Idler and Poet. By Rossiter Johnson. (Osgood and Co., Boston.)
—These verses are not all bad. There is a dash of imitation in them, now of Longfellow and now of Freed, and the best of them, "A Rhyme of the Rain," has something of Edgar Poe, and just a faint suggestion of Clarence Mangan in it. The imitation is lively, and some of the conceits are amusing. We do not remember ever to have met with a more flagrant example of bad-taste than one piece in this volume : it is called "An Indian Love-song," and it would be witty, but is simply coarse and repulaive. There is no humour in such lines as,— " And to beguile the voyage, if thou wilt oome aboard,
Till sunset fire the waters the fire-water shall be poured
or as,— " A thousand thongs from thy dear hide are knotted round my soul."
The refrain of the song is very unpleasant :— "Then clad in noiseless moccasins the feet of the years shall fall, For I will cherish the my love, till Time shall s.alp us all."
Mr. Rossiter Johnson's little volume contains one or two samples of his better mind and manner that ought to have secured the exclusion of this sample of his worse.
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