moods, its elusive caprices, its May before and its burden of reminiscence behind; when

"angels swing in poplar tops;
And buds are stirring underground;
And Spring is dreamy in the copse;
And gay the merry wheel goes round;
And soft winds linger by the mill;
And in wet wood-paths meet at will

Sweet scents, and primroses abound."

He sings of the dawnings of things, of desires unfulfilled, of daffodils that break their sheaths, of children whose "faces are like flowers half-blown;" always there is a fresh rain of Spring tears on his pages. As with the Minnesingers, it is only in the Spring that his voice is heard he has nothing to tell of the months before March, and June's fruitions lie always ahead-and he wanders away to the coppice as when he was a child. He has told in the "Lost Eros" how, in Spring, once, Psyche-like, he found the golden boy with ivory shoulders and wondrous eyes, and how he refused to clasp and kiss him, turning away as those vessels of old that neared Siren shores. Now the face of Eros gleams for ever in dreams, and in vain the poet goes seeking along the withered, dewless years to find him and clasp him at last. Life, therefore, to the poet comes to consist largely of dreams; before him flit hopes which he dallies with, while he knows that they are but a mirage; and he goes on his way with the pensive burden of an ever-increasing sheaf of memories, and always an ache of sorrow-"a sweetset sorrow sung in dreams"-at his heart. For the life lived in this temper, the world that it builds around it is an edifice formed of reverie rather than

of the healthful energies of the normal man, and it twines into itself for consolation the sweet sights and sounds of Nature.

Ashe sang of many things: of his own sad or glad moods, and with delicate realism of the little incidents of daily life that called them up; sometimes of old far-off dreams of love-Psamathe, Plectrude, Hildegard, Yseult; from the first and always, of streams and birds and flowers, weaving them carelessly together to lull an aching heart. Above all he has sung of children, especially of girls budding into womanhood. Very sweet and real are these children; very sensitive and tender his touch upon them. They form a long procession throughout his poems-Ettie, Annette, Fay, Avice, Ethel, Elfin Kattie, above all Marit and Pansie, to both of whom he has dedicated exquisite cycles of song, full of varied and delicate little love episodes. He becomes the companion of his child friends; they teach him their fairy tales; his tremulous sympathy with child-life is ever finding fresh expression; himself, he has "most ease of heart when most a child." At the same time there is now and again something not quite virile and wholesome, a certain touch of perversity, in this absorbed brooding on child-life, exquisite as is sometimes its expression.

This singer has no strange, startling lines, few curious felicities of diction. Even in his best work there is a certain carelessness, in his later work also a classic inversion of language which comes short of perfection. Thomas Ashe is not among the great master-singers; his force lies in the simple sincerity of accent with which he has rendered the intimate

experiences of his inner life. For those who pause to listen to his quiet song it is a permanent source of delight.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

The facts and dates here given were mostly supplied by the poet. The dates of some of the volumes, published about Christmas, were advanced a year on the title-page. I may add that I have made free use of a paper of my own on "Thomas Ashe's Poems" in the Westminster Review, April 1886.-H. E.

EARLIER POEMS.

1855-1862.

THOMAS ASHE.

IN

1.-ETTIE.

a valley, with sweet rills, Bosom'd in the slanting hills, Where the rich September fed Leaves with deepening tints of red, I, when morning skies were blue, Made a friendship pure and true.

Ettie, Ettie, for your sake,
Let my thought in music break
On the shore of memory,
Since you were so dear to me.

Gentle Ettie, pet! she looks
Like some child in fairy books.
In her eyes, that seem to fix
On the airy void around,

Motions of the playful wind, Light and shadow melt and mix With each other, undefined. Hid from us, what has she found, In dreamy fancies of her mind?

Ettie is some changeling sweet,
That walks this earth with elfin feet.

Oft she seems to look and ask
Elves their secrets to unmask.
She is watching, as she stands,
Wonders wrought in fairy lands.
Elfin phantoms flit and fleet,
Making signs with shadowy hands.

Ettie sweet, Ettie sweet,

All the day she will not speak.

In the woods and meadow ways
Airy forms she seems to seek.
All alone she goes to meet

Them at the appointed place.
A sunset warmth is on her cheek;
A glow of rosy light, a flush
Half of health and half a blush.

If you speak, or if you smile,

She will not talk as children do;

She is silent all the while.

Or perhaps a bashful "yes,"

Faintly heard, her answer is.

She scarcely seems to speak to you. Her dropp'd eyes, but half at ease, Peer about to find release;

With a sweet bewildering pain,

Like flowers in the wind and rain,

Many a time, through wood and wild,
I went nutting with the child.
Timid-heart, my hand she took,
At the bridge across the brook.
Up through woods and tangled grass
We clamber'd where no pathway was:

While the freshly-blowing breeze
Of the scarry deep ravine

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