CURRENT LITERATURE.
Love and Mammon, and Other Poems, By Fanny Susan Wyvill, Author of "Pansies." (Bell and Daldy.)—This volume, like those of most of the minor poets of the day, consists of one longish production which gives its name to the work, together with a sufficiency of fugitive pieces to swell the book to a presentable size. The piece de resistance is, in the present instance, the story of two young ladies, one of whom, Flavin, is heartless, has "hair like golden water," and writes letters, "whose soul was Patchouli and treachery ;" while the other, Honoria, has a deep soul, and "eyes of soft pigeon-grey," and when she finds that the man she loves is betrothed to Flavia, retires to her room, remains all night "at her bedside, a soft white muslin heap," and finally bites herself in order to restrain her feelings.
"Frenzied, she fastened in her own soft arm, With teeth of desperate anguish—felt no wound, But won the victory ; for there she stood, Few moments after, quiet, dull, subdued ; Slow life-drops trickling from the wounded arm, As from the heart within."
Flavia jilts her .fianc4 and, of course, comes to grief, and Honoria gets him at last. This interesting story is told in very fair blank verse. Miss Wyvill's minor poems are certainly not better than "Love and Mammon," and now and then they are not exactly intelligible. What, for instance, is the precise meaning of this stanza, which is part of a description of Fair Rosamond ? —
"Softer and whiter her shoulders, Than creamy ermine of kings ; Lighter and brighter her glances, Than the rich frown of her rings."
Previous page
