We did not intend by the foregoing observations, to bespeak any extraordinary share of public favor towards the poems of Miss Davidson. What we have said in relation to the neglect of American talent, was designed to have a general and not particular application. Notwithstanding we hear that the poems before us have been extravagantly praised beyond the Atlantic, we are not so intoxicated by a little foreign flattery as to believe that they are destined to immortality. Some may console themselves, if they please, for the whole ocean of obloquy and contempt cast upon us from the British press, by regarding with favorable eyes this little rivulet of praise bestowed upon the juvenile efforts of a lovely and interesting girl. We are not of that number; we shall endeavor to decide upon the work before us, unbiassed by trans-atlantic opinion—and we shall render precisely that judgment which we would have done if that opinion had been pronounced in the usual tone of British arrogance and contumely.
Regarding the volume before us as a literary production merely, and supposing it to have been the offspring of a matured mind, we do not think that it possesses any considerable merit. Estimating its contents, however, as the first lispings of a child of genius,—as furnishing proofs of the existence of that ethereal spark which, under favorable circumstances, might have been kindled into a brilliant flame, we do consider it as altogether extraordinary. We do not say that these poems are equal to the early productions of Chatterton, Henry Kirke White, or Dermody, those prodigies of precocious talent,—but we entertain not a shadow of doubt if Miss Davidson had lived, that she would have ranked among the highest of her own sex in poetical excellence. In forming a correct judgment upon the offspring of her muse, her youth is not alone to be considered. She had also to contend with those remorseless enemies of mental effort,—poverty, sorrow, and ill health; and it is, perhaps, a circumstance in her history not unworthy of notice, that possessing a high degree of personal beauty, and being on that account the object of much admiration and attention, she did not suffer herself to be withdrawn from the purer sources of intellectual enjoyment. Love indeed, seems to have found no permanent lodgment in her heart. It might have stolen to the threshold and infused some of its gentle influences, but she seems to have been resolved to cast off the silken cord before it was too firmly bound around her. Thus in the piece which bears the title of Cupid's Bower, written in her fifteenth year.
| "Am I in fairy land?—or tell me, pray, To what love-lighted bower I've found my way? Sure luckless wight was never more beguiled In woodland maze, or closely-tangled wild. And is this Cupid's realm?—if so, good by! Cupid, and Cupid's votaries, I fly; No offering to his altar do I bring, No bleeding heart—or hymeneal ring." |
The longest, most elaborate, and perhaps best of her poems, is that which gives the principal title to the volume. Amir Khan is a simple oriental tale, written in her sixteenth year, and is worked up with surprising power of imagery for one so young. The most fastidious and critical reader could not fail to be struck with its resemblance to the gorgeous magnificence of Lalla Rookh; a resemblance, to be sure, which no more implies equality of merit than does the brilliancy of the mock diamond establish its value with that of the real gem. We give the opening passage from the poem as a fair specimen of the rest, and from which the reader may form a correct opinion of the style and composition.
| "Brightly o'er spire, and dome, and tower, The pale moon shone at midnight hour, While all beneath her smile of light Was resting there in calm delight; Evening with robe of stars appears, Bright as repentant Peri's tears, And o'er her turban's fleecy fold Night's crescent streamed its rays of gold, While every chrystal cloud of heaven, Bowed as it passed the queen of even. Beneath—calm Cashmere's lovely vale Breathed perfumes to the sighing gale; The amaranth and tuberose, Convolvulus in deep repose, Bent to each breeze which swept their bed, Or scarcely kissed the dew and fled; The bulbul, with his lay of love; Sang mid the stillness of the grove; The gulnare blushed a deeper hue, And trembling shed a shower of dew, Which perfumed e'er it kiss'd the ground, Each zephyr's pinion hovering round. The lofty plane-tree's haughty brow Glitter'd beneath the moon's pale glow; And wide the plantain's arms were spread, The guardian of its native bed." |
We venture to assert that if Thomas Moore had written Amir Khan at the age of sixteen, there are thousands by whom it would be read and admired who would hardly condescend to open Miss Davidson's volume; and that too, without being able to assign any other or better reason than that Moore is a distinguished and popular British bard, whereas the other was an obscure country girl, who lived and died in the state of New York.
The lines to the memory of Henry Kirk White, which were composed at thirteen, are much superior to many elegiac stanzas written by poets of some reputation at twenty-five or thirty. Of all her minor pieces however, those which were written at fifteen seem to us to possess the greatest merit, if we except the Coquette, a very spirited production in imitation of the Scottish dialect, composed in her fourteenth year. The following are the two first stanzas:
| "I hae nae sleep, I hae nae rest, My Ellen's lost for aye; My heart is sair and much distressed, I surely soon must die. I canna think o' wark at a', My eyes still wander far, I see her neck like driven snaw, I see her flaxen hair." |
The image of the snowy neck and flaxen hair of the beautiful but unkind fair one, presented so strongly to the rejected lover, as to prevent his performing his daily work, strikes us as highly poetical and true to nature, as we doubt not all genuine lovers will testify. Burns wrote many, very many verses, which were much superior, but Burns wrote some also, which were not so good. Ruth's answer to Naomi, must be allowed, we think, to be a good paraphrase of that most affecting passage of scripture. We must give the whole to the reader.
| "Entreat me not, I must not hear, Mark but this sorrow-beaming tear; Thy answer's written deeply now On this warm cheek and clouded brow; 'Tis gleaming o'er this eye of sadness Which only near thee sparkles gladness. The hearts most dear to us are gone, And thou and I are left alone; Where'er thou wanderest, I will go, I'll follow thee through joy or wo; Shouldst thou to other countries fly, Where'er thou lodgest, there will I. Thy people shall my people be, And to thy God, I'll bend the knee; Whither thou fliest, will I fly, And where thou diest, I will die; And the same sod which pillows thee Shall freshly, sweetly bloom for me."1 |