New-York tribune., 1876-11-21

TIE GIFT OF EMPTY HANDS.
FAIRY TALE.
They were two Princes doomed to DEATH
Each loved his beauty and his breath;
Leave our life and we viii bring
Fair gifts unto our lord, the King"
They went together. In the dew
A charmed bird before them few.
Through and thoru one followed it;
Upon the others arm II liz.
rose whose faintost flush was worth
All buds that ever blew earth,
One climbed the rocks TO reach; ah, well,
Into the others breast II fell
Weird Jewels such as fairies wear,
When moons go out, to light their hair,
One tried 10 touch on gllo5tiy ground;
Gems Of quick fire the other found
One with the dragon fought to gain
The enchanted fruit, and fought IN vain;
The other breathed the gardens air
Aud gathered precious apples there.
Backward to the imperial gate
One took his fortune, one h1s fatc:
One showed sweet gifts from sweetest lands
Tie other torn aud empty hands.
At bird, and rose, ard gem, and fruit,
At last he slowly said MY son,
True treasure is not lightly won.
"Your brothers hands, wherein you see
Only these scars, show more To- me
Than If a Kingdoms price found
In place of each forgotten wound"
-"Twenty Poems by Robert Kelley Weeks, are
the legacy of a gentle, refined manly nature to the
many friends who loved him living and will not for
get him dead. Writing during the last year or two
of his life under circumstances which set an mex
orable barrier to literary ambition, they must be
taken as the expression of feeling and intellect too
healthily fashioned to remain idle. Hence, while
we find maturcr thought and easier grace OF express
sion than in the last volume published during Mr.
Weeks's life, there few signs OF new development
or changing tendency Mr. Weeks was man OF
great and true refinement, of admirable taste, ana
much general culture His poems never showed
that fervOr and force which conquer the public
favor as by storm, but they had that serenity aud
symmetry which never fail to WIN recognition
at the last. Eighteen of the poems in
this volume are brief, simple studies Of Ma
ture like those of landscapc-artist, but each
one is flushed with the most delicate and deiciously-
rendered feeling. The dramatic poem, "Andro-
medals Escape" is less successful, although 1t con-
tans some good passages suspect it to have been
an earlier rather than later work. Three ballads
" How Roland blew the Hon." "Gudr,ln," and " A
Song for ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS tle volume, which
impresses us as q fair marble fOundatlon-DiOck,
sculptured with care, as the basis OF statue or
shrine which will never be built. Grass may grow
over it, and the multitude may pass by without no
ticing its pure proportions but to none who know
how much aspiration it represents, how much fine
development it seemed to foreshadow, can it eyerbe
an Indifferent memorial.
-" Castle Windows" is by a new author but one
who comes into the lists armed cap-a-pie, with
scarf of many colors floating from his shoulder, and
q sword Of good clang in his hand. lie rides UP and
down right gallantly, and if the old, war-worn
knights cannot quite guess at the touGhness and
strength of the muscles under that blazoned coat
ofmai, they cannot at least deny linn his tilt with
the rest To drop the figure Mr. Cornell Latham
Strong makes an excellent first appearance,-very
much such in lyric as the author OF "Delrdre'
IN epic poetry. He is equipped with an unusually
good metrical SENSE knowledge of form, an eye
for color, for music, an ample range oi taste
in the choice of themes and faculty for reproduc-
inc impressions and sensations All these qualities
are necessary-and something more, in order to
reach high achievement. Whether he has
the something more" not depends upon
a quality which is moral no less than
intellectual. The exercise Of talent ripened by
culture is always agreeable: the devotion of life
to the highest and purest expression Of that talent
implies labor. struggle self-abnegaion, unwearied
patience, and Inextinguishable hope 1t is impos-
sibe for us to decide whether Mr.. Strong possesses
this strength of aspiration, although we may assert
that his abilities deserve such a stimulus. lie has
written volume of very good poems without be-
traying any serious fault; but they are poems OF
fancy description, sensation, and emotion, rather
than of thought penetrated with high imagination
We should like to copy his musical Rhyme OF
Thuan but it is too long for quotation, and cannot
be presented in detached stanzas. The volume has
many genuine attractions, and deserves cordial
reception.
-" The Months" is published in 1876 by mistake
1t belongs to the year 1766, except that the habit
of that time would have exacted much more gram
matical conference. To do over, now, in tangled
hopelessly prosaic and barely intelligible manner
what Thomson did in his limpid verse, aud expect
any mortal man or woman to master 1000 lines OF
such performance is another but, alas! not new
instance of the strange alterations Of individual
ambition.