The times., 1899-04-02
Another anecdote, of pathetic interest,
is as follows:
Dunbar's Poems.

Dunbar's Poems.
new volume of poems by Paul Lau-
renee Dunbar has appeared, under the
title Lyrics of the Hearthside." Like its
predecessor of two years ago, it is made
| up of poems on various subjects, written in
pure English and In dialect. and ranging
in form from the sonnet to the most un-
conventional newspaper verse. Those who
read the former work have a right to ex-
pect In these poems an absence of the
crudeness which characterized some earlier
| efforts, increased depth of thought and
| feeling, and, in short, the Improvement
which should follow a measure OF assured
success. They will not be disappointed.
1t would be poor compliment to say that
this is the best book of poems which has
| appeared during the season of 1S9S-99, for
| the fact is that there is scarcely another
book in the seasons output of verse which
at all deserves the name of poetry. These
] Lyrics" will therefore have to be Judged
by themselves.
| Naturally, the dialect pieces will at first
| attract most attention, since they possess
n certain subtle flavor OF humor and pa
thos, peculiar richness OF tone. which
many writer's of dialect verse have striven
after. more or less unsuccessfully. There
are between twenty-five and thirty OF
these and the rest of the book is taken up
with verse In pure English. on almost
1 every conceivable subject. 1t may be
K mentioned, among other things, that Mr..
Dunbar is probably the first author in the
/ history of English literature to consider in
verse the question whether suicide is a sin.
There is quaint originality in some Of his
verse dealing with ethical questions, as
in the quatrain:
THEOLOGY
| There is heaven, for ever. day by day
| The upward longing Of my soul doth tell me So.
| There is hell. I'm quite as sure, for, pray,
there were not, where would my neighbor &c?
And here again is scrap of verse called:
MsAPPREHENsIoN
| Out of my heart, one day, l wrote a song,
| With my hearts blood imbued.
Instinct with passion, TREMENDOUSLY strong,
| Breathing a fortitude
Pain bought.
And one who claimed much love for what ]
wrought,
| Read and considered It,
| And spoke;
"Ay, brother, It's well writ, --s
But where's the joker
The completeness of some of these small
essays in verse is rather impress
sive. On reflection one finds that though
the touch of nature in them suggests
many thoughts, the author seems to have
said all that there is to say; he has cover
| ed the ground; and that is sign of genius.
There is a finish and an airy daintiness
about some of the love songs and other
| serious poems which grow on one. THE
End OF the Chapter" THE Sum- wait.
| ing" ",The Paradox" Dreams" when
Ja. Hpa,,, ra1 n1
Choice" are among the best Sometimes
whimsical humor is mingled with the
sweetness, as in THE Poet and the Baby"
Here and there a stronger note is struck,
and an example of this is the poem OIL
THE Conquerors," addressed ITO the
Black Troops in Cuba which is in part as
| follows:
Round the wide earth, from the red field your
yalor has won,
| Blown with the breath Of the iaF-speaking gun
Goes the word.
! Brayely you spoke through The battle-cloud
heavy and dun,
Tossed though the speech toward the mist-hid-
The world heard
Hell would have slrunk from you seeking it fresh
from the fray,
| Grim with the dust Of the battle and gray
From the fight.
Heaven would have crowned you with crowns
not OF gold. but of bay,
Owning you fit for the light OF her day,
Men OF night.
Mr.. Dunbar is at his best when he rids
himself of certain Longfellow-like bour-
geois qualities (Which have branded half
| our American verse since the Cambridge
| poet lived) and gets out of commonplace
measures and metaphors into new realms
of thought. Some of his dialect verse
savors of Riley, but more of 1t does not,
and is thoroughly individual His way of
! looking at things is his own, and, when
| not obscured by hackneyed means of eX-
| preston, cannot fail to prove fascinating.
| 1t is by no means necessary that he con-
| fine himself to plantation dialect in order
| to effect this result, for THE Sum-"
Life" and two or three of his other po-
| ems written in pure English are certain to
| form a part of American literature from
this time on. There is less of the Long
| fellow influence in this book than in It's
| predecessor, and more of the authors in
| dividuality. 1t is also TO be noticed that
| without affecting Whitman's formIessness
of expression, Mr.. Dunbar makes his own
metres and forms of verse when it suits
him TO do So This is a trait which may
| be found in some of the best poetry of the
| last five years, and il indicates IL any
thing, that the poetry of the next quar-
| ter of q century will be not only of n high
| quality but of new type, which is now
in process Of formation, and will probably
be decried by many devOtees of Tennyson
and Browning on the ground that it is not
poetry at all.
of the dialect verse there are at least a
dozen poems which paint as many phases
of negro life vividly and skillfuly. The
possibilities OF plantation language have
seldom been so well brought out. There
are pictures in almost every line. aud the
humor is of kind which makes the reader
| laugh with sudden delight and discover the
reason afterward. II is rollicking, subtle
| unexpected, mischieyous, quite spontane-
Gus. and magnetic with the charm of that
race whose oddities and subtleties no white
man has ever quite fathomed AS the
Southern man delights in studying human
nature in The quarters so the Northern
] er. with less familiar but quite as keen
an interest, may study the life OF a race
| in this score or more of poems. There is
human nature as well as negro nature all
| through them, and that is why they are so
good. When the nanny" with her ,ur-
baned head and snowy kerchief, addresses
her baby with mingled admonition and
caressing, all womanhood speaks through