hifting colors as one of the
native sunsets. I can't forbear one obiter dictum on this poem. It has
never been so translated as to reproduce its neatest bit of fancy. In
the original the poet speaks of meeting in dreams a fair-eyed maiden
who greeted him "auf Deutsch" and kissed him "auf Deutsch," but the
translations all evade the kiss in German.

"The Ring," bounding with the glad frenzy of a betrothed lover, has a
soaring finale, and is better endowed with a well polished
accompaniment than the song, "Because I Love You, Dear," which is not
without its good points in spite of its manifest appeal to a more
popular taste. "My Little Love," "An Echo," "Spring's Awakening," and
"Where Love Doth Build His Nest," are conceived in Hawley's own vein.

The song, "Oh, Haste Thee, Sweet," has some moments of banality, but
more of novelty; the harmonic work being unusual at times, especially
in the rich garb of the words, "It groweth late." In "I Only Can Love
Thee," Hawley has succeeded in conquering the incommensurateness of
Mrs. Browning's sonnet by alternating 6-8 and 9-8 rhythms. His "Were I
a Star," is quite a perfect lyric.

Of his part songs, all are good, some are masterly. Here he colors
with the same lavish but softly blending touch as in his solos. "My
Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose" is altogether delightful, containing as
it does a suggestion of the old formalities and courtly graces of the
music of Lawes, whose songs Milton sonneted. I had always thought that
no musician could do other than paint the lily in attempting to add
music to the music of Tennyson's "Bugle Song," but Hawley has come
dangerously near satisfaction in the elfland faintness and dying
clearness of his voices.

He has written two comic glees, one of which, "They Kissed! I Saw Them
Do It," has put thousands of people into the keenest mirth. It is a
vocal scherzo for men's voices. It begins with a criminally lugubrious
and thin colloquy, in which the bass dolefully informs the others:
"Beneath a shady tree they sat," to which the rest agree; "He held
her hand, she held his hat," which meets with general consent. Now we
are told in stealthy gasps, "I held my breath and lay right flat."
Suddenly out of this thinness bursts a peal of richest harmony: "They
kissed! I saw them do it." It is repeated more lusciously still, and
then the basses and barytones mouth the gossip disapprovingly, and the
poem continues with delicious raillery till it ends abru