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elevation of spirit. While gaining a firmer mastery over the
instruments of poetry he has struck from them a deeper, fuller, and
more significant tone. In this his last volume, which has lately
appeared, his verse is brought completely into the service of the
Church. The "May Carols" are poems celebrating the Virgin Mary in her
month of May. For that month, and for the Roman church, Mr. De Vere
has done in this volume what Keble did for the festivals of the year,
and the English church, in his "Christian Year." Catholicism in
England has produced no poet since the days of Crashaw so sincere in
his piety, so sweet in his melody, so pure in spirit as De Vere. And
the volume is not for Roman Catholic readers alone. Others may be
touched by its religious fervor, and charmed with its beauties of
description or of feeling. It is full and redolent of spring. The
sweetness of the May air flows through many of its verses,--of that
season when

Trees, that from winter's gray eclipse
Of late but pushed their topmost plume,
Or felt with green-touched finger-tips
For spring, their perfect robes assume.

While, vague no more, the mountains stand
With quivering line or hazy hue;
But drawn with finer, firmer, hand,
And settling into deeper blue.

Mr. De Vere is an exquisite student of nature, with fine perceptions
that have been finely cultivated. Take this picture of the lark:--

From his cold nest the skylark springs;
Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew;
Attains his topmost height, and sings
Quiescent in his vault of blue.

And here is a description of the later spring:--

Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold,
Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,
Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold
Her chalice of fulfilled delights.

Confirmed around her queenly lip
The smile late wavering, on she moves;
And seems through deepening tides to step
Of steadier joys and larger loves.

The little volume contains many passages such as these. We have space
to quote but one of the poems complete, to show the manner in which
Mr. De Vere unites the real, the symbolic, and the external, with the
spiritual. Like most of his poems, it is marked by artistic finish and
grace, and many of the lines have a natural beauty of unsought
alliteration and assonance.

When all the breathless woods aloof
Lie hushed in noontide