Minstrel

MIDSUMMER NIGHT, And Other Tales, in Verse--John Masefield--Macmillan ($2).

John Masefield is no minor poet, yet his genius is for telling a tale. The tale has been told time and again of Arthur and his knights, of Gwenivere and her Lancelot, but never so utterly that a master craftsman dare not render his version. Not as an epic drama in the Tennysonian manner, but like the medieval minstrel in fitful lyrics Masefield catches a climax here, a sad mood there. The variegated metres and intermittent themes are disjointed in a whole effect, but the wistful beauty of moments and moods stands out as never in earlier classics. Thus Arthur dying:

He gathered up his dying strength, he

swung

The weapon thrice and hurled it to the

stream;

It whirled like a white gannet with a

gleam,

Turning blade up in moonlight as it

fell;

Bright-flying foam-drops stung

The steel, the spray leapt as it

disappeared.