"And rotten from the gunwale to the keel, Rat riddled, bilge bestank, Slime-slobbered, horrible, I saw her reel And drag her oozy flank, And sprawl among the deft young waves, that laughed And leapt, and turned in many a sportive wheel As she thumped onward with her lumbering draught. "And now, behold! a shadow of repose Upon a line of gray She sleeps, that transverse cuts the evening rose, She sleeps and dreams away, Soft blended in a unity of rest All jars, and strifes obscene, and turbulent throes 'Neath the broad benediction of the West-- "Sleeps; and methinks she changes as she sleeps, And dies, and is a spirit pure; Lo! on her deck, an angel pilot keeps His lonely watch secure; And at the entrance of Heaven's dockyard waits Till from night's leash the fine-breathed morning leaps And that strong hand within unbars the gates." It is very far from being the finest poem in the volume. It has not the noble humanity of _Catherine Kinrade_--and if this be not a great poem I know nothing about poetry--nor the rapture of _Jessie_, nor the awful pathos of _Mater Dolorosa_, nor the gentle pathos of _Aber Stations_, nor the fine religious feeling of _Planting_ and _Disguises_. But it came so pat to the occasion, and used the occasion so deftly to take hold of one's sympathy, that these other poems were read in the very mood that, I am sure, their author would have asked for them. One has not often such luck in reading--"Never the time and the place and the author all together," if I may do this violence to Browning's line. Yet I trust that in any mood I should have had the sense to pay its meed of admiration to this volume. Now, having carefully read the opinions of some half-a-dozen reviewers upon it, I can only wonder and leave the question to my reader, warning him by no means to miss _Mater Dalorosa_ and _Catherine Kinrade_. If he remain cold to these two poems, then I shall still preserve my own opinion. MR. JOHN DAVIDSON April 7, 1894. His Plays.