poems of the present time, and it is only after further acquaintance with Thompson's work that they seem less important.
The first poem, 'Before Her Portrait in Youth,' and the last one, 'Her Portrait,' have been very highly praised, chiefly for their spirituality, their refinement of passion, which is indeed their distinctive feature, so it is perhaps small wonder that, when read after the other poems, they seem to lack the warmth and intensity one learns to expect of Francis Thompson. In 'Before Her Portrait' there is a delicacy of expression and a reverence that is beautiful, but there is no wonderful beauty of expression.
'As lovers, banished from their lady's face,
And hopeless of her grace,
Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,
···········
So I, in very lowlihead of love
Too shyly reverencing
To let one thought's light footfall smooth
Tread near the living consecrated thing,—
Treasure me thy cast youth.'
In 'Her Portrait' the poet has written line after line of 'quaint conceits'; they seem almost too artificial, too much elaborated.
Hers is the face whence all should copied be
Did God make replicas of such as she;
···········
There Earth—and Heaven—Love play for aureoles;
There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits,
Like bubbles on dark water, or as flits
A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;
There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath,
And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death.'
It is distinctly characteristic of Thompson's poetry to have a quick succession of changing figures, but he is unsuccessful in this poem, which after two or three readings seems unconvincing and without appeal. Much of the poem is a complaint for the poet's inability to find expression for the loveliness he would praise, and at the end is an epilogue, 'wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the "Portrait,"' declaring the boundaries of the lady's
