the riddle of things that are. Constraint is dead, and in her ecstasy she cries:

O rires de l'enfer, mes archanges rebelles,

Divins éclairs,

Venez, venez, prenez-moi sur vos ailes,
Dans vos fêtes et vos combats,
Car j'ai soif de tempête

Et je ne tremble pas !

In 'Crépuscule,' the concluding division of the poem, the note of sorrowing becomes soon the dominant one.

Ce soir, à travers le bonheur,

Qui donc soupire, qu'est-ce qui pleure?
Qu'est-ce qui vient palpiter sur mon cœur,
Comme un oiseau blessé ?

La Vérité has appeared, terrible, éblouissante et nue,' and the dream of joy that has been becomes darkly overcast. The perfume of the roses, the stream-banks thick with hyacinth and dittany, are now powerless to comfort Eve's despondent soul; and smitten with wild remorse she cries aloud to Death to take her into his nothingness. And like the sleep that overtakes her in her anguish is the tranquil sweetness of the poem which immediately follows:

En robe de pâle clarté,

Douce comme la nuit d'été,
Soyeuse et blonde,

Des fleurs de l'autre monde
En sa chevelure d'or,

Celui qui est l'Ange en voyage
Descend l'escalier des nuages,
Et vient vers celle qui dort.

Messager à l'âme sereine,
Il approche lentement,

Comme une aube lointaine ;

Et regarde, en se haussant

Sur la pointe de ses pieds brillants,

Dans le profond sommeil où murmurent

Des songes encore,

Dans la clarté de la petite âme,

Qui brûle dans la nuit.

Il souffle la flamme, éteint le bruit,

Met le silence de sa bouche

Sur la bouche qui sourit,

Et pose, doucement, sur le cœur qui s'apaise

Sa main qui ne pèse

Pas plus qu'une fleur.

In raiment palely bright,
Soft as the summer night,

Silky and shimmering ;
The blossoms of another world

In his clustered golden hair,

Cometh the Angel on his way from high

Adown the cloudy ladder of the sky,

And draweth near to her that slumbers there.

Bearing his message to the soul at rest

Gently he stealeth nigh,

As the dawn from a far-off sky;
Tip-toed on glittering feet he stays
A moment on her sleep to gaze,

And peers through the drowsy depths within
Fill'd still with her dreams' refrains,
Where the tiny soul's unslumbering light
Burns while the night remains.

Quenching the flame, he stays its stir,

And lays the silence of his lips

Upon the smiling lips of her;

And to her tranquil bosom slips

A hand so lightly laid that it but seemed

Some flower that falling touched her as she dreamed.

And then in the pale dawn of a saddened sky the Dream fades from earth, with the soul of the roses of yesterday.

L'âme chantante d'Eve expire,
Elle s'éteint dans la clarté ;
Elle retourne en un sourire
A l'univers qu'elle a chanté.

Elle redevient l'âme obscure
Qui rêve, la voix qui murmure,

Le frisson des choses, le souffle flottant

Sur les eaux et sur les plaines,

Parmi les roses, et dans l'haleine

Divine du printemps.

En de vagues accords où se mêlent

Des battements d'ailes,

Des sons d'étoiles,

Des chutes de fleurs,

En l'universelle rumeur

Elle se fond, doucement, et s'achève,

La chanson d'Eve.

To assign to the author of this original and beautiful composition his proper and definite place amongst the poets of recent days is by no means an easy task. It is, of course, only by a process of comparison that any conclusion, however unsatisfactory, may be arrived at a method recognised by the practice of literary critics from the very earliest times. In one regard, few who read the poem will be disinclined to agree with M. Maeterlinck's high estimate of him as a simple writer of beautiful things.

De tous les poètes de ce temps, l'auteur de la Chanson d'Eve est, je pense, celui que le public peut comprendre et goûter le plus facilement. Il évoque une beauté délicieuse, à la fois profonde et puérile, complexe comme un rêve, ingénue comme un sourire, et si humainement céleste qu'au moindre signe elle se réveille et chant à l'unisson de la lumière inattendue dans l'imagination ou dans le cœur le plus obscur.

In one other regard, perhaps, absolute agreement with M. Maeterlinck's conclusions may not be quite so easy to us all.

Il ne s'y trouve pas un vers dont un enfant ne puisse saisir le sens, tant les mots y sont transparents et la phrase virginale ; et cependant ces vers recouvrent des beautés si diverses, si imprévues et si profondes qu'à chaque fois qu'on les relit on voit jaillir entre leurs lignes d'or de nouvelles sources de délice, d'étonnement et d'allégresse.

Possibly M. Maeterlinck as the author of the Intelligence of the Flowers,' and with his strenuous belief that no flower is wholly devoid of wisdom,' may possess the proper frame of mind for reading between van Lerberghe's lines and interpreting in a clairvoyant spirit to his own satisfaction some passages that are not entirely free from difficulty to other minds. No one will, however, fall out with him on so trivial a matter of mere opinion.

