His spirit freshens at the glorious sight,
And far away his eager eyes are turning,
To those bright paths in yonder sky of light,
Where Heaven's imperial stars are brightly burning.
Back flows the life-blood to his swelling heart,
And thence again with impulse free and strong;
Old memories gather round him and depart,
Phalanx to phalanx joined, and throng to throng!
V.
Dim grow the visions that o'erreach his brain,
And shadowy forms seem floating in his eye;
Tears fall around him, as the soul's bright rain,
Poured from the heart for one too young to die.
Stars are now hovering o'er the brink of day,
And sun-light lingers on each tower and hill;
But prayer hath passed from silent lips away,
The heart hath shed its sorrow—and is still!
Edmond Brewster Green.
New-York, August, 1843.
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
Donna Florida: a Tale. By the Author of 'Atlantis,' 'Southern Passages and Pictures,' etc. Charleston: Burgess and James.
'The poem,' says the author of this miniature pamphlet-volume, 'of which the four first cantos (he means the first four, no doubt) are here submitted to the reader, was chiefly the work of the writer's youth.' He does not claim, however, that this fact forms any sufficient excuse for giving it to the public at this late day; but offers rather the natural tenacity 'with which the mind treasures up, and seeks to preserve, the performances which revive its early associations.' We have run through these cantos with some attention. The story does not strike us as possessing either great originality or interest. The verse itself is after the model of 'Don Juan,' then recently published, and rife in the literary world; but like the thousand-and-one imitations which we have encountered of that most facile and felicitous composition, its 'laborious ease' cannot be concealed. With Byron, the play of fancy and of words was equally unconstrained, in this species of versification; but all his imitators have evidently been stretched upon Procrustean beds; and with all the seeming abandon of their manner, and the smirk of their 'varnished faces,' it has yet been but too evident that their situation was any thing but comfortable. In 'Donna Florida' however there is a good degree of cleverness. There are many thoughts interspersed throughout its cantos which the reader will encounter with surprise and remember with pleasure. Nevertheless we are compelled to say, that where the stanzas are most original, they are the least to our liking. We enter our protest against the writer's frequent habit of saying a plain thing in an involved, roundabout way, as well as against numerous words and similes which he employs. 'You can call a hat,' says Mr. Yellowplush, a 'glossy four-and-nine' or a 'swart sombréro;' but in the long run praps it's as well to call it a hat. It is a hat; and where's the use o' mystifying?' Would it not, for example, be 'as well' also, and quite as natural, to write 'half of the rest,' as 'the subdivision of the remaining moïety?' Or in saying that old jokes were laughed at, to express it in less magniloquent phrase than