Poems in Many Keys. By Edwin Smith, M.A. (Southport, 1889.)—Mr.
Edwin Smith has a vein of genuine poetry in him,
but it is a good deal mingled with a genial and kindly sentiment that often misleads him into treating subjects which have not adequately impressed his imagination. There are two of these poems (which have appeared in our own columns), " The Ringed Dotterel" and "The Robin," to which we should give high praise.
They are at once tender and humorous, and have nothing in them that is not light, fanciful, and delicate. In many others of these poems, elements of the same kind are frequently discernible, and there is plenty in the volume that every cultivated reader will enjoy. But there are very few so happy in their whole treatment as these two. Perhaps " Blackberrying " is as lively and pleasant a piece as any, excepting " The Ringed Dotterel" and " The Robin." "The Moorland Rose" is not a good translation of Goethe's " Roslein auf der Heide." First of all, " Roselet " is hardly an English word ; next, " Robin"" is a very sentimental translation of Goethe's Knabe (" boy ") ; but most of all, the last verse misses Goethe's point altogether. It was not the boy who suffered most in Goethe's song, but the rose. " Roslein wehrte sich and stach ; niiisse es eben leiden." It was, in fact, the rose that lost its life, and the boy who only felt a prick. Mr. Smith has missed the true nominative to mileste, which is Roslein, as well as Goethe's meaning, which contained a parable. The little volume is a pleasant one as a whole, but Mr. Smith could do better. „
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