"Vexusries" By Carroll Lunt Poblished by. La Librairio Prangaise, Peking.
Price $2.
The learned Dr. Johnson, the Heroic Couplet. ever echoing in his fears, is reputed to have condemned blank verse on the ground that it too closely resembled prose, a criticism of little weight no doubt; but a form of poetry which pays little or no heed to any shape or rhythmical pattern is liable to be brought to censure by a more humble critics than the worthy writer of dictionaries.
Mr. Lunt's "Velleties;" a booklet of poems, if we may so extend the term, marks a new departure in poetic diction which is rather to be' feared than welcomed. The "Velleities" are not lacking in either originality or in imaginative con-option. Mr. Lunt has indeed ideas which, if expressed in more truly poetical language and form, would worthy of merit. As matters stand, he at his best reaches a certain happiness of expression, and fat his worst sinks to a kind of doggerd void of rhyme, rhythm or Happy Child," a short fragment, has a rather pleasing opening fu the naive and expressive lines "By my aide Me stood hand a, drawing, held rude lines, two circles and a square, 'Roa! he whi Child' eyes in The metrical effect now becomes lost in a burst of prose which follows:
And in his dear little vision Wan alntreat and all the moving alad-
Love As of Old," the principal poem, is in ballad form and is the only" work of any length in this series. In theme it is a sufficiently commonplace tragedy, though not. uninteresting in itself. The metre perhaps rather of the nature of Quixotic canter, though it is fairly Feliable. We reluctantly accept such rhymes as "noise" and "rejoice," but feel completely bowled over at the lines.
Wha_decs he linking out the doort one So tces ty RST of sg Seg Mona straight to Hes "The City Wall," though written with a steady metre, has a vague ness of thought which defies all comprehension. Like the music of Cyril Scott and some modern composers, one is left in doubt as to Whether it is the expression of a. deep thought or any thought at all.
"On A Visit to the Peking Union Medical College" is "Chamber of Horrors" with more or less the air fof a prospectus. The poet's humour its from many human miseries to the subject of electric dynamoes and steam boilers in the most alarming. manner. the Eden at Carlisle" and the "Fortune Teller" are perhaps the: best. The-former has some rather pleasing pastoral lines though the' metre is a little uncertain. There is degree of charm and idealism in ines.
"And graliow fits o'er bottereup in wie'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.