In the present case, we do not feel disposed to exercise
this privilege, further than in a very few words--merely to say that Mr.
Robert Montgomery has published a volume of Poems under the above
title--that the poems are of unequal merit, and that like Virgil, his
excellence lies in describing scenes of darkness.
The "Universal Prayer" is a devotional outpouring of a truly poetical
soul, with as much new imagery as the subject would admit; and if
_scriptural_ poems be estimated in the ratio of _scriptural_ sermons,
the merit of the former is of the first order.[2]
From the other poems we have detached the following beautiful
specimens:--
CONSUMPTION.
With step as noiseless as the summer air,
Who comes in beautiful decay?--her eyes
Dissolving with a feverish glow of light,
Her nostrils delicately closed, and on
Her cheek a rosy tint, as if the tip
Of Beauty's finger faintly press'd it there,--
Alas! Consumption is her name.
Thou loved and loving one!
From the dark languish of thy liquid eye,
So exquisitely rounded, darts a ray
Of truth, prophetic of thine early doom;
And on thy placid cheek there is a print
Of death,--the beauty of consumption there.
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