There is some spirit and fire in the 'Song of the Rhine,' weakened, however, by sad doggrel. The impression produced by the whole is, that an accomplished and well-meaning graduate has favoured the public with the contents of his college portfolio without due selection.
Loveland, and other Poems chiefly concerning Love. By Wade Robinson. London and Dublin: Moffat and Co.
There is a charm of novelty and freshness about these poems. The thoughts expressed are often both original and beautiful; and in this lies the chief attraction of the book. The language in which the thoughts are clothed is not remarkable for elegance, and the style is occasionally rather obscure, but the reader will find it worth his while to take the little trouble that may now and then be needed fully to grasp the author's meaning. There is no particular arrangement in the poems, but they all turn in some way on the subject indicated in the title-page; one (by no means the best of them) describing an Utopian world perverted and ruled by love alone. There is an elevated tone of feeling about the work in general, befitting the high theme to which it is devoted. We will content ourselves with one specimen of the poetry, though it would be easy to select many. The following lines are taken from a short poem called 'Spring-time in the Woods':—
'Is that next life indeed a Paradise?
But whether I shall leave my flowers for aye
When leaving earth, or in some other world
Shall find them all again, this much I know:
Whate'er in me communes with them shall not
Be left in loneliness. That sense of mine
To which God comes in hues upon the cheeks