In his poems upon love, Mr. Knowles touches some of his truest and surest notes; those in the second volume have a broader and more sympathetic appeal, and yet have not lost the confessional note which alone gives value to the subject. They are not invariably of a more inspired touch than are several in the first collection, such as “Lost Knowledge,” “A Song for Simplicity,” and “Love’s Prayer;” now and again they combine some newly minted phrase flashing with unsullied lustre, with such as have passed from hand to hand in the dulling commerce of language; but it is perhaps too much to demand that all fancies shall be newly stamped with the die of imagination. One of Mr. Knowles’ strongest poems from the group in question is entitled “Love’s World;” but for greater brevity I shall quote instead these charming lines which introduce the collection called _Love Triumphant_: Helen’s lips are drifting dust, Ilion is consumed with rust; All the galleons of Greece Drink the ocean’s dreamless peace; Lost was Solomon’s purple show Restless centuries ago; Stately empires wax and wane— Babylon, Barbary and Spain— Only one thing, undefaced, Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste And the heavens are overturned. —Dear, how long ago we learned! There’s a sight that blinds the sun, Sound that lives when sounds are done, Music that rebukes the birds, Language lovelier than words, Hue and scent that shame the rose, Wine no earthly vineyard knows, Silence stiller than the shore Swept by Charon’s stealthy oar, Ocean more divinely free Than Pacific’s boundless sea,— Ye who love have learned it true. —Dear, how long ago we knew! Of this group, however, it is in the sonnet, “If Love Were Jester at the Court of Death,” that Mr. Knowles’ most genuine inspiration has visited him. The conception of the sonnet is unique, and its opening line of epigrammatic force and suggestiveness: If Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, “For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!” Then would I kneel the monarch to obey, And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or slay; Since I have tasted love, what mattereth! But if, dear God! this heart be dry as sand, And cold as Charon’s palm holding Hell’s toll, How worse! how worse! Scorch it with sorrow’s brand! Haply, though dead to joy, ’t would feel _that_ coal; Better a cross and nails through either hand, Than Pilate’s palace and a frozen soul! Here are originality, strength, and white heat of feeling, though the sestett is less artistic than the octave, which holds the creative beauty of the sonnet. Of the lyrical poems in the second volume there are many clear of tone, having not only a pure, enunciative quality musically, but also color and picturesqueness, as that beginning: