"MAIDEN
VOL. III.~ NO. 7. 5
RICHMOND,
POETRY. One of the most exquisite of our early lyrical poets was Robert Herrick. His verses bo_und and flow like some lively melody, that echoes -nature, by wood and dell, and presents new beauties at every turn and winding. TO BLOSSOMS . Fair pledges of a fruitful tree Why do you fall so fast 1 Your date is not so past, But vou may stay yet here awhile, To blush and gently smile, And go at last.
MEDITATIONS,
FANCY
FREE."-Shakespeare.
VA., APRIL,
1878.
Thus Oare .inhis Will peacefully recline, Oh, Joy beware! Speak gently, Lest thou waken Citre !
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There is a Just in man no charm can tame, Of loudly publishinl? his neighbor's shame; On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly; While virtuous actions are but born to die. H .ARVEY .
TERMS.
SONE ·I SING
YJ?AR .....•.. 60 cents. LE OOPY .... 10 cents.
bristles. Admirable in terseness and in antithetical power, charming in the array of tastefully-suited figures, the whole glows with· the fire of a warm imagination. Now we come to the climax : "They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom, Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb."
On reading these lines, how readily do we recall .the sentiment of Tennyson, when, in his " Brook", he so beautifully says :
Men may come and men mny go, "SCANDINAVIANBALLADSTORIES." But I go on forever." This little book comes down to us from the Or a line of Bryant's " Rivulet" : pen of the translator, Buchanan, and like a "And I shall sleep-and on thy side, rose-bush bending under its buds, is laden with As ages after ages glide, pure and delicate-hued, yet vigorous and vivaWhat I were ye bor" to be Ohildren their early sports shall try cious little ballads. After reading such a colAn hour or halfs delight, And pass to hoary age and die. And so to bid goodnight? lection, one should not feel conscience-clear But thou, unchanged from year to year, ·•Tis pity natur ·e brought ye forth, Gayly shalt play and glitter here; until he has either told ·to some friend his adThereby to show your worth, Amid young flowers and tender grass miration, or poured out his feeling on paper. And lose you quite. Thy endless infancy shall pass ; Among these poems, our attention is first And, dripping down thy narrow glen, But you are lovely leaves, where we drawn to ••· The Sunken City." In movement, Shalt mock the fading race of men." May rend how soon thinis have soft to sadness; honestly and · picturesquely Their end, though ne'er so brave; The reading of such stanzas moves the worded ; in tone, charmingly solemn ; exquis- heart, in its gladness, to drive through the And after they have shown their pride ite in its oneness of sound and sense, the read- " bulwalk of the teeth" pent-up feelings into Like you awhile, they glide Into the grave. ing of it left us standing thoughtfully by the words of admiration. And here is a production of Hon. William " blue, cold" sea, translating the "faint, sweet Among the longer ballads occurs the " Wee Robt. Spencer's, the last two verses of which music of the lisping tide" into a tal!l of Wee Gnome " We fail to perceive in this that " The sunken town. contemplative spirit so mysteriously asserted Sir Walter Scott quotes in his diary, terming Which faintly murmurs -in others, but it is remarkable rather for the Far fa thorns down: them " fine lines," and expressive of his own weirdness of its plan and for the spirit of gross Like sea-winds _·breathings, feelings amidst the wreck and desolation of his It murmurs by, savage passion therein depicted. A Christian And the sweet notes tremble fortunes at Abbotsford. peasant lives, with all his household, pleasantly And sink anil die." on the hill, STANZAS. How full of sombreness, of serenity, of "And all the Gnomes that lived in the hill When midnight o'er the moonlight skies music, of pathos, of apt figures and strong Joined hands in a wild delight, Her paf! of transient death has spread, words, of genuine heart-warmth are these Round and round thev danced and danced When mortals sleep, and sceptres rise, lines ! To the door of the Ohristian wight." And .nought is wakeful but the dead : "The Children of the Moon," too, is well They all flee at the sight of the cross Divine, No bloodless shape my way pursues, worthy of notice. Although a simple story save the Wee Wee Gnome, who, " with glitNo sheeted ghost my couch annoys, Visions more sad my fancy ,·iews, told with child-like sweetness, it is clothed tering eyes" enters without · trembling, deVisions of long departed joys! withal in fascinating weirdness. Throughout, mands the wife of the pale and fear-shaken there seems to be a bubbling, as it were, of wight, and takes her, horror-stricken, to himThe shade of youthful hope is there, • That lingered long, and latest died; humor upon a surface of deep contemplation. self. .Ambition all dissolved to air . How -truly poetical is the personification of the "He kissed her once, he kissed her twice, With phantom honors by his side. "tiny little cloudlets" upon .the moon's surAnd wildly struggled she; What empty shadows glimmer nigh? face ! How child-like and elvish are the words He was the ugliest wee, wee gnome They .once were Friendship, Truth, and Love? and actions of these two little cloud-children! That eye of man could see." Oh I die to thought, to memory die, How simply and skillfully is carried out the She calls on Mary's son. The Gnome is Since lifeless to my heart ye prove! figure when the "little cloudlet" under the suddenly changed into a knight and afterNow comes a little epigram by an unknown caresses of the Moon-man is seen to catch wards marries her daughter. The climax is, I author, as sweet and pure as the silver notes the glamour and to have its cheek brightened think, rather unworthy of a plot so capable of by a "rosy smile !" poetic treatment. of a bell: "Ever youn~ and ever little, In " Axel and W alborg," Axel is brave unto THE HEART. They will smile when thou art old; death. Prince Hagen, his base rival, wins Two chamber$ hath t.he heart, When thy locks ·are ihln and silver, W alborg. The poem ends with the heroic And the .re Theirs will still be shining gold." death of Axel, who, after slaying his foe, " as Dwell Joy and OarP, • With tender sentiment, this little verse fairly a reaper reapeth wheat," with eight wounds ;wake Joy in thine, 0