TIVO BOOKS OK VERSE. 
89 
“ By -copse and hedgerow, waste and wall, 
He thrusts his cushions red ; 
O’er burdock rank, o’er thistles tall. 
He rears his hardy head : 
Within, without, the strong leaves press. 
He screens the mossy stone. 
Lord of a narrow wilderness. 
Self-centred and alone. 
* -i;- * * * 
“ .Mute sheep that pull the grasses soft. 
Crop close and pass him by. 
Until he stands alone, aloft. 
With added majesty. 
No fly so keen, no bee so bold. 
To pierce that knotted zone. 
He frowns as though he guarded gold, 
And yet he garners none.” 
The sonnets on Gray and Cowper are beautiful ; and the little book abounds 
in pictures such as this of “ an English home”: — 
“ Deep in a hazy hollow of the down. 
The brick-built Court in mellow squareness stood. 
Where feathery beeches fringed the hanging wood, ‘ 
And sighing cedars spread a carpet brown. 
“ Out of the elms the jetty treefolk sent 
A clamorous welcome : while the roses made 
Their vesper offering, and the creeper laid 
His flaming hands about the pediment.” 
The Rev. M. S. C. Rickards, whose Lyrical Studies we have lately received, 
is already known as the author of books of verse. Like his previous volumes, 
this one is largely occupied with natural objects, about which he writes with 
knowledge and sympathy. We do not find in his verses the note of distinction 
which is manifested in Lc Cakier Jaunc~ \niS.te.A, we are inclined to think that if 
he were a less facile and fluent writer, Mr. Rickards would achieve better work. 
Many of his poems would certainly bear condensation — the “Ode to the Wood 
Sorrel,” for example, which is artificial and strained in sentiment, and in which 
“ noontide ” and “ soon died ” appear as rhymes. 
FIELD-PATH RAMBLES.- 
The authors of these three little books, whose titles we quote, are fortunate 
in being able to put them upon the market at such an unusually favourable time 
as the present. Five or six w-eeks of continued drought have brought the fields 
into a most excellent condition for walking, and the publication of anything that 
will facilitate the enjoyment of the beauties of nature is bound to be most welcome 
to every healthy-minded citizen. The average Londoner, unmindful of the rural 
paradises which railway development has placed within his easy reach, is far too 
apt to be contented with the limited attractions of the metropolitan parks. If he 
is able now and again to break away from the monotony of bricks and mortar, 
the intolerable dust, and noisy boredom of London life, and is willing to make 
* Field-Path Rambles in West Kent, by Walker Miles. Second Series. 
Illustrated. London: R. E. Taylor and Son, 19, Old Street, E.C., 1893. 
Price fid. 
Our Lanes and Meadow Paths, or Rambles in Rural Middlesex, by II. J. 
Foley. Rambles on the Herts Border, by the same. Illustrations and map. 
London : Truslove and Shirley, 143, Oxford Street. Price is. each. 
