ns, with their love, can cheer poor wives' hearts more
O'er black bread and goat's cheese than thou canst mine
O'er red Vernaccia, spite of all thy learning!
Care I how tortured spirits feel in hell?
DANTE. Thou tortur'st mine.
GEMMA. Or how souls sing in heaven?
DANTE. Would I were there.
GEMMA. All folly, naught but folly.
DANTE. Thou canst not understand the mandates given
To poets by their goddess Poesy. . . .
GEMMA. Canst ne'er speak prose? Why daily clothe thy thoughts
In strangest garb, as if thy wits played fool
At masquerade, where no man knows a maid
From matron? Fie on poets' mutterings!
DANTE (to himself). If, then, the soul absorbed at last to whole--
GEMMA. Fie! fie! I say. Art thou bewitched?
DANTE. O! peace.
GEMMA. Dost thou deem me deaf and dumb?
DANTE. O! that thou wert.

Dante is certainly rude, but Gemma is dreadful. The play is well meant
but it is lumbering and heavy, and the blank verse has absolutely no
merit.

Father O'Flynn and Other Irish Lyrics, by Mr. A. P. Graves, is a
collection of poems in the style of Lover. Most of them are written in
dialect, and, for the benefit of English readers, notes are appended in
which the uninitiated are informed that 'brogue' means a boot, that
'mavourneen' means my dear, and that 'astore' is a term of affection.
Here is a specimen of Mr. Graves's work:

'Have you e'er a new song,
My Limerick Poet,
To help us along
Wid this terrible boat,
Away over to Tork?'
'Arrah I understand;
For all of your work,
'Twill tighten you, boys,
To cargo that sand
To the overside strand,
Wid the current so strong
Unless you've a song--
A song to lighten and brighten you, boys. . . . '

It is a very dreary production and does not 'lighten and brighten' us a
bit. The whole volume should be called The Lucubrations of a Stage
Irishman.

The anonymous author of The Judgment of the City is a sort of bad Blake.
So at least his prelude seems to suggest:

Time, the old viol-player,
For ever thrills his ancient strings
With the flying bow of Fate, and thence
Much discord, but some music, brings.

His ancient strings are truth,
Love, hate, hope, fear;
And his choicest melody
Is the song of the faithful seer.

As he progresses, however, he develops into a kind of inferior Clough and
writes heavy h