NEW POETRY..

WE have frequently expressed an opinion as to the unfitness of the sonnet for the Enghsh language. Er Oriente, or " Sonnets on the Indian Rebellion," is one of the most remarkable excep- tions to this judgment that we have met with, exhibiting little or nothing of the forced and artificial character which mostly attends the English sonnet. This perhaps arises from the cir- cumstances under which the work was written. The author pos- sesses a sufficient mastery of language and is competently enough skilled in versification to write with a certain degree of ease. His vehement feelings at the real and alleged atrocities going on around him impel his utterance without much thought or care in picking words or polishing lines. In fact he disclaims any attempt at " fancy or imagination" ; he is too earnest, may be too angry for the patient labours of mere composition. What his sonnets aim at is to exhibit the feelings of the English in India, during the early and trying times of the mutiny, when reports of treasonable revolt, accompanied by ingratitude, cruel- ty, murder, and yet fouler crimes, continualt- reached the ear, and stirred up a variety of passions in which indignation and resolution predominated. The angry feelings are so fully repre- sented in Ex Oriente that the author deems it needful to explain that the sonnets were -intended to appear last winter, but " the publishers to whom it [the book] was intrusted, declined bring- ing it out, as likely in their opinion to injure their In- dian connexion." The consequent delay in the publication the author seems aware may give the appearance of trucu- lence to some of the sonnets, now the time of apprehension is past. They do not, however, exceed the feelings expressed by the Indian newspapers and correspondence ; though appearing in a more artistical and condensed form. The themes are limited to the i deeds done before the arrival of reinforcements.

. It s a curious, indeed an interesting book. Of poetry in its imaginative and etherial sense there may be little, but there is intense earnestness of feeling and condensed force of expression, with sufficient technical skill in versification to give shape to the thoughts. This is a sonnet on an incident at Cawnpore ; one of many written on that terrible theme.

• Br Oriente. Sonnets on the Indian Rebellion. Published by Chapman. The Strawberry Girl, with other Thoughts and Fancies in Verse. By H. M. Rathbone, Authoress of " The Diary of Lady Willoughby." Published by Long- mans and Co. Xiseellaneons Poems. By the Bev. John Slitford. Published by Russell Smith. Amian and Bertha, and other Poems. By Edward Fox, Author of "Poetical l'eatativea." nbtighed by Newby.

Birds, Bees, and Blossoms. Original Poems for Children. By Thomas Miller, Augier.of "Rural J3kaishes," ke. Illustrated by Birkett Foster. Published by Brows and CO.

" The soldiers linger round that Golgotha,' And one small band of Highlanders found there A blood-stained lock of woman's golden hair.

Haply some lover for such lock did pray, With fond entreaty in a happier day. Those hairs amongst themselves the soldiers share,

And, counting each his portion, sternly swear

So many victims shall his right arm slay. Oh, you might strive to stay the fatal spring Of the 'reared lioness upon her foe ; Arrest the eagle on its swooping wing ; Drive back the ocean in its onward flow, As strive to check those brave men, as they fling Upon the murderers, steeled with deadliest woe."

The following is in the author's milder mood.

" THE FUGITIVES.—P7.

No, oft the Hindoo woman pitiful With the poor fugitive her pittance shared, Won by hard labour, and most hardly spared, And on her tender breast would strive to lull The white man's wearied child so beautiful. And even at times some village rose to guard The harassed ones, till then from hope debarred, What time their cup of woe was brimming full. And others played the good Samaritan's part, And with a royal charity did grace Their higher station : the poor wounded heart 'Neath native shelter rested for a space : From England's memory let this ne'er depart, Nor brand the people with the Sepoy race."

