancy.  Lines such as

   And lo! the white face of the dawn
      Yearned like a ghost’s against the pane,
      A sobbing ghost amid the rain;
   Or like a chill and pallid rose
   Slowly upclimbing from the lawn,

strike, with their fantastic choice of metaphors, a pleasing note.  At present Mr. Le Gallienne’s muse seems to devote herself entirely to the worship of books, and Mr. Le Gallienne himself is steeped in literary traditions, making Keats his model and seeking to reproduce something of Keats’s richness and affluence of imagery.  He is keenly conscious how derivative his inspiration is: 

   Verse of my own! why ask so poor a thing,
      When I might gather from the garden-ways
   Of sunny memory fragrant offering
      Of deathless blooms and white unwithering sprays?

   Shakspeare had given me an English rose,
      And honeysuckle Spenser sweet as dew,
   Or I had brought you from that dreamy close
      Keats’ passion-blossom, or the mystic blue

   Star-flower of Shelley’s song, or shaken gold
      From lilies of the Blessed Damosel,
   Or stolen fire from out the scarlet fold
      Of Swinburne’s poppies. . . .

Yet now that he has played his prelude with so sensitive and so graceful a touch, we have no doubt that he will pass to larger themes and nobler subject-matter, and fulfil the hope he expresses in this sextet: