the organ music of the larger poets.  But the little pipe happened to be a Greek pipe—­the melody was very sweet and very strange and old, and people who had heard it once soon wanted to hear it again.  But they could not get it.  Copies of the first edition fetched extraordinary sums.  Some few years ago a new edition appeared, but this too is now out of print and is fetching fancy prices.  However, you must not expect anything too wonderful from this way of introducing the subject.  The facts only show that the poems are liked by persons of refinement and wealth.  I hope to make you like some of them, but the difficulties of so doing are considerable, because of the extremely English character of some pieces and the extremely Greek tone of others.  There is also some uneven work.  The poet is not in all cases successful.  Sometimes he tried to write society verse, and his society verse must be considered a failure.  The best pieces are his Greek pieces and some compositions on love subjects of a most delicate and bewitching kind.

Of course the very name “Ionica” suggests Greek work, a collection of pieces in Ionic style.  But you must not think that this means only repetitions of ancient subjects.  This author brings the Greek feeling back again into the very heart of English life sometimes, or makes an English fact illustrate a Greek fable.  Some delightful translations from the Greek there are, but less than half a dozen in all.

I scarcely know how to begin—­what piece to quote first.  But perhaps the little fancy called “Mimnermus in Church” is the best known, and the one which will best serve to introduce us to the character of Cory.  Before quoting it, however, I must explain the title briefly.  Mimnermus was an old Greek philosopher and poet who thought that all things in the world are temporary, that all hope of a future life is vain, that there is nothing worth existing for except love, and that without affection one were better dead.  There are, no doubt, various modern thinkers who tell you much the same thing, and this little poem exhibits such modern feeling in a Greek dress.  I mean that we have here a picture of a young man, a young English scholar, listening in church to Christian teaching, but answering that teaching with the thought of the old Greeks.  There is of course one slight difference; the modern conception of love is perhaps a little wider in range than that of the old Greeks.  There is more of the ideal in it.

MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH

  You promise heavens free from strife,
    Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
  But sweet, sweet is this human life,
    So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;
  Your chilly stars I can forego,
  This warm kind world is all I know.

  You say there is no substance here,
    One great reality above: 
  Back from that void I shrink in fear
    And child-like hide myself in love;
  Show me what angels feel.  Till then
  I cling, a mere weak man, to men.