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By Root 16450 0

bards to the blush, and with ocasional [[occasional]] bursts of the truest poetic fire. But although as indicative of her future power, it is the most important, as it is the longest of her productions, yet, as a whole, it is not equal to some of her shorter compositions. It was written not long before her death, at the age of fifteen, and (as we glean from the biography) after patient reflection, with much care, and with a high resolve to do something for fame. As the work of so mere a child, it is unquestionably wonderful. Its length, viewed in connexion with its keeping, its unity, its adaptation, and completeness, will impress the metaphysician most forcibly, when surveying the capacities of its author. Powers are here brought into play which are the last to be matured. For fancy we might have looked, and for the lower evidences of skill in a perfect versification and the like, but hardly for what we see in Lenore.

Yet remarkable as this production is, from the pen of a girl of fifteen, it is by no means so incomprehensible as are some of the shorter pieces. We have known instances — rarely, to be sure — but still we have known instances when finer poems in every respect than Lenore have been written by children of as immature age — but we look around us in vain for anything composed at eight years, which can bear comparison with the lines subjoined

TO MAMMA.

Farewell, dear mother, for a while

I must resign thy plaintive smile;

May angels watch thy couch of wo,

And joys unceasing round thee flow.

May the almighty Father spread

His sheltering wings above thy head.

It is not long that we must part,

Then cheer thy downcast drooping heart.

Remember, oh! remember me,

Unceasing is my love for thee!

When death shall sever earthly ties,

When thy loved form all senseless lies. ­

Oh! That my form with thine could flee,

And roam through wide eternity;

Could tread with thee the courts of heaven,

And count the brilliant stars of even.

Nor are these stanzas, written at ten, in any degree less remarkable —

MY NATIVE LAKE.

Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream,

Lit by the sun’s resplendent beam,

Reflect each bending tree so light

Upon thy bounding bosom bright.

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

The little isles that deck thy breast,

And calmly on thy bosom rest,

How often, in my childish glee,

I’ve sported round them, bright and free!

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

How oft I’ve watch’d the fresh’ning shower

Bending the summer tree and flower,

And felt my little heart beat high

As the bright rainbow graced the sky.

Could I but see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain!

And shall I never see thee more,

My native lake, my much-loved shore,

And must I bid a long adieu,

My dear, my infant home, to you?

Shall I not see thee once again,

My own, my beautiful Champlain?

In the way of criticism upon these extraordinary compositions, Mr. Irving has attempted little, and, in general, he seems more affected by the loveliness and the purity of the child than even by the genius she has evinced — however highly he may have estimated this latter. In respect, however, to a poem entitled “My Sister Lucretia,” — he thus speaks — “We have said that the example of her sister Lucretia was incessantly before her, and no better proof can be given of it than in the following lines, which breathe the heavenly aspirations of her pure young spirit, in strains to us quite unearthly. We may have read poetry more artificially perfect in its structure, but never any more truly divine in its inspiration.” The nature of inspiration is disputable ­— and we will not pretend to assert that Mr. Irving is in the wrong. His words, however, in their hyperbole, do wrong to his subject, and would be hyperbole still, if applied to the most exalted poets of all time.

——

The analogies of Nature are universal; and just as the most rapidly growing herbage is the most speedy in its decay — just as the ephemera struggles to perfection in a day only to perish