Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/538

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THE STATUES IN THE BLOCK.
3

made her eat the dregs, and drenched her honey with a sea of gall; he, however, was but one, who swooned with love beside her. The third was suffering 'Motherland,' and, as may be supposed, the author's pen waxes strong at picturing the sorrow, because—

"'No love but thine can satisfy the heart,
For love of thee holds in it hate of wrong,
And shapes the hope that moulds humanity.'

"The fourth sees in the block his lost child, and the pen softens as he sees—

"'The little hands still crossed—a child in death;
My link with love—my dying gift from her
Whose last look smiled on both when I was left
A loveless man, save this poor gift, alone.

......

I see my darling in the marble now—
My wasted leaf—her kind eyes smiling fondly,
And through her eyes I see the love beyond,
The binding; light that moves not; and I know
That when God gives to us the clearest sight
He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow.'

"Here and there through the collection are little unnamed wavelets, of which these four lines are a good example:—

"'You gave me the key of your heart, my love;
Then why do you make me knock?'
'O, that was yesterday, saints above!
And last night—I changed the lock!'"


Dr, Shelton M'Kenzie in the Philadelphia Evening News.

"Good poetry, which constitutes a considerable portion of literature, has been rather scarce of late. The odds and ends of verse which get into the magazines are generally aimless and crude. The poet sits down to write what he has thought, but the poetaster takes pen in hand to think what he shall think. There is a world of difference between the results—that is, between true poesy and merely mechanical verse. . . The poem which leads off, covering only thirteen pages, is the longest in the volume, and is full of deep-thoughted expres-