"Ports ANd Porrny."—By HI.
Lay. Books t, Land Ul, London: Ning: milan Ca. St. Martin's "Street, Price, paper covers, Od, Cloth These are not text books schools but pupils' books. That is they are given to the student that he may read and gain from them fan insight into the nature and use of poetry. Why should anyone take the trouble to write poetry when he can express what he wants, te say in plain, every-day, Anglo-Saxon English, "The answer to this question is that there is no reason in the world why he should If all he wants to say can be said {in prose by all means lot him stick to that medium, But the pact has yething to say that prose will not express. He takes trouble, to be sure, but his trouble is not to make his fines jingle at their ends. He is no poet if this is a trouble to him. His trouble is to express something that is beyond expression, The Neweastle collier, when he ws shown a Chinese book and asked hho could read it, said "No, but if Thad my fiddle I think T'eould play it" The pact makes poetry for the same reason as a musician writes music, He has thoughts that tax the power of speech to express and they sing themselves to him. The late Rev. C. H, Spurgeon told of a budding pact whose father thought that a good thrashing might cure him of his habit of going mooning. about making rhynes, The boy Durst out, 0, father on mo pity take Abd'T no tore will verves make, His trouble was not to make poetry but to abstain from it, A poem nod not be a thyme but it must move according to measure and its theme must be something worthy of being enshrined in a poem, 'The writer of these books has the worthy aim of making his readers the beauty of poctxy and then explaining to them, which is not easy, wherein its' charm consist Here is a poem that sings itself, Once 1 Joved a maiden tale Over the hills and far anay Lands she had und lovers to spare And f was stooped and troubled core Over the hills and far a
'And puyfaco' as pate and the cent" War thin as my supper the night
over the hills and far awe before Of course he married the lady, What maiden could resist a lover who sang like that?
Here is another labelled "St.
George's day—Ypres 1915
To ft the gap, to bear the bri With bayonet and: spade Four hundred ton four lo front Unbecked and undismayed Whit men are there, of what great From what old shire or town That ran with "tuck goodwill to Case Death on @ Flemich down?
Lat be! they bind a broken line "As men die, 39d Land of the freet 1 St. George's ¢ay.
How could this be said in prose? But being said in poetry one feels, that it is noble thought nobly told. The work of exposition is well done fu those books and he will be a dull boy who will not revel in many the pieces set for exercise in th short bat charming books,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.