Laugh, stare, deny. Because I shall be true,— The only triumph slain by no surprise: True, true, to that forlornest truth in you, The wan, beleaguered thing behind your eyes, Starving on lies. Build by my faith; I am a steadfast tool: When I am dark, begone into the sun. I cry, ‘Ah, Lord, how good to be a Fool:— A lonely game indeed, but now all done; —And I have won!’ Here speaks a word from life worth a score of “Charms: To Be Said In The Sun,” or other fanciful unreality; and because of such poems as this, fibred in human motive, one feels by contrast in many of the others that Miss Peabody has been playing with her genius, casting “Charms” and “Spells,” which are mere poetic sorcery. Miss Peabody has a rare sympathy with child-life, and her group of poems of this nature could not well be bettered. With the exception of a line now and then which may be a bit beyond the expression of a child, they are fidelity itself to the moods that swayed _The Little Past_. “Journey,” “The Busy Child,” and “The Mystic” are among the best, though none could be spared, unless, perhaps, “Cakes and Ale.” Still another with the true child-feeling is that called “Late,”—a tender little song which, because of its brevity, must suffice to represent the group: My father brought somebody up, To show us all asleep. They came as softly up the stairs As you could creep. They whispered in the doorway there And looked at us awhile, I had my eyes shut up, but I Could feel him smile. I shut my eyes up close, and lay As still as I could keep; Because I knew he wanted us To be asleep. Miss Peabody’s work, considered in its entirety, is distinguished by an art of rare grace and delicacy, by imagination and vision, susceptibility to the finer impressions, and by an ever-present ideality; and while it lacks somewhat the element of personal emotion and passion, it has a sympathy subtle and spiritual, if less intimate in its revealing. VII CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS MR. CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS presents so marked an example of evolution in the style of his work and the sources of his inspiration, that he has from volume to volume, like the nautilus, “changed his last year’s dwelling for the new,” and having entered the “more stately mansion” has “known the old no more.” The first chamber which he fashioned for himself in the House of Art could not long contain him, as its walls were built of myths and traditions, incapable of further expansion. This was the period of _Orion and Other Poems_, such as “Ariadne,” “Memnon,” and “Launcelot And The Four Queens,” work done prior to 1880 and creditable to the initial effort of a young collegian.