The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-12
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s'Perdita and other Poems, py Shai ies J. Bayne. Published by Cole Book com pany, Atlanta. Ga.
 "Perdita and Other Poems'' Is a volume of poems of unusual power and sweetness which appears in very attractive binding of dull red and gold. The author, MT. Charles J. Bayne, Is well known jour nalist of Atlanta, being at present con- nected with the Atlanta News in the ed- itorial department. Formerly. however, MT. Bayne was Washington correspond ent for several we'll known Georgia jour nals, and from this broad outlook gained the intimate and conversant experience which makes his literary work of today of such genuine interest and value. It is rare, though, to find a journalist, In tho broadest sense, who preserves the sweet ness of thought and ideality of imagery as is expressed in these poems by MT. Bayne. Each one in the little volume Is chaste and beautiful and evinces a power and grace and suggesdveness that is rare 7 and subtly appealing. One of the daintiest is entitled "Artiste-'' When April pipes her pastoral nots, And all the daisies dance,
 You catch the fairy festival And fix the green expanse;
 When memory pipes the graces down
 In their elusive guise,
 They all assume
 Your shape and bloom,
 And dartle with your eyes. When Summer drowses into dreams. And, dreaming, laughs in flowers, You hold the riches of her prime Against the brigand hours;
 When Fancy, steeped in slumber. yields
 Some echoes of your voice.
 Beyond the spell
 Those echoes dwell,
 And bid me still rejoice.
 "when Autumn from her russet locks, Shakes dapples brown and bright. You garner shadows into sheaves And bind them with tho light; When Fortune, from her checkered store,
 Dispenses joy and care,
 Through you I find
 A hope to bind si
 The gleanings of despair. ''when through old winters tattered His snowy tonsure peers.
 The glory round his dying brow You give to future years.
 So, when life's withered joys reveal
 The cheerless waste below,
 Your vanished face
 Bequeaths Its grace
 Through memory's golden glow"
 Another tenderly exquisite couplet is entitled "Discontent."
 ''I sighed for a desolate island
 Where none might intrude on my
 dreams While hours all alone I might while and Alone pace the banks of its streams sI found me the desolate island:
 RIf a fof The hours were too lonely to while and sighed till gone days were redeemed" Sarah in Town" is one of the cleyerest poems in the book and is one of the best examples of the purity and chastity and tender sentiment which pervade all of MT. Bayne's poems.
 "An American in New York" by Opie Read. Published by Thompson & Thom- as, Chicago.
 An American in New York" is called .a novel of today though 1t was origi- nally series of sketches published under that title in the Saturday Evening Post These fragmentary tales, however, have been most adroitly fused by Mr. Read to that the whole forms a very absorbing novel with a central human interest in >the love affair of the Colonel" which the publisher opinely observes will make q sure appeal to the interest of women
 
 raised as to whether Hove story ap- peals most to the feminine or masculine reader-much might be said pro and con. But, as kipling observes, that is an- other story and no doubt all readers will agree that the "Colonels" very de- ligntful little love experience gives a tenderness and human quality and gen. uineness that the Coloners philosophy and numor no matter how fine, could not otherwise possess. Those acquainted with the rare originality and oddity of MT. Reads work will be prepared for the treat that IS Tn store for them in this new Voluine' Ihe delicious satire of the title reflects the whimsical humor and quaint philosophy of the pages within. The central figure of the book is a re- markable southern colonel-such a ooI- onel as only Opie Read can depict Ha declared to a bell boy that "he had lived out in America and this was his first tr;r abroad" And after an amusing cbanter or two New Yorker coyly asks inc Col onel If all barbarians who went to Rowe didn't criticise her? And let me ask if all or them don't have cause?" replied the Colonel "'But, Colonel, haven't you r.aa friends in New York?' Friends? Sir. I haven't made even an enemy" 'en an The whole is rare and delightful com bination of philosophy, satire and bunoor In the relation of the Coloneps inrnito hIa anecdotes and stories. Noteworthy fea- tures, too. are the truthfulness of tb. Coionefs observations and his healtbv protest against the sordid and its at 0oaphere of noble Justification of chivaI- sy. Of romance and q the old fashioned