• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

But I vowed I would meet thee and die.

Occasionally the versification rises into melody and even strength; as here —

‘Twas at the hour when Peris love

To gaze upon the Heaven above

Whose portals bright with many a gem

Are closed — forever closed on them.

Upon the whole, however, it is feeble, vacillating, and ineffective; ­given token of having been “touched up” by the hand of a friend, from a much worse, into its present condition. Such rhymes as floor and shower — ceased and breast — shade and spread — brow and wo — clear and far — clear and air — morning and dawning — forth and earth — step and deep — Khan and hand — are constantly occurring; and although, certainly, we should not, as a general rule, expect better things from a girl of sixteen, we still look in vain, and with something very much akin to a smile, for aught even approaching that “marvellous ease and grace of versification “ about which Miss Sedgwick; in the benevolence of her heart, discourses.

Nor does the story, to our dispassionate apprehension, appear “beautifully developed.” It runs thus: — Amir Khan, Subahdar of Cachemere, weds a Circassian slave who, cold as a statue and as obstinately silent, refuses to return his love. The Subahdar applied to a magician, who give him

a pensive flower

Gathered at midnight’s magic hour;

the effect of whose perfume renders him apparently lifeless while still in possession of all his senses. Amreeta, the slave, supposing her lover dead, gives way to clamorous grief, and reveals the secret love which she has long borne her lord, but refused to divulge because a slave. Amir Khan hereupon revives, and all trouble is at an end.

Of course, no one at all read in Eastern fable will be willing to give Miss Davidson credit for originality in the conception of this little story; and if she have claim to merit at all, as regards it, that claim must be founded upon the manner of narration. But it will be at once evident that the most naked outline alone can be given in the compass of four hundred and forty lines. The tale is, in sober fact, told very much as any young person might be expected to tell it. The strength of the narrator is wholly laid out upon a description of moonlight (in the usual style) with which the poem commences — upon a second description of moonlight (in precisely the same manner) with which a second division commences — and in a third description of the hall in which the entranced Subahdar reposes. This is all — absolutely all; or at the least the rest has the nakedness of mere catalogue. We recognise, ­throughout, the poetic sentiment, but little — very little — of poetic power. We see occasional gleams of imagination: for example —

And every crystal cloud of Heaven

Bowed as it passed the queen of even. . . . . .

Amreeta was cold as the marble floor

That glistens beneath the nightly shower. . . . . .

At that calm hour when Peris love

To gaze upon the Heaven above,

Whose portals bright with many a gem

Are closed — forever close on them. . . . . .

The Subahdar with noiseless step

Rushed like the night-breeze o’er the deep.

We look in vain for another instance worth quoting. But were the fancy seen in these examples observable either in the general conduct or in the incidents of the narrative, we should not feel obliged to disagree so unequivocally with that opinion which pronounces this clever little production “one which would not have done discredit to our most popular poets in the meridian of their fame!”

“As the work of a girl of sixteen,” most assuredly we do not think it “prodigious.” In regard to it we may repeat what we said of “Lenore,” — that we have seen finer poems in every respect, written by children of more immature age. It is a creditable composition; nothing beyond this. And, in so saying, we shall startle none but the brainless, and the adopters of ready-made ideas. We are convinced that we express the unuttered sentiment of every educated individual who has read the poem. Nor, having given the plain facts of the case, do we feel called