is seriousness: there is no trace in him of the English cheerfulness
and levity. Most of our war-writers are incorrigible Mark Tapleys. But
Lieut. Nichols, even when he uses colloquial phrases--and he introduces
them with great effect--never smiles. He is most unlike the French, on
the other hand, in his general attitude towards the war. He has no
military enthusiasm, no aspiration after _gloire_. Indeed, the most
curious feature of his poetry is that its range is concentrated on the
few yards about the trench in which he stands. He seems to have no
national view of the purpose of the war, no enthusiasm for the cause, no
anger against the enemy. There is but a single mention of the Germans
from beginning to end; the poet does not seem to know of their
existence. His experiences, his agonies, his despair, are what a purely
natural phenomenon, such as the eruption of a volcano or the chaos of an
earthquake, might cause. We might read his poems over and over again
without forming the slightest idea of what all the distress was about,
or who was guilty, or what was being defended. This is a mark of great
artistic sincerity; but it also points to a certain moral narrowness.
Lieut. Robert Nichols' "endurances" are magnificently described, but we
are left in the dark regarding his "ardours." We are sure of one thing,
however, that none of us may guess what such a talent, in one still so
young, may have in store for us; and we may hope for broader views
expressed in no less burning accents.

There could hardly be a more vivid contrast than exists between the
melancholy passion of Lieut. Nichols and the fantastic high spirits of
Captain Robert Graves. He again is evidently a very young man, who was
but yester-year a jolly boy at the Charterhouse. He has always meant to
be a poet; he is not one of those who have been driven into verse by the
strenuous emotion of the war. In some diverting prefatory lines to _Over
the Brazier_ he gives us a picture of the nursery-scene when a bright
green-covered book bewitched him by its "metre twisting like a chain of
daisies, with great big splendid words." He has still a wholesome hunger
for splendid words; he has kept more deliberately than most of his
compeers a poetical vocation steadily before him. He has his moments of
dejection when the first battle faces him:--

"Here's an end to my art!
I must die and I know it,
With battle-murder at my heart--
Sad death, for a po