The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-11-21 00:00:00

Littraturt.

POEMS, DESCRIPtIVE AND LYRICAL.*
We congratulate the author ef this neat little
volume of poems on the publication of a new
edition, that in itself speaks well for the former
' editions, and tells how they were appreciated by
the admirers of the muse. To be able to com-
pose in verse, is • work of some labour and
trouble. It is far easier to write a prose work.
Both styles of composition require subjugation
to rules and laws, but the former requires a
peculiar genius. Rhyme any one may write,
but not poetry. The difficulties of prose com-
position may be overcome by practice. Poetry,
like music, requires a clear intellect, ready
imagination, and genius. Some of the desorip-
tive in these poems are very good.
"Melancholy" is the opening poem, a series of
fanciful sketches or dreams. The opening lines
present a pretty scene :

- - _
" By a lone and shady river,
Where the water lilies grow •
Where the willows, hewing ow
O'er the wavelets shake and quiver,"

sits the maiden whose dreams are recounted as
"She roams the sylvan solitude" where, as the
poet escribes her
"By imagined streams
She wanders, in the shadowy land of dreams,
Peeing, with pilgrim wanderers forlorn,
Rands of a desert beach as daylight dire,
Watching the sun to rest with tearful eye.
Then, at the breaking of the chill drear morn,
When he returns from out the moaning deep,
She wakes them from their joyless sleep,
To pour their matins on the salt sea breeze
A mingkd °haunt of saddest melodies."
The last dream of melancholy is about the best,
the ruin of an old Baronial Castle. We will
quote the concluding stanzas, and pass on to the
other portion of the book:—
"The maiden dreamed that she toe felt
_. . .

The withering palsying hand of time,
And inermar'd to the pining gale •
, This &ming sour—this dying wail, .
' rill old, I'm old, this world is old;-
-y brow is wrinkled o'er with age,
illy eyes are dim, my heart is *old,
Its grief no pity own assuage,
No joy to me ma nature bring,
With all her ehoristers in air,
Nor summer glad, nor Bowery spring,
When trees their newliorn verdure wear.'
Bhe ceased—for in her dream she saw
A dark form by her side alight,
A form of visionary awe,
Her ever mournful parent, Night,
Who wrapp'd her in her mantle grey,
Tinged with the dawn's first rim gleams
close wrapped her from the oaring day,
And here her from the land of dreams."'

"Spring Time" is a dashing bright poem in
happy contrast with the preceding verses. The
pictures are nicely Introduced, and the ending
graceful. One little borrowed idea we would point
out as marring the pleasure of reading the verse.
The wound verse of Gray's beautiful elegy seems
to have been running in the poet's mind as he
wrote his description of evening :
"New fades the glimmering lawatteape front the sight,
And 41 the sir a solemn stillneen hold;
Soot where the beetle wheels hie deolinrAilehi,
And drowsy tinklingn;

t

Mr. Cox writes
, "The gliinsieriag woods fade slowly hula our sight,
rThe homing booth takes his dreary night."
Such accidents are apt to happen. A musician
may introduce a well-known melody without
being conscious of his having dose so until he
tries his piece over once or twice, so may a poet
take an idea and reproduce it; but it is a fault
which a careful study of his compositions and a well
cultivated- memory will enable him to conquer.
"The Old Manor House" is partly a historical
tale, evenly and melodious written. The song
"Whoa Winter" is not at all bad. There is •
a tough of Longfellow in the "Song of the
Leaves," although there are no borrowed expres-
sions or ideas, yet there is • leaning towards his
style of composition. Sonic of the sonnets are
fair written. We will, in conclusiorf, give a
speeimen. We earnestly recommend this little
work, although the author is not a Milton, or a
Shakespeare, yet there are many volumes more
popular and less deserving of that popularity and
patronage which the public are lavishing upon
them. Former mow, we hope, will embolden
Mr. I'. Cox to pursue his avocation as • poet and
develope the genius which only wants bringing
forward to be appreciated is it deserves. "The
41Iatiner" is the best of the sonnets, but being a
story-told in five sonneks it would be a pity to
give one without the others :

"Tun nitarrrsoate."
A! happy bird thrioe happy, for thy life
Is one unbroken round of poetise' 'co(
When the loud world bath ita
Thou waket the woodland peen the mown
*tong
From wavy groves of murmurlng alders tall,
Thy pleasant notes are wafted o'er the stream
Where etching willows Hsi the watelfall
Like happy lover. in theft happle.itreme.
Ai gay enchantress of iregleineed bowers,
klier the summer nights men blithe then days,
How sweet with thee to speed the wain hours I
girllti!Arep,
• ineorlend creep."
alma' eenidled7.lraille third and fourth
of "Time''eeh lialeable, bat a gentler and
tif veil" Mee sounded sweeter to
and aeoorditl; WI interwoven better
line language in which the rest of the
oonched.—L.