More comely than man may make them, inlaid with silver and gold, Were arrow and shield and war-axe, arrow and spear and blade, And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollows a child of three years old Could sleep on a couch of rushes, round and about them laid. And this, which deals with the old legend of the city lying under the waters of a lake, is strange and interesting: The maker of the stars and worlds Sat underneath the market cross, And the old men were walking, walking, And little boys played pitch-and-toss. ‘The props,’ said He, ‘of stars and worlds Are prayers of patient men and good. The boys, the women, and old men, Listening, upon their shadows stood. A grey professor passing cried, ‘How few the mind’s intemperance rule! What shallow thoughts about deep things! The world grows old and plays the fool.’ The mayor came, leaning his left ear— There were some talking of the poor— And to himself cried, ‘Communist!’ And hurried to the guardhouse door. The bishop came with open book, Whispering along the sunny path; There was some talking of man’s God, His God of stupor and of wrath. The bishop murmured, ‘Atheist! How sinfully the wicked scoff!’ And sent the old men on their way, And drove the boys and women off. The place was empty now of people; A cock came by upon his toes; An old horse looked across the fence, And rubbed along the rail his nose. The maker of the stars and worlds To His own house did Him betake, And on that city dropped a tear, And now that city is a lake. Mr. Yeats has a great deal of invention, and some of the poems in his book, such as _Mosada_, _Jealousy_, and _The Island of Statues_, are very finely conceived. It is impossible to doubt, after reading his present volume, that he will some day give us work of high import. Up to this he has been merely trying the strings of his instrument, running over the keys. _The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems_. By W. B. Yeats. (Kegan Paul.) MR. YEATS’S _WANDERINGS OF OISIN_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_, July 12, 1889.)