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By Root 16192 0

conversely, that, in any analysis of even this wildest effusion, we labor without method only to labor without end. There is little reason for that vagueness of comment which, of late, we so pertinaciously affect, and which has been brought into fashion, no doubt, through the proverbial facility and security of merely general remark. In regard to the leading principles of true poesy, these, we think, stand not at all in need of the elucidation hourly wasted upon them. Founded in the unerring instincts of our nature, they are enduring and immutable. In a rigid scrutiny of any number of directly conflicting opinions upon a poetical topic, we will not fail to perceive that principles identical in every important point have been, in each opinion, either asserted, or intimated, or unwittingly allowed an influence. The differences of decision arose simply from those of application; and from such variety in the applied, rather than in the conceived idea, sprang, undoubtedly, the absurd distinctions of the “schools.”

“Geraldine “ is the title of the first and longest poem in the volume before us. It embraces some three hundred and fifty stanzas — the whole being a most servile imitation of the “Don Juan” of Lord Byron. The outrageous absurdity of the systematic digression in the British original, was so managed as to form not a little portion of its infinite interest and humor; and the fine discrimination of the writer pointed out to him a limit beyond which he never ventured with this tantalizing species of drollery. “Geraldine” may be regarded, however, as a simple embodiment of the whole soul of digression. It is a mere mass of irrelevancy, amid the mad farrago of which we detect with difficulty even the faintest vestige of a narrative, and where the continuous lapse from impertinence to impertinence is seldom justified by any shadow of appositeness or even of the commonest relation. To afford the reader any proper conception of the story, is of course a matter of difficulty; we must content ourselves with a mere outline of the general conduct. This we shall endeavor to give without indulgence in those feelings of risibility stirred up in us by the primitive perusal. We shall rigorously avoid every ­species of exaggeration, and confine ourselves, with perfect honesty, to the conveyance of a distinct image. “Geraldine,” then, opens with some four or five stanzas descriptive of a sylvan scene in America. We could, perhaps, render Mr. Dawes’ poetical reputation no greater service than by the quotation of these simple verses in full.

I know a spot where poets fain would dwell,

To gather flowers and food for after thought,

As bees draw honey from the rose’s cell,

To hive among the treasures they have wrought;

And there a cottage from a sylvan screen

Sent up a curling smoke amidst the green.

Around that hermit home of quietude

The elm trees whispered with the summer air,

And nothing ever ventured to intrude

But happy birds that caroled wildly there,

Or honey-laden harvesters that flew

Humming away to drink the morning dew.

Around the door the honey-suckle climbed

And Multa-flora spread her countless roses,

And never poet sang nor minstrel rhymed

Romantic scene where happiness reposes,

Sweeter to sense than that enchanting dell

Where home-sick memory fondly loves to dwell.

Beneath the mountain’s brow the cottage stood,

Hard by a shelving lake whose pebbled bed

Was skirted by the drapery of a wood

That hung its festoon foliage over head,

Where wild deer came at eve unharmed, to drink,

While moonlight threw their shadows from the brink.

The green earth heaved her giant waves around,

Where, through the mountain vista, one vast height

Towered heavenward without peer, his forehead bound

With gorgeous clouds, at times of changeful light,

While, far below, the lake in bridal rest

Slept with his glorious picture on her breast.

Here is an air of quietude in good keeping with the theme; the “giant waves” in the last stanza redeem it from much exception otherwise; and perhaps we need say nothing at all of