Poems of Alexander Smith, a Review [pp. 574-583]

1853.J Poems of alexander SmilA. 681
I rot upon the waters when my prow
Should grate the golden isles.
A PURPOSE.
A mighty purpose rises large and slow
From out the fluctuations of my soul,
As, ghost-like from the dim and tumbling sea
Starts the completed moon.
IRRESOLUTION.
GREAT MEN.
Books were his chieftest firiends. In them he read
Of those great spiits who went down like suns,
And left upon th e mountain-tops of death
A light that made thein lovely.
POLLUTION.
Your ear, my sister. I have that within
Which urges ine to utterance. I could accost
A pensive angel, singing to himself
Upon a hill in heaven, and leave his mind
As dark and turbid as a trampled pool,
To purify at leisure.
My life was a long dream; when I awoke
Duty stood like an angel in my path
And seetmed so terrible, I could have turned
Into my yesterdays and wandered back
To distant childhood, and gone out to God
By the gate of birth not death.
OBLIVION.
That largest Son of Time,
Who wandered singing throughl the listening world,
Will be as much fo,'got as the canoe
That crossed the bosom of a lonely lake
A thousand years ago.
NIGHT.
Is shout out from the Nigllt, which like a sea
Breaketh forever on a strand of stars.
LOVES OF THE OCEAN.
The lark is singing in the blinding sky,
Hedges are white with Mav. The bridegroom sea
Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,
And, in the fulness of his marriage joy,
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a space, to see how fair she looks,
Then proud, runs up to kiss her.
We have said so much in commendation
of this poet, that we would be glad if we
could count upon the patience of our readers and point out what seem to us the defects
of his poetry. This we shall not do, however. Whoever reads the book will meet
them on every page.
There are several passages in this book
which resemble in a most remarkable degree
some we have seen elsewhere. In the "Wanderer of Switzerland" there is the following
beautifil verse:
POET.
Oh!'tis a sleeping poet! and his verse
Sings like the Syren isles.
I a m dr unk with joy.
This'is a royal hour —the top of life.
Henceforth mv path slopes downward to the grave.
A POET.
He was one
Who could rot help it, for it was his nature
To blossom into song, as'tis a tree's
To leaf itself in April.
Such is the staple of Alexander Smith's
book. The passages last quoted are genuine poetry. There is no one who is accustomed to " beget the golden time again"' of
childhood, but can recall some occasion when
he listened with delight to the notes of the
cuckoo that seemed to come to him from a
thousand different points, until baffled in tracing the source of these sweet sounds, he
was half seduced into the belief that the
And on the 155th page of these poems,
we find these lines:
This is very close cuttinog, if it is not travelling on the same track. But a still more
remarkable case occurs to us. The third
canto and third stanza of "Childe Harold"
begins thus:
Just similarly are we effected by some
passages of these poems. We may be
unable to render even to ourselves an intelligible explanation of the sensation, but
we are not on that account the less alive to
its delightful emotion. The following passages, for instance, no more tire from repetition, than is the rainbow less lovely from
In my youth's summer I did sing o f o ne
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme then but begun,
And bear it with me as the rushing wind
Bears the clouds onwards.
being exposed to a thousand skies.
1853.j
Poem,g of dlexande?- Smith.
581
DEATH.
She was too faii- for earth. Ali! she would die
Like music, sunbeai-ns, and the pallid flowers
,rhat spring on Winter's corse.
JOY.
On the western hills afdr
Evening lingers with deli, —bt,
While she views her favorite star
Brihtening on the brow of night.
Look out my Beautiftil upon the sky!
E,ven puts on her jewels. Look! She seti
Venus upon herbrow.
grove was wakened into life by
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice-a mystery.
On the 13th page of these poems we find
lie following uncommonly fine passage:
Books written wben the soiji is at spr*-tide,
When it is ladeii like a groqning sky.