"You will not sing there long,--I feel it, I know it: your heart will soon burst with loneliness and woe. "In vain is your endeavour, it will not help you, no! Alone you have come, and alone you will pass away!" 'A Vison of New Hellas' is one of the books that is destined to be more important than interesting, more noteworthy than popular. The conception is certainly very beautiful and very wonderful even if the author does not always reach the height of expression towards which he aims. But it is a book which can only appeal to the few, who are ready to search beneath the covering of fantastic imagery and strange verse forms which clothe a high poetic purpose and ideal. Even those who come to the work with a knowledge of the songs of old Hellas and the philosophy of Plato must feel deeply grateful for the elucidating of the meaning of the book in an argument which the author has kindly supplied to forestall the vain imaginings of the uninitiated. The poet's aim is as serious as was that of Milton or Dante--"to realize as best he can such visions of beauty as may be vouchsafed to him," that through his work he may "make richer the human world in things of the spirit that quicken and delight." In contemplation the poet rises above the mists of sordidness which rise from the struggle of trade and industry, beyond the clouds of pessimism and religious doubt, and on the Pisgah heights of Hellenic culture he sees a vision of the new life that shall come to man. Through the beautiful world-myth, the story of Demeter and Persephone and Dionysus, the poet is taught the lesson of the immortality of the race, of its ceaseless progression toward a nobler and more beautiful future. To celebrate their happiness at the discovery that Aidoneus, dread King of Death, is none other than the Lord of Life "leader of the blessed to the highest heaven," they resolve to bring about the redemption of the world. This is made possible through the union of Aphrodite, Beauty of Form, with Apollo, Light of the Mind. From them shall spring a new race of Gods, typifying the new ideals which shall uplift man until he is fitted for fellowship at the banquet of the Immortals. Thence will rise "a nobler, a larger mankind," wakened at length from "the night of toil, unhallowed by joy in the task." Through Aphrodite will come "feeling and loving--and art that bids death defiance," and through Apollo "seeing and knowing and man's life-mastering science." Thence shall come "The lover's rapture Elysian, The poet's fury, the prophet's vision, The serene world-sight of the thinker." This vision typified the future regeneration of America and through her of the race. From the sordid reality of present conditions man must advance ever nearer to the "eternal ideal"; from mean conditions, inspired by lofty emotions and holy enthusiasms, shall come new standards of life and of art.