The authoress of Lady Willoughby's Diary was, we believe, the originator of that class of compositions which professed to be writ- ten by the assumed author in the manner of a byegone time ; and which set off by a quaint style of printing and getting up became for a time very widely popular, perhaps more so in the hands of imitators than of the original author. This deficiency was owing to a want of completeness and purpose. As regards execution, the Diary was very able; the elegant simplicity and piety of the supposed journalist were well conceived and the style of the age cleverly attained, but there was no plan or story—not end enough to account for setting the whole in motion. A similar peculiarity characterizes The Strawberry Girl and the " other Thoughts and Fancies in Verse" which follow it. The poems display poetical feeling if not power, graceful imagery, and elegance of style. They fail of effect proportioned to the extent of these qualities, because the writer rests too much in the formal and external. The subjects are either overlaid, or somewhat too common, or too general. They do not come home to the business of the present, like the themes of Miss Procter, in her Legends and Lyrics. Technical merits or the beauties of imagery and expression sometimes stand for themselves as it were, and in several pieces the length is out of all proportion to the subject. " The Strawberry Girl" is really lines on a picture by Reynolds; but the treatment is neither limited to what the painter exhibits, nor does it connect the figure with any story after the mode of the " Annuals." A little girl goes into a wood, like any other little girl, and sees and hears what any other little girls see and hear. In time she is met by the great painter, who limns her on canvass for ever.

The most compact and finished thing in the book is " A Baby's Song," although the ideas are rather beyond babyhood and there may be in these, as well as occasionally in other lines, an echo of Tennyson.

" A BABY'S SONG.

Low murmur' d words I hear, Mother, When I am fast asleep, Which mingle in my dreams, Mother, And almost make me weep.

Soft kisses too I feel, Mother, Warm on my lips and eyes, And a gentle breath upon my cheek, That on thy bosom lies.

The little angels round me, My soul with them would keep, But my heart is link'd with thine, Mother,

And I waken from my sleep.

I wake, and bending o'er me,

Thine eyes look into mine ; The whispering voice, the loving kiss, Sweet Mother ! they are thine.

" I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose." After having edited poets we know not for how many years, the Reverend John Mitford appears before the world as a poet himself ; and his Miscellaneous Poems, if not spontaneous poetry, have caught some of the spirit and quite the look of the natural article. The versification has not only the formal excellence but the elevated tone of the classical school of English poetry ; the sentiments have a like poetical character; there is a completeness and finish about every piece, subject to occasional over-extension, which belongs to the school of Gray and Collins. Tennyson in his more perfect poems might be added ; for, strange to say, the Laureate has even influenced Mr. Mitford, though his more pro- fessional studies have been devoted to Spencer, Milton, and the poets who preceded this century. Indeed. the In Memoriam not only appears to have suggested some twenty poems to the memory of A.D., with which the volume opens, but frequently to have affected the style.

It may seem a critical heresy to say that the subject of a poem is of more consequence than the execution ; but we really think that such is the case. The choice of a theme tests the sympathy of the poet with the world around him, and his consequent ongi-

nality ; it may not produce the matter and sentiments of the poem, but it certainly governs them ; while a well chosen is just as likely as a badly chosen subject, to argue powers of expression and versification. There is no deficiency at the present time in the mechanical qualities of poetry. The great want is in the sub- stantial parts. There is nothing common in Mr. Mitford's themes, but they are rather such as a well-cultivated scholar would pitch upon, than a poet who drew his inspiration from actual life. After the opening " Carmine Sepulchralia," which, however, are somewhat vague from the reader being left uncertain as to the position and character of the dead, the most real and present piece is the Parish Girl.

" Yon linden-alley spreads along, With leafy shadows broad and fair ; Oh ! take me from the worldly throng, And lay the Child of Sorrow there.

And lay me where the brooklet flows Through violet banks of purple bloom ; And weep not when the wintry snows Are whitening o'er my early tomb.

For I am sick of ling'ring here, These scenes of want and woe to see ; The earth is broad, the earth is fair, But in it, is no room for me.

aI, a houseless wanderer roam,

By day in want, by night in fears ; A stranger's hearth—my only home, My only couch—a bed of tears.

Mysterious law ! whose stern decree My life to shame and sorrow gave, Thy wings of darkness close o'er me, And give—'tis all thou can'st—the Grave."

