The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [932]
ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.
THIS is a very pretty little volume, neatly printed, handsomely bound, embracing some two hundred pages sixteen-mo. and introduced to the public, somewhat unnecessarily, in a preface by Dr. Rufus W. Griswold. In this preface we find some few memoranda of the personal authoress, with some critical opinions in relation to her poems. The memoranda are meagre. A much more interesting account of Mrs. Smith is given by Mr. John Neal, and was included by Mr. John Keese in the introduction to a former collection of her works. The critical opinions may as well be here quoted, at least in part. Dr. Griswold says:
Seeking expression, yet shrinking from notoriety, and with a full share of that respect for a just fame and appreciation which belongs to every high-toned mind, yet oppressed by its shadow when circumstance is the impelling motive of publication, the writings of Mrs. Smith might well be supposed to betray great inequality; still in her many contributions to the magazines, it is remarkable how few of her pieces display the usual carelessness and haste of magazine articles. As an essayist especially, while graceful and lively, she is compact and vigorous; while through poems, essays, tales, and criticisms, (for her industrious pen seems equally skilful and happy in each of these departments of literature,) through all her manifold writings, indeed, there runs the same beautiful vein of philosophy, viz: — that truth and goodness of themselves impart a holy light to the mind which gives it a power far above mere intellectuality; that the highest order of human intelligence springs from the moral and not the reasoning faculties. . . . . . . . Mrs. Smith’s most popular poem is “The Acorn,” which, though inferior in high inspiration to “The Sinless Child,” is by many preferred for its happy play of fancy and proper finish. Her sonnets, of which she has written many, have not yet been as much admired as the “April Rain,” “The Brook,” and other fugitive pieces, which we find in many popular collections.
“The Sinless Child” was originally published in the “Southern Literary Messenger,” where it at once attracted much attention from the novelty of its conception and the general grace and purity of its style. Undoubtedly it is one of the most original of American poems — surpassed in this respect, we think, only by Maria del Occidente’s “Bride of Seven.” Of course, we speak merely of long poems. We have had in this country many brief fugitive pieces far excelling in this most important point (originality) either “The Bride of Seven” or “The Sinless Child” — far excelling, indeed, any transatlantic poems. After all, it is chiefly in works of what is absurdly termed “sustained effort” that we fall in any material respect behind our progenitors.
“The Sinless Child” is quite long, including more than two hundred stanzas, generally of eight lines. The metre throughout is iambic tetrameter, alternating with trimeter — in other words, lines of four iambuses alternate with lines of three. The variations from this order are rare. The design of the poem is very imperfectly made out. The conception is much better than the execution. “A simple cottage maiden, Eva, given to the world in the widowhood of one parent and the angelic existence of the other, . . . . . . is found from her birth to be as meek and gentle as are those pale flowers that look imploringly upon us. . . . . She is gifted with the power of interpreting the beautiful mysteries of our earth. . . . . . For her the song of the bird is not merely the gushing forth of a nature too full of blessedness to be silent . . . . . the humblest plant, the simplest insect, is each alive with truth. . . . . . She sees the world not merely with mortal eyes, but looks within to the pure internal life of which the outward is but a type,