The Press. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1901. THE POETS' TRIBUTE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10986, 8 June 1901, Page 6

The Press. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1901. THE POETS' TRIBUTE.

In "The Passing of Victoria," a volume edited by J. A. Hammerton, and published by Horace Marshall and Son, there appears a curious and beautiful valedictory souvenir of the great Queen. Something like 3000 poems are estimated to have been published In her memory in the Press of the United Kingdom and the English colonies, to say nothing of numerous elegiac pieces in Ausrica and Continental journals. From this vast multitude a selection has been made, chiefly of the work ! by acknowledged ■writers, but.with the intent fully to represent an expression of national feeling, which is as unique as it is deep and universal. "Authors of eminence," says the editor's preface, "scholars of renown, people of "rank, public men and private citizens, "toiling denizens of Fleet street, and provincial journalists, clergymen, ministers, "Protestants, Catholics, Agnostics, Conservatives and Liberals, schoolmasters, and "even the humble working man, share in " tbe rearing of this monument to Victoria, "the well-beloved." The volume is beautifully got up, white and gold as to its binding, with pages purple lined, and a purple ribbon for book-mark. Its contents have been arranged in an order of subject that supplies some sequenoe and cohesion, under-the headings, "At Osborne," "The Last Pageant," and "In Memoriam," and

there is'the additional interest of. a" not* upon each .potsm, giving some account of the author,, and mentioning the paper- in wfikh the selection a'pp&red. • Probably the first oriticism Avill be that, "throughout _ volume whkjh contains not more than, perhaps, two or three . poema which might be classed as commonplace or poor, in thought and expression, there ia yet not one that will fin_ such place in literature as "Lycidas,:* aa "Adonais," aa "Thyrsis," as the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,'- in a word, that can take rank for ever amongst tho 'great funeral poems _of the world. For these the personal cry may be necessary in a manner that even true grief cannot summon for the deaths of kings. Yet the editor is in no' way. wrong In claiming a high literary value for his collection. An event so momentous had impelled the writers of the day to a very true, and often noble, utterance, and the book in itself might stand as a characteristic anthology of early tAventieth-cen-tury vieAvs of death. - . "Our Queen ere her dear life's eclipse— And well, aye, well that this was so! — Touched this new century with her lips, ."And blest it ere she let it go," writes Barry Pain, in some impressive stanzas on "Victoria Immortalis." "Eighty Years of. Gallant Life.," is the title chosen _y Herman Merivale, and! many poema strike the triumphant note rather than the lament. Some have even a fanciful ballad ring: — "Tbe Queen ia taking a drive to-day, They have hung with purple tbe carriageway, They have dressed with purple the Royal track, Where the Queen goes forth and ne'er comes back,"

begins Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the American poetess. Mrs Steel has a song in which "The village mother speaks," in Indian fashion, where the old must bs buried with' rejoicing as at a wedding: — . "Raise our brass platters, then! clashing our anklet bells, Swinging our petticoats as for a bride, Mothers of mahy for Death or, Life-giving, Kali! Victoria! stand side by side! And Frankfort Moore gives th© refrain: — "Lift up your hearts, ye people, for she comes, A Queen unto her Crown of Life to-day. The Dead March is a Coronation Lay— There is triumph in the rolling of the ' drums." Scotch writers contribute some very good verse to the volume, but one only in Scotch dialect: —• "As I gaed up the Braes o' Dee, The birdies sang on ilka tree, An 5 aye their burden was waes mc!

Oor Queen will como nae mair." Ireland gives a lovely piece by Katharine Tynan, and a rhyme version of tho Dublin incident, when the little newsboy laid his violets on the dead Queen's name: — "An' if I- were Queen of England wid tho

cross on mc cold breast, Though the poets sang their sweetest, and the big guns roared their best, . • I would better love those 'vi'lets' bought— though sorra word was said— When the neAvs was flashed to Dublin that the Queen was dead.'? Of the deeper verse, by Henley, A. C. Benson, Dean Hole, Lewis Morris, and others, this is hardly the place to speak. One regrets that no Australasian utterance was included in the volume. A. B. Paterson's lines in the "Bulletin" might have ve.ry suitably appeared. In all other respects, however, the Imperial idea is by no means forgotten. Tho poets' tribute should, at least, carry to posterity some reflection of a world-wide.mourning:— " "From north to south, from east to west. . Where'er thy gracious Empire is confest. O'er"every subject land o'er all the Earth; Thy Austral-Britain newly come to birth; Thy great Dominion of the snow-clad

north; Thy tropic isles; thy Orient's storied plain, From the Himalayan peaks to the blue surge-fringed main."