Miss Reese’s growth, as shown in her two volumes, is so marked that while _A Handful of Lavender_ has the foreshadowing of her later work, and also some notably fine poems,—such as “That Day You Came,” “The Last Cricket,” “A Spinning Song,” and “The Old Path,”—it has not the same perfectly individual note that pervades _A Quiet Road_. The personal mark, the artist-proof mark, upon nearly everything in the later collection, is frequently absent from the first. That part of _A Handful of Lavender_ first issued as _A Branch of May_ is naturally the least finished of Miss Reese’s work. It is unsure and yet indicative of that— Oncoming hour of light and dew, Of heartier sun, more certain blue, which shines in her later work. “The Death Potion,” from the first collection, is a case in point: it is strong in idea, and here and there in execution, but its metre is faulty, and it departs so often from the initial measure that one who has set himself in tune with that is thrown from the key, and in adapting himself to the changed rhythm loses the pleasure of the poem. It must be said, however, that such lack of metrical sensitiveness is very rare even in the earlier poems. In general, they are of unimpeachable rhythm; indeed, the singing note is so much Miss Reese’s natural expression that it creeps into this sonnet, “The Old Path,” and turns it in effect to a lyric: O Love! O Love! this way has hints of you In every bough that stirs, in every bee, Yellow and glad, droning the thick grass through, In blooms red on the bush, white on the tree; And when the wind, just now, came soft and fleet, Scattering the blackberry blossoms, and from some Fast darkening space that thrush sang sudden sweet, You were so near, so near, yet did not come! Say, is it thus with you, O friend, this day? Have you, for me that love you, thought or word? Do I, with bud or bough, pass by your way; With any breath of brier or note of bird? If this I knew, though you be quick or dead, All my sad life would I go comforted. _A Handful of Lavender_ shows the tendency of most young poets to affect the sonnet, a tendency laudable enough if one be a natural sonneteer. Miss Reese has many finely conceived and well-executed sonnets, but few that are unforgettably fine, as are many of her lyrics. That she recognizes wherein her surest power lies is obvious from the fact that, whereas _A Handful of Lavender_ contains some thirty-two sonnets, _A Quiet Road_ contains but twelve. Those of nature predominated in the former, nature for its own sake; but in the latter there is far less accent upon nature and more upon life.