Doubtless a vast number of persons as fervently desire the time when 'wars shall cease from under the whole heaven,' as our author. Like herself, thousands feel that
'Too long at clash of arms amid her bowers,
And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast:'
but she will find few who will carry the prejudice which a hatred of war has created in her bosom so far as she has done. On visiting what was once the grave of Andre, she is shown by the guide the head-quarters of General Washington: 'I turned my back suddenly upon it. The last place on earth where I would wish to think of Washington is at the grave of Andre.' And she adds, that she never could look upon Andre's execution 'as other than a cool, deliberate murder!' The stern necessity which impelled the Father of his Country to this act, at which his great heart, throbbing with the cares of an infant empire, melted in pity, is termed 'a selfish jealousy, dignified with the name of patriotism!' All this, however, is creditable to the woman's-heart of our author; as is her wish, and the 'strong faith' of which it is the father, that the time is not distant when 'all prisons will cease from the face of the earth.' Human nature, howbeit, must undergo an important change before such an event can take place; and a long time must elapse before Washington's memory can receive any injury from attacks upon it like the one above cited. We are getting, however, to the end of our tether, in the 'short commons' left for us in this department; but after the written and 'illustrated' praise which we have awarded to the volume before us, we are compelled, in candor, to add a word or two of censure. Now and then, it must be admitted, our author is slightly vague and bizarre, as if to make good the declaration in her dedication; and she can be, moreover, on occasion, a little mawkish; as in the instance where, after the sentiment has been satisfied, she pumps up a feeling, and 'drags in by ear and horn' a struggling sentence touching two doves in the room that once was Andre's; their 'mated human hearts,' and so forth. These and one or two kindred simulations, or ultra-sentimentalities, are not intellectually feminine, and must be set down as defects in the generally natural and fresh style of our gifted author, whose clever volume we are glad of an opportunity warmly to commend to public acceptance. Some readers may find in it matters to condemn, perhaps, but all will encounter much that is deserving of cordial praise.
Death: or Medorus' Dream. By the Author of 'Ahasuerus.' In one volume, pp. 66. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
We deem it a substantial tribute to the merits of the poem before us, that it has elicited the cordial commendations of two daily journals of authority in our midst; the antipodal editors of which, (one of them the first of American poets,) in awarding their meed of praise, candidly confessed that the production was more likely to be judged by a political standard at the seat of government, than by any critical measure, based upon an impartial consideration of its literary qualities. For ourselves, we must say that we have perused the poem with a pleasure not a little enhanced by the reflection, that the author has been enabled to find leisure, amidst engagements which, if one may believe the partizan journals, must needs be numerous and pressing, to pay that attention to literary pursuits, which by so many politicians, and utilitarians of another class, are considered 'useless, if not belittling, to a man of mental calibre sufficient for any thing more manly than verse-making.' Indeed, this position we remember somewhere to have seen assumed and defended, in the words we have quoted. The opening of 'Medorus' Dream,' the fine lines on 'Death,' have already appeared in the Knickerbocker, from the manuscript of the author. They will be remembered not only by the readers of this Magazine, but also by those of very many journals throughout the Union, into which they were copied, with expressions of warm admiration. In selecting, therefore, a few extracts, in corroboration of the justice of our encomiums, we shall plunge at once in medias res into the volume before us; leaving our readers to judge whether the writer does not exhibit a hearty love and keen observation of Nature, in her various phases; a strong sense of the beautiful and the true; and an ease and smoothness of versification, which go far to controvert the theory that, for certain reasons, (among which 'a restless ambition' has been cited as the chief,) 'there can be little poetry in high places.' Take, for example, the annexed brief but comprehensive glance at the four seasons:
Spring laughing comes to bless the verdant land.
Sweet breezes kiss the glowing curls that lie
Upon her blooming cheek; a lambent fire
Plays from her radiant eyes; 'neath her light step
Daisies and cowslips grow. Upon the bud
She breathes, and quick the rose unfolds
Its tinted leaves, and, trembling with keen bliss,
Sips the pure morning dews, and soft exhales
A gentle odor through the garden's walks,
More sweet than beauty's breath. Hark to those sounds!
The warbling notes that rise upon the gale
Steal o'er the soul like voices of pure prayer,
Or dream of Eden's joys. O'er all the earth
Warm sunshine streams, whose fructifying rays
Strike through the fibrous soil, and quicken there
A thousand lovely forms; these straightway start
From that deep sleep which heaven so kindly sends
Through winter's rugged hour, while soon they join
The happy circle of all beauteous things,
That fill the world with perfume and with song,
Hailing their bounteous mistress, virgin Spring!
Mark Summer, sitting 'neath yon spreading palm,
Her shady throne. With matron dignity
She gazes round, and smiles in quiet pride
While counting o'er the glorious wealth that fills
Her wide domain. Now wave the growing fields
Beneath the rip'ning winds and the warm sun;
Now the soft pulp of the distending fruits
Imbibes rich nectar from the glowing beams
Of the calm, golden day. Now Hope sits laughing
In a world of light, and Promise near
Weaves the bright numbers of a joyous lay,
With Plenty still the burden of his theme.
Next Autumn comes, the sweet industrious maid,
Who garners up the treasures of past days,
Brown nuts, and yellow grain, and ripen'd stores
Of mellow'd fruits; yet still a pensive smile,
As soft as moonlight on some slumb'ring stream,
Throws o'er her face a melancholy shade
Of sober thought, as though her heart was sad
That the large harvests which her sickle wins
Should leave the earth so bare. And then she sings
A plaintive strain that echoes through the land,
Like the wild cooings of some soft-toned dove,
A note of resignation and of peace,
Though still a sound of sadness from the soul.
Lo! Winter rushes from the land of storms:
From the cold Arctic regions, where he sat
'Mong clouds and darkness, and vast misshaped forms,
He comes, with frosts, and howling winds, and hail,
And the dark terrors of a sunless sky.
Unshorn his ragged beard, and his fierce eyes,
Relentless as the murderer's stony heart,
Condemns the victim, while his icy breath,
More deadly than the lightning's fiery gleam,
Sweeps life into oblivion. Spirit, no;
Man's finite faculties alone may see
Such evil in God's goodness: we behold
A crowning mercy of beneficence
In Winter's coldest blast. Could earth exist
Without that change in matter and in form
By which her strength recuperates, and lends
An impulse unto Nature's fostering will?
The pulpy fruit would perish where it falls
But for the bitter kernel; flowers would fade,
No more mid sweet ambrosial dews to bloom,
But for the winter's torpid touch, that crusts
The leathery seed with its rough coating o'er,
Freezes its ardent currents ere they spring
Into ephemeral being, and thus yields
Unto a small and leaden speck, a power
Of life perpetual, and from dull clay
Maintains a breathing world.'