Lyrical Recreations. By Samuel Ward. (D. Appleton and Co.)—
This gentleman seems to be one of the very numerous persons who mistake a taste for literature and love of versification for poetical genius. In consequence he often seems to write without any definite meaning whatever, as in "The Tree and the Shadow;" and even when the poem has a meaning, there are constantly phrases which have none. For instance, in "The Poets' Acre" Mr. Ward represents himself as coming down a mountain and observing the landscape :— " Where, as in a net, Lordly hedge and stately railing, With the farmer's wooden paling, are Intersecting met, Compassing the field of azure, Of the lake no rigid measure Mapped unequally."
Of this the grammar is quite beyond us. The landscape, however, suggests the reflection, "Such division of the plain is a derision "—a dark saying in which "a derision" seems to be substituted for "unfair," in compliance with the exigencies of the rhyme. The sight of a church- yard where prince and peasant fill equal spaces (which, by the way, they never do) comforted Mr. Ward :— "And, with passionate expansion, Free from envy, I the mansion And the cot surveyed."
Now we do not hesitate to call the words we have italicized sheer nonsense, put in to make a rhyme to "mansion." In conclusion, Mr. Ward assures us that he is happy without an acre, while the papermaker supplies him with "sod like this fair page" into which to transplant flowers. It is all very well to write verses of this sort, but Mr. Ward's friends should have interfered before they were suffered to appear in print.
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