_Advent_ perhaps the noblest of all her poems, and also
specially loves the _Passing Away_. I do not know that I
quite agree with your decided preference for the two sonnets
of hers you signalise,--the _World_ is very fine, but the
other, _Dead before Death_, a little sensational for her. I
think _After Death_ one of her noblest, and the one _After
Communion_. In my own view, the greatest of all her poems is
that on France after the siege--_To-Day for Me_. A very
splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion is _The Convent
Threshold_.

I have run the sonnet you like, _St. Luke the Painter_, into
a sequence with two more not yet printed, and given the
three a general title of _Old and New Art_, as well as
special titles to each. I shall annex them to _The House of
Life_.

Have you ever read Vaughan? He resembles Donne a good deal
as to quaintness, but with a more emotional personality.

I have altered the last line of octave in _Lost Days_. It
now runs--

"The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway."

I always had it in my mind to make a change here, as the
_in_ standing in the line in its former reading clashed with
_in_ occurring in the previous line. I have done what I
think is a prime sonnet on the murdered Czar, which I
enclose, but don't show it to a soul.

Theodore Watts is going to print a very fine sonnet of his
own in _The Athenaeum_. It is the first verse he ever put in
print, though he wrote much (when a very young man). Tell me
how you like it. I think he is destined to shine in that
class of poetry.

I knew you must like Watts's sonnets. They are splendid
affairs. I am not sure that I agree with you in liking the
first the better of the two: the second (_Natura Maligna_)
is perhaps the deeper and finer. I have asked Watts to give
you a new sonnet, and I think perhaps he will do so, or at
all events give you permission to use those he has printed.
He has just come into the room, and says he would like to
hear from you on the subject.

From one rather jocular sentence in your note I judge you
may include some sonnets of your own. I see no possible
reason why you should not. You are really now, at your
highest, among our best sonnet-writers, and have written two
or three sonnets that yi