One of Mr. Johnson's sonnets, "Waters of Song," may be reproduced as an illustration of the refinement and balanced grace of his work in general.

"Time was when Avon's unrenowned stream,
Save for its beauty, unregarded flowed;
Once Arno even as other rivers glowed,
For then it had not mirrored Dante's dream.
How vague the gray Levantine sea did seem
Ere Homer charted all the stormy road!
The Psalmist who by Babylon abode
Forever linked with grief the willow's gleam.

"Think you there are no other waters fit
To be rechristened with a poet's name?
Is Nature bankrupt? — man's last beacon lit?
Believe it never! Unborn bards such fame
On undiscovered rivers may bestow
As shall to fable banish Nile and Po."

Poured where the thistle in the tilth grows higher,
Laid over the broad fields where no man reaps ?"

Such work as this produces the gratifying effect of
dry champagne upon a palate cloyed by the excessive
sweetness of most ordinary verse.

At discrete intervals during the last score of years
Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson has put forth modest
volumes of verse which have charmed thoughtful
readers by their grace and sincerity. Now that we
have the contents of these volumes (with a few
additional pieces) brought within a single pair of
covers, we realize with some surprise how great a
quantity of good work the author has done, and how
considerable a poet he is. This is clearly a case in
which the effect of the whole is greater than the sum