think, is Carvalhos, of which these two stanzas may serve as a specimen:

To the sun the sun-bathed pines

Their strength and sweetness render.
From where the far foam shines
Like the rim of a dazzling shield,
All fervent things and tender
Life, joy, and perfume yield.

Me, too, with mastering charm
From husks of dead days freeing,
The sun draws up, to be warm
And to bloom in this sweet hour;
The stem of all my being

Waited to bear this flower.

The last two lines are a memorable inspiration.

We turn now to Porphyrion, a blank verse narrative poem of about 1500 lines. It is a thing of real beauty, remarkable in itself, still more remarkable if, as one cannot but hope, it should prove to be the prelude to more sustained effort in the same direction. Though nominally complete, since it ends with the death of the hero, it may best be regarded as an epic fragment; and I do not know that anything more clearly indicative of the true epic faculty has been published of recent years. A great work it is not. It lacks vitality, because the subject is, in the literal sense of the word, insignificant. The poem, as it stands, is neither a romance, a legend, nor a parable. It is possible, no doubt, to extract an allegoric meaning from it, to make Porphyrion's quest adumbrate the pursuit of the Ideal; but its significance on the allegoric plane is neither very clear nor very deep. Simply as a story, again, it seems totally unconditioned. We cannot even divine the nature or intent of the unseen powers that mould Porphyrion's fate. Mr. Binyon admits that he has "adapted to his own uses" the legend which suggested the poem; but, practically, the uses to which he has put it are purely decorative. The poem is little more

than a series of pictures; but many of the pictures are magnificent.

The argument is this:

A young man of Antioch, flying from the world, in that enthusiasm for the ascetic life which fascinated early Christendom, dwells some years a hermit in the Syrian desert; till, by an apparition of magical loveliness, his life is broken up, and his nature changed; returning to the world, he embraces every vicissitude, hoping to find again the lost vision of that ideal beauty.

The poem opens with a description of Porphyrion in the desert whither he has fled because

Tumultuous life,

Full of sweet peril, thronged with rich alarms,
Dismayed his soul, too suddenly revealed.

After a day of toil in the plot before his cell

He stood immersed in the sweet falling hush.
Over him liquid gloom quivered with stars
Appearing endlessly, as each its place
Remembered, and in order tranquil shone.

Then he, that with such anguish of desire
Had supplicated peace, now peace was come,
Of all forgetful save of his strange joy,
That dear guest in his bosom entertained;
From trouble and from the stealing steps of time
Sequestered; housed within a blissful mood
Of contemplation, like a sacred shrine;
And poured his soul out, into gratitude

Released: how long, there was no tongue to tell,
Nor was himself aware; no warning voice

Admonished, and the great stars altered heaven
Unnoted, and the hours moved over him,
When on his ear and slowly into his soul
Deliciously distilling, stole a sigh.

It is the sigh of a woman faint and hungry, craving for

shelter. Porphyrion admits her, and, looking on her, is troubled by an "unknown sweetness":

He gazed and as wine blushes through a cup

Of water slowly, in sure-winding coils

Of crimson, the pale solitude of his soul

Was filled and flushed, and he was born anew.

It would not be easy to find a more exquisite simile than this; but it stands not alone in Porphyrion.

To trace the growth of his fascination would be to quote the whole canto. The visitant bids him "Defend his soul with prayers, Nor hazard for a dream his holy calm"; but he is not to be warned. "Rain on my thirsty heart," he cries,

Rain on my thirsty heart
Thy charm, and by so much as was my loss
By so much more enrich me. I have stript
My days, imprisoned wandering desires,
Made of my mind a jealous solitude,
Pruned overrunning thoughts, and rooted up
Delight, and the vain weeds of memory,
Imagining far off to capture peace.
Blind fool! But O no, let me rather praise
Foreseeing Fate, that kept so fast a watch
Over my bliss, and of my heart prepared
A wilderness to bloom with only thee!

Then, as he seeks to embrace her, she vanishes away and he

falls in a deep swoon.

When he awakes on the morrow:

The steep noon

Had all the cool shade into fire devoured.

Then quailed Porphyrion. Lost was his new joy,

An apparition frail as a bright flame

Seen in the sun.

Here again is an admirable image, simple and unpretentious but absolutely right. Porphyrion sets out to recapture

the vision, and his first day's journey is described at somewhat disproportionate length:

Till night

Rose in the east, and hooded the bare world.

Then Porphyrion resigned

His senses to the huge and empty night,

When on the infinite horizon, lo!

Sending a herald clearness, upward stole
Tranquil and vast, over the world, the moon.

Delicately as when a sculptor charms
The ignorant clay to liberate his dream,
Out of the yielding dark with subtle ray
And imperceptible touch she moulded hill
And valley, beauteous undulation mild,
Inlaid with silver estuary and stream,
Until her solid world created shines
Before her, and the hearts of men with peace,
That is not theirs, disquiets: peopled now
Is her dominion; she in far-off towns
Has lighted clear a long-awaited lamp
For many a lover, or set an end to toil,

Or terribly invokes the brazen lip

Of trumpets blown to Fate, where men besieged

For desperate sally buckle their bright arms.

All these, that the cheered wanderer on his height

In fancy sees, the lover's secret kiss,

The mirth-flushed faces thronging through the streets,
And ships upon the glimmering wave, and flowers

In sleeping gardens, and encounters fierce,

And revellers with lifted cups, and men

In prison bowed, that move not for their chains,

And sacred faces of the newly dead;

All with a mystery of gentle light

She visits, and in her deep charm includes.

On reading such a passage as this one cannot but feel that romantic and imaginative landscape is more suited to Mr. Binyon's talent than the realistic painting he essays in his London Visions.

Arrived, after some days' journeying, on a height above

Antioch, Porphyrion looked out over the spacious landscape, while

The far cloud

And as a bird, alighting on a reed

Sprung straight and slender from a lonely stream,

Some idle morning, delicately sways

The mirrored stem, and sings for perfect joy;

So musical, alighted young desire

Upon his heart, that trembled like the reed

Not in Antioch, however, does Porphyrion find the goal of his desire. He wanders overseas into distant countries, until at last he comes upon two armies facing each other in battle array. A dying soldier bequeathes to him his helmet and sword, and Porphyrion takes his place.

In that instant the ripe war

Broke like a tempest; the great squadrons loosed
Shot forward glittering, like a splendid wave

That rises out of shapeless gloom, a form

Massy with dancing crest, threatening and huge,

And effortlessly irresistible

Bursts on the black rocks turbulently abroad,
Falling, and roaring, and re-echoing far.
So rushed that ordered fury of steeds and spears
Under an arch of arrows hailing dark
Against the stubborn foe: they from the slope
Swept onward opposite with clang as fierce :
Afar, pale women from the wall looked down.

Just on that instant when the meeting shock
Tumultuously clashed, and cries were mixt
With glitter of blades whirled like spirted spray,
He came and as the thundering ranks recoiled,
They saw him, solitary, flushed and young,
A radiant ghost in the dead hero's arms.

Amazement smote them; in that pause he rode
Forward; and shouting Orophernes' name