Times (London)
3 December 1891
BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
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The answer to the question QUO, MUSA, TENDIS? which is the title of a new volume of poems by Mr. J.K. Stephen, the author of "Lapsus Calami" (Cambridge, Macmillan and Bowes), appears to be given in the last two stanzas of the final poem, addressed "Labenti Calamo":-
"I go to fly at higher game;
"At prose as good as I can make it.
"And though it brings nor gold nor fame,
"I will not, while I live, forsake it."
"Farewell! I've other work to do,
"Another way of reaching men.
"But I shall still remember you,
"You've served me well; adieu, dear Pen.
Yet before he bids farewell to the lyric muse, Mr. Stephen would fain win a place for himself among lyric bards more serious than he could hope to claim merely as the writer of "Lapsus Calami." He is not altogether unsuccessful in this ambition. His verse is musical and various, and his themes are touched with a happy knack of originality.
