To D. G. R.

I.

From out the darkness cometh never a sound:
No voice doth reach us from the silent place:
There is one goal beyond life's blindfold race,
For victor and for victim-burial-ground.
O friend, revered, belov'd, mayst thou have found
Beyond the shadowy gates a yearning face,
A beckoning hand to guide thee with swift pace
From the dull wave Lethean gliding round.

Hope dwelt with thee, not Fear; Faith, not Despair :
But little heed thou hadst of the grave's gloom.

What though thy body lies so deeply there

Where the land throbs with tidal surge and boom,

Thy soul doth breathe some Paradisal air

And Rest long sought thou hast where amaranths bloom.

II.

Yet even if Death indeed with pitiful sign
Bade us drink deep of some oblivious draught,
Is it not well to know, ere we have quaffed

The soul-deceiving poppied anodyne,

That not in vain erewhile we drank the wine
Of life-that not all blankly or in craft
Of evil went the days wherein we laughed
And joyed the sun, unknowing aught divine?

Not so thy doom, whatever fate betide:
Not so for thee, O poet-heart and true,
Who fearless watched, as evermore it grew,
The shadow of Death creep closer to thy side.-
A glory with thy ebbing life withdrew,
And we inherit now its deathless Pride.

WILLIAM SHARP.

OR the concise expression of an isolated poetic thought--an intellectual or sensuous 'wave' keenly felt, emotionally and rhythmically -the Sonnet would seem to be the best medium, the means apparently prescribed by certain radical laws of melody and harmony, in other words, of nature: even as the swallow's wing is the best for rapid volant wheel and shift, as the heron's for mounting by wide gyrations, as that of the kite or the albatross for sustained suspension.

To bring this more clearly home to the mind of the reader unacquainted with the true scope of our sonnet-literature and of the technique of the sonnet itself, and to illustrate its development and capacities, is the aim of this brief note. For com

paratively brief this introductory essay must be, not attempting to be anything more than a broadly executed free-hand sketch, certainly not a complete and minutely-finished study. The latter I hope in

some measure to accomplish in a new large-paper edition of this book which will be published some six or eight months hence—and also, with the addition of the sonnet's history in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, England, and Germany, in a forthcoming volume entitled The Hundred Sonnets of Europe.

It is no new ground that is here broken. The Sonnet has had many apologists and critical historians, and has been considered from many points of view. Chief among those of our countrymen who have devoted themselves to the special study of this most fascinating poetic vehicle may be named the following: Capel Lofft, who in 1813-14 published under the title of Laura a valuable and interesting but very unequal and badly arranged anthology of original and translated sonnets; R. H. Housman, who in 1833 issued a good selection, with an interesting prefatory note; Dyce, whose small but judiciously compiled volume was a pleasant possession at a time when sonnet-literature gained but slight public attention; Leigh Hunt, who laboured in this field genuinely con amore; Mr. Tomlinson, whose work on the sonnet has much of abiding value; Mr. Dennis, whose 'English Sonnets' served as an unmistakable index to the awakening of general interest in this poetic form; Mr. D. M. Main, an accomplished student of literature and a critic possessing the true instinct, whose honour it is to have produced the most exhaustive sonnet-anthology-with quite a large volumeful of notes-in our language (for Capel Lofft's Laura is largely made up of Italian sonnets and translations); Mr. S. Waddington, who

a year or two ago produced two pleasant little volumes of selections; and, finally, Mr. Hall Caine, whose Sonnets of Three Centuries at once gained the wide success which that delightful and ably edited compilation deserved. To all those writers, but more especially, of course, to Mr. Main-from the student's point of view-the present editor, as must every future worker in this secluded but not least beautiful section of the Garden of Poetry, is indebted to him and to Mr. Caine he will have frequent occasion to refer in this Introductory Essay or in the Notes. There are, moreover, one or two students who have done good service in this cause without having published in book form either their opinions or any sonnetselection; especially among these should reference be made to the anonymous writer of two admirable papers on the sonnet in the Quarterly Review (1876); to the anonymous author of the thoughtful and suggestive article in the Westminster Review (1871); and to the anonymous contributor of the two most interesting papers on sonnet-literature which appeared in the Dublin Review for 1876 and 1877; to Mr. Ashcroft Noble, a capable and discriminating critic, whose article in the Contemporary Review attracted considerable notice; to the late Rector of Lincoln College, Mr. Mark Pattison, who prefaced his edition of Milton's sonnets with a suggestive essay; to Archbishop Trench, the value of whose edition of Wordsworth's sonnets is heightened in the same way; and to Mr. Theodore Watts, whose influence in this direction is very marked, and whose critical insight is fully