could almost find it in their hearts to wish that the cup might pass from them. This mood is a passing cloud over Freston's
and over his 'Renunciation':
Not always do I find myself complain
Against this harsh new order of the day,
Where we must put the old loved things away
And rise up to embrace new toil and pain;
For amongst much of loss there lies much gain:
We have learned new strength from learning to obey
Necessity; and hearts that used to stray,
Often too selfishly, are kind again.
Yet oftentimes to me there cometh one,
With sorrow in his eyes, whom half I know:
Who loved to paint the flowers and the sun
In gentle language musically slow:
Who grieves to leave his life-work scarce begun,
Who hoped so much, but now must turn and go.
A passing mood, that works differently on different temperaments, and differently at different times on the same temperament, it edges with mordant irony Alexander Robertson's 'We shall drink to them that Sleep,' and by turns with irony and with pathos certain of the poems of Leslie
