To Mr. Everett's address are appended a requiem and a hymn, of which we will say, but more emphatically, what we said of the orations. They should have great excellence and no fault. Each should be a gem of the first water, and without flaw. The first consists of six stanzas, of which two or three are very fine. But what shall we say to this:
"One pulse is echoing there."
An echoing pulse!
| "One
pulse is echoing there! The far voiced clarion and the trump are still, And man's crushed spirit to the changeless will Bows in rebuke and prayer!" |
Whom or what does man rebuke? If the writer meant "under rebuke," he should have said so. Again—
| "Gather
about his pall, And let the sacred memory of years That he made glorious, call back your tears, Or LIGHT them as they fall!" |
If the writer had an idea connected with the last line it is incomprehensible to us.
The hymn of four short stanzas being destitute of any original thought, has not merit enough to be chargeable with any particular fault. There may be something new, though common-place, in the last stanza. Astronomers tell us that Venus and Mercury are morning and evening star by turns. Our poet, if we can understand his orrery, has a mind to make the name of La Fayette both morning and evening star at once.