New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-07-03
MARX +.

u VII wv" ~ ~
MARK F. BIGNEY.
Poems by Mark F. Bigney; New Orleans,
James A.. Gresham; New York; NJ. Do0ls
dy.
We are indebted to our friend Gresham.
next door, for q copy of Mr.. Bigney's poems.
and we make it the occasion for q briel
tender, not only OF our congratulations upon
the performance of q work of SO much
beauty and tenderness, but Of our ex-
pressions toward the author Of personal
good will, and something more,% recognized
as Mr.. Biguey universally is among the fra
ternity to which we are proud to belong, as
one of the ablest and most respectable OF
its members.
Although of middle age. he is of hal
happy make that admits of his flowing out
into the pure atmosphere of poetry at Will,
shaking off the editorial cobwebs, the fogs
and wet of mundane air, and dust and mui
of common earth and floating into the Sc
rene blue of glorious dreamlani, as if yet a
the boy overlooking with freshness OF morn
ing, and the delights we bring from that mys
FERROUS realm from which we come without
clothes and ''sans everything.'
Mr.. Bigney, as editor in chief OF the New
Orleans Times, has manifested not only
ability and tact, but what is better than these
those conservative elements OF character
which are the real and ultimate foundation
. for good government, good society, ana Gil
good works, because they occupy with facil-
tiy and hold with firmness, one after another,
the posts and stations which the restless
and advancing radical element seizes upon
in its march against the hoary wrongs and
a~bominations of the past, bloated with the
indulgences of self love and insolent with
privilege. The man, however impassloned,
who is not PASSIONS slave, in whom modera-
ton is q quality of nature, and justice or
ganic, is the true type of that class upon
whom must rest the foundations OF the
world, and from the exercise of whose gifts,
civilization is to-day unfolding into
blessings manifold, not yet appreciated by
the universal mind. This is the class to
which Mr.. Bigney conspicuously belongs.
As q writer in the more ordinary field OF
letters, he is clear, correct and strong, and
having q habit OF thinking, not always in
dulged by editors, he conducts a journal
amid popular commotions without ot1ense
to any, and with unusual satisfaction to
that society of self-constituted censors who
habitually sit in judgment upon those OF
their betters that happen to be in command
of q craft so difficult to steer as a public
journal. We are keenly sensitive to an ap-
probation of qualities adapted to please
these Bohem milan philosophers.
We turn over the leaves of q book of true
poetry by a man of forty with real pleasure.
We nave 30 often tried in vain to resurrect
the aflatuses that left us when boyhood first
mellowed into adolescence, that we recog-
nize with delight any proof that the thing
is possible. To be sure, Bryant at over
seventy keeps on his even way of writing
good verses; and he has worn editorial har-
ness since, in Thanatopsis, he startled the
literary world with those high intellectual
traits to which, in most cases, drudgery is
death. But Bryant is an exception not only
rare, but alone-we at least recall no other.
Usually, old people who write poetry have
always sojourned with the muses. in the beau
tiful Pierien gardens. where the shadows of
life never fall. which nave their quiet always
undisturbed by the contentious and strife
that harden minds on the common road. En-
erson, Whittier, Longfellow and others who, |
like them, persist in poetry and sustain after
meridian the morning freshness, are rich,
and look on labor, under which the masses
sweat and blow, as something to be evan
by poets as tributary to song. We
that the elements of poetry exist in
all minds, and that dullness, so dense as to
utterly, scintillations of Promethe.
an sparks in any who have nothing to do
but strike unintermittingly for that sort of
fire, can not be found. Hence, the merit of
being a good poet depends on relations, and
the man who Can drudge one hour and the
next soar the empyrean, Is one whose wings
we would be pleased to borrow, and whose
deserving we can never fail to praise.
The book before us is replete with flowers
from the dream realm, tull Of emotional
which, after ali, is the best
human element contained in the poetic list.
Mr.. Bigney has gone over the hearts par
OF roses and daises and daffOdils, aud
pulled the sweetest to incarnadine in songs
Of flesh and blood melody, to which the
of us can lift ourselves when PIE
5CutCu Ia eAO BAOWtuE uAOoo Va AOhAdbtO |
words, themselves music and sweetness and
power. Many Of these speaking and breath.
ing lyrics press on us for notice; of course,
We can not quote, nor even dwell, in our
brief mention of these. The west wind has
the leaves Of the volume as it lies
rs a soul by US, and has gone; and
in the sutry heat, with not a breath of air
from the external Elysian, we find under
our eyes a sweet poem, 1.-The FOrssken
II is a real history ; and 1t tells over ,
again the story of true love, touching the
heart anew with old touches rendered
quantity, and leaving US Gulckened into
sympathy as when young covered with the !
debris OF ''passion's dream.r She loved
the trusting one-not wisely but too well,
the fires went out, excepting that
burned as a sentinel beside the
moral ruin of her guilty betrayer. She lived
only in the exercise of that guardian care:
in the dreamy tenderness of that awful
in the hope and peace and confidence
of come mysterious and probably impossible
future. Beautiful imaginings! o wierdly
they surround the weary human heart,
with its work and WEAKNESS it tires,
and turns the spotless leaves of a poets
in search of refreshment and repose.
Let those who have more time TO read
sweet poetry than we to write upon it, get
The book of our friend, albeit our political
foe, Bigney, of the Times, and sit down to
an entertainment which hey, more than we,
can appreciate and enjoy.
Tske tho Test Oath.
A boy named Baldwin Alexander. about
years of age, residing IN Pulaski