“All gracious curves of slender wings, Bark mottlings, fibre spiralings, Fern wavings and leaf flickerings. Yea, all fair forms and sounds and lights, And warmths and mysteries and mights, Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights.” The defects of this school are best seen in the founder. He was a musician before a poet, and helplessly strove to catch shades by words that can only be rendered by music. Fr. Tabb has learned this limitation of his school. For the glowing semi-pantheism of Lanier he has substituted the true and no less beautiful doctrine of Christianity. All his verse-gems are redolent of his faith. They are religious in the sense that they are begotten by faith and breathe the air of the sanctuary. To read them is to leave the hum and pain of life behind, and enter the cloister where all is silent and peaceful, where dwelleth the spirit of God. Of them it is safe to assert that their white estate of virginal, prayerful art shall constitute their immortality. Fr. Tabb has not, as yet, thought fit to give them a more permanent form than they have in the current magazines. Catholic literature, and especially poetry, is so meagre that when a true singer touches the lyre it is not to be wondered at that those of his household should desire to possess his songs in a more worthy dwelling than that of an ephemeral magazine. In the absence of the coming charming volume I quote from my scrap-book a few of the verse-gems, thereby trusting to widen the poet’s audience and in an humble way gain lovers for his long-promised volume. What could illustrate the peculiar genius of our poet better than the delicious gem that he has called “THE WHITE JESSAMINE.” I knew she lay above me, Where the casement all the night Shone, softened with a phosphor glow Of sympathetic light, And that her fledgling spirit pure Was pluming fast for flight. Each tendril throbbed and quickened As I nightly climbed apace, And could scarce restrain the blossoms When, anear the destined place, Her gentle whisper thrilled me Ere I gazed upon her face. I waited, darkling, till the dawn Should touch me into bloom, While all my being panted To outpour its first perfume, When, lo! a paler flower than mine Had blossomed in the gloom! “Content” is another gem of exquisite thought and workmanship. CONTENT. Were all the heavens an overladen bough Of ripened benediction lowered above me, What could I crave, soul-satisfied as now, That thou dost love me? The door is shut. To each unsheltered blessing Henceforth I say, “Depart! What wouldst thou of me?” Beggared I am of want, this boon possessing, That thou dost love me. “Photographed” may well make the trio in the more fully illustrating his genius:— PHOTOGRAPHED.