Short Poems. By Kenelm Henry Digby, Esq. (Longman and Co.)—
This is a very remarkable "little volume," being mainly composed of doggrel, which the author seems to consider equally applicable to serious and humorous composition. Here is the commencement of a poem on the miracle at Cana, which is in fact an ode to the Virgin Mary :—
" There's a mother, a true mother, what can be sweeter ?
Mysteriously granted, tho' not within view, Than a parent mere earthly to save us still sweeter, For tenderness just such as one we all knew.
Natural, cheerful, Loving, enduring,
Unskilled to refuse the least boon that we ask,—
Remaining, sustaining, Imploring, prevailing, To serve us her pleasure, her self-imposed task."
This sort of staff goes on fur pages, and yet Mr. Digby is well known as a man of taste, and incapable of intentional irreverence. He actually begins a poem on Ireland in heroic metre with two lines both ending with "of yore." Verses of nine feet, of eleven feet, of almost any number of feet, are of constant occurrence. And as for rhymes, we have shelter, better,—present, meant,—impotent, intent,—am, can—error, dis- cover. But really when most people take to writing verses, they seem to lose not only the power of thinking but the sense of beauty, and even ear.
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