POEMS OF THE DAWN AND THE NIGHT. By Henry Mond. Chapman & Hall. 3s. 6d. net.
"Youth's a stuff will not endure," and in a year or two Mr. Mond will probably not be talking of storming the battlements of Heaven, and will not care to begin a poem with
An aged filthy hag, with bloated face,
Upon her haunches, wrapped in bloody rags,
There squats Bellona—splashed with entrails—
—words which do not really horrify us, and did not really horrify him. He shows certain gifts. There is observation at the end of The Silver Corpse, and in parts of The Fawn. But he strains after effects and misses them. Honest vision and honest feeling may be later discoveries. He would do well, for a time, to subject himself to a strict discipline formally.
NAPOLEON. By Herbert Trench. Oxford University Press. 2s. 6d. net.
This is a cheap reprint of Mr. Trench's play, previously published at 10s. 6d. net, and recently acted by the Stage Society. With the exception of The Requiem of the Archangels and one or two other poems it is certainly the finest thing he has done. Unfortunately the finest things in it are probably those which are least suitable to the theatre.
ATHENIAN DAYS. By F. Noël Byron. Elkin Mathews. 2s. 6d. and 1s. 6d. net.
Mr. Byron seems to have read the classics, and is obviously fond of Greece. The unfortunate moon has been compared to many things; this time it is a beckoning courtesan. There are few notable blemishes about Mr. Byron's poems; but he never ends them properly, and it is seldom clear why he begins them.