66 In this piece, where not a single forcible note is struck, where not a word is thrown away, what a vision is raised of old, unhappy, far-off things"; how past and present, visible and invisible, audible and inaudible are wrought into a unity of uncanny impressiveness! These poems and their success or failure in the treatment of the preternatural help us to solve a wider question-what is, and what is not, the vagueness, the indefiniteness (sometimes the obscurity), which may belong to excellent poetry. It is suggestive power in its fulness. It is the power to open up to our eyes, by seemingly artless diction, long vistas, horizons beyond horizons, of beauty, romance, fear and awe. And it is strange how it can alternate or combine with clear This admirable combination definiteness and lucid outlines. may often be studied in Shelley, to mention but one master. The Cloud rests its brilliant play of imagination and fancy upon an accuracy of observation and knowledge worthy of a natural scientist; while The Sensitive Plant shows the same precision with regard to the world of flowers. On a larger scale still we find this combination in such scenes of Shakesperian drama as the moonlight scene in the Merchant of Venice, where humorous realism and soaring fancy sit hand in hand in happiest harmony. With this plastic power is to be contrasted the vagueness and indefiniteness of the poetaster. He is vague from sheer inability to see clearly, conceive clearly, or express clearly. The great poet sometimes writes hazily, as Turner or Whistler sometimes painted hazily, and for similar good reasons. The poetaster writes hazily for the same reason that a child paints hazily. There is no grasp of subject or means; nothing is strongly apprehended, nothing strongly rendered. Of this kind of work we may see abundant examples in the writings of one who is not a mere poetaster, but may be called a feebler Longfellow-in the once-popular writings of Mrs. Hemans. (To be concluded.) A LEGEND OF CONNEMARA The surf beats loudly on the shore, She sets her wheel beside the blaze, Her face is full of changeful play, And sweet, as are the summer meadows, When floating cloud and sunny ray Bewilder them with lights and shadows. But now it blanches wildly pale, As wears her spirit dull and weary; Some creeping sound disturbs her ear, 'Twas nothing but the peat fire stirring? Wide opes the door without a sound, And something dark and tall doth enter; She rises up and stares around, With courage terror's self hath lent her. A figure grows upon her sight, A silent gaze upon her bending, O'erpowering with its awful might Of wordless anguish, tears transcending. The chill sea from his garment drips, The ocean spray his long hair whitens, With livid cheeks and frozen lips, He glimmers as the peat fire brightens. "Oh! tell me has your boat gone down? Like distant murmurs faint and rare, And words like these are sadly spoken. "Gone are my dreams of wife and home, "My sin is this-I tempted God, "He smote me down, God took my life, "In storm or calm, by star or cloud, My boat must plunge among the billows, While comrades round the hearth-stone crowd, And children nestle in their pillows. "Nor ever can my weary soul Pass restfully through heaven's portals, Till perfected hath been the whole Of time, decreed me among mortals." It ceased; the shadow drenched and pale The surf groaned loudly on the shingle. In calm or storm, by star or cloud Doth Mary watch at dawn and gloaming, Each foam-wreath seems a glistening shroud, Each shadow seems a dark prow looming. She weeps when tempests will not rest, And wildly prays to blast and breaker; "Twould be a blessing doubly blest If God would pity her and take her. R. M. G. "THE JULY ANNIVERSARIES' M° OST citizens of Dublin are familiar with the above phrase, as it is the usual heading of the announcement of the celebration by the Orange Society of the Battles of the Boyne and Aughrim on the 1st and 12th of that month. It is of some interest just now to examine into the real causes of this, the greatest, most widespread and most modern War ever waged in Ireland, in these days of the greatest War ever waged in Europe. The Revolution in England and the War in Ireland mark the disappearance of the Stuart dynasty. That dynasty, reigning in England since 1603, had been on the throne of Scotland for upwards of two centuries before that time. When the great upheaval in the religion of the northern states of Europe took place in the sixteenth century, the Stuart King of Scotland, James V., stood alone amongst the sovereigns of the north of Europe in his determined adherence to the Catholic faith. No threats or blandishments of his powerful neighbour and uncle, Henry VIII., could induce him to give up his allegiance to Rome or to accept the new doctrines. In this he was followed by his daughter and successor, Mary, Queen of Scots. During her reign the Protestant party had gained strength in Scotland. This party was fomented by English influence and was unpatriotically subservient to the government of Queen Elizabeth. The triumph of these forces in Scotland brought about the eighteen years' imprisonment of Mary in England which terminated in her death on the scaffold at the hands of the English Queen and her ministers. Thus the two Stuart sovereigns who had the choice would not become Protestants. But Mary's son and successor was taken when a mere infant by the Scottish Lords of Congregation and brought up a Presbyterian. When he became King |