Select Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. Fourth Edition, with Illustrations. Edward C. Biddle: Philadelphia.
The publisher, in his preface, states that three editions of this work, comprising eight thousand copies, have been sold; and of this we are pleased to hear; but we are not equally pleased with the information (conveyed also in the preface) that a new set of illustrations is given. If these “illustrations” are new, then “new” has come to be employed in the sense of “old.” The plates are not only antique but trashy in other respects. Of the poems themselves we have no space to speak fully this month. Some of them are excellent; and there are many which merit no commendation. Mrs. Sigourney deserves much, but by no means all of the applause which her compositions have elicited.
It would be easy to cite, from the volume now before us, numerous brief passages of the truest beauty; but we fear that it would be more difficult to point out an entire poem which would bear examination, as a whole. In the piece entitled “Indian Names,” there are thoughts and expression which would do honor to any one. We note, also, an unusually noble idea in the “Death of an Infant.”
——forth from those blue eyes
There spake a wishful tenderness—a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear.
