E’er came more deep than his demoniac laugh!
As rolls the distant thunder on—it ceased.
And we cease; but not altogether. Cry not, oh reader, with king-killing Macbeth, “hold, enough!” till we shall have at least ferreted out some stanzas worth commendation, in the one hundred and forty “mortal pages,” which drag their slow length after “The Power of the Passions”—which title, we beg leave to suggest, should be changed to the somewhat Hibernian one of “A Power of Passions,” which would be more expressive of the number of new ones “making their first appearance on any stage.”
All the gross errors of persons who deem themselves poets, but are not—who make verses, to which neither gods, men nor columns can yield applause—are displayed, not only in the effusion which we have too tenderly handled, but in most of the remaining rubbish of metre, which this mistaken lady has raked together and piled up for the diversion of the public in England. It is said of those, who make constant efforts to utter happy repartees and smart jokes, that it would be a wonder if they did not now and then stumble upon a clever hit. The remark may with truth be applied to the indefatigable concoctor of rhymes. Desperate must be his condition, if, at large intervals, good couplets did not slip from his pen. Poor as most of Mrs. Ware’s poems are, stanzas are scattered through them which are really beautiful, and have the air of being in their present position by mistake. Occasionally, also, when the subject is dictated by feeling; when the thoughts well from the heart, and are like those which are entertained by the author in common with other people of sensibility; when she does not strive to be very fine, very grand and very fascinating, her lines run smoothly and gracefully along. Take as a favorable example of her versification one stanza, from a poem called “Diamond Island,” which, as we are told, is a delightful little island, situated in Lake George, and well known to the Northern tourists for its picturesque beauty, and the brilliant crystals to be found on its shores:—
How sweet to stray along thy flowery shore,
Where crystals sparkle in the sunny ray;
While the red boatman plies his silvery oar
To the wild measure of some rustic lay.
As a specimen of the sometimes able and sometimes slovenly mode in which Mrs. Ware poetizes, take the following couplets as an example. In describing what scenes are beheld by “The Genius of Græcia,” she finely writes:—
“Views the broad Stadium, where the Gymnic art