It is now a good many years since Dean Milman in his " Dra- matic Poems" and Barry Cornwall in the "Dramatic Scenes," attempted to attain a scenic effect by the mere forms of the drama without its regular development of plot and elaboration of parts, as well as we fear without its spirit ; though the originators of the scheme might be unconscious of that defect.* The plea as- signed for such productions was, that a poet might not have the technical knowledge of " stage business " necessary to produce an acting play, or even care to acquire it; but he might be competent to present a story in the form of dialogue. The real motive, we suspect, which actuated the originators and certainly their successors was a love of ease—a wish to attain a great re- sult at little cost of labour. To get a story with the elements of dramatic action is not easy ; to tell that story by drawing the elements of each successive scene to a focus as it were, so that they are exhibited not narrated, is really difficult; still more difficult is dramatic dialogue, with its character, terseness, spirit, and passion. It was not, however, difficult for a fluent poet, or even a poetaster, to break down a long description into a dialogue, by means of puppet-like dramatis personae, or to do the same

office for an outpouring of sentiments, feelings, or opinions.

for a very long time the more living forms of the drama were observed, though the substance might be wanting. The localities had a reference to what passed for the action ; the discourse of the characters did address itself to the business in hand, Of late years even- this outward resemblance has been discarded. Beyond a stage description of the scene and the names of the interlocutors the long poem of " Balder " for instance had little that could be called dramatic. Mr. Edward Fox's Anzian and Bertha has nothing at all. We have " Scene 1, Amian on the Sea-shore," and the hero appears in other scenes at other places ; but his ut- terances are those of an outpouring in soliloquies, for the most part representing natural objects as they appear to Mr. Fox, with his feelings or notions thereanent. When two and occasionally more interlocutors appear together, the discourse is still of the same nature, the sole exception being a little bit descriptive of humble submissive poverty in a fisherman's family. Even passion soon starts off into the metaphysico-sentimental vein. Annan and -Rprtha, in short, is a very weak and absurd story, monstrously overlaid by descriptions and reflections, and broken up into the corm of soliloquy and dialogue.

The miscellaneous poems that follow "Amian," are of different lengths and on different subjects. The shortest pieces are the best, because the writer is shut in by his theme ; and of these a descriptive poem, " The River Berle," a stream of Exmoor, is the most real.

It is probable that but forjhis original vocation of a basket- . maker, Thomas Miller . might not have attained the literary re- pute which he possesses. He has, however, innate qualities of - a very pleasing if not of a lofty kind. Miller has a quick eye for the quieter beauties of nature, and no mean power of repro- . duoing them in words, bringing before the reader the charms of English landscape with great olearness, if without much of force and condensation, or any added effects from the power of ima- gination. Like some other writers of his own class his pictures are more definite in verse than in prose, apparently because the laws of metre restrain a tendency to discursive exuberance.

The Birds, Bees, and Blossoms are primarily designed for children, and occasionally have a weakness in subject or treat- ment, which that circumstance may explain, if it does not ex- cuse; for we hold that a child is as able to feel a want of in- terest or a feeble line as many persons of maturer years. Another * Byron might seem entitled to a place in the list, but his tragedies were int:far dramas, a story elaborated into five acts.

I I I

source of inequality is that too much of a didactic character at-

taches to some of the pieces. One can readily comprehend that

in treating of bees and other insects the idea of teaching natural history should rise in the mind ; but more pleasure and we be-

lieve more profit will be imparted by a real story like that of the Dead Swallow,—a slight but touching incident touchingly told, or an imaginative description of " How May was first made" by Spring. Here are a few stanzas, which may serve as specimens of the better poems.

" Said Spring, The grass looks green and bright, The hawthorn hedges too are green,

ill sprinkle them with flowers of light,

Such stars as earth bath never seen ; And all through England's velvet vales, Her steep lull-sides and haunted streams, Where woodlands dip into the dales, Where'er the hawthorn stands and dreams, Where thick-leaved trees make dark the day, I'll light the land with flowers of May.

'Like pearly dew-drops, white and round,

The shut-up buds shall first appear, And in them be such fragrance found, As breeze before did never bear ; Such as in Eden only dwelt, When angels hover'd round its bowers, And long-haired Eve at morning knelt, In innocence amid the flowers ; While the whole air was, every way, Fill'd with a perfume sweet as May.

And oft shall groups of children come, Threading their way through shady places, From many a peaceful English home, The sunshine falling on their faces ; Starting with merry voice the thrush, As through green lanes they wander singing, To gather the sweet hawthorn bush, Which homeward in the evening bringing, With smiling faces, they shall say,

' There's nothing half so sweet as May.'"