The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-03-23

brightest and happiest chapters, as Wen as
one of the most important in the story or
art. Pictures of the artists and their works
adorn the book, and its binding Is very
handsome. A. Vessels Company, New
York.
More Verses.
Brief are the verses of Robert Love-
man, and his thoughts are simply ex-
pressed. Within the compass of his new
book, 1.-The Gates of Silence. with Inter-
ludes of Song (the Knickerbocker Press.
New York;, one seldom finds so many hap
PLY turned verses. For the most part his
flights of fancy are philosophical so much
so that the intellectual element comes near
dominating the emotional; but he frequent
ly hangs a poem on a single idea, wholly
poetical in its expression. The following
.interiude'' is one of his best:
ut isn't raining rain to me.
In every dimpled drop see
Wild flowers the hills;
The clouds Of gray ,s eng {orr the day.
1t isn't raining rain TO me,
It's raining roses down.
.It isn't raining rain to me.
But fields of clover bloom,
May md a bed and room
A health unto the happy!
"A fig for him who frets!
1t isn't raining rain to me,
It's raining violets."
Ernest Crosby is a disciple of Tolstoi in
thought. and of Whitman in manner of
expression. He is the foe of militarism
and the military spirit, and a lover of labor
and of elemental man. He indicts social
wrong as vigorously as does Edward Car
penter. the radical poet of England. The
verse paragraph of Whitman, in which
tiresome but for relief of the lyric form
of his shorter poems. His latest book,
Swords and Plowshares'' (Funk & Wag-
nails, New York;, is typical In 1t one
gets the seriousness of the reformer, with
a little saving humor, the sarcasm of the
contender for young and unpopular faith.
How much of good art there is in the book
Is hard to determine, but there Is much
that Is VITAL both in thought and express
sion, and much that is noble and unselfish
in sentiment. The following poem, en-
titled Life and Death" Is characteristic
in expression and conventional in form:
80 he died for his faith. That is fine
More than most of US Co.
But stay can you add to that line
That he lived for it, too?
ut is easy to die. Men have died
For wish a whm-
Was 1t hard for him?
but to live: every day to live out
Ali the truth that ne dreamt.
While his friends met his conduct with doubt.
And the world with contempt
WAS it thus that he plodded ahead.
Never turning aside?
Never MIND sa'h ho Sr s the 5s he
Hand in Hand, Verses by Mother and
Daughter is the curious title of a small
guessed were written by the mother and
sister of Kipling. Additional evidence that
the book is product of the Kipling family
Is contained in the title page, which is
photogravure of an artistic piece of model
ing. signed j. L. K. 1t is well known that
the elder Mr.. Kipling is an artist, and his
initials are j. l.. In the poems of the
mother there is much of the vfgor, the
seeming recklessness, and the significant
interest of the poems of Rudyard Kipling,
whether she be his mother or not. Then
take the expression in the last two stanzas
of a poem in which is described the burial
at sea of woman's lover. who is captain
of a wrecked ship:
with coral and gold weighted him.
And still he was light enough to swim,
With silver chains i bound him down,
There was never a corpse hard to drown.
o cHis black hair lines an eagles nest est.
Now. Jet for coral there must be,
And instead OF amber, ebony.
Except this, and one or two others, the
poems are essentially feminine in spirit and
sentiment Pleasing fantasies, expressed
energetically or delicately, and originally
are sometimes varied with a poem COM
monplace both in thought and the express
sion of 1t. This stanza is representative of
the poorer verse;
There was never a soul so wholly sad,
But IL found some moment to be glad;
There was never heart so full OF care
But 1t had one hope to cheat despair"
There are twice as many poems by the
daughter as by the mother. Some Of them
have appeared in English magazines.
"Spion Kop." for instance. in Longman's.
There is not much difference in merit be-
tween the two writer's and the verses have
practically the same characteristics. The
daughter, however, seems little more
restrained. Her Indian verses, Where
Hugh Flows" and Rose Aylmers Grave
are full of sympathetic understanding and
humanity. These, with a certain distinc-
ton of form, make all her poems interest
ing.
Where Hugh flows, English eyes are weary.
Our hearts sometimes very far away
Needs must that exile should be long and
How slow the hours, how tagging long the day,
Where Hugh flows.
Yet. years hence. when the steamers crew
shall beat
The homeward track. for without return,
Our bitter bread by custom almost sweet,
We shall look back, perhaps, through tears
that burn,
Where Hugh flows"
This little volume is, on the whole, one of
the most pleasing books of verse that has
lately come to hand. Doubleday, Page g.
Co., New York.