It is, however, conceivable, in regard to another of his criticisms, that one may venture on something more approaching to disagreement with his views. He suggests the existence, in certain respects, of an analogy between van Lerberghe's poems and the Greek Anthology, although pointing out that the atmosphere of 'La Chanson' is of kind far removed from that which surrounds the poems of the earlier collection. The comparison might easily be interpreted into something almost misleading, as may at once be seen from a perusal of the poems which I have selected for quotation, and which show little real kinsmanship with anything to be found in the length and breadth of the Anthology. If one must seek analogy at all, I would suggest that there is more in common between van Lerberghe and Goethe than between him and any of the writers of the famous Greek collection-not between him and all Goethe, but between him and Goethe in the more Arielesque portion of his greatest poem, Faust. Take, for instance, the end of the first act of that tragedy, with all its shimmering atmosphere of fairyland, which Mephistopheles calls into being before the dazed eyes of the philosopher in his study, to the strains of the weirdly beautiful spirit-chorus beginning

Schwindet, ihr dunkeln
Wölbungen droben!

Embodied in this lyric is the very essence of a great portion of van Lerberghe's masterpiece-the love of life and sunshine, the yearning for a bluer ether and the light of softer suns and twinkling stars.

Ethereal forms are wheeling in mazy gyrations, accompanied with strange and indefinable cravings, and the streaming of filmy raiment over meadow and bower where lovers are plighting their love. There is an endless speeding away of glimmering things of beauty to some distant realm of romantic fancy:

Far over meadows fair
Trippingly playing,

Glad in the summer air
All are a-Maying,

Some in their motion
O'er the hills gliding ;

Some on the ocean
Are airily riding,

Floating and thronging:

All for life longing,
Starward they roam away,
To their far home away,
Joy's blest abode.

The same spirit which is interwoven with every line of this mysterious chant is present in many of van Lerberghe's poems, and more especially in his exceptionally beautiful and intensely dramatic piece entitled 'Suis moi, suis moi,' in which is portrayed in allegorical form and with that rare delicacy of touch to which French lends itself in a true artist's hand, the early dawning in the breast of Eve of inborn yearnings to which she has been till then a stranger, and which are luring her she knows not where. The poem, which is one of the longest in the volume, cannot, unfortunately, be quoted in full. The following translated extracts may, however, give some faint idea of the original :

Fain would I follow and take the way

Where thou call'st me to follow thee, glimmering ray!
For wings, as well, hath the human soul

That beat on the barriers of control,

And lawless strains hath she made her own

That are wild with the passions of every zone !

'Yet far away, the misty realm

Where I would lead thee, lies—
And far away is the favoured land

Of the morrow that never dies.'

What matter, what matter, gold bird, sing on!
Methinks whilst thou'rt singing there

I can hear the call of my inmost soul
That is urging me-anywhere!

I have come ere the dawn to follow thee
Strong voice, all calls above.
Athwart the woodlands, athwart the lea,
And the wide world, bird of love.

'Nor love, nor strength, nor beauty do I claim ;
They know me not that call me by such name.
I am the childhood of the world,

And all that springs to birth;

All that would win to the one clear goal
With eyes that are not of earth-
And all that soars with yearning thrilled,
And ever waits to see

Its dreamy destiny fulfilled

In the blossom of days to be.

The passion and hope,-e'en such am I-
Of the wild wind's harmonies;

And the gold that is shed from the morning sky
On the breast of heaving seas.' . . .

Yet as before us a long road lies,

Rest thee, Ah, rest, on this branching tree,
Stay, little bird of Paradise.

Fain would I gaze on thee near to me

Fain would my light hand smooth thee where
The hues of the morn on thy plumage meet;

White little bird, bright little bird,

Gold wee bird, with the silvery feet.

'I rest me nevermore.

Nor any rest may Passion know

That flits in the shadow-land below-
That sings, and wakeful watch must keep,

While naught may stay its flight,

For all the drowsy glades of sleep,
And star-embroidered night.'

'Follow me, follow me,

Follow my wings and my voice that calls.

By my forest glade and my valley'd shade,

And the depth of the loneliness where we've strayed,

I have woven my spell on thy soul, I trow!

To the ends of the earth wilt thou follow me now.'

If it be true, as someone says, that the world has outlived the memories of her morning, one portion at least of mankind-those who still care for the beauty of real literature-will feel nothing less than genuine gratitude to Charles van Lerberghe for enabling them to look back upon so delightful and romantic a picture of humanity at its dawn. Unhappily that gratitude will now be mingled with a feeling of keen regret, for death has ended the promise of his young days. The Belgian poet passed away on the 1st of November of last year,