Shall not our love be like the violet, Sweet, And open in the dewy, dustless air Its dainty chalice with blue petals, where The shade of bushes makes a shy retreat? And we will frame our daily happiness By joining hearts, lips, brows in rapt caress Far from the world, its noises and conceit. Shall we not hide our modest love between Trees wafting cool on flowers and grasses green? In Victor Kinon’s poetry is shown a knowledge of nature like that possessed by that American poet whose death the world of letters has not ceased to mourn, Madison Cawein. He sketches a landscape in a few vigorous lines, and the picture is vivid and true. This little poem might be a lyrical rendition of a Monet painting. THE SETTING SUN The stainless snow and the blue, Lit by a pure gold star, Nearly meet, but a bar Of fire separates the two. A rime-frosted, black pinewood, Raising, as waves roll foam, Its lances toothed like a comb, Dams the horizon’s blood. In a tomb of blue and white Nothing stirs save a crow, Unfolding solemnly now Its silky wing black as night. It is difficult to resist the temptation to read into the Catholic fold many Belgian poets who do not, perhaps, belong there. There is scarcely a man of letters in Belgium who does not owe his introduction to literature to the Catholic Church. The Catholic schools and universities of Belgium have given a knowledge of art and poetry to many a poet who now pays for the gift his little stanzas of abuse. But some of them, and among them must be counted Emile Verhaeren, seem to be thinking of their old faith, now that the need of faith has become terribly apparent to them. Verhaeren, especially, seems to be about to stop in his weary flight from the Hound of Heaven. For many years he was a writer of poems that seemed to betray a mind absolutely diseased. There were realistic studies of human vice that seemed like pages of Zola done into verse, and there were extraordinary attempts (of which Stefan Zweig speaks approvingly) to “chisel a new face of God.” But since his retirement to his little cottage at Caillou-qui-Bique, he has written poems that are for the most part exaltations of pure love, as lofty in thought as they are finished in composition. Mr. Bithell’s translation of this little song of wedded love shows that Verhaeren has left far behind him the grossness of _Les Flamandes_ and the morbidness of _Les Flambeaux Noirs_. THIS IS THE GOOD HOUR WHEN THE LAMP IS LIT This is the good hour when the lamp is lit. All is calm, and consoling, and dear, And the silence is such that you could hear A feather falling in it.