Take with humble acceptance the gifts of thy life; bid thy joy brim the fountain of tears;
For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gathers promise of happier years!
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
The Child of the Sea and Other Poems. By Mrs. S. Anna Lewis, Author of “Records of the Heart,” etc. etc. New York: George P. Putnam.
A large edition of “Records of the Heart” was sold in a few months, and the fair author stepped at once into a very enviable position. “The Child of the Sea,” etc. will add much to her poetical fame. The poem which gives name to the volume, and occupies most of it, is a romantic and passionate narrative, and embodies all the main features of Mrs. Lewis’s thought as well as manner. The story is well conducted and somewhat elaborately handled; the style, or general tone, is nervous, free, dashing—much in the way of Maria del Occidente—but the principal ground for praise is to be found in the great aggregate of quotable passages. The opening lines, for example, are singularly vivid:
Where blooms the myrtle and the olive flings
Its aromatic breath upon the air—
Where the sad Bird of Night forever sings
Meet anthems for the Children of Despair.