_The Port of Skips._--In a recent review of American Literature in the London _Athaeneum_ occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller." _Evening Song._--No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality. _A Woman's Thought._--The striking reality and directness of this lyric, its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,--these are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one of the most remarkable poems in the book. _The White Jessamine._--One of the most charming of Father Tabb's lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he-- "From the sterile womb of stone, Raised children unto God." Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship; it is more thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main, a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert. _The Battle-field._--Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message, more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of phrase,--she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) an intense imagination. _Fertility._--This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title of "A Prelude." _Sesostris._--Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature, unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination," and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr. Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes to press. INDEX TO FIRST LINES. A blight, a gloom, I know not what; 242 All that thou art not, makes not up the sum; 267 All the long August afternoon; 223 A man said unto his angel; 211 Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold; 266 Around the rocky headlands, far and near; 271 As a fond mother, when the day is o'er; 63 As a twig trembles, which a bird; 145 At midnight, in the month of June; 57 At sea are tossing ships; 149