Landscape Lyrics, by WILLIAM ANDERSON, Esq., is a quarto in
form, and resembles an Annual in the fashion of its getting- up. It contains some plates of indifferent landscapes; the sub- jects of which furnish the theme for fifteen poems, on various times of the day and seasons of the year. The absence of inte- rest in purely descriptive poetry, the sameness arising from a succession of kindred topics, and a uniformity of metre, only in itself well-adapted to short pieces, will render the pleasure of the reader less than the merit of the writer deserves: for he exhibits fancy, tenderness, and reflection; his images have the fresh and distinct character resulting from an original observation of nature ; and his versification is harmonious, and his expression mostly true and sometimes happy, though his epithets occasionally are more ambitious than exact. Here is a graceful specimen of his powers, from Summer.
Decay should seem unknown—
But spiteful time its certain change prepares : Light has its shade, and pleasure has its cares : Music its saddened tone: Summer its springing weeds, And trodden dowers, that tell of bygone joys, • And thoughts long since forgotten, 'mid the noise That from man's haunts proceeds.
How beautiful the sight ! Why should we think of change for scenes like this? Fair as a poet's thought, when thought is bliss, And all he sees is light !
Let but the enraptured eye Once look upon the landscape's gorgeous train, And, like a kiss upon the brow of pain, That brings a solace nigh, In after years 'twill rest Within the memory, with bloom and balm, Refreshing to the soul, like a sweet calm On ocean's troubled breast.
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