"The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well With gaping blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail of screaming shell." There is a fine swing about the metre of this verse, and the description of the leopards as "strained and lean" is a piece of word painting, a felicity of expression that it would be difficult to improve on. The whole poem is tense with patriotic fervour, nor is it wanting in exquisitely pathetic touches, as for instance-- "Pale women who have lost their lord Will kiss the relics of the slain-- Some tarnished epaulette--some sword-- Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain." or "In vain the laughing girl will yearn To greet her love with love-lit eyes: Down in some treacherous ravine, Clutching the flag, the dead boy lies." That he should have written such a poem is proof conclusive of the author's extraordinary versatility, and though a comparatively early production is worthy to rank with the finest war poems in the language. Current events at that time attracted his pen for we find a set of verses on the death of the ill-fated Prince Imperial, a sonnet on the Bulgarian Christians, and others of a more or less patriotic character. Few of these productions, however, invite a very serious criticism. They were of the moment and for the moment, and have lost the appeal of freshness and actuality. In "The Garden of Eros" we get a good insight into Wilde's passionate fondness for flowers, to whom they were human things with souls. Probably no other verses of the poet so well define and express this master passion of his life. "... Mark how the yellow iris wearily Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly." or "And I will tell thee why the jacynth wears Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan." or again "Close to a shadowy nook where half afraid Of their own loneliness some violets lie That will not look the gold sun in the face." I remember a lady telling me once that she was in a London shop one day when Wilde came in and asked as a favour that a lily be taken out of the window because it looked so tired. This looking on flowers as real live sentient things was no mere pose with him. He was thoroughly imbued with the conviction that they were possessed of feeling, and throughout his poetical work we shall find endless applications of this idea. Of particular interest in this poem are the verses descriptive of the various poets, his contemporaries. Swinburne he alludes to most happily, as far as the neatness of phrase is concerned nothing could be better in this regard than "And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine And sung the Galilean's requiem."